Cende

It's been said again and again, but I'm gonna say it - yep - again....

In no way did they tell us everything.

Some of it was "can't tell you that," regretfully spoken. Some of it was "Uh... can't answer that now," with a shifty look over at one of the random handlers. A large amount of it was "Not now!" with a smirk like you wouldn't believe - the "I know something you don't know and you're gonna LOVE IT" smirk.

Some stuff they didn't know. The look of oops, we didn't think of that! on their faces occasionally was amusing, but more often it was "still in the process of working through it." Most of it, however, was just refused.

The first link Cath posted has most of the GR info; posting again would just be a repeat, since Marcain Tobay and I were in the same Welcome panel (along with everyone else!) and saw the same video. I haven't checked, but I suspect Baba's kink is to a video of that welcome.

After the welcome, there was about an hour and a half break (it took half that long for the majority of the devs to make it down to the cafe) for lunch. Then the panels started. Whomever's set up the panels did a decent job - they made sure the moderator at least had leading questions prepared, although it seems like the panelists weren't always sure what they were there to talk about.

The one GR panel in the middle of the day was a concept art panel on the new signature characters. I have nothing really to report on that one, becase ... well, concept art and I don't really go too well together. The discussion on where the story writers get their ideas was relatively quiet, although they did indicate they're going to be going with less random pop culture throw-aways and more with the internal storyline. They also want to start having the story.. (augh, words!) be somethng you think about, not just something you bkow through. That's a summary, not a direct quote.

All of the NC Soft employees and the volunteers they've got have black badge holders (villains get red, hereoes get blue - of course). The black badges tend to run in herds. A few of the volunteers don't even play the game, they just got co-opted because they're friends, family or roommates of the people who work at Paragon.

Lots of sponsors, lots and lots of sponsors. The lan room is decently sized - it looked like perhaps 20 computers? Not wonderful, for this many people, but not terrible. They're all usually full.

The live action thing was... interesting. It was written and run by Ocho, and I'm pretty sure he's learned more than he expected to from it. He'll be getting feedback! They sort of ran out of time (badly). On the other hand, they had two winning groups.

The banquet was loud and hot, and the food was banquet food, but we knew that was going to be the case going into it. There were tables marked for each server - Triumph had one. It was the only US server, I think, that only had one table. It was full, and there were about 5 or so overflow people (I think 8 people per table). I wound up at an all-server table - on the other hand, Triumph was in the back corner and I was in the front, so I could hear and I'm pretty sure they couldn't.

MA awards are addressed elsewhere. There was much cheering. The ATI guys (I THINK it was ATI) were there, showing off their 3-d tech (which was gorgeous with Aion). They had a raffle. The Cape Radio had a raffle. Lots of raffles.

The trivia contest was a mix of IC and OOC knowledge (who is this character vs. who is this developer?). The winner was from England, and they were trying to figure out how to get his prize home with him.

The costume contest was more crowded than the actual number of entries, becuase there was one group entry (the Wentworths). Some well done costumes in there, almost all of which were appropriate to the CoH lore. One or two of the costumes that were in the hallway didn't enter. One or two of the costumes that entered had been over-exposed in the hallways. I have pictures, I'll post later.

Ms. Liberty was there, giving a hand and posing with the winners. Ghost Falcon was taking pictures of everything (I believe I have a picture of GF getting a picture of somethng else).

After the actual awards, it broke down into private gatherings, karoke, LAN center playing (if you wanted to play in the LAN center, you had to listen to the karoke - they opened the dividing wall), and some general wandering.

I do have some actual notes, and I'll be taking more at the final GR panel a little later today, but most of it has been said in the HeroCon threads.

Oh, and yeah - the folks from Protector all say "hi!" and they're still laughing about the hurt & heal game.

I've talked to Sunstorm, asked him to please post, give an update.

The bad news is that he's been kept busy and there's no base love on the horizon. He feels terrible about it, however.

There's a teeny-tiny, minuscule possibility that some of the reflection tech for GR will show up in the bases. The shadow-depth won't.

Well, okay. It's only Saturday morning, so there's not much to report yet. Thus far, it's been a frenzy of checking in, saying hello (random people giving other random people "HI!" in the hallway as they speedwalk past), and going someplace else. Personally, I spent yesterday with friends of mine who don't play the game, so.. yeah.

The hotel is decently sized, although the conference rooms are spread out. For some reason, we've got all the room on one side of the hotel and two on the other. Logistics, I suppose. There's a women's conference and... something else, I forget what, meeting at the same today.

Last night was "Games and Bevs" - the "bevs" were atrociously priced. $5 for a soft drink and it went up from there. Fortunately, there's water service. 12 6-foot round tables, filled with people. More people standing around. People spilling into the hall. Noise like you wouldn't believe! On the other hand, everyone seemed to be having fun for the little while I was there. I saw Apples to Apples, Fluxx, Settlers of Cataan, Powergrid, Battlestar Galactica, and a few others I'm not familiar with.

I can officially report that Avatea and Ocho are very nice. Avatea is also likely to get several requests for her phone number before the weekend is out.

Arbiter Fabulous' costume is as eye-bleeding on him as it was on the hanger when we made it.

Signup for live mission is in an hour; opening ceremonies is about 45 minutes after that. I'll have GR stuff to post once they've actually, you know, said anything.

Anyone else who's here, feel free to post your own reviews.

Incidentaly, sorry for any typos, I'm on the damn laptop, and the keyboard sucks.

There doesn't really seem to be a general question and answer set up, although so far everyone has been really approachable (despite that, I've been in my room or out of the hotel the majority of the time).

We'll see what gets said at the opening today (in about 2 hours!).

Hey, that sounds like a good idea, I think I'll put... oh, wait. I have a meeting. Nevermind, sorry.

8pm PDT I can maybe do. I'll check back this evening and see if there's interest in a pickup raid.

Congrats on getting together.

I've never regretted moving my entire SG and (not all just) most of my alts to Triumph...

... but sometimes, you people scare me.

Thank you.

I know kidengineer was posting with both his accounts, but! he's currently stuck moving, so he's absent for at least another hour.

I could reactivate my other account if it becomes necessary. I keep telling Talek to go vote, too.

This could go on for a while.

Wow, fantastic job on getting Triumph up in the ratings.

I'm afraid my main contribution was guilting my friends who play on Protector to not vote us down. Well, every little bit helps, right?

I'm going after the weakest, still - as long as we stay even with Protector, it'll be an interesting finish!

I suggest not knocking down Protector too much until we've recovered a bit. They seem to enjoy retaliation, and we don't have enough points left to be retaliated against!