Sweet Meet n' Greet Street Report

I truly had a blast. I couldn't get off work early and had to come in 2 hours after the party started, but I did get first dibs on the pizza! The DJ was great, and it was nice chatting with people that understood the jokes about squishy AT's.

The only bummer was getting a Guildwars T-shirt. But since I didn't go there for stuff, it was no big loss.

It was nice getting to try out my CoH CCG decks and showing others the game. It is really quite fun. Even when you are teaching and explaining everything a card does, it STILL plays faster then most other card games. And for anybody who wants to know, Synapse ROCKS!

Good morning everyone! I miss everyone already, I had too much fun! I really hope this becomes a big annual event like Quakecon is... I always had lots of fun there and hope NCSoft does the same! Even if it just ends up being CoH/CoV people

Quick question: In the gift bag there's a CoH "Bootleg Edition". Whassat? Is it something I can use or is it something I give to a friend so they can play for 14 days or something? It really didn't say anywhere on it what it was exactly, though there is a cdkey sticker.... :-/

I'll be posting my report and my experiences later this morning, after I've had my coffee. Got no sleep last night.

it's just a 14 day trial... i am keeping mine just because i like having the word "bootleg" "posion" or "biohazard" on stuff

Here are the pics I took ( well the ones that came out good)

COH Meet and Greet

Dagnabit, all of my pictures came out blurry. Stupid camera, I need to get a new one.

Crud, stood right next to Gilgamesh and didn't even realize it. Yea, it was groovy, and I hope there's another one. However, next time, I'll be planning a pre-party at a nearby bar for us old folks.

Was anyone else surprised at the age average in the crowd? I honestly expected to be one of the old guys there, but was way off. If anything, I was the average at 33.

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It was nice getting to try out my CoH CCG decks and showing others the game. It is really quite fun. Even when you are teaching and explaining everything a card does, it STILL plays faster then most other card games. And for anybody who wants to know, Synapse ROCKS!

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Haha, what a scammer. Jokes were made about avoiding Synapse at my table. Alexa and Awry even redeemed my opponent's Synapse deck for a statesman deck so he'd have a chance against my Posi. (Not that it helped; fear the rad/rad... and Posi signature power is CHEAP)

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*shoots Bubble Maester until there is nothing left* You stupid [censored]!! I am ANTI-Catwhoorg! I am NOT CATWHOORG! How many times do I have to freakin' tell you people! Gah! *shoots Bubble Maester more*

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Hehehehe....

Please, when you shoot me... do it in the face. and as hard as you can.

Aight... if they pull of a lager fanfest typ event.. i am soo flying in... After all.. Sweden is not so far from the US... Either that or i need more range ehnc in my TP power... Anyhow.. i am soo going if there is a fan fest..

It was a lot of fun. I got to chat with Artic_Sun, Awry, and Alexa quite a bit, and talked for a few seconds to CuppaJo. I also met Rowr, Moggie, Masaokun, Bill Z Bubba, Plasma, and Balorn, and possibly others, but I'm an old man and forget sometimes.

Everyone was really nice, and the swag was pretty cool. I'm sorry I missed out on the Virtue picture and the CCG action, but it had been a long day and my feet were killing me.

Definitely count me in on the next one, and I hope to see y'all all there.

I really considered going to that. I'm in Charlotte, NC, so it's not a huge trip. But I was needed at work, damnit. I'd really like to do something like that though. Will there be any other events like that any time soon?

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Crud, stood right next to Gilgamesh and didn't even realize it. Yea, it was groovy, and I hope there's another one. However, next time, I'll be planning a pre-party at a nearby bar for us old folks.

Was anyone else surprised at the age average in the crowd? I honestly expected to be one of the old guys there, but was way off. If anything, I was the average at 33.

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Hear, hear! I could have definitely gone for a Shiner.

As for your age question, I guess I really didn't think about it. However, most of the gamers I know these days in Real LIfe ARE old fogeys like me, so I guess I'm just used to seeing grey and wrinkles.

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Very, very cool. Wish I could've been there. And Cuppa looks badass (in a good way).

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Yes she does. Some of her pm's now scare the <bleep> out of me. She used to only scare the heck out of me, her threat level is upgraded.

My experiences at the 1st annual NCSoft Meet'n'Greet, 2/23/06

Well I was excited as anybody else who was going, I'm sure. I got there about a quarter til 5, traffic was REEALLY heavy. Parking wasn't bad at all, unlike what someone had said earlier. Big shopping/strip mall type area.

When I got there I saw a couple people in Red hats (turned out to be Auto Assault hats), and said Oooh I bet one of those is CuppaJo! (Turns out none of the three I saw standing outside were but that's ok) I also saw News 8 Austin there, so there was gonna be live/taped coverage somewhat. Too bad I wouldn't be at home to see the clips!

I started walking over to the line that had already been formed, there was about, oh about 30 or so people in line. And in the back of the line I saw a girl with cat ears, and said, Welp, that's gotta be Moggie!! So I saunter up, get in line, and just said MOGGIE! She turned around was like Heeyyy!! It was very cool. She had a little plush tiger she called 'Dan', and I promptly placed him on my shoulder. Shoulder kitty! Yay! I figured that if there was going to be a large crowd and lots of non-CoH/CoV'ers there, the shoulder kitty would definitely mark me as one of the CoH/CoV crowd. (Turns out almost EVERYONE was a CoH/CoVer anyway so it didn't matter)

Then this big guy was walking down the line, getting names, making sure you were "on the list" and handing out armbands and food/drink tickets. It had a very exclusive VIP club type feel to it, very awesome. We got inside the door finally, filled out a little survey card and got nametags, which I promptly put Rowr! on Virtue! on. Makes it easy to identify me, and several people did. "You're Rowr! I've seen you around!" and so forth. Very cool!

So things were just getting started, none of the systems were available yet, something about a new Auto Assault patch being pushed down so they had to redo EVERYTHING. Someone said there was 50-75 systems, mmm I'd say more like 30-40. Maybe about 48. *nods* It doesn't really matter, I didn't really come there to play games, just to meet people and stand around and chat.

I got to meet Arctic Sun, and commented that he promised in a PM to hit me with a nerf bat to which he denied. I'm sure he wouldn't be allowed to do that anyway (legal reasons!) but it was still a chuckle. I got to meet CuppaJo finally! Which was awesome! She remembered me which is even more awesome! And Alexa and Awry were there but I didn't get to really say hi.

So we spent about a half hour or so standing around, people watching, watching the NCSoft videos being played on the projector of Lineage, Tabula Rasa, Guild Wars, and of course City of Heroes/Villains. Very good stuff! We commented about how we wished our games could look like that, and during one game video, which we were trying to identify, Moggie's husband mentioned it's gotta be Lineage 2, because hey look, there's the writhing almost naked elf chick. Gotta have one of those in every game of course. Ever notice how the ears on elves just keep getting longer and longer and longer these days?

So then we finally got tired of that, and Moggie got a phone call from their babysitter so she had to leave to take their wonderful 10 yr old daughter (who drew a sketch of me outside, woo hoo! Fan art! now if I only had a scanner... ), so me and Masaokun (i'm gonna butcher that I'm sorry) decided to go try to find us some seats.

Well fast forward a bit, after standing around a while, finding a room to hang out in, then going to get some pizza and sodas, we finally managed to get a whole room with 6 systems to ourselves, and turned out that it was a Virtue room! Yay! Taxibot Hollow was in there as well as Angry Angel/Aranita, and some other guy who I met later but totally forgot his name (Sorry guy!). We tried to hop into CoH/CoV, we got to the character select screen, hit 'Enter Paragon' and.... CRRRAAAASH!! All six of us. Just in that room. So it started going through the verifying files process and said it would take 41 hours!!! Argh! We called in the cavalry of the Cyberjocks staff, they had no idea what was going on, not being familiar with the crash recovery process, so we called in the even BIGGER guns, CuppaJo! And Tsirin came in as well to help out. VERY cool!

So they sat around a bit talking with the CyberJocks guys, talking about getting admin rights so we could bypass the updater, and all this stuff, then they finally decided to quit messing with it and turned the whole room into an Auto Assault room, so we got booted. BOOO!!!!

Well everyone out in the main room was playing CoH/Cov as well so we just kinda mingled around a bit, talking and meeting various people. They gave out door prizes, I didn't get anything. Boo!!! The DJ from SIRadio did shoutouts, and one particular memorable moment was when she asked who was a villain, and asked what server, someone yelled out Infinity! And there was a necessary chorus of booooooooo's from several people, notably the Virtue crowd that had gathered in line for pizza.

Well me and Moggie hung out and talked a lot, while watching everyone else go play games. Masaokun managed to snag a system so we went and stood over there and talked more. It dawned on us that we were doing the exact same thing we do in game, we were standing around talking and chatting while everyone else was playing. Ha! How easily it translates to real life. We even were doing a few wall-lean emotes for good measure (not much room to sit!).

Eventually, we manage to snag some systems in the back of the room, all on the same row, and we eventually drove everyone out who wasn't on Virtue. The ones who stayed came to Virtue! We had a whole Virtue row going, it was quite awesome. We showed off some of our characters and costumes (well what else are we gonna show off? not like we can go around and say look at my Uber Sword of Uberness! Costumes ARE our loot!) and played around a bit. I hopped in and ran around Pocket D a bit and said hi to people, then I ran over to Siren's to show off how bad I am at PvP, but the heroes were sieging the villain base and not letting anyone out, so I left. Didn't wanna be a part of that. Played on my warshade for abit, did ONE mission, couldn't find the last captive, and actually petitioned it while CuppaJo and Tsirin (basically the GM's BOSS) was standing right behind me. Needless to say I got a response VERY quickly, in the order of 5-10 minutes, who promptly teleported me to the bad guys. Very well done GM_Scarlett! You get to go home early today!

Well got out of there, decided to hop back on Rowr and head over to Pocket D, and we got everyone to gather in the same place. Shutterbug was there and I got her to take a picture of all of us at the gathering. We ran around the room saying 'Everyone on Virtue go to Pocket D, we're taking a screenshot!' Then after that we got everyone to gather in the corner of Cyberjocks to take a real screenshot...i mean picture! And someone got a picture of us setting up a screenshot of the picture. Surreal!!!

While we were sitting around back there we got to pester CuppaJo with questions about future features and things. I asked if she would be willing to be a guest DJ on the Cape, she mentioned she was in talks with Septa about doing an interview when the website was set up, but apparently Septa retired (O.o) so I said well, send Cuppa a PM. I also asked if there would be ANY possibility of some kind of external IRC client that could connect to global chat while outside of the game, Cuppa gave me a knowing smile, and said in patented Cuppa-speak 'Tsoooon.' WOOHOO! That was an idea I had been pestering for months now, and it's in the works! Yay!! I also made the argument that us kitties and those of us with tails need to be able to wear belts, and sunglasses. Someone mentioned backpacks as well. Cuppa didn't really comment on those really but there are a lot of new costume options coming in Issue 7. She said she was looking more forward to Issue 8 because everything would be more balanced, lots of cool new stuff. Issue 7 was really more about bringing CoV up to speed, the L40-50 content and everything over there, but everything later will be balanced between the two games. Awesome!! And coming from someone like her, that means a lot, I think! I know myself, I'm very much looking forward to Issue 7, so now I'm even more excited for Issue 8!!

I didn't want to pester her with too many questions, as I'm sure she was getting them all night, but wow the temptation was certainly there. Not everyday you get to talk to an insider like that!

Well the night wound down, and the cyberjocks guys gave us the obligatory 20-minute to close notice. Someone yelled "Server is going down in 20 minutes for emergency maintenance!" Even Arctic Sun walked around at the 5-minute mark telling people things were closing down. Heeee, you could totally see the Red Name speech when he said it.

So we had to leave, and I got my goodie bag. Oh did I mention that earlier they were basically HANDING OUT free pre-order boxes of Auto Assault? They were originally giving them out as door prizes but I guess they had to many and sent someone around with a box just here ya go, here ya go, here ya go! I also got handed a CCG booster pack by Cuppa, but I have NO idea what I'm gonna do with it. I don't play it!!!

In my goodie bag I got a CoV T-shirt, a couple posters, a couple bumper stickers ("I'd rather be fighting villains!"), some stickers, a CoH "Bootleg Edition" cd, a Lineage 2 trial cd (it's a cute little mini-cd!), a couple packs of comics (a couple Blue King comics, and a couple Top Cow comics), all nicely bundled up. I will keep them in the wrapper and in 50 years when I pull them out of the attic I'm sure they'll be worth like, 2 bucks! Yay!!

Well that's my report. I would post pictures but, every single one of my pictures came out blurry. Grrrr!!!! I need a new camera before the next event. So I'm gonna steal some of y'alls and put them in archive somewhere.

I had a LOT of fun meeting and talking to people, putting names to faces, and was really sad when it was over. It was fun, after we took the big Virtue picture, we were standing around just chatting as things around us were closing down. It was like the end of a Task Force! "Noooo don't call the contact! I don't wanna break team yet!" It's so amazing that what we do in game just automatically translates to real life and we were all able to just smoothly roll into it like it was nothing.

The Virtue crowd was DEFINITELY well represented though. At one point we stood up and yelled out who's from Virtue? and got a rousing cheer from several people. Then we polled for other servers, and got basically nothing (except for that one guy from Infinity, *salute* proud of ya!). There was a smattering of people from all the servers, but it really seemed like it was in the single digits. Virtue had at least 15 people who were being prideful, and I think we managed to convince more than a few to switch their 'home' server and come to Virtue. Yay Virtue!!!

Well that's that. Cuppa did say they were working on something even BIGGER and BETTER than this little shindig, so hopefully an NCSoft-Con is in the works!! I'm sure that the popularity of their other games will dwarf our community, but I'm also sure that if they do something like that, the CoH/CoV section will be the LOUDEST.

*fuzzy hugs to everybody!*

Had a great time! Hope we can do it again sometime! And if I met you and didn't get your global send me a message!! @rowr!

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so when are y'all coming to Oshkosh??



PS Cuppa Jo is HAWT

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hehehehe....

right.

if they did, I'd hop down from GB to see it though.

Hell, I'd even yell for Catwhoorg.

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Ditto. I'd make the trip as well. (Just a half hour north of GB.)

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Ever notice how the ears on elves just keep getting longer and longer and longer these days?


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They're called handles.





Seriously though.. I'd highly reccomend the next event be in boston. It's a pretty big place, alot of people available, close to NY/new england, a whole lotta good advantages (still a 5 hour drive for me, but it's still a damned nice venue)

Zeus - god of events

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Ever notice how the ears on elves just keep getting longer and longer and longer these days?


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They're called handles.





Seriously though.. I'd highly reccomend the next event be in boston. It's a pretty big place, alot of people available, close to NY/new england, a whole lotta good advantages (still a 5 hour drive for me, but it's still a damned nice venue)

Zeus - god of events

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Boston!?!

I'm sure you meant Tampa. Right? RIGHT!?!

Rowr, you're a jerk. I read through all that.. it sounds like it was a convention, except with jsut Co* players. I wish I could have gone Stupid Michigan.. so far from SoCal/Texas, where all the cool kids ('cept me) are.. *cries*

At least Origins is near MI, so I'll get to meet some of you.. lovely.. people. (note to self: take large beating shovel) Dang.. my large rock to beat Catwhoorg over the head with won't fit in my suitcase... I'll mail it to his wife and ask her to beat him for me.

The meet and greet was a lot of fun. I got to meet players from all the games - ended up chatting with a gal from Lineage2 and (hopefully) convinced her to get on CoX. Everyone was nice, met moggie, rowr, Masaokun. I saw these guys Bill Z Bubba, Plasma, and Balorn but didn't intro myself.

Talked with Gil for a bit about what he is working on now - Tabula Rosa (which sounds like it will be some thing I enjoy) and another game a few years out (I don't remember the name ) He is very laidback and was happy to chat with people, but seemed like he'd be just as content to sit with a notepad and start writing or be reading.

Everyone was super friendly and I was esp impressed by how cool people were with the 30 min or so wait for pcs to be up and the hour+ it took for autoassault to be up and running. I was pretty bummed about not getting to try Lineage 2, but now I gots a free trial. *woot*

I got Cuppa's view on being a forum goddess She is very cool and very much RL in her forum personality. She is who she is - compact fun!

Artic was very sweet and helpful - and very non-preposessing. I was chatting with him as secret id (helpful guy passing out temp login info) and asked who all was there Red-name wise and he casually said Cuppa, Awry, Gil, Alexa, Empaler and Artic Sun. Without skipping a beat! About 1 min later after chatting with him, he let slip that he was the Artic Sun

Empaler is a wild fun gal! Dancing to the tunes and getting all hyped!

Awry is cute as can be. Med Nomad, who I remember was briefly here (though I understand she is still lurking) and is now working on AutoAssault.

Alexa was very great and extremely gracious in getting the CoX peeps all together for a group shot . From left to right, Rads, (Wild Cards Rock!) Sellefane, Alexa, Empaler, Gil, Cuppa, Arctic & Awry.

Energy was super high and I can't wait til the next event!

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Rowr, you're a jerk. I read through all that.. it sounds like it was a convention, except with jsut Co* players. I wish I could have gone Stupid Michigan.. so far from SoCal/Texas, where all the cool kids ('cept me) are.. *cries*

At least Origins is near MI, so I'll get to meet some of you.. lovely.. people. (note to self: take large beating shovel) Dang.. my large rock to beat Catwhoorg over the head with won't fit in my suitcase... I'll mail it to his wife and ask her to beat him for me.

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Btw Anti - I did talk to Gil for ya, he sends his love.

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I heard that Cuppa's built and she could kick anyone's [censored].

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mmm hmm and you know the little bug you caught? Cuppa sends her love - mua ha ha ha ha!!

Eh.. personally I'd only peg a few locations for this sort of thing.

Any backwater hole the company resides in (apparantly this one is in texas)
Boston
Chicago
LA


Any other locations... well, they're close enough to texas, boston, chicago or california.

Zeus - god of locations, locations and locations.

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Talked with Gil for a bit about what he is working on now - Tabula Rosa (which sounds like it will be some thing I enjoy) and another game a few years out (I don't remember the name ) He is very laidback and was happy to chat with people, but seemed like he'd be just as content to sit with a notepad and start writing or be reading.



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The way I understand it, he's offering advice and tips to the Tabula Rasa team, while officially working on that other game. I may be wrong, but I'm at least a little close

Come onnnnn June.. come faster June is gonna be a great month.. I get out of school, I have my birthday right before that (talk about a great gift) then Origins. I can't wait...

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Rowr, you're a jerk. I read through all that.. it sounds like it was a convention, except with jsut Co* players. I wish I could have gone Stupid Michigan.. so far from SoCal/Texas, where all the cool kids ('cept me) are.. *cries*

At least Origins is near MI, so I'll get to meet some of you.. lovely.. people. (note to self: take large beating shovel) Dang.. my large rock to beat Catwhoorg over the head with won't fit in my suitcase... I'll mail it to his wife and ask her to beat him for me.

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Btw Anti - I did talk to Gil for ya, he sends his love.

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*hugs Selle* I knew there was a reason I never killed you *special cookies to Selle*

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Eh.. personally I'd only peg a few locations for this sort of thing.

Any backwater hole the company resides in (apparantly this one is in texas)
Boston
Chicago
LA


Any other locations... well, they're close enough to texas, boston, chicago or california.

Zeus - god of locations, locations and locations.

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I vote Detroit! It's the world fattest, nastiest city! Let's go!

... yeah, I want somewhere else too Columbus Ohio is nice... *whistles innocently*