Bay Area Meet & Greet! Discussion & Suggestions
By
Alissara,
Posted on: 2007-10-01 17:07 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
Just two thoughts.
In my extremely humble opinion, San Jose is slightly preferable to San Francisco due to easier parking. This is based on living in the City for four years or so, in the early 1990's.
I'll admit this is a pretty obvious "Duh", but an internet cafe with BYOC WiFi might be a good idea. Not sure what the rates are, but you may be able to get a block of systems for a few hours for a discount rate. Maybe someone more familiar with the various Internet Cafe's could chime in on their relative merits.
Scrappers are just like chainsaws. Somewhat hard to handle, EXTREMELY dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane.
@Alissara - an Angry Angel
The Angry Angels. When it absolutely positively has to be spanked today.
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Just two thoughts.
In my extremely humble opinion, San Jose is slightly preferable to San Francisco due to easier parking. This is based on living in the City for four years or so, in the early 1990's.
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My sentiments as well. I try to avoid the City as much as humanly possible for just that reason.
Bay area you say?
I would be game for either San Francisco or San Jose...though either I'd lean more towards in San Jose or that is within close proximity to SFO. Aside from parking (though depending on the venue, you may have fairly decent parking in SF) my primary concern would be ease of navigation. I'd be willing to speculate that if there are going to be devs present, there could likely be a fair number of players traveling from out-of-town/state and a venue that's easy to find would be best.
Another thought is that since the devs will be a huge draw...I wouldn't doubt that a lot of CO* players will want to attend. If this is going to be a NCSoft event (i.e. for all players for all NCSoft games), you may want to consider a venue that can accommodate a larger number of attendees. While it was a lot of fun having the meet 'n greet at the Dave & Busters in Austin, my main concern is that the event room(s) for the branch in Milipitas might not have adequate room to accommodate a larger number of attendees than the Austin meet 'n greet. If it does have plenty of room...Dave and Busters would be a fantastic choice! 
Unfortunately, I'm not too familiar with many venues in the Bay area (particularly south bay). I have no idea what price range Cryptic/NCSoft is looking at, but if you're looking for stuff in the heart of the Bay (i.e. SF), I've attended events at the Presidio and the Burlingame Hyatt Regency. Both are great venues and would have ample room for a large gathering. The Presidio has ample parking...the only downfall is that it could be tricky for out-of-towners to navigate to/from the venue. Burlingham Hyatt Regency has plenty of parking (800 vehicles...though it's $5/night), is very close to SFO and if I recall correctly (it's been a number of years) is pretty easy to navigate to/from. There's also the potential of arranging event rates for hotel rooms for out-of-towners. If I had a choice between these three venues (Dave & Busters, the Presidio or the Burlingham Hyatt Regency), I'd lean more towards the Hyatt.
I wanted to put in the suggestion for somewhere in the East Bay, since the parking issue is somewhat alleviated and puts an average distance between San Francisco and San Jose, so that no one driving from either city would have to drive as far. That's all I've got, though, since I'm at a loss as to specifically where in the East Bay would be good.
Of course, I say this partially because I'd like to be able to take BART to wherever this is. 
I would suggest Dave & Busters in Milpitas for San Jose and Metreon for San Francisco.
San Jose is still ugh for me, If you guys could bring it a little closer to oakland =D
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Metreon for San Francisco.
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Oh, that's a nice venue DD! In the City with parking and WiFi!
Is it too late to change my vote? 
SF would be nice.
I second the motion for not excluding Oakland as an option. Failing that, somewhere in SF near a BART station would be cool(Metreon). San Jose is so Passe.
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I wanted to put in the suggestion for somewhere in the East Bay, since the parking issue is somewhat alleviated and puts an average distance between San Francisco and San Jose, so that no one driving from either city would have to drive as far. That's all I've got, though, since I'm at a loss as to specifically where in the East Bay would be good.
Of course, I say this partially because I'd like to be able to take BART to wherever this is.
[/ QUOTE ]Unless the traffic situation is drastically different than I think it is, the only place in the East Bay that might fit that criteria is the Hayward area. I can't help but think, however, that if a neutral area between SF and SJ with a BART station is the priority, then perhaps Millbrae should be looked at? Besides the BART connection with SF and the East Bay, Millbrae Intermodal Station serves as a CalTrain station, providing public transportation from SJ. It's also close to SFO.
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I wanted to put in the suggestion for somewhere in the East Bay, since the parking issue is somewhat alleviated and puts an average distance between San Francisco and San Jose, so that no one driving from either city would have to drive as far. That's all I've got, though, since I'm at a loss as to specifically where in the East Bay would be good.
Of course, I say this partially because I'd like to be able to take BART to wherever this is.
[/ QUOTE ]Unless the traffic situation is drastically different than I think it is, the only place in the East Bay that might fit that criteria is the Hayward area. I can't help but think, however, that if a neutral area between SF and SJ with a BART station is the priority, then perhaps Millbrae should be looked at? Besides the BART connection with SF and the East Bay, Millbrae Intermodal Station serves as a CalTrain station, providing public transportation from SJ. It's also close to SFO.
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Hadn't thought of that area. I'd open it up to Hayward and surrounding areas, going as far south as the north end of Fremont - Mowry and that area. That'd include Union City, and maybe over the hill into Castro Valley. With the new bart extension, there's a bart stop there now.
The only problem is that I'm drawing a total blank for places we could use, there's nothing I can think of that's big enough and has decent catering. There's plenty that are big enough, plenty with good catering, but none that I can think of with both.
How many people are we anticipating?
Scrappers are just like chainsaws. Somewhat hard to handle, EXTREMELY dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane.
@Alissara - an Angry Angel
The Angry Angels. When it absolutely positively has to be spanked today.
I don't have many suggestions, the closest to me is the Mission Inn, and I'm rather bias.
I will do my best to be there, though!
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I don't have many suggestions, the closest to me is the Mission Inn, and I'm rather bias.
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Waitasec...Riverside??? A little far from the bay, doncha think?
For the East Bay, I would suggest Jack London Square in Oakland.
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I don't have many suggestions, the closest to me is the Mission Inn, and I'm rather bias.
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Waitasec...Riverside??? A little far from the bay, doncha think?
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Yes
but its so walking distance to me. sides, you already got a Meet n Greet.
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I don't have many suggestions, the closest to me is the Mission Inn, and I'm rather bias.
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Waitasec...Riverside??? A little far from the bay, doncha think?
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Yes
but its so walking distance to me. sides, you already got a Meet n Greet.
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True...but that meet 'n greet was most certainly not within driving distance!
I was thinking it would be nice to see what sorts of requirements a venue might need to meet. Y'know how much space, what sorts of facilities, that sort of thing.
I assume food & drink, but how many people would we be expecting/hoping for? Do we want gaming facilities? Do we want space for a LAN party?
I've been to the Dave & Busters in the South Bay for a buddy's bachelor party & the space wasn't that big. I think we fit a dozen or so guys around the table. I don't know if they had bigger rooms, but I remember walking around a bit & didn't see any place that could have been larger. Then again... I wan't really looking.
Not really a serious suggestion, but I think that since this would be in the Bay Area & Cryptic's in the Bay Area, it'd be really cool if the Meet & Greet was held on or near the studio & we could get a tour of Cryptic Studios. I'm sure there'd be all sorts of headaches to deal with and that's why the suggestion's not too serious. But if Cryptic/NCSoft could figure a way out to make it happen, I think that would make it a Meet & Greet beyond compare!
Jim
The main intention of having this in the Bay area is to include the Cryptic Team on the fun. This wouldn't be so much an NCsoft Meet & Greet like Austin.
This would be very specifically COH/COV Meet Up!
We drew in about 200 or so for the Austin meet up. I suppose we could do a basic poll about numbers we should be looking for here on the forums but it would only be partially representative and wouldn't account for scheduling issues that might arise.
It's on my list for today.
Ex
Hello All,
With the summer shows out of the way and Lighthouse and I back at home base for a bit, we thought we would take some of the great feedback we have received about these events and get one started in our back yard so that our COH/COV Development Team can get involved.
We are currently looking for a good venue in the San Jose/San Francisco area to hold an afternoon/evening weekend event. We have our eye on November, but this is something we can work with but we don't want to venture too far into the Holiday Season.
If you have any ideas or suggestions please post here, pm me or email exlibris@ncsoft.com
We want to hear your ideas so we can all get together and celebrate this amazing game together.
Regards,
Ex Libris