San Diego ComicCon - HIGHLIGHTS

So the Purple IO recipes that heroes can buy will be HAM-IO recipes.

Considering the whole "alignment" thing, if you switch sides I feel as if they should turn "negative." As in, if you have three unspent villain alignment merits, you'd have to erase all of them to become a full hero.

Green eggs and HAM, VAM-I-am?

And I would eat them in a boat.
And I would eat them with a goat...

And I will eat them in the rain.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And in a car. And in a tree.
They are so good, so good, you see!

Kindengineer, its ok. You dont owe us an explanation, its still awesome that you recorded and we can see the panel now. Thank you very much for uploading those 5 videos.
I cant see well the new costume sets, so for those who were there...
Are they awesome? They come with belts and shoulderpads?

Yet *another* merit reward ticketing system? How very unimaginative.

Hmm, thanks for the info. Ghost Falcon

No new badges for staying 'true' to your character's original side though?

mmm HAMs.....*drools*

Sounds good to me....cant wait

Some other highlights from the Going Rouge booth:

*Cool lenticular button giveaway (it switches between a Statesman Star and an Arachnos Spider. And yes, most people thought it was Captain America/Spider-man)
*Costume Code - unlock a fun but a little underdeveloped Ghoul costume power. Not the Ghoul from the Mastermind set but a whole new model. Looks like he has a unique run animation, but he doesn't animate attacks.
*Played with the Going Rogue interface. I'm not a fan of the yellow, but then again, I'm not a fan of yellow.
*the CoX party at the Hard Rock. Seemed pretty low key, but i got their late. It was nice to see how Ultra Mode looks on a comp that doesn't suck (ie. mine) and it looked like there was some new, tech-based luminescent costume pieces :-D

Yeah, the Meet 'n Greet was fun, and definitely less crowded than I expected. Not sure what happened to the 600 people who RSVP'ed, but I would estimate the peak at any given time was 100-150 people, which was good since there was only seating for about 30.

Based on the number of raffle tickets that were drawn and not claimed I guess a lot of people stopped by for a bit and then left. Maybe the $7-$8 beers and $11 mixed drinks turned people away. I know I switched to water after only a couple of beers.

It was definitely fun to play around in Praetoria on a machine with truely awesome graphics. And I won one of the exclusive T-shirts by making Positron laugh, so that was cool too.

Two other highlights for me...

I won a David Nakayama sketch of one of my characters! (posted scan coming soon), and I had a nice, if brief, conversation with War Witch on Sunday afternoon.

Yeah, there's like 30 parties a night at CC, so if one is slow, you just bounce to the next. I totally forgot about the raffle until i pulled the ticket out of my pocket before bed. I probably won

When I got to the party, I figured everyone would go by their handle, so that's what I put on my name tag. Then i walk around seeing people with "Stan" and "Bill' on their tags. How the heck am I supposed to recognize anyone with those weird names?!

Heh, my friend Stan was with me and that's what he wrote on his name tag, but he doesn't play the game (yet) so he doesn't have a handle of any sort (yet). Not sure if that's who you saw or not.

Of course, I didn't use my forum handle either, but I probably will in New York.

Conventions/Meet & Greet for Dummies please?

I'm considering going to the NYCC Meet & Greet in October but know NOTHING about how these work.

Could someone provide a few bullet-points geared for someone who's never been?

-Does it take place inside the Con, so I need a ticket?

-Does it take place on one day of the Con or one each day?

-How long does an M&G usually last?

-Do players often organize casual beers or something outside the event?

-What's it like, do you stand around with sodas n chat? Are there activities, presentations?

-Is it fun? Worth buying a ticket even if I'm not interested in the rest of the Con?

-Anything else you think I should know?

I've been to three of these and they were all somewhat different, but the consistant thing was that there is only one official M'nG per convention. It would however be pretty easy to stalk Positron via his tweets.

- The first M'nG I attended was in San Diego two years ago. For that one, you needed to get an invite from the folks at the NCSoft booth and could only get one if you were an active player, so for that one you had to have a ticket for the convention. It was held at a bar not far from the CC and they gave you two drink tickets upon entering. There were hors d'oveurs (sp?) available if I recall correctly. Mostly that one consisted of standing around and talking, at least at first. I was new to the game and knew noone, so I left after about 20-30 minutes. I guess later there was music and a lot of dancing. Maybe karoke?

- The second one I went to was in Boston earlier this year. You didn't need a ticket to the convention, I think you just showed up. This one was held at a bar near Fenway Park, and I arrived very late to it, so I missed the appetizers, and I don't know whether there were any free drinks. There were pool tables (and maybe dart boards), but no dancing that I know of. The NCSoft folks had brought a lot of purchasable swag with them, which was sweet, and they also raffled off some very cool prizes.

- Last Friday in San Diego was my third M'nG. This one you had to RSVP to in advance, and show up early to due to interest far outpacing room capacity. Again there was free food - appetizers again, but very good appetizers - but no free alcohol (soda and bottled water was free though). The team had set up computers and monitors around the room so folks could try out Nova Praetoria and get a taste of GR. There was no purchasable swag at this one, but they had brought exclusive T-shirts that you could win by playing mini-games announced via Twitter and Facebook. They again held a raffle - two in fact: one for prizes and one for folks who arrived in costume, three of whom won a sketch of themselves from David Nakayama. No dancing this time, but there was background music as usual.


Long story short: All three I went to were slightly different, and each one got to be more fun in my opinion (though I really wasn't at the one two years ago or the one in Boston long enough to really judge them fairly). I'm sure as we get closer to October, Avatea and/or Ocho will post more info on the NYC M'nG. I'm not sure about having to attend the convention - both PAXEast and this year's SDCC were sold out by the time the M'nGs were announced, so requiring folks to attend the cons to get into the M'nGs would have left a lot of people out. I think the NYCC is going to be a blast, and who knows, NCSoft might do a panel or have a booth, and that'd be two more reasons to get a ticket to the show.

Thanks for the info MouseDroid - I guess I'll just wait for more specifics from NCSoft on the NYCC stuff. But from your notes I'm looking forward to some real fun! Thanks again.