Discussion: The 2012 Spring Freedom Player Summit

And leave it to Nylonus to be kicked off a PC by Zwill while attempting to log into the forums.

Had to rush home this morning due to RL and was sorry I didn't get to say goodbye to all the people who made this such a terrific weekend! Impish & Rangle, you are two of the niftiest people on the face of the planet. Thank you so much for all the laughter and smiles. The only thing cooler than watching Rangle and Warboss get Radiation sets pitched as potential new powers was watching Rangle's face as Impish karaoked her Kin Defender's love song to her Tank; you two are an amazing pair! Awesome stuff. TJ (Man of Many Hats), your smile and presence always brightens my experience at these events. I keep promising myself that I will make breakfast at Holder's with you and RedGren (another smile that makes the trip worthwhile), and then something comes up (one day...). To Fire-Away and his Mrs., thank you for being so much fun to talk to and for suggesting the restaurant down the way (made for a quick breakfast). To AlienClan, thank you for the advice on slotting IO's - Your knowledge is amazing. To Hyperstrike, thank you for all you do for tanks everywhere. A special thank you to the developers for organizing the event and really listening to what players are interested in; as a player, it means a lot to know you value our input (Squirrel!). And, although I know there's way too much text so he'll never read this far down, thank you, Warboss, for being you and for leveling an Fire/Ice tanker all the way to 50 with my crazy scrapper; I know how you feel about Ice Melee. *HUGS* to you all - Safe trip home!

Great time at player summit 2012.

The bacon waffles were good, I don't think I would get them again...well ok, maybe once per con. I didn't get a chance for a Fred's steak.

It was nice metting all of players and devs.

The summit was fun, but the highlight of the weekend for me, as dumb as it sounds, was oepning my goody bag and finding issue #10 of the Blue King comicbook series - it is the one issue of that series I have never been able to track down singularly, and now my CoH comics collection is complete!

Not sure if I'll make it to the fall summit, assuming there is one, but if I do, I'll make a weekend out of it instead of a 36 hour, 5,200 mile round trip.

Speaking of which, I had a few ideas for future summits...

Have a forum, or e-mail, poll a month before the next summit to allow those who cannot attend to make suggestions regarding new power sets or costume packs. Have someone from P.S. sort, categorize and tally all the pre-summit responses, then, at the summit, the attendees could receive cards in their goody bags that list the top three or top five vote-getters in each category.

Instead of pitching their own ideas on the cards, each attendee would then vote for which of the three or five ideas they like best, and turn in their cards. At the individual panels, the top vote-getter in each category would be revealed and worked on like it was at this summit. That would give non-attendees a voice, but also give attendees more input into design of the set. It would also free up the time during the panel that was dedicated to pitches to work on design ideas instead.

I didn't include the Zone Revamps in the above idea because they were handled differently with the focus on the pitch and little audience participation. The Z.R. panelists also seemed to have more input/ideas/restictions on zone revamps regarding what could and couldn't be done. In the future zone revamps could be included in the pre-summit poll, but instead of being open-ended, they could be presented as 4-6 ideas from the Devs for players to vote on. Then, at the Zone Revamp panel at the summit, the winning idea could be presented, and the hour could be dedicated to an audience "brainstorming" session as to what the players would like to see in that zone in the future.

Just some thoughts to give non-attendees a voice, while still giving attendees a greater voice, and perhaps maximizing the potential of each panel.

Okay, I'm home, I'm somewhat rested, and TOTALLY not recovered from the Players' Summit.

1. Dinah's: GREAT place. Though if the event keeps growing, we're going to run into space issues fast. Parking during the event was something of a fiasco. The hotel itself was DAMN nice though. I've paid nearly twice what Dinah's charges for rooms and not had such nice accommodations. For the super budget-conscious, looking to do the "communal crash pad", the rooms are HUGE.
2. Traveling: I REALLY recommend taking the absolute earliest flight in on Friday that you can manage. It tends to get you in ahead of the crunch, and leaves you time for sight-seeing. GPS or good directions is a must though as it'd be QUITE easy to get lost otherwise. TonyV and I actually found the first two HQ for Atari while we were out there. We also assaulted Hell with naught but a water bucket. Err, we visited the Apple Company Store at One Infinite Loop (sorry, sorry, my Mac hatred runs deep). TonyV even got himself a tour of the Googleplex. I also got to visit a buddy over on the nVidia campus.
3. Which Airport: SJC (Mineta Intl. Airport) is a VERY nice place to fly into. While the fact that I got in at 9AM local time helped, it was VERY nice to be out of there within 30 minutes of arrival. And from there, it was a straight shot to Dinah's.
4. Rental car: Renting a car is probably going to be cheaper than cabbing it everyplace or relying on rides. Just take into account what I said about the parking situation at Dinah's. If you rent a car, fill it up before you return it! Otherwise, my rental would have cost me $9.28 a gallon!
5. Panel Planning: I agree with the sentiment that the basic premise to all the panels should be known in advance. This way it gives attendees time to brainstorm. As it was, I only turned back one of the cards (for the zone revamp panel) because I was kind of caught out and going "Uh...burrito?" and trying not to look like I just drooled on myself.
6. The dinner: For Paragon. Is there any way that we could get a safe/bland "third option" for the dinners? I went with the beef because I figured it'd be safe. Only to find out that there were mushrooms in the dish (as there were in the salad). I have some fairly FIERCE allergic reactions to several types of dietary mushrooms (and thus just avoid ALL of them at all cost). Luckily there was someone who was willing to trade their choice off to me, but still.
7. Karaoke: I just dunno. I'm not a karaoke person. Not pointing fingers or anything. And I, personally, couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Just...well...y'know.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

This last Player Summit was the best one ever for me and the better half because of the player interaction. Calline Sunshine (who is an absolute dear) has already nailed much of it above. Special thank you also to Clockwork01 for rigging the door prizes so that our table cleaned up with four of them. Turns out that was just the beginning of the fun.

Somehow (I suspect Rangle gave a bribe to Texas Justice but cannot verify), we got an invite to Sunday breakfast at Holders. That turned out to be a who's who of some of the players I respect most associated with this game (Impish Kat, TJ, Samuraiko, Hyperstrike, Redlynne, TonyV) and several new friends too. I got to sit at the adult table without a bib and only had water knocked all over me by the waiter once (very refreshing). Apologies to Hyperstrike who drew the short straw and had to babysit us noobs in this gaggle of CoH heavy hitters.

Oh yeah there were panels and stuff too but I was forced to sign an NDA on the way out on my knowledge of how radiation armor made it to the drawing board as a new powerset.

Sorry for not having much to say of value in the way of constructive criticism about the event. It was just too good of a time because of my fellow players.

Ever since the first CoH HeroCon, I've wanted to attend one of these events.
Finally, I can say that it was everything and more than I could have ever expected.

I was absolutely delighted to meet so many folks that I've been chatting with in the game and here on the forums (and even some new-to-me folks); TJ, Red Gren, Warboss, Callie (hugs!), Fire Away, Alien Mafia, Hyperstrike, Smoff, Samuriko, Bloodspeaker, Dromen, Artphobia, Redlynne... and, and, and... omg.. too many for my poor ol' brain to keep track of. I hope we get the chance to see you all again at another event.

A HUGE thank you goes out to the attending Devs and Paragon staff, for being so approachable, accessible, and creating such a unique opportunity to interact with us. I truly believe it's that pervading attitude that makes this game and its community so unique amongst the throng of MMO's out there.

A few notes, if I may:

• I mentioned this to one of the gals at the reg table, but I'll reiterate it here.... the badges were really hard to read. The design was pretty, but the names needed a larger space and font.
• Game night... awesome! A great way to break the ice in a casual way that was most familiar to all of us.
• Single track paneling... I liked it. It allowed me to pick a panel to skip if I needed to (for food or nap), without having to choose over one that I really really really wanted to attend. It also fits for the smaller size of the event. If this ever expands into a larger event, I can see multi-track paneling becoming necessary.
• Food & Drink: I'm pretty easy about food, but Hyperstrike makes a good point.. there should be some way to make notation/exception for folks with allergies... I have a friend who is allergic to nuts, so the coconut in the rice would have been a bad thing for him. The drink tickets were much appreciated, and I hope folks remembered to tip the bartenders.
• Karaoke. I love karaoke... when it's done well. To put it much more politely than my real feelings on the matter; I was unimpressed with the KJ.
• I love Dinah's. Great "old school" charm, yet very well kept up. In talking to the reception folks, they are constantly looking for ways to keep up with improvements. Wonderful.

Further tip for future reference:

Rent a car through Hotwire using the Hot Rates. As soon as you can. Sure, you have to pay up front, but it's worth it.

I got a Full Size car (Dodge Charger) for 3 days for under $80 counting the taxes. Last trip is was under $70 for the three days rental on a Full Size car.

It will be a car from one of 7 major Car Rental agencies: Alamo, Hertz, Enterprise, Budget, Dollar, National or Thrifty.

Filling up was a bit under $20 and that was after the trip to Stanford Shopping Center Friday, Hotel, Holder's Country Inn, Hotel, Holder's Country Inn, Airport (dropping off first person), fill up, drive around, airport. At the California gas prices, that's pretty decent getting it filled for less than $20 after that much driving. Foot got heavy on accelerator at times also (not driving economically).

Hello,

I have been combing through the forums and online trying to find news about what was discussed at the summit this last weekend. Is there a consolidated thread or news article out there somewhere that goes over all the things that were newsworthy from the summit (for people who could not make it).

Thanks!