This weekend I was at PAX 2008 meeting Jeff Hickman, Paul Barnett, Josh Drescher, and James Nichols from Mythic Entertainment. I got my picture with Paul and Jeff (while wearing Paul’s signature shades), signatures from Paul, Jeff, & Josh, and an “Elder Beta Tester” T-Shirt from James. I was spending so much time at the Warhammer booth showing off the game to other people at the convention that Jeff even joked “Give this guy a job”. Some of the other people who were paid to be there to demo the game were learning things from me. When Warhammer had it’s official presentation at the event, it was SOOOOO packed and overflowing that they had to cut the presentation in half and do it twice back to back “in fear of a riot” if they didn’t.
Back in June, I blogged about seeing a preview on Paul’s video blog showing the new Lord of Change model. When I met Jeff and Paul this weekend, I asked them directly about the new model. Jeff assured me that while there are still several different Lords of Change in the game there is one which is the “impressive looking one” which I believed he said was in the Lost Veil. I was rather pleased to hear about this and went on my merry way. Later on in the day I was showing some people the Inevitable City. Well upon zoning into the Inevitable City, I ran into none other than the Lord of Change. This was expected, but unexpectidly, he looked truly amazing. Just like I would expect with huge wings, 3 stories high, white robes, golden staff, and all the little details. Later on in the day I told Jeff that I saw him and was impressed. He was glad to hear that.
Speaking of glad to hear about it, I showed Paul where he could put in another “plunger of the world”, a location near the chaos starting area that he didn’t know about. He was rather pleased that I found it and said he’d get one put in.
Overall it was a fantastic event. It was kinda “meh” for me though because I was so excited about WAR and talking with people about WAR that nothing other than the concerts were really all that interesting. Spore was pretty amazing though as well as the One Ups, Johnathan Coulton, and Will Weaton. The World of Warcraft and other Blizzard BOOTHS (yes plural) made me giggle. Tabula Rasa and Guild Wars booths also had a brief visit by me.
There will be WAR starting September 14th. Oh yes and HILYMI will reign again!
Although this is a bit late it’s still important and worth mentioning. On June 15th, Hit it like you mean it, my guild and band of brothers hit their 2 year anniversary mark. I made another slide show style video showing off all the great times that have happened in the last year. Almost every single one of us now has the Collector’s Edition of Warhammer and we’re eagerly awaiting Open Beta and launch of the game.
I’ve started an interesting side project recently which is why I haven’t blogged in a couple of days. It really has been bugging me about what I’ve been wanting to do with my blog. I don’t want my blog to loose too much focus on ME as a person because again as I’ve stated before, my blog is mostly for me and my internal thought processing. So the tone of this site will stay what it is, but I’ve been wanting to do something more… something… bigger. In all the years I’ve been making websites, running websites, and building things professionally in my career, I’ve never taken the time to start a personal project of major worth for myself.
So an idea hit me and I went with it. The website is still top secret as I continue work on putting it all together and getting starting content in there, but so far here is what people are saying. Who knows if you comment on this thread, maybe I just might give you a sneak peak. Here is what people are saying so far:
A very ambitious project, for which I will be the first to pledge my support! To my knowledge, this has never been done before, and innovation is something to be commended.
Wow! That’s an excellent idea for a website. I dont think anybody has ever done anything like that before.
Hit max level tonight in GuildWars and starting to know what the endgame of GuildWars feels like. So far I’m liking it and after getting my first Epic spell last night, I’m seeing how powerful endgame characters can be over people who just hit level 20. Working my way up to ascention which is apprently going to be a semi-arduous task.
I like the inovations that GuildWars put into their game. Endgame is not about gearing up, but rather more so about skilling up. Right now I have around 15 spells per spell circle and my understanding is that there’s around 150 spells per class. Of those I have around 40 or so for the monk. If I were to compare this to Warhammer, I would say that the tactics and renown abilities are equivilent while still having a game that’s a bit… more focused around gear, but not necissarily as heavy as World of Warcraft.
Yes, you read that right, Hit it like you mean it has decided that we’re all going to play GuildWars until WAR comes out. It’s a fun game, minor financial investment, and will offer us the chance to explore PVE content as a group and enjoy each other’s company in a game once again.
I’m really proud to see everyone excited again. Many folks have been in vent and rather excited about GuildWars. It really amazes me how good the game looks. In some ways, the game is prettier than WoW and more complex advancement than WoW, but in some ways the game feels like a glorified Diablo. I do see why the game is doing so well though because on a fundamental level, it feels… richer and more story driven than WoW ever did. What I’m most happy about is playing a game again where healing is important and useful. From what I hear most monks are morons so it’s nice to hear there’s a difference between a smart, good monk and one who’s a douchebag.
