Turbine Nation
Friday Night
Another Friday night, another road trip. Okay, maybe I'm a bit more stay at home than that, but this is the weekend of Turbine Nation, so I trucked myself down to Providence. I haven't missed a Boston area Turbine Luncheon/Event yet, after all.
One short train ride later, I was there (see, there are advantages to living in the Boston area!). I arrived early and wandered around a bit killing time until the hotel check in. As is my usual habit, I stayed at a hotel as close as possible to the event. Many people do so and the hotel lobbies make natural gathering areas for flocks of gamers.
Checking in complete, a number of early arrivals gathered in the lobby. Maddy, Cherylp, Circeus and Cyrano de Bergerac from AC1 Warcry. Coraval Silverbane and Tristin were also there, veterans of previous AC Gatherings.
At 6:30, we trundled over to Dave and Buster's at the nearby mall to a large dinner arranged by Cherylp. There was a liberal mix of Turbinites...from Sean Huxter to Allen "Orion" Maki to Ibn to Zyrca. Also there were Roberto, Brogo, Cromm and myself from AC2 Warcry. Oukane from AC2HQ, who is an absolute gentleman, was also a pleasure to meet. Of course, I can't forget to mention my own allegiance mates Konerak, Yuki and Angus Thorsun. :)
What's that? Oh, right, this is AC2 Warcry. Yes, there was a liberal manifestation of the AC2 team present as well. Citan and Denour were front and center. Jessica Mulligan wandered in after a while from supervising setup of tomorrow's get together, while poor Ramen was only able to send hellos, being stuck late working hard at setup. We also had the pleasure of meeting a couple of members of the envoy team who I had such a good time talking to that I never managed to get around to asking their handles.
A fun shock was actually meeting a former member of the old MS +Admin team. I won't name names, but I will say that she was an absolute pleasure to talk to and told some fascinating stories. I also recognized her handle as being one of the more well spoken of +Admins in the past.
After dinner, the grouping seemed to devolve into two separate divisions, marked by allegiance to AC1 or AC2. The AC2 group meandered over to the hotel and grabbed most of the tables in the lobby bar. Yes, we immediately proceeded to run up a tab. As if you had any doubt...
I was introduced to far more people than I will ever remember names for, including someone who may actually have been Echo. For much of the evening, Jessica held court for many folks, regaling with stories from her years of experience in Online Games. Most of the information she shared directly concerning Turbine was nothing we hadn't seen on the boards before, but a well told tale straight from the person involved is much more enjoyable live. Much was made of the fact that Jessica "wakes up thinking about chocolate". So now you have a good idea for bribes, right?
In any case, I eventually wandered over to another corner, where a handful of folks had Denour and Citan cornered and were brutally beating them about the upcoming class changes. More seriously, there were some great discussions about class and character balance. It is even MORE clear in person that a great deal of thought has gone into the upcoming changes. Citan even convinced a long timer berserker that he had thought about the effects of the changes much more thoroughly than the player and that the player might actually be wrong. I suppose we'll see next month.
Around midnight, much of the group broke off to head to bed. It is going to be a busy day tomorrow, with an early start. So little to see...so much time....no, wait...strike that, reverse it.
I'll see you all again later with another episode of Kelyn's Turbine Nation blog.
Kelyn Blackwolf
The Crazy Ranger in the Corner
Saturday - The Morning Sessions
This is going to be a short one, since I'm due to head back in for more fun and games in just a few minutes....I took 7 pages of notes at the morning session for AC2 and another handful of notes from Jessica Mulligan's keynote speech/Q&A at the ACPL.
Jeff Anderson's speech in the morning was very short and sweet. Why? Well, at the door registration overflowed expectations dramatically. The event is very full, and it is clear that Turbine is overflowing with popular projects. Some points from Jeff:
Both AC1 and AC2 are a labor of love and considered the foundation of the company, according to both Jess and Jeff. Jessica reiterated that there are NO plans to close down either game in the forseeable future.
Some short notes from this morning's AC2 session (much more detail to come):
It's been a great day of chatting and learning. We'll see you more next time!
Kelyn
Mad Crafting News Poster
PS: Visualize a new crafting profession: Alchemy....sometime in mid-to-late 2005 they hope!
Saturday Afternoon
The sacrifices I make for you! Here I am, skipping the exciting D&D Online presentation to amuse and entertain you all! Of course, like me, what you really care about is AC2. We've gone behind the scenes at Turbine and now I can share with you the horror!
Well, okay, it wasn't really that horrible. I wish I could share with you the amusing video that Keth al-Sheth made of the AC2 team at work. Everything from the fact that Bearcat is "English Major Man" to the fact that Rhadamanthus, in between bouts of content writing "Hates Everything". Oh, and Keth himself is a dancing machine...really, there is no way to explain that one, just be glad you didn't see it. :)
Well, we have some anecdotes...
Again, more detail and more social updates later. Not that you care about social things, but hey, it is a social event. :)
Kelyn
Madman on the Road
PS: Remind me to tell you all about how logging in to Hell aided Gator in fixing problems with allegiances on the servers. Just don't tell Hellhawk it is his fault.
Saturday Night
I managed to return from updating my previous entry in time to catch the end of the D&D Online presentation. Looks moderately interesting, but more of a twitch based game than AC2, so not really to my tastes. Very attractive graphics...still clearly the Turbine Engine, but with a different flavor to the graphic design than we have here in AC2. Somewhat grittier. Honestly, though, I still prefer AC2.
Following this there was a brief period of downtime, and then the entertainment began: The Lords of the Rhymes. This is a Tolkien inspired rap act. They have a very amusing style, although they were somewhat confused by the lack of reaction from a roomful of mildly bemused gamers who had been sitting quietly and listening to people all day...
Many of the Turbine team and a few of those in the back of the room were dancing and rocking with the band from the start. Everyone else was trying to listen closely and figure out the lyrics. Witty, sharp lyrics for the most part, with a few shocking slides into vulgarity that were a bit unexpected. Slowly, more and more folks were dancing in their seats with the rhythym...and for the last song everyone stood up and the bulk of the audience danced along energetically.
In the quiet following the songs, the MCs (Allen "Orion" Maki and Nik "Azeraphel" Davidson of Turbine, which I completely failed to mention before...they did an excellent job) began the handing out of door prizes for the day. 50 MEO beta accounts, handfuls of D&D0 T-shirts, there was a 'Drudge Dance' dance-off for 3 N-Vidia 6800 video cards, subscriptions to PC Gamer, Swag Bags full of Turbine t-shirts/hats/figurines, Eberron related D&D books from Wizards of the Coast and much good natured abuse of those benighted souls who had left Turbine Nation early with winning door prize tickets. A large number of handfuls of small plastic figures of the "Warforged" from Eberron were also (literally) tossed out to the audience.
Hmmm...swag. I don't believe I ever mentioned the Swag we received...I suppose I should do so now, eh?
In addition to this, those of us attending the morning AC2 program received a pack of Tarot inspired cards that may or may not be the mysterious Lost Artifacts alluded to in the August Teaser (which we also received). Rhadamanthus did say that some of the things mentioned in the teaser (perhaps including these cards) were more oriented towards September than August, however. Not that there won't be tons to do in August (it looks content heavy), but that a few particular items are arcing to September.
After the giveaways, there was a session of the classic "Whose Drudge is It Anyway" comedy improv game that has been played at every ACPL so far. It was mostly AC1 oriented for prizes, so I headed out without watching it.
Back to the hotel I wandered, where I was invited to join a large gathering of AC2 Players and Devs in wandering off for dinner and drinks at a nearby brew house. Jessica, Citan, Echo, Denour (formerly VirulLord) and the ever cool Empath joined us. With them and about 15 players, we took over half of the place. :) And later, Orion, Ramen, Ibn, Kujo and a number of other Turbinite either came by to visit and chat for a few minutes or grabbed tables on the other side of the pub and had their own dinners with a hand ful of players.
Once again, much drink flowed (Ookane talked about 10 of us into Jagermeister shots) and there was great conversation. I'm not going to mention specific names, but we had multiple people present from Hell Inc. and Clan Imbrium who were most sociable. I expected that from Hell (hey, I'm a member), but Clan Imbrium was very open and pleasant chatting with a guest not even from their server (Clan Imbrium and a few of the rest of us wound up nearly closing the bar).
Once again, Turbine Nation/ACPL showed me what a great community this game has. Wonderful groups of players and a dedicated Development Team that really cares about the game and work long hours to make it better for all of us.
I have a lot more information than I've been able to post in this blog, look for more articles (and pictures taken by Cromm/Roberto) to show up here on AC2 Warcry during the next week. There is a lot of great news and behind the scenes anecdotes to share! And maybe I'll see you there next year!
Kelyn
Ranger Back at Home
