I am certainly not shameless enough to encourage people to visit this site by posting gratuitous pictures of Ms. Day all over the front page… Why are [...]]]> Don’t get me wrong, we’re thrilled to have Felicia Day as a guest on our track this year, but surely you didn’t think that we had stopped there, did you?

I am certainly not shameless enough to encourage people to visit this site by posting gratuitous pictures of Ms. Day all over the front page… Why are you looking at me that way?

Ok, maybe I am that shameless.

Or maybe, just maybe, we hear a rumor that Felicia will be participating in our Machinima panels in addition to participating in our Q&A panels on “The Guild” this year.  And yes, before you snark away, we had Machinima panels last year, but made the rather foolish mistake of scheduling them late at night.  As a general rule,  folks don’t seem to be interested in panels late at night, they want to party.  Lesson learned.

But this is “Not another Felicia Day post“, right?

And so it is…

If you’ve been paying attention, you may have noticed a while back that we were working on getting a couple of authors to sit down for a “Lore of Warcraft” panel with us.

We are pleased to announce that Richard Knaak and Keith R.A. DeCandido are both confirmed as guests for Dragon*Con this year and that they are scheduled to talk with us about the “Lore of Warcraft”

Mr. DeCandido is the author of Cycle of Hatred of which he summarizes

At the end of Warcraft 3 and Warcraft 3X, humans and orcs were allies on the continent of Kalimdor. But in World of Warcraft, the two sides are enemies again. My task with the novel Cycle of Hatred, was to help explain that change. It takes place during the four-year gap between the two games, and involves the humans on Kalimdor lead by Lady Jaina Proudmoore and the orcs on the same continent lead by Thrall. Of all the characters in the Warcraft universe, I found Jaina and Thrall to be two of the three most compelling characters. Jaina is a powerful female wizard, who is put in a position of leading a small group of humans in a hostile land in the wake of a brutal war against a demon horde. Thrall is an orc raised by humans as a slave, who leads a rebellion of orcs against human bondage, and inspires the orcs to return to their old ways before they were cursed by demons. Both leaders are trying to forge a new future, moving past the old hatreds. Unfortunately, the old hatreds don’t die easily. If you’re wondering who the third character is, you’ll have to read the book to find out — the character is also in the book, but who it is is a surprise.

Mr. Knaak has written several novels set in the World of Warcraft universe including

• Day of the Dragon (2001)
• War of the Ancients Archive
  • The Well of Eternity (2004)
  • The Demon Soul (2004)
  • The Sundering (2005)
• The Sunwell Trilogy Ultimate Edition
  • Dragon Hunt (2005)
  • Shadows of Ice (2006)
  • Ghostlands (2007)
• Warcraft: Legends
  • Fallen (2008)
  • Fear (2008)
  • Fiend (2009)
  • Fate (2009)
• Night of the Dragon (2008)
• Dragons of Outland Trilogy
  • Shadow Wing (2009)
  • Volume 2 (TBA)
  • Volume 3 (TBA)
• Stormrage (2009)
• Mage (2010)

We have yet another best selling author who will be joining us for an MMO-related Q&A session.  Rather than give you a list of Timothy Zahn‘s bonafides (because there are too many), I’ll just leave you with a visual image that should explain everything, unless, of course, you live under a rock.

(If you do not know who this is, turn in your geek card and sell your Dragon*Con ticket on EBay or something.)

But wait!  There’s more!

Aaron de Orive is joining us at Dragon*Con this year.  His writing credits include

• Anarchy Online
• Star Wars Galaxies
• Tabula Rasa
• Ultima Worlds Online (UO2)
• and the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic (see trailer)

And while this may sound like a macro at this point… We’re not done yet.  We’ll bring you the latest additions to our track this year as soon as we get them scheduled.

This week, we’ll be talking with Blizzard, 38 Studios, [...]]]> There hasn’t been a whole lot of DC*MMO activity this week.  Our second podcast is in the can and will be posted any day now.  We have started talking with Reakktor about having them present their upcoming game Black Prophecy, and we hope to have them on-board soon.

This week, we’ll be talking with Blizzard, 38 Studios, and Netdevil again in attempts to get them on board.  We are also working on some events with our friends at Battle & Brew, a local gaming pub in Atlanta.  We’ll be providing additional details on that in upcoming weeks.

Finally, we spoke with Funcom last week, and they have got a lot of plans for Dragon*Con this year.  We are adding a Friday Night Party to the schedule, and they’ll be presenting panels on Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, and possibly a panel on their upcoming title as well.  They will also be providing some prizes for our contests and live-action quest as well.

Now that Dragon*Con is only a couple more months away, we’ll be updating the site more frequently.  Stay tuned.

So, with no further ado, here’s where we stand.

We will definitely be back in the Sheraton this [...]]]> Welcome to the first weekly installment of the DC-MMO Update.  Now that we’re about 5 months away from Dragon*Con, and preparations are underway in earnest, it makes sense for us to keep everyone up to date on where we are.

So, with no further ado, here’s where we stand.

We will definitely be back in the Sheraton this year, specifically in the Athens and Augusta rooms.

The following companies have already confirmed that they will be participating in Dragon*Con this year:
Sony (EQ, EQ2, Star Wars Galaxies, DC Universe Online, Free Realms, The Agency)
Funcom (Age of Conan, Secret World, Anarchy Online)
CCP (EVE Online)
Adventure Quest (AQ Worlds)
Gaia Interactive (Gaia Online)
Wardog Studios (Force of Arms)
Cartoon Network (FusionFall)

We are still in talks with the following companies:
NCSoft (City of Heroes, Guild Wars)
EA/Mythic (Warhammer Online)
Cryptic Studios (Star Trek Online, Champions Online)
Bioware (Star Wars: The Old Republic)
Blizzard (DUHHHHHH)
38 Studios (Copernicus)
Frogster Interactive (Runes of Magic)

We are planning additional panels on topics such as
Guild Management
Dead MMO’s
Free MMO’s
WoW Lore (with authors Richard A. Knaak and Keith R.A. DeCandido)
The state of MMO gaming (with representatives from several MMO companies)
The Guild, starring Felicia Day (not nailed down yet, but we’re working on it)

Of course, we are also planning a series of parties/events for our night time sessions…
Quest Givers (yes, we’re doing the weekend-long live action quests again!)
Kickoff Party on Friday Night
World of Warcraft Trivia Contest
Hardcore MMO Trivia Contest (all games)
WoW Olympics (Gnome Tossing, Dodgeball, Dance Contest, Emote Contest, etc)
Kingdom of Loathing Party
Sony Party (EQ, EQ2, SWG, etc)

We are also working on getting all of the MMO games that we will be discussing included in the computer gaming lab in the Hilton so that you guys can try out some of these games on your own time.  As with all convention preparations, things can (and often do) change at the last minute, but this is a snapshot of where we are as of right now.  We have our 12th, and final, staff member on board for this year and we plan on moving very quickly to finalize our plans for this year so that you guys will have plenty of opportunity to get ready for an outstanding Dragon*Con this year.

If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback, please contact us and let us know about it.  If you’d like to buy a shirt to help us out, that would be great too!.

Quick news bites for you:

CCP (EVE Online) has confirmed with us that they are planning on attending [...]]]> Because I’m a meddler with too much time on his hands believer in constant improvements, we’re making some changes to the DC*MMO website. Don’t fret, all of the content is still here, it’s just getting shifted around a bit.

Quick news bites for you:

CCP (EVE Online) has confirmed with us that they are planning on attending Dragon*Con this year.

So have the folks at AdventureQuest Worlds…

So has Funcom (Age of Conan, Anarchy Online)

Slowly, but surely, we are filling up our event schedule. If all goes as planned, there will be over 50 MMO panels and events for you to check out at Dragon*Con this year.