Anyhow, I thought I’d get things off to a rousing start by giving you all yet another JoCo video.  The man [...]]]> In the first of, hopefully, several new regular features on the DC*MMO website, a couple of our staffers have decided to post a weekly video.  The title of this feature seems kinda obvious, doesn’t it? =)

Anyhow, I thought I’d get things off to a rousing start by giving you all yet another JoCo video.  The man is a genius.

Ok, I got that out of my system.

Who is Jonathan Coulton, you ask?

Seriously?

If you’ve been to any of DC*MMO‘s WoW events, you have definitely seen the video for Code Monkey.

However, if you have ever played Portal, there is another song of his that you might find more [...]]]> Jonathan Coulton, if you are reading this…

PLEASE COME TO DRAGON*CON!!!!

Ok, I got that out of my system.

Who is Jonathan Coulton, you ask?

Seriously?

If you’ve been to any of DC*MMO‘s WoW events, you have definitely seen the video for Code Monkey.

However, if you have ever played Portal, there is another song of his that you might find more familiar.

In fact, the only problem I have with this video is that Spiffworld has two versions.  The original, as it appeared in Portal, and one done by JoCo himself.

Got an opinion on which video we should show at D*C this year?  Got ideas for other videos that you would like to see this year?  Want us to bring back some videos from last year?  Drop us a line!

That means we’re close. 3 weeks to go, in fact!

To give you guys an update [...]]]> I’m back from the beach and ready to put the finishing touches on this year’s preparations. Staff meetings are blessedly short (last night’s was about 20 minutes), which means things are getting done, and the to-do list is finally shrinking.

That means we’re close. 3 weeks to go, in fact!

To give you guys an update as to what’s going on, we’re starting to receive prize packages from some of our “Friends of DC*MMO” (see the column on the left) including t-shirts, posters, boxed copies of games, loot cards, and other assorted goodies that we’ll be giving away. Most of this stuff will be given away during our WoW party (WoW Stuff) and MMO Trivia Contest (Everything Else) during the weekend, but we’ll also be tossing out some swag during our panels. Which ones? Could be any of them!

It looks like the Digital Gaming Lab (DGL) will be moving up to the 3rd floor in the Hilton this year. Normally, that doesn’t affect us since we’re in the Sheraton, but if you actually want some “hands on” time with some of the games that we’ll be highlighting this year, the DGL is the place to be. We’ll be hosting “All-nighters” with Global Agenda and Age of Conan in the DGL this year.

We’ve updated the look of the website just a bit, and included links to the companies and people who have helped us out this year and in the past.  These folks have donated time, merchandise, and effort into making Dragon*Con successful, and I’d like to thank them all on behalf of the DC*MMO staff.

Finally, we’re steadily dwindling our supply of DC*MMO 2009 t-shirts.  We only have a few of the larger sizes left!  We’re also going to have a new SnarkCast available for you later today or tomorrow, and Krystalle and I will try to squeeze in one or two more before the convention.

As a final treat, I wanted to share this picture of the winning team (posing w/the Bling Gnome Trophy) from last year’s Hardcore MMO Trivia Contest.  The winners of each year’s trivia contest will win a fantastic set of prizes and have their picture immortalized on the base of the trophy. (last year, we had no base because my crafting skill is 0)

It’s been a crazy week in the land of SnarkCast, and Krys and Grim have already been overtaken by events given that we recorded [...]]]> Yeah, I realize that I’m going to run out of sequel titles to use in these posts and that I’ll be repeating myself soon.  I’ll deal with that problem when I get there.

It’s been a crazy week in the land of SnarkCast, and Krys and Grim have already been overtaken by events given that we recorded this podcast before:

1. The Dragon*Con Staff Meeting last weekend.
2. Blizzard was allowed to partially re-launch WoW in China.

Oh well, them’s the breaks.  In any event, enjoy the podcast (show notes are included after the jump).  Thanks for listening, and we’ll be recording a new podcast very soon.

• Intro
• WRUP? (Also known as “What are you playing?”)
• AOC’s “come back” promotion
  • http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=2926&table=CONTENT
• WoW’s legal trouble in little China
  • http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=152539_0_5_0_M
• Global Agenda Beta starting on July 24
  • http://www.globalagendagame.com
• Professor Griefer & CoH
  • http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/loyola_university_professor_be.html
• CoH: Issue 16 announced
  • http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/game_updates/issue_16/issue_16_overview.html
• Cryptic”Nemesis Online, can we start calling it “CoH 2″ now?
  • http://www.massively.com/2009/07/16/cryptic-could-make-champions-counterpart-nemesis-online
• Eurogamer does re-review of Darkfall, rates it 4/10
  • http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/darkfall-online-second-review
  • http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/darkfall-online-review
• Why MMO’s are like Men/Women
  • http://blog.weflyspitfires.com/2009/07/12/mmorpgs-are-a-lot-like-women/
  • http://divagoth.com/2009/07/12/why-mmos-are-like-men-a-reply/
• Dragon*Con News Storytelling in MMO’s panel is added
  • TERRY FREAKIN’ GILLIAM IS COMING!!!
  • DC*MMO T-shirts in da house

(Opening music, courtesy of …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, “Isis Unveiled”)

Scheduling is pretty much complete and now we turn our attention towards our giveaways, contests, and other events. One such bit of news, for those of you who are interested in attending our WoW Party on Saturday night, is that we will have a cash bar inside the ballroom this [...]]]> I know, it’s been a while…

Scheduling is pretty much complete and now we turn our attention towards our giveaways, contests, and other events. One such bit of news, for those of you who are interested in attending our WoW Party on Saturday night, is that we will have a cash bar inside the ballroom this year.  You will not have to leave the party to obtain performance enhancing substances for our contest this time around.

Our new friends at Comcast (yes, THAT Comcast) have decided to sponsor our WoW party this year and will be adding some fantastic prizes for us to give away.  I could tell you… but I’d rather keep it a surprise.  You will not be disappointed.

We will also have some goodies to give away during our MMO Trivia contest on Sunday night, courtesy of Sony Online Entertainment, Funcom, Hi-Rez Studios, and a cast of dozens.  More details to follow, but I can say that we will probably have more free stuff to give away this year than we did last year… And last year, we had a LOT.

The nice folks at Hi-Rez Studios, creators of Global Agenda, were nice enough to invite us  (For those of you keeping score, “us” is my second-in-command, Trevor, our staff barista, Ian, and yours truly) to their offices so we could have a look around and even get our hands on a pre-alpha version of [...]]]>

The nice folks at Hi-Rez Studios, creators of Global Agenda, were nice enough to invite us  (For those of you keeping score, “us” is my second-in-command, Trevor, our staff barista, Ian, and yours truly) to their offices so we could have a look around and even get our hands on a pre-alpha version of the game.

To start off, we got to take a look behind the scenes and meet the artists and developers who are bringing this game to life.

The demonic red glow in his eyes was a comforting sign that this game will not coddle the weak or the Carebear. (either that, or our photographer loves his flash a little too much)  We also noticed a number of signs around the office that say “No Elves”.  There is a kind of attitude at Hi-Rez that shows that these guys love what they are doing, and those are the kind of people that make really good games.  We were looking forward to getting our hands on the real thing, even if it was described as “pre-pre-pre-Alpha” code.

Reality being what it is in the gaming industry, we all had to sign a stack of non-disclosure forms about the actual content in game, so you won’t see any screenshots or inside information (yet… keep reading).  However, we did manage to take some shots of the concept art that they had on the walls in the office.  I can only wish that my office decor was as cool.

If you check our gallery, you can see full-size pictures which show significantly more detail, but at least you can see a little bit of what is going to go into this game.  It did not escape our notice that there are more than just the standard sci-fi “urban dystopia” settings that so many sci-fi games drown in.  The outdoor scenery was quite impressive.  Michal, our host for this tour, even said “The outdoor scenes look like places I would want to go on vacation.  Except for all of the guns and bombs and stuff that we’ve added.”  We had to agree.  It was nice to see such a wide variety of settings and terrain.

Finally, they took us to the game testing lab!  Hi-Rez has recruited game players from the local community and invited them to come in with their friends to play and provide feedback on the game.  As it was, we happened to hit the gaming lab on a day where the room was packed (you wouldn’t know by this picture, but there were players waiting to get a turn at the game.)

In fact, the three empty chairs you see in the center of this picture are the ones that our butts were about to fill.  We were encouraged to figure out the mechanics on our own as best we could to see how intuitive the interface was, and for the most part, it was quite familiar.  Our host was nice enough to “bump us up” a few levels, then they turned us loose on some PvE missions.   The game has 4 basics classes (which you can read about on their website), and we tried a little of each.  Michal said that she would be back for us in 20 minutes or so, but we played for nearly an hour before we decided that we needed to wrap things up. (Rush hour traffic in Atlanta is no joke.)

Our opinion? (and it was unanimous)  We each took turns begging for a beta key, and we can’t wait to see the finished product.  Those of you who mourned the passing of Tabula Rasa will be especially happy as this game does a lot of the things TR did, but does them better.  It borrows some concepts from many different games, but has enough unique elements to make it a unique specimen of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

As a special treat for all of you who read this wall of text and pictures, I’d like to announce that we are currently working on having a hands-on, pre-beta, demo of Global Agenda at Dragon*Con this year.  Hi-Rez will have a 1-hour Q&A/Demo session on Sunday afternoon, but we’re working on setting up an “open-all-nite” gaming lab at the Sheraton where folks can come and play the game until the wee hours of the morning.  Believe me when I tell you that you will not want to miss it.

I took a much-needed break to look for my lost sanity, and celebrate my very first Father’s Day, and I’m back and well-rested for the final push towards Dragon*Con 2009.

The schedule is pretty much done at this point, but I’ll be meeting with a couple of folks this week to lock things down.  [...]]]> Ok, so maybe not…

I took a much-needed break to look for my lost sanity, and celebrate my very first Father’s Day, and I’m back and well-rested for the final push towards Dragon*Con 2009.

The schedule is pretty much done at this point, but I’ll be meeting with a couple of folks this week to lock things down.  Once we get the schedule finalized, a process which involves hours of tedious data entry, we’ll let you guys know what we have in store for you.  I can’t tell you exactly how many panels and events we have planned, but I will say this much.  It’s a lot.

Here is a quick rundown of some of the other stuff we have to finish before we go downtown this year…

Prizes!   WoW TCG Loot has graciously agreed to provide some goodies for us to give away this year.  We have a  few surprises for our non-WoW players as well.

T-shirts!  We have an official “DC*MMO 2009″ t-shirt in the works, and we’ll be showing those off really soon.

Videos!  Our guys are scouring the Internet to find videos, trailers, and other goodies to show during our contests and in-between panels.

Trivia!  We’re still working on our questions for this year’s trivia contests.  There will be a “Hardcore MMO” trivia contest on Friday night. (very little, or even NO World of Warcraft trivia…) There will also be a World of Warcraft (only) trivia contest on Saturday.  Each game will have the same format.  Each game will have prizes.  But only the Hardcore Trivia Contest Winners will be honored with a place on our trophy, the Bling Gnome!  Every year, the winning trivia team will be immortalized with their picture placed on the base of the trophy.  Like the Stanley Cup, once we fill up all the room on the base, we’ll make the base a little bigger.

Podcast!  Yes, we are going to be doing another SnarkCast shortly.  Krystalle, in addition to her duties at E3, as been on the shelf with an injury and I’ve been spending way too much time at the “body-and-fender shop” myself, lately.

We have some other stuff in the works, and we’ll be telling you all about it as we get closer to the convention.

73 days until Dragon*Con.