Home again, home again.
We’ve returned from Paris and the jetlag has abated (mostly).
It was a really great event – tons of attendees, lots of really detailed presentations and extended Q&A sessions, plenty of tiny, tiny food. Our partners at GOA went all-out, providing an amazing facility, GIANT Chosen and Witch Hunter statues to keep Jeff and I company on stage and plenty of excellent extra-curricular activities. So a big thanks to those guys for running an absolutely kick-ass event.
I won’t go into too much detail on what we did, as the hundred or so members of the press will likely have that well-covered shortly. Briefly, the event ran like this:
Day One
– Jeff and I do an hour-plus long presentation to open the event. It included – among other things – a history of the studio and the project, a seriously detailed tour of some capital cities, a video tour of the Tome of knowledge and a direct response to concerns over individuality and customization. I only said “asparagus” once during the entire thing, which is pretty darn good for me.
– Official Collectors Edition announcement. Poor Steve Perkins had to drag that 7 pound monster halfway around the planet, but it was totally worth it show folks – first hand – just how awesome the CE is.
– Detailed panels. We ran four panels, ranging from half an hour to forty five minutes long dedicated to specific areas of the game. Jeff did RvR. The inimitable Kate Flack and I did Capital Cities. Adam did Careers. Carrie did the Tome. We tried to restrict our babbling as much as possible to leave room for questions, but I think Jeff spent most of his time teaching the press to scream WAAAGH!!! so loudly that the windows upstairs rattled.
– Bribing the press with booze A lovely dinner with the media. We took everyone on a night time cruise of Paris down the river Seine. The wine flowed. The Eiffel Tower blinked like a giant pillar of DISCO POWAH! The Hickman broke the arms of anyone who tried to take away his giant pile of Tiny Tunafish Sandwiches. A good time was had by all.
Day Two
– Hands on play time. The press had the chance to spend multiple hours, hands-on with the game. One crazy dude spent five hours over the course of two days and STILL managed to hit all of the panels, one on ones and stage presentations. I think he just failed to sleep for 72 hours straight.
– One on one interviews. All the Mythic folks who did panels also did one on one interviews the following day. Between the five groups (GOA ran a fifth set of interviews, aided by Our Man Across the Pond – Rowland Cox) we did nearly 80 interviews.
Overall, I think everyone had a blast. I absolutely LOVE getting a chance to do really expansive, detailed press events like this because it helps us really show off the game, answer tough (but good) questions and connect with the folks who are down in the trenches keeping tabs on the industry.
My thanks to everyone from the press who attended. I hope we gave you guys plenty of useful information (as well as providing a fun couple of days in Paris) .
BONUS STORY:
On our last night in Paris, whilst getting into a cab after dinner, I stepped in the largest pile of dog crap I’ve EVER seen. I frantically scraped as much of it from my shoe as possible before jumping into the cab, but it was… let’s say… an AWKWARD ride back. Obviously, I tipped generously as I jumped out in front of our hotel.
Not wanting to drag a boot-load of high-octane dookie into the lobby of the posh Hotel du Louvre, I stomped around in puddles for a while, hoping to wash off as much of the offending goo as possible. After a few minutes, it became clear that I needed more than an inch or two of water to solve this problem, so I headed over to the courtyard of the Louvre in search of some grass.
Needless to say, the Louvre is gorgeous – especially at night – but it’s not heavy on surfaces that suited my needs. I would’ve sacrificed any amount of ornate, palatial museum architecture to get a single patch of good, old-fashioned poop-wipin’ grass, but there was none to be seen. There was, however, a hedge maze.
If you’ve never been in a hedge maze at night, let me just say that it’s REALLY difficult to not look unbelievably suspicious – especially when you’re awkwardly shoving your right leg INTO the bushes and vigorously shaking it. But I was unphased by this and managed to get a large amount of boot cleaning done there in the heart of the maze. What DID phase me was the gradual realization – as my eyes adapted to the darkness – that there were about ten other guys in the maze. All of them just sort of standing there, spread throughout the maze. And they didn’t look like security.
So I fled from the maze, still dragging a major case of stink-boot behind me. I grabbed some sticks on my way out and headed for a bench. There, in the warm glow of the greatest museum on earth, I scraped poop from my shoe for the better part of half an hour.
As I was finishing up, a man walked up to me and smiled. I smiled back quickly and returned to my scraping. He spoke some Moon Language at me, which failed to include any of the French words I actually know, so I just shrugged, pointed at my boot and said with as much Frenchness as I could muster:
“Merde.”
He screwed up his face a bit, glanced at my boot, turned away from me and – while pointing into the distance – yelled at the top of his lungs:
“SAVAGES!!!!”
Then he smiled and wandered off.
With my boot finally clean, I headed back to pack my bags.
[UPDATE] A comment from Argothe_Telconchar, over on the VN Boards:
“I think the frenchman thought he stepped in human feces left by some of the guys in the maze.”
Ya know… I think I agree.
*shudders*
I’m loving all the information trickling out as the press get their coverage posted. Lots of info from GOA on beta dates, subscription costs, and more that I’m hoping is accurate.
Good to hear your trip wasn’t ruined by the assouline. 😉
[…] as it turns out, there’s a BIT more to the “Bonus Story” from Paris than I initially offered. I excluded it in the interest of my own sanity and to protect the good, […]