I know, I know. I’m stupidly late, but a couple of folks asked if I managed to look less like a “Spy vs. Spy” character in the end, so here are some shots from Paul’s Halloween party:

In addition to WAR and DAoC, Mythic takes care of the Granddaddy of modern MMOs (well, ONE of them, anyway), Ultima Online.  When we took over some time after EA acquired us, we were sent a HUGE shipment of “stuff” that the old Origin Systems stduio had packed up and put into storage many moons ago.

There were obvious gems in the shipment (like original Hildebrandt Brothers paintings and a Kilrathi battle suit), but most of it was seemingly random and hard to appreciate.  So it went back into storage for a while.  

At some point, Barnett got in touch with the fans who run the Origin Museum.  Not wanting to see this wealth of Origin goodies go all “Indiana Jones” on us and disappear into some beureaucratic memory hole forever, we invited them to come to the studio and see what they could make of it all. 

They arrived with a vast array of machinery (both new and old) to help them decipher, document and archive everything.  While they were in, we’d occasionally pop our heads in and check out what they were up to, but they were generally so intensely focused that we felt like we were getting in the way, so we left them alone most of the time.  After a week, they boxed everything up and headed home.

The Stash went back into storage and we got back to the business of building WAR.

Earlier today, I got to wondering what ever came of their efforts.  A bit of googling later unearthed a really cool write-up they did of their trip.  I’ll leave it to them to detail the whole event.

This sort of thing is important to our industry (as I’ve mentioned before).  The folks who built those old games have all moved on to other things (some of them have seemingly left the industry entirely), but their work is important and deserves to be remembered and appreciated.  We got lucky and had a cache of amazing stuff fall into our laps when EA bought us and – luckier still – we were able to get the guys from the Origin Museum to come in and make sense of it all.

It’s sad to think of the number of great old games whose history and background stories have already been lost to the ages, but it’s also heartening to see that we’re starting to take better care of our legacy as an industry. 

So, in a fit of lunacy, I decided to opt out of my standard costume of “zombie wearing whatever Josh had on at work that day” this year.  Instead, I’m going as a medieval Plague Doctor. I figure it’s a pretty “Warhammery” sort of costume already, but I’m going to ramp that up with a belt full of random totems and potions and such (so far, I’ve got a cross made of “Sigmar’s Bones” and a wax-sealed jar with a witch’s toe inside… oh, and a dead rat).

This is the image I’m working off of:

It gets REALLY hot in the mask (and I may want to let the paint dry a bit more before trying it on again… fuuumes…), but I’m pleased with how it worked out.

The hat’s not quite right, but I think the floppy look of it is somewhat creepier. I don’t like how bunchy the robe is, so I’m going to look into getting a 5′x5′ square of leather (or pleather or some such) to make a bib/cassock type deal. I need to do something with my hands also. Probably weird gloves and skull rings or some such.

Anywho, I’ve got two days to finish the damn thing for use at Paul’s party. Pictures of the final deal to follow at some point.

Apparently, the rumors of public-access to E3 ’09 were false.   

Instead, the show will be bigger than last year, but smaller by a full order of magnitude than when the event mattered.  And with no access for the general public. 

I can’t say I understand this decision at all. 

Our Launch Party was held last Thursday in the Sequoia Club in Georgetown (a neighborhood in DC).

I didn’t take a ton of pictures because… ya know… open bar + all my friends = distracting.  Nevertheless, what shots I DID get can be viewed here.

I tossed in some other shots from various launch-related events that have happened over the past month.

[UPDATE] Here’s a quick video pan-around of the club where we held the party:

FYI, I’m off all week.  Which is, to be honest, kind of weird.

I haven’t taken more than a day or two off in a row in… well… YEARS.  Anywho, The Hickman is starting to crack down and force his minions to stay away from the office and relax a bit.

I spent my first two days doing chores, but now I’m MOSTLY done and I still have three whole days to kill.  Current plan:

- Watch all of my favorite movies repeatedly.  Which basically means “watching Patton over and over again while wearing the helmet Paul gave me from Patton’s army.” Did I mention that Patton is available on Blu-Ray?  Because it totally IS.

- Read.  My “to read” pile includes a bunch of Mark Twain and George Orwell essays, Sarah Vowell’s new book and a nice chunk of the old Ostrander run of The Spectre that I picked up on the cheap at a local funnybook shop a while back.

- Jog.  Or walk briskly.  Or something.  The last few years have been – for lack of a better term – ri-goddamn-diculously brutal on my overall health.  I’ve never been skinny, but before we started WAR I could at least do a few chin-ups.  I recognize that it’s my fault for letting work trump fitness, but I figure this is as good a time as any to get back on that particular horse (also, I’d rather not look like a land-whale at my wedding next spring).

- Play games that have nothing to do with MMOs.  Lego Batman and Dead Space, I’m looking at YOU.

So… yeah.   Don’t expect anything useful from me for at least a week.

P.S. Out launch party is this Thursday, so I may have some pictures from that shortly.