JGE: Impressions From a PvP Junkie

Apologies for not posting in a more timely fashion. After the final day of E3 I set off on a grueling drive back to Wisconsin, losing my way in Los Vegas for a day. Regardless, I am here now, slightly poorer, to share my thoughts on the JGE presentation. Most of what was revealed has been discussed in great length already, so I'll be tailoring my impressions for my fellow PvP crazies out there.

Great News: JGE is all about PvP

Not that you didn't know this already, but JGE is all about the nation-on-nation warfare. What this means is the focus on hauling, crafting, and economy seems to be firmly secondary. This game is not about space truckers and scientists. This game is all about heading into space with your squadron at your side, your nation at your back, and a horde of NPC's and players in front of you with TNT strapped between their legs, whilst you carry the match. Though many were undoubtedly planning on setting up mining corporations and trade guilds, the door on taking focus off of combat has firmly been shut. As was an often-repeated phrase, "You are a soldier on the front line. You are not the guy driving the supply truck."

Massive Battles are Standard Operating Procedure

During the presentation, we were shown a sector filled with 700 AI-controlled craft. While the sector was certainly immense, it was by no means empty. As we have heard before, there will always be a lot going on in any given sector; with asteroids, stations, and all manner of debris to provide for your devious strategies and to test your skill at the helm. I was pleased to hear the aforementioned engagement was considered standard rather than large by relative terms. 700 AI is by no means the extent of JGE's capabilities and we can expect to see even larger engagements surface.

Should I Prepare for Another Zerg-Fest?

No. You are not likely to ever find yourself alone, or so hopelessly outnumbered so as to not put up a fight. With JGE, there will be scores of AI-controlled craft, friendly and enemy, in any given sector. So, if you happen to be the only Octavian player who showed up to fend off 100 enemy player characters, the fight may end up 400 vs 300, as opposed to 100 vs 1. Will you still lose? Unless you are Luke Skywalker reincarnated, I'd count on it. However, you can still effectively confront the enemy and possibly buy enough time for reinforcements to show up. If any of you are like me, you may even enjoy facing impossible odds.

Let's not forget; we are dealing with a three-nation system. You might expect the further you push into enemy territory the more momentum you will gain, creating a foregone conclusion to the conflict. It appears we may see the opposite. As one nation pushes deeper and deeper into enemy space, it will likely find itself facing near the full-measure of two opposing nations. I've often marveled at how a three-faction system can so often be overlooked in favor of a two-faction system. Thankfully, JGE will showcase the former and should create some fairly adrenaline-packed encounters and deceptive (read underhanded) strategies on a micro and meta scale.

Progression in Terms of Competition

You may be asking yourself, "If I join the party late, or tend to play casually, will I end up as shit on somebody's boot?" The answer tends to be a resounding "yes and no," with an emphasis on the "no." You will undoubtedly be at a disadvantage against a character who has progressed further than yourself, but you will always have a chance, considering you're no Porkins in the cockpit. Players of all level and skill will be able to contribute in a meaningful way. While you may stand little chance as a level 10 against a level 50, a level 10 and a 50 against another level 50 will certainly carry the day.

Players spanning the 10 to 50 level range will be useful to any PvP encounter. You will never find yourself unwelcome due to your level or equipment. At the very least, you can serve as cannon fodder or a distraction. You can also supplement an attack or shoot past enemy lines to harass the enemy and seize objectives. In essence, you can participate in the end-game very nearly out of the gates. Stepping back from the gameplay perspective, this will ensure any friends you encourage to play the game will have a great new-player experience and should positively affect retention.

Space Pirates?

Sadly, we will not see any space piracy in the traditional sense. I know, my heart was broken also. Do not despair, though. This may be chance to become something of a privateer. Sure, you'll have to put away the Jolly Roger and strike the colors of one of the three nations, but piracy-flavored activities will still be available. Any engagement is likely to see ant-trails of reinforcements continually moving to the front lines. Get a squadron together and cut these trails down. You would gain notoriety and further the cause of your nation. Lurk in the shadows of asteroids and engage unprotected gunboats from an advantageous position. Take no prisoners and engage in guerrilla warfare on behalf of your nation. The point is, JGE appears to be the sort of game where you get out of it, what you put into it. Find some like-minded pilots and set your course.

Death Penalty?

Certain to be a hot topic, the death penalty will be limited. We are not looking at a full-loot system, or anything approaching severity. From what I gathered, we will most likely see a degradation and repair system coupled with fast respawn and the ability to re-enter the fight in a timely fashion. Looking at the positive end of this, you will not find yourself on the outside looking in. You can aggressively engage the enemy knowing you will not be gated from the fight for attempting a daring maneuver or a cunning strategy. This will likely create something akin to battle lines moving back and forth where individual effort and success can manipulate the flow of battle for everyone. This will also allow for picketing strategies, where squadrons may be tasked with harassing and blocking reinforcements.

On the negative end - well, who really cares. It is what it is, and there's little sense in carrying on about "what might have been." The truth is, with the system that is in place we will see a more action-packed game, lending itself better to strategy development and intense competition reliant on cooperation and communication.

Battlegrounds and Dueling?

I cannot provide you with much information here. Battlegrounds in the traditional sense do not seem to be a priority. However, controlled PvP environments were alluded to, with something akin to a promise of duels. Regardless of how this will flesh out, my money says you can expect to see smaller-scale engagements with some sort of controllable parameters. How they will be able to do this without instancing or flagging remains to be seen, but I know it will be a welcome addition.

Conclusion

From what I've seen and heard, JGE is going to be an action-packed festival of fragging. I expect to see large-scale cooperation similar to that of Warhammer Online, without the prevalence of zerging. I also expect the nation and server-based communities will develop strongly due to the progressive campaign-style PvP, complete with capstone achievements, such as sector capture. I also look forward to seeing the undisclosed timetable as the development team has taken a strong focus on shipping the game; something that would have frightened me had I not seen the quality of the product in person. For every PvP fan and follower of JGE, rest assured; you will not likely be disappointed.

Jumpgate and Final E3 thoughts

I know I'm a little late in posting this but I had some ISP problems the past couple days and was unable to update here. But here we go.

I got to say that between the presentation and the Q&A I was satisfied with the information I got. It seemed that they really wanted to emphasize the focus of this game. They commented on the fact that because there was so little specific information about the game, people had made up their minds about what kind of game this was going to be. They emphasized that it would be action oriented with PVP being the focus, with some PVE. Things like crafting, trading, mining etc. would be there only to supplement the combat, not as a main focus to the game. Something I didnt happen to get answered (I forgot to ask) is about how the factions differ as in skills/stats/ships and so on, but that will be revealed in time. And Just a small correction about Soulmirror's post- They said you can only create one faction per server, not account.

As far as my playtest went, I was very impressed by the visuals and the controls were pretty much what you'd expect from this kind of game. Which is a good thing, they worked well. They seem to have really gone through some great lengths to make space look interesting. From a great distance you can see NPCs flying around, shooting at each other, flying around a huge space station with debris floating about. In the presentation, he actually flew the ship inside an asteroid to blow up some kind of structure. It's these sorts of things I would love to see more of because it really adds a lot to the immersion in a space flight type of game. There's nothing more boring than flying about in a great big nothing shooting wave after wave of ships. It makes for very boring dog fighting (I'm looking at you SWG: JTL). They did however reassure me (during the Q&A) that navigating cramped areas during combat would be a regular part of the game.

They also talked about how the story in the missions will update or even change completely on the fly. An example of this was seen in the presentation: The mission tells you to go fly to this huge moon but upon nearing the moon, a huge chunk of it is blown off, and your mission is updated according to what just happened. They commented that this sort of thing would happen a lot in the game- You might be told to go collect 10 of an item but then there's a plot twist that interrupts your collecting and you are told to go accomplish a different objective. The star of the game is the player; there's not a ton of back story about heroes who fought some giant war in the past while you're some nobody collecting eyeballs for some guy that wants to make stew.

People play videogames for different reasons. Therefore different features are important to different people. Myself, I play games to be immersed in a world, story, or ideally, both. If a game does that well, things like PVE vs PVP, guilds, crafting, raids are all just added bonuses for me. JGE appeals to me because they really spent some time trying to make you care about the story via the updating missions. If I'm told to go out and kill 10 X and I go and do that, then I'm told to do it another 100 times, I will never, ever read the quest text and I will never feel immersed in the game. But if I'm told to kill 10 X, then the nearby planet explodes, I'm going to think "Wait a second! why did that happen?!" and I'll be immersed in the game world. That will make me care about why I am completeing missions even if it is "Kill 10 X". So if they keep this sort of variety in the missions, then I think JGE is going to be a great game.

Thanks again guys for sending me to E3!

day 3

I am currently in the Salt Lake City Airport and the plane is down, this will be terse for a blog and represents what we were told, shown in the JGE booth, this is not personal opinion, just some of the questions, answers and what we saw. My next post is my opinion.

Pirates? No

Cross faction squads? No

Individual and squad stats? Yes

Voice support? Yes

1 Faction per account.

Missions will update inflight, the only ones that will not are the ones that require a change of equipment.

Limited backstory, you are part of the story as it is unfolding.

Missions can and will change inflight, offering new objectives on the fly.

In the demo we were shown there were over 700 ai ships /platforms / in just 1 system.

There will be customizable portraits

Q and E are in fact Barrelroll

There is a minimal death penalty

Missions are progressive, Capturing sectors X, Y and Z, will open up another encounter, making the system dynamic.

No friendly fire

There will be radar (work in progress)

The is PVE and PVP, the earliest you can PvP is level 10. If you see an enemy you can shoot at it and vice versa.

Ship will customise are systems are added, no colour customization.

Social sytems will be in place.

Focus is on single flight models, no multiple personnel flying a ship.

This is a PvP game, not haulers or miners in space.

The game features you as the soldier on the front line.

The next major update is at PAX.

I apologise for the terseness of the information, but I had a change to blog it and I did, I will post more tomorrow. /Soulmirror

Jumpgate Impressions AKA The Whole Reason I'm Here

This post is probably going to be pretty long so bare with me. As part of our Q&A session today, we also got to sit down and play the game for a few moments. It was an Octavian starter area, so the type of weapons as well as enemy AI were both both basic. Even still, it left me with a very solid impression of where this game is going. We also watched a play through of a higher level mission as part of the presentation portion.

Spaceflight
Flying felt great and was very easy to ease into using a keyboard and mouse setup. As stated in a myriad other places, W & S control speed (with shift + W using boosters), Q & E control the roll of the ship, A & D control horizontal strafe, and R & F control vertical strafe. The flight physics were heavy on the dampeners, with maybe a little newtonian thrown in, but the dev that was with me said that the amount of newtonian flying in the game was adjusted by a sliding scale (I dont know if he meant strictly at their disposal or if it was something players could control). If I had any complaints it was that rolling seemed a bit slow feeling. That may be because of the newbie area, may be because of the dampeners. But I would like the ability to roll around fast, so those of us with quick and nimble fingers can pull tighter maneuvers.

Visuals & Interface
The game looked fantastic. And NetDevil has done a great job of making space feel lively and complex. There is debris floating about and asteroids milling around. There are fleet ships, and stations among other things taking up the real estate to keep space from being the dismal black it probably actually is. As important as the visuals are they dont stand on their own, and a clean interface is imperative to navigating the game world, while not destroying the sense of immersion the game world brings in. The interface was excellently designed, with no UI element feeling like it was in the way. To the left and right of your ship are your Hull and Shield bars. Beneath that is a gauge for boost power and current speed. Those items existed in a circular HUD. Around that circle moved an "objective" reticule, to help steer you into the right direction for your current missions. Beneath the circular HUD was a box that was usually hidden, but would pop up on occasion to report on mission completion and guide you further along. Bottom left was a chat box, and in the middle right was a mission log (that they admitted was a newly designed element). All in all very clean, non-distracting interface that helped to lock in the immersion.

Combat
Unfortunately we didnt get to participate in any super massive space battles. Since we were only flying about the newbie area, the combat was limited to shooting at newbie tuned NPC's. What I took from the combat was, most importantly, that it was smooth. Following around an enemy through sweeps and turns was easy enough. Maintaining my firing cursor on the leading reticule was also simple. Keep in mind the enemy AI wasnt doing much in the way of advanced maneuvering, and I can just imagine how much those twitch skills I have been honing will come in handy when other players, or the more advanced AI, come within my sights. At NetDevils own admittance during our Q&A, they have put a lot of work into the netcode of the game. Which im sure some of the motivation to get that hammered down was the inclusion of Technical Director Jason Bucher's face. Happy if the network was stable. And grumpy if it was lagging. Apparently he is happy near all the time now, so that should really help to keep the combat flowing smoothly.

In addition to smooth combat is the focus on massive battles. They talked it up a lot, and during the preview demonstration the sector they were in had over 700 NPC's flying about and everything appeared to be rock solid. This is probably what I am looking forward to the most, the massive battles between factions, with 100's of players occupying the system. They implied that the systems could support more than the 700 number, and that the system they were showing wasnt even their most occupied system. Its great to see NPC support for those off-peak gamers that still want to get some work done for their faction.

Thoughts from the Q&A
I am not going to provide a transcription of the Q&A session here. More than enough people have done that already. Please check out -Tikigod-'s post on the Codemasters forum HERE or you can always watch a replay of the livestream HERE.

I was really hoping to hear some information to incentivise squads. Unfortunately they werent up to discussing station ownership or any sort of reward system. I am of a mixed opinion on the death penalty. On the one hand, I am excited about not needing to spend a lot of time racing back to combat. On the other hand, I am worried that such a short timeframe could mean that massive battles turn into a war of attrition. To the victor go the spoils, but to the loser go to sleep. Have you really captured an objective or system if the victory is solely attributed to the other factions bed time? I guess we will need to wait and see how this plays out.

I am really liking their focus on PvP, stating it is THE focus of the game. All events lead to system control and the massive battles they keep promising. I appreciate that they arent pulling any punches here and flowering up the presentation with "well if you dont want to PvP then you can...." NO! There are "PvE" objectives while in PvP space, just bring a wingman to cover your back. I am a little sad that there will not be friendly fire, I like to think of it as a control mechanism for poor play. Though with battles featuring 100's of players, I can understand their motivation to not have you shot down if you inadvertently strafe into your teammate's firing line.

What I am not saddened about it the lack of any sort of hauling/mining economy game to be played.The dev's made small mentions of an existence of a crafting system. but in their views you are a soldier, or in the case of Solrain, a hired gun. You are of the elite and you dont provide for others, the nations provide for you. A lot will probably lament the loss of the economy games, but this isnt New Eve. Its dogfighting in space.

More Thoughts
Jumpgate Evolution feels great. I definitely got the feeling that this is a game they care for and are committed to releasing and supporting. I am excited to see where the story stands now, as it has been rewritten. During the presentation time I think they stated their new goal the best: its more about the ongoing story and less about the back story, more about context and less about lore. And those things are important and are changing the motivations some of the nations have in this war.

While they wouldnt confirm any dates, they did say that they have a definitive timeline for release. And that their current motivation is to ship the game. After experiencing the game today, I can say that I am very excited to see this game release. I had an excellent time during my time playing it.

I want to once again thank NetDevil and Gazillion for sending all of us to E3 and giving us this excellent sneak peak. Special thanks to David Bass (@doctordake) and the unnamed intern that pointed out they had extra passes they could hand out, and David's insistence that they invite members from the community (That is how he tells the story anyway).

Demos Galore

Ok so today I demoed a lot more games. I'll talk about the ones I am most excited for. Just as a side note- I'm including pictures of the booths and whats actually at E3 as opposed to on-screen pictures of the game because you can easily look up far better quality info and screenshots of the actual games than I could. I'd just like to show what it looks like being there.

Hard Corps Up Rising - Always been a fan of shoot em ups like contra and metal slug. Big guns, colorful, fluid animation, what more can you ask for in a shoot 'em up?

3DS - Today the line to demo the 3ds was much much shorter, it took about 45 minutes to get through it as opposed to 2 hours. As I'm sure everyone has heard, it's 3d, and it doesnt require glasses.After a while of staring at it it was beginning to hurt my eyes, fortunately there's a little slider that allows you adjust the "intensity" of the 3d image -you can turn it completely off.It is pretty cool but I'm not completely convinced this is going to enhance my gaming experience. I was more excited about the fact that it now has an analog stick on it.
They had a lot of different demos, some playable and others just videos. Among some of the ones I played were a pilot wings demo, star fox, dynasty warriors, and a resident evil video demo. The graphics by they way, were considerably better than the DSi, and I was very impressed.

They would not let us take pictures of the games, but here's the line...

Fallout New Vegas - Check out how much Bethesda decorated their booth. Unfortunately it was visitable by invitation only. Boooo.

Vindictus - A free action MMO by Nexon. It's looking pretty sweet, the character animations are really awesome and they were probably giving out the coolest swag at E3 (The fuzzy cat ear hat as was mentioned by another attendee already) Hopefully it will have an open world and not just be arena death matches.

Many fans clamoring for fuzzy hats and T shirts.

I also played a lot more MvC3 and demoed Shank, Puzzle Quest 2, tera (the other real time action mmo.) Scott Pilgrim, Twisted Metal, Sonic colors, Castlevania Lord of Shadows, Little Big planet 2 and a bunch others I can't think of. At any rate I'm very excited about JGE tomorrow, I just have to remember my list of questions to bring. Here's more pictures!

E3 Day 2

So today I actually spent most of my time trying out games. I'll skip any extra talk and get right to my impressions.

Fable III: One of the first demos I played and one that really stuck with me throughout the day. I'm not a huge fan of the Fable series, having only played through part of the first game on the PC, but Fable III as shown today was very entertaining. There were two different demos, split evenly among several stations. I played the non-combat version taking place in town, but I got a really good look at the combat version while waiting in line. I also was playing while one of the Lionhead reps was demoing the game for some journalists at the adjacent console, so I got a peek at some extra features like the character customization.

What I played was a quest involving rounding up chickens for a very dramatic farmer, who rambled on about how dangerous the chickens were, and gave me a special (and hilarious looking) chicken suit to aid in my quest. I teleported back to my house to put on the suit, and was greeted by my John Cleese-voiced butler, who was more than happy to show me around. The first room was the map room, where I assume like the first game you'll be able to travel using the big map. There were halls leading off to new rooms, and I followed them off into brief loading screen oblivion to find rooms for weapon, armor, and clothing selection, complete with mannequin previews, similar to Assassin's Creed 2. I donned my suit of walking hilarity and went back out to town. Rounding up the chickens was a simple matter... find a group of three chickens, approach said chickens, and press A to do a chicken dance, complete with sound effects, to convince the birds to follow me back to the coop. Once that was done, the farmer was overjoyed that I had just saved the world from feathery doom, and was about to reward me when his wife appeared, upset that the chickens were back. Evidently she's a bit of a tree-hugger... well chicken hugger in this case, and hates to see the chickens cooped up. In the end the choice was left with me, to either set the chickens free for good or allow the farmer to end their plots at world domination... with a shotgun. I, of course, opted for the free chicken dinner, and that was that. All in all, a potentially boring step and fetch quest was presented in an original and humorous manner. Here's hoping the rest of the game is in keeping with the same style.

The combat I saw looked like generally more of the same stuff I remember from the first game, with a few small-ish differences. First of all, instead of bows, you now get a gun. Yes, a gun. It looked like a colonial-period flintlock pistol... except it fired semi-automatic and had infinite ammo. Okay, sometimes we have to bend the rules. Second, instead of direct spells, it seemed like you bought "gauntlets" which had a spell contained in them. The generic one given in the demo was lightning, and it seemed that you could make it single target or area-of-effect depending on how long you held down the button. Also, you have a dog (which I hear was also in Fable II) and it was very good looking and nicely animated. Seemed to have pretty good AI too.

The Lord of the Rings: The War in the North: I sat in on a demo of this that had three developers from Snowblind playing through the game side-by-side on three computers. I'm a big fan of Tolkien's writing and the LOTR trilogy in particular, and so this game was definitely on my radar. The game was obviously built for co-op... three player co-op to be precise. That's right, not two player or four player, but three players. Odd, right? But it seemed to work quite well.

The game has the players playing as a Man, a Dwarf, and a female elf. If this sounds familiar, that's because it's meant to evoke the famed Aragorn-Legolas-Gimli trio. There are some differences, however. The man is actually a wizard, or demi-wizard who can cast spells which benefit the entire party, as well as get in close and fight with his staff (and please please please an unlockable off-hand sword later on!) in melee. The dwarf was pretty standard, as all Tolkien dwarves are very similar. Then there was the elf-chick Legolas, basically a standard hunter with a bow and some melee skills. All in all you had your basic "holy trinity" in MMO-speak.

Combat seemed pretty tactical and cooperative, and actually reminded me a bit of the old hack n' slash movie tie in games from the last generation. However there was evidence of all three classes having combat skills, and ranged combat (via xbow for dwarf, staff bolts for man, and bow for elf) involved physically aiming at the target with a crosshair, which was a nice way to mix it up some more. The enemies were varied and seemed pretty competent. They were more than happy to use their own magical spells against you. There was one prominent example where the players came across an enemy group several times their size, clustered around an enemy caster who had a shield up. This spell, which was used by the players as well, is pretty standard for RPGs, being a big dome shaped shield that protects anyone inside of it from missile attacks. The players used their shield to get in close to the enemy save from archers and spells, then moved into melee to take out the caster. With the caster down, the hunter took out the enemy archers while the dwarf and man took down the other melees.

What really ended up impressing me was the true RPG elements, however. Players could customize the look of their characters at the start, which was a nice touch, even if it seemed a bit limited. There was also lots of loot, and a glance at a character sheet showed that they could equip the full gamut of gear that you might see in an MMO or an RPG like Dragon Age. Gear was color coded like MMOs or Diablo, and there was also silver dropped, hopefully for use in a town somewhere. In terms of story, the developers talked a lot about really trying to evoke the classic story of Lord of the Rings while also breaking new ground at the same time. This likely means that in War in the North, players will be visiting new areas outside of the classic Rohan, Gondor, and Mordor, areas like the location of the demo level: southern Mirkwood. I really like this approach, since it gives Snowblind a chance to come up with some original story material while still staying relevant to the greater story, much like Turbine accomplished with LOTRO. Hopefully there's be a worthy story taking players through varied environments in Middle Earth, and the demo seemed to confirm that, sending the players into Mirkwood on the backs of the Great Eagles in search of Radagast the Brown. Radagast is only encountered once in the books, but is an Istari Wizard just like Gandalf and Saruman, and his lack of involvement in the main LOTR plot means he is fair game for use here.

This looks like a really promising game, and should (along with Hunted from Bethesda) bring some much-needed co-op fun to the action RPG genre.

Super Scribblenauts: I know I mentioned that I played this one yesterday, but today I had some more hands-on time with the game in the company of a very friendly rep from 5th Cell.

Now, don't let the childish presentation of the game fool you. In fact, my fellow E3 attendees, if you never played the original Scribblenauts, you owe it to yourself to check this game out before you leave the show. Yes it's a DS game, and yes it's very casual-friendly (my little sister, who hates most videogames, will steal my DS to play it when I come visit) but it's truly a masterpiece in sheer, dumbfounding scale. The game's premise is simple: you solve puzzles and accomplish basic tasks. However, you are given a massive toolbox with which to do this, and that toolbox contains everything, ever.

This was in the first game too. Type in "elephant" and you got an elephant. But in Super Scribblenauts, you can add adjective modifiers to things as well. So you can type in "pink flying elephant" and that's what you get (trust me I did it). You get extra points for being creative, of course, and there are all sorts of ways to solve the puzzles. Some you can just power through by spawning a "friendly dragon" to ride, a "massive battleaxe" to wield, and freaking "mighty God" to be your sidekick. Others require more specific things, like one I tried that had me feeding some poor test subject potions to give him the powers of a dragon. After feeding him "fire-breathing potion", "scaly potion", and "flying potion", he looked pretty ridiculous and I got my shiny star. (Yes, It Is Always Stars)

With the friendly rep to help me out, I worked through several puzzles, and got a handle on the new, more intuitive interface (which included new options to change the controls, the option to buy hints with "ollars", the in-game points rewarded at the end of levels, and a button to re-center the camera on Maxwell, the hero, in a pinch). There's no way around it, I absolutely love this game. It's really the ultimate DS game, featuring a unique and creative concept, easy accessibility, and bite-sized portions that reward imagination and skill.

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Well it's getting pretty late and I'm running out of steam. Gotta save my energy for the Jumpgate Evolution demo tomorrow, after all! (Not to mention the long drive back to Phoenix.) There were a number of other games I played today, including some MMOs like TERA, DC Universe Online, and Black Prophecy (don't worry NetDevil, the latter only served to get me even more excited for JG:E!). If I get more time I'll write up some more detailed previews for some of the other games I saw.

Until tomorrow!

(Edit: Whew, 1740 words. I think I win for today.)

The Sun Sets on the 2nd Day

So it’s the end of day 2 and I didn’t spend as much time wandering about today. I actually got down to business and did my duty as a gamer and played some games. Knocked a few things off my to-do list from yesterday

Todays Activities
No good, bad list today. Just an overall

• Medal of Honor - Actually got to sit down and play this today. My previous opinion of it still stands though. It just doesn’t feel like it does anything new. The guns feel the same. I still get a mortar strike for getting x amount of kills. And I still get points for shooting somebody to death, and shooting them to death in the face. More of the same here unfortunately. Hopefully as we get closer to release they will show off some new game modes that offer exciting gameplay and some (albeit minor at that point) innovation to the genre that is being saturated with games.
  
• Gran Turismo 5 - Been on my have to play list since the PS3 was announced. Near a century later we have a release date (November) and its playable on the show floor in all its glory. I got to play super quick, because everybody waiting in line wanted to try it in 3d (bleh). I did terribly. Ive never played the GT series using a wheel and pedal setup, so I was grossly out of my element. Given the amount of time they’ve worked on the game it should be perfect . And that was exactly my impression of it when I left. The tracks are lively, the driving is top notch. But I’m sure this is all expected of this title.
  
• Vanquish - A very nice shooter coming out of the Sega camp. The trailer released the other week was a bit on the “over the top acting and lines” side of things but the actual gameplay is nice and fast paced. The cover system works well and sliding around with the boosters is a little disorienting at first but I quickly figured it out and was dodging rockets and laser beams easily. My only real complaint is that it felt too easy. Lot of time left before release so hopefully they tighten up the AI.
  
• Ghost Recon: Future Soldier - Accidental called this advanced warfighter yesterday, which was the previous set of GR titles. The game isn’t playable, but Ubi paired groups with a developer and they did a nice walkthrough of a mission. The gameplay looks solid. And the 4-player coop sounds fantastic. The teammate AI in the demo they showed worked very well and seemed to respond to the players tactics. I would like to find out what kind of intensity they will bring to the single player (especially with Homefront still fresh on my mind), and I would like to know how they intend to keep the multi from becoming a camp fest with the active camo they use on the suits. But this is definitely a title I am going to be keeping my eye on.
  
• Mafia 2 - Got to sit down and take my time running through a mission. Probably a good 15 minutes or so of gameplay, and it did not disappoint. So far this game is shaping up to become the sequel that Mafia has always needed. The game feels right. From the tone and characters, to the driving and the tunes on the radio. I was prepared to kidnap a developer but they gave me a T-shirt, so I let them live another day.
  
• Black Prophecy - WHATS THIS!!! NetDevil is sending me to E3 and I spent time playing another space mmo? Blasphemous! I’m sorry, but its been a long time since I’ve gone adventuring in space, and I didn’t want to be rusty come tomorrow. I will say that BP was a disappointment, but at no real fault of the game. The booth attendees didn’t help me out at all and it was simply jump on the computer and start playing. Nothing was shooting back at me, I had no clear idea of where to go (I went to the red dots on the HUD and fired, but they just kept going). Flying felt well enough, but I didn’t like the constant thrust to maintain speed thing (though it ultimately didn’t matter much, as I would probably hold accelerate anyway). Turning and maneuvering was good and bad. Nice and fluid if at speed, but if I was going slower the ship barely responded.
  
• Epic Mickey - This game looks fantastic. I didn’t get a chance to play it (its their own fault) but I watched a developer play through it a bit, and it is looking like a great platformer. Just so you know, I missed out on playing it because every time I wet by their booth, they had a “certified Disney fine artist” doing some speed painting on some 12x12 black canvas’. He was awesome, lots of energy, and he can paint some pretty fantastic painting in 5 minutes. I probably watched him paint 6 paintings today. Hopefully I get some game time tomorrow.

I think that about wraps up todays events. Super excited about tomorrow and our VIP event. Im not sure what I want to focus on tomorrow after the JGE presentation. I have played everything on my watch list outside of the Nintendo booth (which I think im just going to keep ignoring). Maybe I will try to tough out some actual interaction with Kinect and Move so I can cement my apathy towards them. (Under 1000 words today. You’re welcome)

Day 2 impressions

I was lucky enough to see the Lord of the rings trailer, The war in the North, and play the game afterwards. It use the Wii controller and nunchuck so no button mashing, this one involves swinging at anything that gets close to you, 10 minutes of game later and you think that you need a gym membership to play the game for hours at a time. I am on the fence about the controller thing, but Wii and xbox, I am just so used to Joystick, keyboard, but I am trying to get used to the new gadgets.

Vindicus is a game that holds some promise as an Asian Style MMO, Graphics are smooth, movement intuitive, best of all no rats to kill at level 1. People are just going absolutely crazy over the swag at the presentations, their t-shirts are cool an the hats are out of sight. The hat is supposed to be s drop from the demo that they are showing off, but it looks like a fox hat with long ears. The girls giving the stuff away were almost mobbed, well were and people were actually snatching stuff out of each others hands, it was pandemonium. I walked by the booth later in the day and they put up rails to keep people off the stage, it was utter craziness.

BattleStar Galactica, a new MMO on the horizion is keyboard only, that broke my heart, the rep that I was talking to said there is just not a market for joystick support. The same can be said for Black Prophesy. I will be attempting to play both longer tomorrow, just to give more of an idea of what each holds.

Final Fantasy looks sharp, but I could not even get into the booth to try it, even my Jedi mind tricks would not move the Square Enix person at the gate.

SOE is developing a Jedi game, more on that later, it is aimed at the younger generation and thay are banking quite a bit on it developing younger gamers. They are also making a Magic the gathering game, but the line did not allow me to play.

Finally Tera, an RPG that has has me looking closely at it. Graphics are excellent, movement intuitive and very smooth. No auto-attack, no auto aim. When you engage a target you have to aim or you will miss. This in and of itself changes how you look at MMO's, you just dont stand there and hit the attack key and let the slugfest begin. You have to interact with the game and keep the attacks in line with your opponent or you miss. The graphics and spell effects are excellent and there will be a story line that plays into each character and into the world, making it more than a grind or tank and spank.

In talking to a lot of the different company reps it seems as though they are trying to bring the younger generation into gaming, there was even an interactive MMO touting itself for (4) year olds. There is a lot of emphasis and development in getting a gamer hooked when they are very young and carrying the experience through the teen years and onto adulthood. It seems to me that they are going to try and replace television as the social nanny it has become. It was truly amazing to see some of the online games and how young they are trying to start gamers off and getting them hooked.

Tomorrow first off is the JGE brief, I will post what I can when I get back to Las Vegas after the show.

Recap of today + what to expect tomorrow

Well, today was definitely interesting. I have written tons, uploaded videos and pics and I am tired.
Today, I saw Rift: Planes of Telara as well as Final Fantasy XIV in 3D. I also checked out the EA section and was greeted to a SWTOR presentation by Paul Barnett.

Overall experience is excellent. I am having a blast and can' wait for tomorrow and Thursday. I expect to see more Rift and some TERA-Online tomorrow so if interested in either of thoise games, drop me your questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

Also, I invite everyone to check out www.GamingWeez.com where I have uploaded videos, pics and written on Rift and Final Fantasy. Check out the E3 Coverage page mainly at least.

Last but not least, today I chatted ALL day with people live from E3 using Facebook and Twitter. Get the feeds from the site and chat and interact with me as I walk the halls of the convention center in real time. See you tomorrow!

1400 Words about Day 1

So day one is complete. It took me near 3 hours (half the day) to pick my jaw up. I used today to familiarize myself with the layout and get an idea in regards to what I want to try out, what I want to find out more information on, and what I want to avoid.

As a means of forcing you to read the entire article here, I’m going to lead off with what disappointed me:

Meh…

• Medal of Honor – I didn’t actually get a chance to play it. The two times that I jumped either into the private room line or started lining up behind the displays in the EA lobby, I was more or less forced out of line so that media or competing companies could get a look at it. The first time I was brushed aside for Activision (I think, the EA guy manning the line said Activision, but I didn’t get a look at their badges). The second time I was asked to leave but didn’t find out who was taking my place. I just know that they filled all the display units in the lobby area for MoH. At least the second time I was given a nice Velcro badge thing that’s a pretty sweet addition to my swag bag (which is mostly just shirts and tote bags).
  
  The problem with this game (at least the multiplayer that they were showing off) is that it looks TOO similar to Modern Warfare 2. From what I could see it didn’t show any sort of uniqueness that I wanted to see. Bad Company 2 was a breath of fresh air for me coming from MW2, and I was hoping that MoH could maintain that momentum, but I fear it might fall flat unless they have something else up their sleeve.
  
• 3d Gaming – I played a forgettable mech game at the Squeenix booth that utilized Nvidia’s 3d display tech for the PC. I found it awfully disorienting. Now that could have been that the depth of field was set too high for my personal tastes, especially as it was my first go at 3d gaming, or that the game wasn’t well enough optimized to take full advantage of it; but I walked away with a headache and didn’t enjoy the 10 minutes I spent at the kiosk. Further, that experience completely turned me off to 3d gaming in general as I walked around the show floor. Sony had a myriad of demo units set up that utilized the 3d capabilities of the PS3, and I just don’t see that tech becoming mainstream in the current incarnation.
  
  Important: I am not writing off the 3DS from Nintendo. I need to devote a whole day to their booth, as it was THE place to be today. I overheard tons of conversations around the show floor that the big N was the clear winner between the 3 console manufacturers. From what I glanced at walking through, the 3DS looks fantastic, and might change my opinion on 3d gaming simply because it doesn’t require glasses.
  
• Kinect and Move – I know that I shouldn’t knock something till I try it, and the people that were trying it out looked like they were having a lot of fun; I just don’t think it’s for me. Kinect seems super appealing to casual gamers and their 15 minute pick up and play sessions, but I couldn’t imagine attempting to play a serious game for 20 hours dancing around. And the Move controller looks like a light up karaoke microphone.
  
• Bethesda – Simply because their booth was closed to the attending public and access was limited to appointments only. Maybe that will open up as the convention continues. There are always a few surprises that last into the closing days.

Now for the good!

• Homefront – This gem from THQ recently had a trailer released (last week?) and it looked like something to keep an eye out for. Unfortunately they didn’t have any playable versions on the show floor, but they did have an “informational” booth that gave you a 12 minute or so preview of what to expect. They replayed the trailer and then played through a portion of a mission. If the rest of the single player maintains the intensity that I saw in those 12 minutes, this is going to be a fantastic shooter. I just hope they put as much focus into the multiplayer that they are putting into the single player and this will become a tough one to beat.
  
• Koei/Tecmo – Their booth had a lot of games that looked very strong. Warriors: Legends of Troy looked like a great action title. Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll looked very promising as well. I want to spend some good quality time at their booth tomorrow. Unfortunately when I was browsing through all the demo units were filled up and had a bit of a crowd. And I don’t really like standing in one place for too long.
  
• The New 360 – It’s just sexy looking. Sleek, black, shiny. 802.11n and a 250gb HD built in. Just a great look for the system in general and I hope it isn’t plagued by the same issues the originals had.

And now for things I need to stand in line for and get a closer look at

• Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter – I kept passing by the booth and wanting to jump in line. But I was afraid of being let down similarly to MoH. They had a guy demonstrating a play through but when I walked by it broke. Every time I walked by after that it was just replaying the live-action trailer that’s been out for a while. I need to stand in that line.
  
• Nintendo Everything – Problem being that you really only have time to visit with 1 big thing, there were that many people. I want to play with the 3DS. I want to play with the new Zelda. I was watching people play Zelda and it looked just as awesome as you would expect a Zelda game to be. I am also excited for Ocarina of Time being re-released in 3d on the 3DS. Chance to relieve the glory days on the go. I love my DS Lite and expect the same amount of enjoyment out of the 3DS. But with only 2 days left and things still on my list to visit; I don’t know if I should devote an entire day to waiting in lines inside the Nintendo camp, or use that time to wait in several smaller lines and experience more games.
  
• The EA booth – It’s a great place. Every hour they are doing a presentation on an upcoming game that’s part of their greater lineup. They did The Old Republic twice, MMA, Sims 3 console, and probably more. Tomorrow is going to be a different lineup and I was enjoying their presentations today.
  
• Luchalibre Wresting – Simply because they have Mexican wrestling taking place throughout the day. It’s a whole lot of fun
  
• Mafia 2 – I must have walked by this booth 100 times today. I have very fond memories of the first Mafia. I think I didn’t want to stop and test it out for two reasons. 1) Afraid it’s not done right and doesn’t live up to my expectations of the game. 2) Afraid it’s going to be awesome and my limited playtime will force me to kidnap a developer for the full game. I’m hoping it #2 because I don’t want to be disappointed in it.

There is probably a lot more that I am forgetting. But there was just too much to take in. I also have a few pictures, some of which came out bad (I didn’t realize I had accidentally clicked my camera into the wrong setting and it gave it no ability to focus on anything). Ill post those into a separate post because this one is already way too long.

Day 1 Report

Hi everyone!

Today was the first day of E3 (of course), and oh what a day it was. I signed in 2 hours early and hung out until the show started. The excitement was overwhelming. The booths were truly awesome.

While I wandered around the whole convention center, I spent quite a bit of time around the Warner Brother's booth and the EA booth. Warner had some great demos of Lord of the Rings: War in the North, and F.E.A.R. 3. Both look like a lot of fun, and each had their demo focus on coop. Both showed great features that I'm looking forward to playing with friends. EA had some awesome trailers for SW: The Old Republic and I got to play the new Medal of Honor--and it plays well (much like a smoother Bad Company 2). I'm heading back tomorrow to get a look at Crysis 2.

Unfortunately, the Bethesda booth was appointment only, so I didn't get a look at any of their upcoming games (which look great). I'm still hoping that it'll show signs of a new Elder Scrolls game in the next few days. Valve was the same, though the door was open, and they had what looked like a nice Portal 2 theme going on.

Kinect and Move both had big presences, but I'm sure they'll be there all expo long, so I decided to leave them untouched (at least Move...you don't actually touch Kinect?) for today.

OnLive had a nice booth too, and had demos available. For streamed games, they responded very well, and I was impressed--though I probably won't use the service.

I look forward to seeing JGE and NetDevil soon. And to thank them in person.

E3 Day 1

First of all, since I haven't posted yet, an introduction. I'm ww2jacob (or Melwhin on the JGE forums) and I'm one of the NetDevil guests at E3 this year.

I've taken some time to think about E3 today before posting anything. Partly because I made the 6 hour drive from my home in Phoenix this morning and then went to the show straight afterwards, so some rest time was definitely in order first. But a big part of it was also that the whole thing was just a hell of a lot to take in.

I was expecting a lot out of this show, but honestly the scale of it exceeded even those expectations. It was big, it was crowded, it was confusing, and it was also 100% awesome. You can watch the videos all over the internet, hear about it from people, and see pictures, but nothing really compares to being there in the middle of it all.

So yes, it was big. Big enough that in my 4 or 5 hours today at the show I did more wandering around aimlessly than anything else. I couldn't focus on any one thing long enough to fight off the rising temptation to visit the next booth, to see what was on the other side of that giant LEGO Hagrid or life-size Cylon statue (yes there were both!). Still, I managed to get some hands-on time with a few games I've been interested in, like Killzone 3 and Super Scribblenauts. In general, Soulmirror is right that it seems to be mostly console games, and most of the PC games were Free to Play MMOs of some sort or another. And yes, no Valve or Blizzard. Valve evidently has a closed booth somewhere, from what I could gather, and Blizzard I believe does everything at BlizzCon now.

The good thing is that I now know where most everything is at and I'm going to be actively seeking more things out tomorrow. One thing that shocked me was that I couldn't seem to find anything SWTOR related on the actual show floor, though I think probably I just missed it. I get the feeling it's probably tucked back in a corner somewhere in the EA booth, in which case I am finding it tomorrow.

Anyways, I'm still very much looking forward to the ND Jumpgate event on Thursday, which I think will probably be the highlight of the event for me.

Pictures and more specifics tomorrow!

Day one Highlights

What a satisfying day. Traffic was terrible on the way in but I got to see a lot of fun and interesting things. I arrived a good hour early, however people were already lined up a good couple hundred feet from the entrance. I happened to cut a little bit...

I did record some video and took more picture, however, I forgot to charge my camera the night before and it ran out of battery before the day was half done. Way to go.




This is what I was greeted with upon coming accross the THQ booth. Warhammer 40k Dark Millenium Online. It appears to be a third person action MMO. They had a second Warhammer 40k game on display called Space Marine. Check that off my list of things to see at E3

After some poking around on the South side I made my way to the West end where I found Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I waited a good 30 minutes in line to play, not really knowing what line I was in -turns out if you beat 5 guys in a row you win a capcom shirt. I didn't win a shirt nor was it nessecary to wait 30 minutes... just around the corner they had a plethora of empty machines with MVC3 (/slaps forehead). After playing the game for a while it appears that each character has way too many hitpoints, almost every match ended in a time over or had only a few seconds left. Matches took a really really long time.

Next I stopped by the Nintendo area, where it was a 2 hour wait to play the 3DS. I passed on that and waited to the play the new Zelda title. Which was colorful and played about what you'd come to expect from a Zelda title on the Wii: waggle your wiimote to swing your sword; lift your nunchuck to raise the shield and swing both hands to do a spin attack. All the while playing, a Nintendo rep is watching over my shoulder exclaiming "Good job!" "Nice one!" and "I've never seen someone do that before!". It was rather awkward and I wasn't sure how to respond. "Thank you?" I did get a Zelda T shirt out of it!

I completely skipped over the whole Move and Kinect thing... maybe I'll get around to it, I don't know, gimmicky bullcrap doesn't appeal much to me. I was able to demo a lot of other games but these were just some of my highlights. There's still a lot more I'd like to see, but I'm already off to a good start. More free swag here I come.

My day 1 impressions

I signed in and wandered into the main hall about 30 minutes early and you could feel the buzz, everyone was waiting for the doors to open. Grabbing everything not tied down and having to do with E3 I waited for the doors to open, and when they did, it was a sight. More neon and geeks per square foot than I had ever seen in one place.

Now as a start I know the focus is E3/ND, however since we will not be able to see JGE until day 3, I am going to focus on trends and hardware. If I mention a game, it is because it looked and felt above par. Any hardware I mention is for use or would be cool to use with JGE, this is not a personal recommendation or blog for that company, just me noting something that was cool to look at amoung all the glitter.

The first bit of hardware was a 43" curved, yes I said curved monitor. Native resolution is 2880 X 900, response time is .02 milliseconds, 10,000 to 1 contrast, 71 DPI, aspect ratio is 32:10. Why is this neat, it takes away from having to use 3 monitors to get a full field of vision and it has a consistent focus point (bezel) so that your eyes do not have to readjust, when looking at different monitors. To see more http://www.ostendo.com/.


The second item was that Playseat has released a flight seat. It is an ergonomic padded chair with 2 fully adjustable platforms outside the left an right arm, in a natural position for a throttle and joystick. The platforms can be switched left and right, for left/right handed people. The chair was not only comfortable, but the platforms were solidly mounted so that they did not wobble or move when executing difficult maneuvers. They also have complete set-ups for driving and FPS games. where the driving seat feels like a cockpit of a race car. To see more http://www.playseat.com/


Some neat stuff:

Interactive gaming is being introduced to Broadband television.

Console games are the dominant feature at E3, PC users were not left out in the cold, however consoles were in the majority for game development.

Some other space / flight sims showing off black prophesy, BattleStar Galactica MMO and EA is putting out a Lego flight sim.

Best booth so far EA sports, video wall, flashing lights, booth babes and more EA employees per square inch than a lot of the competition. They are also letting people play about 10 - 12 titles.

Notably absent in any way shape or form : Blizzard

Best swag so far: I caught a SW:TOR shirt at the last presentation.


Tomorrow I try and sneak into the Bethesda booth and I slow down and ask more questions. Remember all, if you have a question, either PM me or post to get my attention.

The Night Before

Gunmoney from the JGE forums here, another E3 attendee sounding off. I'll be helping someguy collect as much E3 info as possible and posting it here.

After poking around the internet for information on E3 and finding all these websites featuring "up to the minute live coverage" I feel like there's not going to be much left for me to talk about that hasn't been talked about already. I hope however that it will be interesting to those reading this to see E3 from a fan's perspective and not that of a journalist.

Regarding today's press conferneces, I can't say that there was anything (from what I watched at least) that remotely interested me other than SWTOR. I also find it rather funny that Microsoft is really pushing how it's so much easier to use their motion sensor garbage than a controller to navigate menus. Yes, because waving your arm 2 feet in front of you is less effort than moving your thumb half an inch. Further, their demo for Kinect sports seems oddly familiar. I do however wish I could've been there and gotten the free xbox.

Some things I'm going to be looking out for the next few days:

Marvel vs Capcom 3 (it's playable right?!)
Jumpgate Evolution (Thanks again Netdevil for sending us to E3!)
Warhammer 40k MMO
Half Life 2 Episode 3
Star Wars The Old Republic
Super Street Fighter IV DLC (new characters)
The sequel to Batman Arkham
Anything else Bioware is up to
It'd also be a nice surprise if Battlefront 3 decided to show up

That is all for now. Hopefully I'll get some good pictures accompanying my next update tomorrow evening.

Media Briefings and pre-show announcements

So today was a pretty great day. Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft. Gives me a great idea of what I should be keeping an eye out for come Tuesday.

Currently on my radar:

• Medal of Honor - the 24 player online troubles me, I like much larger games as I am a PC gamer. But the multi is developed by DICE I guess and they havent steered me wrong in nearly a decade.
  
• Goldeneye - I spent countless hours playing this during the Nintendo 64 days. IGN had a video up briefly before it got pulled down by Activision. Im hoping to run into this at the show. (Source)
  
• Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit - Im looking forward to the reboot. The last few games didnt intrigue me at all. So hopefully they get back on track with this one.
  
• Star Wars: The Old Republic - During EA's event they stated that this would be playable on the show floor. Ill stand in line for 3 days and skip the rest of the show if I have to.
  
• Jumpgate Evolution - Not just simply because its the reason that I am going to E3. I have been a fan of the space genre for a very long time. And an MMO thats in space with twitch based gameplay excites me in all the right places.
  
• Ghost Recon: Future Soldier - The earlier trailers looked great and I am really excited to get a feel for this game. Far too many shooters on the must-have list.
  
• VALVE - No predictions here. Just know that I am watching them closely.

And things I am not so interested in...

• Project Natal, Kinect - The motion thing doesnt really grab me. The Wii still feels like a novelty to me with a lot of games. And the games I still play (Smash Bros.) I experience in the correct way, with a GameCube controller
  
• Ubisoft's not games - Expensive laser tag stat tracking and more health software. Pass

There is still the big-N's briefing tomorrow morning before the doors open, and Sony's at noon. Im hoping for a Wii Zelda announcement, and I would like to get some hands on time with the 3DS. Sony's Move has a similar disinterest from me as Kinect. The only real thing I want from the Sony camp is a Gran Turismo 5 release date.

TwitterFeed Testing

Simply a test to ensure that the RSS feed is autopublishing to twitter @CrashingE3

Why Am I Here

This blog will detail my experiences at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, held in Los Angeles from June 15-17. I am not a member of any gaming publication - be it a magazine, blog, or any other type of media. I am simply a gamer, I work for Target, I am 24 years old and I am going to go somewhere that I have no business being.

First I need to thank the guys behind Jumpgate Evolution - Gazillion Entertainment, and NetDevil. These companies are the reason that I am going. They saw fit to gift upon me, and select other members from the JGE community, a guest pass to attend the expo. For 3 whole days I get to see behind the scenes. I get to collect glorious, glorious swag. I get to play game demo's that I normally only read first impressions of. Maybe I will even get to shake the hand of some of the industry greats (I'll be hunting down the good doctors from BioWare that's for certain). Most importantly though, NetDevil, thank you. You have a fan for life. Despite how great or not-so-great JGE and any other project you are working on is, I will defend you as a company. This is the ultimate fan service. This truly is an above and beyond situation for me. So thank you.

The first thing on my agenda is to try and create a mental map of the expo. I don't want to stand out like a sore thumb; spending my time staring up into the rafters and bumping into E3 veterans as I attempt to orient myself to my surroundings. I also don't know where I need to go first, as thus far there is no public information on when certain events are taking place (keynotes, special presentations and the like). If they are available they are behind a media access wall on the E3 site, which I have zero access to. Hopefully that information becomes more readily available as the event draws closer. Otherwise, my mental map of the show floor will have to quickly determine a footpath for me when I enter the expo and learn of the time schedules.

Additionally, living in Southern California I have yet to decide on whether to procure lodging for a few days, or simply commute back and forth from my home (maybe 1hr30min each way - so not too bad). I have a friend that lives in Long Beach, so I hope to take advantage of his hospitality. Also I am sure the bar scene will be pretty busy during the convention days, and that is extra time to shake hands with people for no reason other than to say I did.

There will probably be zero updates from the day this post is published. I do intend on updating this blog as often as I think I can during the expo as I think it will help me bleed off some overbuilt hype I am sure to have flowing through me as I wander about.