LUM PLAYS FAIRE: DAY 2 [Author: lum]
THE GREAT RANT SCRUM: We arrived fashionably late for this one since Austin saw fit to remove large chunks of I-35 while we slept (YOU PROBABLY THINK I’M KIDDING). Most of the audience actually ran their own websites and most of their questions involved asking Calandryll how they could get his attention. (Hint: email holds the clues.) Someone asked me how come I no longer hold Origin in the same level of putrid contempt that I used to, and I muttered something about “I dunno, I guess we grew up and got responsible and stuff.” Joshua Rowan from Stratics emphasized that some sites had journalism and ethics and morals and stuff. Jinx said the Mets really bit. The rest of the session involved Angel Storm explaining what we needed to do to improve the world in scrupulous detail.
THIRD DAWNAGE: Got a chance to play with this some more. It’s cooler than the screen shots make it appear to be, but frankly, I don’t care if it looks like rejects from Stile Project photoshoots as long as they start doing the dynamic updated content thing. I spent about a half hour trying to take down an ogre lord with my mad skillz. Paralyze has visual feedback of concentric circles surrounding a monster when you cast on it. That was pretty cool. Ebolts look like little snowballs. They were not cool. It went sort of like that. Here’s some screenshots from the obligatory press kit that every other site too lazy to photograph the screen themselves will post rapidly.
I wonder if lizard men will have the same problem old and new Klingons have when getting together
I’d like to state for the record, that’s one huge-ass balron
UWOOOWOOOOWOOOWO: Origin showed off Origin at a really loud bar. The video was louder. Fortunately it was also pretty cool. I’ll state for the record: not all Meer look like useless gimps now. They showed off in action a warrior Meer dominatrix and what we can only describe as a Death Necro Meerling. They also showed a human woman running around in a thong and a Juka styling in a black trenchcoat. Oh, and lots of people kicking the shit out of each other in really motion-captured ways. Origin has the motion caption thing down cold now and we can look forward to many duels of “my kung fu is superior!”. You will note that this was a movie and not an actual client running. Guess that’s for the next show. Anyway the movie is worth the humongous download when Origin gets it online.
We also had dinner with the UOWOWOWOOOWOWOOW team (there’s a WHOLE GODDAM LOT OF THEM) and Ubiq offered to put mongbats in the game if I give Origin-the-game six months of gushingly positive coverage when it gets released. I’m still thinking about it; if you see mongbats when you log into OWOWOWOOOWOWOOW you can rev up the conspiracy theories.
We’ll have the beta out on Soon the 3rd.
— Starr Long, being helpful
You’re all a part of a selection process. The game selected you as people who could tolerate an immense amount of pain and frustration. Normal people wouldn’t put up with that.
— Tyrant, gathering his army of pain-immune minions
OK, Lum, on three, shout Shadowbane Roxxors!
— Belthior to Lum, outside a bar (I did)
I know you think we’re quite casual and don’t give a damn about causing problems in your game, but we take that quite seriously.
— Tyrant, explaining customer service
We suck.
— Tyrant, going into further detail about customer service
Customer service is HARD.
— Tyrant, really breaking down the whole customer service thing
What did I ever do to you? No, don’t answer that.
— Tyrant, when told about this update