More fun than a conful of Furries
Well this weekend was a blast and I so didn't want to work today lol.
For those who didn't know I went to Milpitas, CA (outside of San Jose) for a City of Heroes Meet & Greet on Friday. I flew home yesterday afternoon.
I got there about half an hour early (flight that is) and got checked into my hotel. I putzed around briefly then saw people who had also arrived had posted their room numbers. I hung out with some of them for a while and then we went over to Dave & Busters for lunch. We didn't eat at Dave & Busters but did eat at the food court at the Great Mall since about 20-25 people showed up. Ex Libris was there as well and a couple other NCSoft staff for initial setup.
After lunch me and another player went to Dave & Busters and played Aliens Extermination until we used up our cards heh (I got the supercharged 10$ card so it cost me 14$ due to 'activation fee' and the supercharge). After that I walked back to the hotel (it was right next to the Great Mall and was where most of us who were staying in hotels stayed) and checked the forums, grabbed my screenshot for the raffle then went back to D&B for the registration.
I met up with a few more new people while in line to register and someone pointed out Jay to me (he's the CoH costume designer). He was truly sexy which is something I'd doubted since there's a longtime 'Jay is Sexy' mantra on the forums. During hte activities I got a copy of #20 of the comic signed by Jay, other NCSoft staff/devs, and David Nakayama (the artist who does the comics). I never did win anything in the raffles but I did come close a few times. Everyone got a shwag bag of goodies anyway and after it was over I was given a second t-shirt (so I got an acutal CoH shirt instead of just a Guild Wars one heh).
They had a Q&A session that resulted in a lot of 'yes', 'possibly', and 'ask that guy' (pointing to the guy from Marketing). They also previewed a couple new costume sets coming to the game soon (jester and 'enforcer' a hardsuit body armor set), as well as a preview of the upcoming 'City Vault': a portion of the website showing off info on the characters (name, costumes, badges, powers, statistics). They also mentioned a couple costume patterns being added as well.
After the event I helped Ex Libris pack up her truck with the left over stuff then we headed back to the hotel for the room parties. I can't really go into details of this part since 'what happens in 343 stays in 343' :) I can say I got to talk at length with Jay and he confirmed a lot of what I suspected about how the costume creator works and how frustrating it is for him to want to give us more options but sometimes can't due to the creators/egines limits as well as having a threshold of 80% compatability wiht other costume options (avoiding clipping) as well as having to look right with powerset animations. THis rules out robes and long dresses/skirts because of powers like jump kick, as well as a limit of one 'cape technology' item per character (why you can't have a cape/wings with a trenchcoat or kilt).
The next day I went with a buch of the local (and Sacremento/Davis area) people to Palace BBQ for Korean BBQ. After this we hung out for hours at Starbucks. After getting back to the hotel I got ahold of Bluefists and he came by and we hung out for a few hours. Was great seeing him since I've not seen him in person for like 9 years!
I had a late supper after he left then went to bed. I got up and headed for the airport Sunday late morning and flew home. My own bed felt so good heh and I didn't want to get out of it and go into work this morning.
Overall I had more fun at the Meet & Greet than I've ever had a furry con and the very wide variety of people there was amazing (parents with kids, men and women of all ages and builds and lifestyles). I think the only drama I witnessed the entire time was an irate hotel manager who kicked us out of 343 at 3am for being noisy.
For those who didn't know I went to Milpitas, CA (outside of San Jose) for a City of Heroes Meet & Greet on Friday. I flew home yesterday afternoon.
I got there about half an hour early (flight that is) and got checked into my hotel. I putzed around briefly then saw people who had also arrived had posted their room numbers. I hung out with some of them for a while and then we went over to Dave & Busters for lunch. We didn't eat at Dave & Busters but did eat at the food court at the Great Mall since about 20-25 people showed up. Ex Libris was there as well and a couple other NCSoft staff for initial setup.
After lunch me and another player went to Dave & Busters and played Aliens Extermination until we used up our cards heh (I got the supercharged 10$ card so it cost me 14$ due to 'activation fee' and the supercharge). After that I walked back to the hotel (it was right next to the Great Mall and was where most of us who were staying in hotels stayed) and checked the forums, grabbed my screenshot for the raffle then went back to D&B for the registration.
I met up with a few more new people while in line to register and someone pointed out Jay to me (he's the CoH costume designer). He was truly sexy which is something I'd doubted since there's a longtime 'Jay is Sexy' mantra on the forums. During hte activities I got a copy of #20 of the comic signed by Jay, other NCSoft staff/devs, and David Nakayama (the artist who does the comics). I never did win anything in the raffles but I did come close a few times. Everyone got a shwag bag of goodies anyway and after it was over I was given a second t-shirt (so I got an acutal CoH shirt instead of just a Guild Wars one heh).
They had a Q&A session that resulted in a lot of 'yes', 'possibly', and 'ask that guy' (pointing to the guy from Marketing). They also previewed a couple new costume sets coming to the game soon (jester and 'enforcer' a hardsuit body armor set), as well as a preview of the upcoming 'City Vault': a portion of the website showing off info on the characters (name, costumes, badges, powers, statistics). They also mentioned a couple costume patterns being added as well.
After the event I helped Ex Libris pack up her truck with the left over stuff then we headed back to the hotel for the room parties. I can't really go into details of this part since 'what happens in 343 stays in 343' :) I can say I got to talk at length with Jay and he confirmed a lot of what I suspected about how the costume creator works and how frustrating it is for him to want to give us more options but sometimes can't due to the creators/egines limits as well as having a threshold of 80% compatability wiht other costume options (avoiding clipping) as well as having to look right with powerset animations. THis rules out robes and long dresses/skirts because of powers like jump kick, as well as a limit of one 'cape technology' item per character (why you can't have a cape/wings with a trenchcoat or kilt).
The next day I went with a buch of the local (and Sacremento/Davis area) people to Palace BBQ for Korean BBQ. After this we hung out for hours at Starbucks. After getting back to the hotel I got ahold of Bluefists and he came by and we hung out for a few hours. Was great seeing him since I've not seen him in person for like 9 years!
I had a late supper after he left then went to bed. I got up and headed for the airport Sunday late morning and flew home. My own bed felt so good heh and I didn't want to get out of it and go into work this morning.
Overall I had more fun at the Meet & Greet than I've ever had a furry con and the very wide variety of people there was amazing (parents with kids, men and women of all ages and builds and lifestyles). I think the only drama I witnessed the entire time was an irate hotel manager who kicked us out of 343 at 3am for being noisy.