Another Gen Con has come and gone. This was an incredible year for Dungeons & Dragons Online at the show, as this year we got to have a pretty large presence in the Exhibit Hall! Thanks to Wizards of the Coast for setting aside part of their Exhibit Hall area for us. We demo’d Menace of the Underdark and Update 15 to visitors and the press, and used two of our computers for a “Spinner of Shadows” 3-minute Challenge! The top scorer every day got a Collector’s Edition of Menace of the Underdark. It was sweet. I wish I’d thought to video record one of my run-throughs of the Challenge, so you could get a good idea of what it was, but essentially it was the end battle in the Spinner of Shadows quest with a three-minute timer, and a score based on meeting a handful of objectives. Every day the top score got bigger! It was actually a ton of fun to do; I found myself challenging my own high score over and over whenever I’d have a couple of minutes downtime (which, honestly, wasn’t that often – everyone kept us very busy! Which is a good thing.) 🙂
We got to chat with literally thousands of gamers throughout the weekend, including many DDO players. It was really an incredible time. We also got in some after-Exhibit-Hall-hours hangout time with as many DDO players as we could! There was a totally unofficial Gen Con meetup at Scotty’s Brewhouse on Friday night, which is a bit of a story in itself. Originally, we planned to meet at a different place, but there was also a HUGE biker rally downtown (because of the MotoGP race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that weekend), and guess where biker central was? Yup. I also want to give a big thanks to the wait staff at Scotty’s. We showed up almost 20-strong and they managed to seat us despite a super-busy night within minutes, and give us great food and service throughout the night. Great work!
Being at Gen Con this year was a real treat. The convention itself seemed larger than ever, and there were tons of great games to check out, minis to paint, seminars to attend, etc. If you were there and said hello to me or the DDO team, thank you! It means a lot to us. Here’s some pics and links, if you have something to add to this list please link to it or tell me about it in the comments section below!
Pics:
(Click the images to open them full-size!)
DDO Producer Erik and one of our IT guys James help set up the DDO computers the evening before the show.
One of the Drow minis we were giving away. The cards and minis are also compatible with the Dungeon Command board game by WotC (which is cool.)
Besides the minis, we were also handing out Winter Wolf Pup Creature Companions (made for our conventions!)
I thought this was a neat sign; to see the City of Indianapolis really roll out the red carpet and tell all of us geeks and gamers that we’re welcome.
The Gen Con DDO and D&D area (Wizards of the Coast Exhibit Hall area)
There was a cool video promo for the over-arching “Rise of the Underdark” storyline as people approached the DDO computers and WotC area.
Some Drow dude. Think his name was Drizzt, guess WotC borrowed the name from 1000’s of MMO players. 🙂
Lolth herself! This was awesome to see in person.
More Pics:
DDOcast’s Ecgric interviews Producer Erik Boyer!
Press links, videos, and more!
- DDO Producer Glin speaks at the D&D Digital panel at Gen Con (Part 1) (Part 2)
- I shot a quick video at the convention, which includes some video of the DDO area of the WotC booth.
- DDOcast interviews DDO Producer Glin!
- The DDO Cocktail Hour’s Gen Con Live Show! (Super funny, but also Not Safe For Work due to language!)
- DDOcast also had a Google+ Hangout video chat with me and others on Sunday, which includes a lot of Gen Con talk. Their page for it here also has a bunch more pics from Gen Con!
- Geoffhanna (from the new DDO Gamer and my.ddo blog fame) has done some great writeups of his experience, including this one and this one.
- The Weird Review chats with me and Erik!
- Rockin’ Comics interviews DDO Producer Erik.
- Total Party Killers interviews Erik.
I know we did more than a dozen other interviews as well from the ‘con floor, so hopefully I’ll have more links to post up in the coming days. If you find one, tell me about it in the comments section below (or PM me through the forums.)
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