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| 1999, Carnage becomes name of past as Wolfpack announces development of Shadowbane. |
| 2003, Mutable Realms and Themis Group announce partnership for "Wish" beta, where Dave "Mahrin Skel" Rickey formerly of Mythic's Dark Age of Camelot is spotted as the Lead Designer. |
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GenCon '04
City of Heroes & Dark Age of Camelot
GenCon is the traditional paper gaming grand exhibition which has been going on for over 30 years in the Midwest, where gamers and game companies meet for all things gaming. From across the country gamers descended upon the "Crossroads of America" at the Indianapolis Convention Center as the convention was held this year from August 19th to the 22nd, it's been dubbed as the best four days in gaming. We agree!
This is the second part of our GenCon Recap covering City of Heroes, the MMO game by Cryptic Studios and NCsoft which made a special announcement while there and the upcoming Catacombs expansion by Mythic Entertainment for Dark Age of Camelot.
GenCon '04: Recap - Div Devlin (09-07-04)
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City of Heroes
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| City of Heroes Booth!
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If you were in need of a hero at GenCon, there certainly was no shortage as NCsoft and Cryptic Studios dominated not only at their booth within the 'Great Hall,' but also everywhere else that could be found. Sharing space with Lineage II, which released simultaneously in North America, both titles were in a three-sided booth with PC's showing off live game play for both games. Everyone that would gather, eventually chose to play City of Heroes, with lines forming for would be heroes getting a chance to try on their own suit. Once they had that first taste of comic book madness, they would head over to the LAN gaming area and pay hourly rates to play City of Heroes once more, which coincidentally was also sponsored by NCsoft.
Some vendors on the show floor which were selling their own products were even giving away City of Heroes game boxes (with the games inside) with a certain amount purchased from them for free. Everywhere you looked you could see City of Heroes display stands and even the "Great Lukeski" who MC'ed the costume show and was doing caricature art at his booth had a display stand showing he was sponsored by City of Heroes.
The real surprise came on Saturday afternoon where prominently displayed at the NCSoft booth during the opening days of the show was a sign displayed and hyped which simply stated, "Big Announcement Saturday At 2pm." Shortly before the clocked went off, crowds began to gather and grow taking over chairs from other booths to stand on, so the could see over the heads of other people as Jack "Statesman" Emmert began playing up to the crowd building excitement.
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| (l-r) Zeb, Jack and Shane!
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The crowd eager with anticipation Jack Emmert announced the hiring of two paper gaming legends, David "Zeb" Cook as the senior designer and Shane Hensley as the senior writer, both for the upcoming City of Villains expansion. Zeb and Shane had periodically been moving in and around the City of Heroes booth talking with players and getting a feel for the community. Who would have known? As they were announced, they removed their outer shirts to reveal "City of Heroes" shirts underneath, like a costumed superhero in comics would do when changing into his superhero identity, to a crowd most appreciative with their applause and cheers. The build up was well worth it, and we look forward to their creative talents in City of Villains.
For those who have asked and were wondering, Statesman did in fact parade around the floor wearing a full length cape. It was a blue nylon type, with embossed lettering proclaiming "City of Heroes." While he may not have a castle yet, we look forward to the announcement of his building a superhero fortress and actually beating that other guy to a ride on a Russian Space Shuttle.
As already known, Jack Emmert has his very own "Statesman" Hero Clix miniature coming out, so we had to ask when we will get to see it, which should be in November. Were also told that it will be pretty importation addition to the game if you play; are we going to see a limited edition mini? Now, the only thing that is needed is a CCG and a paper conversion for City of Heroes. So, we asked Jack Emmert when this would happen, at which time he smiled knowingly and told us, "If we were going to do that, this would be the place to do it." As the show progressed you know great things are going to continue coming from Cryptic as no matter where Statesman traveled on the floor, Developers from other companies would line up to meet him, or as we witnessed one Developer speak with him about hiring opportunities.
Can it only be a matter of time now before we see even greater things from Paragon City?
DAoC: Catacombs
Before GenCon even started, Mythic Entertainment was is downtown Indy kicking a pre-Vegas event off for players of Dark Age of Camelot with an unofficial fan gathering inside Jillian's, a three story decked to the hilt bar, bowling alley, game room and restaurant which served up both American and Japanese cuisine.
While fans of Camelot came from as far away as Anaheim, some were there just for Mythic with no intentions of going to the convention itself just two blocks away the following day. To a standing room only crowd that came out to see Sonya, Matt, and Scott as well as other dev's on location to socialize and glean information on he game they love. Fan Gatherings are the best social events. We were really looking forward to attending this, but unfortunately were not able to attend. Vegas maybe?
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| Div scares Scott Jennings!
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Inside the show, camped at the Nvidia booth were Mythic Entertainment showing demos of their upcoming expansion Catacombs for Dark Age of Camelot and explaining to people that they did not know much about Nvidia cards as they were with another company. The in game demo's looked good. Running their latest expansion Frontiers on one PC they were showing off Realm versus Realm combat at a fortress siege, while on a second PC they were showing the improvements of the graphics overhaul for Catacombs.
To put into writing how amazing the graphics overhaul is will not do it justice. Everything that was old is new, bright, and shiny. With all new character models that have been updated to showcase blinking eyes, moving fingers and tapping toes to make all the characters appear more lifelike. It sure beat the cartoonish graphics from another major MMO in beta right now around the corner from them.
Of course, pretty graphics does not make a game great and the additions within Catacombs are worth it alone. Also going into the expansion pack will be three all new cities, including the Kobold Under City, a new Labyrinth, and an underground maze. Offering players more choices, Mythic also will be including two new classes for Midgard and Hibernia while Albion disappointingly will only get one.
Mythic continues to dominate and with the new overhaul will be taking Dark Age of Camelot out of the Dark Ages into a new era of Light as they continue to make the game even better. If you've not played recently, take advantage of one of the current trials, as the game will draw you back in.
Next: Dead Gentlemen Productions and Dungeons and Dragons Online!
Back: Overview!
Discuss: Were jealous of the cape so we scared Lum.
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