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. This year, a new location opened for those on the west coast, with GenConSoCal, which took place December 11th to the 14th at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim California.
GenCon or GenCard?
A GenCon Anaheim 2003 Report
The GenCon Overview
For the first year ever, GenCon came to Anaheim, California at the convention center near to Disneyland. If you’ve never been to this area, it is the ultimate in tourist attraction spots. The streets are clean and well organized. The ‘happiness’ of the happiest place on earth spills over to all the restaurants and venues surrounding the park area and convention center. Families hold hands, smile and dash off to their next adventure.
Then, we pan over to the darkly clad antithesis of the shiny brightness of Disney, the GenCon fans. You could pick out attendees as they lumbered toward the convention center; dark leather satchels slung over their shoulders, black trench coats, black t-shirts and jeans and the tell tale signs of ‘geek incoming’ written in their gait. I’m not bashing my fellow gamers at all, but there is no way anyone could ever mistake these people for tourists on their way to Downtown Disney, the California Adventure or Disneyland itself.
There were others that had shunned the gamer geek uniform by donning other costumes of a more Ren Faire sort: Men in doublets, damsels in dresses and some even donning wings or horns depending in hope of winning the costume contest.
I’ve been to a general gaming convention before that included comic books as the highlight versus technology. I knew to expect more of the Paper gaming and card gaming setups for competitions as we entered. Rayven however, had never seen this setup and was surprised at how huge an event these could be. The entire front section was solidly lined with tables. Wizards of the Coast headed up the contest information and gaming sessions. I was however, expecting a bit more technology than what we saw.
GenCon should have been called GenCard this year.
Some of you may know Rayven as my husband. We grabbed our munchkin (who is all of 18 months old now) and headed off to see what we could see on Saturday assuming that it would be a busy day as well as a day to really dig in to all GenCon had to offer. To say the Con was a disappointment may be an understatement however. While I expected a good amount of paper and card gaming to be shown, I was not expecting such an abysmally small showing of technology-based games. My own focus was on finding out who was there that had something new to show.
Sure, I understand it’s not E3, we’re entering the holidays and devs are spread out pretty thin with all the shows that go on throughout the year, but we are talking sparse here.
There was one little nucleus of console and PC games both within the slew of paper and card gaming booths. I have nothing against either since I’ve played paper games and watched a rousing game of Munchkin between Rayven and Ashton Kai of Wolfpack Studios at the 2002 E3, but this was overkill. There were about four small booths with PC and console games: Lucas Arts was showing some XBox and PS2 games, Nvidia was showing off the new GeForce FX 5900 with games like SWG (Star Wars Galaxies), Dark Age of Camelot-Trials of Atlantis and of course the big draw, World of Warcraft among others. Microsoft had their own booth where they were showing off Mythica as well as a couple other games I failed to take note of. I should correct myself here; there were actually five PC gaming areas. One was a LAN area for those that wanted to have a seat and try a multitude of games from FPS to MMORPG. It was an under whelming amount of technology on display however.
Thankfully two of the games I’ve been watching and waiting to get information on were in attendance: the folks from Blizzard showing off WoW and the folks from Microsoft showing off Mythica.
WoW- The Wait Continues
Bad enough we’ve all been sort of sitting on our hands waiting for World of Warcraft and word of what is to come, but because of the massive crowds around the WoW section of the Nvidia booth, there was a waiting list to get a 10 minute crack at the demo. It was the busiest technology game booth in the place on a consistent level. People were bobbing up and down like those little birds you always see on people’s desks… up down up down… just trying to get a glimpse of what was happening on the screens. We had an hour and forty minutes approximately until we were to have our crack at it.
Ok… Well I’m sure we could find something else to do…. um… sure. We took the time to stop by the Mythica booth (which I’ll cover shortly) for a demo, wander the rest of the floor, wander by the art work AND have a drink and still had time to kill before we would get our crack.
Thankfully with a bit of flashing the press badge and our want to leave the Con to do other less mind numbing things, Rayven was able to sit down and start testing out the game. I was able to spend some time asking a few questions of the devs, which were the mostly harmless type.
I have yet to find myself getting too excited about WoW. Not because there isn’t anything to get excited about, but because after so many years of playing the Warcraft series as an RTS, I have a hard time letting it go on to become an MMORPG. I know I’m not the only one with these jitters. Think of it the same as you would having your favorite book translated to the big screen; you fear what could happen if the screenplay somehow goes seriously awry.
Some will even point out that Blizzard has a history of late releases, the Multi-player aspect of Warcraft III was buggy and that Blizzard is now missing the most prominent personnel that made Warcraft what we see today. I’m willing to give Blizzard a shot however because their track record despite all this, still seems to show a consistency in quality of their products and a real dedication. Some few may disagree with me on the idea of quality, but the Blizzard legacy counts for a lot more than a few doubters.
Now, I won’t tell you that I came away with stunning revelations to share with all of you, because that would be a lie. This was my first chance however to see WoW in action and get a feel for what the devs are thinking and how we can expect WoW to shake out.
First I’ll start with what we saw on screen. The interface is still ‘raw’ in nature. I don’t mean it doesn’t work, but that it is still a work in progress. Rayven sat down at it and felt that the movement was equally as intuitive as Warcraft has always been. It was comfortable for him. The quests have their own little pop up window that contain all the information you need. The graphics themselves are true to the Warcraft series and Blizzard hasn’t gone out on a limb to give it any more of a ‘realistic’ scenescape feel than that of the RTS’. I for one appreciate the consistency between the two.
The character creation screen was also very simple and easy to flip through all the racial types and class types available. We didn’t get very much time however since there were so many others itching to get their hands on the keyboard as well, but overall, the game seemed smooth and well put together even in it’s ‘pre-beta’ state. I don’t think we could have expected anything less of Blizzard however. It was explained that quests could be gathered in a level progressive basis meaning that as you progress in levels you can expect to have access to different quest masters of higher difficulty.
On talking with the guys that were there (and sadly I did not take down names because I had a brain hiccup) there were a few questions I had specifically that I felt would be worth a shot in asking. One was whether or not beta was on track. On track for them however isn’t the same as what others were expecting of a Q4 beta. Blizzard isn’t in any rush to put people into their game until they are sure they have it in a state they feel comfortable with. I’m ok with this as others should be.
Release is tenuous as well. You see, strangely enough, Blizzard feels that they should release information to the public when they have real information, NOT ‘could bes’, to share. They feel the same about things like letting people into beta and release. They will let people into beta when they feel it’s time. They will release the game when they feel it’s time and not before.
PvP was another point of contention many people have. Will there be PvP? What form will it come in? At this point, they just don’t know. They know it’s something important to them. They know they want to do it right. They just don’t know how they intend to go about it yet and aren’t going to share even the ideas they have on it for fear of leading their fans on.
Like many developers they are gunshy when it comes to PvP and what it means to ‘do it right’.
Casual gamers versus Power gamers were another interesting topic that came up. I have to admit, I can’t be the power gamer or even the time intensive gamer I once was. I have a family and try to balance between gaming, work and family, with family always coming first. I am one of the people starting to look at MMORPGs with a different view. I want to go in and get out when I feel I have the time and still enjoy the time I spend.
Those of you in the same boat will be relieved to know that WoW very much wants to accommodate both kinds of gamers. I was assured that if you wanted a 30-minute quest or an hour-long quest or several days of questing you can have it. You also, will be able to interrupt your quest (i.e. leave it) and come back to it at a later point in time without having to restart the entire quest. Blizzard intends to accommodate as many play styles as they possibly can within their world.
The storyline will remain true to the Warcraft series. If you have yet to play through all the games and the expansions, (most importantly the Frozen Throne) do so. The storyline will be progressing into WoW and Blizzard intends to keep things true to the series. I was told flat out, “WoW isn’t just based on Warcraft, it is a continuation and we are remaining true to the series.” There should be no worry on the part of the purists that WoW will just be some strange adaptation of the games we came to know and love.
Others were able to get much more information from the devs however including some hard information that you can take a look at. Both Battlenet and WoW Vault had people on the scene that were able to bear spending considerable amounts of more time in hounding the devs for information.
We did however receive a wonderful CD filled with Screenshots from GenCon that day as well as some of their concept art. Let me tell you, you won’t be disappointed in the feel and look of the game.
I was not disappointed in what I saw and am now a bit more excited about the possibilities that WoW can offer players. Blizzard has the staff and the money to roll out a project that is as close to complete as possible. I’m jaded however and will believe ‘complete’ when I see it. I am looking forward to seeing all that World of Warcraft can offer.
Next: Mythica Live!
Discuss: e/sigh
About The Author
