Start the day with coffee, and trying to figure out what we have left to do for the UK Games Expo. We’ve done this so many times it should become second nature, and to an extent it has, but there’s always room for error… and the more complacent you get the more errors you make.
We need to buy hangers (for t-shirts) and storage ‘tubs’ for stock and, in fact, t-shirts. Quick trip to Woolies and one of several local ‘pound shops’ and we’re sorted.
Back to the office. It’s Massage Day (woo!) and Chris is having his First Ever Massage. When he comes out he tells me “I don’t know why I waited so long to have that.” Nor do I mate.
Check on the movie Spaff left rendering overnight. Lucky I did, as despite being excellent quality, it has one minute of ‘blank space’ at the end which probably makes it several hundred MB bigger than it needs to be. Set it to re-render.
Dive into email, feeling way too jittery from the coffees first thing. I never learn.
While I’m emailing, three PC cases are delivered to me. They need to go in the van tomorrow for Secret Prize Project. Feel like an old man as I talk about when I used to open PC cases for a living; well kinda, I was a PC journalist once.
I’ve been asked to judge a student competition for Stafford University, so download the files that I need to look at.
The first re-render of Spaff’s video is the right length – and half the size – but is smeary and pixellated. Fiddle with a few things and start it going again. Pretty sure it’s not going to work.
Watch a few of the videos from the UbiDays press conference. Good job by them on their PR. Remain unconvinced of the earth-shattering importance of a follow-up to Beyond Good & Evil. I mean it was good, but it wasn’t The Best Game Evar.
Browse through some very creative rendered Lego people for the competition. Students are smart. Must adjust my presentation accordingly.
Read an email from @Geoffrey – hallo! – pointing me to an interesting article about the deaths of MMOs. The stuff about Auto Assault is quite moving. That leads me on to a new post-apocalypse MMO that’s being worked on, in part, by some die-hard AA fans. It’s called Apokalypsos. Be careful not to drop that final ‘S’ or it’ll be something to do with the end of the world via dance… or a crappy fruit drink.
Start an email with thoughts on the Lego designs, but don’t finish; go to lunch with Mat and Chris instead. Over burgers we talk about the show this weekend, and set the MMO world to rights – usual stuff.
Back to the desk to an email announcing our summer party; we’re going to Thorpe Park. Even though I’ve known about this for ages, I’m suddenly excited by the prospect of many rollercoasters. Yayyy!
Next up: boring show prep. First, decide on how much stock we want to take, then see if we’ve got that much available. Then, re-price an awful lot of it as the prices have changed. I am the Pricing Gun Kid.
In the middle of this I get a phone call from my contact at Stafford, pressing me for decisions on the Lego design thing. I give her my choices over the phone.
At 4pm we go over to our other building to do a count of every t-shirt we have, and move them all from flimsy, crappy cardboard boxes (which are a pain to move, stack, and store) into those new tubs. Utterly tedious and sweaty work, but needed to be done.
Finished by 5pm, and we drop by the Community team to grab some swag for the weekend. We pick up mostly Guild Wars stuff – Skill Pins, Mini-Pet cards. I walk out with a very heavy bag. Mat also hands over the new printed signage for the weekend, and we agree to meet tomorrow before we go pick up the Transit van.
5:30pm, and we’re locking down final bits and pieces. I’m starting to get that feeling, that tingly feeling of dread that we’ve forgotten something or we haven’t done something. This results in me asking Chris “Have we got [insert thing here]” about a million times.
Last thing before I leave, Chris says: “We’re up to 186 applications.” Meaning our casting job isn’t getting any easier.
Tomorrow: van hire, packing, then The Road to Birmingham. Expect service to be light.
#1 by Zortel at May 30th, 2008
It’s always a shame when an MMO dies, from the people who play it to those who made it or are behind the runnings…
Even though I tend to only really socialize via RP instead of Pick up Teaming, I make friends on MMO’s (Hell, I made one friend in Guild Wars just by typing properly and not acting like an idiot), and they tend to be the socialization hubs I meet them in and chat to, and via an extension of that, the real world at cons or even just to visit.
When friends have left MMO’s (Such as CoH) I’ve found it’s been difficult or not as easy to keep in touch with them. If an entire MMO with friends, characters and memories made were to disappear, well, the blow can sting pretty hard. All that time invested and spent, only to have it gone, with only the box, an old client and bookmarks to dead forums to remind you of the time gone. (And a load of friends on Trillian.)
For the developers and staff though, they lose not only the work and time and devotion they’ve put into the game, and working with a team of people they -hopefully- really enjoy working with, but their livelyhood too. And in some cases, that -and- the game itself if they’re also players as well as workers.
If the unthinkable was to happen (and we won’t mention it, cause it won’t happen, but we’re just speaking hypothetically anyway, and touching an extreme amount of wood to prevent that hypothetical situation from occuring) well… it would certainly be a huge blow for me. My reason for going to cons? Pretty much gone. My opportunties and chances to craft stories, characters and friendships with others? Diminshed… even just something to touch base on and talk about as a last resort.
(Amusingly, this also corresponds to my internet relationships and dating post, and the idea behind the small story/comic called ‘The Game’s The Safe Word’ where two players meeting in Meatspace for the first time will try not to venture from talking about anything but the game.)
Love conquers all though, and while I break the hypothetical barrier a little here and also don’t wish to speak for others, I think it’s fairly safe to say that the CoH EU player base -does- love NC Soft Europe, in a certain way. And from the interactions with the people involved in the whirring cogs of the organization via the boards, the cons, the player meets, blogs and other social networking sites, that… bond as it were builds, and can probably be translated into strong customer retention.
Aaaanyway, this is a long post, so I’ll probably wrap it up there for the subject of MMO death, finishing on the note of saying that while a strong customer base who love the game might not ward off apocalypse (and scary, big lipped blue mutants), it probably damn well helps.
Sounds like things are all go for the weekend and other places and ventures, so thumbs up, and go get ‘em, tigers.