We’ve recorded two episodes recently (#28 and #29) which are both online now, and actually just did show #30 this evening, which will be online later this week.

In case you’ve never heard it, it’s 30-minutes or so (when we run to time) about movies, which we both know far too much about. That is, when we don’t forget names of movies, actors, actresses, directors, plots… ahem. We try to be funny. Perhaps that was an example of humour?

Anyway, take a listen if you like. I’m also still guesting on John’s Limited Edition podcast, which has a new format now, so feel free to check that out too. Oh and feel free to let me know your thoughts on either.

Anyway, while I know many of you who attended cons we were at (particularly Bristol ’08) probably already have a sketchbook, not many of you will have it signed by the artists whose work is inside the covers!

Well, now’s your chance to own one of ten sketchbooks that have been defaced by artists like Dave Gibbons, Doug Braithwaite, Mark Buckingham, Andie Tong, Phil Winslade, Bryan Talbot and many more! Oh also there are pictures.

All you have to do is bid on this charity auction, with all proceeds as ever going to EveryChild!

Seriously folks, this thing is lovely, with loads of sketches inside depicting the well-known signature characters from City of Heroes, including Statesman, Back Alley Brawler, Ms Liberty, Sister Psyche, Lord Recluse, Ghost Widow and more. If you don’t believe me, click the image on the right to see some thumbnails of the imagery inside.

Considering the sketchbook was only available at a few UK conventions last year, and there’s only nine of the signed ones in existence, if you’re any kind of fan of City of Heroes you should really go make a bid! It’s for charity, after all.

Stay tuned for more hot auction items including original art from the sketchbook!

In the process, he discovered a whole bunch of new facts which are very interesting, and led me to some more thoughts. You absolutely should read the article, but I’ll pull out some corkers here:

1. Gazillion has eight ‘projects’ in the works.

Four we know about (LEGO Universe, Marvel Super Hero Squad, Marvel Universe, Slipgate Ironworks’ MMO) but that leaves four more they’re keeping under wraps. That’s pretty huge. Again to give you context, while at NCsoft there were usually half-a-dozen or more MMO projects in various stages of development in Korea, it was rare any of them were made public.

Right now, again by comparison, NCsoft has four MMOs in development that you know about (Guild Wars 2, Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Carbine Studios’ MMO, Blade & Soul) but I guarantee you more are under wraps.

Still, of those projects you’re aware of, some have been in development since 2005, and hey, you’ve known about others since 2006. With Gazillion’s announcement and lots of speculation that they’re releasing Marvel Super Hero Squad in 2010, they’re already ahead of the game. I have a sneaking suspicion other publishers may try to follow this ‘late breaking’ approach in future.

2. Of those four secret projects, three are based on existing properties.

Huge, huge respect to Ben for finding this out, so I have to quote:

Marvel isn’t the only license with which Gazillion is working. See those four “unannounced MMOs” listed above? The three that don’t say “original” are also based on licenses. Gazillion won’t yet say what they are, but Hutter did note that they will be brands with an ongoing presence, not one-off movies or TV shows.

Oh-ho, now it gets interesting. Care to name some potential hot IPs for MMOs these days? I’ll give you the usual suspects: Harry Potter, Terminator, Robotech, Transformers… I’ve seen those names plenty of times before (plus the usual mention of ‘Shadowrun’ from the tabletop fans – hey, I agree with you). I think any of those four are good potential matches for MMO licences, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Gazillion and others are pursuing them.

However, if you’re looking for “ongoing presence”, the list gets shorter. Star Wars and Star Trek? Covered. How about… Doctor Who? Difficult, but not impossible. Mission: Impossible could be interesting. Would Lost work as an MMO?

I could spend another post throwing out possibilities, but this just confirms part of Gazillion’s gameplan: go after well known IPs to gain recognition and potential traction, while building your own original properties to get some IP money in the bank.

3. Almost certainly, it was Microsoft that killed the previous Marvel MMO, not Marvel.

I’ve seen plenty of blogs and postings since the news broke trying to pour cold water on the idea of the Marvel licence, suggesting as it’s been tried before in MMO form, that somehow it’s a bad idea. For some reason though, everyone seems insistent on blaming Marvel for the failure of Marvel Universe Online, but for some reason no-one seems to want to point the finger at Microsoft (who were supposed to publish it) or Cryptic (who were developing it).

Considering we never saw anything of Marvel Universe Online publicly (a CGI movie doesn’t count), and we’ve been told Champions Online sprung from it, if you ask me you can see what a Marvel MMO by Cryptic might have been like by looking at Champions Online. Maybe that just didn’t gel with what Marvel wanted to see. But I think more likely, the answer lies with the money men: Microsoft.

With that in mind, Ben Fritz asked the question that you need to ask: “So can Gazillion make a successful “Marvel Universe” MMO after Microsoft abandoned the project?” and got this telling answer:

[Gazillion CEO] Hutter said Microsoft simply didn’t want to prioritize a Marvel MMO and his company will. “There was a lot of thinking at the Xbox division about where they should be spending their time,” he explained. “Should they enable an MMO or pursue a partnership with Netflix? I think it was driven around the changes in strategic emphasis more than the market capability.

In other words, almost certainly… Microsoft cancelled the Marvel Universe Online project, not Marvel. Would Marvel give up the chance to make an MMO with their characters? Of course they wouldn’t: they’re a licencing company, as I explained before, and that means they want their characters licenced. And if they failed previously, they’re going to try again.

4. Marvel knows it’s a hot IP, and Gazillion does too.

Gamers want a Marvel MMO. Hell, I know I want one. I’d be surprised if you don’t. As Robert Hutter points out:

“IGN did a poll and ‘Marvel Universe’ was the number one most anticipated MMO. I don’t think there’s any lack of appetite.”

No, I don’t think there’s a lack of appetite either. If anything, I think post-Champions Online and (probably) post-DC Universe Online, there’s going to be a huge demand for a Marvel MMO… and that’s before you factor in the Marvel movie factor, which gives us at least one major movie every summer for the next three years.

Oh and incidentally, there was a good reason why Gazillion signed a ten-year licence – they realise Marvel’s in this long-term:

[Marvel's Simon Phillips] also notes that Gazillion’s long-term deal will make it easy to tie “Marvel Universe” into his company’s slate of films. “There could be various expansion packs that launch around a movie schedule,” he noted. So if the game was already operating, for instance, you might see a Wolverine expansion in May.

A new Asgard zone to tie-in with the Thor movie, perhaps? A time-travelling World War II expansion to tie-in with Captain America: The First Avenger?

Of course this is before you even think about Marvel Comics tie-ins. Geoff Johns and others on the DCUO team have already talked about getting the comics to cross over into the game, but if you ask me, Marvel’s even better poised to cross over with an MMO (not least because their universe-wide events make more sense on paper, unlike, say, *cough* Final Crisis *cough*).

Can you imagine Secret Invasion as a game-wide event? A massive Skrull attack? NPCs who’ve been in the game since day one turning out to be Skrulls? Huge saucers packed with ‘missing’ heroes descending in Central Park? How about logging in and being presented with the opportunity to turn your own character into a Skrull sleeper agent?? Yeah. I think you can see that working.

5. (Bonus fifth thought!) Gazillion knows what it’s getting into.

When a company ‘de-cloaks’ after three-and-a-half years of secrecy, understandably there’s scepticism – especially when the President and CEO has no industry experience in MMOs.

However, it’s becoming obvious that Gazillion know what they need to do to make a competitive product in the MMO space. They’re already talking about the full range of potential business models, and while you might have heard this song before, it’s pretty important to hear it being sung:

“Licensed MMOs are only a winning proposition if you can convince folks to spend time for six months and beyond,” Hutter affirmed. “That long-term relationship means your audience is a check on quality. It’s very different from a one-shot retail sale where you’re just going off the marketing of another property. The safest strategy for us is a high quality title.”

Amen to that. High quality licenced MMOs? Let’s hope.

* Yes, Variety, the Hollywood newspaper. Funny how something that ostensibly isn’t a games news outlet does a better job of covering games than most.

No, the date wasn’t ringed on my calendar. I vaguely remember being told he was going up in mid-October, but I never paid much attention to the exact date even at NCsoft, so thanks BBC. I hope he has a safe and successful flight, and that he feels it’s worth the THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS (approximately) that he paid for the privilege.

That’s a heck of a lot of money to follow in Dad’s footsteps. If he wanted to save money, he could have gone Virgin Galactic, who’ll be charging a lot less – but then Richard’s going to be up for ten days, not ten minutes.

In case you’re wondering, that eye-popping budget was never bandied around much at NCsoft when I was there – but not for the reason you might be thinking. See, it’s all Richard’s money. (Nope. I didn’t think Ultima was that big either.) Not a penny came from NCsoft. Which is good. Because otherwise right now you’d probably be wondering just what else that cash could have been spent on.

Instead of just thinking: “So how is this supposed to help Tabula Rasa, exactly?”

Somehow John managed to cut our two hours of chat down into a relatively svelte 90 minutes, so if you fancy a listen head on over to the Limited Edition site for more info, and to download.

Lots of work related stuff happening right now – both in my actual work and in potential, possible work. When/if any of it breaks I’ll let you know.

In the interim, I’ll try to come up with a few more things to say around here, but honestly, life’s keepin’ me busy….

Limited Edition, the new podcast from John ‘Shuttler’ Nicholson, ex-host of TabulaCast, and his partner in crime Matt, has moved on to Episode 2 – and said episode has a brand new voice in the mix, namely me! Yes, after hearing episode one of the show I thought I could help these ‘babes in the wood’ on the subject of comics and superhero-type stuff, so I volunteered my services.

Did I completely take over? Are they regretting ever asking me to appear? Did I vent my spleen on the subject of NCsoft? Even worse, did I spill precious secrets about Issue 13???

Of course I bloody didn’t, I’m not stupid. I did, however, have a fantastic time talking to the guys about comics, movies, games, and all sorts – exactly the kind of stuff I love to talk about.

So, if you can handle listening to my dulcet tones when I’m not talking about NCsoft related business (well, not much) then get yourself over to YellowSpandex.com as your starting point. That’s John’s podcast-related blog. If you want to get the episode and subscribe too, then go to the VirginWorlds collective page for the show.

Woo! We rule! Etc etc. Here’s what they had to say about us:

Kaum hatte man die Besucherhallen des Leipziger Messegeländes betreten, kam man gar nicht umhin, auf das Flügel verleihende Spiel von NCSoft aufmerksam zu werden. Jeder dritte Besucher lief nämlich mit einer hübsch bedruckten Aion-Tasche durch die Gegend. Die scheinbar unerschöpfliche Quelle dieser Tragetaschen war der NCSoft-Stand in Halle 3. Dort bekamen Fans nicht nur die Gelegenheit ihr Lieblingsspiel einmal selbst anzuspielen, sondern hier wurde der Masse bei zahlreichen Give-Away-Aktionen auch kräftig eingeheizt. Die Besonderheit der Stand-Show waren die professionell inszenierten Theaterstücke, die Themen aus dem Aion-Universum behandelten. Das verdient, wie wir finden, ganz klar den Award für die beste Stand-Show der diesjährigen Games Convention!

I particularly like the ‘Give-Away-Aktionen’… oh wait. That’s in German. Well, it is a German site. Here’s a hilarious Google machine translation!

No sooner had the visitors halls of the Leipzig Fair Grounds in, it was not refrain from lending to the wing play of NCSoft attention. One in three visitors ran namely with a nicely printed Aion bag through the area. The seemingly inexhaustible source of the bags was the NCSoft booth in Hall 3 There were fans the opportunity not only to their favorite game once anzuspielen itself, but here was the crowd on numerous give-away eingeheizt actions vigorously. The special feature of the state show were professionally staged plays, the topics in the universe Aion treated. The deserves, in our view very clearly the award for best stand-show of this year’s Games Convention!

Oh yeah! That’s what I’m talking about! In terrible broken English!

Let’s start with a quick recap of…

Friday 30th May

Just two weeks after our last VanQuest we were off again, feeling a distinct sense of déja vu as we assembled at the car hire place, packed the van and ended up at Oxford Services for lunch. I find it slightly worrying that I’ve considered – twice – getting a ‘Frequent Customer’ card at the coffee place there.

A series of unexplained slowdowns on the M25 delayed us a bit, but apart from that we made good time, pulling into the Clarendon Suites’ car park before 5pm. Then it was a quick and easy unload, followed by a stress-free setup, the only slight kink being that we had to ‘haXX0r’ the wifi password for the venue.

The fact that we could hack it sort of speaks volumes…

We were out by 7:30pm, trundled across the road to our hotel and checked in, agreeing to meet again for dinner. The room was functional and pleasant enough, but inexplicably hot – hotter than the warm summer’s day we’d come out of.

“Are your rooms hot?” was pretty much the first thing I asked Mat and Chris on return to the lobby. Both agreed that they were. Unsure whether it was some sort of hotel-wide thing or just us, we foolishly decided not to say anything, at least for the night. TGI Friday’s beckoned… not because it’s particularly good, just because it was close. We ate and drank and ended up in the local pub, along with a few other exhibitors we recognised. A couple of beverages later and we strolled back to the hotel… to still-hot rooms.

Day One: Saturday 31st May

I woke at 5:30am. Not because I was eager, just because I was hot.

Looking back on it, the fact that I didn’t go raise a stink with the management seems extraordinarily stupid, but then I’m not where I was then: tired, uninterested in moving rooms, and so on. Unable to go back to sleep but also not really awake enough to do anything constructive, I surfed the web for a couple of hours.

Eventually I ended up at breakfast, listening to Mat and Chris also admit they hadn’t slept well. Nonetheless with a bit of coffee and a lot of willpower we roused ourselves and headed over to the Expo, after a short detour via a pub back garden.

Moving briskly along

Last year, the UK Games Expo surprised us. Quite a lot. A first-time show, we weren’t expecting that many attendees or that many sales, but we got both. We also got surprised by how unpopular our friend Reyna the Ranger was, as she made her debut – while she certainly wasn’t ignored, she wasn’t swamped either. We put the lack of fans down to the generally timid nature of most hardcore gamers, but when it came to this year, we decided to switch her out for Draw the World Together, instead. Sorry, Reyna.

As a result we had a slightly smaller stand, but not by a lot. We were also now lacking the six-or-so PCs that we’d brought with us the previous year, which meant that personal demos weren’t going to be possible. This show was going to be a test of my theory that hands-on customer demos aren’t needed to sell games (although yes, they can be nice). With Draw the World Together raising charity money, and a full range of games and merchandise to sell (some newly reduced in price) I knew we had a good offering going into Saturday morning.

Even so, I got surprised again. Trade started briskly and just kept getting brisker; inside two hours I was staring at the takings thinking that if the trend continued, we’d be taking home well beyond what we made last year. That thought obviously jinxed us, as post-lunch, things started to slow well down.

My day was brightened up by many of the usual faces turning up to see us though, and I spent the morning chatting with Wild Red (Hazel), Crimson Archer (Paul), Shadowe (Ben), Pix (Rebecca) and Callista (Paul). All of them got sketches and most brought food, which was awesome as always. I also spoke to a few other players who’d I’d either met at previous shows, or had talked to on the boards, which is always good. I like to see new faces, although of course we love to see the familiar, too.

On the Draw the World Together side, apart from a slow start thanks to A Certain Artiste forgetting to bring his pencils (!!), things went as smoothly as ever. We were joined for the first time by Karl Kopinski, who after drawing just one sketch had Chris and I both reaching for our wallets.

Neil Edwards was of course there as well, drawing up a storm – he started the day with a Superman which was just outstanding (seen left). And it wouldn’t be Draw the World Together without Andrew Wildman, who believe it or not actually found himself with some free time during the day, which he used to create some lovely sketch cards which we’ll hopefully, one day, auction off.

Later on in the afternoon we even had Andrew’s lovely wife Lesley come down to join us, who occupied her time doing ‘flats’ (AKA ‘flat colours’) for Andrew’s new Frontier strip, which will be debuting in new British comic The DFC in September. With her and the other artists, we had a nice little art factory brewing, and plenty of interest from punters, which is what we always want. We even sold a few more Draw the World Together sketchbooks left over from Bristol (and yes, we have more).

You are the luckiest

The artistic highlight of the day, undoubtedly, came from Karl Kopinski’s hand. Here’s how it happened.

I suggested to Andrew that we ask Karl to come down and sketch at UK Games Expo only a couple of weeks before the show. Both of us had met Karl for the first time at the one-day show we did in Loughborough last year. He’d seemed like a nice guy – and extremely talented – so why not, right? Thanks to Andrew’s persuading skills, Karl said he’d come down for a day. Probably a good idea, that.

Y’see, it’s always a little scary for us to bring a new artist into the Draw the World Together ‘fold’. We never know how they’re going to react, or indeed how they’re going to be received. To date we’ve had no freak-outs, no freeze-ups or similar – touch wood. Our fear is probably nothing compared to theirs, however.

When an artist commits to coming to sketch for us, they’re basically asked to come along, sit down, and put in six to eight hours of work for charity (ie, for free; we pay their expenses). Every sketch they do is created from scratch. Almost all of them are based on character designs that they’ve not seen until minutes before they start drawing. And quite often, they have the person who plays that character standing right there as they draw.

(Incidentally that person, in many cases, will also have a stronger emotional connection to their character than to anything in pop culture; after all they created them, and have played them for countless hours, too. It’s sort of like Stan Lee getting Spider-Man drawn for the first time, if he’d only written prose about him for forty years.)

Considering all this it’s a miracle we don’t have more artists throwing up their arms and walking out, or more players looking at their completed sketch and going “What? Webbing under his arms? Are you insane??” It’s a testament to how good the artists are, at essentially divining what a player wants to see in their sketch just about every time. They work their asses off.

So. We come to Karl, and Paul, and Callista.

Paul’s been to quite a few of our shows, as even a cursory search of our Flickr stream reveals. He’s a pretty big fan. He was also one of the earliest customers of Draw the World Together, and if memory serves, was possibly the very first player I saw sporting a t-shirt with a DTWT rendering of their character on it. He obviously loves his character, and why not.

With all that in mind, we shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d eventually ask for a picture of himself with his character, Callista. (Sketches of players are rare, by the way. Sketches of players-as-characters are sort-of-rare, but it’s happened.) That he chose to ask Karl to draw it was just dumb freaking luck.

He didn’t just want himself and Callista though; he wanted another character, Lilit, as well. Three characters in one sketch = a £45 donation, so we were quite happy to take that money for EveryChild, and Paul was happy to pay it. Karl, on the other hand, apparently decided to give Paul his money’s worth.

It took quite a while, perhaps over an hour; the passage of time’s always hard to discern at these shows. Every now and again Chris would beckon me over, with a familiar “Look at what he’s drawing!” expression on his face. I couldn’t quite see, and eventually fought my way through our cramped surroundings to get a peek over Karl’s shoulder. I couldn’t quite believe it; Paul was right there on paper.

Paul was also standing right there watching. I looked at him. “You are one lucky son of – ”

“I know,” he interrupted, for sake of decency. He looked very pleased, but also a little scared; as if he didn’t want to break the spell, to stop Karl drawing as he began to work on the figure on ‘his’ shoulder.

As for myself, I was astounded. This is why we started working with Draw the World Together. This is what we can do, at our best. This is why I love my job.

Paul was happy.

Saturday night’s alright for eatin’

Not long after that artistic miracle, Karl faded into the sunset, his work done – promising us that he’d try to return for Memorabilia. Believe you me, he’s near the top of our ‘artist hitlist’.

As for the rest of us, first day was over. Cash was counted, and was respectable in total. We packed up, did the usual stock checks, and agreed to meet the ‘Usual Suspects’, plus the remaining artists, over at the hotel in good time.

We walked over, laden down with bags, talking about the day. It had been smooth, pretty much, and all of us were happy with how it had gone. As we arrived we marvelled at Neil Edwards’ spectacular lack of timing. To his credit, he pretty much hadn’t stopped sketching all day; unfortunately that meant when he came to check in to the hotel, he was doing so at the exact time as a literal busload of tourists. Sorry Neil….

Dinner involved a swift walk into town, which turned into a slow walk, which almost turned into a forced march as it wore on interminably – but then suddenly we were at Shimla Pinks, the latest choice in our quest for Birmingham’s Best Curry. It wasn’t a particularly measured choice, but then I was just damn happy that I’d been able to call and get a table for 12 with about five hours notice on a Saturday night.

We ended up ordering a set meal, which was easier on our tired brains and I dare say, a bit easier on the kitchen. Food came quickly, and was very tasty, as well as being ‘all you can eat’ – although collectively finishing off two helpings of starters was probably an unwise decision. Early on we realised we were also a table over from the peeps from Wizkids Games, who we’ve run into quite a bit at shows like these. Apart from relaxing after the day, they were also celebrating a wedding anniversary of one of their crew, and as a result sent us over the remains of a fantastic cake for our pudding. Lovely.

It was a great evening, with much chat, camaraderie and geekiness. Exactly the kind of thing I love to do when given half the chance. Thanks to everyone who came. I won’t go on about it much more, but instead, will just give you some photos to look at.

[Show as slideshow]

Day Two: Sunday 1st June

Sunday came with another bad night’s sleep – yep, the Hotel Room Heat Box from Hell continued to torment. Don’t say it! I know we’re fools for not moving. We’ll just do the English thing and try another hotel next year….

After a mix-up over our bill which meant I ended up shelling out £740 for our rooms (don’t worry, it got claimed) we headed back to the Expo, with all of our personal luggage in tow as well as all of the other paraphernalia we usually carry. Clanking and puffing like a set of steam trains, we smartened up the stand a bit, got our water on, and waited for the rush.

Which never really came, to be honest. It’s never easy to tell at any show, but it seemed that maybe all of the visitors who’d been hanging around on Saturday were now gaming their hearts out. At least, that’s what we guessed. There’s always plenty of time to guess when you’re not being swamped by customers.

Still, we found enough to keep us busy. First thing was that we got given a tour of the Living Dungeon, a headline attraction at this year’s Expo. It seemed like a sort of live-action Knightmare, which was intriguing, and one of the organisers (an NCsoft fan!) was happy to take us and a few other stand-runners around. Sadly we didn’t have time to actually play in it, but I was very impressed with what they managed to achieve. Inside a few rooms in the basement of the building, a full-on dungeon had been constructed (obviously with limited budget). Packed with puzzles, a few special effects, and suitably cold, I think it would have been a lot of fun to adventure through. Treat yourself when it hopefully returns next year.

Ascending back into the light, we returned to the stand to deal with a steady stream of people. Just like last year, I found myself selling a lot of copies of Guild Wars, and happily quite a bit of merchandise too. We’re still tweaking on our ‘merchandise presentation’ and we got some good tips from the folks at Pagan Angel, who were directly opposite us for the second year running, on online locations where we could buy shop fittings. Mmmm, shop fittings…

Meanwhile, at the other end of the stand, Andrew and Neil continued to soldier on with more sketches. Luckily for both of them we had nowhere near the rush we do at some shows, partially down to our new and improved rules for just how many sketches we take. Just like at Bristol Comic Expo, we now had a good number of sketches for the guys to complete, but not so many that they felt insanely pressured to perform – and we still raised a decent amount for the charity. Just how we like it.

With the day ending at 4pm, which is pretty damn early for a show, we found ourselves running through the afternoon pretty quickly. People came and went – some being our faithful players, who of course vowed to return with more sugar-baked treats at Memorabilia in November. (Actually guys, speaking for myself, I may have to request at least one savoury snack. Some ‘interesting’ dental work put The Fear into me recently, and the sugar intake has dropped dramatically…!)

A trip down Memory Lane

Things actually quietened down to a point where I even felt comfortable leaving the stand for a while. Mat and Chris had both managed to get away for a bit, and kept telling me just how much of the show there was to see; so I wandered off to take a look.

It was an eye-opening wander, to say the least. Last year I didn’t even make it off the ground floor of the Clarendon Suites, so just discovering how big the place was, and how much was tucked away in every corner of the place, was a revelation. Suddenly I realised that there were easily a few hundred people inside the four walls, and how it could probably hold a couple of thousand; it felt like a bigger show already.

I moved about fairly briskly, not trusting myself to slow down and look at too much stuff, as I knew the wallet would come out almost of its own accord. Instead I just soaked up the atmosphere, and as I walked, found myself remembering the few shows that I went to, similar to this one, when I was a kid. I never went to anything as big as this; some came close. Maybe I’m making up for lost time. I knew, deep down, that if I had been to a show like this when I was about 12… I’d have been in heaven for a little while.

For some reason – maybe because I could see plenty of kids around me, enjoying their gaming – that made me all kinds of happy. I made my way back to our stand with a spring in my step.

Show’s over, folks

Blink – and it was 4pm. Time to put this baby to bed. Loadout was easy and quick; a few trips, a light sweat, and we had the van stacked with stuff. We climbed in, set the SatNav, and headed for the road.

It was an easy, uneventful trip back, filled with the same sort of routine that we’ve all become accustomed to; listening to road music, stopping at the same service stations, eating the same greasy road food.

We talked about what had gone well, what we might want to change; about the best sketches we’d seen, the people we’d spoken to. We’re always looking to improve things, and every show brings up new stuff – although this one, less than most.

Without a lot to post-mortem, my thoughts drifted. The first half of our show year was over, and we’d had a blast – from the Ultimate Heroic Weekend at Omega Sektor through Comic Expo in Bristol and now to UK Games Expo. Each show had been different, but at the core they’d been the same, because it was always the three of us: Mat, Chris and I. Now, at least temporarily, we were breaking up the merry band – and that had me feeling a tad melancholy as we sped on down the road.

Sure, it’s not like we’d spent time in a foxhole together. You could laugh and tell me “it’s just work”; but then maybe you’ve never felt anything for your work.

We don’t work the hours, drive the vans, load the stock, take the sketch orders, sell the games, discuss improvements, or think up new ideas because we feel it’s just work. Everyone who comes to a show I run is invested more than that. Everyone comes because they want to do a great job, and represent NCsoft as best as we possibly can, by showing the world that what we do isn’t just what we sell – it’s what we’re about; fun.

The core team though – the three of us – I’d argue we care even more. (Sometimes a little too much.) We’re the driving force, and right then, with our next ‘proper’ show almost six months away from that night in June, I didn’t want the gap. As far as I was concerned we could do it all again the next weekend.

I just needed a shower and a good night’s sleep, first.

Listen to the lyrics

In recent years, I’ve realised I seem to unconsciously match song lyrics that I know to my mood or situation. I can often find myself humming or singing a song, and then realise much later that the lyrics relate exactly to how I’m feeling.

That night on the road, as I took photos of random stuff, trying in part to capture the moment, I had Jackson Browne’s Running on Empty in my mind. I wasn’t even sure I knew all of the lyric, but I did know that my mind had heard something, at some time, that it was trying to tell me; and it turns out the verse below was it. It might not be poetry, but it’s real to me.

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don’t know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running too

See you at Memorabilia.

[Show as slideshow]

With the NCsoft booth occupying some precious real estate in the middle of the exhibition floor, the Aion side of that booth faced the entrance, which worked well in their favor. Even the buzz around the booth and from passersby seemed very positive during the first ever public hands-on of this fantasy/flight MMO.

(Although of course, technically, PAX is hosting the first ever US-based public hands-on – as we debuted Aion at Games Convention.)

Let’s hope players like what they see (and play), eh?

Couple of Aion previews

Pre-Leipzig we gave an exclusive Aion preview to PCGZine, who visited the office and got loads of ‘stuff’ from us that they’ve put together into a six-page preview. In case you didn’t know, they’re a PDF-based online magazine, so you don’t even have to go to the shops to read it.

Anyway, you can grab the PDF file right here and have a peruse. It’s supposed to be ‘interactive’ with rollover videos and stuff, which might work in Acrobat, but I’ll tell you right now doesn’t work on a Mac.

If you’d prefer a preview that isn’t in PDF format, you might enjoy this look at Aion from The Escapist, who aren’t generally known for their hyperbole. They like what they saw at the recent press preview in San Francisco, which is all good news.

The things fans do…

We spent a lot of our time during GC on our feet, but we never made the commitment to distance that a few of our more dedicated Aion fansites did. A number of them banded together to basically walk the length and breadth of Leipzig (as in, the town) and get pictures of every Aion billboard we had there.

Apart from being proof that yeah, we spent a bit of money on the game’s promotion, it also proves undeniably that our fans are mad, crazy people who we love to bits. See the photographic proof of this true ‘Quest for GC’ in this Flickr set.

While we’re talking about “things our fans do for us”, here are two photos with things that make me happy:

Yep, that’ll be Martin with a shark tank, as presented to him by a fan during the show. (Our Marketing Manager, Mirko, is on the right.) That’ll be a direct reference to my dialogue, then….

Last but not least – AionSource‘s t-shirt of GC, featuring fan art based on The Shark, as modelled by Martin, constructed by Chris, and conceived by me in Episode 6.

Fan-made merch. Love it.