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Connect 2008 - March 14th - my time there!

If you want the news they announced ONLY, go here -Press Release- For a more personal view of what happened as a real player, attending, please read on. Sorry there's no pictures!

For me, it started like most other days, although slightly earlier. We had to wake our two small children up, get them dressed, and take them to nursery. On the way back, we dropped off car seats, overnight bags with Granny & Grampa and picked up my sister. We drove a short distance, and picked up another friend. All of us on our way to Connect 2008!

The car was full of most of our kinship! Second Breakfast is a small family & friends kinship on Laurelin server, and this small group was probably half our active players. The others couldn't make it for one reason or another.

Two hours and a few minutes later, we arrive in Birmingham, and make our way toward the Omega Sektor building (thanking Googlemaps for directions!). We found ourselves outside a smart looking building. Peering in through the windows, we could see many computers on desks, an internet cafe as part of what faced the street. There was a long line of people waiting. We found ourselves keeping company with a great number of people from all sorts of walks of life, but what was immediately obvious were two things. The people turning up to the convention on the Friday at least, consisted of a more "mature" player base (by which of course I mean OLDER) than many other MMOs on the market at the moment. There were some people in costume, and we found ourselves next to a couple of very nice ladies who also played LOTRO, although not on Laurelin. I'm afraid I didn't make a note of which server they were on, but they were from "The Elders" guild.

Then the television cameras arrived! First up were the film crew from "Pulse" (Sky channel 208) and I think the show was "Inside Gaming" but I'm not 100% sure (sorry folks). I was asked to say a few words - about how I felt about the convention (having just arrived), why I was there, how far I'd come. I even got in a small plug for lotro-crafting, although that probably won't air!

Then the doors opened..

Our tickets were taken, we were given wrist tags (in fact they were secured to our wrists!). We're given a good bag - with a lot of stuff in it. It wasn't until I got home that I managed to work through what we'd been given. We were then shown upstairs to a huge room with lots of computers, and a big screen at the front, to have the introduction and BIG announcement!

I'm dreadful with names, so I'm sorry I can't tell you exactly who said what, but basically the opening speech dedicated Connect 2008 to the memory of the late Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, as without his input, the gaming world would simply not be as it is today.

Jumpgate Evolution was announced, with some spectacular screenshots. During the talk introducing it, which started off by saying, yep, this is a massive space combat MMO. You are a pilot, you gain exp, levels, skills, cash by blowing things out of space (primarily pirates and things, but loads of interesting storyline stuff too). The emphasis really was on "bigger guns", huge space battles, and I felt myself switching off. Where was the crafting, the trade, the diplomacy, and really, anything that might keep me interested. Then my ears pricked up a little later. You're able (with the right equipment) to mine asteroids for ore, to refine it, manufacture items with it (it was compared with EVE online) and ship things around for trading. I finally began to think there may be something in it for me too. More on this later, as I got to play the beta (as did any attendee who wanted).

Then came the BIG announcement. Jeffrey Steefel, one of the main producer guys at Turbine (yes, I got his name!) stood up in front of us. Book 13 is coming in the Spring, he started. There'll be a lot more solo and group quests for levels 44-50. A huge new region, icy in nature. A new NPC race, called the Lossoth, who appear to be sort of "eskimo barbarians of the north". They ride war mammoths, which you can have very interesting sounding battles with. Polar bears, ice sleds, and a new hobby system is to be introduced - and the starting skill - FISHING - where you can win trophies, traits and titles as you improve! New additions also include a mustering horn to enable a member of a fellowship to call the whole group to them, new "looking for fellowship" enhancements. Oh, and a new monster play character - a "Defiler" - which is an Orcish healer that uses slimes to heal and poison!

Chapter 14 - Summer - advances the epic quest so you can visit the ring forge where the three elven rings were forged, and is the climax to the Shadows of Angmar epic story.

And then the biggie..VOLUME 2 - Mines of Moria - due out Autumn (Fall) 2008.

Khazad-dun! the Black Pit! The Nameless Deep! A huge underground area (Moria).
Three new regions - Eregion, Moria, and Loth Lorien.
Level cap is to be raised to 60.
Two new player classes - the Warden, and the Runekeeper (but very little was said about these).
Ancient Dwarven treasures.
New boss monsters - the Balrog, the Nameless, the Watcher, and goblin hordes!
A new legendary item system - enabling you to combine items to create new items, increasing powers & attributes, rare deeds, and legacies (think of Sting for instance)
High level instances and raids, expanded PvMP areas
Leaderboards, achievement rankings

He promised an ANNUAL expansion, and continued free book updates approximately quarterly as has already been happening. LOTRO will be launching in China, Korea, and Russia and other countries during 2008 so look for new players!

Don't forget to register at Unlock the mines of Moria to help unlock certain areas in game. The more people play the minigames, the quicker things will happen in the real thing!

I felt in need of a coffee, so armed with my purse I went on the search. I came back with coffees for the group, to find that in my absence the darlings had volunteered me for another television interview - this time with BBC Midlands, to be aired on Friday at 6.30 --The news clip--. I'm the one in the beige hoodie, saying it's no longer a game played solo in a dark room, it's very social!

I managed to grab a couple of minutes with Jeffrey - an exclusive interview.. Armed with a huge number of questions (not!), I walked with him down the stairs as he was on the way to another press interview.. I appreciated the time, although the answers were.. disappointing..

me: The new classes that were announced - is the Runemaster to be Dwarf only and the Warden Elf only, to keep in line with the Captain being human only?
him: I'm not saying anything more about the new classes at the moment. You'll have to wait and see.
me: Will the current epic items grow with levels too or will the new legendary items system make the (for example) Rifts and Helegrad sets obsolete?
him: Interesting question. We haven't really decided yet, but it's possible we'll integrate the current sets into the new system. Maybe.
me: As player characters are having their level cap raised from 50 to 60, will playable monster positions also be appropriate increased?
him: It's not that simple, but yes, we'll be looking at monsterplay and adding new abilities etc to increase monsterplay toughness as needed.

And that was my two minutes. Oh, I did manage to get confirmed that if you're a lifetime subscriber, you only have to pay once for the expansion, you don't get forced to subscribe!

Next up was the "Round table" where we all got to see some gameplay in book 13, and chatted more with Jeffrey Steefel. The first thing on screen was the spectacular Northern Lights. Try to picture this: you're in the middle of a snowy, icy landscape, ahead of you is an Eskimo pushing an ice sled, almost like skating on a skateboard. There's a wrecked ship on an iceberg close by, and then you look up. In front of the stars, still clear, although the breath from your mouth is visible (and it really made you feel cold!) is a long streak of glowing green light. It's pulsing, and flowing across the skies. Hell, I thought the skies over the Shire were beautiful, but this almost makes me shiver to look at it! We were shown some dwarven mines, complete with miners, and Yetis! (Piekkos?) The character Jeffrey is controlling has some gorgeous armour, the cloak seems to be bearskin, with white fur accessories, boots that belong on an Eskimo. The whole armour was so pretty! Apparently it will be available with book 13, it's purchasable when you get your reputation up high enough.

We were then shown around some of the high end content currently in game, that some of us haven't visited yet - including the witch kings retreat. We watched in amazement (and some laughter) as the character got beaten up rather badly, and then everything instantly fell dead around him. Developer privilege! (purchasable for £50,000 allegedly, although none of us took up this extremely generous offer!)

We trialled ArchLord (sorry, not my cup of tea). Looked at RF Online (ditto) and eventually settled down to test the part of Jumpgate Evolution that was there for testing. I generated a character (consisting of choosing which set of eyes, and which helmet type, only one race available), and launched my ship. I was instantly struck by the immersive voiceovers, the awesome graphics and the smooth gameplay. For a beta, this was pretty! I shot up a load of ships, acually getting quite a thrill from it, managed to complete 3 missions successfully. However it's a bit "twitchy" for some players. It was tricky to follow ships around and successfully blast them from the sky. If you like games like the original Jumpgate, Elite, Xwing etc, you'll be fine though. You can play in first or third person, and personally I found the second option easier as my entire screen didn't completely fill up with bright yellow lights from my guns.. conclusion: I'm gonna use my closed beta key (in the goodie bag) and give it a really good try, so will two of my other guildies.

Then it was nearly half 6 and time for the journey home! We had a great day, all exhausted, but the Codemasters staff and Omega Sektor staff, and Turbine, NetDevil, hell everyone there was so friendly, helpful and approachable, we'll be back in 2009!!

the goodie bag, by the way, consisted of: (in no particular order)

A free in game title - I chose "Pillar of the Community", the rest of my group (all hunters) chose "Worldly Traveller". The third option was "Greeter of Kins"
A free in game "Ranger's Cloak" with 5% speed boost
code for 10 days free trial of DDO
code for 10 day free trial of RF Online
CLOSED BETA key for Jumpgate Evolution
CD with the trial edition of LOTRO
a mobile phone "charm" thingie with codemasters logo on
a plastic Dungeons & Dragons miniature
A £10.00 voucher for credit in ArchLord
A £10.00 voucher for credit in RF Online
flyer for colin mcrae - free game download for your mobile
Flyer for the Sensible World of Soccer competition - to win £1000
Flyer for Gencon 2008
flyer for the after show party (£10.00 to attend)
flyer for the Live Action Role Play event (would have liked to play, but no time)
"Choose your weapon" comic book
Connect 2008 mousemat
CD with both RF Online, and ArchLord on it, trial versions
RF Online Magazine
Magic: the Gathering - core game pack