Ex Libris

… is done. But what a time it was!

The first day was tough. We couldn’t say much of anything during our panels and our “History and Lore” panel was that day. Fortunately this Ethernaut stuff has been coming out for a bit so we could at least generally talk about them. I did a reading from “Of New Friends… Part II”, so a little sneak peak there for the Fan Faire folks. It was like a weight off as soon as the news hit and the beautiful box art hit the screen at Smed’s address. Truly, they have made up for last year with this year’s box. We gave free digital copies of both the EQ and EQ2 coming expansions to our FF attendees, but I think more than one of them is going to want to buy the box just for how pretty it is. Well, at least, I would, but maybe I’m just a dork. Hey wait a minute… I’m a game designer. *Of course* I’m a dork!

Saturday’s panels were great. I got to talk about my two big projects for the expansion – our massive overland zone, Moors of Ykesha (the former Innothule) and the signature quest series that carries through the lore of The Shadow Odyssey (of which there will be an evil version and a good). After that I pretty much had a beacon over my head for the solo players and got to chat a lot about what they want to see. Oh yeah, did I mention troll pirates? I think I did! I love trolls, I love pirates, and I am having fun with them in that zone.

So I didn’t lose any money gambling. I genuinely wanted to play craps but didn’t manage to end up with someone teaching me until Saturday evening and then it was the banquet, and then to bed for me, as I am here in the airport on an 8:30 flight. Again, a dorky moment, but in an odd way it reminds me of playing Settlers of Catan… I played the slots all of twice, both times only inserting a dollar. I did manage to win 22 bucks off of one of those dollars, so I guess I came out ahead. I managed to spend relatively little money overall, but I didn’t eat nearly as much food as I should have, so that helped. I don’t have a massive appetite but I recognize even I should probably go through a day on more than some leftover omelette and fried zucchini.

I was reminded quite a few times that I need to pour through Vhalen’s many, many lore notes even more than I have. I tried to answer the questions that I could, but people came to me with some really obscure lore questions. I suppose if they weren’t really obscure, they would already know the answer, because they are much more clever than I am.

I really connected with a lot of our players, and that’s what counted. I was giving out hugs by the time I started to say good-bye on Saturday, and made a promise I well intend to keep that I will have at least one fae react to the odd sight that is an arasai citizen of Kelethin.

The parties were, of course, good. I really have to commend SOE for the Friday night bash. It was really fun. I worked the crowd with ‘I Love Rock ‘n Roll’ during the live band karaoke and then danced with friends & players most of the night. I was in line to do the rock wall when I had to come up for my song, so I didn’t end up doing that. But I probably would have embarrassed myself. Upper body strength is not something I work on at the gym as much as I should. It turned out Felicia Day of The Guild, Buffy, and Dr. Horrible’s had been in the Hilton for another convention and been invited to the party, so I ran into her there. That was very neat.

So it’s done, back to work! I think The Shadow Odyssey has the potential to be really fantastic but that’s only going to happen if we keep our noses to the grindstone.