Posts Tagged ‘Evil Chris’

BioWare finally visits Canada. Wait… what?

September 1, 2009

fanx
Part 1 of 3, by Evil Chris Priestly

Doorway to Funland BioWare is a proudly Canadian company. Sure, we have a lot of international employees, but we were founded by Canadians in Edmonton Alberta and we remain very proud of being a Canadian game development studio. However, even though we are proud to be Canadian, we’ve never really had a presence at Canadian gaming events. Sure, we always attend E3 and lately we’ve been attending other international shows like GamesCom in Germany or PAX in Seattle (more on PAX later this week), but we’ve never really done much here in our home country. Well, all that changed this past weekend as the BioWare Community Team took Dragon Age Origins to Fan Expo Canada.

Huge CrowdsFan Expo takes place at the Metro Convention Center in Toronto Ontario and is sort of 4 smaller conventions all wrapped up into one big show. In past years, Toronto hosted a comic book show, one dedicated to horror, one on Sci-Fi and one on Anime. They realized that instead of having 4 small shows with only so-so attendance to each, they could combine and have one massive show that would pull in fans from all groups simultaneously. This year, they were hoping to have around 50,000 fans come out, but on Saturday the lines were SO huge, I think they will have easily beat that number this year.

So what goes on at Fan Expo? Well, as I said, it is a combination of Sci-Fi, comic books, anime and horror. There are the usual booths selling their back issue comics or gothic clothes or Pocky or whatever. There were a large number of celebrities attending, like Bruce Campbell, Roger Corman and Leonard Nemoy, signing autographs and taking pictures with fans. There were some big companies like DC Comics, Disney and Warner Brothers present showing off their upcoming projects. And there was a staggering amount of fans in costumes. Don’t get me wrong, there are always fans in costume at conventions, but I say that I saw more fans in costumes at Fan Expo than any other Con I have been to. I saw Leatherfaces chasing after Narutos and Squirrel Girl doing battle with Ghostbusters as a squad of Yeoman Brands watched. We even had a few “famous” characters come by the booth to try out Dragon Age: Origins, but sadly, their superpowers couldn’t prevail over the Darkspawn Blight.

Walloping Websnappers!

I should also call out one more very cool thing. There are always a number of artists at these cons. Sometimes they are famous artists working on comics, movies and TV, other times they are up and coming artists starting up their own projects. Now I have always said that of all the departments at BioWare I am always the most impressed by our artists. It may be because I like to think that I can write a bit and I also like to think that if I went back to school and applied myself, I could learn the basics of programming. However, I know for a fact that I cannot “art”. I have tried to “art” even taking a course at college (where my Prof suggested I transfer to drama), so I am always in awe of the talent that we have at BioWare. Well, this year at Fan Expo, a few BioWare staffers and friends have started up The Anthology Project. If you are looking for the “delirious pursuit of compelling narrative and notable artistic work in the medium of sequential art”, you should really check it out.

The Anthology Project

Well, we have wrapped up another successful convention. We had a great time this year at Fan Expo and I hope to return again next year. Why? Well, because it was a heck of a good time and, frankly, because Canada rocks. This week is the start of our last official Community Convention of the summer as we head to Seattle Washington for PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo. Keep track of us on Twitter at biofeed and check out our convention pictures on the Community Flickr account here: Flickr

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BioWare Blog: Gather Your Party Before Venturing Forth. p2

August 17, 2009

Part 2 of 2 by Evil Chris Priestly

Well, another year’s Gen-Con has come and gone. I, and the rest of the BioWare staff working the Con, are very tired, but very pleased at how much fun we had and how well Dragon Age: Origins was enjoyed by the fans. We had great turn out each and every day. I don’t think there was more than a 30 second gap of empty space at any of the kiosks for either PC or Xbox 360 demos. Dragon Age Booth 11

I guess I should back up a bit. If you read part 1 of my Gen Con blog (and if you haven’t go do so now, I’ll wait) you know that me, Fernando Melo (Producer), David Gaider (Lead Writer), Cori May (Technical Designer), Randall Bishop (Assistant Brand Manager), Derek Beland (Senior Programmer), Bryan Derksen (Toolset Programmer) and Vanessa Prinsen (QA Analyst) all came to this years Gen Con in Indianapolis Indiana to show off Dragon Age: Origins. We had 4 stations each for hands on demos of the PC and Xbox 360 versions. We also had a stage where we gave presentations and toolset demos to the crowd. Everyone had a great time meeting and talking DAO with fans. I think 99% of the people who came to the booth walked away impressed with the game. The 1% who walked away unhappy wanted it to be an MMO (too bad for them as they missed out a great single player RPG. We told them to check out Star Wars The Old Republic for cool upcoming MMO goodness).

The game went over great and even the people who only watched walked away talking about how cool it was or how much it reminded them on NwN or Baldur’s Gate. I had a large number of people pull out PDAs and pre-order on the spot, which was great to see. We did have a few minor tech issues, all caused by Xboxes overheating in their tiny cabinets in the hot Convention hall, but otherwise the builds performed great. Our biggest disappointment was that our swag never did arrive. We were supposed to give out 18 thousand inflatable Dragon Age swords, but the truck never showed, so our apologies to fans that didn’t get any. Our biggest surprise was likely the transformation of Vanessa from knowledgeable game assistant in to “booth babe”. Never underestimate the power of an attractive woman who is also a huge gamer and fellow nerd. Vanessa the Booth Babe

We had a great time in Indianapolis as well. Despite being really hot and humid (compared to back home) we explored, dined well and shopped when we weren’t working hard. The people of Indy are super nice when us nerds come to town for Gen Con. The only day we felt out of place was “Game Day” when the local NFL team, the Colts, played. The streets became a sea of blue and white jerseys and we felt like geeky salmon trying to swim upstream trying to walk anywhere. We also went out to a great Steak Restaurant with our friends from EA Mythic studios (who were there showing Warhammer Online ) as well as watching District 9 with them late the last evening. Great bunch of folks at Mythic and it was a pleasure to meet up with them when we could.

All too soon, it was the end of the Convention. When the announcement came at 4pm on Sunday everyone gave a strong round of applause to the Con, and breakdown on the booths began. We quickly tidied up, scrubbed our PCs and 360s clean (for security), packed up and moved out having had a great Gen Con once again this year. Will BioWare be back in 2010? Well, we will have shipped both Dragon Age: Origins and Mass effect 2 before next summer, but we do have a lot of DLC we’ll be talking about, plus we have an MMO in the works. I can’t promise anything yet, but we’ll see what we can do.

Now I’m sitting in an airport lounge on my way to Koln (or Cologne) Germany for the Koln Games Convention. BioWare is going to be showing both Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2. I’ll continue blogging once I have touched down in Germany and gotten over the jetlag. Keep track of us on Twitter at biofeed and check out our convention pictures on the Community Flickr account here: Flickr

Looks like they’re boarding my plane. Blog at you later.

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GenCon Blog: Adventuring to Indianapolis, p1

August 13, 2009

gencon
Part 1 of 2 by Evil Chris Priestly

Well, it is the end of the first day of Gen Con here in Indianapolis Indiana and, like any good adventurer after a hard day’s toil, I have ventured to a local tavern where I can regale you with stories of my adventures.

Gen Con, for those who do not know, is the largest gaming convention in the United States and this is its 40th anniversary.

Gen Con 40 Birthday Card

Sure, there are conventions that are larger for video games (like E3 or the upcoming PAX conference in Seattle), but I think it is the largest convention dedicated to gaming in North America. There are all sorts of games here; board games, dice games, live action role playing, card games, miniatures and, luckily for BioWare and EA, a growing segment of video games. The video games here try to fit in with the audience, so BioWare has sent our next great Fantasy RPG, Dragon Age: Origins for fans to play. There are other great games here as well like Dante’s Inferno and Warhammer Online, but I think we are the game that best fits in with the convention attendees. All of whom are gamers, fans of fantasy and, like me and the rest of the BioWare team, huge nerds who love the games we play.

We knew Dragon Age: Origins would be a great fit for the con, so we created a booth where we can allow fans to try out the PC and Xbox 360 versions with hands on game play. We also have a stage where we are doing combat demos as well as toolset and story presentations. Dragon Age Origins Fans 04 Along with me is Dragon Age Lead Writer David Gaider, Producer Fernando Melo, Technical Designer Cori May, Senior Programmer Derek Beland, QA Analyst Vanessa Prinsen, Toolset Programmer Bryan Derksen and Assistant Brand Manager Randall Bishop. David is doing double duty handling press interviews as well as doing stage presentations on the story of Dragon Age: Origins. Fernando and Bryan are doing toolset demos. And the rest of us are helping fans play the game and answer questions.

So far, things are going almost perfectly. The booth and Dragon Age: Origins are a huge hit with the crowd here. People love the game, David is giving interviews to press, we get to meet and answer fan questions on the game and we’re having an almost perfect time. Almost perfect? Yep, well, there are always a few small issues when you attend a convention. For example, all of our swag is missing. We hoped to have the inflatable swords we gave out at Comic Con here, but they are missing (hopefully they’ll come tomorrow). Also, during set up, we realized we didn’t have internet to authenticate our PC installs. Fortunately, our good friends at Mythic are here showing Warhammer Online and thanks to Bob, Jordan and the rest, we borrowed some internet to get the job done.

What are the things I’ve seen that impress me so far? Well, the Dante’s Inferno booth next door to us not only has an excellent hands on demo, but also a supercool statue of Dante Dante's Inferno Statue 04
We also had a fan of Mass Effect stop by the booth in an amazingly detailed Liara T’Soni costume. She had the detail down perfectly even going so far as to create her pistol. Those, along with how well the game is going over with fans are the definite highlights so far.Liara T'Soni Fan 06 Liara Renegade

I’ll be back later on with another GenCon update and later, a blog about heading of to Games Com in Koln Germany, which is the next destination for BioWare this summer on our Summer Convention Tour. In the mean time, make sure you follow us at biofeed on Twitter and check out our convention pictures on the Community Flickr account here: Flickr Now it is time for bed or, as I like to say, Evil Chris needs sleep badly. Blog at you later.

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