Thursday
Thursday morning the convention formally began. The gaming actually starts at 8:00 am, but I appreciate my sleep and never schedule an event that early. I waited until 10:00 am, when the dealer’s hall opened, and examined the dealers and their wares for about two hours, making all of my major purchases at this time.
The thundering sound of giant footsteps resounded through the dealer’s hall as the Battletech demos started and continued throughout the convention. This online confrontation allowed players to pilot a multiton battle machine against another player at the convention; giant speakers supplied the sounds of battle while a giant projection screen showed watchers the view from one of the player’s computers. (The projection display was also a wonder, too: you couldn’t see the pixels at all! It was designed to project a video display to a movie screen. Wow!) Practically everyone in the entire room could hear the sounds of footsteps and combat. Later in the convention the same people would demonstrate the Air Warrior online multiplayer air-to-air combat game. Also demonstrated was the online fantasy roleplaying game Gemstone III; I got to meet and talk with Tom Zelinsky from the SFRT for the first time in person later, after several attempts at tracking him down in the dealer’s room.
Personal Links