SOE Live 2014 debriefing thread

So who all went? Share stories, pictures, blackmail, etc!

I'm on my phone so I can't type up my novella yet, so I'll leave you with a picture of my winning costume from Saturday night.and let others describe what will now be known as "The Laugh Incident."

Also, Trex hates me for trying to get us arrested.

No rocket launcher?

Alright, home at last so I can type up my novel.

This year was awesome, much better than last year for a variety of reasons.

Wednesday:

I drove the 300 miles up to Vegas in my trusty little AE86. Had a motor problem the last 20 miles that caused one of the cylinders to stop firing, but nothing else seemed wrong so I kept going with plans to make it to the mechanic the next day.

Got in in the late afternoon, had to park in the Miracle Mile. Ran into Trex, Sore, Radium, Daddio, SuperPatriot, Owl, Zhouz, Tesseract (who came out from Glasgow!) and a few others who elude me at the moment. Got to see the developers during the downtime and had a great chance to just hang out.

Trex "volunteered" to help me carry my costume down through the mall leading to the casino, at serious fear he was going to be arrested. We made it without incident, much to his relief and my disappointment. We were thinking about going out to Freemont or some other areas of the strip, but decided to stay in since not a lot of people were there yet.

Thursday morning I missed the start of because I had to take my car to the mechanic. The rest of our crew showed up during the day, including my roommate BumblingB and the rest of the Odyssey members who showed up (farm3rb0b, Tally, Mutton, Felsa, and if I forgot you I am so sorry). The car ended up being a simple fix (I'm going to kill the mechanic that worked on it last...) and I got back in in time for the opening ceremonies...but first, I had to wander down to Fat Tuesdays and grab myself a grain alcohol slushie with the Revengencers crew (Breakforce, Spider, and Michael Iron) which I brought to the opening much to the amusement/chagrin of my leaguemates.

I also started collecting drink tickets for Friday night. Final tally: 36

BumblingB and I went down to Freemont and didn't get back until about 3:30 Friday morning. I think we missed a panel, I'm not sure.

Friday was also a fun day. Had the DCUO keynote where Jens told everyone my costume for next year over Twitch, a few panels, and the livequest which was the DC Universe Deck building game. I won the group I was placed in with Green Lantern and won a comic and $100. Puttered around for the most part until the zombie party. I was planning on just going down to the pool, but they had a facepainter doing zombie makeup for $10. The quality of this guy's work was outstanding. I got my face painted as Joker Zombie, and it was so good I had to go up to the room and put on my purple suit. Didn't do the hair, but it looked awesome anyways. Did "The Laugh" for Mepps and Dex and sold them on it, plus I made a bacholerette party scream in terror in the elevator (this would be a great time to mention this was a running theme for me this weekend)

Crashed out relatively early and ended up hiring the guy who did the makeup for the zombie party to do my Joker makeup. He showed up around 10 AM so B and I were watching the tournament on his laptop while it took close to two hours to apply the makeup and put on the costume.

I made it down to the room near the end of the tournament, and got to help Odyssey present our gift to the dev team this year (A life sized crochet TOmbot) and scare the masses.

Most of Saturday was spent at the various DCUO panels, including the one I was a part of (Odyssey's raiding panel, where the rocket launcher brought the show to a halt) Sadly I had to duck out of the PVP panel to make it to the room and reapply some makeup before the costume contest.

This for me was the highlight of the trip. There were roughly 40 entrants this year, and the only two DCUO cosplayers were myself and Magician as TO Morrow. There was an EQ cosplayer who went as New 52 Harley. The judging was done in a separate room this year from last year, so every cosplayer got a chance to show off to the judges and the rest of us and answer questions about their costumes. Tunso and (I think) Spord showed up to the room to see me get judged because they had heard about The Laugh, but sadly they had to leave before I was judged.

When I got called up, I did it in character. Did the laugh, fired a BANG flag gun, and answered their questions in character. It was the most fun I've ever had in a costume.

The banquet was good but I couldn't really eat a lot because I didn't want to mess up the makeup, plus...well...you really don't realize that you memorize the shape of your face. I kept hitting the nose and chin with my fork, and I needed a straw since I couldn't drink from the glass because my nose wouldn't fit.

When they lined us up I knew I won something...

And then The Laugh happened.

After the contest (I won a Black Widow Ultimate keyboard, a 120gb SSD, and 2k station cash) I went back to the room to start to take off the costume, and realized that I was having so much fun, I wasn't done yet. So I went back down to mingle looking like this:



This included walking down along the strip for a bit just being a general nuisance, getting my picture taken, etc. Finally made it back to the room and B helped me take the makeup off (medical grade adhesives in the eyebrows HURT) and went down with Felsa to grab a victory drink.

I had to duck out early on Sunday for the drive back, but I had a chance to swing into the dev brunch, say goodbye to everyone, and steal a pound of bacon from the buffet. I'm sad I missed what I heard was the pest panel at the convention, but alas, it happens.

It was so great to meet old friends and make some new ones. You all are amazing people and I can't wait to see you all next year.

So that was my SOE Live in a nutshell. How was yours?

So everyone knows I made a painting for Spytle last year and of course I made one this year. So that took about 2 weeks to work on.


Thursday Morning, I got up and tribute my items to the League and really wanted to play, I instead put all my things in my car and left for Vegas. The trip was actually peaceful and not too hot. I got to Vegas around 10am and Kris was like, I thought you were coming later?! I talked with everyone around me while I waited for the Badge thing was up. So long lines! Ugh, my legs were tired. After the intro with Mark, Kris and I hit Freemont street and found out the place he wanted to eat at was closed already! So we went to Vegas for Denny's. I lost 50$ at Blackjack, but somehow broke even with roulette. Still confused on that one. lol

Friday morning Kris and I were both zonked. We got in the previous night at 3:30, he crashed, I had to shower and didn't sleep until after 4am. So that day was kind of a blur until the lunch between the panels and the keynote. Where he crashed again and I ate something and drank some caffeine to get through the rest. Which I did. Kris went to the Zombie Party and I decided to be anti social and take a long hot bath and crash for the night. Glad I did, tbh. lol Also, I gave Spytle my gift right after the keynote. This is from his tweet.
I'm so fat...

Saturday morning was great. Kris contacted the guy who did the face paint. I took a LOT of process pics. I think the guy actually liked me doing that. Will show them when I get a chance. At work today. We watched the tourny on my PC while he was getting purdy for the contest. It was fun this day. Hung out with everyone. Got to see the devs get the TOM Bot that Mutt made (well his GF's sister, but I still think he does it on his free time) and chatted with a lot of devs. Good stuff! During the Ody panel and the one after, I doodled faces, but the paper is lost for sure! Ending up losing to Kris in the deckbuilding because he played it before! The cheater! Then during the closing thing with Mark, I won the randomizer! Everyone at our table was like, there will be no way a DC player goes up, too many EQ players and PS2 players. We compared it to getting an OP item, and then I won and was like, "welp, there goes my chance of EVER getting the neck of OP." lol

Then Sunday I sat in on the last two panels and was sad that there will be no Ted Kord living Blue Beetle, but at least we have confirmed a Black Lantern Beetle! Then drove home!


Oh and missed one of my off ramps near home and took a 16 mile detour to get back! lol

#sobatmansentyou #goodtimes

The gaps in my memory prevent me from writing up a full debriefing, but I do remember really enjoying talking with Brasse. (Edit to add - I wonder what that says about me? )

I'm pretty sure she was making fun of me at one point, scolding me for not listening. I must've seen something shiny and my attention drifted. Sometimes ADD kicks in. I have a habit of not finishing thi

Was Candlejack your roomma

I think there's been enough debriefing.

#whathappensinvegas

#goesontheinternetin2minutes

Hmm... Not the type of debriefing I was expecting!

But Kristyana, friggin awesome Joker! I love it!

So this happened...



You can find this, and all my other photos up at

http://www.tharkis.com/vegas14.html


I now need a long vacation to recover from my vacation! Cant wait till next SOE Live. I will be getting captions up on the photos sooner rather than later.

was the new UI shown????????????????????????????? (any WIP images of UI shown??????????)

My understanding was that it's in a blueprinting/prototype. Focusing on trimming down bulk and making things much more intuitive and relevant.

In the Legends panel you might be able to see some examples. Check Tharkis' pictures to see some

dammmm when u went on stage, every1 in the twitch chat was so freaking impress and they all said you'll win. Everyone on twitch chat also said you had a very nice joker laugh

That is some good stuff right there man, mad props to you.

Going back to work Monday morning at 7:30am was a terrible time.

That said, it was real nice meeting y'all.

I hear you man. I also have a commute too. Ugh.

Just wanted to mention that the new SSD I won is working brilliantly!

Thanks! I had no idea there were many people watching it on Twitch or in chat. DCUO doesn't get enough love.

Thank you so much for the comments about the laugh. I practiced it, along with every other aspect. Joker is an INSANE character to try and wrap your head around, and I loved every minute of it

So the event itself was amazing, so well organized and everyone around was just super friendly.

Panels were very easy to find for the first few days but they ended up moving everything way into the back on Sunday to make it easier to clean up I assume. It was in a section that I barely knew existed.

Both banquets were really well run and very entertaining, even through the more cringe-worthy moments like the Scottish comedian. That was really, really uncomfortable lol

The panels themselves were awesome, I didn't get to see them all due to other others going on at the time but from the ones I saw its very clear the devs love the game.

Also I got to have this happen:
Drinking with Mepps, thats one off the bucket list

And for good measure, the bad timing picture:


Tharkis was everywhere just taking photos of the event, go through them and in every single one you'll notice how great a time everyone is having. This could be you next year! And god willing it will be me again as well.

Mepps was much more photogenic at the pool party this year than last year!

I had a fun time for the little time I was there. I got there Wednesday, went to see Penn & Teller at Rio, was exhausted and went back to Planet Hollywood to sleep. Thursday some leaguemates made it in, we went to dinner at Koi and went to see Zombie Burlesque at the V Theater. Then we went to Blondie's for some drinks which turned into a great drunk adventure. Told a few people there one of many classic Nekron stories that involved my two crazy kids.

Friday had SOE Live panels which were fun too.

I had to leave Saturday at 6AM though so I could make it back here by 9PM. This was so I had some time get my son ready for his first day of Kindergarden. Obviously that meant I missed all of the Saturday and Sunday stuff.

Hopefully next year I'll actually have more time to hang out. See you all next year.

Spytle is a giant.

#tallmansyndrome