Starting today and running through Sunday, The Tech Herald will be covering Gen Con with a mix of images and interviews. Along with coverage from the game floor and expo, we will try to get all the goods from the companies displaying their latest and greatest.
Starting things off, the opening day for Gen Con, from about 7 a.m., was surprisingly busy. There were hundreds of people streaming into the Indiana Convention Center to pick up badges, meet friends, and just hang out and play a few games. (See images below)
As the morning moved forward, the crowd grew to thousands, and before this day is over, tens of thousands of people are expected to walk the floors. While wandering around taking photographs, The Tech Herald met one person who represents the core of what makes Gen Con unique. Robert Smith is an avid gamer, he said his personal favorite is Shadowrun (RPG), but “D&D is a classic fall back.”
Smith, who is a West Virginia native, made the five hour drive to Indianapolis this year with three other friends. He said that this is the one vacation a year, and when asked his reasons for attending, his aligned well with the others we talked to. “You never know who or what you’ll see,” he explained.
The atmosphere at Gen Con is one that allows complete strangers, from all walks of life and areas of the US, to interact as if they have known one another for years. This is one of the things that Smith hit on when we spoke to him about his reasons for attending for the last three years. Aside from his love of games, he is here for the community aspect as well.
Another group of people we spoke to drove over 16 hours to Indianapolis from Houston, Texas to attend. The group of six, plus one from Kansas, are a mix of first time attendees and repeat attendees, representing AsgardGames.net. They were such a lively bunch, as they had just gotten some exclusive Magic the Gathering cards, something Wizards of the Coast are doing for Gen Con attendees, that we just had to get an image of them.
In this image in no particular order are: Anthony, Aaron, Jeff, Ang (she has the camera aimed at me), DeeJay, Sam, and Tate, who was the only one not from Texas, but the others said they forgive him for that.
The other images below are just some of the things we have seen this morning. We’ll update again later with details from the vendor area.
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At about 10 a.m. the expo hall opened at Gen Con. Up to this point, there were several thousand attendees already with badges and moving around the Indiana Convention Center. However, there were also several hundred or more waiting in line.
Walking into the expo hall, where the vendors make their home for the four days of Gen Con, you notice one thing instantly, wall-to-wall booth space and sales areas, and lots of people. The expo hall, needless to say, was packed. Still, packed or not, the expo area is a whirlwind of activity.
There are tables to play card-based games as well as tables to play straight board games of various themes and design. There are game training areas for some of the established card and board games, as well as training areas for new games. Moreover, the expo floor has MMO stations for games like Warhammer Online, which was entertaining when we tried it. Also when asked, the guys at the booth said to remind Mac players to test the beta, they expect the final Mac version of the game sooner rather than later.
When it comes to sales, the expo has that too. There are dice, rule books, player guides, art, clothes, and weapons both for LARP (Live Action Role Play, see images below) games, and the real thing. The art, which we did not take images of due to the crowds, was one of the most popular places on the floor outside the gaming stations.
The highlight, for us at least, came from the time spent playing a PS3 game due to hit stores Q1 2010. The game, from Electronic Arts and Visceral Games, snatches attention with its title, Dante’s Inferno, but the gameplay itself will hold that stolen attention for a long, long time.
Putting into words the awesome that is this game, from the 15 minutes we were given to play, would take entirely too much space. The best way to explain it is to take all that was good with God of War, amplify that by about 9000, and you’re close.
The Scythe alone rocks, but the moves that are performed with it, during normal battle, are simply mind-blowing. The graphics have to be seen, there is rich detail given to every area of every level. Unless you play the game, the images below simply cannot do the game justice. The scene we played, after taking on a small army of creatures, we had to fight, and then tame another much larger monster, which we then used to beat the hell out of other creatures, and scale a falling wall. (The wall did us in. It took several attempts to get past this section, which to us means that while the game isn’t too hard, it is a challenge.)
The first set of images here, are the statue for the game, just inside the demo area.
These images were taken while we played, the shake comes from one handed photography.
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As promised here are the images of the Serra Angel from the main hall.
Update 2:
This update covers more from the expo floor. We took a visit to Wizards of the Coast’s booth. They were playing Magic the Gathering, in card form and on an X-box 360. Wizards of the Coast will be covering a few things at Gen Con this year.
First off, they are celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Dragonlance, with a new book from Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman titled “Dragons of the Hourglass Mage, The Lost Chronicles Volume 3”. According to a press release before Gen Con, Margaret and Tracy will be on site for autographs and a special anniversary party.
Wizards is also taking time to talk about and draw attention to the D&D 4th Edition Monster Manual 2 and 4th Edition Players Manual 2. There is a hardcore group of D&D players at Gen Con, and games are running almost 24/7.
For the Magic player, Wizards is giving away some promotional cards at the show, which if you recall from the fist update, our friends from Texas were extremely pleased to get their hands on. Likewise, they are offering a limited number of cards from Exiled for pre-sale during the show. The catch is only 100 copies will be available each day.
While we were visiting the Wizards booth, they were running classes on how to play Magic the Gathering. The images below are from that session. The other images are from gameplay on the X-box 360.
Wizards of the Coast are one of the sponsors this year at Gen Con, so they have some decent branding placement. The largest is in the main hall of the Indiana Convention Center, a life-sized Serra Angel, one of the classic White creatures from Magic the Gathering. We’ll have images of that in the next update.
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The Tech Herald has once again taken to the road to cover what is called the best four days in gaming. Indianapolis has hosted Gen Con since 2003, and each summer thousands head to Indianapolis to play, learn, buy, sell and trade. For the avid gamer, no matter if you play with pencil and paper, or a dedicated Internet connection, there is something for everyone here.
Update 4:
This will be the final update for the day. Things are winding down, but the gaming will go all night long. Most of those who are here for the weekend will be running on very few hours of sleep by the time everything is said and done.
To wrap things up, we will end day one with some images showing games in progress, loyal movie fans, a tall pirate, and the coolest craft work we’ve seen in a long time.
The first set of images comes from earlier this morning when one of the halls was starting to fill with players. The tables were mostly hosting D&D games as far as we could see, but there were a few others running at the same time. The interesting thing about watching all of this was how interactive all the players were, they were seriously enjoying themselves.
This next image is of a rather tall pirate, who instead of a peg leg used a table leg. He was just wandering about talking to people, including the two Ghostbusters in the image after.
Finally, we have a very creative design for dungeon tiles and miniatures. The level of detail was impressive to say the least. Most of the model painters we talked to who were looking at this set at the same time we were taking pictures, all asked the same question, “Where can I get that color?”
Tomorrow we will be back with more photos, and a look at some of the other vendors in the expo area. If there is something you want us to check out for you, tell us in the comments section, and we’ll do our best.