SOE Live Time to Gear Up!
By Linda “Brasse” Carlson, Director, Global Community Relations
SOE Live will be here in less than two months, and we are starting to round out our panels and activities! It takes place October 18-21. You should sign up NOW, before you forget and regret it!
I’ll say it right now - we have some panels that are so under wraps that if I announced them, someone from PR would have me beheaded! Stay tuned for more news on those, because I will tell you about them the instant I can! Here’s what I can tell you now
KEYNOTES!
We’ll present three Keynote Sessions this year, spreading the excitement out over Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. We have a lot of cool new information to share, and for your sanity’s sake and ours, we’ve decided to deliver the goods in three short, exciting segments rather than our usual single marathon session.
PANELS!
You can expect all of your favorite Development Teams to host panels at SOE Live. The ability to speak to Devs face-to-face—to hear their plans and ask questions directly—is one of the main reasons you come to SOE Live. We are bringing a ton of Devs to the event, from all of our SOE games—you’ll have a chance to spend time with them all. No “velvet ropes” at our event! Dive right into conversation and learn more about your favorite teams!
This year, for the first time, we’re going to invite PLAYER PANELS, too. Oh, yes we are—I am not sure if I am more excited or nervous, but we expect these to go over very well indeed! Panels run by players, for players—I know you can hardly wait for that! Look for a separate blog feature about these panels and submission criteria within a few days!
Meanwhile, let me pick out just a few of the panels that will soon appear on our SOE Live website.
- Dave Georgeson will give you a real insider’s look at how SOE does business in “The Business of the EverQuest Franchise,” including an open discussion on where our revenues come from and where we’re going in the future. It will be an eye-opener for sure!
- Our Free Realms animation superstar, Floyd Bishop, will be back with his incredibly popular demonstration, “The Animation of Free Realms.” Yes, ladies and gentlebeasts, he will animate something from start to finish while discussing all the behind-the-scenes work that it takes to make our characters move.
- Customer Service will be back with their ever-popular panels, where you will learn more about the wild and wooly world of petitions, harassment, fraud, and all the other crazy things that GMs deal with every single day. Far from run-of the mill, these CS Panels are often bitingly funny, sometimes tragic and occasionally eye-rolling, but always entertaining and informative!
- The DCUO Team brings you news and highlights from the world of spandex, heroes and villains, including “The Next Big Thing,” in which Jens Andersen and Jesse Benjamin will reveal upcoming content and detail on the next DCUO DLC Pack. You’ll also have a chance to meet with a number of devs from the DCUO team at three other panels at SOE Live!
- PlanetSide 2… Let’s just say that our Beta forums have over 300,000 posts already and they excitement is building. Come to SOE Live and learn more about this compelling MMO-FPS. We’ll have several panels covering all aspects of gameplay and design, and the opportunity to meet key members of the Dev Team, assuming we’ve let them out of the design bunker deep underground where we usually keep them chained to their desks.
TOURNAMENTS!
Back again this year, we also have the ever popular in-game tournaments, complete with over the top prizes! Don’t forget to stop by and take your shot at winning big in Vegas.
- Take on EverQuest ‘s challenge, “Death, Death, Death!” Your six-man team will take on a sequence of old-school raid bosses, one after the other. NO, we’re not telling you which ones in advance—it’s all about the challenge of keeping your group going and seeing how far you get! Oh yes, there will be prizes. Good ones.
- For a less-murderous but elegantly challenging course, participate in the EverQuest II Aether Races. The top time qualifiers will race against Dave Georgeson for the winner’s title and prizes!
- PlanetSide 2 is doing… SOMETHING. No details yet, but as the game is rocketing along in development, we are bound to have an event to highlight the fast-paced gameplay of this massive MMO-FPS. For the more hands-on FPS crowd, we are hosting a laser tag event in conjunction with SOE Live, for a small additional fee. You know you wanna go! Who could turn down the opportunity to zap SOE Devs , live?
- Rumor has it that Mark Tuttle and the TCG/Strat crew will be around to take on “gunslinger challenges” in the gaming area, for fun (who doesn’t love beating a dev) and prizes (who doesn’t love phat lewt?). Bring your game, whether it’s LoN, MTGT, PoxNora, or the Free Realms TCG. We’ll set up two systems back to back and a sign-up sheet that I am sure will fill up FAST.
LIVEQUEST!
Fair warning: “LiveQuest” is our secret code for “insanity!”
The SOE Community Team will host four LiveQuests this year, one each for DCUO, EQ, EQII and PlanetSide. For those who have never participated, a LiveQuest is a blend of wit, mayhem and frenetic silliness, resulting in great prizes to the winning teams! Come prepared with your ten-man team or make a group up on the spot—either way, surviving your first LiveQuest is something you’ll never forget.
We’ll bring you more information on this year’s LiveQuest themes within the next two weeks, or the Community Team will be flogged until they deliver!
KIDS ARE IMPORTANT!
We’re going to have our first ever formal KID’S TRACK this year, including fun participation events along the Clone Wars Adventures and Free Realms theme. Remember that children 12 and under can come to SOE Live for FREE! Why not make it a family holiday?
MUCH, MUCH MORE INFO TO COME!
Over the coming weeks, we are going to bring you up to the minute news on our plans via Facebook, Twitter and more feature articles like this one. Meanwhile, sign up NOW for SOE Live!
…now pardon me, I have a set of armor to finish, and only seven weeks left to finish it!
~Brasse