It wasn't a perfect working vacation, but it wasn't bad. I enjoyed my time in San Diego; the parents are fine, the weather was nice, and I even played some tennis with my mom, hitting the ball for the first time in something like 20 years. Tuesday night I drove up to LA and eventually found my stepsister's apartment and got my stuff in and got some rest. She was out of town, and the neighbor who was housesitting took 2 days off. He still came over to feed the cats though, and unfortunately for me, he'd been feeding them around 5:30am each morning. Which meant they began making all sorts of yowling noises at that time, and coupled with the bright guest bedroom, I had no chance to sleep past 6am either day I was there.
Oh well, at least I got to E3 early. That was the main reason for my trip, to see Hellgate: London at the show, and I certainly did, spending 5 or 6 hours on Wednesday and then another 4 Thursday looking at HGL and playing it and talking to the designers of it. Very informative, and while I wasn't really digging the game that much the first day, I really began to enjoy it on day 2. I left around 2 and drove straight home, but if not for my "avoid horrible traffic" plan, I'd have happily stayed until the show closed.
The main difference was my growing familarity with the controls and the game, and as I got better at moving my Templar or Cabalist around, killing things in a variety of ways, picking up items, finding new items, buying new items, moving between weapon setups and skill options, and so on, it got a lot more fun. I'll be posting a great deal more about this on
my our new Hellgate: London website, of course. Suffice to say I think the game has a real Diablo II vibe, with a much more interesting quest system, and while there are still lots of rough edges to polish, that's to be expected for a title that's still relatively early in its development process.
The drive home wasn't bad; after some traffic getting out of LA it was a smooth ride, and I even kept it to a reasonable 80MPH, which is about the flow of traffic up I5 through the central valley. It took me about 4.5 hours total from the LACC to my home, but with a variety of tunes going on my ipod and thoughts of home and HGL articles humming through my head, the 350ish miles pretty much melted away.
As for E3, other than HGL I didn't care about much. The new HGL cinematic is very nice, though I think the best movie I saw on a giant screen at any of the massive booths was the new one for Assassin's Creed. The new Metal Gear and the Warhammer MMO movies were damn good too, but not quite on the same level, since they didn't have the story interest of the HGL or Assassin's cinematics.
Also, it's been internet news for months, and it's
major media news right now, but honestly, I didn't notice any real difference in the booth babe attire at E3 this year. I hadn't been for a couple of years, and I didn't see any stripper-tastic hot pants or bikini bottoms or other ass-baring outfits this year, but they weren't much short of that. Dozens of models in very short miniskirts, skin-tight spandex suits, short shorts, belly shirts, and so on. They're all very cheerleader-hot though, I.E. they look a lot better when you see them from more than 20 yards away. Up close the caked on make up and fake smiles can be hard to take.
So what's the happy, as mentioned in the title? Home and hugs and Chinese food and some time spent with Malaya, of course. The whole trip would have been far, far better if she'd been able to go along. Maybe next year, though I hope HGL will be out by then, thus giving me/us no reason to go. Honestly though, they've said this year for a beta to begin, but I can't see it. Too much work yet to do.
More on the vacation and other blog stuff when I have a chance, but my computer is being janky and crash happy after a week without being used, and I've got to prioritize HGL updates and novel work; prioritize them above random updates on this blog, at least.
Labels: Hellgate: London
