dragoncon-2009
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Dragon*Con 2009 in pictures
Oh, Dragon*Con, I missed you before I even left. Though I'm not entirely certain if you can really enjoy the MMO track's annual World of Warcraft party -- which included Gnome punting and Horde vs. Alliance dodgeball -- vicariously, I tried to catch the experience in photographic form nevertheless. (Note: if you want to really experience the meaning of the "war" in Warcraft, you need to do so in a room filled with hundreds of WoW fans cheering for their faction of choice.) Of course, Dragon*Con is more than parties (after all, some of the parties had Tesla coils), there was some great MMO programming and we had a chance to talk addons with the infamous ckknight. With twelve long months to wait until Dragon*Con 2010, we'll all have to live on memories until then. So, until 2010, I leave you with photo galleries.%Gallery-72666% Gallery: Dragon*Con 2009: General convention gallery
The best of WoW.com: September 8-15, 2009
The World of Warcraft is brimming with anticipation lately, from next month's anniversary activities (the game is almost five years old) to next year's expected Cataclysm expansion. Whether you're a Northrend veteran or still haven't seen Elwynn Forest, Joystiq sister site WoW.com has you covered. If it's in Azeroth, we can tell you all about it.
Dragon*Con 2009: A look back at the mayhem
Some of us go for the excellent panels featuring stars like William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Terry Gilliam, Adam Savage, and so many more. Others of us go for the fun events like concerts by Arc Attack, Faith & The Muse, or the kilt-blowing by Jennie Breeden. Amongst all the comic, fantasy, sci-fi, and other sundry forms of nerditry, there is a steadily growing MMO and video game presence at Dragon*Con. For the last three years, Massively and our sister site WoW.com have been on the ground helping grow this East coast gaming presence either as panelists or staff. Some of the highlights for this year included: Guiness World Record set for 905 people doing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" dance at the same time. (You haven't lived until you've seen Alien do Thriller, though there's lots of footage.) 2600+ units of blood donated to the Dragon*Con blood drive, with 250+ people being tied to the Alliance vs. Horde World of Warcraft competition we held as part of the D*C MMO track. (Horde won, but just barely.) 40+ different fan tracks, with 50 panels worth of content for MMOs alone! $25,000 raised for charity! So if you missed the fun, here's a gallery of some of the random images from D*C this year. If you're East coast and looking for something fun to do on Labor Day weekend next year, perhaps we'll catch you at Dragon*Con 2010!%Gallery-72473%[Thanks to Ian W., Michael McG., Scott B., Shawn Schuster, and especially Tiffiany M. for contributing pictures!]
WoW Add-ons panel at Dragon*Con 2009
While at Dragon*Con this weekend, I was able to attend a World of Warcraft add-ons panel hosted by Cameron Knight, commonly known as ckknight, the developer of such add-ons as Cartographer, Pitbull, Chinchilla, and FuBar. As a day job, he is currently the Lead Developer for both Curseforge and WoWAce.com as well as working as an add-on developer liaison with Blizzard to make sure the major add-on developers get access to the Cataclysm beta. The questions during the session ranged from how to write add-ons, add-on recommendations for newcomers, and even funny bug reports and anecdotes. After the break is the summarized version of the panel.
Dragon*Con 2009: Costumes, the parade and more!
Didn't get a chance to check out the costumes at Dragon*Con this year? No problem! We spent the last weekend grabbing literally hours of video footage to stuff into a small, digestible 10-minute chunk for our readers. We have some footage of the costumes around the hotels, the mass of people outside and of course, the epic parade that is held every year.Follow along after the jump for just a tidbit of our favorite moments from Dragon*Con 2009, and look for a photo gallery of even more wonderful imagery coming soon.
DragonCon 2009: Interview with Global Agenda
At Dragon*Con this year, we had the chance to grab a quick video interview with Stew Chisam, VP of Game Operations at Hi-Rez Studios. Following two successful closed beta weekends, and some wonderful demos at Dragon*Con and PAX, Stew was happy to tell us how things are going in the progression of Global Agenda.As promised on our last tour of the Hi-Rez Studios HQ, we're following the studio -- and the game -- as they progress through to launch. Follow along after the jump to see what Stew has to say about player feedback, projected launch and the overwhelming following they've seen at Dragon*Con.
Attend Dragon*Con via Second Life
We here at Massively know that not everyone can spend the money or the time to come out to Dragon*Con. But we don't want you guys to feel left out of the fun! Tonight there's going to be a Second Life panel being run here at Dragon*Con, and we'd love it if you attended! The panel will be run simultaneously in Second Life and in real life, hosted by us here at Massively.com. Come, meet your fellow Second Life Massively readers, and you can even interact with and send questions to us here at the convention! The panels topics will cover the entire culture of Second Life, serving as a player meetup opportunity and a pubic forum for everyone to talk about Second Life and discuss issues relevant to the virtual world platform. Interested in attending? The panel will start at 7 PM ET (4 PM SLT/PT) and you can find our meet up as easily as clicking this link to boot your Second Life client. See you tonight, hopefully!
Dragon*Con 2009: Massively is in the house!
It's that time of year again! For the next four days, the streets of Atlanta, GA will be transformed from a bustling downtown business center to prime acreage chock full of enormous nerd herds. With a handful of East coast writers, we here at Massively couldn't let all the geeky shenanigans - and MMO fun - go on without taking part. That's right, we have been invited back to participate for a third year as panelists and general party fiends at the MMO track. On site this year to take part in the fun are Colin Seraphina Brennan, Shawn Schuster, Elizabeth Harper for both Massively and our sister-site, WoW.com, and myself. When we're not lending our professional hands to various things, we'll be catching up with guests, attendees, and generally scouting for anything that might send gamer geek hearts fluttering.If you're also in Atlanta for this enormous pop-culture love-in and would like to catch up with the Massively crew, be sure to check out the listing behind the break for where we'll all be. Just remember there's tons of other great things going on for the MMO track, so be sure to check the pocket guide for a full schedule!
Meet the Massively team at DragonCon '09
As we are just now recovering from BlizzCon and GamesCom last week, we realize we're not even close to being through the summer convention season yet. DragonCon in Atlanta, GA and PAX in Seattle, WA both start next week, and you can bet there are more than a few of us at Massively who will be attending these major conferences.At DragonCon specifically, the Massively staff will be in full force as four of us plan to attend in one form or another. Some of us will be speaking at panels, some of us will be doing interviews and one of us is even on the MMO Track planning staff. And then there are the parties! Want to party with us? Follow along after the jump to learn where we'll be and how you can get your hands on some Massively swag.
Global Agenda announces North American tour
The team at Hi-Rez Studios announced they're taking Global Agenda on the road for a North American tour. It'll be a chance for fans, or anyone curious about the shooter-MMO hybrid, to get some hands-on time with Global Agenda and meet the developers from Hi-Rez Studios. The Global Agenda tour kicks off this week at QuakeCon in Dallas and will hit the major gaming events through January. The tour dates announced thus far are: August 13-15 -- Dallas, QuakeCon September 4 -- Atlanta, DragonCon September 4-6 -- Seattle, Penny Arcade Expo October 22-24 -- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Games and Media Expo January 7-10 -- Las Vegas, Consumer Electronics Show %Gallery-35351%
The Daily Grind: Are you looking forward to any gaming conventions?
August and September are notoriously known as the months of gaming conventions, and ultimately, two months where we're pretty busy reporting announcements and general event coverage. We have both GamesCom and GamesCon (yes, confusing), GenCon, BlizzCon, GDC Austin, PAX, Tokyo Game Show and Dragon*Con to think about. Plus, there are countless smaller cons all around the world celebrating the gaming and general geek culture.So which conventions are you most looking forward to in the coming months? Since we already have plans to attend a few of these conventions, we're curious to know which ones our readers see as the most important to them. Let us know your annual favorites that you usually attend, plan to attend for the first time or simply want to hear more about.
Funcom goes bi-coastal this year at conventions
If you're an ardent follower of Age of Conan, or perhaps one of the folks still spending time in Anarchy Online, then it looks like you've got a choice of conventions to attend this Labor Day weekend! Funcom has announced that not only will they be returning to their regular East coast convention haunt, Dragon*Con, as part of the MMO track - they'll also be expanding their travel this year to hang out with the gamers at PAX as well! While there's no specifics as yet as to what they'll be doing with their communities at each convention, we can tell you from personal experience that Funcom throws good parties and has some pretty interesting panels. So, if either one of these two conventions is on your travel agenda, be sure to pop by and say hello to the Funcom teams.
