Thoughts...
... on panels from conventions I totally didn't go to. I watched two different convention panels on Saturday, thanks to the wonders of the internet.
The first was the Fate: Grand Order panel from AnimeExpo, celebrating the one-year anniversary of the US release of the game. It started half an hour or so late - which probably speaks more to the difficulties in coordinating a fairly large anime convention than anything (as we're talking an expo in LA with somewhere around 100,000 attendees).
It was... lackluster in general, though had a certain charm. You had your guy running the show who came across as more a hype man than a developer for the game, regularly trying to get bigger reactions from the crowd. Then they brought out two voice actors and a translator.
The VA's talked a bit about coming to the con - for one of them, it's their first time at the con (possibly in the US at all, though I don't recall). They showed off a few photos from their visit. They were both kind of cute. They each read a fan-submitted line, too - kind of makes me wish I had managed to learn Japanese.
Then there was some talk about the anniversary stuff in the game that was planned to go live immediately after the panel. That's cool and all, but absolutely not a surprise as it's the same stuff from the Japanese anniversary, as the US version is running a couple years behind the Japanese version.
So... eh... it was fine and all, but "yep, you're getting almost exactly what you would have expected" isn't exactly a super-exciting message to deliver.
The other was the main panel (I guess?) from TennoCon, the yearly Warframe convention.
Having a friend there also got me some photos of the cosplay on show. I don't want to call it "sad," but even the winner didn't exactly wow me. It was reasonably good, but not great. And when the winner said his girlfriend started on it Monday, I sort of think she should have been the one up there instead of the guy wearing it. Well, I guess that's one difference between large cons and "small" ones, as TennoCon seems to have a couple thousand attendees. It makes me wonder what the rest of the convention was.
The main panel itself was pretty good. Digital Extremes has fairly regular streams, so they've got a team that are pretty accustomed to being in front of a crowd/camera to talk about the plans for the game.
They announced and showed Warframe coming to the Nintendo Switch. That's nifty and all, even if it doesn't really apply to me in any way. A broader install base is usually a good thing for a game.
They announced and showed Fortuna, the next expansion. It looks very similar to Plains of Eidolon in mechanics and behind-the-scenes design. It's bigger and set on a terraformed Venus, but has roughly the same hub-plus-open-zone setup. There are improvements like being able to get more things outside the hub and getting hoverboards to travel around faster. It generally looks good.
They announced and showed Railjack, though didn't give any frame of release reference. This caught my eye as much more intriguing and ambitious. Put a group of players (they demo'd three, though I've heard a full four may be doable and it may be soloable) on a ship with multiple stations and attack enemy capital ships. They showed off piloting, combat with turrets, repelling boarders, and having one teammate launch over to board the enemy ship in more standard gameplay while another remained on their ship to support. Being somewhat averse to group play in general, I feel I may never fully get into this part of the game, but it looks pretty damn awesome and I definitely want to see how it shapes up.
And they announced the next story mission, which I'm always looking forward to.
Overall, there felt like a good energy there. All the demos appeared to work without issue. The announcements ranged from solid to potentially-revolutionary. As far as game convention panels go, I think that one pretty much hit the nail on the head.
The first was the Fate: Grand Order panel from AnimeExpo, celebrating the one-year anniversary of the US release of the game. It started half an hour or so late - which probably speaks more to the difficulties in coordinating a fairly large anime convention than anything (as we're talking an expo in LA with somewhere around 100,000 attendees).
It was... lackluster in general, though had a certain charm. You had your guy running the show who came across as more a hype man than a developer for the game, regularly trying to get bigger reactions from the crowd. Then they brought out two voice actors and a translator.
The VA's talked a bit about coming to the con - for one of them, it's their first time at the con (possibly in the US at all, though I don't recall). They showed off a few photos from their visit. They were both kind of cute. They each read a fan-submitted line, too - kind of makes me wish I had managed to learn Japanese.
Then there was some talk about the anniversary stuff in the game that was planned to go live immediately after the panel. That's cool and all, but absolutely not a surprise as it's the same stuff from the Japanese anniversary, as the US version is running a couple years behind the Japanese version.
So... eh... it was fine and all, but "yep, you're getting almost exactly what you would have expected" isn't exactly a super-exciting message to deliver.
The other was the main panel (I guess?) from TennoCon, the yearly Warframe convention.
Having a friend there also got me some photos of the cosplay on show. I don't want to call it "sad," but even the winner didn't exactly wow me. It was reasonably good, but not great. And when the winner said his girlfriend started on it Monday, I sort of think she should have been the one up there instead of the guy wearing it. Well, I guess that's one difference between large cons and "small" ones, as TennoCon seems to have a couple thousand attendees. It makes me wonder what the rest of the convention was.
The main panel itself was pretty good. Digital Extremes has fairly regular streams, so they've got a team that are pretty accustomed to being in front of a crowd/camera to talk about the plans for the game.
They announced and showed Warframe coming to the Nintendo Switch. That's nifty and all, even if it doesn't really apply to me in any way. A broader install base is usually a good thing for a game.
They announced and showed Fortuna, the next expansion. It looks very similar to Plains of Eidolon in mechanics and behind-the-scenes design. It's bigger and set on a terraformed Venus, but has roughly the same hub-plus-open-zone setup. There are improvements like being able to get more things outside the hub and getting hoverboards to travel around faster. It generally looks good.
They announced and showed Railjack, though didn't give any frame of release reference. This caught my eye as much more intriguing and ambitious. Put a group of players (they demo'd three, though I've heard a full four may be doable and it may be soloable) on a ship with multiple stations and attack enemy capital ships. They showed off piloting, combat with turrets, repelling boarders, and having one teammate launch over to board the enemy ship in more standard gameplay while another remained on their ship to support. Being somewhat averse to group play in general, I feel I may never fully get into this part of the game, but it looks pretty damn awesome and I definitely want to see how it shapes up.
And they announced the next story mission, which I'm always looking forward to.
Overall, there felt like a good energy there. All the demos appeared to work without issue. The announcements ranged from solid to potentially-revolutionary. As far as game convention panels go, I think that one pretty much hit the nail on the head.
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