Heavengames Fanstock 2001 Report

Contents: Day 1 | Sigma

Explaining to people exactly why I was heading to Microsoft for three days was a bit difficult. Like many people in the gaming website industry, a lot of what I do is pretty invisible to those I know in real life. Most know I run some sort of website about Age of Empires, seem to know a lot about the gaming industry, and occasionally get free stuff thrown my way in the form of games, hardware, etc., but when I tell people that Microsoft invited me to spend a few days visiting them to check out their upcoming games, they usually seem surprised or at least confused. Don't worry, I'm not complaining.

While Microsoft may not be the most popular company on Earth, they do some pretty cool things. They've proven their prowess in the industry by snagging the creative talent behind many of the killer titles in recent memory. Half a decade ago, Flight Simulator was Microsoft's only major player on the market, but now they are working with top notch industry creaticians the likes of Total Annihilation's Chris Taylor, Homeworld's Alex Garden, Civilization 2's Brian Reynolds, and of course, the kings of the modern RTS, Ensemble Studios. Somewhere along the way, they concluded that at least part of their success comes from a rabid fan community of webmasters who do crazy things like zooming in on the most minute detail for the latest info, decoding innocent developer posts into full blown announcements, and even getting together at the Mall of America. A fan who spends 2 hours a day reading about his favorite game online is probably far more likely to buy expansions and sequels, and this is why Microsoft puts a lot of effort into getting these fan communities off the ground. Fanstock is the logical extension of this fansite based market philosophy, and I'll tell that in this business where the financial reward gets slimmer and slimmer as time goes on, appreciation from the publisher feels great.

The Trip:

My day began at 10:15AM EST, catching a plane that would eventually land in Seattle SEA-TAC airport around 2:30PM PST. The in-flight movie was "What Women Want", and as a side note, I really didn't buy the part where Mel Gibson dresses up like a woman. His ESP was more believable than watching him wax his legs and put on pantyhose, but then again, that is just my opinion. After a little confusion, I found my ride from the airport. Along with me were "Jonric" from the Vault Network, "Dragon" from Strategy Planet, and Peter James from flightsim.com, who was incidentally the lead designer on Flight Unlimited 3 by Looking Glass Studios before LGS closed shop last year. After a short ride filled with game conversation, we pulled up the the Hyatt of Seattle, a fantastic hotel. I think I lost count of the beautiful women I saw in the lobby during my stay. I headed up to my room and after a short while I got a call from my longtime Aging buddy, Arbuthnot's Steve "Vidguy" Cherrier. We agreed to meet up down at the hotel bar for a drink or ten (note: Figures not related to games may be exaggerated throughout this article. If any number quoted makes you uncomfortable, feel free to download this recap of Fanstock with your favorite browser and edit it to your liking). In the bar I got to meet Jon Lenaway of Arbuthnot Communications, "Guttyr" from SiegeWorks.org, "Pike" from Relicnews.com, and many others.

Steve Cherrier and I discussing games. Good candidate for a caption contest?

I saw a character enter the bar in a flight jacket that caught my eye, because of the "Age of Empires Top Gun" patch on the front. It was, of course, Ensemble Studios Community Relations head honcho Mike "Archangel" McCart. The jacket he was wearing was part of a Christmas gift given to everyone at ES. For each game released, they get another patch on their jacket. Plenty of "patch" jokes ensued each time the jacket came up in discussion. I tried to snag a pic of the jacket, but unfortunately, my trusty-to-be-cruddy digital camera fouled up the pic. If any Ensemble guys want to show off their patches, send me a shot of them, please!

Mike and I chatted about a bunch of different things. At that point, there was still no official word on AOM's publisher. How little I knew ;) Mike did show me a copy of the recently released issue of Computer Gaming World. For those of you who can snag the Age of Mythology issue, make sure you do so. The article is 8 pages long and packed with great info on AOM. To be fair, I'll wait until the issue has been out a while before I talk about what I read.

Ok, we know the bus is kind of short...

By this time, it was time to head out to dinner. We piled on a bus and were whisked away to Lake Washington. Just before boarding our mighty ship, the Argosy, Mike McCart introduced me to a tall fellow named Dan Murphy, known to us all as MFO's blue_myriddn. Dan and I talked for a while about his recent trip to the Empire Earth University, and what games he was interested in checking out. Hunger began to set in, forcing me to hop on board the Argosy and head to the bar. Well, maybe I was thirsty, too. I was really happy to see guys like Chris Taylor and Jacob McMahon from Gas Powered Games again. Homeworld designer Alex Garden was also among the boat's passengers, and meeting him was quite an experience. Let's just say Alex can be the mega-health of the party.

Dinner was great. Salmon, steak, and various other edibles were available. I chatted at dinner with Mike McCart, Chris DiCesare of Microsoft, and DeEtte Christie of Arbuthnot Communications. I was sad to hear Sebastian Motte is no longer with that area of Microsoft Games. He and I got along great last year during Fanstock and E3. Oh well, hopefully he is on to bigger and better things.

After dinner we all discussed topics ranging from Survivor to the recent financial troubles of various websites. It is certainly a nice experience to be in a room (or boat) or 30+ people who are game freaks like you are. We continued on to the Rock Bottom Brewery after returning from dinner, where Steve Cherrier schooled me in 3 games of pool in a row. Later I sat down and talked to Jonathan, aka "Dragon", of StrategyPlanet for a while. Age fans might remember him from his days of running the Majesty fansite, Majesty Dragon. Jonathan, Dan, and I talked for so long, the bar cleared out. It seemed strange to us that the bar was empty by 12:15AM (it didn't occur to us until the next day that it was a Tuesday night. doh!), but we were tired anyway, so we headed back to the hotel. It's a good thing one of them knew the way back, because otherwise I probably would have had to pay a fortune for a cab to go 2 blocks.

I went back up to my room feeling worn out from traveling (by plane and by foot), but when I saw the Atila mini-series on TV, I had to watch it, because I missed most of it when it was on before.

Want to hear something about the actual games? Read on ->.

Relevent Links:
Microsoft Games
Arbuthnot Communications