Another meetup has come and gone, more people met, another set of topics discussed.  Again, my thanks to everyone who attended, and I extend the invitation to any and all who can join us to do so for the next one.  Details in brief on this meeting were as follows…

Part 1

Another smaller get-together, but again, not totally unexpected.  Given the other events of the day (more below), the somewhat odd scheduling due to the 4th of July holiday earlier this month, and the awesomely beautiful weather, I expected that attendence might again be light.

The gathering was still marked by the illustriousness of the attendees, however.  We had Erik Hyrkas, lead designer for Granite Games (who is working on the upcoming Dusktreaders MMO), Cameron from Random Battle blog and news editor at Ten Ton Hammer, and Brent from Virgin Worlds.  Also in attendance for a couple minutes by cell phone speaker as we were wrapping up “part 1” was Kendricke from Kendricke Tracker blog and editor at EQ2 Warcry.

Discussion topics were all across the board, again.  I got more feedback from Cameron on how exactly his idea for link-locking to improve cross-blog conversations might be laid out/integrated with existing blog site structures.  Erik shared some of his experiences and insights in terms of creating an MMO as an indie.  A few games were discussed (Ryzom in particular got a little attention), reminiscences of past gaming adventures were shared… it was another free-flowing enjoyable discussion of a variety of aspects of the MMO experience.

Decamping to Cuppy’s for part 2

We did break up early, however, to head over to the big event of the day, Cuppycake’s (Tami Baribeau) farewell party.  It was a lively bash, with people of all interests and walks of life, family, friends, coworkers, and of course, some of us MMO oddballs (namely Kendricke, Cameron, and myself) parked in front of the coolers arguing about whether showing the numbers in an MMO was good, bad, or otherwise.

At any other party, I would have expected some very odd looks… the reaction here was more a shrug of the shoulders, and then step in and try to keep up.  Kendricke does tend to dominate the conversation on occasion, however, so it’s really not very difficult to just walk up and join in… you don’t actually have to say much. 😉

I actually met several people, but it was crowded enough that my little psychological flaw (I have a mild phobia re: crowds and crowded situations) kicked in, and I am ashamed to say that I remember none of their names, and did very poorly in terms of following up on opportunities to interact.

There was an EQ1 player that I would have loved to talk with a bit more, get some feedback from her perspective on various things that have happened since I migrated away from the game several years ago; a couple of gentlemen with console game experience (of which I have almost none, unless you want to go back to Atari), with whom Cameron was discussing Final Fantasy and the like, that would have been interesting to talk with, and so on.  In the end, I simply had to throw in the towel, offer Cuppy one last “good luck”, and head out after a couple of hours.

Kendricke talked someone into taking a couple pictures of the “blogger rat-pack”, as it were: from left to right, it would be myself, Ken, Cuppy, and Cameron.  I’m sure someone will post them at some point… feel free to make fun of my sad attempt at looking “gangsta”. (Oh, lordy…)

Next meeting

The next MMMOGIG is tentatively scheduled for August 4.  Location is still to be determined, we may well go somewhere a little different for the next one, but I’d like to nail down the details a bit more before getting too carried away on the possibilities.  Again, my thanks to everyone who attended, and I hope to meet even more of you next time.