Firaxicon wrap up

[Vuffster]

Also on Friday evening I checked in for Firaxicon, which meant getting my ticket for the studio tour, an hour playtime with BE and a swagbag. Just to name a few things that were in there:

• Civ:BE keychain with the affinities on it
• AMD 8GB thumbdrive
• Civ:BE mouspad
• Civ:BE backpack
• XCOM/Firaxicon dogtag
• Civ:BE passport holder <-- really like that one!
• Firaxicon t-shirt

And I'm probably forgetting something here...

There was also an XCOM shot glass.

 

[cooldude1128]

Sorry to disappoint, but it's a light-weight backpack (black with a white-on-grey stripe) that has written on it:

Sid Meier's Civilization
BEYOND EARTH​

You might as well get a grey backpack with "Backpack" written on it.

 

[Darsnan]

My schedule was as follows:

I arrived Saturday morning at 940am, signed in, and did the following:

Saturday 10am: Lena Brenk's discussion "Speaking in Tongues"
Saturday 11am - noon: watched over people's shoulders as they played BE so I could get a perspective. A Firaxian by the name of Corey (and I'm sorry I forget his last name) was absolutely GREAT about answering my questions about the game, as well as giving me tips about touring Gettysburg. Corey even pulled over David McDonough to answer a question for me! Corey also signed my Civ 4 BTS cover for my son, and then he also took the BTS cover around and had other people sign it as well. Pretty friggin' awesome!
Saturday noon - 1230pm: my turn to play! Unfortunately power dropped out at 1230pm, so they issued me another ticket to come back later after they fixed the power glitches.
1pm -230pm: watched others play BE.

230pm - 3pm: Firaxis Studios tour. Seeing some of the old games they had (like Deadlock and Empire Deluxe) was a nostalgic trip down Memory Lane for me.
3pm - 4pm: back to playing BE. Went with the following options:

People's African Union
Artists
Tectonic Scanner
Machinery
Sputnik difficulty

Based on my discussions with people who had already played or who were camped out like me and observing others play I decided to beeline in the Virtue Tree for the free Settler so I could expand quicker. Had fun playing, but the hour was up waaay too quickly.

4pm-5pm: hung out watching people play BE some more, and picked Corey's brains some more.

5pm-6pm. Another Firaxian named Carl said there was a free station and would I like to jump on it and play. Oh Yeah!

6pm - 7pm: autograph signing. Was at the back of the line so chatted with a guy named Marcus who is at the other end of the child-rearing spectrum from me (I'm pretty much done with that phase of my life, whereas Marcus had just had his third child two months previous). By the time we finally got to the signing station they were giving out two posters - sweet!

7pm - 9pm: dinner. Got to sit with Pete Murray and David McDonough. Took the opportunity to pick David's brains a little bit more on my BE gambit (as outlined above).

9pm-10pm: Trivia night. Got to be the Secretary for our team. To sum up Trivia Night from a Marketing perspective, I can say that my table was very proud that we were never once told to put our cell phones away.

Sunday

430am - 830am: when I showed up at 430am Corey was still there. Doesn't that guy ever sleep!?! I played about 190 turns over the next four hours with the same settings outlined above. Took out what I thought were all he Franco-Iberian cities, however I didn't get the animated pop-up of the defeated leader, so I'm guessing there was one more Franco-Iberian city somewhere.

So overall I got to play about 6 hours with BE, and had a good time doing it. Looking forward to the game coming out!

Monday

Ran into donald23 and was able to sit with him for about 10 minutes before I had to leave. Hopefully he can put to good use the info I gave him for touring the monuments in DC.

Here's some pics from my Firaxicon experience:

 

[Louis XXIV]

Relaxed, mostly mature. There were a few kids around, but I'd estimate that most there were in their late 20's/early 30's.

Any idea what the size was?

I'm glad it seems everyone had fun. If they make it an annual thing, I can hopefully make it next year.

 

[Camikaze]

I think there were roughly 170 attendees, and 40 or so 2K or Firaxis staff. The Ars Technica gallery shows the entire crowd seated at dinner.

I'll hopefully post about some of the panels tonight - let me know which ones you'd like to hear about first.

 

[m15a]

Any idea what the size was?

I'm glad it seems everyone had fun. If they make it an annual thing, I can hopefully make it next year.

I thought I saw mention of the convention being limited to 200 people somewhere (somewhere official, I think), but I don't remember where . . .

 

[gunnergoz]

I think there were roughly 170 attendees, and 40 or so 2K or Firaxis staff. The Ars Technica gallery shows the entire crowd seated at dinner.

I'll hopefully post about some of the panels tonight - let me know which ones you'd like to hear about first.

Thanks for sharing all that, it puts some salve on the burn from not being able to attend in person.

 

[cooldude1128]

Thanks for sharing all that, it puts some salve on the burn from not being able to attend in person.

I swear, I'll attend one of these blasted conventions someday!
........./ /
......../ /
.......|/
.Firaxi
E3
....BroNYcon
..Minecon

 

[MadDjinn]

I think there were roughly 170 attendees, and 40 or so 2K or Firaxis staff. The Ars Technica gallery shows the entire crowd seated at dinner.

I'll hopefully post about some of the panels tonight - let me know which ones you'd like to hear about first.

Let's all have a pint for those that got screwed over by the flight issues in Chicago that day

Some people didn't make it.

 

[Hinkle2K]

Any idea what the size was?

I'm glad it seems everyone had fun. If they make it an annual thing, I can hopefully make it next year.

We were over 200 people total with Firaxicon staff and attendees. As MadDjinn pointed out, we had some cancellations due to the Chicago airport fire.

I think our odds on doing this again next year are pretty good, but obviously nothing is set in stone.

 

[ConanTLibrarian]

As MadDjinn pointed out, we had some cancellations due to the Chicago airport fire. .

See now, THIS Chicago Fire should also make the history books. Those poor people...

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

We were over 200 people total with Firaxicon staff and attendees. As MadDjinn pointed out, we had some cancellations due to the Chicago airport fire.

I think our odds on doing this again next year are pretty good, but obviously nothing is set in stone.

I hope Firaxis makes it an annual thing. Someday I may even have the time and wherewithal to attend.

 

[Camikaze]

Sorry for the lack of follow through on these panel summaries (hopefully the videos will be out soon in any case); I just got home after 20 hours in the air, and didn't have a chance to type anything out the morning before either.

 

[gunnergoz]

Sorry for the lack of follow through on these panel summaries (hopefully the videos will be out soon in any case); I just got home after 20 hours in the air, and didn't have a chance to type anything out the morning before either.

20 Hours in the air? What did you do, cruise through Foggy Bottom where they walk around with their heads in the clouds and feet firmly planted in the mud?

Don't envy your jet lag, have a good rest.

 

[Camikaze]

For now, I thought I'd just repost some relevant tweets for those who hadn't seen them:

From the 'Speaking in Tongues' panel:

Interesting factoid #1 - Boudicca speaks Welsh in Civ5 because it's the closest living language available.

For some reason they didn't get Paul Hogan to voice Washington.

Apparently Wu Zetian doesn't sound aristocratic enough for Chinese audiences, and Koreans think Sejong sounds too weak.

Kozlov speaks a mix of Russian & Polish - #BeyondEarth languages tell us about what happened to humanity.

.@FiraxisGames relies on the forums to gauge international reaction to leader choices/personalities/languages.

From 'They Came From QA':

Just finished the 'They Came From QA' panel at #Firaxicon - mandatory viewing for anyone interested in getting into the gaming industry!

From the music panel:

Great info on Pedro's amazing war theme from this panel - it combines the Brazilian berimbau and the western symphony orchestra.

#BeyondEarth music is biome-specific, to fit the narrative of your game.

Your #BeyondEarth playlist expands as you develop, and some tracks are tied to specific game events (e.g. first satellite launch).

Even the silence between tracks in #BeyondEarth serves a purpose, allowing the planetary ambience to come through.

From the 'Great Mistake' panel

#BeyondEarth begins a number of generations after the 'Great Mistake', by which time full knowledge of the event has receded into myth.

The lead designers conceptualise the 'Great Mistake' as starting with a suitcase nuke in Chengdu, followed by a retaliation against Iran.

War between China and Pakistan ensues, resulting in full nuclear attacks from both sides. Worldwide chaos follows.

The poles melt as a result, causing massive sea level rises and further population displacement.

From the BNW civ selection panel:

Turns out #BNW was the best-selling @CivGame expansion of all time.

It's official - Civfanatics polls influence civ selection.

The Polish inclusion in #BNW was a direct response to the high & notorious public demand. There's also fantastic unique Polish boxart!

The 'elimination thread' system was borrowed from Civfanatics by @FiraxisGames to select new civs for #BNW.

Further random tweets:

Browd is currently playing his first #BeyondEarth game. Daoming made the mistake of making planetfall nearby; worker steal ensued #Firaxicon

Q: is #BeyondEarth meant to be #Civ6? A: no. #Firaxicon

 

[Hinkle2K]

I hope Firaxis makes it an annual thing. Someday I may even have the time and wherewithal to attend.

Nothing would make me happier. I had the chance to meet Camikaze and donal23 and MadDjinn and LadyCodex and felt bad because I didn't have more time to spend with them. I was running around doing so many things.

I would love it if we could do it again and blow it out even more. But, as of right now, that's just wishful thinking on my part.

 

[gunnergoz]

Attending Firaxicon is now solidly in my Bucket List. No one kick my bucket over, OK?

 

[IncessantMace]

I'll second that, it sounds wicked fun and it seems affordable as well.

 

[rastak]

Attending Firaxicon is now solidly in my Bucket List. No one kick my bucket over, OK?

Hang in there bud.


I agree it does seem like the thing to do.....

 

[Urbannaja]

You might as well get a grey backpack with "Backpack" written on it.

The backpack is small and simple, but it is actually interesting. Probably the most surprising of the swag (well, that and the BE passport cover, lol)