From Sanya today and boy am I glad for the first answer!!! Q: The fan gathering seems like it's on the expensive side. Could you explain the costs? A: We are trying to put together the best possible gathering we can, and the price we've quoted you is all-inclusive. At other gathering events, you may have noticed that a ticket to get in is X dollars, an event t-shirt is X more dollars, and if you'd like to eat dinner it will cost you X more. At the Camelot Roundtable, the price of admittance includes the event shirt, a full roster of activities, entrance into drawings for prizes such as a new GeForce 4 video card, and a full lunch or dinner, depending on when you decide to come. After you add everything up, our costs are pretty comparable to other professional events. We have to pay for space at the hotel, hotel staff, liability coverage, materials, and entertainment. One of the most expensive costs is audiovisual – aka microphones, so you can hear the developers answer your questions. If more than fifty people come, a microphone is a must, and the hotels rarely allow companies to bring their own equipment. We are absolutely NOT making a profit on this event, and are shooting for dead even or a small loss. Purely-player run events are less expensive because there are some things that a company is legally obliged to do that a more informal group can get away with avoiding (such as permits, security staff, and so on). They are also generally much smaller, allowing them to avoid audiovisual fees, large room fees, staffing costs on the part of the hotel, etc. In fact, usually a purely player-run event consists of setting a time and a place, and everyone just showing up and talking. These small events are also a lot of fun, and I look forward to attending them =) But this event grew well beyond a simple lunch and meet ‘n’ greet. We have a lot of stuff planned, and cool door prizes (the ONLY thing the event “sponsors” are providing free of charge, by the way) to give away, and neat things to do, because we want you to walk away from it thinking, damn, that was fun. (Did I mention that this gathering is going to be the place we bring out the expansion to show for the first time to the general public, and if enough people attend, we’re hoping to set up a computer room so you can take it for a spin?) We are very much looking forward to meeting our players for the first time face to face. Everyone here is planning to attend. Q: Will Mordred have a kill list, so we can see how many kills? A: We’re test driving that feature right now, check out the realm status page for Mordred if you’re curious. Q: Shaman disease still has trouble with its snare component, was that meant to go live? A: No. We thought we’d fixed it, because before it never snared. There are some circumstances under which it does not snare, and we are working on a fix. Q: There’s a rumor going around that the expansion will have more than four character slots per realm. True or false? A: False. We can’t add more character slots. Well, I should say it’s so insanely difficult that it borders on the impossible. I know, I know, I wish I had more too. Trying to choose which alt to delete so I can try something new is like choosing between children sometimes. Sorry it’s so short today – getting Mordred off the ground and getting ready to strut our stuff at E3 AND trying to get 1.50 clean for you has kept Mythic very busy these last few weeks. For those of you who do not follow gaming news obsessively like I do, E3 stands for Electronic Entertainment Exposition. It’s a trade show where game companies from all over the world take over a convention center and show off their games, new, old, and evolving. Last year, Mythic had a booth shaped like a castle, to give you some idea as to the level of excess =) This year, we’re taking the product that is currently entertaining 200K subscribers around the world, and demonstrating what we’re doing to make it better. And in between bouts of that, I shall be wandering the booths playing with the new toys and hanging out with the people who write your favorite fan and news sites. Catacombs? Allakhazam? Caster’s Realm? Vault Network? Game Banshee? Stratics? Warcry? All of them and many more are getting some time in the Mythic hangout to ask us questions on your behalf, so be sure to check out your favorite news site to see what they have to say. You could use the time you would normally have spent reading the grab bag, as I will still be in Los Angeles next Friday, and won’t be able to bring you this column. Have fun, be safe, and see you all the week after next. HAVE FUN SANYA!!! /wave