GamesCom 2013 - Wednesday (Trade Visitor- and Press-Day)

I was kinda tired and my feet still hurt, but I didn't want to miss this year's GamesCom, especially if I was able to enter without buying any ticket |'D

So we arrived at Cologne at around 12:30 and decided to enter at Congress Center Ost (East Entrance), so I would be able to avoid the crowd entering at GamesCom's main entrance (South). Even though it looked rather full in the entrance hall as well, I think it was a good choice to go there. Of course I had to wait for my companions, since they only had "normal" Trade-Visitor tickets, and were only allowed to enter when GDC was officially closed. Anyway, it worked pretty fast! ^^

First, we entered Hall 10, which was rather boring, actually. We just wanted to get some ribbons which would allow us to enter 18+ booths, but the queue was SO long, so we decided to go on without wearing a ribbon. And to be honest, I'm quite happy I didn't try to get one either, since we totally didn't need them, haha! ^^; 

So we left to Hall 9.1 , where there was the Square-Enix booth! It's so flashy!  (๑•ᴗ•๑)♡ Square-Enix had lots of games with them this time - "Kingdom Hearts", "Final Fantasy X" (and X-2), "Lightning Returns", "Murdered", "Thief" and of course "Final Fantasy 14 - A Realm Reborn".  We even gave it a try to play "Lightning Returns" - but I got to say that unfortunately, that's a game I'm not looking forward to. I don't like the main character, to be honest, even if I like her design... but she looks and appears "soul-less" in my opinion. She's not one of those characters you directly fall in love with. She's just... boring? I don't know. And also the new battle system is rather weird for me. I don't like "half-agile" battle mechanics, to be honest. But it's just like that. The player got to change Lightning's outfits several times within a battle, and by doing so her 'class' changes automatically (e.g. "warrior", "magican" and so on). The artists did a very great job on this game anyway, especially on the monsters. Kudos to you, guys.

Some more impressions from the booth <3 

Well, after checking out the Final Fantasy-part of SE, we decided to attend a presentation for the game "Thief", which actually is just a remake... anyway it looked so cool, and I'm totally looking forward to this game! Especially because I already thought that the old Thief-games were totally great! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any photos during that presentation, BUT I totally felt it's the same team workin' on this title which also was responsible for "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" (and, oh you can't imagine how I loved this game!). 

Right after the presentation finished, we headed back to the back side of the booth, where there was another presentation... a presentation about "Final Fantasy 14 - A Realm Reborn" by Naoki Yoshida !! ❤　He introduced some innovations and even fought against one of the bosses, allying with some random attendees :'D He obviously had fun! Unfortunately, he already left the stage quite early again, but I was able to ask for an autograph and additionally I could have a little chat with him in Japanese! He was visibly surprised about that, though ( *´艸｀) ). 

After that, we didn't attend lots of presentations or tests, since most of the queues were already too long (so I don't wanna know what it'll look like on Saturday .... _ _'! ). Anyway I met lots of press people who also did recognize me with a huge smile :) Thank you so much, you made my day! ww And I also met Mohamed and Vicenzo :) (I hope you guys will have a save trip! ).

Later on that day, we were invited to have some drinks at the business area, where we stayed until GC closed :'D I was able to take some "Monster Energy"-drinks with me for free, and well, since I totally love "Monster Ripper", I didn't need to think twice! (￣∀￣)

Nevertheless, we saw a lot. Too much, maybe, to put it into words without hurting my fingers, haha :') But since I want to end this entry with picutres... here we go! ^o^

 

(The Last of Us)

(Assassin's Creed IV - Black Flag)

(World of Warcraft)

(World of Warcraft)

("Rain")

(the "Flying Steps" at the PS4-booth)

 

(Castlevania 2)

GDC Europe 2013 - "Crafting the World of Crysis" (Crytek)

During my time at GDC Europe 2013, I had the possibility to attend one of the sessions. I decided to visit one of Crytek's presentations, regarding their "visual arts" and the process of creating the world of "Crysis" (1-3).  I personally think that the presentation was totally interesting, and so I want to share some information I got there with you :)

[[Attention: This entry will be ONLY about Crytek's "Crysis"-series and their CryEngine 3. So if you're not interested in either one of these, I recommend to skip this entry :') ]]

The presentation took place on Tuesday, 19th of August at 11:00 a.m. in congress hall 2 at the 4th level of "Congress-Center Ost" (Eastern Congress Center) and was held by Felix Leyendecker, who's working for Crytek's 3D-Artist team.

Crysis (1) took place in a kinda tropical environment (including frozen areas and an alien spaceship), Crytek decided to change the setting to a more urban style, since several critics argued that the CryEngine was only able to put a good look on tropical and more natural settings - so they wanted to prove and show what their artists were able to achieve with their engine.
Anyway, Crytek didn't want to drop the image of a "jungle" as such, what's the main reason for their decision to launch an "urban jungle" which was inspired by the city of New York.

(Screenshot by www.cinemablend.com)

(Screenshot taken from vg247.com)

Since both of those titles were a huge success, they directly started developing Crysis 3 - just right after Crysis 2 was released. Crysis 3 was inspired by nature, by NYC (again) and - of course - by Crysis 2. In the following picture (I hope you can see it properly...? D: ?) you can see both, the inspiration (nature, left) and what they managed to create out of that (right).

Even though Crytek was open minded regarding some new settings, they tried to fulfill their fans' wish to obtain another "jungle" for their new Crysis. While they were already working on the game, they set up an own team to arrange new patches and to optimize their engine (and so, their games as well) for consoles, because it was obvious that their main storage differs a lot compared to a computer's one.

Crytek benefit from using their own level-editors and their own engine, since it allows to "see what you're working at". The engine works in real-time, which means that you can actually already see what it will look like in the game, just from that moment when someone starts to create it. Additionally, the art team, which was responsible for both the design and the textures, was completely involved in the level design as well, to provide the best results. Crytek Ukraine worked on the levels in small groups of 2-4 people, while the multiplayer scenarios were created in England. And again, there was a special team to optimize the main storage problems caused by hi-end graphics and the so-called "statoscope" (a special effect reflecting light, creating lights shining through canopies of leaves and adjusting the color of 'dark' and 'light' areas automatically without any additional work for the artists (see example below)).

Anyway, there also were several problems within the process of creating the game. For example, they were lacking of senior artists, which meant they needed to adjust their working plan to their capabilities. That said, you can probably imagine that it was hard to finish the game like they wanted it to be in time. Not every level had its own so-called 'level owner' (this shouldn't be someone who acts like a director, but more likely someone who tries to bundles the team's ideas and to organize it), but 5 out of 7 levels were just passed to each other group member. Crytek decided to work with this leaderless stucture because they hoped to achieve a more agile development. 

However, "the next gen"-consoles are coming up soon, and Leyendecker indicated that the Crysis team still is interested in working on that series. Nevertheless it's still unleaked if (and if yes, when) we can expect another game.

By the way - as a bonus, Leyendecker explained that they were totally inspired by "Jurassic Park" when they came up with the aliens hiding in the long grass ... ;) 

(Screenshot taken from games.on.net)

Last but not least, here's the tech trailer for "CryEngine 3", which is - of course - already kind of old, since they built "Crysis 3" with this engine and presented it already on last year's GDC. Anyway I want to share it with you on here. It's just amazing. (Please watch in HD!)

GDC Europe 2013 - My rough diary (Tuesday)

Like I promised before, here's "Part 2" of my GDC Europe 2013 experience! :)

Tuesday, 20th of August

Well, as I said in my previous entry, I got up at 5:00 a.m. again, since I had to attend to our team meeting at 8 o'clock. Victoria (who was our 'boss' this year) told us that lots of people went up to talk to her about us the day before. When she stated that, everyone got a little nervous, since everyone was expecting some bad news and black marks, or even reproaches... but luckily, those people obviously really just wanted to give some kudos to us?! Well, at least Victoria said that they just wanted to talk to her about that the team was so helpful and friendly, and that she should carry those compliments.
Even though this was rather a weird thing, of course everyone was totally happy about those news! I mean, how awesome's that? ヽ(；▽；)ノ 

Anyway, when I had some freetime right after the meeting, I met up with Caro to have a walk to Cologne city center, where we had some breakfast together (or at least I had breakfast, Caro decided she wasn't hungry, so she just ordered a drink ^^; )☆　

Unfortunately, time passed quite fast and so we headed back to Deutz to be in time for my shift. On Tuesday, it was "Google Day" :') The "Rheinsaal" was totally dedicated to Google's presentations,  which means that any attendee was able to visit those presentations during the whole day. Actually, I think most of their presentations sounded quite interesting (for example "Acquiring the Most Valuable Users for Your Game" by Joel Berger, or "Measuring and Optimizing Games using Google Mobile App Analytics" by Kristoffer Oloffson)). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend to any of them, because of my shifts :'( 

By the way, I met someone quite interesting! His name is Johannes Vuorinen (Frogmind) and he's one of those who're responsible for "BADLANDS". I want to be honest, I usually don't play any games on mobile device, but I totally fell in love with this game because of its design and that's the reason why I actually thought I'd should give it a try (It totally reminded me of "Limbo", by the way !) So it was so amazing to meet one of those who're involved!!  Whatever - he just stopped, while he was actually passing, to talk to us for a while. He's just such a nice guy :) I know he won't ever read this for sure, but I just want to say "thanks!" for the nice chat anyway ヽ(●´∀｀●)ﾉ  

(Screenshot "BADLANDS" by Frogmind)

By the way, after that, some more people also started talking to us while they were passing - but most of them were some of the Media-guys. Anyway we had so much fun on Tuesday, because everyone already knew us since the day before, and were obviously surprised and kinda happy to see us again :) So even if they were in a hurry, they left some nice and/or funny comments.

Well, that's it for Tuesday, actually. Nevertheless I want to express some gratitude to my co-workers, like Mckenzie (again :') ), Vicenzo, Caro, Jackson, Mareike, Christian and "Jane" :') Especially because some of you cared about us so much, and supplied us with RedBull, coffee and pastries, when we weren't able to leave (๑´ڡ`๑)

Even if there was another party at the evening, I decided not to go - just because my feet were killin' me already, and I had some sleep to get... |D

GDC Europe 2013 - My rough diary :') (Sunday/Monday)

Yush!  I'm back home from GDC Europe, finished all my shifts and I'm happy to be able to announce that GDC Europe was a huge success! :)

As I promised, I want to write about my experiences at GDC Europe 2013 and GamesCom 2013 in the following entries, about the people I met (and which I want to point out, because they also made my time even more special than it was anyway), and about the Crytek party and about a special session that dealt with Crytek's way of designing and crafting the environment in "Crysis (1-3)".

Sunday, 18th of August:My first shift already started on Sunday, where we actually just did some preparation works for GDC. We received some general information about the conference and got a briefing about our tasks. As for me, I got my shifts at the Press Conference Center, which was only opened for V.I.P., Media and their interview partners (for example exhibitors, speakers etc.). 

Anyway we also stuffed the "GDC Bags", which should contain several goodies, pamphlets and information regarding the convention and the exhibitors. Even though it was said we'd be probably working until 4 p.m., we already finished at 2 p.m. (because my team was just awesome and we had some great ideas how to optimize the working process ;) ). So, well, yeah - that's it for sunday, actually. I had to get up quite early, but I was allowed to leave quite early as well, so it was fine for me ^^
By the way - this year's GDC T-shirts were YELLOW (ﾉд-｡)

Monday, 19th of August:

 My shift started quite early (since we had team meetings right before GDC's doors openend), what was the reason for me to get up at already 5 a.m. When we finished our meeting and the first attendees entered the congress, I had some freetime which I spent visiting some sessions. I want to write about one of them in a seperate entry.  (o´罒`o) Additionally, I was able to have a sneak into the booths at the expo-floor (and I had some lunch in between ^^; ). I decided to upload some photos, so please have a look if you're interested :') ☆　

(One of the session rooms: Rheinsaal West)

You can see the booth of "Oculus VR*" on the picture right above - their latest invention are some kind of goggles creating some kind of "*Virtual Reality". If you wear it, you can bend your head in every direction, even up and down, and you'll see some artificial environments in 3D (for example a wide landscape and even the roof of a skyscraper - it was kinda creepy, because you could actually 'watch down'. Amazing! ).

So, well - I was totally lucky I had my shift with a girl from the US. Her name's Mckenzie, and I totally enjoyed to work with her, because even if we had to work like until 7 p.m. and I was tired and my feet hurt a lot, it wasn't boring at all! :) But nevertheless we both felt so released when we finished our duty, haha |D


Monday, 19th of August - Crytek Party

Even though everyone was totally exhaused, and especially I decided to go home actually, we decided to jump at the chance of visiting the quite popular Crytek Party at Rheintreppen. This party is GDC-exclusive and you aren't allowed to enter if you don't have a "VIP"- or "All Access"-badge. We were allowed, because we surely had "All Access", since we NEEDED to have them to do our work poperly :'D
It was quite cool to see all those developers, speakers, CEOs and so on, and to drink some beer (or water, or coke, or wine, or whatever you wanted, actually ^^) with them as well (which was free, by the way. Everything was sponsored by Crytek, even the snacks!).  We even were treated receiving some sparkling wine reception (›´ω`‹ )

Well, actually I thought like I should only stay for about one hour, just to say "hi" to everyone, enjoy some talks and  try to arrive at home as fast as possible to get some sleep, because I needed to get up at 5:00 a.m. AGAIN on Tuesday. Anyway, I ended up staying for 3 1/2 hours in total, so that I arrived at home only at 2:00 (!!!) a.m. and achieved to sleep at maybe 3. That was not what I planned, but I totally enjoyed my stay though, and in the end, I managed to work properly on Tuesday as well, so I don't think that it was too bad ;)

I want to stop - let's call it - "Part 1" here, because there's muuuch more to go :')