TenTonHammer.com - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

By Chris Klug, Creative Director, Stargate Worlds

Sorry, I didn't blog yesterday, but when I tell you the story, you'll understand why.

My job at the convention is in the main to communicate to people what the game is about.  Why they should give it a try.  Why they should be excited about it.

This job takes many forms.  Talking to people in the booth.  Giving 'guided tour interviews' where press comes into a room in a hotel, we sit them down, show them the game, let them play it a bit, and tell them all about it.

It also involves giving brief demos at our booth, where people stand around and watch as a couple of our QA department play the game on large screens while I run around giving away t-shirts.

It's all kinda fun.

Friday, however, myself, Art Director Howard Lyon, Technical Director Demetrius Comes and Studio Head Dan Elggren were scheduled to give a panel for 5,000 Stargate fans.  Our panel centered on a discussion about the game, and was sandwiched between a panel with Brad Wright and the cast of SG-1 (you know, boring people like Amanda Tapping and Richard Dean Anderson) and a panel with the cast of Stargate Atlantis (Jewel Staite, Robert Picardo, etc.)  So we were pretty nervous.  I was VERY nervous, because I was MODERATING the panel, which meant that I was the host, as it were.

That's a pretty big audience to screw up in front of, if you know what I mean.

So, yesterday morning, just being honest, I had other things on my mind besides sitting down and crafting a neat little blog.  Things like "how do we not come off like a pile of damp laundry after the audience has been entertained by Brad, Richard, Michael, Amanda, etc?"

We get into the hall, the cast is brought out for the first panel, and they are ON FIRE.  Joke after joke, all ad-libbed, the crowd is loving it.

I'm sinking lower in my seat, debating whether I should run to the bathroom now or wait until after, debating whether I could dig a hole in the floor and hide.

That panel ends, and we're on stage.

I'm introduced by Brad Wright, and I walk out in front of 5,000.  I notice to my left that Brad, who I thought was going to leave the stage, is staying to sit with us.  This relaxes me a little.  I introduce my colleagues, and we're off.

By five minutes into the panel, I relax and drop into my 'just entertain them' mode, the crowd seems into it, we're all doing well, and Brad is sitting up there with us telling the assembled Stargate community how much he likes us, likes our work, and is going to incorporate our work into his own work going forward.

This is all wonderful.

We're done in a half-hour, we're off-stage, and it worked, thank goodness.

So hopefully, this blog sorta explains why I was off-line yesterday.

Please accept my apologies. On a sad note, yesterday a friend of mine passed away.  Some of you may have heard of a Carnegie Mellon professor, Randy Pausch, who gained a little fame for giving a 'last lecture' after he had been diagnosed with cancer.  He was my boss when I worked at Carnegie Mellon, teaching in their Entertainment Technology center for a couple years.

His obituary is here.

Do yourself a favor and click on the link at the bottom of that page and listen to the video of his 'last lecture.'  It's pretty wonderful.

(Editor's Note: You can read all of Chris' Comic Con blogs by clicking here!)