Our pal and LOTR star Bruce Hopkins writes: I interviewed Dirk Bartholoma who created and runs the LOTR conventions, RingCon and FedCon in Germany. I also talked with Donna Maloney a long time LOTR enthusiast. Donna was at DragonCon when we had our chat. I also have some interviews I did with people on the first night after the 7.1 earthquake that hit Christchurch last week. The link to these audio clips is here. There are a number of clips up so folks can click through to other pages as they will only see 5 at a time on the home page.

This morning WB Games hosted a ‘Second Breakfast’ event at the Hyatt in Seattle. Fans were invited while watching the ‘War in the North’ demo at PAX. The invite itself was a clever Hobbit style letter, complete with a red wax seal much like the one seen in FOTR.

The conference room at the Hyatt was setup for roughly 80 people, they quickly needed to add more seats as the turnout was better than expected! Concept art from the game decorated the room, and they even had fans sign a guestbook for a chance to win on the pieces of art! Another demo of ‘War in the North’ was setup, a different one seen at PAX, this one featuring 3 way battle with a champion orc and two deadly trolls! Continue reading “PAX Day 4: Second Breakfast Demo”

Hi all, Xoanon here with extremely sore feet! Today I decided to tour the entire con and shoot some gameplay footage and take pics of all the con-goers.

My first stop of the morning was the ‘Aragorn’s Quest’ kiosk. Slotted directly behind the massive ‘War in the North’ booth, AQ had 2 systems setup, one on the Wii and the other with PS3’s new motion sensor system. Having very little experience with either I was able to pickup the intricacies of the gameplay very very quickly. ‘Aragorn’s Quest’ is told in the past tense by Sam the Hobbit, he is retelling Aragorn’s biggest battles and adventures to his children. Because of it’s family friendly play style, character are not seen as ‘dying’, once a character has lost all health points, Sam simply re-adjusts his storylines to suit his needs, a very small, but very endearing change to the usual hack and slash games we’ve seen for years. Continue reading “PAX Day 3: Gameplay and Con Tour”

ATLANTA — Every year DragonCon seems to be as big, loud and flamboyant as it can be and each year upon return it is all of the previous year and more. Costumers never cease to amaze and first-timers attend along with thousands of annual traditionalists and of course, 2010 is no exception.

TheOneRing.net had the honor of kicking off the first day, nay the first minute of programming with a Friday morning 10 a.m. presentation. We were treated to a solid and enthusiastic crowd despite many thousands standing in labyrinth of the pre-registration line for hours to get badges and thousands of others still traveling to Atlanta to join in the fun.

Updating the world on ‘The Hobbit’ is TORn’s never-ending mission and staffers Deej, Greendragon and MrCere were there to deliver information, respond to questions and share secrets and hopes and theories with fellow fans. The always -gentlemanly Sean Astin was also at the convention to talk about the LOTR movie days and sign autographs or have photos taken with fans. Continue reading “TORn storms DragonCon”

Hi all, Xoanon here from a cafe very near the center of geekdom known as PAX Prime. The doors opened to the public today and all the gaming companies were in top form showing off their wares. There were costumes a plenty, and some of them were jaw dropping! Dayne from Warner Bros. Games and I walked across most of the showroom to meet Warner’s latest investment in the gaming industry, Turbine inc. Continue reading “PAX Day 2: Doors Open & LOTRO”

Xoanon here, having landed in Seattle for PAX this afternoon and visiting the hardworking folks at the WB Games booth. WB has several titles on display here, from ‘Aragorn’s Quest’ and WB/Turbine’s ‘Lord of the Rings Online’. The main attraction here is ‘Lord of the Rings: War in the North’. WB has setup a huge booth complete with a WETA Ringwraith and 3 massive screens. Dev teams will be playing a Mirkwood level from ‘War in the North’ and answering questions from press and fans alike. Be sure to check out the contests running all weekend long and stop by the booth and ask for me! I’d love to chat with you! Take a look at this first series of pics below. Continue reading “PAX Day 1: WB Games”