Defiance Comic Con panel

[Askari]

Here's the hour-long Defiance Comic Con panel, for those with the time and interest to spare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujghUFTz53I

The Defiance MMO is going to be a third person shooter (shoot where the reticle aims + no tab targeting), which is not really my cup of tea. But I might check it out next year, just because I liked Rift and respect Trion as game designers.

However, I am quite excited about the concurrent TV show on SyFy! It looks like it's going to have a really good cast. In particular, I always enjoy Jaime Murray (season 2 femme fatale on Dexter, Helena "H.G." Wells on Warehouse 13, and Gaia on Spartacus). My favorite part of the above panel is where Jaime says some lines in an alien language (around 18:24).

So yeah... the game may not be my cup of tea from a mechanics standpoint, but I am really excited for the TV show.

[Jasyn]

At this stage, I probably feel about the same as Askari, but for anyone who is interested, this MMO also has the best dang Associate Producer pie can buy.

Oooh!  Vincent Van Gogh is in the show!  My ears have perked up a bit.

[Corsair]

If it's Van Gogh, shouldn't only one ear perk up?

[Talon]

Argh, you beat me, Corsair.
The right one.

[Jasyn]

Mine perk to the beat of a different eardrum.  Just to be as Thoreau as possible, you know.

[PinkRose]

And just to re-iterate for those new to Saga.
The one we can Catadidiadestebud (Because she played Cata & Didi & Adeste & Rosebud among many many other alts) is a SagaFamily member and an Associate Producer of the Defiance Video Game.
She was also the lead crafting Guru on EQ2.

[Mixxi]

Oooh!  Vincent Van Gogh is in the show!  My ears have perked up a bit.

THAT's who that was. I spent a large chunk of the panel wondering why he seemed so familiar and why I seemed to love him. I haven't watched the video yet, but I assume it includes Grant Bowler's amazing Eve reply. He would NOT let the Trion guys answer, and it was kind of a non-physical arm-wrestling match every time there was a game question because he clearly wanted to answer. At one point, the Trion guys had to wave their arms around to get a chance to answer. THAT, more than anything else, sold me on the game. He's clearly a total gaming guy and he wanted to make sure the audience knew it.

We did get a chance to play a bit, and it felt a lot like re-skinned Rift, which is a good thing. A giant space alien pod/rift thing embedded itself in the countryside, and all the players on (all six of them!) had to converge and wipe it out (ungrouped, but playing cooperatively). Very much like taking out a rift. The targeting is cross-hairs FPS style, not lock-on targeting, and you can figure out vulnerable points if you look carefully. The encounter was played in waves (defeat the Hellbug spawnlings, then defeat the armored Hellbugs, then blow the legs off the big thing, then defeat the rolling Pillbugs of death, then defeat that really annoying Hellbug larvae at the top of the big pointy thing) and you got rewards that were scaled according to your contribution (which was shown with bronze, silver, gold medals, just like Rift).

As someone who has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area off and on for most of my life, the setting was very accurate. They had the right trees and plants, and you could recognize landforms (Hey! That's Mt. Tamalpais!). It was pretty funny to be fighting insectoid aliens in Sausalito.

I'm definitely going to be playing/watching it. But, like I said, Grant Bowler's enthusiasm sold me more than anything else. But then, the shear amount of advertising they did at Comic Con got to be annoying--wrapping buildings, putting signs EVERYWHERE, and even lining the bottom of all the airport security bins with Defiance ads.

Because it's an FPS, I'm curious if there will even be something like tradeskilling. I think it would be a total winner if they somehow had player housing. A lot of new players might like that social element.

[Allen]

The panel discussion was interesting.  I will most likely watch the TV show, but I doubt I will try the game.  FPS's just aren't my thing.

[Askari]

Tony Curran did a great turn as Van Gogh, but it was his role as Markus Corvinus (bat-winged badguy in third Underworld movie) that really got him on my radar. It sounds like he's going to have a very interesting character to work with in Defiance.

I love Grant Bowler's enthusiasm too, and I also loved his EvE response. In some interview I watched, he basically admitted that's how he's always killed time while sitting in his trailer on sets... by playing computer/console games.