Gamescom 2011 Cologne Germany

[BonkilEU]

[BonkilEU]

It's that time of year of again that the biggest games convention this (Europe) side of the pond will open it's doors.

Held for the third time in this wonderfull city on the banks of the Rhine.

Last year we could welcome Patience (no longer working at Turbine) who joined the Codie's team in showing us the new update Enedwaith.

This year we will see Sapience there as the Turbine spokesman and I hope he will be able to show us some new stuff from the Rise of Isengard expansion.

For us Rangers and members of the Horn & Banner allience it's also a way to meet up with some of our members in real life.

Last year I also had a nice time of meeting with a lot of players from other (European) servers at the WB LotRO booth.

Who else of you will be going this year or what are you looking forward to see there?

You can follow me on twitter as I try* to keep the people who cant make it updated of whats going on there in that mad house. (*if phone works, battery doesnt run out, etc etc).

I will be twittering through the official Rangers twitter account @TheRangersLotRO

And who knows if you catch you will be award a Stroopwafel!!! (While stocks last.)

On return home I will expand this thread with pics and stories.

[BonkilEU]

Update report Monday August 15th.


And so it has begun.

I have arrived in Cologne for the second time to visit Gamescom.

I will keep trying to update this thread with news of my trip to this German city on the Rhine and of the convention it self of course.

Luckily my ancient Acer Aspire 1600 is working still, although it's not very mobile anymore as the battery has lost all of it's juice about a decade ago, so it closely hugs the power plug of my hotel.

I am staying at the same hotel as last year, Hotel Konigshof. It's located a few steps away from the prominent landmark of the area, the Kolner Dom.
Very handy as when you are lost you can navigate your way back to it from almost every place in the city.
The room this year is located at the side of the hotel instead of the one last year which had a view on the nice climate control systems of the shops behind it.

Here is the view from my window:

Very handy to those still coming is that there are a lot of Wi-fi hot spots in area and my hotel doesnt fail one either.

Of to bed now for me, tomorrow is another to take a look at the sites of Cologne.

[BonkilEU]

Day 2.

The second day of my trip in Cologne. All over the twitters come messages from game company personal that are either on their way to, or hard at work setting up their booths at Gamescom.

While these people are hard at work and are trying to survive the effects of the late arrival, jetlag, beer, I have the time to walk about the city again.

The city of Cologne is located where in the past an old Roman city/army base was so it's very old, luckily some of this can still be seen although the city center was at least for 70% destroyed in the last war.

Here is one of the old city gates supposed to be dated back to Roman times:


As I am always interested in history I had to visit at least one or two museums this week.
Today I visited the EL-DE Haus which was the HQ of the German Secret Police during the 1930's until the end of WWII.
It's one of the buildings that by miracle survived the heavy bombings in WWII. It now houses a remembrance site for all victims of the national socialist regime and a documentation center. It also has running exhibitions about Cologne during the years of the national socialist regime.

So far for this very sad bit of history tomorrow (Wednesday) I am going to try to visit the city museum or the Roman museum.


I haven't found any LotRO posters though. And if they was well.... nvm. =p

One thing they do have here in Cologne is a lot of expensive cars. I even witnessed some guy riding his Chrysler into a Peugot. In Holland someone would go mental over this but the two sides stayed very calm and handed out information, so I left it at that. My good scout duty was helping an older lady up who tripped over the cobble stones, she was alright luckily which couldnt be said for her carton of milk.

In Cologne they also have this uber cool LEGO store. As a child from the 70's I to am one of those big Star-Wars fans. SO I had to liberate some goodies from there.

There is also the option to buy a cup sold in 2 sizes and fill them all up with blocks of your liking. Where was this feature when I was a kid!!!!1


Some Game company staff is easily spotted as I spotted a couple of blokes from Wargaming.net (World of Tanks/World of Warplanes) walking with big bags of the local MediaMarkt (sells Computer related stuff amongst others). Guess they didnt have all the gear they needed for the convention.
That evening at dinner on the bank of the Rhine there where some very loud (or is that normal? =p) Americans acting very American as I could follow there conversation from 3 tables away judging from the Quakecon 2010 T-shirt and flashing of American Passports and Californian drivers licenses I guess they must be Game related.

View at the Rhine towards the Gamescom venue at the other side of the river behind the bridge.



So far for the Tuesday update.

[Suzhran]

I am always game for a stroopwafel

I may go, need to look into it. Living in the Frankfurt area, playing on Landroval .

[Mr_RrrRRr]

I go to the GamesCom and I meet with the devs for JeuxOnLine... More info from the french fansite after August 18

[Holskabard_EU]

I'll be there (again) for 3 days

Looking forward to hopefully some juicy news on RoI, meeting Sapience and some fellow LOTRO players.
(and of course a lot of other games but that would be off-topic )

[Sapience]

It's that time of year of again that the biggest games convention this (Europe) side of the pond will open it's doors.

Held for the third time in this wonderfull city on the banks of the Rhine.

Last year we could welcome Patience (no longer working at Turbine) who joined the Codie's team in showing us the new update Enedwaith.

This year we will see Sapience there as the Turbine spokesman and I hope he will be able to show us some new stuff from the Rise of Isengard expansion.

For us Rangers and members of the Horn & Banner allience it's also a way to meet up with some of our members in real life.

Last year I also had a nice time of meeting with a lot of players from other (European) servers at the WB LotRO booth.

Who else of you will be going this year or what are you looking forward to see there?

You can follow me on twitter as I try* to keep the people who cant make it updated of whats going on there in that mad house. (*if phone works, battery doesnt run out, etc etc).

I will be twittering through the official Rangers twitter account @TheRangersLotRO

And who knows if you catch you will be award a Stroopwafel!!! (While stocks last.)

On return home I will expand this thread with pics and stories.

You're going to get not only me, but Producer Aaron "Rowan" Campbell as well, along with Adam Mersky. If you're a DDO fan, you'll get Tolero and Producer Glin too!

In addition to following BonkilEU, you can also follow @lotro on twitter as I'll try to keep people updated. If you really want to follow me, you can do so @rickheaton, but be warned I will probably have a lot of pics of food, places, and 'other stuff' from my first trip to Germany.

[Ethund]

Greetings

I'm on the GC and i've look forward to the Lotro station in Cologne last year there was only a 4m² stand -> here some pictures(from the complete GC - new pic's are comming ) http://wuala.com/ALEX_DPSG/GamesCom/

[Rowan]

This will be my third year at Gamescom! I look forward to seeing you all.

[Thorandril]

Any chance you guys can keep us updated using Facebook as well? Not a Twitter user, really.

[BonkilEU]

I dont have a facebook account for my kin ship and i'm not very good on using it on my mobile, but you can rest assured that after i get back there will be a lot of pics and stories on this forum from me, and i guess from others to.

So the only thing you will miss is the standing in line with a lot of sweaty people, (if the weather is as good as last year).

[Rapunzel666]

... but be warned I will probably have a lot of pics of food, places, and 'other stuff' from my first trip to Germany.

and don't you forget about the beer!
if you decide to book it as dwarf background research, you might even put the tab on the company

[Clover]

Any chance you guys can keep us updated using Facebook as well? Not a Twitter user, really.

Sapience is going to send updates back to us here in the office and we will try to keep Facebook updated as well.

[thalialotr]

Thanks Clover! *hug*

[Naesraen]

100% of the Fishers of the Brandywine will be at Gamescon - hoping that we can get a glimpse of RoI this year

[Cerridwen]

Sapience is going to send updates back to us here in the office and we will try to keep Facebook updated as well.

Players also sometimes copy Tweets to the discussion thread here since we know not everyone uses social media sites. The cool thing about Twitter is that you don't have to sign up to read the public tweets or see the shared photos, just bookmark someone's page and read whenever you like.

[Smithie]

I am always game for a stroopwafel

Hmmmmmmmm strooooopwafels....../drool

[zachhope]

bitte ein radler fuer mich haben! )

I had one on my first trip to Germany (we went all over, but I don't think we got to Koeln) and I haven't had one since. So good, especially for someone that's not exactly fond of beer (more of a wino). I've tried making my own, but I refuse to call anything I can get a hold of in the states "beer".

have fun, everybody that's going!

[Amondios]

I´m looking forward to see you guys there - so we may pepper you with curious questions . We tell you all about german beer and "dirndls" und we get some secret infos about RoI...deal?

[BonkilEU]

My first small update is up*. I made it late last night, or rather this morning.
As I thought my ###### notebook or the connection quieted on me.
I finally gave up on it and read this morning on Twitter that the Forums where down late last night.

Hope I didn't break them because of the large picture files.

Anyway, day 2 will be filled with visiting some museums and checking the town out.

I feel for those poor persons who have to work hard today at Gamescom for getting everything done before the major onslaught of tomorrows press day. Sadly I dont have a press card so have to wait till Thursday for the first real Gamescom update, but already all over town you can feel it coming with all the billboards and game-shops screaming for attention.

*Scroll to first page for the update.

[BonkilEU]

Tuesday update is up.

[ErandarTheFirst]

Cool :3, really good of telling this stuff! I really cant wait until RoI

[BonkilEU]

RoI is being shown to the press today so I hope that it wont be a behind closed doors and we can see more of it tomorrow when the convention opens for the general public (us).

[Aloro]

And who knows if you catch you will be award a Stroopwafel!!! (While stocks last.)

Oh man, those are really tasty. Haven't had one in years.