It seems like I turn around and a month has flown by.

I should start all of this off with an apology. I really wanted to keep up on the blog, hell I LOVE the idea of a blog. Sadly, I knew going into this that it would be hard to hit a weekly schedule for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the voice that pipes up each time I start to write one of these: “no one gives a shit, spoil stuff in the game or don’t bother, also this better be more entertaining than the last time you did this” … Meh, it’s actually happening even as I write this first paragraph. I guess that’s just part of putting yourself out there, especially when you want everything to be perfect.

Also I will say one last time that this is not the “official” source for HEX news, it’s just a place for me to write about different stuff. Yes, I do tend to talk about HEX, but that’s about 99.99 percent of my life right now so it makes sense. Fortunately, once HEX launches, I can dedicate 100% of this blog to my first love, writing erotic Transformers fan fiction… “Erectionbot LETS ROLL!” (I made that joke, then sat at my computer for 20 minutes debating whether to Google search “erotic Transformers fan fiction” or not to see if I would be pissing people off. In the end I didn’t, I’m guessing those people would be pretty understanding.)

I went to E3! That’s actually not very important, since I have been going to E3 for the last two decades.

Fun Fact: my first E3 was 1995 and I was showing “Thrill Kill” for the PlayStation (I was the product manager for the game), the hyper violent and sexual fighting game that was eventually banned and never released.

Overall, E3 is a very cool show. I don’t think there is another entertainment convention like it. Large publishers spend MILLIONS of dollars on a booth that will only be used for three days. It’s totally insane to me that no actual consumer even sees the booth, since it’s for press and other industry professionals only. So crazy!

If I ran E3, I would make it 5 days long and have 2 days for press and 3 days for the public, at least to get some more bang for all those bucks. A cool side element if you work the show is that the industry is relatively small and you get the chance to catch up with friends. It’s the one place every year you know everyone will be. A friend made a joke once that “you never leave the video games industry, you just switch booths at E3.” Funny and pretty accurate.

This E3 was a bit special as it was the second time showing HEX and this E3 was also the first time it was just about the game. Last time, we took HEX to E3 (last year) the Kickstarter had just finished and I had A LOT of people anxious to talk to me, heck we had just finished up one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever. But as I quickly discovered, most of the people I was talking to were either investors kicking themselves for missing the opportunity be part of HEX or journalists that wanted to know how in the hell we raised 2.5 million dollars as total unknowns. They were very curious about the game “invention” as it seemed we had tapped into an audience that no one really knew existed. They didn’t really understand why combining an MMO and TCG was so exciting (most had limited knowledge of TCGs) but clearly gamers thought it was and they wanted to know why.

This E3 was pretty different, as it was more about the game and less about the Kickstarter. I had some great meetings: Dan Tack from Game Informer is a huge fan and always fun to talk to, Ten Ton Hammer guys were awesome, and one of the MMO-RPG staffers was one of our Kickstarter backers. We also had the other end of the spectrum, meetings where I was just another indie game developer trying to prove our game was worth looking at. To be fair WE ARE just another indie game developer, and as I explained over and over what a TCG/MMO was and why it’s going to be amazing, I could tell pretty quickly if the idea was connecting for them or if this was just another game on a long list of games they were “assigned” to look at. I quickly recalibrated my overall expectations and made it not about how big this journalist’s audience was, or what they would eventually write about the game, instead I made it about this individual gamer.

I wish I could spend an hour talking to every gamer on the planet. I wish I could walk them through HEX and why it’s awesome and why it’s going to be the biggest dTCG in the world. If I could do that through some kind of black magic voodoo, I know we would be a HUGE success. But sadly that’s not possible (to be clear, I am open to this option, so please private message me if you know black magic voodoo).

But here was this 3 day block set aside for me to talk about HEX, to sell HEX to gaming editors, people I assume REALLY love games. So that’s how I approached each interview. I wasn’t selling HEX as much as I was trying to convert each person I talked to into a player for our game. In the end I think I was pretty successful. I certainly got people excited, I know a fair number of the editors I talked to have been playing the game, and so if nothing else comes of E3, I added half a dozen new passionate players to our tribe.

My favorite interview started like this:

Editor (had to be 16 years old, loud very high voice): “So what’s the HEX, WOW me!”

Me: “I AM going to WOW you, this game is amazing, first tell me about the types of games you play, do you play TCGs?”

Editor: “No.”

Me: “OK, do you play MMOs?”

Editor: “No.”

Me: “Ok, well even if you don’t play TCGs or MMOs you have some experience with general concepts correct?”

Editor: “Not really.”

Me: “Oh. Well, what games do you play?”

Editor: “Not really much of a gamer.”

Hahahaha… that was an actual conversation I had. This was a last minute addition to my list of editors and not on my original schedule (I attempted to talk to as many people as possible, and took every meeting I could get). I did spend the next hour “WOWing” him. I’m pretty sure he didn’t end up using the beta code I set up for him, but he did walk away impressed by my passion, if nothing else. Oh, and I asked him, “Why cover E3 if you’re not a gamer?” Seems he was filling in for someone and had a little experience with casual games. Too funny, I liked that guy’s moxie.

Overall, E3 was great. Any chance I get to talk about HEX is exciting, I really do feel like an evangelic preaching a new religion. I also took the time to remember that things will change, and it’s important to enjoy each part of this journey. There may never again be a time where HEX is so small that Will and I set up a single computer and meet with school newspaper editors trying to drum up interest in the game. When HEX gets huge, I won’t be spending the majority of my meetings describing what the hell HEX is, it will be about how cool the latest set release or dungeon is, or it will be the converts preaching back to me how amazing this game is.

I have a vision for the future, and I am impatient for it to get here, but I think it’s important for all of us to try and remember to enjoy each part of this journey. (I think I have mentioned this sort of thing in the past.)

Doing the interview with the Gamespot TV crew was fun. The host interviewing me had a giant list of games to cover over the 3 days and I think he had limited knowledge of HEX. Not that I expected him to have played or anything, in retrospect starting off with a joke about how we changed the game into a Hentai-Kitten-RPG (or whatever the hell I said) was probably not a great idea. I should have warned the poor guy I was going to do it, as going for the joke is always my first instinct. Right after I made the joke it became clear we had less time than I originally thought, so trying to describing HEX was going to be a waste.

I made the decision to switch tactics and instead of trying to cover all the complex elements that make up HEX, I just talked about how amazing the dream of this game is and encouraged people to dig into the game on our website. Any chance I have to get gamers to see how incredible our forums and community are is pure win.

Overall the interview was enjoyable. It’s cool to be on camera at E3, and a good ego boost after seeing the incredible marketing presence for some of the other games at E3. Some games had 15 foot tall light up robots and full size dragons breathing REAL fire onto REAL demo people! (I made up the part about the dragon.) Yes I am a little jealous, I want desperately to create that sort of wow factor for HEX marketing, and we know we will in the future.

So that was E3. I’m sure by this point you’re agreeing with that voice in my head I mentioned at the beginning of this post: “Jesus, stop boring me and show some spoilers!”

Ok Ok… here you go!

But first, let me say that Set 2 is amazing! Ben Stoll and the team have done a fucking incredible job making it deep and rich and SUPER fun. One of the recurring comments I get on Set 1 is how varied the play experience is, how there are SO MANY different decks to play and it feels like more than one set of cards. Well hold on, Set 2 is as good or better, and holy shit DRAFT is about to get real. You know how much I love to draft, well Set 2 makes it even better.

Let’s start with this bad boy, FURY OF THE MOUNTAIN GOD!!!

Sure he costs 8, but LOOK: two sockets, yes TWO sockets! Holy hell, think of the combinatorials! Also did I mention he ACTUALLY doesn’t cost 8, with a little help from, say, his buddy FANG of the Mountain God, you can get him out pretty darn quick, maybe even turn 3 with the perfect hand.

Next Up… Scheme

Now this is card right up my alley, a total Johnny card. If the first time I play this on the live server isn’t to make four copies of Replicators Gambit, I have instructed Drew Walker to punch me in the junk. (And I should be clear that I don’t want that to happen, Drew is not a gentle man.) Scheme is also awesome with escalation cards, obviously.

Finally, a card close to my heart, and one that I forced round after round of revisions on until we could all agree it was cool enough… Storm Cloud!

Look at that face, how could you not love that happy little cloud! Plus check out the adorable little guys it produces!

I defy you to dislike these awesome storm cards, it’s just not possible.

In the coming month we will continue to spoil cards from set 2. It’s exciting and I couldn’t be more proud of what the team has accomplished.

Speaking of future spoilers, Gwaer hit a major milestone in our forums: 5000 posts!!! And as a reward he has called out Ben for a winner take all TCG duel, and by “take all” I mean take absolutely nothing. BUT Ben has sweetened the pot and if Gwaer wins we will let him spoil a legendary card from set 2!

So that’s it. I actually already have the next blog post written, it’s about how I got my first job in the games industry 20 years ago. Not really much HEX talk in it, but hopefully it’s still interesting. Hell, someone on the forums said I could write about anything, even making waffles, and they would read it. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Sure I can make waffles… from the freezer, poor kids thinks these are what real waffles are like.

Actually I am more of a toast man. As a matter of fact, when my wife was pregnant with Holiday, there was a stretch when she only wanted to eat toast, and I would make perfectly buttered toast, which lead to my nickname “Toast Master General”… which led to this card in Food Fight that you might recognize…

By coryhudsonjones - Jul 17, 2014