Last weekend, Destination Games held a gathering of players to talk about the state of the game, what they liked and didn't like, and also got a preview of the latest build, Deployment 10. It was an opportunity to get-to-know-our-players a bit more, and I was asked to help set up the event.
We dubbed this event the 2008 AFS War College. War College is an actual military term used for events with the same agenda - to gather members involved in a mission and create strategies for it's success.
We chose 8 lucky attendees and met up with them at our homebase in Austin, Texas. Here is a run down of what happened from my point of view (a little self indulgent, I know :P).
Day 1:
CuppaJo and I picked up the boys at the airport. Youngblood, MisterGlass, PegasusMD, and Rothnang were arriving that afternoon. It was great to finally meet the people that you have been talking to in game and on the forums for several months! We held up a TR logo so they would know who we are. Luckily, everyone got the message. And before you ask, yes, we did call each other by our game names for the most part - much easier than learning our real ones :).
Woebringer's flight was a little later, so CuppaJo stayed behind to port him to the hotel. This means that she got to drive her nice new car, I got to drive a creepy white rental van. When the guys found out that I was a former Auto Assault GM, they got a little weary about my driving skills, but luckily we made it safely to the hotel without any explosions or casualties.
Youngblood, CuppaJo, and Misterglass wait for the others at the airport. 
Rothnang and Youngblood debate over what to order for dinner.
We met up with Austin locals Line and Lanster as well as Tabula Rasa Content Writer, Gina "Firelotus" Dionne, and headed to dinner at a local restaurant called NXNW. During dinner we talked about Tabula Rasa and what their main concerns were with the game.
I really felt that I was getting to know their "gaming" personalities. Some were hard core gamers, some casual. Some were focused on social aspects like crafting, housing, storyline and roleplaying, while others were interested mostly in combat mechanics. Several were interested in PvP, and some thought the idea of PvP wasn't ideal for this game. All in all, I felt we had chosen a strong group of people representing various play styles.
Tankhardrive met up with us later that night while we were nerding-it-up at the hotel debating over video games. From the sound of it, he had a pretty rough time coming over and had to take a chemistry test before rushing to the airport (sorry Tank!).
Day 2:
On Friday, CuppaJo picked up the guys at their hotel and took them to get breakfast at a local coffee shop (surprised?). Richard then took them on a tour of the office and showed them all the oddities that can be found here (including odd employees).
Tabula Rasa pizza anyone? 
Rothnang looks over Richard's previous game releases.
Harleyquin greets the War College participants in her usual fashion.
Part-time Ninja Kagasumi.
After the tour, we stopped to have CuppaJo talk a bit about our build process and our product development style that we switched to called scrum. She's a great teacher. She made scrum and build processes sound interesting, which we all know is pretty near impossible.
Later, after a lunch filled with copious amounts of barbecue with other dev team members, testers, and GMs, we held the demonstration of Deployment 10.
Producer Starr Long went over some hush hush marketing plans and build release schedule and then each scrum team spoke about what they were working on for the last 4 weeks. We'll be sharing these changes with you throughout the next few weeks as the build goes through several stages of testing.
Players also got a chance to meet Sean Fish aka "Manticore" from City of Heroes. He's a super nice guy and has a very successful internal mentoring program here at NCsoft to teach game designer hopefuls.
After the demo we took some time talking to Designer Chris Strasz and Lead Designer Tom Potter about Clan Owned Control Points, and the ultimate goal for how they will be implemented in the game. Tom told me that he felt that the War College event was a remarkable experience. To see such passion for something you helped create was really inspiring. This group of players knew TR like few others, and their feedback was invaluable.
"Multiply that by 2, carry the 1, and you have Deployment 10!"
"This is Sarah, isn't she hot???"
Product Director Andy Bruncke talks to Youngblood about something REALLY important.
Top Row (left to right): Lanster, Rothnang, Woebringer, PegasusMD, TankHardrive, and Line
Bottom Row: Tom Potter, Misterglass, and Youngblood
At dinner that night, Richard took several poster-sized sheets of paper and tacked them to the wall of the restaurant (I hope we don't get a bill for that!). On one piece he wrote, "What we should add?" and on the other "What should we change?". By the end of the night both sheets were full of ideas (some of which Tom is addressing in our Feedback Friday).
I talked to Richard later and here's what he had to say, "The TR community leaders were great to get to know and work with. The knowledge and enthusiasm they had for TR made their analysis a joy to hear. Their ideas and suggestions were universally well thought out. They did a great job of considering fictional purity, development practicalities and other issues. I look forward to working with them further, and pulling more leaders into this program."
Starr later said, "We gained lots of perspective from them on where we are with Tabula Rasa. Hopefully they too gained some perspective on how we prioritize our work. We can’t wait for the next one!"
Day 3 and it was time to go home. We were all exhausted and most of us took the whole weekend to recover. I'd like to thank the players that came, and hope that next year's event will be as successful as this year's. We learned a lot about our players and are more confident than ever that we are moving in the right direction for this game.
See ya on the battlefield!
Critters
Oh and by the way, if you would like to check out more pictures of the War College event, you can find them in our Events Gallery!