I'll admit to being quite jealous of the freebies, though once you factor in the ticket price that makes it make sense. =P Sounds like Mykonos got the best result of the night, though!
To be honest, for these sort of 'obsessive fan questions', I think all their responses will be made up on the spot/tongue-in-cheek, as I doubt they spend time thinking about these things. I hope some video of the Q&A surfaces - last years Q&A session was very entertaining.
Because no one really cares about these things except fans trying to force a canonical universe, which is the worst thing possible unless it's explicitly laid out in the games. Sonic 1-3K do this well enough on their own. Like, I love when you can tell Iizuka was sick of getting some of these questions and just let loose full troll mode. I'd buy him a drink for having to endure that like a trooper by subtly flipping off the fans. Come on, this was GOLD. Q: "WHERE'S FROGGY?" Iizuka: "He's with Big." Q: "WHERE'S BIG THEN?" I: "...he's with Froggy." Q: "EXCUSE ME, I AM INTERESTED WITH THE STATUS OF CHOCULA (not Chocola) AND WHERE HE CURRENTLY IS IN THE SERIES. IF YOU DON'T KNOW, CHOCULA IS CHEESE'S CHAO BROTHER." (Gene stares blankly at the screen at how absolutely anal this question is.) I: "........he's around." Well done, Iizuka. Honorable mentions goes to Hoshino's reaction when people kept asking him about Tails Doll (PLEASE let that meme die already) and he looked like he wanted to shoot himself. That said, you can tell they basically had nothing this year. They stretched for time practically across the board, with Crush 40 pausing to do audience chatting, Aaron taking more questions, and honestly I stopped watching there because I've no interest in the costume contests or much else. The really blatant one was Sonic costume guy just dancing on stage for five minutes. Kellie looked absolutely miserable (and I can't blame her.)
In #retro we were discussing the fact that Sonic Boom was a SEGA-only run event whilst Summer of Sonic had community involvement. Do you think if they had approached a few sites or people to help organise the event, would it have been a lot better compared to what was given last night? Or was it that the lack of Ken Balough after leaving SEGA dampened Sonic Boom as a whole?
They really should screen these questions before hand. Like have people put the questions in a box and then the staff can pick which ones to answer so they don't get dumb stuff like Where's Froggy, Big, or Chocola (Like really? Chocola?) And I thought we already knew the Super Emeralds and Hyper Sonic were retconned from previous Sonic conventions.
Honestly? I don't think so. Maybe there'd be a better venue, but it's MUCH harder to organize an event like that in the U.S. unless there were multiple locations at the same date and time across the U.S. and they competed with each other. But that makes booking guests and absolute pain. People would lose their minds if one location got Crush 40, while another got something else. What really killed Boom this year was the fact it was in St. Louis while nothing else was going on. St. Louis on its own isn't inherently bad, but let's be honest here: Sonic Boom alone is not worth going to. It's basically a five hour anime con focused on Sonic and has a lack of charm and care that SoS resonates (while still being an anime con for Sonic.) I say this with two booms under my belt: I never went just for Boom. 2011 was right by E3, which was awesome. 2012 was by SDCC, which was a perfect event to satellite off of. And even then, I always had much more fun at the Retro Pre- and After-Partys (as well as the requisite Sonic Retro Breakfast because, man, we all wanted some pancakes and bacon.) I won't shoot down their decision to move to another city, since it makes sense, but it'd have been wiser to put the event in a period where something else nerdy related was going on. One of the people I know that went all three years said this year was easily the worst attendance wise. We likely won't ever know the real number, but he guesses there wasn't more than 300-500 people there.
I call that a good start to the night. To be fair, aside from the moon question, those only popped up when the questioning was opened to the rabble on the floor. That's always a red flag and had me going, "Oh dear lord, Ruby, what are you doing..." I think the only question from the floor that was actually charming was the four year old girl genuinely concerned that Tails Doll has no friends. The rest were just absolute drivel... like come on, guys, most of you there are AT LEAST 16 years old, and the best question you have is, "WHERE'S OBSCURE CHARACTER X?" or "CLARIFY PLOTHOLE Y!"? Anyone with a brain could tell you the blunt truths in that they're either one-off characters that are no longer needed, or a plothole that arose because no one on the dev team cares about Sonic being a literary beacon of storytelling, just using it as a vehicle to move the current game's story along. I did like the S3K Super Emerald question, but even that answer was pretty obvious. Guess people just wanted to hear it straight from the dev's mouth that the Super Emeralds and Hyper Sonic only exist as bonus things. I don't expect technical questions, like trying to get info out behind the legal problems holding back future Sonic 3 re-releases, because they have all right to just shut down the questions with, "We have nothing to say at this time." Also no, that S3K answer didn't hamper what we said earlier when Sonic 1 iOS/Android came out. What makes everyone think we're on about a S3K port? You may as well go play Tiddles' Sonic 3 Complete hack.
Dude you're so lucky, how did you sneak back there? xP Also did you play Lost World on the 3DS after the event? Because I thought I saw you playing it, but I wasn't too sure if that was you so I didn't go up and say hello since I wasn't too sure. :v: I did end up meeting Ogilvie Maurice from SSMB, and another member from Sonic Blast. (I actually talked to her in line, because she was behind me. xD She was one of the many people who cosplayed as Sonic but was the one that painted her shoes red. I believe she goes by Sonics1andonlygirl on dA and on Sonic Blast.) Yeah it was a bit awkward when him and I met, I'm a shy person. x.X I didn't get the chance to talk to Aaron, but I managed to meet him and I shook his hand. He was in too much of a hurry for me to really talk. :\
The Q&A thing kills me. It started off well enough, the moon/Emerald questions were alright, and I liked the shield question (mental image of Iizuka swimming in Scrooge's gold vault goes here)...but man, most of that was "You should know that!" or absolute drivel. There were some kids in the audience of course, but as far as submitted questions go I figure it was the older crowd asking. I probably lost it laughing when Iizuka just flat-out said "Didn't we have this question (SA3?) last year?" in addition to ".....with Froggy." The question to Hoshino-san about how his work week or whatever usually goes was pretty good though. He gave a very open answer about it which I wasn't expecting, you can really tell he puts a lot into his work. I actually wish Aaron had fielded that question to Iizuka as well, but eh. I went into detail in a tumblr post here, but long story short I knew a guy who knew some other really cool guys who I guess already knew Jun. They asked if they could go back stage with him, I get waved in and we all had a seat. It was so surreal, especially when I turned around and there's Iizuka just grabbing snacks (he made about 3 trips in all while I was there). I was pretty starstruck haha. That was seriously all just beyond my wildest dreams though, I'm so glad I decided to go this year, I almost didn't. And yeah, I was having a go at the 3DS version (and repeatedly dying in Frozen Factoryd hgpahgdiap), should've said hi! We'd both be incredibly awkward and shy but it's okay. Also hilariously I think Aaron attracted more of a crowd throughout the night than Iizuka on the floor, and Johnny and Jun on the floor. After the event ended I see this huge crowd (huge for the event, must've been like 50-75 people) all huddled around on the side of the floor. I figure Iizuka has stepped out to sign some things so I start waiting with everyone, and then Aaron is there signing things like crazy haha. As people shuffled out of the way more people kept coming in. Even after we were all shooed out of the place and Jun was just nonchalantly sitting in the coffee shop at the venue were people could go in, Aaron was still attracting a big crowd and answering questions. He totally deserves it though. There was this one ass once most of the crowd had dissipated, though, who asked "So you deal with the Sonic fan base a lot, what's it like dealing with people who are autistic? I mean most Sonic fans are autistic, there are a lot of similar traits". I couldn't hear Aaron's answers but no doubt he handled it like a champ regardless. ...it wasn't one of you lot, was it? :v:
Better not have been. It's common sense not to ask that question so openly like that. No one's going to answer something like that when it could also potentially be used against you to make you lose your job. Aaron can be goofy, but he's not an idiot. Yes, the fans can be quite stupid, but what fanbase isn't, both in and out of video games? Even then, approaching someone with a question like that clearly designed with malicious intent is something far worse than "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE AN SA3?" To whoever does that, grow up and get off GameFAQs.
Logged in just to see this new emoticon. ... lol. On another note, hope everyone who attended had a great time! Enjoy those shiny bobbleheads, the t-shirt, and the lanyard.
I wouldn't be surprised if it pops up on Sega's forums now. Or more appropriately, the Twitch channel.
So I want to see if that acticle T**Z posted has any fact to it. For all people who went to all the days of the event, How do you guys think SB2013 faired this year? they said attendance was low, around the 300s.
Going off people's estimates on Twitter is silly. Staff at the event were estimating a turnout of 500-600 as I recall, which is about what the FB page said in the "Going" tab, assuming that not everyone who said they were "Going" could make it...that number is about right. I'll trust them more, personally. Typical TSSZ being TSSZ, basically.
Photobucket These are mostly gameplay photos along with a few extra shots. There are 2 of every photo because I forgot to turn off the HDR on my camera and I just drag-and-dropped everything (I'm doing this in a mega-hurry since I'm still sightseeing in St. Louis). Keep checking the Photobucket over the next few days while I try to get everything to upload. I also have 4 full level playthrough videos; these will be uploaded to YouTube and embedded here later. (Even if you're unimpressed by the quality of the photos, you'll be very happy with the quality of the videos.) I have much to say later on how both games handle. Super-short description: very creative level design, physics are solid, Sonic has a few cool new moves, they came up with an interesting way to handle the recent "no sonic stop going so fast" issue by making him slow by default and fast only when you hold the R trigger; it works VERY well. Heading over to the City Museum now; I'll try to get a video uploaded tonight or tomorrow One of my favorite shots:
Yeah, that's genuine, it amused me when I saw it at SoS as well (in fact, I mentioned it in the intro of the Lost World impressions piece that we wrote. =P)
