Well, as I mentioned (through Alex) last week, Raincrystal went out there to have fun at Otakon. She decided to pop by to drop off a message.

Raincrystal:
Well, I had a blast at Otakon... and here's the picture to prove I was really there. I met up with fanfic editor Alanna, which was cool. I also saw a few editorialists (Wisdom and Kain to name a few)-- ironically, though, we had no idea we were looking at each other at the time.

I am on Otakon staff as security, meaning that my job is mostly crowd control and blocking stairwells and the like. Why I do it runs something like this:

Otakon: Well, we're understaffed, so please come work for us this year.

Raincrystal: What do I get in return?

Otakon: You'll get free hotel rooms, free admission, and a bland bag lunch every day. Now you can actually afford to come.

Raincrystal: But if I'm working the whole time, I won't be able to do much else at the con anyway.

Otakon: Two words: staff parties.

Raincrystal: Oh, okay.

And so it goes. Of course, I managed to have a great time, anyway. This is even despite the fire alarm being pulled at 2 AM, which required us to evacuate the building five minutes before closing time and then escort the con-goers individually into the building in order to retrieve the stuff they'd left behind. Ah well.

Lord help me, I am also addicted to Dance Dance Revolution. ^_~

Anyway....

*Wheels Raincrystal into a corner before she takes any more of the sake and starts dancing.*

Well, I know you all had fun with Otakon and all, running around doing all sorts of things, but it surprises me that there has been a fair few editorials even though many of you have been up and around. There's some interesting eds around... There's been a lot of discussion on Villains with many a rebuttal coming in. There's some interesting musings of about the little things in RPGs, an editorial questioning if linearity is a good thing, an interesting comment about if complexity is necessary, and some interesting comments about an RPG's location on the gaming map... and the last piece is something that I must say is touching if nothing else.

As for the news this week? It's been a hectic ride for the industry as of late, with Titus' proposal to take over Interplay, which in turn controls Black Isle Studios, with several RPGs being pushed back into the far future, and with several others just coming out. With beta testing... it makes you wonder if we do enough to ensure games have few problems...

For all of those who are involved in the long delayed humerous debates, for all the questions asked, I encourage you to read the debate guidelines and hopefully that can explain how it'll work. Any further questions, e-mail me, and of course if you want to join up, there's always room for more. Incidentally, the first topic is "Are RPGs better than life?", so get cracking.

On another note, we also have some work done on the archives. You might have noticed that the old 1997 to 1999 archives are gone, and are replaced with new ones. I hope that we'll see the complete rehaul done eventually, and then we'll see about categorizing all these editorials into topics, so you can pick a topic and read editorials related to it easily.

Well, that's all for this week. I'll catch you around next week, and I hope I can bring you more. Have fun reading and writing! And try not to make Rain do too much...

PS: Really though, Raincrystal didn't drink anything, but she really did have a lot of fun. And incidentally I can drink whatever I like legally even though I'm two years her junior and she can't.

Just a funny thought there.