So the Will Wright thing wasn't all I had hoped it would be. I didn't think he had anything monumental to announce since they had already revealed to the public the release date of Spore, but I was still hoping for more than just a normal lecture. Granted though, Will's lectures are anything but normal. Seeing as it wasn't anything huge I don't know if I'll be writing it up - besides I saw a ton of video cameras in use so no doubt it'll be up on YouTube or something before I even have a chance to write it up anyways. I did get it on audio, though not all of it. Despite the program I received initially stating that Will was to take the stage at 8pm, I arrived at like 7:53 (having attended the Course PTR author party first) and found out from Alan Yu (EA) that he had already been talking for like 7-10 minutes. So that was a bit disappointing in and of itself.

Anyways I say Will is funny because his lectures are so seemingly random yet afterwards somehow manage to make sense. He loves using the technique (at least I heard it was a technique) of digressing into various topics - like when I arrived he was just starting the "Russian space minute", which took a bit longer than a minute and detailed a Soyuz mission gone bad that left the ejected cosmonauts stranded 50 miles into China fending for themselves for the night despite stopping their truck half way to the launch pad and peeing on the front tire for good luck. Cause, you know - that's what the first cosmonaut did and it got him back safely. Although I guess it still worked cause they didn't die - but they didn't make it to space, which means they got docked their space pay and had to appeal all the way up to (I forget the name of the czar or whatever they call him) to get their money for traveling into space even though technically they didn't.

Like I said - Will Wright is a funny guy. Well, I laughed as he told the story anyways, since he had goofy slideshow visuals to back him up. He also talked about Walt Disney and the TV show Lost... seriously how the f*ck does this guy cram so much stuff into his head, and create like, 500-slide presentations out of it? Amazing. Oh and sorry, none of the questions posed by you guys that I submitted were asked. In fact, they opened the floor to Q&A and didn't even mention any questions sent in via RSVP. WTF mate?? Two of the questions were good tho - one was "would you make another SimCopter game?" to which Will responded that yes, he wouldn't mind working on an updated version of SimCopter using today's tech. That got my mouth watering - I was a big SimCopter fan. The other question was "have you ever fallen in love with one of your Sims?" to which Will gave a bit of though and said "Well.... no... no because I think I know too well how they work". [lol]

So yea, I bounced right after the Q&A session to head over to Suite Night, tho I did run into Lou Castle (EA VP) to get his contact info to send him some GDCA pics - he gave out the Lifetime Achievement Award to Sid Meier. At Suite Night I met up with my IGDA scholar after bumping again into Stephane from Eidos Montreal. He gave me a "limited edition" Deus Ex 3 sticker - I'm going to have to ask him exactly how "limited" it is before I use it. Collector's item? Who knows? I got into the Prototype party by the sheer dumb luck of Sibel Sunar, head of FortySeven, which runs a lot of the conference, was outside the doors and invited me in past the people with the names list. There wasn't anyone I knew in there tho, so me and my student scholar didn't stay long. Instead we headed up to the GarageGames suite where I was much more at home and saw/met many a wonderful people and stuck around till they finally kicked us out (the hotel staff, not GG) where I got a chance to finally talk with Josh Williams (GG CEO) for a little while. Such and awesome guy.

So lastly I met up with Seyi and Lissa for some good steak dinner. Mmmmmm steak... now it's almost 1:30 and I think it's time for bed so I don't miss my morning session tomorrow... which I have confirmed as actually being at 9am on Friday.