GE CBT Philippines finale party: a report

I was at Gamefrog in Metrowalk Ortigas earlier for one of the CBT finale parties.

They put on the free play at around 1:30 and within minutes of sitting down, I found myself surrounded by a quick influx of gamers. Haha, what wonders the words "free play" can work on addicted gamers.

I wasn't able to participate in the Stupendous Race, but boy, was It's Raining Fortune more fun than a barrel of monkeys. I should've brought my Wizard to that one because everyone else was spamming AoEs like there was no tomorrow, but I was trying to level that big dumbo Gracielo so I could accomplish his pending quest [the one where he is currently getting his butt handed to him by three hulking savages, and all because he thinks he can take them on one-handed].

My family wound up getting killed at some point, because, yeah, Elite Scarlet Claws in Porto Bello. There were so, so many of them that I had to take my hands off the keyboard in order to point and laugh hysterically.

I hope someone sends me their screenshots or videos - a crowd of monsters in a small place is no mean feat, no small joke, and a whole lot of fun.

[So hello to GM Corsys who was spawning those mobs - I hope you know I appreciate what you did, because I haven't laughed that hard at a PC screen for a while.]

The e-Games people held their prize draw a few minutes after It's Raining Fortune - they gave away caps, t-shirts, and 5 2-day preview passes to POBT. I won a shirt [yay!] but wasn't lucky enough to win a pass [aww!]. In the meantime, the other players were sporting GE buttons and toting rolled-up posters, all from the same e-Games people.

After four hours of free leveling courtesy of the great people at Gamefrog and e-Games, here are my stats:

Family: NineMoons
Members: Tuon, fighter / Musenge, Gracielo / Furyk, scout
Levels: 42 / 41 / 42

Well, at least when I ditched Radhanon [the Wizard] he had already gotten his God skills - I was able to have him master both Earthquake and Apocalypse. Yay!

Next time, though, I'm seriously going to get myself an Elementalist. Just to see what the difference is - and also because I have a soft spot for girls who wield the elemental power of fire.

According to the e-Games people, the Philippine players can begin registering for the next phase tomorrow - that's March 18 - so if I were you I'd wake up early and sign up quick.

In the next post:
A quick recap of my last days playing GE, and, hopefully, the first of the quasi-instructional bits.

Edit:
I stand corrected. GE in the Philippines will be distributed and managed by e-Games's sister company, IP-Interactive.

Thanks to the helpful anonymous commenter - and, yeah, girls rule.