Sunday, September 7, 2008

Pictures and After-Action Report: GE PH Mini-Community Meeting

WARNING: Some pictures. Please wait for them to load, thank you.

The date: 6 September 2008, a breezy Saturday afternoon

The place:
Fandom Cafe at the ground floor of the Regalia Park Towers in Cubao, Quezon City, the Philippines

[Fandom Cafe is a PC shop, a coffeeshop, and the headquarters of the New Worlds Alliance. To learn more about the Alliance, click here.]

The participants: Selected members of the Granado Espada PH players' community a/k/a GE bloggers; and from IP e-Games, the new GE PH Community Manager, plus some of the GE marketing staff

The event: Granado Espada PH Mini-Community Meeting, a/k/a Meet and Greet CM Aethrin. Also, as a side-event, NineMoons's advanced birthday party

GEPHMiniCommMeet002
Discussions at the Fandom Cafe during the GE PH Mini-Community Meeting. That's Fiksdotter in the white shirt with his back to the camera; next around the circle are Blacksword, Donna and Joan from IP e-Games [and one of them revealed herself to be the Grantoza family!], Rivendel, Kincaid, CM Aethrin, NineMoons [me], and Rosso. Not in picture: Nate Reclusion [who took the picture], Mena [seated next to Blacksword].

One of the major topics under discussion at this mini-community meeting was the upcoming anniversary of Granado Espada in the Philippines. The game was launched in the country last year on 15 September - and that date is just about a week from now.

CM Aethrin asked for suggestions for marking the anniversary, and one of the good ones was an event to be held at the Game Frog PC shop in Ortigas, where previous events had been held with success. We also suggested side events such as a trivia contest, a PVP tourney, allied events in Visayas and Mindanao, etc.

Since the 15th is a Monday, the general consensus was that the anniversary would be marked either during the weekend of the 13th-14th, before the actual anniversary date; or on the weekend of the 20th-21st, after the actual anniversary date.

We also devoted a lot of discussion time to the need for promoting Granado Espada; we especially stressed the need for installers, posters, and ads. The IP e-Games people admitted that most of the budget for promoting games had indeed gone to the recently released CABAL Online, and the other e-Games titles had suffered as a result.

[Shocking to think that RAN Online, which had been THE top MMORPG in the country for a long time, suffered an abrupt drop in concurrent users to CABAL. Cannibalization anyone?]

A related question was the topic of GVCs in the country. G-Points, as I and the other bloggers have noted, are EXTREMELY hard to come by in the Philippines. Apparently, a means of converting e-Games's own ePoints into the GE G-Points is still under development as of this time; while it's still not in place, the need still has to be filled. We suggested making the 70,000 G-Points GVC available in the country since it DID bring greater value for money spent:

Highest denomination of GVC in PH: PHP750 = 18,000 G-Points
Highest denomination of GVC in SG: SGD59.90 = 70,000 G-Points.

Singaporean players pay roughly PHP2000 for 70,000 G-Points.
Filipino players have to pay roughly
PHP3000 for 72,000 G-Points! [Four of the PHP 750 = 18,000 G-Points cards.]

Look at that discrepancy!

I also had to ask, since I was already invested in this particular turn of events, about the fate of the GE Gamer Girls initiatives. Yes, RCM Hrin has put together the current run of interviews with actual gamer girls, sponsored by a major cosmetics company. But the fact remained that it was the previous GE PH CM who started the ball rolling. CM Aethrin assured that the GE Gamer Girls would not be abandoned.

At some point, Rosso laid out the terms of how the relationship between the bloggers and the new CM might take place: the bloggers provide free publicity and put together events for the community; the CM provides news and details of events and especially support for the promotions.

Another hot-button topic was an animated discussion centering on the growing dichotomy between two of the major populations of players in Granado Espada: the players from the Philippines and the players from Singapore. Fiksdotter and Nate Reclusion, both being in an international faction, said that SOME Singaporean players were behaving badly towards Filipinos, and was there some way to deal with that?

GEPHMiniCommMeet006
SEATED: Front row, left to right - CM Aethrin, Grantoza, NineMoons; second row, left to right - Nate Reclusion, Fiksdotter; third row, left to right - Rivendel, Kincaid, Blacksword. STANDING: Mena.

GEPHMiniCommMeet007
From left to right: Nate Reclusion, Fiksdotter, Mena, Grantoza, CM Aethrin, NineMoons, Blacksword [seated], Rivendel, Kincaid.

Well, it looks like we'll all get to see each other again very soon, just as soon as the GE PH first anniversary event rolls around. Until then, happy leveling, Pioneers!

Special shout-out to Paolo Jalbuena, owner of Fandom Cafe. [He plays in Cervantes server.]

Related Posts
Fiksdotter: GE PH Community Welcomes CM Aethrin
Blacksword: Meet the New CM / GE Mini Community Meeting

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank God his not another post-reinassace gothic slash emo dresser..

Anonymous said...

Whats wrong with Veya being a "post-reinassace gothic slash emo dresser"?

PJ Punla said...

@ cheverlou

please do NOT comment again if you're going to mislead people by giving your website as the GE official home page. i will let this comment through just the once. do that again, and i WILL ban you.

@ arc

fashions are meant to look good on some and not so good on others. emo style is just one of those things. v had great boots and nice hats but not everything else in between went together well. just my fashion opinion.

Anonymous said...

@ Cheverlou~

It's not the fashion that matters, it's what the person does~ >3>;;; And besides, what Veya-san wears suits her~ =p


@ Blog entry~

Cool~! A lot of GE forumers have been waiting for this~! I hope it will be fantastic~ :D

Anonymous said...

hindi guwapo si CM Aethrin = hindi ako babalik sa GE

wahaha.

Pasabog ang new hair ni Arvin (Kincaid), pero mas pasabog ang posing ni Mena na nakatayo. Scene stealer ang drama niya hahaha =))

Am still waiting for the thinggy that will get me back to playing GE though.

PJ Punla said...

@ ellahahaziah

we can hope, and help, and try to be optimistic since the anniv event is a bit on short notice. let's all give the new CM our support, and see how things pan out.

@ mikee stiles
re the thing that might make you return to GE: what were the criteria anyway? ^^

Anonymous said...

Nice meeting lets just keep our fingers cross that all our suggestions will be heard by the higher beings hehehe.. til next tym!

PJ Punla said...

@ rivendel

it was good to have you there too. i second your wish and hope to see you at the anniv events ^^

Anonymous said...

I ate burgers lots of.... Advance Happy Bday~

Reimaru said...

hehe sorry for the late comment...
anyway let's keep it up on supporting GE...
and let's not forget to support CM Aethrin

PJ Punla said...

@ nate

thanks, very sweet of you to remember that part of the day ^^

@ richard

big AMEN to both of your comments!

Rob Sanchez said...

Wow, I envy your blogging community! Egames and GE owe you guys a lot for helping Granado Espada flourish.

More power to you guys!

PJ Punla said...

@ alcarcalimo

IAHGames are aware of us. not quite sure about IP e-Games since they seemed to do a good job of pretending we didn't exist last year.

let's hope the new admin will set things right by the community.

Anonymous said...

IAHGames are aware of us. not quite sure about IP e-Games since they seemed to do a good job of pretending we didn't exist last year.

Should i say QFT?

PJ Punla said...

@ darrick

go ahead.

things must change and make my comment obsolete. i wish.