A brief glimpse of Granado Espada at DOM1NATION

I went to the e-Games event called DOM1NATION at Le Pavillion yesterday with my friend Jonette, and we had ourselves quite a bit of fun.

Jonette's a long time friend of mine who also happens to love MMORPGs, and I must admit I've been pestering her to play Granado Espada for some time now. Naturally, neither of us could miss this event, which promised to have a bit of Granado Espada in it.

We got there just slightly before the event began, and the opening act, anime and j-rock cover band Do'Ahou, treated us to a noisy, hard-rocking, musical mishmash of theme songs from Dragon Ball, Bioman, Shaider, Doraemon, Zenki, Voltes V, and Daimos.

But since the venue was still sparsely populated at that time, she and I kind of felt odd that we were among the few who could appreciate the performance by knowing what the songs actually were.

Hosting the event were Pinoy Big Brother alumnus Rico, and a girl with a nice accent named Jocelyn [sp?].

The event space was laid out such that the major e-Games properties were arranged along three of the walls. Immediately next to the entrance was Dreamville with its henna and glitter tattoos and the MTV VJ hunt. Along the right wall were Audition, hosting a small dance stage and a Dance Dance Revolution machine; and O2 Jam, hosting another small stage and a Percussion Freaks machine. The left wall had, first, a sort of obstacle course and a large bouncy stage for jousting, for the shooting game Battle Position; then the Supreme Destiny space, with a sign-ups desk; and then Ran Online, which featured an arrow-shooting gallery.

The Audition, O2 Jam, Supreme Destiny, and Ran Online spaces all featured, in addition, about 40 PCs apiece, both for free play and for tournament play. O2 Jam was having its grand finals for the Jammin' to Jakarta event. Ran was hosting special events such as a Boss Time Attack and others. And Audition was also slated to host special performances by dancers such as the group Exodus, and the award-winning freestyle dance group Philippine All-Stars.

At some point during the morning my Granado Espada-hungry eyes caught sight of a singular apparition: among the crowd of cosplayers who were attending the day's cosplay competition appeared a familiar-looking blonde with an equally familiar-looking red dress with lace and ruffles.

Turns out this gem of a female elementalist was none other than Ann of e-Games! She and a few other people came to the event in full GE regalia: the male musketeer in his standard-issue green uniform; two versions of a female musketeer [one in a burgundy-brocade coat and one in a black outfit]; and the male wizard, who wore the reverse of the Clara mago armor as he was wearing a black top and white pants. And he even had a top hat!

[There should be a proper top hat for male wizards in Andre Janzur's shop!]

Just after Jonette and I broke for lunch, who should stop in front of us but the lady I was waiting for: sGE Community Manager Hrin!!!! She looked really good in her all-black outfit - and her boots were, as Tsubaki of Anime Desho Desho? put it, the type to kick booty with!

Jonette and I introduced ourselves to her and she was more than gracious to us - she welcomed Jonette warmly, and wound up asking me if I was planning to keep the "NineMoons" family name into POBT.

I told her that yes, I would like to keep playing as NineMoons, and would do my best to grab that name when POBT account sign-ups rolled around.

Around 2pm came the event I was waiting for: Rico and Jocelyn came up on stage to announce that Granado Espada Brand Manager [Philippines] Ivee Feria was about to make an announcement about GE! Ivee then came up on stage and introduced the game and its provenance. They showed the version 2.0 video next, and during this video the GE cosplayers came up on stage as well to perform some of Andre Janzur's patented funny poses.

[It's time to make a stand.

I mirrored the v. 2.0 video at this entry.]

Finally, CM Hrin came up on stage and said she was very happy to be coming to the Philippines, and that she was greatly looking forward to getting back into the game to meet the Filipino players in the world of Granado Espada.

After saying goodbye to Hrin and Ivee Jonette and I repaired outside, and in response to her query about history within the game I gave her the short version of GE history.

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And tomorrow I will be interviewing CM Hrin - so please, if you've got questions to ask her, leave a comment here!

Do you have a question for CM Hrin...

...about Pre-Open Beta Test?

...about her life as a Community Manager for a fast-growing / up-and-coming MMORPG?

...about life in Singapore?

...about Granado Espada in general?

Then send in your questions here!

I'll be interviewing CM Hrin within the next couple of days and I've been told to get questions from ALL of you Pinoy GE fans!

So comment away, leave the questions, and I will do my level best to make sure they all get answered to your satisfaction!

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My coverage of the DOM1NATION event and its GE-related events will be up tomorrow ^^

Wanna meet CM Hrin in person??

Sure you do!

From e-Games Philippines Product Manager for GE Ivee Feria comes this SMS news flash:

...pls go to d dominatn event,so u cud meet her in person.

In this blog post Granado Espada Community Manager Hrin talks about being busy, and mentions that she'll be in the Philippines today to meet with people from e-Games. She also made a request to meet some of the local GE gamers, and even though she says that was a bit last-minute-y, they agreed.

It turns out that if you go to the e-Games anniversary event DOM1NATION on Saturday, 28 April, CM Hrin will be there - and I'm guessing they'll be doing a formal announcement of the Granado Espada kind at the event!

Watch this space for more information!

The new Granado Espada forums are up and running!

Click here to read the news item at the official GE site.

Click here to sign up for an IAH Games Passport account.

Click here to go to the new forums.

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And in other news, this site will be undergoing a series of small modifications, designed to allow easier navigation. There will also be a few aesthetic changes upcoming.

But don't worry, I'm not taking it down, or even going on hiatus - I'll be implementing the changes gradually, and you can still enjoy reading what I've posted here!

Hope you all come back when I've finished with the modifications, and hope you continue to enjoy the stuff I've posted here!

My idea for a Granado Espada promotion: Flash mob

The term "flash mob", in current parlance, refers to a large group of people who gather suddenly in a public place - a mall, a park, a street corner, a busy intersection such as you'd find in Tokyo, an MRT station, a lobby of a building - do something unusual for a short period of time [usually no more than 30 minutes], then disperse just as quickly as they arrived.

According to Wikipedia, there is also the "distributed" variant of flash mob, in which multiple flash mobs in multiple areas are coordinated to happen more or less all at the same time.

Flash mobs are greatly helped along in coordination and logistics by modern technology, such as SMS, instant messaging, and mobile e-mail.

I think the closest local equivalent might have been EDSA Dos - after the decision to not open that fateful envelope was made, after a female senator of that time horrified the nation with her celebratory dance, the text messages flew far and wide to tell people "We must gather! We must protest!" And so the crowds began to converge on the EDSA Shrine - thus toppling a presidency.

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On the more off-beat and fun side, though, flash mobs have involved everything from pillow fights, to a rendition of the song-and-dance routine that is the end sequence of the cult anime hit The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya [Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu].

[Thanks to Tsubaki at Anime Desho Desho? for that video link.]

So that set me thinking, why not a Granado Espada Flash Mob? After all, don't we already have the wild, weird, and wacky Poses as crafted by the one and only Andre Janzur?

My idea would be for a group of the Closed Beta Testers to get together in a public place - like the Mall of Asia, or the atrium at Glorietta, or even the garden area at Greenbelt 4 - for the express purpose of drawing attention to the upcoming Pre-Open Beta Test phase by doing some of the funniest poses from the game.

The Testers would assemble at a time when there were a lot of people in the chosen public place, do a pre-arranged sequence of poses in unison [and in silence], and then quickly disperse afterwards.

The other players might bring their posters, or wear their shirts, pins, and hats, in order to arouse more curiosity from the, it is hoped, audience interested in what could bring on an "attack" like this.

Any takers on that half-headstand thing, for example? Or what about that Hadouken pose, or the hugs?

What about pulling reenactments of the funny screenshots used in the contests at the forums, at granadoespada.cc, and at mmosite.com?

Send in your comments and suggestions - it might be nice to do this immediately before POBT starts, so as to attract the most attention.