I literally just walked away from Brent and Craig, having walked with them to the ‘front door’ of the MSP airport. I have a long layover here in Minneapolis before my flight to the Mad-town, and I am determined to make the most of it.

Before I do actual work, though, I want to make sure and put down some thoughts about GDC Austin for ye olde MMOG Nation. With my posting schedule of late, you’d think that I had forgotten about the site. I can assure you that’s not the case. Writing has been something of a problem of late, my time on the road apparently sucking my will to string words together into sentences.

Today I’m heading home for the rest of the year, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I am really looking forward to settling into some enthusiastic word-stringing over the next week. Plans for here include a large writeup on Tabula Rasa (though I do appreciate the nice things people have been saying about my last one), Pirates of the Burning Sea, EQ2, WoW, Fury, Eye of Judgement, and a ’scathing editorial’ continuation of an interchange I had with Mark Jacobs during a GDC session. (Expect less scathing and more good-natured ribbing.)

For now, though, here’s my highlights from GDC Austin 2007:

• Meeting with the SWG team at the SOE Austin studios; specifically, chatting with Deadmeat, Blixtev, Chris Cao, and John Blakely about blogging and game communities was a trip. I will also say, while I didn’t get to see DCUO, I did see a lot of concept art on the walls. In a word: delicious.
• Dinner with Brent, Eric, and Scott the first night in town. I was unsure of how I would handle yet another sojourn away from home, and getting a warm welcome to town really helped keep me ‘grounded’.
• The CM’s panel was a trip; seeing reps from SOE, Blizzard, Flying Lab, NCSoft … and Sanya … do their thing in front of a packed room of people was inspiring.
• Chatting with Brian, Damion, and Sara in an almost-empty ‘party’; getting to hear Damion and Sulka talk a little smack.
• Had a long chat with Brent on Wednesday about this, that, and the other. Talking with humans is fun, it turns out.
• Thursday started kind of sad panda and turned out awesome. I like that in and of itself.
• Despite the undersized crowd (or perhaps because of it), I thought the ‘Playing Nice’ panel went really really well.
• What’s better than having BioWare demo their writing tools, and talk a bit about the process of doing the dialogue construction for their games? Seeing in-game footage with the female version of Commander Shephard for the first time.
• Dinner with Brent, Cuppy, and Scott as a prelude to an evening of entertainment on SOE’s tab.
• Getting to chat with Sharky, Emily, and Darren. Those Ziff folks are darned friendly.
• A great interview with EVE’s new financials guy.
• The verbal fisticuffs during the ‘Future MMOG Opportunities’ panel between Mark Jacobs and Raph.
• Being able to fly with people, having a great conversation all the way from Austin to Minneapolis. (I’ve flown not-by-myself precisely four times in my life.)

I enjoyed myself more in the last few weeks than I have at almost any other time this year. In truth, I’ve kind of not really enjoyed 2007. Most of it has been ‘okay’, but there’s also been a lot of crap that I just really could have done without. I’ve certainly had stress and frustrations in the last month, but between the Arena.net trip, Gen Con, PAX, and now GDC Austin … as happy as I am to be home, I don’t regret a single bit of it.

Now I need to turn around and return this enthusiasm to my job, my writing and (of course) my blog. Thanks for reading.