09.09.2010 19:40
[ back ]
Vietcong 2 Press Event
Press Event in Prague
By Christian "CyberKiller" Konieczka, PTERODON webmaster
On the 7th of July 2005, I was on my way to my second journey to the Czech Republic, which would take place in Prague, the capital city, and Brno, the home of PTERODON.
I spent the first two days with sightseeing in the beautiful capital city, which consists of several subdivisions. Prague is a town with cultural entertainment, and many beautiful visuals, such as some world famous bridges.
However, looking past the exciting journey throughout the city, there were more important things to do while visiting Prague. 2K Games had arranged a four-hour presentation of Vietcong 2 for selected reporters from the press in an exclusive hotel named Hotel Andel. The hotel consists of luxury suits, restaurants, conference rooms, and much more, and is located near a large shopping centre, which includes hundreds of shops and cinemas.
On the 9th of July 2005, the exciting day had come; the press conference was only hours away from starting, and while preparing for the conference, a taxi was waiting to pick me up and drive me to Hotel Andel. Moreover, even though the weather was seamlessly rainy, the day itself would turn out to be shinier than the sun would ever be for us at PTERODON.
I arrived at the hotel a few hours before the actual press event would commence, and noticed that the conference areas were already equated with signs stating: "2K Games Presents Vietcong 2". I met up with Jarek Kolar and a few others from the team and immediately set to work; we were preparing the conference hall, and an Internet gaming café, which was set up for a stylish Vietnam War themed area. Our job was to configure the multiplayer servers, which the press people would find themselves playing in later on, and remove advertisements from competitive games, whose titles I will avoid mentioning in this article.
As everything was prepared in the so-called "Vietcong 2 Multiplayer Room", film cameras from intermediate gaming web sites were being placed inside the conference areas and the Internet gaming café. We provided the responsible reporters with sketches from Vietcong 2, and thereafter left to prepare for the one-hour presentation of two single player missions from the game. Jarek Kolar discussed a few things with the people from 2K Games and adjusted the sound system, while I myself attempted to find good spots to make pictures (which was the most important task, right?).
With only minutes away from the actual start of the presentation, other PTERODON employees arrived; namely, Michal Janacek, our lead programmer, PhD. Daniel Kamas, our historical consultant, and later on Petr Benysek, our programmer, and our level artist Jan Hlavaty. Additionally, our script consultant Chris Thompson was present at the event. By this time, people representing magazines and web sites from all over the world (more specifically most countries in Europe), were now sitting down and preparing their notes.
After presenting each PTERODON team member and the producers from 2K Games, Jarek Kolar spoke about the game in general, followed by a one-hour presentation of two single player campaign missions featured in the U.S. campaign of Vietcong 2. We showed the press some exciting urban locations filled with enemies at balconies, armed with RPG's and many other interesting types of weaponry. Cheerfully, most reporters looked to be quite impressed with what they had seen on the big screen.
Subsequent to the presentation, the reporters were allowed to ask questions about the game. While some were answered, others had to wait for another time, as we did not wish to reveal too much information in order to allow a few surprises to be featured in the game. Thereafter, each member of the press was instructed to go downstairs into the local Internet gaming café, which was now filled with Vietcong 2 merchandise and computers with the game installed, in which they would now be demonstrated, hands-on, how the multiplayer mode works.
The multiplayer press demonstration started with a game of the "deathmatch (DM)" game type in the Waterstation level. By playing this map, we wanted to give people an idea of the game mechanics and the number of weapons they could use. After a warm up, we started the first match, in which the highest ranked player from the press would win a bottle of special Czech alcohol named Becherovka signed by us, the PTERODON employees. It really was a death match, as 32 people are the absolute maximum for this sub-urban map. After countless kills, exciting screams, and many other amusing reactions, the winner was found with over 100 kills in just one match - Ismael from the French "Joystick" magazine.
The press event continued with food served directly in the Internet gaming café, and with two military styled girls, who provided each person with energizing drinks.
Thereafter, the reporters were divided into teams and had a chance to play the "cooperative (COOP)" game type in the Junglepoint map. When everybody had tried the team based play and various classes against the AI controlled bots, we would move on to the last match. The match of the day was played in the "capture the flag (CTF)" game type in the TigerFalls map. Depending on the country the person was representing, each one was seated in several groups, in which people from Take-Two Interactive would join the matches as well. We had a Vietcong team played by German, French, Spanish, and Italian people, against the U.S. team consisting of English, Benelux, and U.S. people.
While playing, especially the German participants were very enthusiastic about playing Vietcong 2. They did not hold back their endless screams calling for medics, engineers, and cover. Thus, many people were interested to find out if the German participants were actually battling in a real warfare situation. After an hour of heartbreaking atmosphere, in which neither of the teams were able to score, the Germans practiced their cooperative efforts to bring one flag home, and oh how happy they were. Nevertheless, the best man of this match was Arno from the Benelux "PC Gameplay" magazine, and he won the second bottle of Becherovka. Then, despite many protests of the playing reporters, we had to end the presentation.
The press conference in Prague was a good preparation for reporters to see what our current project, Vietcong 2, is about. Everything was a big success, and people who attended seemed to have much fun playing the game, and speaking to us. It was an excellent and rich experience to attend to such an event, and I personally wish to thank everybody who was arranging it, and the ones who made this possible for us, for the good work. My three-day trip to Prague was almost over, and with two weeks in Brno awaiting me, more experiences were lurking about the next corner.
Jarek Kolar's Addition to the Article
I have to add a few notes, as this event was bigger than what Christian Konieczka had seen. The entire event was organised by Take-Two Interactive via the Czech gaming company ProGamers. For the producer, the marketing people from 2K Games, and myself, the event had begun on the 7th of July. We had to go through the location, make sure the game was installed correctly, create a game profile for every single reporter, and prepare the presentation. My task was to speak while the producer of 2K Games would play the game. After the first presentation during that day, which was held in front of the executive producer and lead marketing person from 2K Games, it seemed that it would be a debacle. We had to practice much more to coordinate our presentation well.
The next day, the journalists began to arrive. The atmosphere was somewhat spoiled due to the terrorist attacks that occurred that morning in London, but the situation was stabilised after lunch, which I missed, as Gamer TV was recording the "Making of Vietcong 2" movie. In the evening, we arranged a boat trip through the river of Vltava to see some nice locations of Prague, and to have the opportunity to meet each other. I met the journalists there and had some time to chat with them. The most interesting part was my meeting with a U.S. reporter, who seemed to be a big fan of PTERODON. We spoke about the gameplay aspects of Flying Heroes, what Vietcong had brought to the first person shooter genre, and that many other developers had started to copy features from us. I spoke to other people there as well, made a video interview for the Dutch MTV, ate, drank, and enjoyed the cool accordion player who was providing music at the boat trip.
After the trip, we visited a pub to let the journalists taste the famous Czech beer in its home environment. However, the marketing leader of 2K Games cut the party very strictly with iron rules; he was not interested to have tired reporters with a hangover at the actual game presentation the upcoming Friday.
Friday's presentation went well, and everyone was happy. The reporters were not allowed to take photographs or footage during the single player presentation. All participants were representing the press, and it would be possible to read their previews of the game in the following magazines at the end of August and September.
PC Gameplay, Benelux
PC Zone, Benelux
Power Unlimited, Benelux
GameKings TV, Benelux
PC Juegos y Jugadores, Spain
CGM, US
Bravo Screenfun, Germany
Gamestar, Germany
PC Powerplay, Germany
PC Games, Germany
Computer Bild Spiele, Germany
Giochi per il mio Computer, Italy
TGM, Italy
Joystick, France
PC Jeux, France
PC Gaming World, Scandinavia
Gamer TV, UK
In Stock, UK
PC Gamer, UK
Soldier Magazine, UK
Military Illustrated, UK
Personally, I have only seen three Vietcong 2 previews in these magazines. Therefore, if you happen to be the owner of one of these magazines with Vietcong 2 content inside, I would be very happy if you would send me a digital picture or scan of it. Thanks.
Current News | PTERODON Firm | PTERODON Team | PTERODON Projects | Vietcong 2 Fact Sheet | General Job Terms | Actual Jobs Offer | Modification Creation | User-Map Reviews | Information About Modifications | Vietcong Fist Alpha Reviews | Vietcong Purple Haze Console Previews | Vietcong 2 on the Net | Editor F.A.Q. | Forum F.A.Q. | Vietcong Console Commands | Technical Problems F.A.Q. | Beta Tester Requirements | Web Site Administrators | Ultimate Gaming Clan Interview | Vietcong Clan Kronach Interview | Special Camper Battaillon Interview | Strike Force Interview | [JPV]XXX Interview | Interview about COOP | The Tet Holiday | PTERODON Match Report | PTERODON - Behind the Scenes | Vietcong Survey Statistics | PTERODON - Behind the Scenes | Jarek's Diary | PTERODON - Behind the Scenes | Comment Summary for Jarek's Diary | Vietcong 2 Press Event | Brno - The Home of PTERODON | Driver Vendors | Partners | All Galleries
To see our galleries, please check us online at http://pterodon.com
© 2003-2010 PTERODON, Ltd. | Powered by MXD.BIZ | All rights reserved | PDA version 1.6 5/9/2004)
)
On the 9th of July 2005, the exciting day had come; the press conference was only hours away from starting, and while preparing for the conference, a taxi was waiting to pick me up and drive me to Hotel Andel. Moreover, even though the weather was seamlessly rainy, the day itself would turn out to be shinier than the sun would ever be for us at PTERODON.)
As everything was prepared in the so-called "Vietcong 2 Multiplayer Room", film cameras from intermediate gaming web sites were being placed inside the conference areas and the Internet gaming café. We provided the responsible reporters with sketches from Vietcong 2, and thereafter left to prepare for the one-hour presentation of two single player missions from the game. Jarek Kolar discussed a few things with the people from 2K Games and adjusted the sound system, while I myself attempted to find good spots to make pictures (which was the most important task, right?).)
After presenting each PTERODON team member and the producers from 2K Games, Jarek Kolar spoke about the game in general, followed by a one-hour presentation of two single player campaign missions featured in the U.S. campaign of Vietcong 2. We showed the press some exciting urban locations filled with enemies at balconies, armed with RPG's and many other interesting types of weaponry. Cheerfully, most reporters looked to be quite impressed with what they had seen on the big screen.)
The multiplayer press demonstration started with a game of the "deathmatch (DM)" game type in the Waterstation level. By playing this map, we wanted to give people an idea of the game mechanics and the number of weapons they could use. After a warm up, we started the first match, in which the highest ranked player from the press would win a bottle of special Czech alcohol named Becherovka signed by us, the PTERODON employees. It really was a death match, as 32 people are the absolute maximum for this sub-urban map. After countless kills, exciting screams, and many other amusing reactions, the winner was found with over 100 kills in just one match - Ismael from the French "Joystick" magazine.)
While playing, especially the German participants were very enthusiastic about playing Vietcong 2. They did not hold back their endless screams calling for medics, engineers, and cover. Thus, many people were interested to find out if the German participants were actually battling in a real warfare situation. After an hour of heartbreaking atmosphere, in which neither of the teams were able to score, the Germans practiced their cooperative efforts to bring one flag home, and oh how happy they were. Nevertheless, the best man of this match was Arno from the Benelux "PC Gameplay" magazine, and he won the second bottle of Becherovka. Then, despite many protests of the playing reporters, we had to end the presentation.)
I have to add a few notes, as this event was bigger than what Christian Konieczka had seen. The entire event was organised by Take-Two Interactive via the Czech gaming company ProGamers. For the producer, the marketing people from 2K Games, and myself, the event had begun on the 7th of July. We had to go through the location, make sure the game was installed correctly, create a game profile for every single reporter, and prepare the presentation. My task was to speak while the producer of 2K Games would play the game. After the first presentation during that day, which was held in front of the executive producer and lead marketing person from 2K Games, it seemed that it would be a debacle. We had to practice much more to coordinate our presentation well.)
PC Gameplay, Benelux)
Computer Bild Spiele, Germany