Of course, the first thing I want to do this week is welcome everyone to the new Data Node One website. It's been a long time coming and the web team did an outstanding job revising the site. We still have some content holes to fill and will be working on that as we roll along.

Announcement: Concert and Free Trial Date Change
The other big news of the day is that we're changing the dates for the in-game concerts and upcoming free trial. We've had some technical issues to overcome and it seemed the best thing to do at this time is to push back the dates. I apologize for the short notice, but we were still trying to resolve the issues this week.

"A Piece of Blue Sky: Reloaded" will now begin on Tuesday, May 2, and end on Sunday, May 7. During the concert dates, the videos will be running in one-hour repeating loops, so you can't really miss them.

The Matrix Online free trial, hosted by FilePlanet, will begin on Monday, May 1, and run through Sunday, May 14. During this time, new players will be able to download a free copy of the software from FilePlanet. After that, the free trial key can be activated at any time to begin a 10-day free trial of the game.

Increased Red Code-Fragment Drops and Vendor Ability Buyback End April 25
The increased red code-fragment drops and the special Vendor Ability buyback prices end on Tuesday, April 25. If you haven't finished getting your character where you want it to be since Combat Revision 2.0 was implemented, now is the time.

The hotfix scheduled for that day will return the frag drops and Vendors to normal and will also include additional bug fixes for the game.

A Somewhat Delayed Fan Faire Report
Two weeks later and I'm almost recovered from Fan Faire. It was definitely a good time, but not something I'd like to do on a constant basis.

I spent almost all my time in the main room; and almost all that time was doing demos of The Matrix Online. Other than brief stints in the store, I was on the floor most of the time. Next time I go, I'll make an effort to get in on some of the panels and see more of what goes on.

Since everyone attending the show got a copy of The Matrix Online, there were lots of folks stopping by to take a look at the game. And, wow, did the game look sweet! The demo stations were running on custom Falcon Northwest FragBoxes, which are absolute monsters. You haven't seen this game until you've seen it at 1600x1200 with all graphic options on. I wish I'd thought to get some screenshots, but I was too busy answering questions and didn't think of it until afterwards. Maybe I can get San Diego to ship one up here. *drool*

Ahem. Anyway, it was certainly fun to be showing off something completely different than what most attendees normally played. Folks were impressed by the Ability tree system and the combat, although I think they liked the emotes most of all. Go figure.

Smike_ stopped by and hung out on Saturday, even showing off the game a bit. I have to give him props for dressing up, as he certainly didn't look like the rest of the sword-toting, magic-throwing attendees. Props to you, man!

Since we didn't have a big contingent of players at the final banquet, I decided to take a cue from Smike_ and represent for The Matrix Online. So, I donned trench, velvet shirt, leather boots, and shades for the occasion. I probably would have thought twice about that, had I known Brenlo was going to introduce me and hand me the mic. As far as I know, no pictures have surfaced of the incident.

All-in-all, a good time was had by all. By the end of the show, the number of folks crashing on beanbags in the lounge had increased significantly. That's what happens when you game all day and party all night for three days straight, I guess. I know I was exhausted at the end and barely remember the flight home.

On the Horizon
As I said at the beginning, we'll be adding more to the new site in the upcoming weeks and months. (Yes, I'm aware the Sentinel no longer has links from the site. Definitely working on that.) As far as development goes, the designers are hard at work on the continuing storyline and Organization Abilities, so we'll be talking about that on the site soon. We also have the new cinematics coming out with the beginning of Chapter 5.

As much as we love Combat Revision 2.0, it's nice to be back to working on the rest of the game.

See you on the other side next week.

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