|
| EA Mythic - July 20-27, 2008 |
ChrisReid: Cruising on in to the East Coast.
LOAF: Chris arrived on Saturday, July 19 and left Sunday, July 27 - in addition to taking a week off his job, he came while he was in the middle of trying to buy a house!
ChrisReid: As soon as I landed, it was off to work! Frosty and LOAF deconstructed this military surplus robot to salvage more parts for our advennture.
LOAF: I bought this Air Force surplus Exabyte tape drive autoloader for $50. We weren't able to use the device itself (it weighs over 150 pounds), but we were able to take it apart to retrieve two working Eliant 820 drives!
ChrisReid: Then we hit a junk store for even more parts... and found a Privateer for good luck!
LOAF: The junk store is named L&Y Electronics and it's in Woodbridge, VA. It's an amazing place to find old games, old hardware and general oddities. It's even staffed by a true Wing Commander fan who knew our site and all about Standoff!
ChrisReid: I never even ate my Five Guys burger.
LOAF: Five Guys burgers' are delicious.
ChrisReid: Then off to MicroCenter for even more more supplies.
LOAF: MicroCenter is a sort of "Frys Jr." We picked up power cables, a CD resurfacer, a 3.5" disk drive and a few other odds and ends.
ChrisReid: Can you believe this thing? It's a conveyor belt to get your shopping cart up to the second floor.
LOAF: This was at Target, where we picked up some notepads, extension cords, life-giving water and other general office supplies.
ChrisReid: All geared up and ready to go.
LOAF: That's a good portion of our equipment -- but there are more boxes just out of the shot!
ChrisReid: The night before the mission officially began, we staged at Joe's house to be closer to the action. He had a few extra devices to contribute.
LOAF: We spent the first two nights on the floor of the Origin Museum, but with my sister wanting to join in and us not wanting to get in Joe's families way we decided to return to my house.
ChrisReid: Engage!
LOAF: I'm not sure Chekov ever rested his head like that.
ChrisReid: Lights out.
LOAF: The problem with this picture is that it implies we slept - we didn't.
ChrisReid: Rise and shine.
LOAF: Ditto - we were up by 5 AM each morning to make sure we arrived at Mythic by 7.
ChrisReid: Here we are, Mythic takes up a good chunk of this building in Virginia.
LOAF: Our office was a large conference room on the 2nd floor which I'm guessing is used for meetings and focus groups.
ChrisReid: Joe brought along his friend Dan for some extra expertise.
LOAF:
ChrisReid: Lobby.
LOAF:
ChrisReid: Unloading Joe's van.
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid: Starting to set up the various work stations.
LOAF:
ChrisReid: Frosty's impressive multi-VHS to DVD rig.
LOAF:
ChrisReid: The very first item to be archived - SyQuest Tape #1.
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF: Mythic's employees unloading the Origin material - we're really glad these guys were willing to help us out with all this.
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
Clip 23
ChrisReid:
LOAF: We sorted all the boxed games on the tables - they'll be arranged by type eventually.
ChrisReid:
LOAF: These are awards which Origin won for all of our favorite games - we took many closeup pictures of each one.
ChrisReid:
LOAF: These desktop SCSI machines were brought for transferring 8mm tapes and SyQuest disks.
ChrisReid:
LOAF: While these laptops had been planned as CD imagers. In reality, the two roles switched!
ChrisReid:
LOAF: This wide view shows the front of the room, with a station for scanning slides and one for transferring VHS tapes to DVDs.
ChrisReid:
LOAF: Chris created this makeshift photo studo thanks to the lucky appearance of a white screen in Mythic's conference room.
ChrisReid:
LOAF: Frosty transfers an alternate cut of Wing Commander IV!
ChrisReid: After a long day of archiving Origin material, this is what we had to come back home to - the Origin Museum.
LOAF:
ChrisReid: For a couple days I lived off McDonalds Breakfast #2 Meals.
LOAF: #9, here. In order to save time we usually dispatched a 'runner' to pick up fast meals while we worked - and then ate as fast as we could.
ChrisReid:
LOAF: Frosty works both the scanner and three VHS rigs at once!
ChrisReid:
LOAF: A wide shot showing several of the workspaces.
ChrisReid: More material continued to arrive throughout the week. The new boxes of documents to scan caused us to reprioritize certain things and bring in extra sheet scanners.
LOAF: These new boxes were great - they contained quite a few binders of Wing Commander-related documents to scan, including all the budget information for WC3 and 4.
ChrisReid:
LOAF: The Mythic developers keep the UO artwork on the walls in their offices -- Joe asked if we could see it early when he had to leave the project on Tuesday following a lightning strike near his house.
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF: I don't think I could explain Frosty's tape organizing scheme - bu tit worked!
ChrisReid:
LOAF: This is advertising artwork for an unreleased Origin basketball game from the 1980s!
ChrisReid:
LOAF: ... presumably for the Apple ][!
ChrisReid:
LOAF: Prince Thrakhath nar Kiranka, the fang of Sivar, destroyer of worlds.
ChrisReid:
LOAF: ... and his armor!
ChrisReid: Each day we spent a good 12 hours archiving and then a few more hours on follow-up activities. Everyone was pooped.
LOAF: These two couches were the most comfortable places Frosty and I slept all week.
ChrisReid:
LOAF: Because we had so much more documentation than expected we were forced to buy one and then another feeder scanners (also, Chris had a crush on the girl at the feeder scanner store.)
ChrisReid: There's the original component bits that were used to generate the Wing Commander II logo.
LOAF:
Clip 45
ChrisReid:
LOAF: This prism was created to promote Ultima X, but was never given out. Mythic has a whole case of them - and they're absolutely beautiful. They change color as you move them.
Clip 46
ChrisReid:
LOAF: When CDs failed to copy on the regular machines, Frosty applied his expertise to them!
ChrisReid:
LOAF: This comparison shows the exact moment EA took over Origin Systems - Wing Commander II was the first game to get an 'EA Number'.
ChrisReid:
LOAF: Games organized! A lot more Wing Commander than Ultima.
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
Clip 50
ChrisReid:
LOAF: My sister Charlotte arrived on Wednesday and, statistically speaking, did more work than Joe and Dan put together (sorry, guys!).
ChrisReid:
LOAF: ace and blonde arrived on Friday to see the aftermath of the project.
Clip 52
ChrisReid:
LOAF: Saying goodbye to Prince Thrakhath.
ChrisReid:
LOAF: ... and the rest of the material.
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
ChrisReid:
LOAF:
Back to CIC Conventions
| 
