Germany Fan Meetup

Yea great Event and Thank you to GGG for doing it. A pleasure for being there.

I really hope you will do it again, maybe next year?

And looking forward to play the Druid in Act 4 today. We are a group of 8 People and all are very excited, we will flood the booth :D and suck in every bit and byte from the Druid.

Thank You GGG and have a great time in Germany.

P.S. and its called Kölsch not Beer :D :D

Amazing event! I'm really glad I went.

It was so nice to see so many people gathering together and to talk about the game! Thank you GGG team for setting this up and being so kind to take pictures with us and signing our stuff (thanks for signing my brother's creditcard lol) :D See you on Friday at Gamescom, we're excited to try it out!

For anyone who'd like some more info, I posted what I still remembered on a social website:

It was mostly a crowd-structured event. When the GGG delegation arrived a bit before the time there were already no seats left for them or other fans waiting which is why we moved to the park. Chris then opened the event to questions to a circle of fans that had formed around him under a tree, introduced everyone from the team. Then questions and answers flowed. After a while - and without any announcement or sign - circles formed around the other developers too to ask questions there as well. Soon enough, just as organically, everyone switched to signatures-and-pictures-and-one-on-one-mode. How seamlessly these shifts were and how respectful fans were also of each other's time was interesting for me to observe.


That was also to make clear: I for sure didn't get all the answers even if I remembered everything - which I don't. I was part of three of those circles at times, always missing out on other chats and snippets.


***


What I remember GGG-related:

On POE2 teamplay and bosses: If a char dies he is barred from returning to the boss instance - unless they are revived by a teammate still alive in that instance.


League stash stabs will carry over where useful and the league elements still exist in POE2.


The next league will likely combine some cool recent elements if I understood correctly. It will have a nice size but not be one of the really big ones. However Chris mentioned the big ones are still incoming for POE1 and that one is due sooner rather than later.


They don't plan many leagues ahead anymore as that didn't work out in the past.


POE2 and POE1 will proabably just be named Path of Exile 2 and Path of Exile 1. This will attract more newer players to POE2, which will cater to them better. A bit after POE2 had its big launch they will have a POE1 league addressed to the fresh POE2 players and market that to introduce them to POE1. I liked how clear it seemed that they actually have a plan for both pieces to work together.


The POE2 beta will have invites. People will probably have to opt-in to be invited to cut out dead accounts. Everyone who signs up has a chance to participate. However the beta invite will also go to people who support the game (discovered by GGG looking at a lifetime support threshold or by players buying specific supporter packs in the months leading up.)


POE2 features (like the new gem system) *might* come to POE1. What elements could move over isn't decided upon yet. Most things moving over systems-wise would probably do so after POE2 launches and a certain maturity of those systems is there.


The POE booth have two different and quite big POE2 signs. They only need one of them and the unused one can be taken home by a fan if one is able to do that and convinces the people staffing the booth.


The strange number of 8 people working on POE1 includes only some developers totally dedicated to it. A lot of people work on both from time to time. The number 8 also didn't include a lot of people around the core like quality assurance etc.


POE2 endgame will still be quick and probably get quicker over time. They will cut down on the very extreme speeds though which only a few reach anyway. They thought about showing endgame speeds too but decided against it, also because it isn't polished / fixed enough yet. And they wanted to show something people can actually expect to get, not a draft assumption that might be way off.


Asked if some of the coming POE1 leagues will bridge the gap between POE1 and POE2, Chris said that this is likely but they are in no hurry as they are probably creating another 20 years of POE1 leagues.


There will be a big tonal difference between both POEs, as POE1 is more about godly and cosmic conflicts, POE2 is about the horrors arising afterwards. More personal and claustrophobic.


GGG is aware that having two POEs will have challenges for new players, for instance googling "Chaos Orb", as the games are different but have objects with the same name. What that means for wikis and website they are still figuring out.


In general they still think 3 months is a healthy cadence for POE1 leagues, though they do keep paying attention to what those days would actually mean, for instance who else is launching something then. So they will also remain flexible.


Chris is wonderful to speak with and also a great salesperson. One or two quick hints at things to come and I can't suppress being hyped.


Octavian also speaks a bit of French and Spanish. He is smart and seemed especially humble when responding to requests by anyone. At GGG he does quality assurance with POE2 skills, as well as design work where it fits.


***


This is what I heard *and* remembered right now from my "listening circles". Anyone feel free to add or correct!

I normally don't post in the Forums but I have to leave a huuuge Thank you to GGG for organizing this meetup!
It was so unreal to see Chris live and talking to us, as well as Jonathan and Hrishi and they were sooo nice and really took the time to take pictures and signing stuff for everyone who asked for it!
I spent more time in the talk circle with Hrishi and I could listen to him talking about itemization for days, he absolutely loves what he does and he's a funny guy as well!
I wish I had spent some time listening to Jonathan too, he was very kind when I asked him for an autograph :D

Thank you for the amazing evening and see you Thursday on Gamescom! <3

Thanks so much for organising this event! I was there yesterday with my brother, my sister-in-law (hi PaukieChan), and her brother, and it was more fun than I could have imagined. We met some players from Köln, other parts of Germany, Belgium, and someone who also came from the Netherlands like ourselves. We talked with Jonathan, Chris, and the others and they took the time to take pictures and even sign some things for us and the other fans. Everyone at the event was very nice and I liked how informal it felt. I ended up talking with Hrishi the most, which was really interesting and fun, and I was surprised to hear how much of the current itemisation in the game exists because of him!

Hopefully we can see some of you again at Gamescom!

It was really fun, thank you guys for doing this!!!

Listening to Chris talk about PoE in real-life was surreal, you could really hear the passion from him. It's clear that he is 100% convinced that PoE2 will be the best ARPG it can possibly be and it's hard not to join in on the excitement.

Sometimes in an all-online setting and on social media like reddit, we tend to forget the actual humans behind the screen, and things can get a bit heated. Having an actual conversation in real-life is so much appreciated, you can really hear the well thought out opinions of the devs and (even if you don't agree with them) realize that they love their game and want it to be as great as it can be.

It was a nice event for sure.
Thanks to all who took part - organization, GGG members, visitors. It really was the icing on the cake that was visiting Kölle.

It was a great experience meeting you guys from GGG, hearing you talk about all the things related to PoE and chatting with you.

I'm quite sad now that I can't also come to Gamescom, but perhaps next year. :)

Thanks for a fun event. Having seen but a minute of teaser video of PoE2, I had no expectations, and I am quite hyped after what I heard and want to get in on that as soon as possible.
So looking forward to that.

Though I was quite hungry by the end of the event, in general. :D

Thanks to GGG for taking the time for the meetup during this tightly-scheduled trip and after what was probably an exhausting travel. It was really nice talking to Chris, Jonathan and the others and getting to ask some questions about PoE2, take a picture & getting a shirt signed. The fanbase was all friendly and diverse. From computer scientists to airdiving instructors, from fans in their 50s down to 18 yrs old everyone was passionate about the game - with some people driving up to 5 hrs from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the danish border to attend. Thanks to everyone for the conversations and the nice meetup.