Report from the Premiere

I went to the premiere with AQuaRity, part of the text (the beginning) will be from him, part (at the end) from me, plus photos.

AQuaRity: As I wrote the day before yesterday in my review of the collector's edition, the premiere was magnificent. And today you will find out what amazed me so much, and many will regret not coming, as the show was truly unique. Let's start from the beginning. Cannoneer and I arrived at MediaMarkt (on Kashirka) around six o'clock on the last day of September. A huge banner was hanging on the shopping center fence, announcing that we had arrived at the right place. A giant cardboard banner greeted us at the entrance to the store itself. The boxes were already arranged, but they could only be purchased at the cash register starting from seven.

But we could hold them in our hands and take pictures with them!

The main area where the future premiere would take place was deep inside the store, not far from the demonstration computers and consoles. By the way, one of these devices allowed you to play Risen, but only on one, and the spot was, of course, occupied. The wall on the left featured a huge screen made up of 9 plasma panels.

It was showing a video of Risen (with music by Nightwish), and one of the main episodes of the premiere took place on that screen. More on that later.

AQuaRity stocked up on collector's editions.

By half-past six, about forty people had gathered.

Ksandr\_Warfire (for those who don't know, one of the administrators of the site risengame.ru, an honorary guest of the premiere and the best newcomer of **GAMER.ru** for August-September) was energizing the crowd, sharing his impressions of Risen and just keeping conversations about life and the industry going.

There were also several representatives from risengame, including Deart.

Deart, de}{ter, Ksandr\_Warfire

Cannoneer: The atmosphere was very pleasant; the website and publisher representatives chatted and joked with each other.

AQuaRity: At that time, the representatives of New Disk were setting up gifts on an improvised display: there were posters and T-shirts of Risen, mousepads and mice from Razor, as well as the main prizes (I can't even determine which was bigger): a beer barrel with the game logo and a twenty-inch monitor.

There was much talk about the beer barrel.

Ksandr\_Warfire demonstrates the barrel,

the mousepad.

They say it even saw developers from Piranha Bytes, who drank something from it back in May. Although it's hard to believe – by the premiere, it was completely dry and didn't even smell (I checked!). By the way, none of the developers could attend, which didn't prevent them from arranging a grand gift for Russian fans, scheduled for 19:30.

Time flew by, and people gradually flowed to the cash registers. There were three registers, and within 10-15 minutes, most of those gathered already held the cherished receipt, which granted them a token for the raffle. Moreover, collectors would receive a cup according to the receipt.

There were plenty of cups – around 100, enough for everyone, and there were even some left. After that, the main show began. Around 19:15, the first raffles for posters started, and then for T-shirts. The T-shirts were of two kinds – huge black ones with a red Risen inscription in front and smaller ones, also black, with a raised game logo on the back and a silver logo in front (by the way, all the official figures of the premiere wore such T-shirts).

The raffles were straightforward – I received my first T-shirt and poster by answering the question, what other games were created by Piranha Bytes!

Cannoneer: For some reason, I chimed in with an add-on to Gothic 3, and immediately the attendees jumped on me and pointed fingers.

AQuaRity: There were also questions about the name of the main character, who survived on the ship besides the Nameless One, and other similar questions that were not difficult to answer. The only problem was with a question that Ksandr\_Warfire asked: "Where to find the sextant in the game?" For everyone's knowledge, the correct answer is – in the tavern! By the way, in response to New Disk's call to come in medieval costumes, one person responded. He was honorably awarded a T-shirt!

Thus, the first half hour of Russian sales of Risen passed unnoticed. Official sales. It is worth mentioning that sales of Risen started last week in several SOYUZ stores in Moscow. And this was precisely why so few people gathered at the premiere – even fewer than a hundred. It's curious to note that while NDGames was telling about how such store failures are evil, on the neighboring shelf, FIFA 10 was freely sold, which officially went on sale only the next day. Well, never mind, these are minor details.

NDGames looked embarrassed at the sight of the camera.

At 19:30, Zhanna called everyone to the screen.

And solemnly announced that Piranha Bytes had prepared a special gift for Russian players – a video tour of the studio! Together with one of the developers (I forgot who), we took a virtual tour of the shrine of all fans of role-playing games. There are few employees at Piranha Bytes, and the tour was quite short. The atmosphere there is very nice; a poster with Puss in Boots from Shrek hangs on the wall, there's a figure of Karl (like in the Russian collector's edition) smoking a cigarette in his right paw, all completely immersed in working on a new project, the action of which, the developers say, 'will obviously take place underwater.' Take that as you want! In principle, there’s not much more to detail here, you had to see it. By the way, filming was prohibited, as this was exclusive. Since the video was in German, it was accompanied by subtitles. But since the screen consisted of several panels, the subtitles were not visible at the seams. Therefore, about halfway through the video, the subtitles were duplicated by voice.

After the video, the Q&A show continued. They also called for volunteers to show monsters and characters from the game.

Inquisitor Mendoza with a speech.

They raffled off a couple more T-shirts and posters, and then NDGames announced another gift for all attendees. Anyone can record a message for Piranha Bytes on camera, and it will be translated and heard there!

Since they were giving T-shirts for this, I also participated. I wished that all their games would be published by New Disk in the future and that this endless running between publishers would come to an end.

All wishes will be posted next week on the YouTube channel, as well as a detailed official video report from the premiere (yes, a person with a large camera constantly walked around recording everything!).

Cannoneer: His name is Sasha; he works at NDGames and writes on that site.

AQuaRity: Nothing like this has ever happened at any premiere. And I suspect that GAMER.ru played a significant role in this, as this is an excellent platform for exclusive reports and accounts! By the way, sliph was also at the premiere but did not show himself at all. In fact, we remembered that he was supposed to be here only at the end of the premiere, after which we found and greeted him.

Cannoneer: There was supposed to be his photo here, but...

AQuaRity: So, by the time the raffle started, I already had two T-shirts, a cup, and a poster. The raffle was standard – by tokens. The first token was drawn by the host, then each winner drew the next token. I and my lucky number 084 this time got a Razor mouse!

After the main prize raffles (three mousepads,

three mice, the barrel, and the monitor), they began raffling everything that remained unused – namely, ten cups and the remaining posters (with fingerprints of Ksandr! Exclusive!).

The owner of the barrel...

...of the monitor.

One of the T-shirts was solemnly launched into the crowd, but the lazy crowd didn’t even rush for it as almost everyone already had one. This is not Igromir, where animalistic behavior reigns; here gathered civilized people!

They even wanted to launch the barrel into the crowd.

After that, the premiere smoothly began to wind down. People were taking pictures with the beer barrel,

with cups, and with each other,

and then gradually dispersed to the local eateries, while some headed straight home...

What can I say? The premiere was magnificent, both in terms of freebies and exclusive opportunities for those who came. Importantly, the raffle involved not only collectors but even jewel buyers! And participation in the quiz didn’t even require that. This is a sign of excellent treatment towards players, and I hope that future premieres by NDGames will be just as good. Although it is hard to imagine what could be better.

Cannoneer: The premiere turned out great. The atmosphere was nice and homey; representatives from the site and publisher were drawing prizes and conducting the lottery... After an unsuccessful attempt to photograph sliph, I habitually formatted the memory card in my camera, but clearly not at the right time. The evening was spent trying to recover the information and find a card reader, and the next day was spent marveling at its miraculous resurrection.

Chorus: Thank you for reading this report, good luck! We're waiting for the video report!