Ronnie

A game world that needs to be constructed around, for starters: - rewinding various objects trajectories and being able to ride them/stop them at any point. - building your own means of transport - phasing through ceilings funnily enough, takes a long time to design. Are you seriously comparing Spirit Tracks, with its sectioned-off gameplay areas, with the above? Once again, you talk as if you know everything the game has to offer. You don't. I wish you'd put this at the top of your post, I'd have known to stop reading there.

As if there was any doubt, they're literal gameplay geniuses over at Nintendo. Like @Julius said the way everything is so seamless is fantastic. Ultrahand looks crazy ! I assumed there'd be some menu system to get through to make things but I guess not! An incredible sandbox game seemingly made even more incredible.Very restrained showing too, great to see. Why not? (not that I think there's anything to 'excuse', for the record)

Thank you! Hopefully no last min changes for you though. Yeah I'm not sure if more tickets = better chance at success. I would have thought single ticket orders would have more luck, but who knows. Found a guy happy to sell a Showcase on Galaxy stage QR for $35. Might do it and try and find another for my me/my sister, we'll see. With that there's still the danger of hoping the person doesn't sell it multiple times. At least you're familiar with the reservation system now, it'll be the same for on the day panel reservations. I had 3 phones up and one got in faster than the other two. If people have 2 or 3 tickets on their order, they should be able to make one reservation for 2 or 3 people. It's bizarre they expect people to be split up. But yeah like I said, I imagine that late in the day you'll just be able to walk in anyway. Yeah, they should have switched it around, last year panel wins were announced the day after the lottery closed but this time it took an extra week, dunno why. As for double-booking, you'd hope people would just avoid booking a 11-12 slot, but I think there's early morning exclusives like pins and Funkos, so earlier tends to sell faster. From what I gather, ReedPop are universally disliked. So you're not alone there. Excited for Mando tomorrow, I imagine this is where we head back to Nevarro. Also they keep referring to the Bad Batch two parter as the season finale so hopefully that means there's more to come.

Fantastic, congrats! You should def be chuffed with that. As usual there are reports of people getting into 3 or 4 and even more getting into 0, so two out of five is a great return. Of the two you got, the Showcase is definitely the one you'll want to be in the Celebration stage for, and it's a great way of kicking off Celebration. I got into one panel, Bad Batch on the Celebration stage, for me and my nephew, the exact same one I got into (officially) in Anaheim . A little disappointed I didn't get a second as well (Showcase or Ahsoka) but never mind. I'm loving the series so much so it'll be great. Still holding out hope of blagging my way into another one, constantly checking Facebook/eBay. If god forbid you have any last minute cancellations in your group I would selflessly take a QR code off your hands for a decent fee btw tbh, I think I might just try queueing up in the standby line at 8. And yeah got a Store reservation easily enough (despite their terrible messaging in terms of number of people per order allowed). How about you? Just head straight there I'd suggest. Got an email today saying they'd been shipped, about time! You'll be alright. They sent international tickets first I believe. UK ones last. Ah that's annoying re: Lyte, you're right, very scalper like prices. And they aren't exactly cheap to begin with!

Any luck in the panel lottery @Julius? Be sure to check https://register.growtix.com/entry/event/hgjert5131_nn4_5g and register/sign in, very occasionally you get successful there but without an email.

10 minutes of gameplay is perfect. No need for a big 30+ min blowout of a game where they show everything it has to offer. Discovery and exploration is the main draw of BOTW and presumably TOTK.

I'd be really curious to hear their actual reasoning on the decision, but obviously that's unlikely to happen. Businesses just seem obsessed with controlling the messaging these days, so it's just an extension of that I guess. The funnyt hing is all the footage they showed last year of Mando and Ahsoka looked polished and ready for broadcast, it wasn't rough looking at all. (like that first footage of Mando they ever showed to the public apparently was) That'd be a great idea! Sign me up. Even if it's just the major panels, kind of like a pay-per-view type thing. Yeah giving most people a minimum of 1 and maybe a maximum of 2 to spread things around would be ideal, though I imagine the numbers would still come up short there, especially in London with much smaller rooms. All the Mandos in Mando are so stoic and stiff it'd be great to have Sabine have a bit more personality. Same with Ezra of course. I get that time would have passed obviously, but still. Fingers crossed.

Chapter 20 of Mando... have to say I wasn't a massive fan of this one. Carl Weathers directed my least favourite of S2 and I get the feeling it'll be the same in S3. It wasn't bad by any means and re-watches definitely helped a bit. Probably a 6.5/10 for me. It was enjoyable, but definitely my least favourite of the season so far. Seems to be getting good reviews online though, so what do I know. Chapter 2 is one of my favourites and I think that's the shortest episode of the whole series. But yeah fair enough, 40+ mins for most would be good.

Here's a tip, the posts that talk about Mando start with: on the previous page and this one.

Tbf, yes the Mando/Ahsoka footage leaked from last year but most of it seemed to be taken down pretty quick, a couple vids of half the screen were on reddit in terrible quality but otherwise it's actually quite hard to find a good copy nowadays. Playing devil's advocate if you show thousands of people on the whole convention floor there's a lot greater chance the footage will get spread around. But I totally get what you're saying, it's pretty bad. Now that I'm 100% on board with you. I don't think it's been 100% confirmed no panels at all will be streamed, so wait and see, but yeah. The panels that don't necessarily share any big news, just put them up ffs. Even if they wait until after the show or something. We'll see, but yeah. They might argue they want to reward convention goers but if you asked anyone there whether they minded the panels being streamed I think most would say they would love them to be. The lotto makes sense I think. Tbh I'd rather that than queue 4 or 5 hours beforehand. I actually think the panel stuff is organised well given the difficult situation of literally everyone wanting to get into the big ones, it's just Lucasfilm's handling of people outside the rooms (and at home) that stings. This was my favourite purchase from Anaheim, a massive print of this beauty, signed by the artist. It was like £100 but worth it. Even with Pearce Brosnan as Thrawn lol It's funny you say that because that's exactly what happened, this morning reports saying Lindelof and his co-writer have left the 2024 project back in mid Feb. Siiiiiiigh. Apparently the production timeline is set to be the same, and LF got someone else in already, but yeah. I thought his interview comments you mention sounded really strange. Now we know why. I still think we'll see some film news at Celebration but it's so frustrating to say the least. I reckon... Ahsoka trailer, Skeleton Crew trailer, maybe a new series announcement, film news and an Indy trailer. Yeah should be good. Seems to have been in production a while, might be another Andor on our hands. Also, apparently the directors behind Everything Everywhere All At Once are set to direct at least one ep of Skeleton Crew, so that's exciting. Edit: just been confirmed from the horse's mouth Be interesting if with two, presumably big, eps of Mando still to release, they'll want to pull focus away from that with a publicly released Ahsoka trailer. I could see them waiting until after the last ep of Mando before putting it online, but we'll see. Yeah exactly. Fingers crossed, but it seems like great casting. I just hope the on-screen portrayals of the characters are right. Both her and Ezra are big personalities, I hope they don't try and tone those down and make it stiff and stoic. Yeah they have, Ashley was invited on set for the Ahsoka show. S1 was very cameo/legacy character-heavy (Kanan, Cut Lawquane, Trace and Rafa, Rex, Fennic Shand, Cad Bane, Hera, Chopper, Bib Fortuna etc) and it kind of wound me up, S2 has much less of that and it's more focused on the Batch themselves. It hasn't branched out into the wider galaxy quite as much as you might like/be expecting, but I think that's to come in the future. I don't actually think this is the last season, but still hoping they confirm it soon. Resistance only lasted two years but they announced S2 would be its last before it aired, so hopefully that's a good sign here. Yes definitely catch up. It would have just finished by the time Celebration starts, so will be quite a talking point I imagine. Three of the opening four eps are a little meh, but it gets brilliant after that.

There should be a standby queue so worst case scenario you'll just have to get there super early and wait in line. Not expecting any of them to be live-streamed though, not even to convention-goers which is such a massive shame. They should probably be announcing the store products any day now. I'd suggest you'll definitely find better uses for your money on the show floor itself tbh, but the main store is still good for some SWC branded stuff and a few other bits. In terms of what we actually see, I'm getting hyped for that opening Showcase. I definitely think it's time for film news. Even if it's still 2+ years out, a teaser logo, a timeframe, a director and a lead would be great. Ahsoka panel, gotta imagine they'll bring out live action Ezra on stage. Sabine I get the impression they've nailed, but Ezra is such a big character I'm a little scared. Now I know what all the Ahsoka fans felt like before Rosario Dawson was announced ha. Last week's ep of Bad Batch centred on something that hinted at an endgame for the series/characters. It has me a little terrified S2 might be the last. Probably not, but still... I guess we'll find out soon.

Looks amazing, can't wait. Also, I'm started to feel bad for TIE fighters

The badge art is lovely this year. Last year was a bit meh, especially the 4 Day Adult one, I've no idea what they were thinking when they picked that design! Not got mine yet, not even shipped yet. I would go in with lower expectations with the lottery, I know a ton of people who had no success in Anaheim and the rooms had far more seats than the Excel, so we'll see. You're right though Kenobi should hopefully be a bit better odds since it was quietly added. The Celebration store was a funny one last year, everyone kept saying it was a nightmare to get into but they must have meant early in the day cause I just wandered in around 4 or 5pm a couple days in after about 2 minutes of queueing. Sure the daily pins I wanted were sold out by then but 95% of the store was still in stock. Portable power bank for your phone would be very useful if your phone battery is getting on. Some kind of poster tube/protectors too if they give any out at panels, though they sold those right next to where you pick them up. Comfortable shoes. If you want any autographs they have a bunch of prints and you pick which one you want signed, or bring your own. If they do the daily panel reservations, as many phones as you have like we talked about. Make sure to stop off at the droid room too. Snacks and drinks for the queuing. They revealed the Celebration live stage guest times, or at least a chunk of them, so have a look and maybe see who you'd like to listen to. They didn't do that last year and I randomly walked up to the stage seconds before Doug Chiang was brought out. Result!

Never change Japan.

Heads up @Julius I'm sure you've applied for the Celebration lottery for the four big panels by now, but it seems they've quietly added a fifth. The 'look back at Kenobi' one, just in case you want to apply for that. Might help with under the counter panel ticket trading if you get into Kenobi but would prefer another one? PS: Bad Batch 2x13, another quality (beautiful looking) ep I adore this show.