NiSuTe Report : Ankama Convention 3

By: Enguerand Aubertin

Ankama held its 3rd convention at Lille on the 20th-20st December.
20,000 fans were expecting: this goal was achieved on the first day only!
I said “fans”, cos a convention is for fans and only fans. I mean, don’t expect anything for the others: if you’re not a fan, you will get bored in a few minutes. But for fans, it’s something not to miss!

The convention was held at the “Grand Palais”, in the London Hall (~15 000 m2).
Why going there? There was everything you needed to know and see about Ankama:

*Conferences with Ankama game creators
*Showcasing of Wakfu, Dofus 2.0, Dofus Pocket and Dofus-Arena Pocket
*The Dofus-Arena League Final
*“Café Salé” Exposition, with drawings especially created for this convention
*All of the Ankama comics (including Dofus Tome 10)
*The Ankama shop: the place to buy all sorts of goodies and comics from Ankama, and many things sold out on Sunday!
*Dedication sessions
*There was also a Wrestling show, but on Saturday evening only (too bad we missed it!)

It was on a Sunday morning, around 10:00 AM. I was a little late (the Convention started at 10:00 but my train arrived only at that time, and it wasn’t very closed to the “Grand Palais”).
I needed to find Maus and Maikel too (who kindly came along for a great day!).

At the entrance, Florence Di Ruocco (in charge of Ankama Communication, see the photo) kindly welcomed us and gave us the passes for the Convention. No access to the show without them, and the security staff was very strict on every detail!

When entering the Hall, a big Dofus monster (holding a Dofus ) stood just in front of us, so no mistake: it is the right place for fans! There was an inflatable castle on the right, cos the Convention also introduced Vampyro (a Vampire from Dofus and Wakfu)

*Inside, you could see the Wakfu animated series (but since we weren’t there for that, we didn’t waste time for that).

We first go and see Dofus 2.0: something like +100 PCs were available for visitors to play the upcoming Dofus 2.0 with updated graphics (in a Wakfu style). In about 15 minutes, you could make your own impression on this new version. Many people were always complaining about the new character design, but bugs were fixed and the game ran perfectly. Dofus 2.0 is set for a Summer release, so don’t be too much impatient!

Wakfu TCG (the card game ) was tested there, so we moved to check it out .
This convention was the occasion to play the game and see what rules are good/bad, have to be changed or removed… It was like a sort of beta test, and even if this game is to be released this year, they still have to work hard on it.
We interviewed someone from the Wakfu TCG team and we learned this card game has no relationship with the previous one (if you remember, we spoke about a card game from Dofus long ago), that it targets children but is still too much complex for them and that a video game (to play the card game online) will be launched along with the card game. The team in charge of it is composed of fans of card games but they didn’t try to copy existing games. Despite it is hard to bring fresh ideas, they try their best and we wish us good luck. Cards look great and the game seems promising.

We also met Alix Lepinay (in charge of Ankama communication for books and comics only).
He told us Ankama was trying to translate all of their books and comics for an international release this year! Keep fingers crossed cos it will be a very hard and long work! (for instance, the Dofus comic is filled with French word plays that won’t be easy to translate).

There’s already one publication in both French and English: Diary of Inhuman Species but what really impressed us was Mutafukaz 0: a comic created by Run, printed like a old book and drawned in the style
of the old US comics! Pretty cool! It also includes 3D-glasses: it really rocks!