Gets talked about here on my blog!
I am back from the wondrous land of lots of fake breasts, short skirts, and married men with too much money trying to experience them. Whew! What an action packed few days – I promise this post will stretch out into several. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me. I’m bummed out about it actually, because there were MANY, MANY opportunities to take some good pictures. I also did not take any notes at all, so I will probably mix up what order things happened in and I will definitely forget to mention people. So, let me begin! (Click to read below the cut, it is LONG)
Wednesday August 1
I arrived in Vegas around 4pm and was greeted by a driver with a sign that said my name on it. Now, this was exciting for me, because it was the first time I’ve been one of “those people” who has a chauffeur waiting for them. As a preface, it is probably important to note that I was considered a “Community Influencer” for SOE. This basically amounted to most of my expenses being paid for by SOE to attend Fan Faire, VIP status while being there, getting there a day early and participating in some great discussions about community. Now, this may be seen as a conflict of interest considering my new job – so I am no longer considered an influencer now that Fan Faire 2007 is over and I resume my normal player status =)
So, I arrive at the Rio and check in, receiving a message from the receptionist from the SOE Community Team telling me where to be and when. I end up getting lost as hell trying to find my hotel room. The hotel is HUGE. The only other time I’ve been to Vegas, I stayed at a small hotel off the strip…so I have never experienced what a hotel with 52 floors and multiple towers of rooms looks like. I ended up in the convention center area of the hotel completely turned around – so luckily I asked for help and managed to find my room on the 9th floor of the Ipanema Tower. My jaw dropped when I walked into my room. It wasn’t the biggest by any means (Alan’s room pwned mine) but it was a couple rooms large and was gorgeous. I spent about 15 minutes in there just in awe of the room before I went downstairs to the casino to meet everyone in the I-Bar.
The I-Bar was a cute little circular bar which boasted incredible looking women in incredibly tiny outfits that required glue to prevent any indecent exposure. I am not going to remember all the names of the influencers and staff that were there but I’ll give it a shot. Myself, Brent from VirginWorlds, Calthine from Allakhazam, Valorius from EQ2-Daily, Coyote from TTH, Naladini from Stormhammer.org, LFG from EQ2Flames, Yivvits (from Yivvits and Mr Bubble podcasting fame), Cat Neri, Scott “Gallenite” Hartsman, Chris “Archonix” Junior, Chris “Aeralik” Kozak, Alan “Brenlo” Crosby, Craig “Grimwell” Dalrymple and wife Michelle, Aimee”Ashlanne” Rekoske, etc. etc. It was a long list of people and it was fun. After a few drinks at the I-Bar, we all piled into shuttles and went to go check out a magic show. The magic show was AWESOME! Although he did the same sort of trick over and over, it was a good time. I was absolutely flabbergasted at how he managed to pull off some of those tricks. Wow.
Afterwards a couple of us got dinner at a sports bar at the Rio, and then ended up heading to a room party in Alan/Brenlo’s room. It was awesome to get to know people a bit better. Alan is one of the most gracious hosts I’ve met. Before my glass was empty, I’d always have another full one waiting for me. I ended up finally meeting Tharkis from my Stormhammer EQ1 days, which was awesome. The highlight of the night was probably when Naladini, Tharkis, GM Zatozia (Lydia) and I were BSing about the old Stormhammer drama. Those were the days. In addition, I now have a new nickname (pegged by Brenlo) – “F*ckycake.” To which I decided to call him “F*cklo.” Listening to Ashlanne snort in laughter at that was priceless. Left the room party and went to another room party in which people were playing Guitar Hero. I was so sure I was going to kick everyone’s ass – but no go. I got whooped by GM Vedan and Rothgar and a few others. Damn alcohol. Alas, Day 1 was over.
Thursday, August 2
Thursday morning came earlier than I had hoped it would. I was a bit late for the breakfast, but it was okay because the idea of breakfast didn’t sound all that great anyway 
Thursday was really the day for us influencers to do our talking and communicating. It is also quite NDA’ed so I can’t talk about much of it. We had several discussions with marketing, community team, devs, and others. There were lots of awesome varying opinions and it really was informative. That’s all you get. Listen to Brent’s latest podcast for more info.
After the discussions we all met for dinner, which was great. I hope there are plenty of pictures taken. Brent actually ate some meat, which was awesome (he’s a vegetarian.) The dinner was pretty nummy, but I wasn’t really all that hungry because SOE fed us so many times already that day. After dinner, we went back and killed some time in our rooms before the big welcome party at the Voodoo Lounge began.
Grimwell looking drunk!
The Voodoo Lounge was incredible. First of all, you have to take this scary glass elevator all the up to the 51st floor. The bar is half indoors and half outdoors. I spent the entire time outside enjoying the most beautiful view of Las Vegas. (Pic stolen from Aimee’s flickr!)
Anyway, the little awesome VIP wristband proved to be a very good (and bad) thing at this event. The drinks were like $7 for a beer, and like $12 for a Malibu/Diet Coke which is my drink of choice…so it was nice to not have to pay for them. Of course, if I was smart….I would have stopped consuming alcohol once the open bar ended. But no – I’d like to say I went to bed feeling great, but I definitely had a not so healthy evening after that. It was a blast though (thanks Naladini/Greg for being nice, hehe). All in all, a very fun night – but I definitely should have taken less advantage of the free drinks. =P
Friday, August 3rd
Fan Faire 2007 officially begun. I started my day feeling like absolute shit…so I didn’t end up making it down to the convention until a bit before noon. I was instantly overwhelmed by the amount of people there! How the hell was I going to meet everyone I wanted to meet!? Ugh. It was a beautiful setup though. I had the most luck running into people in the main gaming hall. That room had tons of computers set up for contests and open play, the silent auction selling banners, some nice art for sale, demos of Pirates of the Burning Sea, Gods and Heroes, Pirates Strategy Game and SOE’s Poker game. I ended up running into Brent and hanging out with him most of the time. The only panel I ended up going to was Brent’s “Community Podcasting” panel which went really well. The other panelists were Yvvitts from SWG podcast, Valorius from EQ2 Daily, and someone whose name I can’t remember from EQ2’sDay. It was a great panel with lots of good questions, and lots of people ended up showing up.
Scott “Gallenite” Hartsman and Myself. (Pic Courtesy of EQ2Flames.com
Liz and Bonnie in the side/background =)
At 5:30pm was Smed’s address to the public to announce Legends of Norrath, the new EQ1/EQ2 based digital trading card game. I am not going to go into details about the game but I will say that it looks fun. And also, my picture is on one of the cards – can’t beat that! In the address, we got to watch teaser trailers for most of the SOE games (everything but VG? lol) and people got pretty pumped about the various trailers. The one I was surprised to see was the Free Realms trailer. It looked VERY cutesy and funny, and looks like something I could definitely like. The Agency trailer was seen before, but I hadn’t seen the live action play demo part. They showed what actual gameplay looks like. Honestly, it is NOT my thing at all. I’m not into shooters, and it definitely has more of a shooter feel from what I’ve seen rather than an MMO feel. We’ll see how that pans out.
After awhile, I ended up going with Scott and a few other devs to the EQ2Flames party in the bowling alley of the Rio. It was neat to see those people there, even though I’m not too familiar with a lot of them. LFG was one of the nicest guys I met in Vegas, definitely very gracious and it was awesome to meet him. After eating dinner there, it was time for the poolside party! The pool party was a great time! I mingled a bit when I first got there, but eventually ended up spending most of my time with Noel “Ilucide” Walling, Tony “Vhalen” Garcia (and his wife with her friends), and Adam and Jeremy (but I can’t remember their last names or online monikers..I think it’s Zaphax and Jindrack.) The free drinks were awesome again, but this time I was a bit more intelligent. After the pool party, Noel ended up teaching me how to play roulette (which I suck at apparently) and we tried to learn craps. This day was probably my favorite day.
Saturday, August 4
Saturday I woke up ridiculously early after about 4 1/2 hours of sleep and was ready to hit the panels. I ended up making it to all/most of the EQ2 panels that I wanted to go to. For those who are looking for details on the panels, others are definitely going to do that part better. The Rising into Kunark panel was pretty informative. We got to hear a bit about how they plan the maps out, and got to see the early maps for a few zones. They also showed screenshots of some various areas in the game and answered lots of questions. The Q&A’s always crack me up, because people phrase their questions so hilariously. “When are you going to fix this, because my class is so borked and my guild can’t have fun until you fix this encounter and blahblahblahblah.” Love it. =)
After attending a day’s worth of panels and winning $800 on a slot machine, it was time for the Grand Banquet. The crew I was with had a hell of a time finding a reserved table to sit at, so we ended up stealing a Vanguard table (oops!) and eating there. After dinner, there was a wedding. Yes, a REAL wedding. It was adorable and I *almost* cried. I am such a sucker for those kinds of things…. =/ The couple got married “With this click, I thee wed.” both out of game and in game. They had big projectors up with the house that was so nicely decorated by Emily “Domino” Taylor (tradeskill dev, EQ2) and after being wed, their guildies threw in-game snowballs at them. It really was a cute way to get married, and was fun to be there for it. After the banquet there was another room party, then bed, then woke up to travel home.
This was my first Fan Faire, and it was a great time. Everything seemed nicely coordinated and well prepared for. The Rio seemed to be a great place to hold the event, and was definitely a nice place to eat and enjoy oneself. I met a ton of people that I had wanted to meet, and even had lots of people who came up to me and recognized me from my blog or the podcast. That was really awesome, and I’m glad to have met you guys! There are a few people that I intended to meet but didn’t get the chance to (Dardore, Menion, etc.) and I apologize for that. =/ Guess we’ll have to go to another Fan Faire huh? =) I intend to edit in pictures and continue to to update on things I remember.
Thanks SOE for the opportunity and the great event. See everyone again! =)
