Back from FanFest
Well, after a very long day of travel yesterday, starting at 0330 Iceland time and ending at 2100 Chicago time (well, at least until my drive down to Champaign this morning), I'm back home. Many apologies for not really blogging about anything during FanFest (having been a bit busy) and my thanks to Marc for picking me up from the airport and Sam and Gracie for putting me up for the night -- I don't think driving home after that would have been such a good idea.
FanFest was as good or better than last year (Caldari theme = win), but the highlight of the trip was definitely the 4x4 tour, which was amazing -- it was great to get out of Reykjavik and see the rest of Iceland, which was gorgeous. I took over 100 pictures I think, and I'll probably put them up on a Picasa album or something, since posting them in the blog would be a bit cumbersome. However, standing on the same rock where the Althing was first held was a pretty awe-inspiring experience (even if it's not particularly much to look at right now -- just a big rock with an Icelandic flag), and the natural wonders of Iceland -- from the Golden Waterfall (Gullfoss), crystal-clear waters and glacial ice to geysers and steam vents -- are beautiful. The true power of the planet's natural processes is fully on display in Iceland like I've never quite seen elsewhere, though places like Mt. Rainier (pictures of which I'll also post one of these days) certainly show limited aspects.
Highlights from FanFest itself for me were the various presentations by the content team, where I heard a lot of very good stuff about what they see needs to be done with Eve -- especially fleshing out the backstory and a significant amount of world-building, something I've been waiting for for a long time. When they get around to uploading those videos to CCP's YouTube channel, I highly recommend checking them out.
Most of the information on the upcoming expansion -- Dominion -- wasn't too much of a surprise, since informaiton has been coming out in dev blogs pretty regularly over the last few months. In this case, a wise move from CCP since the systems being changed are pretty core to the game for a wide swath of the player base. The big thing people were waiting for was news on Dust 514, which came during the big presentation on Saturday. To be fair, I am not especially excited about it, since I am not the target market, and the presentation didn't really do that much for me. It looks like an FPS (and a serviceable one at that), but the truly innovative or interesting part of it isn't really graphics or physics effects but how it fits into Eve and how it works -- and the presentation didn't really have much about that.
The party Saturday night was good, though I preferred last years, really -- this year, they'd moved the lounge areas inside the party area itself, which was annoying. I don't dance, really, as anyone who knows me will attest, and I much preferred sitting around and talking with people -- pretty much impossible when you're being bombarded with loud music. They also made the decision to let in the locals for the party, which led to a very strange clash of crowds -- the women's bathroom, empty most of the weekend, was packed with women in clubbing outfits, many of which seemed confused as to why this party was filled with internet spaceship nerds.
Overall, a fun experience, and I wish I had more to say -- unfortunately, the last week is a bit of a whirlwind for me, especially with everything being rather hectic back home here, and I'm looking forward to getting back into my routine. I wanted to get this post up though, and I may revisit this again when CCP puts out videos from FanFest and I can refresh my memory. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this....
I think Oveur as Technoviking is the best part.
FanFest was as good or better than last year (Caldari theme = win), but the highlight of the trip was definitely the 4x4 tour, which was amazing -- it was great to get out of Reykjavik and see the rest of Iceland, which was gorgeous. I took over 100 pictures I think, and I'll probably put them up on a Picasa album or something, since posting them in the blog would be a bit cumbersome. However, standing on the same rock where the Althing was first held was a pretty awe-inspiring experience (even if it's not particularly much to look at right now -- just a big rock with an Icelandic flag), and the natural wonders of Iceland -- from the Golden Waterfall (Gullfoss), crystal-clear waters and glacial ice to geysers and steam vents -- are beautiful. The true power of the planet's natural processes is fully on display in Iceland like I've never quite seen elsewhere, though places like Mt. Rainier (pictures of which I'll also post one of these days) certainly show limited aspects.
Highlights from FanFest itself for me were the various presentations by the content team, where I heard a lot of very good stuff about what they see needs to be done with Eve -- especially fleshing out the backstory and a significant amount of world-building, something I've been waiting for for a long time. When they get around to uploading those videos to CCP's YouTube channel, I highly recommend checking them out.
Most of the information on the upcoming expansion -- Dominion -- wasn't too much of a surprise, since informaiton has been coming out in dev blogs pretty regularly over the last few months. In this case, a wise move from CCP since the systems being changed are pretty core to the game for a wide swath of the player base. The big thing people were waiting for was news on Dust 514, which came during the big presentation on Saturday. To be fair, I am not especially excited about it, since I am not the target market, and the presentation didn't really do that much for me. It looks like an FPS (and a serviceable one at that), but the truly innovative or interesting part of it isn't really graphics or physics effects but how it fits into Eve and how it works -- and the presentation didn't really have much about that.
The party Saturday night was good, though I preferred last years, really -- this year, they'd moved the lounge areas inside the party area itself, which was annoying. I don't dance, really, as anyone who knows me will attest, and I much preferred sitting around and talking with people -- pretty much impossible when you're being bombarded with loud music. They also made the decision to let in the locals for the party, which led to a very strange clash of crowds -- the women's bathroom, empty most of the weekend, was packed with women in clubbing outfits, many of which seemed confused as to why this party was filled with internet spaceship nerds.
Overall, a fun experience, and I wish I had more to say -- unfortunately, the last week is a bit of a whirlwind for me, especially with everything being rather hectic back home here, and I'm looking forward to getting back into my routine. I wanted to get this post up though, and I may revisit this again when CCP puts out videos from FanFest and I can refresh my memory. In the meantime, I'll leave you with this....
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