FanFaire Recap!

Yes, its true, though limited I did make an FanFaire appearance!
Proof:


I have to say I only attended for one day, and half a day at that(curse you Vegas hangovers). But I was impressed, there was a much larger crowd than I was anticipating, and the setup SOE had was pretty snazzy, especially for the cost of admission which wasn't all that much for the event and panel list. So I only attended a few panels, they were held in very tiny rooms with chairs for about thirty people. It was a very personal experience, unlike DefCon whose talks were given in huge lecture rooms fit to hold hundreds. I wasn't able to hang around as much as I wanted to, mostly because of the hangover, but I chilled out in the vendor/game/etc.. area for a bit and wrote blog posts meeting a few people along the way.
The crowd was certainly a mix bag, spanning all ages and professions, with a few costumed folks running around. The panels though were great, very informative, and the speakers were very open to answering any questions. I really enjoyed the level of detail some of the questions received it really gave me an idea of how things happen behind the scenes and the relationship different departments have with each other. All in all, coming out of FanFaire I have a very positive view of SOE and their upcoming releases and cannot wait until next year(hopefully it will not conflict with DefCon as it did this year) where I will be able to attend without having to split my time, because although I did get quite a lot out of FanFaire, I feel like I really missed out on some good times and good people.

P.S. Sorry Cuppy for not getting in touch, my phone battery died the second day in Vegas and I forgot my charger at home(note to all travelers, don't leave your charger behind it will plague you throughout your vacation) .

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Cheston

FanFaire Post: Anatomy of an Update

Note: This post was written right after attending the "Anatomy of and Update" Panel at FanFaire 2007. I'll have a FanFaire recap soon(I know I'm late but you are already I'm sure inundated with "FanFaire Recap" posts, so check mine out later.

So I finally got to FanFaire after much delay, hit up the "Anatomy of an Update" EQ2 panel. Which was quite good, Scott Hartsman is just as nice and personable as people have said. The panel overall was informative and really gave an in detail idea of how the update cycle works and how the fallout is handled bugwise. The panel rooms are much smaller than I thought, though it does give the participants a very close/personal feeling. I tried to get into the "EQ2: Into the Future" panel but it was packed, fortunetly though they will be breaking the panel into three 45 minute sessions for those that could not attend the previous. So I am looking forward to that along with a VG panel on game design, after that though it seems like it is already over! I have to say I really wish FanFaire were a bit longer, as it is only two days and DefCon is three. I have to say though they content of the panels seems pretty impressive, and I wish I had the chance to just do FanFaire instead of having to split my time between the two.

One cool thing that came out of the "Anatomy of an Update" panel was the revelation that there will most likely be another zone added before RoK is released(I missed the RoK panel and for that I am quite sad). Which is great, Scott and the group also gave insight into how these zones are created and I was surprised as the words "quality of the content" came up, it really gave me the feeling that quality was paramount, if a particular zone did not meet the benchmarks it is scrapped and either dumped or redone entirely. This kind of embodies the new EQ2 attitude, where broken content doesn't make it, adopting Blizzard's "when its ready" stance on content(though I can't say they are even close to perfection with regard to that statement(especially with regard to high end raid bosses)).

Also the panel talked a bit about the new and for coming "persistent instances" and how they work in terms of saving an instance and players being booted from instances. Basically the big thing is that players in a raid can be spread out amongst physical boxes and if one box goes down only those players will be booted and the players on the other box will remain in the instance. Also with that the instance is hard saved every time a "noteable mob" is killed, which means if a crash occurs you will most likely have to re-clear trash, which isn't the end of the world except if you are currently engaging a boss and the whole thing blows up, that wouldn't be a fun night. But still it is a decent system for such a complex environment, I have yet to have any real experience in these new zones so I can't comment from personal experience about it but I can assume raid leaders can force a save, or that before you leave the zone it saves the current progress.

Anyways great talk, time to go walk around!

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Cheston

Vegastastic!

Just got into Vegas airport and am waiting on some friends to arrive playing "spot the hacker/gamer" and it is pretty entertaining, there was an emo band on the flight with me, though they had right to be emo, it was coach and we were packed in like sardines, AND the movie was Spiderman 3 which I really didn't care for much at all(especially on these tiny ~12" screens that I believe were from the era of The Macarana. Anyways enough of that my friends are here, see you all at Fan Faire!

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Cheston

Viva Las Vegas!

Only days away is SOE's annual Fan Faire and I've pretty much settled on trying to attend both Defcon and Fan Faire, which will certainly be difficult but I'll see if I can't make it work, as I'd really like to attend talks at both events and I just can't settle for recaps or powerpoint slides. Anyways I'm getting in Thursday afternoon and staying until Monday so if anyone is around drop a comment and maybe we'll run into each other. Anyways I have much business to attend to(EQ2), see ya at Fan Faire!(I'll make a post before I leave as I've been meaning to.

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Cheston