28 March 2015

Fanfest 2015 - Prelude

I had thought 2013 was going to be my only visit to Fanfest but several months ago the group who met in Iceland that year started to make plans for a return. This time around Fanfest was held earlier in the year so it would coincide with the solar eclipe which was set to be 98% totality when viewed from Iceland. Combining that with a chance to meet up with my space buddies again how could I refuse? Tickets were booked relatively late meaning I couldn't take advantage of any Iceland Air package deals. It worked out much better for me to fly with EasyJet anyway as they do direct flights from Edinburgh and also fly at respectable hours. Last time I stayed in the Cabin Hotel which was a 40 minute walk from Harpa so I decided I was going to stay much closer this time. One of my friends was already booked into  Hotel Leifur Eiriksson so I managed to secure a room there as well. Only 10 minutes walk from Harpa I was in a much better shape should I need to nip back to my room at any point.

Abandoning my family on the Tuesday before Fanfest I flew into Iceland and was immediately captured by the CCP gatecamp at the arrivals gate. The CCP party bus took a coach-load of EVE players to Reykjavik whilst feeding us beers. I was sat next to CCP Archduke who made sure I had a beer in my hand at all times. He works in the Dust514 customer support department and spent a portion of the bus journey trying to convince me to update my Dust client and give the game another try. I promised I would. After a little confusion about where I should be dropped for my hotel I was left slightly merry in the town centre to walk up the hill to my hotel. After so many beers so quickly I definitely needed a walk to burn them off a bit.

I got checked into my hotel, dumped my stuff then headed out to meet my corpies at the nearby Cafe Loki. Sadly one couple were unable to travel to Iceland due to illness which left just five of us from the previous excursion to Fanfest. This meant there was plenty of space to fit around a couple of tables whilst trying some traditional Icelandic food. I stuck with the very tasty meat soup whilst others tried rye bread with some sort of hashed fish topping. Another beer or two was consumed before we decided to head down to the Celtic Cross. On the way we were treated to a nice show of the Aurora Borealis which I later learned was visible a long way south. As may be guessed from the name the Celtic Cross is an Irish pub and we were descending on it during St. Patrick's day. This meant much drinking and the night grew fuzzy rapidly. After talking with so many people I can't remember I eventually made it back to my hotel around one in the morning.
Inside the Celtic Cross was this blurry for me too!

The following day was Wednesday and my little group had arranged to go horse riding. something I'd never done before. CCP had the great idea to start issuing passes early this time around so we met early at the Harpa to collect ours. I wasn't able to collect mine due to being on a Fansite ticket but everyone else got sorted out and we headed off to the collection point for horse riding. A short hop out of Reykjavic and we were at the Íshestar riding centre. The people there were wonderfully friendly and after a short introductory video on how to control their Icelandic horses we were fitted up with helmets and introduced to our horses. I managed to get up into the saddle without any of the comedic falls over the other side which you see in silly films. I was first to mount so had a decent time to try and become accustomed to sitting on the back of a living, breathing animal. It felt weird.

Before long we were off out following a soft trail laid over the lava fields. It was a little windy and snowing ever so gently but I was plenty warm. I'd by lying if I said I had any actual control over the horse. He know the route and followed it well. This became all the more evident when the five of us tried to line up for a group shot and my horse wouldn't move. If you're going to Fanfest and have a spare day you should definitely try some horse riding. These horses are small so even if you do fall (and nobody came close to) you don't have far to go.
Look at your man and back at me, I'm on horse

Dinner that evening had been booked at the slightly fancy 3 Frakkar restaurant. In 2013 we totally failed to get a table there so this time around we booked two months in advance. The focus on the menu here is traditional Icelandic food. I finally tried the fermented shark (Hakarl) I'd been avoiding and gagged on it. I tried smoked puffin which tasted smoky and mustardy and quite nice actually, I struggled with the raw texture though. I passed on the raw Minky whale 'cooked' in lemon juice. My main was Atlantic Salmon which was very tasty indeed. A slightly pricey place to eat but the food is truly wonderful. You should go.
Outside my hotel

With our many months old booking finally fulfilled we headed back to the Celtic Cross but the Tweetfleet meetup was happening so there was no chance of us getting in there. After the excesses of the previous night we decided that would be a good point to call it a day and head home for a sleep. Tomorrow was the first day of Fanfest.

15 March 2015

Fanfest 2015


Finally, it is but two days until I board my flight to Iceland for Fanfest 2015. Those of you who've read my blog long enough will remember I went to Fanfest in 2013 with a number of my corp mates. This time around the same group were all booked to go but one couple had to pull out at the last minute due to ill health - get well soon Brodit! I'll be thinking of you, mate!

I fly out to Iceland on Tuesday and will be staying for seven whole days this time. Learning my lesson from last year, when I stayed at the Cabin hotel, I booked significantly closer this time around. With a bit of luck I should have a nice view of Hallgrímskirkja from my room or, failing that, at least a nice view when I leave the hotel to walk down to the Harpa conference centre.

As I went on the Golden Circle tour last time I was there I have Wednesday pretty free at the moment. The weather looks a bit crazy there so I'm going to play it by ear what I get up to that day. I understand early registration is possible so I should at least take care of that; standing in the biting wind in 2013 was not fun especially considering I was wearing my kilt!

Party at the Top of the World 2013 : No idea who was playing by this point!
I installed the guidebook.com app CCP are using this year to digitally distribute their schedule and I've marked down the things I'm interested in going to see. I can't figure out how to share this so other people can see what talks I'm going to even though it appears the app supports that. If I figure it out you should be able to find me on that with the unsurprising name of 'Oreamnos Amric'.

My rough schedule just now looks like this:

Thursday 19th:
12:00 pm : Welcome to Fanfest and the Future of VR
 1:00 pm : A Brutor Guide to Empyrean Health
 2:00 pm : Game Design Panel
 3:25 pm : EVE Fan Art
 4:00 pm : Bro, do you even test?!
 5:00 pm : EVE Online Keynote

Friday 20th:
 8:30 am : Solar Eclipse Viewing
11:00 am : Community Fansites
12:00 pm : Make EVE Real - Creating Planetary Civilizations
 1:00 pm : Crowd Science in EVE Online
 2:00 pm : Evolution of the CSM
 3:00 pm : Data Science Behind EVE
 4:00 pm : Zero to HERO: How to be an FC
 4:25 pm : The Importance of Building Relationships
 5:00 pm : Worlds Collide
 9:00 pm : Pub Crawl

Saturday 21st:
11:00 am : From Science Fiction to Science Fact
12:00 pm : Wormholes round table
 1:00 pm : Future Vision of Structures
 3:00 pm : CCP Security - Better Safe Than Sorry!
 4:00 pm : EVE: Valkyrie Rumble in Reykjavik - Semi-Finals and Final
 5:00 pm : Closing Ceremony
 8:00 pm : Party at the Top of the World

Sunday 22nd:
10:30 am : Blue Lagoon Hangover Party

To be clear, any and all of the above might change depending on what the people I am meeting up with fancy doing. In particular I'm still swaying over the pubcrawl with a dev and may yet buy a ticket for that.

If you want to catch up with me the above list is a good place to start. Failing that, send me a tweet @Oreamnos_Amric and I can let you know where I'm hiding. Above all, if you're going to Fanfest I hope you have a bloody good time. If you're not going, well, nya! nya! :-p

Edit : Just 'accidentally' bought a ticket for the pub crawl with a dev. See you there!

12 March 2015

Terry Pratchett


Terry Pratchett, 1948-2015

"So much universe, and so little time."

CSM X


I meant to post about the CSM elections before the voting ended but life and some actually playing EVE got in the way. I hope you all voted. I took the lazy way out and followed the listing posted by Sugar Kyle. I enjoy reading her blog and believe her focus is on fixing the game in the best way possible rather than trying to eke out some edge for herself. I trust she picked candidates she thinks will align best with her beliefs so her list is likely better than anything my under-informed self could ever come up with.

To be honest I've felt somewhat underwhelmed by the CSM this past year. I can't entirely put my finger on why that is. There may be some element of feeling that CCP paid less attention to them than the past couple of CSMs. Hearing that they all cliqued up against their own member, Funky Bacon, was a negative against them too. That smacks of poor professionalism and leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Anyway, their year is almost over. If the majority of people feel the same as I do then there will be a large changing of the guard for CSM X. Hopefully that will reset things and a better CCP:CSM relationship will be borne for 2015/16.