FanFest 2013: Saturday

Today was always going to be a monster day. Not only was there a full day of talks to go, there was also the famous Party At The Top Of The World to attend at night. To add to all that I had yet to visit the imposing Hallgrímskirkja church and was determined to do so before going home. With all this planned it was probably inevitable that I would sleep in and miss the EVE Movie Morning where I had promised to meet friends. This first I knew of that was a text message asking where I was. Oh well, guess I also missed breakfast...

I made it to Harpa in time to meet up with everyone at the end of the movie session. Apparently I didn't miss much. In my imagination I'd pictured the complete Clear Skies trilogy to  be played, but it wasn't to be. The EVE in China talk was very interesting. Their nullsec is even more homogenised that what we find in the west. Not only that but the price of PLEX in the China server is something like 5 times what we pay. This price pretty much matches up with inflated prices of minerals and battleships so life isn't as bad as it may first seem for our Chinese counterparts. The presentation from the Chinese team ended with a great clip of many players on the China server saying hello to us on the other server.

Next up was the final Make EVE Real talk. This one was from Michael Laine of LiftPort Group. The talk started discussing the difficulties of making a space elevator from Earth due to current known materials not being strong enough. The solution discussed was to build a space elevator down to the Moon from the Lagrange point between the Moon and Earth. This would have the two benefits of proving space elevator technology could work in practice while also claiming the microgravity environment of the Lagrange point for LiftPort Group. Truth be told, this second point seemed to be more of interest to Michael Laine. Out of the three talks this one set up the shortest timescale yet the speaker seemed the least confident that he would succeed. He started with talking about his failures and continued through the talk mentioning it and how close to running out of money his group is. The highlight of the talk was Michael announcing his EVE character name. Last time I looked the bounty on him was well into the billions.

I thought the Games as Art - EVE at the MoMA talk would be a nice change of pace. After grabbing something to eat I went in a bit late and missed the very start. I quickly decided I wasn't enjoying the "comfy chair coffee table chat on a stage" discussion and headed off for a walk to the Hallgrímskirkja church. Did I mention it was cold, windy and I was wearing a kilt? It didn't take too long to get to the church. There is a long road leading up to the imposing structure, which just keeps getting bigger and bigger as you walk up to it. Outside there is a statue to Leif Ericson who is regarded as the first European to land in North America. Inside the church you can pay to go to the top of the tower and look out across Reykjavik. Bizarrely, while up there I ended up explaining to a tourist who wasn't in Iceland for fanfest what EVE was all about. He said he'd give the game a go when he got home. Walking back to the Harpa attracted some attention to my kilt. Some kids stopped me to ask if I was cold - I wasn't particularly. Another car stopped when I was crossing and I got a thumbs up from the driver followed by his son shouting "Axl Rose" at me - I was in a red kilt and black leather jacket. I was glad to get back to Harpa though, I wasn't cold but I was definitely warmer indoors.

CCP Presents was the final presentation of FanFest. As with the previous end-of-day talks there was a certain feeling of surreality that I was there. This was the magical end to FanFest where CCP likes to tease with things that are coming and things that are dreamt of. Collectors Edition box set, Books, TV series, Player-built stargates. Wait... player built stargates? Holy shit!

FanFest 2013: Friday

Most of today's events that I was interested in were scheduled to happen in the main 'Tranquility' hall. The morning started with a talk on a decade of Eve's economy. It's taken me so long to write this up that I can't remember any specifics though. What I do remember is that the amount of analysis done on the economy of New Eden is impressive. Dr. EyjoG clearly enjoys his job and that came across well in the presentation he gave. I went to the talk on merging econonmies on Thurday as well and he gave a good talk then. I wish he put more stuff out in dev blogs but I can understand why he doesn't.

Around after the economics talk were scheduled two talks on Dust - Planetary Conquest and Advancing the core. The whole planetary conquest looked really interesting. This could be a great hook to differentiate Dust from all the other FPS shooters out there. The galaxy map they made for the PS3 also looks really sweet and a few EVE players were asking when we would get it on the EVE client. All in all, a lot of cool stuff going into Dust.

After two hours of sitting in TQ I really needed food and a beer and it was time to wander the halls again. Having seen it all the day before meant there were no real surprises. I'm sure the EVE Store was putting more, different t-shirts out which were testing my resolve. I held my will restating to myself that I would buy some when I got home. This decision is still haunting me as the EVE store still doesn't have them for sale.

The "Make EVE Real - Asteroid Mining" talk was another good talk. I'd not read anything about real world asteroid mining so everything I heard here was new. It was fascinating to learn about the abundance of what we consider scarce metals we could acquire from mining real asteroids. I particularly liked their design for sending out swarms of probes which would autonomously function together to scan and return data on asteroid compositions. I'd love to work somewhere involved in designing such systems. Something for EVE to consider bringing into the game? A mining scanner mini-game perhaps which increases or decreases asteroid yield depending on how well you scan?

The final event of the day was, of course, the EVE Keynote. Having watched this on a stream in the past there was something special about actually being in the audience. And, oh my the shiny eye candy. I think it's all out now in Odyssey but if you haven't seen the presentation, here's the Youtube video for your enjoyment.

FanFest 2013: Thurday

My halting walk home last night resulted in a rather late arrival to my hotel. This was exacerbated by discovering the alliance server was broken and nobody had Teamspeak, Jabber or our forums to communicate with. An hour spent fixing that and then I could sleep... Five hour later and I was awake again getting ready for day one of the actual Fanfest event.

In case you forgot why you were there. This was at the top of the main stairs.

There was no snow today but a pretty strong wind was making itself felt. This was particularly unfortunate as I had elected to wear my kilt resulting in a rather brisk half hour walk. When I got to the Harpa there was no immediate relief from the wind as I joined the queue about 100 meters from the entrance. Kudos to CCP for effecting such an efficient method for getting people into the event. I was sure it was going to take at least three times longer than it actually did. To be honest, once I got inside the door and away from the cold wind I wasn't particularly bothered about the queue anymore. Once at the front it was pretty straightforward getting my swag-bag, t-shirt and entry pass and then I was free to wander around.

Efficient registration table is efficient

Inside, a few things were still being set up. There was no sign of the Steelseries guys to collect the free mouse mat. Razor had some things out on their display but nothing I wanted to buy. The relaunched EVE store was well stocked with a wonderful variety of t-shirts which I foolishly decided to buy once I got back home. Foolish in that the EVE store isn't selling them, D'Oh! After wandering around the crush for a while the corpmate I was with had to head off to meet his partner and I was left to wander around on my own. Not for long though as more corpmates magically appeared and we got some food and beers.

The first talk I went to was "Make EVE Real - Bringing FTL to IRL". This seemed odd to be going to an EVE Fanfest yet starting at a talk only loosely related to the game. It was a rather interesting talk from Dr. Richard Obousy of Icarus Interstellar (now there's a cool name for your CV). He presented his very ambition timeline to make interstellar travel a reality by 2100. Interstellar travel on the scale of a human lifetime requires faster than light travel. Dr. Obousy's talk was based around past examples of the speed humans exploit a new technology - on average it seems to be about 50 years from discovery to widespread use of some game-changing breakthrough. The main thing I though he was missing in his talk was that Icarus Interstellar is yet to find this breakthrough. I guess they have about 30 years before their schedule becomes tight though. Other than that point the talk was very enjoyable but didn't really tell me anything new.

After some wandering around, meeting up with more corpmates, watching people play the very cool, very R-type-like EVE arcade game, and drinking a few more beers, we headed up to queue for the Dust 514 keynote. I've played a little of Dust and have my character in Dust Uni but I don't really have that great an understanding of what's going on. I run at people, shoot them and die, rinse then repeat. They announced new drop suits, new weapons, new vehicles and a much needed new skill tree. The best thing they announced was the updates to the graphics. I was glad to see this because I find Dust looks a bit dated compared to other shooters like the new Halo. Hopefully these new graphics would polish it up a bit. Still there were enough bitter EVE players mooching around complaining about Dust 514 taking dev time away from EVE. You'd think that would make them happy as anytime CCP make changes in EVE the forums turn into a war of "how dare you change stuff".

After the keynote we headed back to the Celtic Cross to find it packed out the door. Someone made a very ill-advised comment to a corpmate about her height and received a well deserved kick to the shins. Deciding that it was too busy we went elsewhere for a quiet drink then actually had the early night I had planned for the previous evening.

FanFest 2013: Wednesday

Um, well so much for my plan to write up Fanfest in a week... There's a lot of stuff happening in-game just now that I'll try and write about later. For now let's get on with the story of my Iceland adventure.

After waking from not enough sleep I got myself ready and fed then headed off to the Harpa conference centre. There was a bit of a shock as I went outside and discovered it was snowing. This is what I had hoped for in Iceland so I wasn't too unhappy with this turn of events. After a thirty minute walk I met with some corp mates and we all piled onto bus number one. I'll probably remember that was the bus number forever as it was repeated many, many times by the guide. After a rapidly abandoned attempt to check our tickets the bus set off.

Our first stop was to be Þingvellir, a rift-valley where the original Icelandic parliament used to meet for two weeks each summer. It is also one of only two places in the world where you can walk between two continental plates as all other such gaps are underwater. We were told that this is a lovely place to come camping in summer with temperatures reaching as high as 20-30°C but it was hard to imagine that in the snow and wind. The scenery was beautiful thought and I would love to go back there in summer with a tent and try the camping.

America to the left, Europe to the right (or is it the other way around?)

Leaving Þingvellir we got back on our bus and headed for a long drive to the Gulfoss waterfall. On the way we were told a wonderful story about the rescue of this gorgeous waterfall from being used to generate electricity - something that would have ruined the beauty of the area. Gulfoss was first saved by Tómas Tómasson and then by his daughter, Sigríður Tómasdóttir. His daughter even went to the extreme lengths of threatening to throw herself into the falls. Thankfully she didn't have to go that far to save this picturesque spot in Iceland. We didn't really have enough time to visit the waterfall and enjoy lunch. Choosing to visit the waterfall first left us with about four minutes to eat. Another corp mate promised to web and scram the bus to give us a bit longer.

Gulfoss waterfall

Our final stop, Geysir, was only a short hop away and as you can possibly tell from its name is where all other geysers are named for. There is something odd about walking around in the cold with patches of snow on the ground while watching boiling water bubble away naturally in holes in the ground. I previously saw a cold geyser in Germany but that was just a piddly little thing compared to these giant erupting pools of sulphurous water. There is something rather compelling to standing around waiting for hot water to fling itself into the air in a gush of water, steam, and sulphur pong. There is also something rather eerie about being in a landscape with all the steam drifting around. I think the eeriness would have been wonderfully enhanced had I not been surrounded by hundreds of other people.

Did you bring any teabags?

That night a number of us had tickets to go see the Iceland Symphony Orchestra playing songs from EVE. After grabbing some noodle soup not to far from Harpa we headed back for the performance. I was happy to find our seats were almost right at the front of a very packed theatre. It seemed to take ages before the orchestra were ready, everyone quietened down, and we waited. The big surprise for me was watching the conductor shuffle to his position whilst also playing a didgeridoo. The whole event was magical. A large screen behind the orchestra was showing footage from various EVE promo videos and the orchestra played maybe nine tunes from the game. Most of them I recognised but a couple were not so familiar. It's been a long time since I last turned the music up in EVE. Maybe I should start turning it up again when I'm doing solo stuff.

After heading off for a couple of drinks the icing on the Iceland cake came in the form of getting to take pictures of the Aurora Borealis - the Northern Lights. We just on-spec headed down a pier at the harbour to get some black sky between us and where the Aurora should appear. We were almost about to give up and head back to our hotels when a green ribbon appeared in the sky. Cue furious long-exposure photography without a tripod. I suspect there may be a couple of humerous pictures of me sprawled flat on the ground propping my camera against rocks and anything else I could find. After leaving everyone it took ages for me to get back to my hotel as the display lasted over an hour and I kept finding new places to stop and take more pictures.

Beautiful Aurora Borealis

What a magical end to the perfect day of sightseeing around Iceland.

FanFest 2013: Tuesday

After dispatching my wife and children to work, nursery and child minder respectively it was time for me to make the long pilgrimage to Iceland. This would involved walking, trains, buses and hopefully just one aeroplane. The one and a half mile walk to the train station struck home to me that it had been over ten years since I went back packing around the globe and I was long past accustomed to carrying such weight. It felt like I would never get to the train station but, of course, I did. There then followed an almost perfect set of connections which got me to Glasgow airport, through check-in and security with almost no delay, and before I knew it I was sitting with some corp mates and some Zebras drinking in the airport bar.

I'm not used to lunchtime drinking so after only two lagers I had a bit of a buzz going on. The flight to Iceland was rather boring although another fanfest attendee commented that the landscape while descending to land was "like landing in Mordor".

I did my shopping in the arrival duty-free area to get some wine and a bottle of whisky for my hip-flask. Two top tips: 1) When buying wine either make sure you have a cork-screw with you or pick a bottle of wine with a screw top. 2) When buying whisky buy something nice, don't pick a blended malt just because the name makes you think of Game of Thrones (King Robert the Second was the whisky). The final bus journey of the day seemed to take forever but I was finally at my hotel and in a pokey wee room. Hotel Cabin would appear to be so named as the rooms are the same size as the inside cabins in a ferry. An added feature was my window which opened inside the hotel.

Those blue curtains protect me from the hallway

After dropping my stuff and calling home I had a brisk walk to the Harpa conference centre followed by random direction changes trying to catch up with corp mates to go have food. While waiting outside Muan Thai on Laugavegur for more corp mates to find us we were treated to a display of how Icelanders handle shoplifters. An old, drunk guy had pinched a sandwich from the supermarket under the Thai restaurant. After a discussion with a large store employee the drunk guy decided to take a cheeky bite from his stolen sandwich. This resulted in the employee picking the old guy up by his armpits and bodily hauling him back into the store.

Tasty Thai food consumed and it was time to park ourselves in the Celtic Cross so the rest of my attending corp mates could find us. Over a short time everyone turned up and we parked in the little booth just to the left inside the door. We designated it a C3 as there was only one way out and in but we couldn't decided whether the rest of the bar was hisec or lowsec. Yes it's sad but yes we were drinking (and drinking, and drinking). It was brilliant to finally meet these people I've been hanging out on comms with for almost two years for some of them. Also spoke with people from other corps who were filling the rest of the bar. The atmosphere was great. Eventually we realised we were the last people in the bar and thought it might be a good idea to head home. We all had to be up for the Golden Circle tour the following morning.

Geyser campers

Still on the golden circle tour. It is amazing how compelling it is to hang around for a jet of boiling water to shoot into the air.

Snowfest

Iceland clearly felt my disappointment at the lack of snow when I got here yesterday. This morning all has been changed and I'm walking in a winter wonderland.