Fanfest 2018 AAR

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morphoze
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Fanfest 2018 AAR

Post by morphoze »

Apologies, wall of text incoming..

Arrived at Keflavik airport late sunday afteroon, hopped on the fly bus into Reykjavik center. Once I'd checked in at the Center hotels Klopp I put a shout out on Slack to see who was about. I met up with Knicpaw and we chatted for a while and then we arranged to meet up with Titus Tallang for something to eat. We decided to go to Svarta Kaffid for their legendary soup in bread. After food we all headed back to our hotels to get some rest.

Monday was an early start as I'd decided to spend the couple of days before fanfest sightseeing. Got picked up by the tour bus at 7am and headed out on the Wonders of Snaefellsnes tour with reykjavik excursions.
Arrived back in Reykjavik around 7:30pm and arrange to meet up with Knicpaw and Titus again. This time we went for a great italian meal at Rossopomodoro.

Tuesday was another early start, this time being picked up at 8 am to go on the South shore adventure tour with reykjavik excusrions.
During the tour Slack pings that Seamus Donohue and Dunar Dolorgiethave arrived so we chat about where to meet up in the evening.
I arrive back from the tour aroun 7pm and head to Brughuis (the bar under the ccp offices) where there is an icelandic game developers meet taking place. They don't seem to mind us invading the room where they're having the meet so we order some burgers and beer. It turns out CCP Quinn is at the meet and joins us to chat about eve and what she does as part of the marketing deparment of CCP.

Leela Cesaille and Raven Luna arrive early Wednesday morning. The plan is that Dunar will pick them up in a hire car and head out with them and Knicpaw to do a tour of the south shore. Unfortunately due to rain and high winds they have to cancel this plan and head to Harpa for safety. While the Uni tour is under way, I headed out on my final excursion to The Lava tunnel tour.
Once back in Reykjavik around lunch time, I meet up with Seamus, Dunar and Mike Eventide for a quick burger at Tommy's Hamborgarabúllan (great burgers). We then all head to Harpa for pre registration where we see Knicpaw and Titus hard at work as volunteers. We chat a bit and then I headed to the eve monument with Seamus and Leela. Leela has a list of 4 names she's been asked to find, it's not easy but Seamus does a great job and finds 3 of them (we think the 4th might not even be on the monument).
We get more pings on Slack to say that Edward Audeles and Laura Karpinski have arrived.
In the early evening we head to Hlollabatar in different groups to get food before the tweetfleet karaoke as It's likely to be a long night.
Laura, Edward, Raven and Seamus got there early and manage to save a table right in front of the stage (not sure that's a great idea but it's a seat). The Gaukurinn bar starts to fill up and Seamus does us proud by getting on stage to do the first song. More people get up to sing; some great, some not so great. Seamus ends up singing 4 songs over the course of the evening. Did anyone catch him on the live stream?
The bar was getting a bit loud for me so I wandered to Brughuis for a final beer before bed.

Mhzentul Lafarius arrives thursday morning and that's all of the eve-uni group for this year. We all head to Fanfest and the opening ceremony is great. CCP Fozzie gives us a shout out in his talk about his early time in Eve (he joined the Uni for a while in 2006). While others are watching EVEprov, I headed back to Tommy's Hamborgarabúllan for lunch and then back to Harpa.
A few of us go to the Empires of EVE presentation (and kickstart Empires of EVE II) when Andrew Groen announced it on stage. Then we chill out and chat with other nerds while waiting for the Keynote.
After the Keynote (have you heard about PI?) we headed out to the eve-uni meal that Dunar had arranged at the Rio bar near the harbour. We have a great turnout with Raven, Edward, Mzhentul, Laura, Seamus, Dunar, Mike, Leela, Titus and myself (there's a picture on the Eve uni twitter). The food was excellent and we have a drink and chat about eve and nothing in general. After the meal we split up with some heading off to Brughuis and the rest of us heading to the Micro bar (near the Plaza) hotel for a few beers to finish off the evening.

After a nice lie in on friday, I headed off to Harpa to meet up with the Uni crew for another day of fan festing. We headed to the Triglavian Domain talk to find out more about the new pve 'dungeons' as they mistakenly call them during the presentation (oops). Then we split up with and each head to different rooms for more presentations. I bumped into Titus and he mentioned that the stream was being shown in the Capsuleer chronicles exhibit (and games) room. After grabing a chicken wrap from the food stall inside Harpa I headed in there and watched the Ships & modules presentation from a much more comfortable inflatable couch. After that finished, myself and Dunar went to the 'Day in the Life of CCP Operations' where we learnt a bit about what the sytems and database administrators have to deal with keeping Eve running.
We then headed to the Building a Community presentation which turned out to be more how to run an eve meet than anything but was still very good. We followed this with the very enjoyable and amusing Scratch to Empire presentation run by the CEO of Scary Wormhole people.
Half of the Uni group were heading out on the pub crawl later in the evening so a few of us decided to go get some food and catch the last half of the CCP Games Games. Sadly, after another great soup at Svarta Kaffid, the CCP Games Games had finished by the time we got back to Harpa. I head off to the hotel to have a quick rest and Mike, Titus, Mzhentul and Dunar head off to get food. They decide to go to Grillmarket, which lets just say is expensive even for Iceland.
After a quick rest I head out to meet them at Grillmarket. I get mixed up and head to a restaurant called Grillhut. A quick ping on Slack and I'm headed back into Reykjavik centre but get lost again and wander round the same block a few times before spotting a tiny sign on a small alley saying Grillmarket. I head into the restaurant and grab a beer with Mike before we decide to head to another bar while Titus, Mhzentul and Dunar finish their meal. So off to micro bar we go again for more nice beer (they have 12+ micro brewery beers). Titus, Mhzentul and Dunar eventually join us and we have a few more beers before each heading back to our hotels.

Saturday starts with a hangover, which is always good. Breakfast, a few painkillers and a 10 minute walk to Harpa and it's time for more Fanfest. I camp out in the Capsuleers room as the couches are far more comfortable that the seats in the main hall. We watch the Live Concept Art, during which Titus runs off to the main hall to ask for more vertical supremacy ships (which gets a round of applause). Sadly the artist mostly ignores this and sketches what he wants. I guess my hangover wasn't completely sorted as I can't remember what I watched for the next couple of hours, it's possible I had a quick nap.
A few of us headed to the State of the API talk which was very good (I need to brush up on my programming skills) before we had a break for an hour while various round tables were running. We end up wandering around and chatting to various people before heading to the Sphere's of Influence talk by Jin'taan. It was a great presentation but he somehow managed to compress what he said would be 40 minutes worth into about 20 minutes, so the Q&A was longer than most.
After that we headed to the ESI talk about third party developers perspectives. This was a great talk and it seems that ESI will be much better than API and Crest. Will look forward to seeing what tools are released.
It's finally time for the Closing Ceremony and we manage to get most of the uni group together for this. Eve Uni gets a mention (blink and you'll miss it) in the closing ceremony video which I think has been screen grabbed and put on the facebook page.
Edward and I head off to get a burger at the Burgerjoint. Unfortunately, it seems like many other have had the same idea and the place is packed, so I suggested that we go to the other Bulan burger place. We head there and order a burger. Due to a mix-up (or inexperience staff) we're still waiting for the burgers 40 minutes later when Seamus and Laura join us for a drink. Edward kicks some arse and our burger arrive a bit cold but we're both very hungry by this point so they get demolished.
Once we're done it's time for the famous party on top of the world. Harpa is very busy and I'm sure there are more than a few nerds who have been drinking all day. We manage to snag a couple of couches and have more than a couple of beers. A few unistas brave the hall where the bands are playing (we can hear Permaband from where we're sitting). A few more beers, then some dancing to Basshunter (not by me) and the night is drawing to a close. Titus says his goodbyes as he's leaving early Sunday morning and myself, Edward and Raven head off to get a hotdog from the famous hotdog stand on our way back to our hotels. We end up bumping into many drunk nerds on the walk back and I think I got back to my hotel about 3am.

Sunday starts the same as Saturday, but worse. I think I made it down to breakfast but I'm not sure. Either way, we arrange to get lunch at Svarta Kaffid for those of us remaining. I meet up with Edward, Mzhentul, Dunar, Knicpaw, a friend of his and a random guy from Test we keep bumping into. The soup was great as always. Raven, Edward, Mzhentul and Laura say their goodbyes either in person or through Slack and head off to the airport. Still nursing a hangover, I head off to the Blue lagoon to soak for a couple of hours.
We arrange a final mini uni meal at Brughuis with Seamus, Dunar and Knicpaw. I manage a couple of beers before I have to leave. 4:30am pickup for the airport, never good.

Thanks to everyone who made it out to fanfest this year. It was great to catch up with those who were there last year and to meet those of you who made it out this year. You all made it a very memorable, awesome fanfest.

morphoze


A special thanks go out to Knicpaw and Titus for being fanfest volunteers, you guys did a great job.

Thanks to Fifthman for designing the social media stickers. I managed to give out over 100 of those and around the same number with the standard Uni logo. 50 ish of each will be with Laura at the eve uni london meetup.
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morphoze
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Posts: 38
Joined: 2016.12.12 16:54
Title: Sophomore
Location: Isle of Man

Re: Fanfest 2018 AAR

Post by morphoze »

Fanfest 2018 swag

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morphoze
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Posts: 38
Joined: 2016.12.12 16:54
Title: Sophomore
Location: Isle of Man

Re: Fanfest 2018 AAR

Post by morphoze »

Fanfest Eve Uni t-shirts

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