Hello again, EQ2 Players! Amnerys here. Fan Faire 2008 is quickly approaching. Are you planning to attend? I certainly am! I mentioned in my community intros that I've been to two Fan Faires so far, in 2006 and in 2007, and since we're gearing up for 2008, I thought I'd share a little about my past experiences.
In 2006, Fan Faire was held in Atlanta, and my husband and I lived close enough to drive. We convinced another couple from our guild to join us, and it was the first time we'd met anyone from our guild of a year and a half, so it was really great to finally meet them. We all arrived on Thursday evening, and we really just hung out in one of the lobby areas that night, with a random smattering of players from EQ and EQ2. What a blast! I'll never forget ol' Kegger, hehe.
Friday morning the real activities got started and my husband decided to add on the Developer Brunch to his registration, so he had the chance to sit and talk with EQ2 developers, Josh "Autenil" Kriegshauser and Eric Swanson. After brunch we met up with our guildies and sat in on the EQ2 panels. Very interesting and informative!
Later that evening we hung out in the Gamer's Lounge for a while, watched the tournaments, and bought a couple of Larry Elmore's prints from the vendor area. (He's a super nice guy!) We also met Brasse for the first time and found out that we were server-mates! How cool is that? Then the fun came.
We drove over to this little hole-in-the-wall nightclub, or so we thought, which ended up being a three-story club, with different entertainment on each floor. We wandered around for a bit, said hello again to Eric from the EQ2 team, and then headed downstairs to the "karaoke" floor. Wow. If you've never seen karaoke with a live band, you're missing out. Pretty awesome. I really wanted to sing, but unfortunately the tip we gave for my song of choice was trumped by SOE Sound Designer Cat Neri's tip, haha! So no singing for me that year. (Boo hoo!)
Saturday we did the next round of EQ2 panels, and then decided to take our own little detour. For years I'd heard about this cool Atlanta Underground mall thing, so I wanted to check it out. (Insert "bad idea" here.) We hiked the few blocks from the hotel to the Underground, only to find out that it was nothing like we'd expected. Not a bad place, just not what we thought it was. Add on the fact that I was trying to be cutesy and wore heels...and yeah, bad idea. At least we can say we saw it, huh? We still had a great time and laughed at our mishap of an adventure.
Saturday night was the banquet, and we made our way down to the grand ballroom just before it started. We found out that a couple of the EQ2 devs had characters on our server, so we ended up sitting together with them and Brasse at our server table. I don't recall much about the food, but I remember vividly the vision of grown men trying to squeeze into tiny pink tee-shirts in order to win prizes. Oh, what we gamers will do for cool keyboards and headphones! I also remember the costume contest, the emote contest, and seeing a preview of Open Season on the big screens. All in all it was a great night and a great close to the weekend!
However, the most impactful thing we took from our weekend there was my husband's connection with the developers, which ended up turning into a job offer about 3 months later. Some of you may know him as Greg "Rothgar" Spence on the forums. By the end of September we relocated to San Diego, and I landed a job in the Marketing Dept. at SOE two months after.
Disclaimer: No, I'm not saying that everyone can come to Fan Faire and get job offers, hehe. It just turned out that way in our case. Greg was already a high-level programmer and I had marketing experience, and we happened to find open positions. Talk about luck!
So Fan Faire 2007 rolled around and this time we both attended as employees. Rothgar got to go to Vegas earlier than I did, so he enjoyed the Thursday evening party atop the Rio without me. (Boo hoo!) I arrived on Friday and helped with registration, then got ready for the Friday night pool party. I was so excited because we flew the karaoke band in from Atlanta, and this time I made sure I was on the list! I got my chance to sing pretty early in the evening, and then started making the social rounds.
I met some of the influencers, some of our press, and all kinds of players, and had so much fun! A few other people from Marketing, including my former boss, got up and did karaoke, as well as some of my new team. (Yay Brenlo and Ashlanne!) I even witnessed Grimwell being thrown into the pool! Rothgar and I met up with a guild mate of ours who came over from England for Fan Faire, and we did a little post-party lounging with him and a few other friends, including Brasse, at one of the hotel bars.
This time around I spent my Saturday helping out with registration and setting up for the banquet, but every time I walked past the rooms where panels were going on and saw our players doing live quests, I'll admit I was a little jealous I was missing out. But I'm sure everyone who enjoyed those events appreciated my hard work. *wink*
Once again when the banquet got started, Rothgar and I sat with our fellow Crushbonians, met some late-arrival guild mates, and we even enjoyed a little friendly banter with a "rival" guild at the table next to us. It was great fun! Not to mention the wedding!! How many times in your life do you witness Darth Vader and stormtroopers preceding the bridesmaids, who happen to be Antonia Bayle and Firiona Vie? Yeah, not a lot. And apparently we still had some of those tiny pink tees around, because after the wedding Brenlo held the same contest from the prior year, and the costume contest was even grander than before. (You guys and gals are so creative!)
I'm really looking forward to Fan Faire 2008, since I'm now a part of the Community Relations team and I'll have even more opportunity to hang out with our awesome players! (Ok, I'm just a little biased.) I'm hoping to meet a lot of you there, so be sure to come say hello to me if you see me. The trick is in spotting me in a crowd, since I'm only 5'0" tall, lol! We just had a department size-off, and I'm officially the shortest person in Community Relations.
If you've attended Fan Faires past and want to share your stories, hop on over to my forum post and reply there. I'd love to hear about your awesome Fan Faire memories! Your story might even be featured as a weekly Player Fan Faire Memory right here on EQ2Players.