mean that in a good way (Brasse drank most of the alcohol there)! Now normally I have to say, I would not be writing about a vacation because there's usually not much to be said that anyone really cares about. This is not one of those cases. I had an absolutely fantastic time and I want to share my story with you.Firstly, I need to note right off the bat that I did not start my hard-core gaming career as many people did, with EverQuest. While I had always wanted to play it, at the time I did not even have a computer. By the time I got a computer, I did try out EverQuest II when it had just been released, but my computer just couldn't handle it. I was also a novice at the time in terms of trying to figure out what to do. I was not used to a game of such high complexity compared to say, Super Mario World or even The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (yes, up until that point I only had a Super Nintendo). I was used to playing table top role-playing games however, such as Dungeons & Dragons. The immersive storylines in my D&D campaigns were really fun to me. Even so, I could not get the hang of EverQuest II because I just couldn't figure out where to go, what to do, or even how to interact.
Throughout the years, I tried a few more of SOE's games such as Star Wars Galaxies, FreeRealms, EverQuest (yes, I picked it up after all those years, but then I couldn't really get into it at that point again), and Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures. These had all been kind of casually played by me at various times in my gaming career, so I reacted differently than I likely would have now. I did really like FreeRealms and Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures when I played them, however. On a side note, I also want to get DC Universe Online because it looks totally amazing!
Anyways, when my boyfriend and I met at a LARP almost two years ago now, he convinced me to start playing EverQuest II again. Since he played and I would have finally known someone who played consistently, I was happy to give it another go. It's certainly a game that I've always felt that I ought to like. The learning curve was just a big hurdle for me. He showed me around, power-leveled me a bit, and gave me a long history lesson of the in-game mythology stories and I was floored. I could not have even begun to imagine a whole universe inside a tiny little (little being completely subjective, of course) game.
Granted, I haven't gotten to play EverQuest II nearly as much as I would like - I work more than full time between various jobs, freelance gigs, college, and family. That unfortunately, leaves little room for gaming most of the time. When I do played though, I have a lot of fun and I love the variety of things to do. One of my favorite things to do for instance, is decorate my lovely home in New Halas.
My boyfriend has been a long-running EverQuest fan ever since he started playing when he was a teenager and eventually, became a Guide. He had gotten some money together to go to Fan Faire 2011 because he had been wanting to go for many years and was not able to. He suggested that I should go too and get to meet the community in person as well as the developers. He also said there was an open bar.. and it was in Vegas. I pretty much couldn't say no.
It was the best decision I've ever made...aside from deciding to date him, of course. I had an absolute blast there! And this, mind you, is coming from someone who is still somewhat new to the games that SOE produce. I say that because I met tons of people there who could recite actual quest text from at least 50 NPC's and the entire plot of everything from the original EverQuest up through the most recent expansion of EverQuest II, Destiny of Velious.
Now you might be asking what specifically made me think that. It was in a word...everything.
- The people were incredibly friendly - like friends I'd never met, yet somehow already knew.
- The vendors had lots of cool, phat loots (plus the free goody bag which had lots of fun stuff in it).
- There was a Hummer with Alienware equipment on it and in it (and I got a free bag from them, too!).
- There was a whole gaming station set up to play any of the games and surf the Internet on amazing machines that put my pittly little laptop to shame.
- The costumes were absolutely AMAZING!!! I'm talking top-notch! Actually, I was so impressed that next year, I feel completely compelled to dress up, too!
- The panels were awesome and the thing that I think kept me the most entertained. They were informative, I learned a LOT during them, I was able to interact with and ask questions of real-life developers, and from those panels I felt a new sense of inspiration dawn inside me. That feeling of "I know what I want to be doing with my life and these people have renewed my hope that it can be done - they live it themselves every day." You know what it was - their passion and enthusiasm for everything that they do. It was the fact that they took the time to answer not just one question, but several questions from even the lowliest, and nerdiest of the people that were there. They made everyone feel welcome and that their games are really a community effort. I can honestly say that I've never felt that way for another community before. They actually listen and they love talking to players. More than that, they want to give us knowledge, too.
- Larry freakin' Elmore was there. I don't need to say much more than that. Meeting him was a dream come true. He is one of the artists that most inspired me growing up (my high school friends all remember a particular poster I got out of a Dragon magazine from back in the day of Raistlin & Crysania from the Dragonlance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. It scared the hell out of them, but it was my favorite picture in the whole world. The way that it felt so real, making a fantasy world closer to being able to believe in. It was truly an honor meeting this master of the arts. He was also hands down, one of the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.
- The Live Quests, which gave players of a variety of their games the chance to interact with each other IRL and win amazing prizes. There were live tournaments, too!
- The trailers showcasing their new game, PlanetSide II in addition to new expansions for their games - all from listening to what players wanted was pretty awesome. Also, looking at their new proprietary game engine, ForgeLight - talk about drool-worthy! I absolutely cannot wait to play PlanetSide 2 and get a closer look at EQ: Next!
- Pool party at Vegas with free bar. Did I mention the FREE part of that?!
- A drunken female dwarf who was part Fae (shh, don't tell her, she'd kill me!) who was an amazing speaker and sang "We Will Raid You" in front a live audience (us). It doesn't get much geekier...or awesome, than that.
On the way back home, I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and have that experience forever. I was so aglow and abuzz with inspiration and fervor to keep pressing on in my own personal quest to get into the games industry. Plus, I'm even more excited to play their games and looking forward to the new content coming out this fall.
It was very much worth going to for new and old players alike. They had tons of different panels - everything from stuff about their individual games to learning more about animation, writing, breaking into the games industry, and more. There is definitely something for all types of geeks there. Also, this may seem like a bit of a surprise to some of you - but there were a lot of female gamers there, too. I highly recommend going and expect to see all of you there next year, at Sony Online Entertainment Fan Faire 2012!]]>
My very first portfolio site was created way back in 2003 while I was in high school. I used a free website host called Netfirms. It was awful, really. I remember that Flash was really big at the time so I had a lot of that in there - almost everything was animated and it was really, really flashy.
