On friday Fanfest kicked off in earnest, Thursday being mainly round tables and not a lot else. Hit the jump for the lowdown…
The first item of the day was Dr Eyjo’s presentation comparing The economy of the Chinese server, Serenity (SE), with its larger and more estabished counterpart, Tranquility (TQ). He compared alot of statisics and showed us alot of graphs but the basice point of the excercise was to demonstrate that even though the two servers are completely independent of each other, the same patterns are emegring.
For instance, the busiest system in the game, Jita (pronounced Yeetah), developed naturally as a trade hub on TQ without any interference or engineering from CCP. It just happened. Jita is also the main trade hub on SE, though the reason behind that may be Chinese players reading he forums and playing on TQ and assuming that Jita was supposed to be the trade hub. Not realising that it didn’t have to be.
Interestingly, Pilots on SE are more combat focussed than those on TQ. This may be due to the younger demographic (25-30 as opposed to TQ’s 30-35) but is also indicative of the cultural differences between the two servers. Something I found interesting was that players on SE have set up a safe haven in 0.0 space where anyone can go and rat without fear of piracy. Its controlled and patrolled by players so that newer pilots can get a chance to experience 0.0 without fear of being ganked. A good idea and something which we players should look at for TQ if we want to encourage more players into 0.0.
I also went to both the Walking In Stations talks (I like how even the dev’s say it with a smirk or sneer as if they hate the name as much as I do. Its Ambulation for fuck’s sake) but I’ll be writing about that in a different post after I’ve had a shot of the demo.
Whisper trys to control two teams of CCP employees. I'm told its like trying to herd cats.
The last event of the day was the 2nd Annual Dev Quiz presented by Whisper and featuring teams from QA (Quality Assurance) and the GMs (Game Masters). It had a longer title than that but I’m damned if I can remember it all. It mentioned something about whimsy and elephants. Oh god, how I laughed. These CCP employees are all nuts I tell you. The final round was an Audiosurf contest on a track specially written for the competition by CCP’s own resident musician. The track will be available for download from the EVE website so you can compare your scores to those of the two teams, I’ll post a link when one becomes available.
In the evening my wife and I parted ways to go do our own things. I went looking for a decent pub with good music and found The Dubliner. A nice little Irish pub with friendly staff and a good atmosphere. The evening did not start well, with a shouty Irishman thrashing a guitar and yelling into a mic, I was just thinking that I would finish my drink and go on to somewhere else when he removed himself from the stage and another gentleman took his place.
Oh Yeah, The Girl Can Sing...
10 minutes into his set a girl wearing an EVE Fanfest pass strikes up a conversation with the singer and he hands her the mic. I’m thinking ‘oh dear, someone fancies themselves a bit’ when suddenly a wall of sound grabs me by the heart and lifts me to somewhere else. When she finished her set I went for a cigarette and bumped into her outside. She see’s that I too play EVE and we get chatting. As a result I spend the evening in the company of a few pilots from Romanian Renegades and No Joy. Thanks to you all for a great night out, especially the girl with the voice who’s name was Harry or possibly Harí (I apologise for the spelling but its an Icelandic name and that’s the closest approximation I could come up with.)
If your reading this Harí (sp?) drop me a line with your in-game name as I’ve forgotten it (lost in a beery fog I’m afraid). If all else fails I can probably find you through the No Joy lads who I’ll be joining in Syndicate at some point in the future.
