Well, day two was survived by all, more or less. 🙂

First off, the bits that I was able to attend. First off in the morning was a brief introduction to the Council of Stellar Management. This is the player council thing talked a while back. The introduction didn’t have too much concrete information other than indicating a full white paper will be given out on the forums at some point in the near future for review by the players. So far it looks like they’re going for a democratic system of not only representative election, but also for what issues should be brought to the attention of the council. One vote per account, so even if you have 30 characters on 10 accounts, you’ll only get 10 votes. I didn’t get a chance to check out the following panel though, which probably went into more detail.

The EVE Artwork Demo by Borkur (probably butchering his name but..) was amazing. He’s the guy who does the artwork for the chronicles and EON stories. Just like last year, the guy doing the demo went through the process of creating a fantastic bit of EVE artwork. It was incredible to watch the talent in action. Wish the print was available like it was last year, but you can’t have everything.

Ambulation. Holy crap. Things have come a long way, and there’s a ton of information, but to cover it briefly, CCP’s hired architects to do fancy drafts of interior spaces, translating the fancy concept art into livable spaces. Costume designer’s been hired to make decent clothes for everyone. I’m not kidding, they’re really getting into the details on this one, making it more and more into a living, breathing experience. Still won’t totally affect primary gameplay of course, but it’s astonishing we’ll be getting it for free.

Socialized a TON, meeting all sorts of interesting folks from different alliances. Hung out with the EON guys who have a nice little area all to themselves near Jita 2. Jita 1 got too busy, so they sharded it. (rofl)

MC went to Red Chilis for dinner again, the 200g cheeseburgers there are simply awesome. A few MCers like Dinger got the ribs, which is a plate of ribs the length of your forearm. Decently priced too, I just pity the kitchen staff there when we roll in with 30+ with miscellaneous allies. 🙂 As we were about to leave this small group of three utterly gorgeous Icelandic women came to the restaurant. I wasn’t lucky enough to snag a picture, but Lowa did so I’ll have to wrangle that from him.

At 9PM we all headed back to the Venue to attend this crazy silly Developer Show. I’m totally abbreviating the title here, they came up with some insanely long and crazy title for it. Essentially a game show, two groups of three devs competed in trivia questions, a variation on rock paper scissors called Cow Lake Bomb, some “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?” improv stuff, and general silliness. Hopefully a video of it comes soon, it’s *hilarious*.

Afterwards the MC group and friends went back to Nordica to blob their lobby like last year. Lots of alcohol was consumed, various EVE people came and went including a hilarious batch of Goons. Hilarity ensued, including but not limited to the combined flag flying of MC and Goons banners, and Suas serenading Seleene to the tune of “I’m A Loser” with the Goon guitar.

Great stuff, was a late night for me getting all the photos online but they’re there. Sorry the descriptions weren’t all complete and stuff, but it was 3 in the morning. I’ll get to it when I get the chance.

Day three awaits. 🙂

It’s early morning and I haven’t gone for breakfast, but CrazyKinux asked for some more info on the EVE novel. 🙂

There wasn’t a lot of information on it given for obvious reasons, but here’s what I can remember.

• Final submitted manuscript was over 500 pages long
• There are 74 chapters (!!)
• Conflict between the factions, especially Minmatar vs Amarr, is pivotal
• Jove apparently play a small role, but no information could be given as to what that is
• Meant to coincide with game enhancements, though no definite answers given as to which enhancements those are (for obvious reasons)
• CCP apparently has laid the legal groundwork just in case the book is optioned for a movie, so hooray for thinking ahead and lets be hopeful
• Some kind of teaser copy will be available at Fanfest for day 2 (gotta get my hands on one of these
• Open-ended, leaving room for potential sequels though none are being planned at this time

That’s about all I can think of. Rest assured I’ll be picking up a copy or three. Tony’s reading was, as I stated in my last entry, gripping. The man’s amazing, and even the preview reading of one chapter shows that the quality of the writing is going to be top notch.

Going to run and get cleaned up now, get something to eat, then get ready to head out. More later as I can get it to you. 🙂

Got to Iceland in the early hours of the morning to a hotel room that wasn’t ready, so I sat around in the restaurant at the Grand writing the next installments of Nature Vraie. Once that was all set (upgraded room too, wheee), I crashed for a couple of hours and set my Nintendo DS’s alarm to wake me up at 1330h so I could sneak in some lunch before going to the FF Venue.

Finally made my way to the Venue (can never get the name right so I’m not even going to try) after a quick bite to eat, got myself signed in and met up with my fellow MC pilots after running into a few CCP folks. The new venue’s a bit more spaced out, with areas on different floors. It’s a bit tougher than last year to “take it all in” at once, but the organization makes a lot of sense given the increase in people.

Lots of socializing ensued, but I managed to get in on Valerie Massey’s Creating a Fansite lecture, and Tony Gonzales’ lecture about the upcoming EVE novel. The Fansite lecture was pretty basic, but covered some initial points that are pretty important for folks who might be considering starting a fansite and getting that fansite integrated into EVE Online’s official list. It was a bit quick, but then the audience for it would be limited of course.

Tony Gonzales has been involved in the EVE prime fiction since forever, and is responsible for so much backstory it’s not even funny. The man is, in a word, awesome. I met him last year and was totally take aback by his candor and intelligence, and his approach to his work. He’s someone that I try to aspire to be as I write Nature Vraie. To see him read a chapter from the upcoming novel (due to be released June 19th, if I remember what he said correctly) was chilling and amazing. This is going to be a must buy for anyone interested in EVE’s fiction, whether they play the game or not.

The weather’s been interesting. It started out cool but relatively calm, then later ended up bleak and windy as hell, including some freezing rain. Pretty Canada-like all around, except for the insane wind. The five minute walk between the hotels and the Venue feels a lot longer because of that. Good thing I brought lots of layers.

Day 1’s usually the meet and greet day, and it served its purpose wonderfully. The main meat of things comes in the next couple of days, since some people were still flying in late in the day. Stay tuned for more information, and as always check my Flickr site for my ongoing pictures from the event.

Side note: I’ve also opened up the comments somewhat on this site, you don’t have to register fully in order to post just provide a name and valid email along with a comment.