What DIDN’T Get Asked at Fan Faire?

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire)

It has to be frustrating at home to read “We’ll look into it” or “We’ll talk about it”. Realize that my writeups of each panel are on-the-fly and I simplify and summarize questions and answers as best I can. So any answer from the devs like “That is something we can look at” or “This is something we weren’t aware of” or “We need to talk to the team about this” or “We’ll put it on our list” sometimes got distilled into the ubiquitous “We’ll look into it”.

So what questions didn’t you see get asked at Fan Faire? I sense a lot of exasperation at the questions that do get asked that we’ve heard before (Q: When can we get armor dyes? A: If you want this, EQ2 will have to add flat-shaded armor that doesn’t use any Shaders 1.0 or 3.0) instead of the hard-hitting questions. Even I was surprised at how few raid content questions were asked compared to housing, grouping, itemization, PvP, and class balance questions.

Thanks for a Great Weekend!

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire)

This is EQ2Wire’s second anniversary and third year covering Fan Faire. We are proud to have documented this event and provided up-to-the-minute information for thousands of players who couldn’t make it. I say thousands because our previous record — the expansion launch on February 16th generated 6,300 unique visits. Yesterday, we nearly broke 10,000 unique visits.

It was a pleasure to meet so many people in the EQ2 community at Fan Faire this year. We spent more time with devs and with players to get more on-the-ground information and reactions. I heard from so many that suggested to their guildies at home follow the live blogs here at EQ2Wire. Thanks! Even some folks in the panels were reading EQ2Wire because the speakers were so quiet.

I just wanted to give a huge shout out to Dethdlr who kept an eye on the steady stream of Comments, and also posted his reactions as the events transpired. Also, Calthine and Cyliena of EQ2 ZAM, Niami from EQ2Traders, Jaye and Ferrel of A View From the Top who invited me to join their guilds at a fantastic dinner. We spent a bunch of time with their guildies and they are just great folks.

To the EQ2 devs, I give you guys a hard time but we play this game because of its depth and quality, and we appreciate the long hours you put into making a game that works for so many different types of players. Also a shout out to Aurelis from the EQ2 ZAM chat channel who I finally got to meet. If you have a question about books in EQ2, contact the EQ2 librarian. 😉

I know I am forgetting some folks and will hear from them shortly… Sorry!!!

Thanks again all, and stay tuned in the coming days as we continue to provide the EQ2 coverage our readers look to first.

Sleep beckons…

Costume Contest, Proposal, and Wrap

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire)

If you have followed past Fan Faires particularly the costume contests, the big news tonight was Snickers, the froglok paladin, proposing to his long time on-again off-again girlfriend first outside EQ and then, by chance, meeting again in-game.

She said yes. 🙂

I took over 500 photos of the costume contest. The clear winner was someone dressed up as Billy!! Did I mention I am really loving my new Canon 550D / T2i? I am getting better pictures without a flash than I used to WITH a flash. I hate how flash photos look (without a large diffuser), so I made a good choice here. 😉

There is lots still to post. More photos, those videos, and commentary in the aftermath of Fan Faire 2010. I talked to more devs, and more players to try to have a perspective on the whole game, not just parts of the game.

Banquet is 1 hour away

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire)

Sorry to say the panels and live blogging are done for a bit. Although my hands are long past protesting the typing. 🙂

I filmed 5 of the panels and my computer is crunching them now to a usable state. A lot of folks had video cameras so hopefully I get to see panels I missed.

Thanks for reading and there might be another brief update later tonight.

Morgan

Live: EQ2 Mechanics and Class Balance Panel

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), DGC Wants Feedback, Expansion News, Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Raiding

EQ2 Mechanics and Class Balance panel.

Rich Waters, Greg “Rothgar” Spence, Paul “Frizznik” Carrico, Mike “Xelgad” Ganz.

Update: As of 2:00AM CDT I have made some cleanup and additional information added to these notes based on memory. There are 3-4 missing questions which will get filled in after the video is reviewed.

Pool Party, Dave Georgeson, and a few Silly Pictures

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

Friday night was the big Pool Party. We took up the entire Bally’s outdoor swimming pool area. There was live music, bars dispensing refreshing beverages at every corner, water misters, and crystal blue swimming pools.

Dave Georgeson was making the rounds all night talking to anyone and everyone who wanted to give him the business about the EQ2 Extended service, and the long-term effects on the EQ2 servers. Say what you will, but he puts himself out there and communicates with the players. He is self-assured that this will work, and quotes his 20 year history of successful games.

Calthine of EQ2 ZAM and I questioned him mercilessly for about 30 minutes and I have to say he is very charismatic and understands the concerns. He wanted to reiterate that this is an experiment, that it’s not even beta yet, that many things can change, and that if they start to see a huge shift from EQ2 to EQ2X, they will add more incentives to the EQ2 subscription side. They want to use EQ2X to attract new players who aren’t currently staying in EQ2 after their 14-day trials end, not to siphon players off the live servers.

   

EQ2 Art & Animation Panel Notes

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Art, Appearance, Housing, Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), Expansion News

More of a quick summary of this panel…

Lots of clips of Othmir. Videos of enemies and friendlies.

Showed bump maps and texture maps of Othmir.

With the rewrite of mounts, they no longer have to make 42 animations of each mount. Now a mount can be done in 3-5 weeks. First saw this on the prowler. Part of this was to prevent tails going through mounts and fix problems with capes.

For example when Tom added Othmir on a t-Rex as a demo he didn’t have to make animation of how the othmir moves on the mount. It just worked.

Hats automatically equals bald. Can’t really fix it at this point because it would add a shader.

Still taking feedback on spell animations on Test. It’s not just “here it is”. He has been making a lot of changes from player feedback.

F2P Panel Impressions

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

The #1 reaction SOE has been receiving from players re: station cash, rmt, and free to play has been a resounding Not in My Back Yard. We commented about this on Wednesday.

And this may need to change if we want to have eq2x to eq2 transfers. If there is one thing I know about EQ2. If enough players ask for it, and it will make SOE money, they will add it. So who knows they might put Beastlord class on stationcash. 🙂

Talking Shop with EQ2 Devs

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Commentary, Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), Expansion News, Free-to-Play (EQ2X), Grouping, Itemization

No doubt the best part of Fan Faire is talking to the developers. So far I’ve gotten to ask Rothgar both serious and geeky questions about the new UI, server upgrades, guild halls, and of course free-to-play.

I’ve made no secret of my concerns about the logistics of free to play seemingly cutting off the flow of new players to the live subscription side of EQ2.

SOE Community Address Rollup

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Daybreak Live (SOE Live/Fan Faire), Expansion News, Free-to-Play (EQ2X)

Here’s a canonical summary of the SOE Community Address.

At under 50 minutes, this has to have been the shortest Community Address in the history of SOE Fan Faire events. We were advised to expect a ‘light’ event, but nothing could prepare us for nearly 20 minutes of banal, juvenile humor and heavy promotion for all things Jace Hall Productions. If you saw EverCracked, you get the idea.


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