Fanfest 2014 - Meeting EVE Celebrities

People say that the real benefit to attending CCP's Fanfest isn't the presentations or the Party at the Top of the World, but the human connections we make.  As a lone wolf low sec carebear, I think I did rather well yesterday.

After a long hot shower to recover from the previous night's drinking, I went downstairs to catch a bite of breakfast.  Of course, the "A" list celebrities had started rolling in, led by Eve University's Director of Education, Neville Smit.  I left Neville in peace to eat his breakfast until his entourage arrived, at which time I wandered over an made my introductions.  After a long discussion, including about the industry changes, Neville went up to his room and I did some additional sightseeing.

I headed up the hill to the Hallgrímskirkja Church and, with no worship services in progress, headed inside.  The church is huge, and at least seems larger than the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia.

A view from the pews

I don't know about the actual square footage of the building, but the church tower is definitely taller than the Orthodox place of worship in the Balkans.  I paid the fee at the church store and took the occasion to get some photos.

A view of the HARPA from the church tower

After stopping by the store to stock up on water, I tried to head up to my room, but Kelduum Revaan had arrived and was sitting in the lobby.  For those who don't know, Kelduum was the second CEO of Eve University (which means my second CEO), a member of CSM 7, and currently works for Sony Online Entertainment.  Over the next couple of hours the group of us in the lobby had a pretty good discussion about gaming, not just EVE.  Currently he's working on the new game H1Z1, a zombie apocalypse first person shooter.  One amusing thing that occurred is that the H1Z1 Twitter account went live while we were talking.

After Neville woke up and finished reading the latest industry dev blogs, he came down and we eventually went to Nora for some initial drinking.  After a while, the celebrities started to pour in and sit at the table next to us for dinner and drinks.  Sindel Pellion, Bagehi, Diana Dial from EveTimeCode.com and CSM 9 candidate Steve Ronuken were among the luminaries I recognized.

After last night, I don't want to hear Sindel complain about her age.  Ever again.  The lady looks like she's 25.  That's not just my opinion, either.

Also, while we were in Nora, we heard the news that the airport workers strike was put off until after we all left Iceland.  Much rejoicing occurred (like we really needed an excuse).

At one point I was sitting between Neville and Erlendur (aka CCP Explorer).  Erlendur has lost a lot of weight over the past couple of years and really looks good.  I think I need to start doing more exercising than the walking I currently do when I get back home.  My schedule is no longer crazy so I don't have the excuse of lack of time anymore.

I did get into an interesting conversation with Bagehi and Neville about the Erotica 1 situation.  Of course, with 3 people, we had 3 opinions.  Neville took the more stern side stating that the EULA didn't matter and that Erotica 1 needed to go.  Bagehi took the approach that since Erotica 1 had petitioned his activities and CCP had tacitly approved them that a permanent ban was too harsh.  I, of course, took the position that banning Erotica 1 was not only justified, but followed the EULA.  I think we agreed that banning Erotica 1 was a good business decision and that CCP didn't handle the situation well.  I also think Bagehi was influenced by the culture of Pandemic Legion, which seeks to take advantage of every nuance in the rules.  The Erotica 1 situation showed that the line is pretty fuzzy and people need to take care not to cross that line.  I also think that CCP deliberately keeps the limits blurred to keep EVE's legion of station lawyers from getting completely out of hand.

After a couple of drinks at Nora's, we headed out to Nonni's for dinner.  That was my first time at Nonni's.  The sandwich was good, but I still prefer Hlölla Bátar.  From there, we headed for the hotel and The Danger Game.

Of course, none of the six of us now in the group had ever played the game before.  So we learned as we went.  We also started to develop rules to turn The Danger Game into The Drinking Game.  Yes, turning an anti-substance abuse game into a drinking game probably isn't in the spirit of the game, but by that time I don't think anyone was really ready for such a philosophical discussion.  Just a word of warning: the game is long.  We played until after midnight, but then the group broke up as many people had tours to go on today.  I think I came in last, though.  Oh well.

I should add that my tolerance for alcohol is returning.  I pretty much stopped drinking over the last few years as I've gotten older and the recovery from a hard night of drinking was taking too big of a toll.  But I've gone from 3 beers the first night to 6 beers last night.  I probably don't want to do more than that, though, so don't expect to see me on the pub crawl.  I do want to get home in one piece.