Fanfest 2014 - The Day Before

Yesterday was my fourth day in Reykjavik, so while a lot of people were getting acclimatized to Iceland or excited at the newness, I pretty much relaxed all day.  I had breakfast, wrote for a bit and then went downstairs to join with what is turning into the daily morning EVE chat.  While we were gathered, the final industry dev blog came out.  That resulted in a dramatic reading from Neville Smit, with people interrupting with their opinions.  After reading or listening to all six of the dev blogs I'm not sure that low sec doesn't come out taking the heaviest nerfs, but we still have the Fanfest presentations to attend for additional information.

Afterwards I met Diana Dial of EveTimeCode.com for a bit of lunch.  I grabbed the peanut chicken soup instead of tomato soup because I figured why not try something new.  Let's just say that I liked the conversation a lot more than the soup.  But if I don't try something, how can I say I won't really like it?  Unless it has coconuts in it.  I hate coconuts.

I learned a couple of things talking to Diana.  The recent negative news hasn't hurt her business because of the bitcoin broker she deals with.  "Bitcoin?" I hear you ask.  That's right, going to her site means you can actually pay for your game time using bitcoin.  I think Eve Time Code is the only site offering to take a crypto-currency in exchange for game time codes.  Also, she told me that her business is better when PLEX goes for around 400-500 million ISK.  That's counterintuitive, as I would think that people would more likely purchase when the price of PLEX is at 700 million ISK because players would get more ISK for the real life buck.

Afterwards, I returned to my room and actually went through the schedule to figure out what I want to see.  The schedule doesn't have very many holes in it for me.  I do see that the schedule was rearranged so that the CSM panel is no longer opposite the Industry panel, but I still have no plans to attend the CSM panel.  CCP Dolan so pissed me off at last year's panel that I'll just skip the probable aggravation he'll conjure up.  I have a new rule.  If CCP Dolan is involved, I'm not going.  I'm trying to avoid disrupting the good feeling I've enjoyed since landing in Iceland on Sunday.

I got down to the lobby around 4pm and met up with the group going to the unveiling of the monument.  Among those in the group was Les Johnson.  Les gave a talk at EVE Vegas and so impressed CCP that they invited him to reprise his talk on Saturday.  Les is a science and science-fiction writer who works for NASA.  I talked with Les while we walked to the monument site and learned a few things about technology and what is possible.  While we were walking his wife was trying to track down the location of a one-man show, "How to Become Icelandic in 60 Minutes."  I hope she found it because I hear the show's pretty good.

Hilmar listening to artist Sigurður Guðmundsson

I'd never attended the unveiling of a statue before.  Not really impressive.  A speech by Hilmar, another by the artist, and a third by the mayor of Reykjavik.  For those not familiar with the history of CCP, Jon Gnarr is a comedian who played the granny in The Danger Game, the game that helped kick off the funding for EVE Online.  Something tells me that what I witnessed is not a typical statue unveiling.  But then again, do Icelanders do anything like the rest of the world?  I think they'd change their ways if they ever discovered they did.

Is giving the mayor a knife really wise?

I definitely didn't dress warm enough for the ceremony.  I had another layer in my room, but the temperature dropped so fast I got fooled.  I think that contributed to a rundown feeling when I got back to the hotel.  Either that or staying up late blogging the night before.  Either way, I thought I'd take a quick nap before going to the Celtic Cross for the Tweetfleet meetup.  Quick nap?  Right.  I woke up at 10pm.  By the time I was up and about, I found a line to get into the bar.  Even with a warmer jacket, I didn't feel like standing in the cold.  I wandered around for a bit and decided to just grab a sub from Hlölla Bátar and go back to the hotel.

Taking a nap wasn't the best thing for trying to sleep at a normal time, so I wound up back down in the lobby talking with Kelduum, Bairfhionn, and Gaylen.  Gaylen and I finally went to our rooms around 1am.  Needless to say, I still wasn't ready for sleep, which resulted in my finishing this blog post before breakfast.

This is probably the last day I publish two blog posts.  The schedule is pretty full and I don't plan on having enough time to write as much as I have in the first part of the week.  I might publish on the weekend since Fanfest is a special occasion, otherwise I'll finish up the Fanfest posts next week.  Of course, the news coming out of Fanfest will provide fodder for posts for weeks to come.

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.

Fanfest 2014 - Signs

Just because I'm not going on an organized tour this year doesn't mean I'm sitting in my hotel blogging all day.  I'm also not drinking all night either.  Okay, maybe I'm doing that.  DNSBlack is a very interesting fellow, especially for a Russian.  I also got to meet mynnna last night before he and Ali left to conduct some sort of nefarious CSM spaceship politician business.  I also heard that the CSM is staying at my hotel this year.  If true, this is the second time in three years.  I wonder if the Thingholt is the official CCP hotel for this year's Fanfest, or if all the journalists will wind up at the Plaza.  If the journos are staying at the Plaza, I'm glad I'm a blogger and not a journalist.

While walking around, I discovered a few things.  First, remember that dev blog on reprocessing?  The one with the graphic that read, "Keep calm and carry on"?  Well, that sentiment is not just for internet spaceships in Reykjavik.

Icelandic cuisine known for having some unusual offerings and you can find lots of restaurants catering to other country's dishes.  But I never expected to see a restaurant paying homage to the legend himself.

Reykjavik is dominated by the Hallgrímskirkja Church, which sits at the top of the big hill.  Those who are tired of behaving (like the entire population of Jita) can stop in at this bar located down the street (and down the hill).

Finally, I spotted a little café a few yards away from the church grounds.  I'm not really sure if this is a message about the old Norse gods, or if the place is owned by a Matari family with a fondness for wormhole goods.

I should add that for those who don't want to work out at the gym, just walking up to see the Hallgrímskirkja Church is a nice climb.

I hopefully will run around for a couple more days before I'm stuck inside conducting serious internet spaceship business.  But not taking advantage of walking around Iceland's capital is a crime I don't want to commit.

Fanfest 2014 - Arrival Day

Yesterday I arrived in Iceland to attend my third CCP Fanfest.  I'll admit I'm coming into this Fanfest with a whole different mindset than with previous years.  Let's just say I don't like sore winners and leave it at that.  My attitude was so bad that by Saturday morning I didn't want to talk to anyone from null sec, and I really didn't want to talk to any member of the CSM.  Sorry Ali.  But better a no-show than saying things I couldn't take back.

But I didn't stay in a bad mood.  Something about Iceland does that for me.  I think that's because Iceland doesn't take itself too seriously.  I was reminded of that once I boarded the flight from Boston to Keflavik International.  From the humorous examples of what makes Iceland unique¹ to the reminder on the menu that while long bread is more fun, don't poke your neighbor with it if you don't know him, the flight helped put me in a better frame of mind.

As a bonus, I didn't get lost trying to find the luggage pickup point this time.  I was able to pick up my luggage fairly quickly, breeze through customs, and get my ticket for the Flybus.  The trip didn't feel like 50 minutes.  Perhaps I was distracted playing (unsuccessfully) with the Wi-fi, or maybe I nodded off for a few minutes.  But the whole transport to the hotel was pretty smooth, which is the reason I keep using the service.

The hotel I'm staying at this year, The Center Hotel Thingholt, is nice.  I partook of the quaint Icelandic custom of paying for early check-in, which included a buffet breakfast, which I quickly indulged in while waiting for my room to become available.  That meant that in addition to getting breakfast, instead of waiting until 2pm to climb into bed, I slept in a bed until 2.

As for the room, I love it.  Perhaps a small thing, but the fact I don't have to leave a card in a slot in order to use an outlet or turn on lights is huge compared to the hotels I've stayed in over the past few years.  That meant I could charge up all my devices while I was running around town.  Also, I was afraid that the hotel, like my room in the Central Plaza two years ago, would have water that smelled like sulfur.  A groundless fear, as the shower went one better over my accommodations at the Nordica last year and provided a way to save the temperature setting of my shower.

So far, no problems with the hotel Internet (which is included with the price of the room) except for the inability to get Eve Radio and I'm looking forward to using the iron and ironing board (yes!).  The mini-bar doesn't compare with the ones I enjoyed in the hotels in Bulgaria, but that's okay because the people in Iceland not only speak English, but have 24/7 stores.  The bed is comfortable and only seems short because of all the pillows provided.  Too many pillows is definitely a first-world problem not worth complaining about.

After getting up from my nap, I did a little exploring.  The hotel is conveniently located close to everything.  From my central location I saw a patch of water away from the harbor and decided to investigate.

 

What I found was a pond that attracted all sorts of water-fowl.  People would stroll around and some would throw bread into the water, which led to a feeding frenzy and birds descended to grab something to eat.  Walking around the pond I was able to get a few shots of a scene I hadn't captured before.  Sometimes not getting into a rut pays off.

I did wind up going out and getting a couple of beers.  First, I went to The Celtic Cross and watched a Chelsea/Liverpool game during happy hour.  Afterwards I got back to the hotel, but not for long as Ali Aras was looking for internet spaceship pilots at Nora Magasin.  I headed over and met up with her, a logistics (jump freighter) pilot/industrialist from Of Sound Minds, and a pilot from Germany.  We talked for a long while and I learned a few more things about PvP and null sec.  During this time DNSBlack, his son and another pilot came in.  Contrary to his reputation, Brad just sat down at the bar (which was next to our table) and let us pontificate on all things EVE.

We left the DNS crew at Nora and went off in search of food.  After finding our first two choices closed, we wound up at Hlölla Bátar, eating subs and talking spaceships.  Finally, the time grew late and we all headed to our temporary homes.

Taking a nap kind of threw my internal clock off, so I'm probably going to feel tired today.  But on the bright side, I did manage to write a post.  I'll try to keep writing like normal, although if the airport workers go on strike, all bets are off.


NOTES:

1.  Did you know that while 30% of Icelanders graduate from college, over 50% believe in elves?

The Cod Wars and Eve Online

History has a tremendous influence on how people look upon the world.  Indeed, that same experience influences our art, our literature and dare I say it, our video games.  I think that is one of the factors that makes Eve Online so fascinating.  How does a country like Iceland produce game designers who can produce a game with so much conflict, both military and diplomatic?  After all, Iceland is located in the middle of the North Atlantic and never comes into conflict with anyone, right?

Wrong.  In the mid-20th century the Icelandic government expanded its control of the waters around the island nation in a collection of 3 conflicts with the United Kingdom known as "The Cod Wars".  In 1958 Iceland established control of its waters from 4 miles from shore to 12.  In 1972 Iceland successfully expanded that control out to 50 miles from shore and in 1975-1976 finally established control out to 200 miles in the face of opposition from the Royal Navy, the only fleet capable of contesting the matter with the Icelandic Coast Guard. (1)

Over the weekend I found a BBC documentary, History of the Cod Wars, on YouTube and watched it when I wasn't watching Alliance Tournament X.  After watching the documentary and doing some additional research, I think I've found some aspects of the conflicts that fit nicely into the game design of Eve Online.

1.  Resources drive conflict.  For those of us who live in the United States, popular perception is that war and international conflict over the last 70 years was driven for the most part by ideology.  Whether the U.S. was fighting fascism in World War II, communism after that during the Cold War or radical Islam starting in the mid-1990s (some would claim that started in the early 1980s) the main driver of conflict was ideals, not wealth.

Not so for Iceland.  The island nation's international conflicts centered on natural resources, specifically cod.  In the 1970s, the fishing industry made up 15-20% of Iceland's GNP.  With such a dependence on fishing and fears that Icelandic cod would face the same fate as Icelandic herring, fishing for which utterly collapsed in 1969 due to over-fishing mainly by the Norwegians and Russians (2), the Icelandic government moved to protect a resource they considered a vital national interest.  British leaders, looking to protect their northern deep sea fishing fleet, responded with the Royal Navy.

When talking about Eve Online, game developer CCP will often make references to going to war with other players if, for instance, another corporation begins over-mining in a system a group of players considers home.  These references come straight out of the Icelandic experience concerning fishing resources and the Cod Wars.


2.  Resource scarcity will eventually make friends fight.  Many players in Eve Online look at the many NAPs (non-aggression pacts) as bad because they limit fighting.  Some even fear that all null security entities will sign NAPs and that will end conflict in New Eden.  Yet CCP doesn't seem that concerned with that particular issue.  Why?  Because the Icelandic experience is that non-agressions pacts do not prevent military conflict from occurring.  During the Cod Wars, both Iceland and the United Kingdom were members of NATO.  Indeed, while the U.K. is the United States' closest ally, the U.S. signed a treaty (in effect to this day) that pledges to protect Iceland militarily.  Does this sound like some of the actions we see when members of the CFC get bored and start fighting amongst each other?


3.  Resource gathering ships are a valid target.  Many players in Eve are dedicated industrialists and, like the shipowners of the U.K.'s deep sea fishing fleet during the Cod Wars, would like to see those in authority protect their ships.  Many in Eve's carebear community want to see suicide ganking in high sec totally eliminated.  Some go further and advocate a complete ban of formal wars in high security space. 

Based on Iceland's history, I cannot see CCP meeting those demands.  Sure, Iceland's economy depends on its fishing fleet, but the fishing fleets of other nations pose a threat to the health of the fish the island nation lives on.  Fortunately by the time the second Cod War began in 1972 the Icelandic Coast Guard had developed trawlwire cutters and so could just cut the trawling lines instead of trying to board ships as had occurred during the first Cod War.  That innovation probably prevented a lot of shooting between the two sides.  But Icelandic captains were not adverse to shooting unarmed fishing vessels poaching in their waters, as the captain of the C.S. Forester discovered on 19 July 1974.

Also, I was reminded of the call of supporters of suicide ganking to miners to tank (make a ship more resistant to damage) their ships.  During the Cod Wars the Icelandic Coast Guard utilized armed trawlers alongside their patrol vessels.  According to the documentary one of the converted fishing vessels, ICGV Baldur, had a reputation for giving better than she received in the bumping and ramming that characterized the battles of the Cod Wars.  Yes, the concept of the Battle Hulk pre-dates Eve in the Icelandic mind.

4.  Anyone can defend themselves.  A lot of players in Eve will state that a smaller corporation cannot defend themselves against a larger corporation or alliance.  Others will state that a large group of carebears cannot stand against a small group of PvP players.  Does anyone think that people who grew up with tales of their tiny coast guard taking on the powerful Royal Navy is really going to deep down in their heart believe that?  With no disrespect intended to the members of the Icelandic Coast Guard, they were outnumbered and outgunned by a better trained navy that had a tradition of victory stretching back centuries.  And yet, Iceland came out victorious in all three of the Cod Wars.

5.  Diplomacy is good.  One of the elements that allowed Iceland to come out on top of the Cod Wars was a strong diplomatic effort.  One reason that Iceland prevailed with the implementation of the 200 mile exclusion zone was that was the limit being decided on in the United Nations' Conference on the Law of the Sea that began in 1973.  A factor that helped is that the U.K. stood to benefit far more from receiving drilling rights in the North Sea than from any economic loss it sustained from the loss of its northern fishing fleet.

Other diplomatic efforts designed to put pressure on the U.K. leadership were overtures to the Soviet Union seeking to purchase additional patrol boats for the Icelandic Coast Guard and threats to deny access to NATO forces to the naval base in Keflavík.

While CCP has not implemented features like a binding treaty mechanic (see point 2 for one possible reason), players in Eve Online are aided by features that allow corporations to form alliances, grant and deny access to their facilities and to mark friendly players, corporations and alliances "blue" in order to prevent accidents from occurring. 

6.  Smack talk in local is normal.  We may have British fishermen to blame for CCP's acceptance of smack talk in local and on the forums.  According to the documentary whenever matters were going well for the fishermen, they would blare Rule Britannia! over the radio.  I don't know if the Icelanders responded in kind, but smack talk in local is possibly an Icelandic military tradition.

7.  Tears.  A lot of people outside the game don't like the fact that players in Eve enjoy others' tears and think that CCP needs to do something to stop the harvest.  Apparently they don't know Icelandic history.  Here is a clip describing a situation from the first Cod War that immediately reminded me of Eve.

I am sure I missed a lot of items from the Cod Wars that slipped into the philosophy and mechanics of Eve Online. I'm not a scholar and don't really know a lot about Iceland.  I traveled to Reykjavik for Fanfest and believe that getting to know a bit about Iceland helps in understanding Eve.  I received the first inkling that the Cod Wars were a big deal when I ran across a display about the ICGV Óðinn and its role in the Cod Wars when walking to the Harpa Center from my hotel.  Watching History of the Cod Wars helped me understand Iceland just a little bit more.

(1) It should also be noted that Iceland was invaded by Great Britain on 10 May 1940.
(2) Lobbying Activities of the European Union Common Fisheries Policies, GUÐNÝ AGLA JÓNSDÓTTIR, AARHUS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, 2004.  p. 5

Fanfest 2012 - Day 2

On Friday I woke up, ate breakfast and showed up early to the Harpa center.  I really believe that CCP has a sadistic streak in them by always scheduling CCP Dr.EyjoG's "State of the Economy" presentation at 10am in the main Tranquility hall.  But the time is not as bad as it sounds.  Either that or I was smart and just didn't drink much the night before.  But I learned a lot about the New Eden economy by getting up early.

The first major thing I noted was the demographics show players moving away from null sec and into wormholes.  Null sec went from having 16.2% of the population to having 15% and w-space saw a corresponding increase from 4.2% to 5.4%.  The demographics also show that older players move from high sec to other areas.  While 71.5% of players stay in high sec overall, only 65.3% of players with over 5 million skill points remain in high sec.  And when excluding Jita, the population in Caldari space is actually declining while that of Amar is increasing.  Dr. EyjoG believes this is a function of the Amar Empire's size and that population pressure is forcing players into the traditionally underpopulated systems.

Inflation is a big worry for Dr. EyjoG as the isk faucets are pouring in 24 trillion isk per month more than the isk sinks can remove.  New Eden's GUP (gross user product) increased by 15% in 2011 (or YC113 for roleplayers) which Dr. EvjoG indicates shows that Eve has made up for all the players lost during the Summer of Rage.  One of the big culprits, if not the biggest, to the wave of inflation is incursions.  According to the statistics, 5% of the population in Eve takes part in the anti-Sansha efforts.  What part of incursions do pilots run the most?  Vanguards.  I would expect a Vanguard nerf in the very near future.

Another area of concern is the PLEX market.  The PLEX market now represents 25% of the total trade in Eve.  The CSM is going to receive a new role as a watchdog over CCP's efforts to regulate the market.  Dr. EyjoG revealed that there are over 10,000 PLEX on banned accounts that the Eve Central Bank could use to intervene in the markets.  A new organization, the CCP PLEX Council, consisting of Dr. EyjoG, a senior developer, and a player (most likely a CSM member) will oversee the PLEX market.  With the advent of the CCP/CSM Skype channel, this type of conversation should be possible whenever needed.  For those who think the CSM doesn't have power, you might want to think again.

I would like to make one additional observation before moving on.  Throughout Dr. EyjoG's presentation, no mention of subscriber numbers or actual number of pilots was given.  In fact on one chart the numbers were clumsily blacked out.  I don't know if this is to hide that subscriptions didn't actually increase very much to players or is now proprietary information because CCP is looking to take itself public.  That said, I do believe CCP when it states that subscription numbers went up last year.  I am skeptical of claims that the game has 400,000 paid (real life money or PLEX) subscriptions and the lack of numbers hardens that suspicion.

At 1100 was the "Ship Balancing" presentation.  I admit the dev blog on ship balancing left me a bit confused so I welcomed the opportunity for CCP Ytterbium to explain exactly what the reasoning behind the moves.  After listening to the explanation, things started to make more sense.  Personalizing the presentation, why should Rosewalker need to learn Assault Ships and Heavy Assault Ships to fly the Slepnir command ship or Logistics to fly a Claymore?  I think the proposed path that all she needs to learn is Minmatar Battlecruisers V makes sense.  Of course, the fact that he already has Battlecruisers trained to 5 makes me a little uneasy about what happens when the expansion does come out.


After the ship balancing presentation I quickly ran out to the concession stand to get a nutritious meal of a brownie and water before the noon presentation "Year In Lag" by CCP Veritas.  Admittedly I sat back and watched as he pulled out several very impressive graphs and failed to take notes.  But the basic thrust of his talk is that Team Gridlock has made great strides on the servers and the next area that would gain the greatest return for the effort is working on the Eve client.

CCP Veritas at the Eve Keynote

Once CCP Veritas finished, I made my way to Singularity for CCP Sreeg's presentation on "Eve Security".  As tempting as watching the Faction Warfare presentation was, I just had to see the goodies CCP Sreegs would unleash.  And I wasn't disappointed.

CCP Sreegs first surprised me with one of his first slides documenting his successes in 2011 and The Nosy Gamer featured at the bottom of the slide.  I was so surprised that when he said he believed the gentleman who runs the blog is in the hall that I didn't raise my hand or otherwise take a bow.  I'm not sure what surprised me more, the mention of the blog or that he knew I was in Iceland.

But enough about me, what about bots?  First, the majority of characters banned have under 20 million skillpoints, with the most flown ships the Tengu, Hulk and Raven Navy Issue.  Surprisingly, the security team caught on player botting in a Nyx.  Really?!

As for the changes, the one where accounts are flagged as botters can no longer transfer characters was known before Fanfest.  Two new ones are that bannings will be done daily, which means the algorithms that detect bots must be pretty good by now.  Only one player was confirmed as being a false positive with a second about to be confirmed.  Also, effective the week before Fanfest CCP began removing all of the money earned by bots from accounts.  If the character is a mining bot, then a value of the minerals is determined and deducted from a character's wallet.

Among other security news is that two factor authentication will probably begin around July, but that is not confirmed.  I'll have to review the presentation once it hits YouTube for additional details as I was most concerned with bots.

After the presentation I went down to introduce myself to CCP Sreegs.  I waited awhile as people talked with him, including the gentleman who was falsely banned.  During the presentation CCP Sreegs said that CCP would take care of people affected and he confirmed he was well taken care of.  I then had a brief chat with the security chief as we walked out of the room as the next presentation began.

I had 90 minutes to kill before the Eve Keynote address so I made the five minute walk back to the hotel, grabbed some crackers, took some aspirin and drank a lot of water.  Oh, and made a post about getting mentioned by CCP Sreegs.

Unlike the DUST 514 Keynote, the Eve Keynote started on time at 1530. First, Hilmar came out once again to try to convince everyone he "gets" it about Eve being about internet spaceships.  He also came out with an interesting timeline of the "Ages of CCP".  The first age, from 1997-1999 was the "Age of Innocence" where the few members of CCP gathered up the resources to actually begin building Eve Online.  The second age, from 2000-2003, was the actual "Making of Eve Online", or the development of the game.  From 2004-2007 was "The March to 200K", or making the game popular.  The fourth age, 2008-2011, he called "War on the Impossible", when CCP attempted to build two new games while continuing to run Eve.  That last kind of stepped on the whole "flying in space" is priority one and should have been saved for Saturday, but Hilmar does get carried away sometimes.

The new senior producer for Eve, Jon Lander (CCP Unifex) came up next to reassure everyone that the new concentration was on Flying in Space and not leaving features half built.

Senior Producer CCP Unifex at the 2012 Eve Keynote

He also produced a production schedule that reminded me of Scott Hartsman-era EverQuest 2 with releases every month.  Unlike EQ2 though, Eve will continue to have two major releases a year instead of one.  Right now the Inferno pre-patch is scheduled for 24 April with Inferno itself releasing 22 May.  Inferno 1.5 is scheduled for an August release with a point release in September and the winter expansion launching in November.

Next up came CCP Soundwave.  CCP Soundwave stated that Crucible would not be a one-off expansion and that Inferno should be even better as the developers move on to start fixing some of the bigger things that need love like the war dec system and faction warfare.

CCP Soundwave explaining Crucible at 2012 Eve Keynote

After CCP Soundwave finished, CCP Veritas came on and talked about Team Gridlock's efforts to reduce lag.  CCP Veritas is one of the more popular devs and besides, you can never get too many graphs.

To wrap up the presentation, CCP TorfiFrans came on to talk about avatars and other types of things.  While improved skin colors, sleeve tatoos and race blending are interesting, he fortunately had other things to discuss other than reminders of Incarna.  When you get to talk about salvage drones (finally!) that makes up for a lot.  The steath bomber redesign also looks promising.  But he got to end the presentation with the introduction of missile turrets.  While Minmatar ships do use missiles as well as guns, the Caldari pilots went crazy.  What could have been a rough conclusion got a rousing ovation.

Following the presentation I had a few hours to kill so I stopped by a restaurant called American Style for dinner.  The place played American rock and roll music and was a rather nice place, especially since I managed to hit it at a quiet time.  I had a Buddy Holly burger, which was pretty good.

After going back to my room for a couple of hours I headed back to the Harpa center for the Pub Crawl.  I'm not going to go into too much detail, but my group lost its guide and we would up with the Goons group, squeaky bees and all.  I did bump into The Mittani a couple of times and he isn't as bad as he would like everyone to believe.  He also confirmed my view that going to Iceland is just like going to Wisconsin.


I lost the group in the 5th bar sometime around 1am and made my way back to the hotel, stopping by Hlölla Bátar for a sub to try to soak up some of the alcohol.  Sorry, no pictures.  Sometime what happens in Reykjavik stays in Reykjavik.

The Day Before Fanfest

I'm a little tired but not hung over after yesterday's festivities.  I spent most of the day doing the Golden Circle tour.  I was sitting near the back of my bus near a Jagermeister-less DNS Black, the CEO of Dirt Nap Squad.  While driving around the countryside it was very interesting to hear not only his stories but those from others in the bus.  And the views were pretty good also.

Geysir geothermal area

Gullfoss waterfall

Afterwards I went to The English Pub to check on the Eve University meetup, but didn't know it had moved to the Thingholt hotel until I got home, so I headed to the Tweetfleet meetup at The Celtic Cross.  It was pretty crowded with a lot of CCP devs present.  I think I saw CCP Sreegs, CCP Navigator and CCP Sunset along with The Mittani, Raivi, Michael Bolton.  Later on I spotted CCP Punkturis at the downstairs bar attacting a lot of attention.  I was going to ask a UI question for someone, but she and her husband left so when I finally managed to talk with CCP Punkturis, I asked the question I had been wondering about.  It is true, CCP Navigator and the new head of marketing at CCP, David Reid, really are two different people.  They just look like they are twins.  And I should add that CCP Punkturis is really a charming young lady.

Remarkably, after drinking more than I have in a long time, I actually felt better than I have this entire trip when I woke up today.  So now on to registration.  And if you ever make it to Fanfest, take the Golden Circle tour if you get the chance.

The Prelude to Fanfest

Reykjavik - I made it to Iceland in one piece.  By this time the routine is not very hard: pack my bags, hop in a limo, shuffle thru customs and get on the plane.  Except this time was for pleasure, not business.

There are no direct flights from Chicago to Reykjavik so I had to fly to Boston first.  I took a flight that gave me a four hour layover because I wanted plenty of time to get my luggage transferred from United to Icelandair.  Not that United has ever lost my luggage, but I decided to walk it over myself.  I'm pretty happy I did because I ran into a pilot from Against ALL Authorities who got in line right behind me and we struck up a conversation for the entire stay.  It was an interesting conversation that lasted over dinner at a Sbarro Pizza stand (although he was good and got a salad from someplace else).

I flew in Monday night, which means I missed the unofficial CSM flight by a day.  That's okay, because I probably flew in with a "normal" crowd, meaning not a plane full of Eve players.  My plane was full, which surprised the nice Swedish couple that were flying back home from a trip to Dallas.  I had to explain why.

I liked that the flight was less than 5 hours, because the seats in the 757 were kind of cramped.  I managed to get a few hours sleep on the plane so I didn't break out the iPad and watch Clear Skies 2 or 3 again.  Sleep is good.  So is arriving in country at 6:30am.  Lots of time to adjust my body clock in preparation for Fanfest.

The hotel reminds me a bit of the hotel I stayed at in London two years ago.  Small.  That shouldn't matter because I don't plan to stay in it much.  The one disappointing thing is that I can't get Eve Radio on the WiFi network.  I was able to get another streaming site, by not Eve Radio.  But I do have my iPad with my music collection so that will have to do.

I did do some running around Reykjavik.  The first thing I did was find Harpa, the convention center Fanfest is held in.  Okay it was the second thing.  The first thing I did was run back inside the hotel and put on a sweater underneath my coat.  While it isn't that cold, it is a humid cold.  Something to do with being right by the sea.

One thing I didn't know is that Harpa is right on the water.  I walked past the gates to a harbor facility to get to it.

View from the Harpa building

After bookmarking the Fanfest site, I stopped by a hotdog stand to get lunch and then took a nap.  Did I mention sleep is good?

After my nap I did a little more roaming around.  I found the site for the Eve University meetup, which, as direction-challenged as I am, I can't miss.  I also managed to pick up a shot glass for my boss.  Now I don't have to worry about getting it.  The hotel is also close to a lot of bars and restaurants.  And I mean a lot.  The hotel is also adjacent to a supermarket.  That is big since it means I can get bottled water, a necessity not only because I get headaches when dehydrated but the water smells like rotten eggs.

I finished the day getting dinner from Tabasco's, a Mexican restaurant that also serves seafood.

This ad worked for me

I am beginning to think that fish is to Reykjavik what pizza is to Sofia; served everywhere. Of course, I took advantage of being in a port and ordered fish and chips instead of something Mexican.  I didn't get the whale steak because I am on a budget.  Did I mention that Reykjavik is expensive?  I only purchased $300 in króna and my meal of fish and chips plus a beer cost around $30.  I know I can get more money, but I would like to stay close to what I planned to spend.  I'm beginning to think I should have planned to spend $500.  I hope people in Iceland are paying their taxes through a sales tax and not an income tax.

Nothing really more to add.  It's time to do a little more wandering around before heading on the Golden Circle tour.  Maybe I can find the spot of the #tweetfleet meetup.  It is farther away than the Eve Uni meetup and I do tend to get lost.