Back from FanFaire

AUUUUGH!

Back from FanFaire in Vegas. I'm a day late, and far later in the evening than I'd've liked. Cause: cascade failure leading to a blown coolant line. More later, I'm too tired right now.

SOE FanFaire in Vegas

OK, FanFaire's handled. Drive up Wednesday evening, stay until either Sunday afternoon or Monday morning depending on what's going on. Dean and Lia will be going with me, so whether I can handle the gas and brakes on the car isn't an issue.

SOE FanFaire

I'm hoping I make FanFaire in Vegas this year. We're trying to get a bunch of our EQ2 guild together there. I've got my membership bought and my hotel room reserved, the problem will be my feet and driving. If Dean gets sent up it'll be no problem, I can have Lia drive up with me. If Dean doesn't get sent, I have to decide whether it's worth 2 round trips worth of gas. I don't want to fly up because my feet just aren't going to handle the airport/airline bullshit involved.

If I go I want to see if I can wrangle Toraneko into coming to dinner one night. Especially if Tiff and Brea make it, Tora might have fun talking renfaire shop with someone who fights with live steel (and appropriate armor).

SOE FanFaire

Well, FanFaire is on. Location: Bally's in Las Vegas. Dates: August 5th through the 8th. Standard rooms (south tower) are at $65/night for the 3rd through the 5th and the 8th, $85/night for the 6th and 7th. Upgraded rooms in the north tower are $20/night more.

I've got my reservations for the north tower Wednesday through to Monday morning, 2 queen beds (just in case someone needs crash space).

Comic Con sold out

Gah. Comic Con's sold out of 4-day memberships for 2010. And it's still 9 months or so until the con, only 3 months since this year's.

Oooogh

ComicCon's massive exhibit hall + SOE block party = my legs hate me now.

Further Confusion plans

Going to have to plan for FC next year. First thing: keep an eagle eye out for the hotel reservations opening and jump on a room immediately. And by immediately I don't mean "sometime the day it opens", I mean "the moment it opens, even if it means staying up past midnight the night before". The block for FC this year was filled literally within a couple of days of opening, if I want a room in the con hotel (and I do) I'm going to have to make sure I'm at the head of the line.

Fandom and detractors

Over the years, I've come to an odd conclusion. I've listened to, watched and become familiar with a certain species of person who, when faced with sci-fi, furry, anime or other fans, consistently puts them down. Common comments by them about fans are "fatties living in their parents' basement", "have no lives" and so on. You've probably met them if you've gone to any convention, or ran across the SomethingAwful crew.

My conclusion? The types who put down fans seem to fall closer to the stereotypes they're disparaging than the fans they're trying to put down.

SOE Fan Faire

Had a good time. Didn't get to meet Danya (she was there but I never crossed paths with her), did get to meet most of the rest of the people I was looking to meet. Was going to meet Tora and Jeremy for lunch or dinner, but Tora had a mess of a day and by the time we got in contact I was in the middle of the attendees-only dinner and presentations. By the time I was out of that it was 11pm and we had to head back home. Life's annoying like that.

Got a good look at DC Universe Online, the new superhero MMO Sony's doing. Looks good. The game itself looks a lot like CoH/CoV, but with more flexibility and fewer pointless restrictions. You don't have tightly-defined archetypes, for instance. Leveling up doesn't involve gaining new powers or replacing old abilities with newer ones. You get your powers, travel ability and such right off at the beginning, and as you level up your powers get more powerful and you refine your control over them letting you do more with them. So, for instance, if you made a Cyclops clone, at the beginning your eye-beams could only hit one target at a time. By the time you hit 20, they do more damage when they hit, your aim's better and you're starting to be able to for instance split the beam to hit more than one target at a time. But you don't have to shell out money (in whatever form) to get those improvements, they happen as your character gets more experienced. What you can do is use rewards you've gotten from defeating villains to buy additional equipment and boosts that you can equip, for instance extra armor for your costume (making you tougher) or a new visor to boost the power of your eye-beams even more by focusing them. And you can change those out, so while you may not have enough room to equip both the armor and the new visor at the same time you can swap between them at will depending on what's needed at the moment. And no, you can't play the major DC heroes like Superman and Batman. That's not because of any arbitrary trademark rule, but because those characters are already in the game. You interact with them, generally at first and then more and more personally as your character levels up and builds their reputation, until eventually you're no longer the new kid on the block but the established hero they call on when they need help. The evil side works similarly, and there's varying degrees of PvP so heroes can always fight villains. The exact rules are going to vary by server and area within the game, so you won't be forced to deal with constant PvP if you don't want to but the possibility's always going to be there if you do want to.

SOE Fan Faire

Date set. I'll be up in Vegas Saturday for a day of Fan Faire. Mostly it'll be to meet people who'll be there.

Note to self: at least one bottle of Arrogant Bastard for Brasse.