fanfest posts

With the holidays coming up, there's a plethora of things a capsuleer could ask for: that shiny new T3 ship you've been eyeballing, a pile of PLEX, or perhaps a bargain at the EVE Online store sale. But the savvy holiday shopper knows to save his cash for the upcoming Fanfest that is slated to be held in 2011. With Incursion coming up, Incarna to follow, DUST 514 underway, and World of Darkness recently announced, this year's party at the top of the world looks like it's going to be full of all manner of cool stuff to check out.

Thanks to a bit of internet digging, it appears that IcelandAir has already released its travel packages for those looking to get the jump on the event and book in at the lowest rates. The travel site indicates that the dates for the upcoming Fanfest are March 24-26, leaving lots of time to get those vacation requests in early. Additionally, IcelandAir lists a CCP dev-attended city tour and a party after the event that offer some idea of the festivities to come, although they're not included with the travel package itself. We've contacted CCP for additional information and will be certain to let you know when we hear more. For now, make sure your passports are in order and get over to the IcelandAir site to get your package booked!

When it comes to gaming conventions, the options for MMO players seem to get bigger every year. (Not that we're complaining, mind you!) You can get a taste of the MMO world within a bigger convention like PAX or the MMO track at Dragon*Con. Alternately, fans of a particular game or company have more and more choices to check out -- EVE FanFest; BlizzCon, SOE's Fan Faire, and now Jagex's RuneFest. Add to that the LFG Expo, which promises to give us more MMOs in one space than we've seen before, and you can see where a gamer might not know which to pick!

But with all the myriad choices opening up to us, we wondered this morning just how you like MMOs in your conventions? Are you more inclined to hit company-specific MMO conventions, so you can immerse yourself in a particular game (or series of games)? Do you prefer the large conventions where Mario and Magic: The Gathering fans mingle with murlocs? Or are you chomping at the bit for a convention like L4G, which should give players a huge choice of MMO diversity under one roof?

The EVE Online fanfest is the biggest annual gathering for EVE players from around the world. Each year EVE fans pour into Iceland and take over the seaside town of Reykjavik, home of the game's developers CCP Games. In addition to enjoying the usual Reykjavik night life, attendees can watch a whole host of events and talks from CCP's development teams and notable players. The fanfest often gives players a sneak peak at what's to come in EVE, with expansion announcements and trailers often screened for the first time. For many players, it's also a chance to meet the members of their corporation or alliance in a neutral setting and make new friends that play EVE. CCP have even organised bands, orchestras and other entertainment in previous years. If there's one thing the developers over at CCP know how to do, it's throw a party.

The fanfest normally occurs late in the year, around September. This has presented CCP with problems in the past and limits the number of players that can spare the time to attend. Last Thursday, CCP announced that this year's fanfest is to be pushed back to March 2011, which seems set to become the new month for the annual event. In addition to being easier on CCP, the cost of flights and hotels should be lower around this time. CCP will also have more information on what they're currently working on to share and more sneak peaks at future expansions to release. Most importantly, pushing the fanfest back this year gives them some added time to work on Incarna, the absolutely goliath expansion that will introduce full body avatars and in-station environments. This hints that Incarna could be slated for a Summer 2011 release.

September is just a few days away and so the folks at CCP Games are keen to remind players that their Summer Buddy Program for EVE Online will conclude on September 1st. Why is this so important? Well, aside from introducing your pals to the world's biggest sci fi MMO, you are also in with a chance to win a trip to this year's Fanfest in Iceland for you and your friend as well as a trip to CCP's head office. The full prize is the following:

Two return flight tickets from any destination that Icelandair flies to for you and your EVE Online buddy.

Hotel Accommodation in Reykjavik from Sept, 30, 2009 to Oct, 04, 2009

Airport – Hotel transport in Reykjavik

Two Fanfest VIP passes

Organized visit to CCP HQ offices in Reykjavik

All you need to do is have an active EVE account and start spreading the word, just get them signed up with a buddy account and then cross your fingers. If you do win, you can choose who you take with you, either a friend you introduced to the game or any of your online pals on Tranquility. So enter now before it's too late!

The Drone Bay podcast returned recently with an EVE Online Fanfest preview. The podcast's hosts Crovan and Alsedrech got air time with EVE developers CCP Tyr and CCP Claw, as well as StevieSG from EVE TV. In addition to dropping more info about the sixth annual Fanfest and some of the options players will have for excursions in Iceland beyond the player gathering itself (which will be October 1 - 3), they discuss the Fanfest PvP tournament.

The Fanfest PvP tournament is a major draw to the event. The Fanfest tournament differs from the Alliance PvP Tournament (which will be held earlier in the year, in September) in some noticeable ways. Where the Alliance tournament is taken very seriously by most competitors who spend weeks in preparation -- after all, a substantial part of the game's playerbase are watching or listening to the event live -- the Fanfest PvP tournament is meant to allow for more impromptu, spontaneous match-ups. Indeed, some winning teams at the Fanfest tournament were comprised of virtual strangers who joined up at the last minute, and the rules can lead to some... unusual scenarios. In keeping with this spirit of mixing it up, CCP has decided to hold free-for-all PvP matches at Fanfest 2009.

When it was released back in 2003, EVE Online was one of the most visually impressive games on the market. Over the coming years, the graphics aged gracefully next to competitors on the market and all seemed well. Nonetheless, CCP were not content to let their flagship game's graphics eventually go out of date. In true CCP style, they developed a long-term staged delivery plan for the complete overhaul of the game's graphics. The first stage of delivery came with the Trinity expansion, in which a premium client was launched with incredible high resolution ship models. This was just the first stage in a plan to keep EVE graphically ahead of any competitors.

In this technical article, I look at the science of making EVE beautiful and examine CCP's plans for the future.

The annual EVE Fanfest is the largest player gathering of the year for fans of the sci-fi MMO. It's held annually in Reykjavik, Iceland, the home of CCP Games, and is a major event for die-hard fans of the game. EVE Online dev CCP Tyr announced the sixth annual 'Party at the Top of the World' this week: "It is time once again to start marking your calendars and making your reservations for the 2009 Fanfest in Reykjavik, Iceland! Get ready for another weekend of PvP tournaments, hanging out with the developers, and partying in a sea of fellow EVE Online fans. As always, Fanfest attendees will be treated to videos and announcements on the future of EVE and what players can expect in the upcoming expansions."

Rather than holding it in November as in all previous years, they've moved up this year's Fanfest dates to October 1- 3, when the weather should hopefully be a bit warmer. CCP Games has worked with Icelandair to put together airfare and hotel travel packages by country, the details of which can be found on the EVE Fanfest 2009 announcement page. For a peek at what EVE Fanfest is like, we've got a video embed of the Fanfest 2009 teaser trailer:

One of announcements that came out of EVE Online's most recent Fanfest was news that the game will be sold on retail shelves this March, with the release of the Apocrypha expansion. A publishing deal struck between EVE's developer CCP Games and Atari means that the game may well see an influx of players in the coming months.

MMORPG.com's Managing Editor Jon Wood caught up with Ryan Dancey, Chief Marketing Officer at CCP Games, and the two discussed how EVE's shift away from being a purely digital product will affect the game. Also notable is that Dancey gives the details of what that $39.95 (€39.99) for the box will buy: Mac and PC versions; a Career Guide for new pilots; 60 days of game time that can be converted into PLEX; automatically have needed standings for factional warfare; a VIP pass which functions like the Buddy Program; and a shuttle with expanded cargo capacity. These extras were previously rumored to be included with the EVE retail purchase, but Ryan Dancey's comments in the MMORPG.com interview would seem to confirm those rumors.

Have a look at the rest of the interview focused on EVE Online's retail release for more on how the publishing deal between CCP Games and Atari is shaping up.

The 2008 Final Fantasy XI Fanfest has wrapped up and 1up.com has collected all sorts of information from it. From the looks of things, the future is very bright for denizens of Vana'diel. The new Level Sync functionality -- which lowers high-level players' level so they can play with friends -- is getting more updates in the future, as are many of the game's systems in an effort to enable everyone to play less time and receive more experience. Or in other words, the development team is working to make the game less frustrating for new and old players.

The other big news to come out of the Fanfest was that in the coming year Square Enix will be developing the storyline brought into the game with Wings of the Goddess. Apparently players can expect loads of Cait Sith, a Gigas assault on Jeuno, and some type of sultry new villainess. We're curious how much of this is going to be incorporated into the trio of mini-expansions coming for the game.

The player base in Final Fantasy XI may not be huge, but the group is incredibly dedicated. Plus, as one of the very few Japanese MMOs (and the only Final Fantasy one) the game garners many Japanese players who share their servers with North Americans. With these forthcoming updates, the servers are likely to surge with new and old subscribers.

Most EVE Online players didn't have the opportunity to attend EVE Fanfest 2008 in Reykjavik earlier this month, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have to miss out on what was revealed. CCP Games and EVE TV have made good on their promise to release video footage of Fanfest presentations and panel discussions. While they did make live audio of some of this available in-game over EVE Voice, it was difficult to follow without the visuals to tie it all together.

Now, they've put up a new video page dedicated to EVE Fanfest 2008, with both low res and high res downloads. They culled roughly 30 hours of raw footage down into 12 videos. We've listed them below, accompanied by the CCP descriptions and video links, for both YouTube (when available) and high resolution versions:

In a surprising announcement from the ongoing EVE Online Fanfest, CCP has stated that they're planning a First Person Shooter (FPS) title set in the world of New Eden. Eurogamer carries the news, and states that footage was shown of a "Halo-like shooter on a daylit, Earth-like planet surface. The architecture and gun designs were clearly redolent of the space MMO's art style." Which is to say, super-gorgeous.

This came during a presentation on the future of EVE Online, during which CCP heads Hilmar Petursson and Nathan Richardsson noted they were working on a 'game console strategy' for the company. The site speculates that the FPS will be coming to the PS3 and Xbox 360 at some point down the road, but also points out that we shouldn't expect this landmark title any time soon. At the moment, all of CCP's resources and thinking with EVE Online are centered around creating the next expansion to the game.

EVE Fanfest 2008 is in full swing in Reykjavik, but fans of the game who can't make that trek to Iceland this year have let out a collective grumble that EVE TV isn't streaming live content, as they have in prior years. Rather, the EVE TV team is recording the events and interviewing players, with the aim to make the video footage available to everyone after Fanfest. But for those who really want to connect with what's happening in Reykjavik now, CCP Fallout announced another way for players to listen in:

"For those pilots who are unable to warp to Fanfest this year, we are please to announce that we will broacast t0rfifrans's and Oveur's keynote addresses live in-game. Those of you who would like to listen in should join the 'Live Dev Blog' in-game channel on Saturday, 8 November at 13:00 GMT."

We've also gotten word that CCP Games CEO Hilmar V. Pétursson, (aka CCP Hellmar) will be delivering a keynote at 15:00 GMT on November 8th, which will also be broadcast live. As with all of the Live Dev Blogs, players need only activate audio via the right click menu to listen in on the keynote presentations.

EVE Online's Fanfest 2008 is now underway, and reports are already coming through on what's happening in Reykjavik. CCP Games held a press conference that discussed EVE's technical side, namely its server technology, but also touched upon EVE's impending graphic enhancements in 2009. EVE Online's Premium 'Trinity' graphics engine was a significant leap forward in the game. While some players felt that the graphics as they were prior to Trinity were still ahead of the curve in terms of what's expected of an MMO, the look of the game changed dramatically with Trinity. However, the Trinity deployment wasn't a complete revamp of EVE's look. Ships and stations benefited from Premium graphics, but other celestial objects did not, jump gates notwithstanding.

"EVE is in a state where, if you run the Premium graphics edition, half of it is done, you could say," said Chief Technologist Halldor Fannar of CCP Games, at Reykjavik's Fanfest 2008, as reported by Oli Welsh of Eurogamer. Future graphics updates will bring celestial objects in line with what's currently seen in Trinity, and may well arrive with the forthcoming Walking in Stations expansion which is slated to launch after the Quantum Rise expansion, just around the corner.

The 2008 Fanfest for EVE Online is almost here, and it seems that some things will be different this year, not limited to the new PvP Tournament scenario. CCP Wrangler writes: "With EVE Fanfest 2008 approaching we decided to let you ask the Fanfest organizers some questions. Murinae and Krisnitori will join us... and Whisper will be asking them your Fanfest related questions."

The live dev blog will take place on Thursday, October 30th, at 20:00 GMT. To hear it, you'll need to enter the in-game channel 'Live Dev Blog' and enable EVE Voice via your right-click menu. As with the previous live dev blogs, the way to get your questions answered is to post in the announcement thread, from which the devs will select questions to field.

CCP Games announced that EVE TV is going to returning for EVE Online Fanfest 2008, and will still operate under the principle of being "something made by EVE players, for EVE players."

That's the word from one of newest members of the Marketing team at CCP Games, CCP Charlie, who introduces himself by announcing the scheduled content from Fanfest that they'll be recording and making available to everyone. He says, "Every video will be made available for download within a week or two after the Fanfest," and lists the specific content we can expect to view: