Friday 17 May 2013

So, a funny thing happened on the way to Harpa...

So we are now in Molden Heath via Reykjavik and Fanfest.

Fanfest was a great few days. Thanks to a windfall courtesy of Barclays screwing me over on PPI and 14 years of compound interest, my budget this year was considerably larger than last year. So I signed up for everything that was available. I was also there a full day earlier so I could enjoy the city and the country itself a little more than last year.

That plan went by the wayside once it became apparent that many of us New Eden acolytes had also thought to come a little earlier this year too. 

And they were in the pub.  

Well, it was a no brainer really. The tourist pamphlets got tossed onto the desk in my hotel room and I made my way to The Bar With No Name and reintroduce myself to an old flame called Brennivin. 

The Black Death is a drink perfectly suited to the ethos of New Eden. Much like the infamous learning cliff of Eve Online its effect on the human physiologically is exponential. After five or six of them, one's natural reticence to tell someone that they're doing their job wrong when you yourself have no understanding of how they go about that job, decides to go whale watching, leaving you in the pub getting dangerously close to being a bit of an idiot.

You have to give kudos to the Dev's of CCP. Not many in their industry would be prepared to put themselves in a position where they could be open to some very harsh criticism. But what they have on their side is Reykjavik itself. There is something so relaxing about the capital of Iceland that seemingly makes it impossible to get angry for long with anyone or anything. It helps that the Dev's know better than you whats broken and are so prepared to admit they might've nerfed your favourite AR a little too much.

What also helps is that they are all without exception great guys and girls to meet. You follow someone on twitter. You converse with them over the internet, you poke and prod them with ideas, suggestions and criticism and the concept that you might actually meet them seems far removed from the actually reality of your normal life. So when you meet them and the real life versions of them are even cooler than their digital projection, its a total delight. 

It's also a chance to catch up with members of your corp or alliance. It felt a little weird from the previous Fanfest. Last year I was a sophomore in EVE University. A basic training completed in the world of New Eden but unsure as to where I was going to go and do in that virtual world. In short I was comfortable in the University and unwilling perhaps to stick my neck out and try my own way in the world.

That was of course to change and it was entirely CCP's fault that it did. And it's because of the Unifubared Inventory that I'm now in the position where I am today. Because my particular playstyle in New Eden as an Eve pilot and a certain level of OCD (a trait it seems that many in Eve share), inventory boxes play an important part of that playstyle so I was very active on Sisi testing it all out and giving feedback to the Dev's on the forums. The complete concenous of all the players at the time was that it was no where near being ready for TQ and shouldn't be delployed....

So of course it entered TQ and and fucked me over in its unremitting awfulness. (its been fixed now of course). Denied the pleasure of playing Eve, which at the time rapidly became an exercise in self loathing, I spied the closed beta code for Dust 514 that I'd recieved at Fanfest. I purchased a PS3 and waited for the beta to start. The rest is history.


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