8.08.07 - EVENT Coverage: Fan Faire 2007

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Updated Fri, Jan 02, 2009 by B. de la Durantaye

2007 SOE Fan Faire Overview

by Machail

Welcome to Las Vegas Nevada! Well, I'm back from a fabulous week in Las Vegas, and BOY do I have some stories to tell!

I landed in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. My guild was meeting up with me on Wednesday and Thursday, so there was some time to kill. Believe me, there are plenty of ways to kill time in Vegas, so I won't get into too many details there.

Thursday night was the welcoming party at the Voodoo lounge, located on the 51st floor of the Rio, overlooking Vegas. After we grabbed our badges and our gift bags, we walked through the casino to get to the elevator up to the Voodoo lounge. There are a few distractions here and there while in Vegas, so it did take a bit of concentration from time to time to focus on where we were and where we were going.

Now, I was supposed to meet up with Ashlanne to get a bit of an introduction to the folk over at SOE working on Vanguard, but I was unable to track her down all weekend. In the end though, it worked out fine anyway. One thing about the Fan Faire is that it really is a nice open environment and communication goes back and forth at such a steady pace, you really are left with little to no questions unanswered by the end of it.

I ran into Michelle "Elionia" Butler at the Voodoo Lounge, and she was kind enough to give me the formal introductions to the team. At the foot of the stairs for most of the night were Darrin "Talisker" McPherson and Bill "Tagad" Fisher, who were enjoying the view from the Voodoo Lounge.

Shortly after, Lisa Boleyn came up and introduced herself as a quest designer for the Vanguard team. Lisa has worked on over 400 quests, including the newbie quests in Rindol Field, and the Shadowhound and Unicorn quests. She's also been doing a lot of work on the upcoming Trial Island: a secluded island for free short-term trials of Vanguard. Later on in the panel discussions she took the event attendees through the creation process of the quests. When asked if there was anything she would like to change about the quests if she had the opportunity (and time) to go back and make adjustments, she told us that she has some regrets about the shadowhound quests feeling a bit "too" grindy and she would like to have the foals fixed up in the unicorn quest to be able to easily identify foals with which one has already interacted.

When asked if there were any plans to incorporate "epic" quests, Lisa responded: "The shadowhound and unicorn quests seem pretty epic to me." It was mentioned, however, that with the introduction of the flying mounts quests coming around the corner, that players can expect longer, harder, and more involved quests, which will include components from the Ancient Port Warehouse, Vanguard's 12-person raid dungeon scheduled for release over the next few months.

To end off Thursday evening we ran into a member of the customer service department. At his request, his photo and name cannot be published. But we did get a nice chance to sit down and discuss how the customer service team does have a commitment to the welfare of the community as a whole; particularly in regards to gold sellers and

exploiters. It was reassuring to know that the team works constantly and diligently to help improve our gameplay, and I, for one, walked away with a strong reassurance that SOE does indeed put a lot of work into the customer service department.

The following day, Friday, we started the panel discussions. The first of which was the "State of the Game." The entire team was there for this one and walked us through the current state of the game and some of the plans for the near and distant future. They discussed with us that they are well aware of the bugs in Vanguard, and have already fixed up over 1600 of them recently and are working on fixing more bugs every day. They also confirmed that with Vanguard in its current state, they don't feel it is in the best interest of the community, or the game, to push its marketing. They do have a "relaunch" coming around, which is simply a loose term used to describe a re-marketing. Once the game has reached what they feel is a comfortable state of stability and plain ol' raw fun, they'll commence a marketing blitz to get more subscribers in game to fill up the servers.

While there are no current plans on the internationalisation of Vanguard, the team did note that it may be something that will be looked into down the road after the marketing blitz.

Friday afternoon's panels took us through adventuring content and game design and gave us a bit of an insider's view on how content is designed. We were introduced to some plans for overland raid encounters and while there is no instancing planned for Vanguard currently, the team is discussing possibilities of "lockout timers" which would, in effect, prevent groups and guilds from keeping an encounter on lockdown, preventing anyone else from getting the kill. Steve "Aruspex" Williams also touched on his plans for diplomacy "boss" encounters, including Eldor in Three Rivers. These boss encounters will include 50 lines (or more) of diplomacy text and provide a challenge for diplomats to develop highly attuned strategies to work through the diplomatic encounter. Eldor will be the first introduced at level 15, but Williams has plans for adding many more down the road across the world and level ranges.

At 5:30 the entire Fan Faire met up in the Amazon rooms for a special announcement from John Smedley. We were all pretty excited and very curious about what kind of game could have been kept secret long enough to only be announced one month before its release. As it turned out, the game was "Legends of Norrath" which is a card game inside both EverQuest and EverQuest II allowing players from both games to compete against eachother in a friendly game of cards. The rewards from the game also include in-game items for your character, and the game will be free to all players of EverQuest and EverQuest II, with decks and cards dropping in-game. Additional card decks can be purchased from the Sony Store.

Later Friday night was the pool-side party. And what kind of party would be complete without karaoke and an open bar? Also, as an added treat, guests could catch a glimpse or get a photo with none other than Firiona Vie and Antonia Bayle. Fun was had by all and although none of the game devs were actually seen in the pool, they were again readily available to sit and talk with the attendees.

Saturday morning was an early start with the Vanguard Live Quest. Participants went from NPC to NPC (played by various devs and volunteers) and set about solving quests. The quests included puzzles, scavenger hunts, and a one-on-one game of diplomacy card-playing.

The afternoon continued with more panel discussions, and while unfortunately Talisker was unavailable for the adventuring classes discussion panel, Ten Ton Hammer was able to ask a few quick questions about the classes that our readers wanted to know before he had to leave. Heavy fighter classes will be happy to know that the intention for all tanks will continue to be balanced in a way that none will always be the "preferred tank." However, there will be some content coming around that will specifically be designed for each of the three existing tank classes. Psionicists can also rejoice that the team hopes to incorporate illusions that have various benefits pending on the illusion. While it will be nothing overpowering, they will be able to look forward to things such as faction modification. It was also mentioned that there is no definite timeline on this, but it is something the team wants to see in the future. The balancing act of classes is a hard one to maintain, but the team is dedicated to making sure each class has a good amount of desirability to play behind it.

The final panel may have been the most fun. Silas "Cylus" Morse took us through some of the weapon designs that we have to look forward to with the Ancient Port Warehouse. Each has its own particle effect, and they all look fantastic. These items will surely be something coveted on all servers.

The weekend events ended with the grand banquet. Attendees were treated to real gamer food of gourmet hotdogs, hamburgers and fried chicken. Tradition offered up a costume contest, and more fun events for all participants. Being Vegas, too, the events were not complete without a wedding. Storm troopers burst opened the doors and led the couple in. After the ceremony, the two newly-weds hopped on computers set up in EverQuest II and performed the ceremony in game as well. It was pretty fantastic to watch, and the crowd gave them a roaring congratulatory cheer. Although a little saddened by the end of the weekend, everyone left in good spirits.

In conclusion, I highly recommend attending the Fan Faire if ever possible. It's a real treat to get to hang out with the dev team and learn one-on-one about the game and its past, present and future. The developers are all extremely friendly and love talking about the game. After attending, it's hard to log into the game without seeing it completely differently. You still may find bugs and other things that may be annoying, but after understanding a bit of the process, and getting to know the personalities behind the game, filling out that bug report feels a lot more fulfilling, knowing and having met some of the people that will be reading it and getting it fixed. I congratulate the Vanguard SOE team in keeping such open lines of communication open to us, as the community, and I am looking very much forward to what's in store.

From left to right: Ryan “Gebron” Elam; William “Tagad” Fisher; Steven “Aruspex” Williams; Lisa “Faratha” Boleyn; Michelle “Elionia” Butler; Silas “Cylus” Morse; Dave “Hasium” Gilbertson

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