Fan Fest 2oo8

What a blast this weekend has been. It all started out with catching the Alla admins arriving in Los Angeles at The Renaissance Hotel, the destination of this year’s Fan Fest. Once the whirlwind of attaching faces to screen names began, it gripped me tightly until the final goodbyes on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Walking into the hotel, I immediately ran into Thayos, Vlorsutes, and Drakknor in the lobby. We met up with Pikko and Susperia on the second floor, where I was told that the extra ticket they held could not be transferred to my name. I was a little sad, but half expected this, so I was determined to make the best out of the afternoon that I had with them.

We ate at California Pizza Kitchen on Hollywood and Highland. As many times as I have walked in front of the shopping mall, I had never actually been inside it yet, and it was quite impressive. MTV had a store there, where they sold paraphenalia branded with their logo (though it all looked more at home in the 80s with their classic designs and color schemes) and omnipresent Rock Band 2 merchandise. They even had three “stages” setup for anyone to walk up and try some songs out. While I was able to play both bass and guitar, the epicness began when Usagichan took the mic and belted out Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer”. I was photographing, and only casually noticed Pikko was filming with her camera. The next morning, that video was on Alla’s front page.

After rocking out, I got a chance to play tourist myself for a few minutes. I took Thayos out to Hollywood Boulevard, and we were searching for stars for him to snap pictures of. He found a suitable choice when he spied Harrison Ford’s star in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater and the Virgin Megastore. He is a slight Indiana Jones fan, I have come to understand. Sadly, this was all the time that I had, and I needed to leave to get to work that night, so I left Hollywood thinking I would not see any of them again.

Epic win occurred just a few hours later. Pikko and Susperia had successfully lobbied to let me use the extra ticket! Talk about an R/Ex drop! I was so excited that I would get to see everyone again.

I started out for Renaissance Hotel and fan Fest early the next morning (well, early for me anyway), but sadly missed the opening ceremonies due to excessive car accidents on the freeway. Really, someone should screen people’s Chocobo licenses more often. I managed to arrive just before lunch time, and hung around with the Alla admins again in the Premier Site room.

The first sight I got to take in was the Fan Art Contest room. They hung up entries drawn by the fans on boards, giving it a sort of miniature art gallery feeling. Many were hand drawn, some were computer generated, and others were a combination of the two. The styles ranged from mangaesque to muralistic large pieces, and even a few monochromatic olde worldy pictures. I was pleased with many of the submissions and jealous at the same time. In glass cases were the “crafted” entries, being statues, repurposed children’s toys, plushies, and even a box of food. There were many that were impressive, but we only had the option to pick one drawing and one crafted item for the winner.

Lunch at the hotel was free and better than I expected from a buffet. It was probably the healthiest meal eaten by many that weekend. Did I mention it was free? That was nice as well.

After the first lunch group was done, it seemed a good time to get into the line to try out the upcoming Moblin Mazes content. We were setup with a party of six premade characters to choose from (I got stuck as a galka monk) and entered into a zone that looked much like Maze of Shakrahami. Our mob was a water elemental, so I felt pretty much worthless against it, but it was not terribly difficult. After the battle (which lasted 5~ minutes) we opened a chest which netted us 960 moblin marbles (probably a new form of assault/conquest/imperial/allied/zeni currency as nothing appeared in our inventory for them), but no items dropped. We still had a few minutes before the next group came in, so I tried talking to all the goblins in the shop to see if any displayed any sort of rewards or loot. No such luck though.

After the Moblin Mazes preview, we lined up for a chance at the Swarm special event. A fellow Garudian mistook Susperia for Pikko, so we began teasing her about it. The Alla people wandered off, leaving Susperia, Pachi, and I grouping with three strangers. The event was not all I hoped it would be. We stood around in the Silvermines, and one mob every second dropped from the ceiling. Most of them could be one-shotted (I was a hume war/nin wielding a greataxe, but no ninja tools >.<), and we received points on how hard the mob was. It was less of a coordinated event, and more of just a total zerg against the beasts, with every character for themselves. At the end of five minutes, our points were tallied and we were ranked in order of our scores. It seemed a pleasant diversion, but not something that I was overly thrilled about. It was interesting to note that the Swarm room included controllers for us to use while we played, but no ninja tools, while the Moblin Mazes room had ninja tools, but no controllers.

Just as we exited the Swarm room, we heard that Scott from VG Cats was signing and sketching upstairs in the Premier Site room. Vlor, Thay, Pikko, and Usagi stayed downstairs in the main conference room, updating the Alla site and ensuring good seats for the Dev Meeting, while the rest of us lined up for sketches. I managed to complete my Tarut Card set in line, I got a personalized mithra drawing of my character in starter RSE, and then had to hurry downstairs, as we were already twenty minutes late for the Developer’s Talk.

I walked in right as they began to announce the new Scholar merits (YAY!). While my SCH is still a little low to be meriting just yet, I am getting close and am glad to see that S-E are not letting the new jobs go idle without endgame potential the way the ToAU ones were for a long time. My eyes popped out when I saw the SCH relic armor though. It made me want to start Dynamis runs finally. I am so excited to relvl SCH again so I can finally hit 75 and start trying it out in different battles.

They announced more relics and merits for Dancer, but since I have never played DNC it did not mean much to me. It really seems like S-E are putting it in a more frontline position, with the possibility of making it a new tank. Of course, I am not sure how many people are willing to tank with it yet, but one can still hold out hope that a job with native enmity generating moves will find the occasion to step up to the task. The relic armor looks rather nice as well.

The Devs went on to talk about their measures against the RMTs. They started off with a video called “STF Wars”, where the screen scrolled with all the names and servers of the people banned in the last year. It went on for about two minutes, and needed to be sped up or else it may have been over ten minutes long. It was good news and a welcome sight for legitimate players everywhere. The majority of their plan seems to involve a form of catch and release; waiting until the gilseller is close to reaching an objective, then banning that account and all their mules. The most amusing part was the repeated catch phrase that ended each hypothetical scenario, a quick summary of events all leading to “LIFELONG REGRET!”

This was followed by the costume contest. They brought out all the cosplayers on stage, let the S-E judges pick their ten favorites, and then let the audience decide who the winners would be. The top three finalists all had amazing outfits: one guy wore a pinkish octopus mask and the robes/staff of a soul flayer, a gal wore the green SMN complete with plush Carbuncle and a SMN horn, and the winner was a most impressive BLM in full Morrigan’s Set, with a Pluto Staff and even elvaan ears (I had to get close to notice these even).

The awards ceremony came next, with all the entries for the fan art contest announced. Sadly, only the one of the three finalists for the drawing category showed up to accept their award, so we never got to meet the original artist. The developers picked an entry submitted from my favorite FFXI webcomic, LVLUP!, as the developer’s choice winner. At least two of the three winners for the crafting contest showed up. Pikko won second place with her Mandy Bento dish (which she humorously stated “I made it this morning” when the emcee asked her how she created it), and the first place winner was an impressive statue of a chocobo raising its babies. More awards followed, such as first to register, last to register, farthest traveled, least distance traveled. They followed up the awards ceremony with a stirring performance from The Star Onion’s keyboard player, Kumi Tanioka. She ended the set off with her “last song”, “Ragnarok” from the Alexander fight at the end of the Aht Urghan storyline mission. That was an experience for me, as that is my favorite song in the game. She came out and did a few encore songs after a brief Q&A through a translator, and then the events were over, which gave more time for socializing and Moblin Maze runs! I took a picture with Kumi Tanioka as well, as the crowds were dispersing off to their rooms.

We ended the night much as we had the night before, at the Rock Band 2 store and in CPK again. This time, it was my turn to get candidly taped while singing AFI’s “Girl’s Not Grey”. We had Darkdoom along with us, and retired back to the hotel, to attend a party held in the FFXI Vault player’s rooms, until I finally had to leave before the parking lot I was staying in closed, I got towed, and stranded in Hollywood. I ran into the developers wearing party hats and masks in the elevator, carrying a birthday cake to someone’s room. It was a funny sight to end the night.