A month has passed since Fanfest 2011 and Seismic Stan at Freebooted has just published an interview with CCP Daishi, Mike Read. If you missed Fanfest this year, or are just looking for some nostalgia, check out this interview here and read up on all the fun things that go on during Fanfest.

This is the second of two blogs bringing a quick overview of Fanfest 2011 to fans that may have missed the festivities this past weekend. The first of the two can be found here.

DAY TWO DELIVERS A ONE TWO PUNCH IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE

Friday offered up a tough act to follow, leaving one wondering what kind of crazy news and presentations are lined up for Saturday’s grand finale’.

More Feedback through Round Tables

Core gameplay and connection with the community were heavy themes for today’s round tables. The NPE, Content, 0.0 and PVP discussions brought in good sized crowds and proved extremely productive. The Women in EVE and EVE on Mac round tables saw great participation, offering invaluable feedback from some of the smaller but noticeably growing areas of the EVE playerbase.

This brings us to the Unconventional Gameplay round table, which took everyone down the twisted, dark road of creative gameplay and inventive use of game mechanics. Some interesting points were the use of Orcas as giant jet cans and shooting one’s own structures as a self-reinforcing POS technique. Nostalgia Road and Memory Lane soon faded into Bizarro Blvd as space cannibals not only surfaced, but also shared their favorite recipes. A good time was had by all, however one couldn’t help but notice a few people fleeing the room rather quickly at the end.

Presentations and a Good Amount of Happy

CCP Chiliad presented the New Player Experience and the Captain’s Quarters, with multiple renders and a brief walkthrough of the functionality players can expect in the next expansion.  Chiliad emphasized both the benefits this will offer new players and the enhancements it brings to EVE Online for its existing playerbase.

Attendees of the Words, Words, Words and Content presentations – and there were a good many of them – were treated to both entertaining presentations and the news that, more than ever before, the link between gameplay and story line will be stronger. Players will be able to look forward to lore and live events that connect to, drive and are based on the happenings in the EVE universe as we know it.

Oh, and the latest and greatest, most amazing cutting edge (yes, it’s that awesome) IBM server was mentioned partially because it’s incredible and beyond anything the industry current has running, but primarily because EVE will soon be harnessing its power to make your trades, wars and random explosions just that much more glorious.

Dr. Eyjo spoke on the economy, reinforcing the value of player feedback, speculation and prediction. The presentation included a look at how speculation regarding insurance changes had caused the ‘Crash of 2010′ and how the market has adjusted itself since then. Overall, the market is active and looking good.

The EVE Keynote: Bold, Confident, Courageous

There’s a warm feeling that one gets when they know that the people behind their favorite hobby have everything under control. CCP Zulu took to the stage with the energy of someone that burns with passion for what he does. Looking around the audience, you could see smiles and people nodding in approval as he spoke, Zulu, Atlas, the Flying Scotsman, Soundwave and others  covered what the future holds for EVE Online. They pulled no punches and delivered a direct message that one could easily see left the audience confident that this team knew what they were doing, were on the right track and were in touch with what the fans want and need from EVE Online.

After that, things got a bit crazy…

Drunken devs playing an odd variation of charades and salsa dancing on stage can make one wonder if the night had gone too far, but that was just the beginning. For a brief moment, everything went dead silent in the venue… apocalypse quiet, even. Why? Because every visitor and CCPer and staff member piled into the main arena to see the most spectacular sporting event that this year could serve up: chess boxing. Just short of Sly Stallone and Chuck Norris fighting a pack of dire wolves in a minefield, there isn’t much that could top the extravaganza that unfolded before our very eyes in and around that ring. With all the Madison Square Garden quality trimmings, the two combatants were introduced and took to the ring in a Brain vs Pain match that evoked enough cheering and excitement that I could actually feel the rumble on the other side of the building as I prepared my notes for this blog.

Wrapping up the night for some, and still just starting the night for others, was a collection of dev-led pub crawls. After that it all gets a bit fuzzy. Friday was a day of excellent news, confidence inspiring talks, and some rather unique entertainment.  It will be very interesting to see how Saturday takes things to the next level.

DAY THREE: HOLD ON TIGHT, IT’S ABOUT TO GET CRAZY IN HERE

The morning started with popcorn and a movie matinee of player-created videos as well as a range of roundtables but it seemed that most people were anxiously awaiting the main presentation “CCP Presents” and the following QnA panel.

With all the great news about Incarna, Captain’s Quarters, Live Events and Turrets that was released on Friday, one couldn’t help but be filled with a good amount of curiosity as to what was headed our way today.

Kings of the Pew Pew Hill

Prior to the presentation, players were getting pumped up over the PVP finals, where the last four teams readied for the matches that would determine their place in history today.

Wpro arrived at the battlefield and were soon greeted by a barrage of lasers. That these lasers were fit to ships that hadn’t a single laser bonus and that no two ships were fit with the same type of crystals made for a truly entertaining match. To quote one of the commentators, “Drunken EVE players shooting rainbow lasers at each other is what Fanfest is all about.” The light show was followed by a second wave of equally odd fitting that included smartbombs and other less than stellar choices. Pandemic Legion was able to pull off a win, even with the far-from-optimal but visually spectacular approach they took to combat.

For first place, Tribe squared off against CainToo in an incredible battle that ended with CainToo emerging as the victors.

CCP Presents…

The newest features and latest announcements were delivered at “CCP Presents…” with news and eye candy that truly exceeded the crowd’s expectations. Hilmar kicked off the presentation with a short speech and the introduction of the newly elected members of the CSM.

Torfi Frans relayed the importance of balance between expansion and iteration, explaining that prioritization was an important focus in the process, Videos of visual content iterations such as the new turrets and the latest nebula graphics displayed how CCP is currently upgrading the look and feel of EVE Online.

Establishments were discussed as additional multiplayer environments for EVE Online. Torfi also elaborated a bit on the ideas being discussed for NPCs, booster trade, gambling, and contraband. While emphasizing that none of these are explicitly on the drawing table, he made it very clear that the focus is on making sure establishments and avatar gameplay are built on a foundation of meaningful interaction.

EVE Forever

Hilmar presented the Future Vision of EVE Online video and no amount of words can do that video justice, so I’ll just leave this link right here for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mlVuLs_Nw

Chessboxing lit up Twitter and the social media channels on Friday, but the Future Vision video, created in the engine being used for DUST 514, set the chat channels ablaze with praise and positive expletives.

QnA Panel

The panel saw a range of popular questions, including a few that garnered some crowd-pleasing responses from the dev team.

• On IPv6 vs IPv4: CCP is ‘in pretty good shape in regards to flipping the switch’ if there is a need/pressure to upgrade to IPv6.
• On adding new ships: ‘We always want to make sure there is a role for it.’ – Noah  ‘There is the choice between does this make sense for the EVE universe or is it just an addition’ – Nathan
• On licensing CARBON: No plans to license it. It is our secret sauce. We don’t share the secret sauce.
• On paint jobs and ship customization: CCP is already working on a way to add decals to ships.
• On adding maker’s marks to crafted items: This was actually designed seven years ago by now-CEO Hilmar but tech/net limitations were a hurdle at the time. ‘With current tech we can reintroduce features such as this.’ – CCP Hellmar

The Party at the Top of the World

PermaBand, Roxor, FM Belfast, and Booka Shade all raised the roof with thousands of Fanfest attendees and local Icelanders packing into Laugardalshöll Convention Center for a night of drinking and dancing.

Videos of the presentations, panels, events and the party at the top of the world will soon be available on the CCPGames YouTube Channel.

Due to a printer’s error, the coupon codes for the Fanfest Quafe t-shirts were printed with incorrect numbers, resulting in the coupons that do not work as intended. We will be sending emails to all EVE Online Fanfest 2011 attendees and provide working codes beginning Wednesday, March 30, 2011. If you do not receive this email by 23:59 UTC on Thursday, March 31, 2011, please file a Billing & Account petition, and one of our customer support representatives will be able to assist you. We apologize for this inconvenience, and thank you for your patience with this matter.

At each EVE Fanfest we share our future visions for EVE. This year we expand it a bit further into where we are headed with the EVE Universe–with a forward-looking video.

I don’t always fly Caldari, but when I do, I prefer a Buzzard.

It’s one of the hulls of my favorite ship class – the Covert Ops Frigate. To me there’s something primally satisfying about a ship that can sit patiently in wait, observe prey from a vast distance and float gently and gracefully down to a full meal when the time is right or simply be content to float into the next canyon. A mostly solitary beast—a noble, misunderstood observer of carnage and death below and sojourner upon the winds of the desolate reaches of the universe.

Why wax poetic about a gray, paper thin vessel, the slightest grazing of which by drone or autocannon sends you packing to your clone?

Because of the tasty intel it gives you.

It’s something I thrive on as a nefarious minister of truthiness at CCP —information. It’s the prison cigarettes of a public relator like me. It’s something you crave too, so we’re doing our best this year to bring you to Fanfest.

But Manifest, I am ((sitting alone/illin chillin with my hombres/ganking veldspar in a mining op/trapped in a fortune cookie factory, sned hepl)) reading this dev blog ((on some futuristic mobile device/in A Beautiful Mind-like cryptic I found in a my local paper I’m sure its the commies damnit/on some futuristic mobile device)) and most certainly not in Reykjavik this weekend. How can you possibly bridge the distance between me and this magical celebration of internet spaceshippery?

Well, FIRST AND FOREMOST, you should already know about the Live Streaming effort of Fanfest we’re doing. Yesterday was an AMAZING success. Chessboxing. CHESSBOXING! A ton of live programming is beamed via this technology by the EVETV team. And yes, they are fully stocked on energy drinks and puffin’s blood.

The best part is that free stream is absolutely free. There’s also the HD stream, which is sexy-crisp and brings you a sexy-crisp Quafe corporate shirt for your favorite character and costs but a paltry pittance for such magnificent quality. If you haven’t already dragged your girlfriends or boyfriends or corpmates or gamer buddies or random citizens off the street to come watch it, now’s the time to do so. It’s the weekend after all. More info in a recent dev blog by CCP Charlie on it all.

SECOND AND SECONDMOST, we realize that not everyone is interested in streaming or is in a position to marathon through all the coverage. We also know that there’s no way the EVETV crew, as passionate and talented as they are, could film everything and broadcast it. There is JUST TOO MUCH.

So we’ve been trying to bring you as much of Fanfest as we possibly can via other means. These efforts will also hopefully serve as a good repository for Fanfest as more and more information and pictures and such continue to pour in for weeks and months after Fanfest.

Here are the places you’ll want to add to your web of interwebs

(We will overheat the whole rack tomorrow)

The Fanfest 2011 Hangar: This thread will have updated information on where to tune in, as galleries are added and Twitter hashtags conversations spawn and conversations are spawned from round tables at Fanfest. This should be a single serving unit of up to date info. Work will continue to be done on this.

Facebook: We do so solemnly swear that we’ll try not to go overboard with spam during Fanfest if you promise to cut us a little slack on our offical Facebook page.

Twitter:

• @eveonline will continue sending the major announcements and events of Fanfest

• @ccpgames may have a thing or two to say

• @evetournament will send any PvP Tournament information to #evepvp

• #evefanfest : discuss while watching the screen, the general place for shoutouts to people at Fanfest and from Fanfest, Reykjavik visitors organizing meetups and mayhem such as that. All shown live on a screen at the event

• #evepvp : things to do with spaceships blowing up

• Other hashtags may come and go with events and player ingenuity. Also listed in the Fanfest Hangar thread.

Devblogs: we managed to eek out a dev blog or two during Fanfest, including this one. As always they reside here.

YouTube: there is a distinct possibility that videos you just saw or heard about will magically become available as if someone magically uploaded them. Shame on you if you haven’t already watched every video here. Many of the presentations will also find there way here in the days and weeks following Fanfest.

Flickr: we’ll have tons of pictures here, hopefully some donated by players at the event during the photo scavenger hunt

Fanfest page: daily wrapups for you in an easy to digest, stomach-friendly version on the Fanfest page.

FINALLY AND FINALLYMOST, check in with your friends and corpmates who are still at Fanfest. Did they survive the Pub Crawl? Send them EVEmails, taunt them over EVE Gate, shoot them intercontinental ballistic text messages and deride them for being there when you cannot. Or give them electronic high fives up high. They are, after all, your conduit and representative to the development team, your alt in Dodixie as it were.

If, in turn, you are at Fanfest, please send a greeting or a picture home or do a favor for someone who couldn’t make it. Promised you’d give CCP Manifest a beer? Go for it! The world is your oyster! Or, better yet, grab them a weird viking based souvenir. Raise a pint in their honor and give a toast while at the Party at the Top of the World. Gift your Quafe tshirt. Tell them about how awesome it was to be there in person, with RoXoR on stage melting your face off as you sing in unison with hundreds of other people in your same internet spaceship community.

It’s serious business after all. And Fanfest is what it’s all about.