EQ FAN FAIRE MUSINGS or ANIMALIAK MAITE DITUT, HORREGATIK EZ DITUT JATEN [Author: delusion]

I headed up to the EQ Fan Faire on Friday at about 6:00 pm. As registration began at 1:00 pm, I was afraid that I may had missed some of the event. Arcadian Del Sol assured me that I hadn’t missed much; most of the players were having a good time socializing, but for those of us who really don’t have a foot in the EQ community, there wasn’t much to see.

The reception began at 8:00
pm, and Cindy Archuleta, Everquest’s Community Relations Manager, made introductions for
all the staff members of Verant Interactive. Verant’s staff were, to a person, very
accomodating and eager to talk to the players. One thing critical to note here is that the
hors d’oeuvres served during the reception were excellent – it would be a crime to
come to Baltimore and not have crab balls. Excellent choice on behalf of Verant or the
Airport Marriott. Hopefully, most of the players from out of town actually had a chance to
see some of Baltimore on Sunday.

One of the common complaints
about the EQ Fan Faire I’ve heard from players is that Friday wasn’t used to the extent it
could have been. Given that that’s the biggest grievance I’ve heard to any real degree is
a testament to the overall success of the event. Still, it’s something to keep in mind
when planning these gatherings.

If the players’ reaction to
representatives from the Website Formerly Known as …
can be described in one word, that word would be “huh?”. If any of us is known
for covering Everquest, it’s certainly Lum, and not Arcadian Del Sol and I. Furthermore,
as came up a few times, the players who are looking for news about current events in the
game, they often find sites more focused in on the day to day happenings of the games
themselves. There was a tag ritual which involved peering at the wearer’s name tag to see
if you knew them, but aside from the disappointment that more than one player had at
realizing that Arcadian’s tag didn’t say AllaKhazam,
there wasn’t much of a response. “Uh… Delusion… ok…” I probably looked out
of place without a robe.

Saturday was the day of the
Faire Proper(e). After a quick run-down of what was going on and when, something called
Real Life Quest began. I could make a hundred jokes about the name, but I’ll just make one
and leave the rest to you: Real Life Quest involved obtaining candy from the babies of
hotel patrons, running around the halls with nothing but towels on and occasionally taking
those towels off to snap one another in a sporty “I’m not attracted to you, I’m just
wacky and fun-loving” kind of way, and denial-of-service attacking the front desk
phones. Honestly, it involved none of that (to my knowledge), and although I’m not exactly
sure what it was (remember, I’m a bit of a stranger in these parts), the players seemed to
enjoy it. It gave the Verant staff a chance to talk to the press as well – the usual suspects as well as print media and radio.

The vendors and some of the
more prominent EQ sites were introduced as the Faire opened. There were a few vendors
there, including Everlore, RPGwear, and Verant’s official EQ product vendor, dubbed “Phat Lewt”.
It seemed to me that there would have been a lot of interest in more vendors. I’m not sure
if the number of vendors was limited by size of the venue or expense or some other
concern, but for future events, I’d really encourage Verant to do as much as possible to
get more turnout. From the vendors’ point of view, they seemed to be doing a brisk enough
business to warrant having more sellers the next time out. Verant’s official product table
had quite a number of eight inch figures which seemed to be one of the more popular
offerings. Why Firona Vie was absent from the figure collection is beyond me. The model who plays
Firona for Verant’s events was in tow, so it would have seemed to me to be a bit of a
no-brainer. Then again, I’m sure she had to sign enough posters as it was – adding a
figure likeness to this may very well have caused the line to back up into the parking
lot.

The abundance of t-shirts
with the “got SoW?” line emblazoned upon them reminded me that I was a Stranger
in a Strange Land. I was going to bring a Basque dictionary to use as a prop for when the
jargon flew too fast, but I didn’t get around to getting one. One of the Stratics staffers
explained the SoW reference, and I’m assured that it’s considered incredibly funny in some
circles. I’m taking his word for it. My confusion aside, the shirts were a hit, as was one
for a perscription for “clarity”. Again, right over my head. Speaking of
clarity, Wives Against EverQuest, an organization I suspect has a basis in humor more than
reality to begin with, made news by not showing up. Truly an envious position to be in.

One vendor that probably
could have stayed home was White Wolf. Of all the vendors introduced during the faire,
White Wolf was the only to receive no applause or cheers. To clarify, I don’t mean
“not much”, I mean “none“. Whether this is a reflection of the
lack of interest of the EQ community in White Wolf’s product or a broader indication about
the EQ community’s interest in pen and paper RPGs isn’t exactly clear, but I’m assuming
the former. They couldn’t give their product away. In fact, they tried. They had a stack
of free Introductory Kits for their game Vampire: The Masquerade which they were giving
out – a sampler to the game, of sorts. There were a lot of these left lying around in a
distribution which can only be described as pathological. Most occupied the center of a
zone of uninhabited area with an average radius of five feet. These things, perhaps
appropriately, shunned life – or vice versa. On the bright side, no impressionable
young players were tricked into Vampire LARPing.

After the teams finished up
the Real Life Quest, the event Balkanized into many different discussion panels. Not being
a native speaker, the specifics were lost on me, but the overall thrust was not: these are
developers and gamers with a lot to say to one another and they’re eager to say it.

With limited exposure to the
game, to me the most interesting part of the Faire during the discussion panels was the
quest panel that was being held in the ballroomm, but it wasn’t a discussion panel about
how quests are run. It was an actual quest. I stepped in during the quest, but it was run
again on another server, so by the time it started over, some of the players were able to
fill us in on the basics that we weren’t familiar with. It seemed to be a low-level quest
designed for just a few participants. I take it Misty Thicket is a halfling-friendly area,
because the quest involved Fuzzy the Bear being saved from disease, and in each case, the
participants were halflings. I was distracted for a bit until I realized I wasn’t watching
a trailer for the Lord of the Rings movie. The bear was played by one of the Verant staff
and his screen was being projected onto the main viewing screen.

The decision to hold this
part of the Faire in the main lobby was a good one: it was packed. The players were
enjoying watching. During the first run of the quest, the players were cheering on the
halfling who was rescuing the bear – stay with me here, I’m not getting into specifics on
accident. Near the end of the journey to the destination where the bear was to be taken
to, the halfling turned to the bear and gave it some food. This wasn’t necessary to the
completion of the quest, and the audience cheered on the halfling some more. It was a
transforming moment; no more than fifteen minutes before, this same audience was shouting
to the person controlling the bear “Kill him! Kill him!” when the halfling first
appeared. I’m not exactly sure how to read that, and I’ll avoid trying to ferret out a
general humanist truism out of it. It was, however, a very encouraging thing to see, and
goes a long way toward demonstrating the emotional connection that drives people to play
these sorts of games with more personal involvement than what you usually see in
single-player games.

The discussion panels
concluded, and the participants gathered together for another game, this time, a trivia
contest. Between the Real Life Quest and the trivia contest, the players had once
participated in events divided according to the server on which they play and once by the
character class they play. This seemed to be a good way to mix the players and get them
involved in events with people they otherwise may not have had the opportunity to meet. It
struck me as a good move. It also reminds me of something that was missing from this event
that I’ve seen or heard about at Ultima Online events: the schism between the “PKs
and RPs”. I can almost visualize a bunch of UO players working together based on
server preference rather than extremist PK/RP partisan playstyle preference, and it’s not
pretty.

A few of the participants
were in costume, so I was surprised that there was no official costume contest. Notable
participants would have been Karana Abdul Jabar
and his Basketball of Slaying, Pelvis Man – the
only person whom I have ever seen use a pelvis as a fashion accessory, Laefaethasha Third-Elven
who pulled off the look a lot better approximately two seconds before this shot when she
wasn’t in the middle of blinking, Chain Male with
not-quite-matching wristwatch and cell phone, and his friend who
doesn’t want to be Elfstar any
more. She wants to be Debbie.

There was a fair bit of idle
time between the trivia contest and dinner, so at about 6:30, the masses began to camp the
food spawn. Forgive me for such an obvious joke. It was extremely packed during the wait,
which for whatever reason was a little longer than anticipated. They were serving drinks
once the lines were moved forward, at least – I can’t begin to tell you what perfect
timing that was. There was an extremely small minority complaining (after the fact, on the
boards) about the prevelance of alcohol at the event. Frankly, this baffles me. It’s a
hotel. It’s a convention. It’s social. It’s a weekend. The overwhelming majority of
attendees were old enough to drink. It’s not 1923. To address said grumblings delicately:
screw ’em. There was still a bit more waiting to do, and in close quarters.

On to dinner. The staving
peasants rush in! By Saturday evening, we had lost track of the Stratics folks we had
spent much of Friday evening with. You can see us toward the left
side using Arcadian’s hat to try to lure them into our trap. Sadly, they didn’t fall
for it.

Dinner included carrots,
rice, stuffed chicken breast, and a red disc. I was expecting pickled beet, but it decided
to be spiced apple. The spiced apple was good, but it’s surprising as hell when you’re
expecting something vinegary and tart and end up getting something cinnamony and sweet.
The rice was putatively saffron rice, but in the absence of any saffron flavor, it could
best be described as “yellow rice”. If it were snow, I would have avoided eating
it. The pastry mushroom-stuffed chicken breast was delicious, and I don’t say that lightly
– if any web site will take you to task for abusing breasts to your advantage, it’s this one.
Sorry, Grath.

The after-dinner
entertainment was informal. There was plenty of schmoozing (not that we hadn’t availed
ourselves of a lot of that beforehand), both the hotel bar/restaurants were packed, and a
lot of groups were forming up for various scheduled and impromptu player/guild/server/etc.
gatherings. It was also characterized by someone – an event participant, not a hotel
staffer – playing the same three songs on the piano as he played Friday night. Amidst all
the EverQuest paraphernalia, I had what could be described as a very Ultima Online moment
as I resisted the urge to scream at him “STOP PLAYING THAT DAMN THING” – a
refrain familiar to anyone who played UO and ever had the displeasure of encountering
someone in town with a real lute fetish.

I came away from the EQ Fan Faire a much wiser
member of the gaming community. This wisdom can be summed up pretty neatly: 800 speed
film really isn’t sufficient for taking indoor non-flash photography, no matter
what the box may say.

\’c2\~

\’c2\~

\’c2\~

\’c2\~