The 2009 Las Vegas Fan Faire at Bally's
All of the following images are in chronological order.
The Images!
In the shuttle from the airport you could see the GIANT transformers add on the side of the Luxor
Looking down Las Vegas Blvd from the shuttle
An attempt at a better shot of the sign on the luxor
The guardian statues outside the Luxor
Lunch at the Hofbrauhaus
Banut having some of the wicked good Heffeweissen
Banut and what remained of his wurstplatte
Velika and Mulleg in Banut's room
A very poor photo of Banut, Velika and Mulleg
The view along the back side of the strip hotels from Banut's window
Nadev, Nuka and Alkaria in line at the Paris buffet a little ways ahead of my group
Nadev and Nuka at the buffet
Banut, Velika, and Mulleg at the Paris buffet
Wycca and Wyora at the buffet, texting eachother ! (ok not really, but it looks like it)
In the theater to watch Transformers at the Palms, Wyora and Sulaya
Packed into Sulaya's jeep to get back from the movie
Wyora and Anara
Bad photo of the Paris Ifel tower from my window
A better, but still not that great photo of the tower
A view down on the Paris / Bally's pool at night
An attempted photo of the Bellagio fountain show at night from my window
View from my window in the morning on thursday
The tower with the strip behind it
The Bellagio fountains
Breakfast with Higsby, Chedderella, and Misharu
Heros were finishing breakfast just as I started, Meahlana and Zoyna and I forget the others
Misharu and Chedderella up in my room preparing for a scotch tasting, Higsby was getting a bottle from his room
A group of us gathering down in the hall before the convention center to meet up with early arrivals
Jyve, sleepwalking to the convention area
Higsby, Brenlo, and Jyve
Sr Guide Pabinee
Chedderella
Absor and Rhatiz having just arrived in Vegas
Jyve, the back of Chanaluss, I forget the fellow's name in back who flew in from Tokyo, Saroc and Crystilla
The line starting to form for early registration / badge pick up
Velika, Mulleg, Banut, Beimeith, and Yalyeni
The line stretched behind us all the way out to the casino floor
The original painting by Keith Parkinson that helped start it all
The original Larry Elmore painting for Omens of War expansion
The original Jeff Easley painting for Gates of Discord
The original artwork for the Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion
Elidroth
Keith Parkinson's originall painting for the Scars of Vellious
Prints for sale of a lot of the artwork done for the EQ 10th anniverssary book
Sobewiz and Nallaana and her husband
Nallaana, her husband, and myself
Yalyeni
Beimeith
The gathering area in the bazaar room, tables for people to sit down and chat at
Aristo, the Everquest Patchboy
They had playable demos of DC Universe Online which looked very impressive
Ngreth stepped infront of this picture, but it was supposed to be of the dead computer that was 'supposed' to be running the EQ booth game system
Ngreth replacing the computer while Aristo and Raramor wait in the back, watching people play DCUO
Merryiddian, who now goes by another character name in EQ2
These T-Shirts made several apperances over the weekend
Alkaria, Nuka and Nadev still in line to get their badges, more than 2 hours after registration opened thursday. The line was massive!
Two of EQs coders, Juhuns-DEV and JChan
Yamene and Aristo, with the demo system back up and running
Raramor, Sklug and Meahlana watching Aristo running around on his dev account
Aristo hopped on luclin to watch Kratos guild wipe to the council in kaesora. I had tot ake this photo because I see Vexx's corpse =)
Next Aristo hopped on Cazic to watch a guild killing Meldrath. He took a peak at what they got for drops before the guild even knew
Aristo decided to give everyone in the zone a cloth cap
At this point he let the raid know that we were watching and congradulated them on their cloth caps
A very fuzzy Raramor, Prathun, Elidroth, and Absor ontop of the Gunnar Optic bus
Prathun saw me with my camera out and took his own picture
The room was packed with people checking out vendors and demos
Phanthom the new producer for EQ
Brenlo chatting with players
Half of Saroc, Crystilla and Hulkling
A bad photo of the original Donato Giancola painting for the cover of the EQ 10th anniversary book
Minimind (lilbraen) and his girlfriend
Prathun playing Guitar Hero at the Gunnar Optics bus
Prathun explaining to Juhuns-DEV how to play guitar hero
Elidroth playing some Free Realms while Crystilla and Saroc watch, Tnexus is talking with Rhatiz
Took them a few tries, but they got through a few songs on GH World Tour, not bad for most of them having never played
Double red headed trouble ! Brasse and Niami
Saroc after they opened up the banquet hall for the meet and greet with snacks
Crystilla, Tnexus, and Hulkling
View of the stage and the big video screens to either side
The first of many givaways where Brenlo had people go up on stage and make fools of themselves before the crowd to win stuf
Another qsnoopy shirt
Higsby with a hello kitty doll
Cards up in Banut's room, Fouey, Mulleg, Beimeith and half of Banut
Yalyeni, Beimeith, Dark, Banut, and Mrs Fouey
Myself and Nodyin
Beimeith, Elidroth, and Absor
Nodyin and Prathun
Mr and Mrs Fouey, Nodyin, the back of Dark, Elidroth, the back of Beimeith, Jyve and Wycca, and Absor
Wyora, Prathun, Hulkling, Yalyeni, XXX, and Banut
Mr and Mrs Fouey were the first casualties of the late hour, And I still dont have a decent photo of Dark, but she's in the foreground
Rhatiz swung by to help replace some of the dwindling crowd
Wycca, Hulkling, Nodyin and Tnexus chatting, Dark and Absor in the foreground
Wycca, Hulkling and Nodyin
Rhatiz and Prathun giving Dark bunny ears
Everyone just before we all figured we should go to bed so as not to miss pannels in the morning
Just as we got to the elevator we ran into Qaman coming up, but since we were all leaving we packed back in the elevator and went down
Prathun and Qaman
The same, but Prathun made me take another so that he could smile
Friday morning early getting together for breakfast. Half of Tnexus, Nodyin, Saroc, Ngreth, Jen Chan, Steve and Susan Klug, and Crystilla
The community leader summit, half of sklug, Nodyin, JChan, Aristo, and Rytan
Crystilla baked cookies !
Aristo was trying to mess with the electric pannels and see if we could turn more lights on
Rytan, Elidroth, Hulkling and Saroc
Wycca, Chanaluss and Crystilla
Minimind made it and we were ready to start... no more photos of the CL summit meeting because of NDA!
The EQ 10th Anniversary pannel getting ready to start
The room filled up pretty fast
Jayce Hall moderating the first pannel, with an assortment of current and former EQ devs and workers
Elidroth talking about how before he worked on EQ he worked in the same building at the ISP that SoE used and how they had to scramble to get the whole network back online after EQ launched and the bandwidth brought down the internet in San Diego
Even though this was supposed to be a retrospective pannel on the last 10 years of EQ, the Whine O' Meter had to be re-born due to some player comments
Players lining up to ask questions of the pannel
Finished Whine O Meter 3.0b
Zoyna was hidden (rogue) but Meahlana is always easy to spot with her puppy hat
Qaman and myself went out to PF Chang's for lunch at Plannet Hollywood
Misharu mostly in costume as an NPC for the EQ Live Quest
I still have no idea what this was, but there was a string of guys giving lap dances to this woman in the lobby
People gathering for the first EQ pannel after lunch
Every EQ pannel was pretty packed with people
Up next was the EQ Quest design pannel, where the dev team went through the steps to get a quest from idea into game
Elidroth describing the first steps, writing design documents, and how some of the design stuff can be done more than 2 years before players will ever see the content
This was the original design document for the SoD expansion
Hand drawn maps of the temple of bertoxxulous
This was a warning that the next image in the document was very graphic and disturbing. They flashed it briefly, it was of a gangreen foot, to be used as reference for character art for the disease temple
Rhatiz, Elidroth, and Absor hiding behind a monitor, describing how complex it is just to add NPCs to the game
A quick shot of Chanaluss' badge. Due to a printing error his badge was printed with the name Lord instead of Lord Chanaluss
This is a list of some of the fields that need to be entered to create an NPC... Somewhere in there is a field named Poopytxt... That's the text that the mob says when it agros on you
The next pannel followed immediately and the room broke up into groups paired with some developers to create our own quests
This was our quick brainstorm session notes for a quest
Our group ended up with a pair of developers, Ngreth and Absor... in addition to an EQ Intern whose name I forgot to catch
Due to unfortunate circumstances with the easel someone tore a hole in their pants... however Crystilla happened to have a sewing kit with her.
With the quest workshop wrapped up it was time for the "general session" where people lined up to whine... err i mean ask questions
Dev team boggled as someone whined incessantly about Lifeburn vs Manaburn
Dinner at a gorgeous french bistro at the Wynn resort. This was the view from our table of a waterfall and pond
Wycca and Wyora going over the menu
Wycca and the red wine that he chose to go with the duck that he ordered
The patte and cheese plates to start the meal
The same picture (essentially)... I guess my camera chose to take two
Wyora, who taught me more about fine dining and french cuisine with this meal than I think I'll be able to remember
The duck plate that Wycca ordered
The mussels that Wyora ordered. As someone who grew up in new england having fresh mussels... these were the best I had ever had.
The scottish salmon with asperagus plate that I ordered
Desert cheese plate with a desert Port wine
The setting was gorgeous, with the moon setting over the waterfall as we ate
When we got back from dinner, having skipped John Smedley's address to allow sufficent time to enjoy it, we found that they had announced the opening of Mayong (51/50 server) for just FF attendees for the evening
Prathun, Nodyin and Wyora, who was running drinks from the open bar party over to some of us.
Wycca named his wizard Rytan and had quite a few people thinking that Rytan was playing the character and not someone else
Wyora, Qaman, Elidroth, Wycca, and others all in the computer area, It was like one big lan party
Tnexus, Jyve, Chanaluss and others, we were all grouping up to raid together and take out some targets.
Elidroth lost a bet wtih Rytan that we wouldnt kill Venril Sathir before the evening finished. Here's the VS corpse shot.... and yet again the evil developers turned my avatar into a vah shir girl... NOT my choice!
Blurry picture of Rhatiz and Brenlo chatting
Mulleg arrived late but rolled up a shaman to help with Talendor and Severlious
Zatozia swung by to take some pictures, you can see Talendor's corpse in the lower left.
They kicked us all out of the room at 1AM, A few of us hung around a bit to chat with Zatozia and Aristo
Qaman, Elidroth, Absor and JChan wrapping up things for the night
Zatozia, she claims to be a torturess but no one who smiles that much can be evil!
Nadev and Alkaria
Myself and Betilla from Heros on Luclin
Jyve with Saroc and YYY in the background
Meahlanna and her hat ! =D
On the way back to the south tower with Tnexus to go to bed, we ran into Jayce Hall and ZZZ who produced EverCracked and stopped to chat
Tnexus, Jayce Hall, and Myself
Saturday morning, myself and a fellow I ran into in the elevator who knew me, I forget his current character name now though, but it ends with *adil
A line forming to get in and see EverCracked
Free Realms Mascot goblin wandering the halls
The line just to get in and see EverCracked started to spill back into the casino
The Free Realms squirrel mascott
Greeblen and myself took pictures of us taking pictures of eachother
The line streaming into the room to watch EverCracked
Anistin walked infront of me just as i was taking a picture of Smed
Smed peering back, but another person walking infront of my camera
Bruce Ferguson, Smed, and some other SOE employees getting front row seats
The room was PACKED there ended up people all along the walls and sitting on the floor
Jayce Hall gave a little intro before starting the documentary
Brenlo guarding the exit while getting ready to watch the film
Film starting, no more photos till it's done now... but it was awesome! Cant wait for the final release
The EQ Best of the Best getting underway in the gaming area
Donato Giancola's original pencil drawing for the painting he did for the EQ10th book
Kathi, Nytemercy and Cindienn who all used to play on Stormhammer with me by different character names
Myself and Brasse in her new japanese inspired costume
Wyora getting her EQ10th book signed by the artist
Yalyeni in line to get his book signed
Kraxxus from Luclin
Anara, as we were getting ready to go find lunch
Wyora, Wycca, Kraxxus, Sulaya and Anara at the Hofbrauhaus for lunch
Myself, the same as above, and I forget the woman on the right's character name.
The one man Umpa Band performing for us all
Playing the great swiss horn
A clearer photo of the same
Getting ready to 'play vertically'
Playing the horn while balancing it on his head straight up
Wyora with a 1L Stein that she won
We somehow managed to cram 7 of us into the 5 seat Jeep to get home
the same
the same again, I guess my camera has a setting where if the flash isnt needed it will keep taking photos as you hold the button down
The 51/50 server discussion pannel
Warhuh What Is It Good For
An even less readable photo of the same
Forming groups for the raid design workshop
Sulaya coming up with ideas for the raid
Nodyin Wyora and Tnexus, who was acting as our scribe
Sulaya, I forget, and Chanaluss working on raid ideas
Our raid design coming together for a 'defend the bridge' fight with dragons flying over head strafing the army and enemy archers trying to shoot down the dragon.
Multiple failure chances, because the plan is you have to prevent the dragon from being killed by the discord army
The completed storyboard
Prepping for the EQ Expansion pannel
Rytan introducing the team
Phanthom, Elidroth, Ngreth, Nodyin behind the monitor, Prathun, and the intern in the background
Raramor and the start of the slide show
Nodyin was doing a run through of some zones on his dev avatar, and we could see some 'extra' info about npc stats from his UI
A photo that didnt come out well of some cool zone geometry
Fouey and the line forming for the banquet behind us
Township Rebellion photo that i took that was fuzzy, Yalyeni giving Bemieth bunny ears, Mulleg in back, Banut, Dark, and Mr and Mrs Fouey in front
Township Rebellion members at the Fan Faire (minus Nallaana and Sobewiz) Same as teh photo above but with myself, and in focus
the line behind us got enormous fast
They had everyone pack in as tight as possible wall to wall because the line went all the way out into the casino and security was throwing a fit
Food at last ! unfortunately not everyone got food, apperantly the hotell didnt make enough and they ran out
Bemieth getting food behind me
Every table was packed, and there were still people who didnt have seats
We werent all that far from the stage thankfully
Our uber guild sign
Nallanna made it down for supper and found our table
This was supposed to show how packed the place was, but the flash and camera focused on the white lounge seats
Brenlo dressed up as a bananna... Or as some people in TR said "hey, Masonight made a guest apperance"
Costume Contest, this woman dressed up as a monk and was threatening Brenlo... who kept making bad bananna pun jokes on stage!
Alkaria Nuka and Nadev up at the front table had a spot for me to sit to get better photos of the costume contest
Meryddian dressed up as a gnome tinker troubador, the photo was real bad though, but the costume was good
A sword-maiden from EQ2
Everyone piled up on the clear floor space before the stage to take photos
Greedo said that he shot first, not Han... Lies I say !
This guy found a black tshirt and went up there as an EQ1 ninja... said that there really is a ninja class in EQ1, they're just hidden real well
Raevin dressed as an EQ2 Fury, with whip
This efllow was the eventual costume contest winner... because of his good sense of humor, despite just being Darth Vader... You can see his Imperial Walker that he needed to get around. He turned his handicap into an asset and eventually won
Greeblen and Pex
A better picture of the same, Brasse in the background to the left
Myself and Meryddian without the flight goggles and other parts of her costume
Meryddian and Niami
Crystilla and Zatozia, Cheddarella to the right
Zatozia and myself
Echoin from EQ2 Antonia Bayle server
Brenlo after another successful year MCing the Fan Faire
Fouey, Mrs Fouey, and Sobewiz
Fouey and Mrs Fouey
I missed Kianna's character name, but she plays on Luclin as well
Sobe took my camera and told me to do something silly
Threatening to show after asked what I was wearing under my kilt.
Cheddarella and Yalyeni
Tnexus, Jyve, and Crystilla
Qaman, Sobe, Saroc and Kianna
We did another single malt scotch tasting with what was left of the scotch that I brought to vegas with me
Sitting around and talking with Nodyin about EQ and DCUO
Sobewiz, Qaman and myself went to get some late night pizza because we were hungry
Back upstairs, we actually moved to a different room... though it looks much just like the last one
Beimieth pulled out his laptop and started playing some Legend of Zelda
All that remained of the alcohol that I brought, a very little bit of the Ornoco rum, and a third of a bottle of the Aberlour A'Abunda that Higsby brought
Dark, Saroc, and Crystilla
Zatozia trying to hex me... I guess it worked, because I WAS going to bed, but ended up staying up chatting with her until 6am
Zajeer, two people I dont know, and Rhatiz at the little poker bar by the lobby
Prathun and Zatozia and I chatted until it became light outside again
Miracle Bubbles!
Cuppycake and her boyfriend checking out sunday morning
Qaman, Prathun and Saroc around noonish on sunday, most all the other SoE people had left already to get back to San Diego
Nuka and Alkaria actually had a plane flight out later than my 10:45PM flight, ugh!
The fountain outside of Paris
Lunch with Prathun and Qaman back at PF Chang's
People saw this run of black and people started all gathering around the table as everyone started putting tons of money on red. That's ~1000$ on red
A better shot of the bets on red
And... it's black again.
The number was 33 again, but i couldnt get my camera to get the blinking 33 to be 'on' when i took a shot.
That was 3 29s and 3 33s in the last 10 spins
One last failed attempt to get a picture of it. Not a single red in the last 16 spins
An attempt to get a picture of the strip from the airplane as we zoomed down the runway
just lifting off past the strip at night
The strip from the air
more of the same blurriness
As always, send corrections to tharkisREMOVE@REMOVEgmail.com (yes, get rid of the two REMOVE it's a normal gmail account)