I'm back from Fanfest 2025 and feeling the effects of jet lag today. Nothing serious but a persistent feeling of cloudy brain and the feeling that it should be much, much later in the day. Fanfest was awesome and while I personally think it wasn't up to the high-quality that the last Fanfest reached - for me personally it was incredible. And any criticism I have of the experience overall has been tempered a little more by time. My initial reactions may have been somewhat tainted by several odd things that happened, or in some cases, didn't happen. But it wouldn't be Fanfest if I didn't leave it feeling a little weird about things.
First, the good news. The board game looks insanely good in final production and I could not be happier about that. I spent many hours at the Titan Forge booth drooling over the boxes, models, and all the expansions. So much so that I think Roman felt inclined to have pity on me and send me home with one of everything! So we had to scramble to figure out a way to get everything safely home with limited suitcases. Eventually we decided to buy some nice Ice Wear duffles (which we can use again for other trips) and pack those with clothes, leaving the hard shell suitcases for the game. I am happy to report that everything made it back home safely. And I will be creating an "Unboxing" video here in the next week or so for everything.
My presentation on Thursday could not have gone better. We had a pretty full audience and I think everyone enjoyed the presentation. I'm hoping that CCP recorded it and will have the video available soon. As soon as they do I'll be sure to share that around the community, so everyone can watch. Thanks to everyone who came and helped support me. I'm seriously uncomfortable being on stage in front of an audience even though presenting to clients has always been something I do well. That is the conundrum we often find ourselves in. Desperate for validation and also desperate to avoid situations in which we might potentially be validated. Welcome to human weirdness. Anyway, that went well and I was happy when it was over. I actually enjoyed myself.
If it wasn't for what happened next I never would have thought twice about being given a slot before the "official" start of Fanfest and off the grid for the live feed. However, the weirdness was just getting started. During the opening ceremony CCP mentioned the board game and the new "Dice Game" we've been working on for the past couple of months. During that they showed the wrong box art on the big screen. This was an obvious error and a mistake, but it took a day or two to figure that out. Meanwhile we were slightly panicking and hoping we hadn't done something wrong. Just another example of how a small mistake can have a larger impact.
In the weeks leading up to Fanfest, my friends over at Just had run a reward asking for content creators to create a video showcasing the beauty of Eve Online. The reward was two-fold, a $500 prize and a showcase spot during the opening ceremony of Fanfest. That was a big deal. So I spent almost an entire week and called in a lot of favors to create a video for it. The video won and I looked forward to seeing how it might be used during Fanfest. I honestly had my doubts about it showing up during the opening ceremony until the musical opening number, I was sure it would be playing in the background. But alas, not only did it not get used there - it didn't get used anywhere.
It's easy to get distracted by these kind of things. A lot of people tend to give me a tremendous amount of credit for how I deal with these kind of set-backs. My attitude comes from a life-time of dealing with adversity and challenges. Both personally and professionally. And also knowing what it is like on the other side of planning large scale events. Trade shows. Large multi-million dollar productions. I've been on all sides of those coins and I do understand how mistakes can happen. Or things get steamrolled in the process of just trying to get it done. Getting angry isn't going to accomplish anything. It happens.
And then you realize this happened:
Everything in perspective. Despite all that weirdness I had a great Fanfest. I managed to find time to spend with my fellow players, friends, and Devs (often all in the same person) and share stories. As always there is never enough time to find everyone and I wish we had more time. But that is also a reality of the event, there is just never enough.
I signed a lot of my artwork. Everyone who attended got a mousepad from the folks at Titan Forge that features my art. And I heard from so many players about how my work has impacted their lives and the game we all share. So, all-in-all, those are the most important things.
And, ultimately, why we've already purchased our tickets for next year.
In the coming days I'll be writing more about my feelings regarding Legion and some of the other things we saw from CCP during Fanfest. But right now I need to deal with my emails, DMs, and all the other things landing back at home bring with it.
Until then, I hope to see you in space.