Onturn, Tune In, Hot Drop: Attending EVE Fanfest in absentia

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.