Just got back from California, a really cool place if you ask me. I
have to say I had a really good time attending the Fan Festival,
especially for my 1st time and due to the fact that it's improved from
last year I heard.

I will post pictures of the event sometime this week, not today, I'm beat.

For now I will go over what traspired while I was there.

Day One, Thursday:
I
flew into California in the morning where my freind, who lives near the
convention center where the festival was being held, picked me up.
Coming from a cold and damp enviorment to a nice yet hot enviorment was
a huge transiton and funny since I was wearing a leather coat, hoodie
and long sleeve shirt :-P. We then went to have lunch and get the hotel
checked that I was staying in. After that it was off to the convention
center to register.
We got there at 2:30pm, only to wait almost 3
hours which was annoying. Registration was supposed to start at 8am but
they said due to a huge crowd on the 2nd floor they had to close it
around noon, which, for one thing I didn't quite see a "huge crowd"
from looking at a distance. And the crowd was huge when they reopened
and the line went for almost a block.
My friend and I met some
interesting people in line. We talked about the game and swapped
"notes" on FF vs WoW amoungst each other such as jobs, leveling system,
etc. My freind did play FFXI when it first came out but stopped playing
because he didn't like the level progression. He felt it was too slow
and he's the type of person when he plays an MMO he wants his time
maximized to where he's getting somewhere. I can understand where he's
coming from in that.
Him and I then went back to the hotel to chill out before parting ways.

Day Two; Friday:
The
Presentation! Whoo hoo! I got there at the start time. First thing I
was doing was looking for our fearless leader, Scud :-P. I didn't find
him untill the start of the presentation, where a section of the
convention hall had tables. Each table had the name of a server. I
found the Ramuh table and people were there already, including Scud. It
was a pleasure to get to meet him. I have to say he's a pleasant fellow
and funny if you ask me, not to meantion very intelligent. The others
at the table were very nice as well. Its good to know there are some
decent people on the server, and on the game iteself for that matter.
Later over the weekend I found out there were a close number of 55
people from Ramuh who attended! However I only managed to see about a
dozen at our table from Friday. Some I've met on the game, others I've
never have untill then.

Anyhoo during the presentation, the
Producer and Battle Director disscussed the upcoming new jobs, areas,
an overview of the history of Vanadiel which ties into the plost of the
expansions storyline.

All the information about the new jobs, today's (monday) update, and more can be looked up on http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

After
the presentation was over we all went over what we planned to do for
the rest of the weekend over lunch. We split the group up into teams of
6-8 people to do the Live Quest. Scud was on the team I was on untill
he had to leave by mid-afternoon to catch his flight on his holiday
trip.
It took us all day to complete the Live Quest. It involed
going around the hotel to solve riddles, puzzles and clues we had to
find. We could be creative in any way as well as look up any
information of clues on Allahkazham and FFxiclopedia. Some of the
puzzles were ok, others were rather lame in my opinion. The upside was
it gave everyone a chance to get to know and team up with each other to
accomplish a goal.
We took a break to watch the Tarutaru Marathon,
which was funny and entertaining. It was a race of Tarutaru premade
characters as level 1 whm in a level 50s zone and you had to reach the
Goal Galka, having the option to buy cures from the Cure Galka,
provided you found both with the Goal Galka a primary target. After
that was over I walked around a bit only seeing part of the Quiz show.
Then we went back to doing the Live Quest to get it over with.

By
the early evening we were done with Live Quest and we talked for a bit
about the presentation and expansion some more before parting ways. I
then met up with my freind again for dinner. We ate at Downtown Disney
area and he showed me around thereafter before the fireworks started
they have every night.

Saturday:
Attended the morning
address. Prior to that I made friends and tripled up with a guy named
Zoras and his mother-in-law, Rwen. Really pleasent people and they
filled me in more about endgame as well as the infamous Absolute
Virture NM, which I never heard of untill now.

Zoras and I did the Heroes and Heroines combat. We failed miserably. Here's why;
Granted
the characters were premade once again, which was fine, but some of the
characters were 'gimped' in our opinion. I chose warrior since nobody
else knew the job well enough to operate it. It had some decent gear
(yet odd seeing him wear a peacock charm). His character was a galka
RDM, full af but not a lot in MP boost gear,no rse to speak of . I
know, its not about the gear but the skill but given the skill of the
two out of the party of 6 it would've turned the tide. Zoras said he
never really levled RDM that high enough (lvl 60 characters) let alone
kite as one since his forte is BLM but he got stuck with RDM cause one
of the other people insisted they have BLM.
So once we got organized
and tested out the characters we were then transported to the area
where the boss fights were held. Zoras and the WHM still needed time to
set up a macro or two and buff but our party leader was apparently
impatient and rushed into the fight. Ajido-Marujido slept both me, the
monk, thf, and whm leaving only Zoras and blm to fend for themselves.
We at least managed to take Ajido out before we died. Volker and Trion
sure don't give any mercy lol.

Its ok. I don't mind that we lost
since we can do this fight again. When you completed the live quest
you're given a code to do this fight, along with a few others that
nobody else can access on the game itself.

After that was over,
Zoras and I went on and tried out the Wings of the Goddess tour. That
allowed you to try out both Dancer and Scholar as well as see the new
areas. I thought it was amazing.

Scholar was rather interesting.
From my impression of it its a backline job, with rdm, whm, and blm
being the most suited subjobs for it due to its primary abilities.
Speaking of which the abilities are very useful. I managed to fend off
a Pixie with Scholar but it was a long fight since the Pixie I faced
was whm based :-P

There was a time limit to how long you can play
the job; 5-10 mins. My time was up for Scholar so I had to switch seats
with someone to then mess with Dancer. Unfortuantely I didn't really
get to test out its abilities because the zone they transported us had
a smaller amount of monsters and a lot of people had claims. All in all
I can say both of these jobs are impressive. For more info go here:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Fa...2007_Live_Blog

After
Zoras and I were done we met up with Rwen to eat lunch., attend the
Costume Contest, Quiz Show, Developer's panel, Awards Ceremonies and
Raffle giveaways. I tried to get into the Quiz Show but my number
didn't come up. I ALMOST won on the giveaway but was off by 1 point .

Also the only beef that everybody was having during the Developer's Panel was this:

Absolute
Virtue: " It was not designed to be invincible, is working correctly, and
theoretically can be defeated. Because there have been so many failures
they had planned to show a video of it being defeated. But the team had
no time because of developing WotG. They chose to prioritize completing
WotG on-time rather than creating the video. But because they promised,
a few weeks after WotG release they will begin making the video. They
will put up scenes with hints - new hints - that will effect AV in ways
that will "blow your mind". (Another media guy says he was told they
may release a new item to help as well). There will be no adjustments
of AV and it will remain the hardest mob in the game but they are sure
it can be beaten. They hope to have video ready before 1st update in
2008."

Couple of people by our table were complaining about this, which
was silly yet I found out then about this NM from Zoras and Rwen and I
can understand the frustration. But then again the way I see it, its
good motivation. And personally I'd rather have the developers work on
WotG THEN make a vid on Absolute Virtue. It didn't matter cause Zoras
and I noticed they were giving out hints as to beating him anyways, lol.

Later
in the evening, the Special Event involved a band called Smash
Brothers. They were so/so, ok but not great. The special guest was the
keyboardist for Star Onions. She was amazing! By then Zoras and Rwen
parted ways with me to head on home and the rest of the night was spent
with the others at the Ramuh table before I went back to the hotel.

I
can honestly say my time there was well spent and from what I've been
told by other people this year's Fan Festival was better improved than
last year's. I can't really say that there's nothing bad about anything
or if anything needs improving. If anything, I think next time they
should have a fan fiction contest but that's just me.

As for
pictures, I took tons so It will take time for me to post them with the
upcoming expansion and Thanksgiving holiday coming up as well.

That's it for me. I had a wonderful time and it was good to see decent people who play this crazy game :-P

-Rusty.

P.S. about 2000 people attended this year, apparently doubled from the last Fan Festival.

Bookmark: