Woot!  We're here!  Fan Faire!  Day One!  I won't regail you with all our travel adventures.  We got here, and Fan Faire is on.  As I write this it's 1 am and I'm pooped but still too excited to sleep.

Here's irony for you:  After all my lists, the one thing i forgot was my camera cable.  And it's a proprietary cable.  Many players offered card readers and cables to me, but to no avail.  So we're stuck, until I get home, with mediocre phone pictures.

Registration didn't open until four this afternoon, but there was an EQII Summit today.  About 15 players from EverQuest II were invited to sit down and hobnob about the game.  I can't tell you about everything we heard, but you won't wait long as we got a preview of ultra-cool goodies that everyone will know after the Community Address Friday night. 

Tease: I know what the expansion is!  Nya nya nya!

We got to talk to Greeblen and Kiara about Community ideas.  They were especially interested in continuing the trend of more player-dev interaction and our ideas on that.  Then we talked to Marketing, where we batted around ideas for attracting more new players and the issues that Marketing is up against advertising the game.  Next was Customer Service, and we all had customer service stories to relay.  Finally we got to sit down with about half the EQII dev team and pick their brains on itemization, class balance, and yes, the next expansion.  Click the picture above for more pictures of the summit attendees and EQII developers.

We took a break around three and the registration line was all the way out to the casino.  I made myself late getting back accepting loot from an Iksar and Kerra and meeting people I'd seen at previous Fan Faires.  This is the very best part of Fan Faire for me - putting faces to people I've only ever met virtually. Click the pictures at left for some of Hubby's phone pics.

After a lovely dinner with the ZAM crew (there are 12 of us here!), I made it back to Crossroads, the main convention hall, just after the welcome party ended.  I chit-chatted with Pex a bit, then sat down with Kiara, Ashlanne, RadarX, and a bunch of fansite folks and players.  Eventually we all faded away.  I came back here to blog a bit, catch a few Z's, and start fresh tomorrow.

If you're really interested in our Fan Faire travel adventures, they were recording SOE Podcast #66 at the late-night gaming session tonight and Brenlo invited my husband Sutures up to tell the tale.  Meanwhile, I'm off to bed and too little sleep before the panels start tomorrow!