SOE Fan Faire '08 - Eurogamer is Decadent and Depraved
Is this really Gonzo? Nah, but you can still check out 's write up of his visit to the Sony Online Entertainment's annual Fan Faire in Las Vegas.
Although 2008 was a year in which three new, and pretty exciting, products were on close-up show for the first time, the most oversubscribed panels were for the existing games. EverQuest and EverQuest II frequently packed the halls with round-table Q&A sessions, often of a staggering granularity; one particularly involved query about the availability of old quests was written out on two closely-typed sides of A4, and took over five minutes to ask. We got a peek at the new Guild Halls available for EverQuest II, and there were raid workshops.
It was also these two games that caused the biggest splash during CEO John Smedley's annual address, with the announcement of their new expansions. "EverQuest and EverQuest II are still going as strong as ever," Smedley argued. "And we're coming to a milestone I never expected: our tenth anniversary." Both expansions - EverQuest's Seeds of Destruction and EQII's The Shadow Odyssey - have the tangible scent of a Greatest Hits collection to them, bringing a smattering of new features, but focusing predominantly on a return to many of Norrath's most iconic dungeons and zones. As senior producer Clint Worley put it, "Every expansion is the result of brainstorming with the entire team. This time we're rekindling fond memories."