Final Fantasy XI Fan Festival 2008

Ah, Fan Fest. The time of year where I can be the geek that I am… Oh, wait… I’m always acting like a geek! XD

I took most of the day off from work on Friday to get to the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel to meet up with my friends from Allakhazam, Pikko, Thayos, and Vlorsutes. I met some new people and we all ate at CPK for a late lunch. Afterwards we went to the MTV/Rock Band store to play as a “band”. Quite fun. Pikko made a video of it and posted it on Allakhazam. It was immediately photoshopped into a motivational poster (or whatever it’s called) by someone.

The organizational level (from the attendee’s perspective) was much better than the previous year, which was much MUCH better than the year before that. There was no huge insane line. Each person got a ticket to line up at a certain time to get in. It was quite painless.

Pikko and I managed to pick up Exodus’ badge with the help of Matt Hilton. I totally owe him a drink. We gave that badge to Pikko and Thayos’ friend from Garuda since he was unable to purchase a badge when they first went on sale. (They sold out in 6 hours. Well, only 600 people attended this year’s fan fest. Seems smaller compared to last year.)

After I got my badge, Pachi arrived and lined up for his badge. By the time he arrived, most of the peopled seemed to have picked up their badges. The lines thinned by then. I was disappointed that his wife and kid didn’t make it. I was looking forward to meeting them.

For dinner, we got treated to a nice (expensive) restaurant at the outdoor mall at Hollywood and Highland by Pikko’s boss. Thank you, Pikko’s boss! Pikko and I split a meal and it was a good thing we did. The portions were HUGE! Delicious, too.

Saturday was the fan fest. I did the expected things, went to dev panels, played the demos of the game they set up. Took a ton of pictures. The creator of VGCats.com was there signing autographs and drawing pictures, so I got him to draw my character. Sweet!

Of the two demos they had going, I liked Moblin Maze Mongers much better than the Swarm. The Swarm was too mindless for my liking. I guess the meleeing isn’t very fun to me. I definitely love being a healer in a support role. Moblin Maze Mongers was very fun. I can’t wait to build my own mazes populated with insanely hard monsters. Kekeke.

Costume contest. One person dressed up their baby in a moogle jumpers. …. Cute, but trying to win with the awwww factor does not take any skill. Another person was wearing a costume from the previous year. That’s no fun either. That’s just lazy! The soulflayer (the guy with the tentacles on his face) and the mage were really good. I really liked their staves.

Finally, the piano concert. Kumi Tanioka was ever so wonderful, as usual. She’s a very happy-go-lucky person, and it definitely shows. She loves her fans, and we love her right back. ^^

There’s more griping/commenting I would like to say about the entire even, but I’m rather tired, so I’m just gonna end it here. I’m sorry if the post is rather incoherent, but I didn’t graduate as an English major so I think I’m in the clear. :P