The Safehouse

Fanguard San Diego was a blast, plain and simple. The good company of fellow Rogues, the exuberant fans, and the accomodating and often times hilarious Sigil staff made every minute of this week end worth it. The game could have gotten minimal exposure during the event and I still would have had a great time. As a fan, it puts developers and gaming companies in a whole different perspective when you can listen to them crack jokes, tell stories, and relate to you through something else besides forum posts and new announcements.

In this first part of my write-up, I'll go over the 2 days of the event and what happened, what we did, and just what these Fanguard things are about. In the second part of my review, I'll give my impressions from the demo floor, and the tidbits I was able to ferret out.

Day 1

Running on nothing but 4 hours of sleep and 32 ounces of coffee, I stepped out of the airport in sunny San Diego about 2 in the afternoon. After blundering around like a damn tourist for about an hour, I made my way over Sheraton West Tower and met our website Administrator Aidden, one of our staff writers and moderators Nocte, and Xelbaaz, a Safehouse old timer and character extrordinaire. We had a stunning view of from our hotel room, looking out over the marina, with seagulls periodically coming to hang out on the railing of our balcony, back dropped against blue waters full of schooners and sail boats.

Seagulls cost extra.

Because it's the only pic I can find with the
marina, damnit.

The thieves den, at least for the weekend.

Apparently, I had missed a load of drinking that had started hours eariler, but that didn't stop us from immediately heading to the bar (Poor Nocte, his day started at 4am and Aidden had him drinking the minute he was off the plane) for more. After stopping off to register and get our Affiliate Kits and do our raffle stuff, we sat down to drink and eat (at least I did. Needed food to absorb the booze). Lenilya, a long time Safehouser showed up, and we were sooned joined by Glip (Nick Parkinson, Community Relations), Jeff Butler (Executive Producer, President, and Cannon Baller of Newbs), Cindy Bowens (aka Abigale Seashaow, Head of Community Relations) and other Sigil Staff and Fanguard attendees. Zato, another Safehouse Staff Member also arrived, much to our pleasure.

L to R: Myself, Xelbaaz, Lenilya, Glip, Nocte

The back of Jeff Butler's head, Nocte, GM-Fessius
GM-Lady Daegarmo, GM-Aruspex, and Xelbaaz.

Even spider man came to this thing!

Within 30 minutes, the bar was rockin with masses of people and laughter as more fans started to show up to register. I'm sure someone was talking about the game, but for the moment, everyone just seemed to be enjoying each other's company, some booze, and plenty of laughs. Everyone was having a pretty good time. Well except for Leni, who kept bitching about over priced Italian food and the lack of hamburgers. ;)

Cocktails and Backstabs

We headed back up to the room to gather ourselves for (yet more) drinks and commiserating at the scheduled cocktail party, which started promptly at 7pm. Drinks weren't on the house (I can dream can't I!) and fruit was served at a small buffet. (Which turns into punch when you mix it all up!) All in all, about 150 people showed up to Fanguard. While it wasn't the biggest event I had seen, there was plenty of energy and the smaller numbers made it easier to talk to people, fans and devs alike. As we gathered in the ball room we were joined by another large contingent of Safehouse Rogues. Our forum's administrator Fricka joined us with her boyfriend Wotan, another Old school SH rogue. Nymm and his girlfriend Megan, Kierra the Silent and her boyfriend, and Jeters, all of whom are old faces from around the Safehouse. With this many experienced Rogues standing around the same table, if they were from anywhere other than the Safehouse, you'd have had a knife fight.

The ballroom floor of the cocktail party.

Nocte's head, Kierra the Silent, Megan, Nymm, and
of course, Fricka.

Zack Karlsson orders a hit on someone with a quick chopping
motion of his hand and his fiery eyes.

The drinks quickly began flowing (did they ever stop?) and the volume picked up. Cindy made a very nice address to the attendees welcoming and thanking us, and egging us on to have a good time. The next hours saw lots of laughs, a few backstabbed CEOs, Developers, and even a couple GMs, a quadruple backstabbed rogue, and an overall good time. Nocte's stellar Vanguard Lore Compliation (which you can read here in HTML format on our website) was passed around many hands in book form and won him high praise. Like I said, while I'm sure people were talking about the game and getting feedback, most seemed to be taking it as a meet and greet sort of thing. Sigil did some initial raffle prizes, which included ATi PCI-Express Cards (better than x800s).

Does Sammy Hagar even have a place in the Hardrock Cafe? Besides his tequila, I mean.

I could have easily curled up and gone to bed by the time the cocktails ended, but others arriving late wanted to go out to dinner (and of course, to drink). What started as a small group of Rogues quickly swelled into a huge group. Aidden, Nocte, Xelbaaz, Fricka, Wotan, Lenilya, Jeters, Zato, Kierra, Glip, Paul Luna (a.ka. Vladamir, Production Assistant and Forums Moderator, and one of the funniest guys I've met, and ironically anothre long time SH reader), Bill Fisher (aka Tagad, Senior Game Designer) and Zack Karlsson (Director of Business Development) an ATi rep that I can't remember the name of, and myself all (slowly) formed a convoy and ventured out into downtown San Diego for a place to hang out.

The crew looking for a place to hang out
that isn't overflowing with people.

Wotan, Xelbaaz, Bill Fisher (aka Tagad), and Kierra's
stylin hat, which Jeters is using to hide.

Mostly everyone that went to the Hardrock Cafe

Paul Luna shows us where the bullet would go
if he was allowed to have a gun.

Glip has just discovered he's pregnant.

He was actually in a pretty good mood, until
we told him some hard truths about
Sammy Hagar. He didn't take it well.

For a midwestern Rogue like myself, the night scene was pretty wild, and the streets were overflowing with party goers, street musicians, mimes, cops on horseback, and all sorts of other friday night stuff. We eventually settled on Hardrock Cafe because there wasn't overflow coming out the doors. Over the next hour and a half or so we ate and drank (not that any of us really needed to by this point). Aidden was so full of booze that a cut he had mysteriously recieved bled for 3 hours straight. Xelbaaz promptly told Glip that Sam Hagar sucked, and battle was joined. (If you're wondering why Glip looks like he's throwing down with someone in the Hardrock pics. Or maybe it just IS being around Aidden). We caught Paul Luna on video doing a little dance and I sipped my way through some gawd awful alcoholic fruit punch concoction. Like before, everyone was taking things easy and not mining for info (there was plenty of time and opportunity for that on Saturday) and I can't claim to have been in the most lucid state of mind. We wrapped it up 12:30 California (or 4:30 am Nocte's time) and I promptly crashed to the floor clothed in our hotel room. We had a breakfast to attend nice and early, and I needed my beauty sleep.

Day 2

The next morning came way too early. We made our way down to the hotel restraunt for the affiliate breakfast with members of Sigil's Community Team, such as Cindy Bowens and Nick Parkinson. There were 8 Affiliates in attendance. The majority of our time was taken up by discussions about past events that had afflicted the community, such as the buyout and war of words involving IGE and Sigil. For some fansites, this was their first time being able to really go over the specifics of what happened and to express their concerns. Some things I probably shouldn't talk about, but one stunning detail was that IGE had gone so far as to offer 6 figures to the owners of newly formed fansites with no traffic as of yet during the buy out, a far cry from the commonly known 5 figure amounts a lot of other fan sites had been offered.

One side of the Affiliate table at breakfast.

And another

Da Safehouse

The breakfast broke up and it was time to hit the demo floor. As I said, I'm saving that part of the write up for later so I can focus on it. Suffice to say, it was crowded, and damn hot from so many gamers clustered together, and busy busy busy. There were 4 machines set up running a combat demo, and another 2 machines set up for character customization. Not many if any fans were actually able to play the combat demos, as it was high level content that would have befuddled someone jumping in a second. Wouldn't do to introduce people to Vanguard with a high level corpse run, now would it? :) More on this later. The HUGE banner that you see in the background of the demo room caught the attention of many of the Safehouse Rogues. We had more than enough manpower to, uhm, relocate it, but I have yet to see a Sigil Man-in-Black, and I'm not in much of a hurry to do so. Besides, that banner probably costs more than my car.

The demo area. I've worked out this theory that
gamers put off like 4x as much body heat as normal people,
because that place was toasty.

And that's not even the whole banner.

Hail, Idara.

Outside the demo room Fricka set up her Offline T-shirts table (where you can buy Safehouse Gear and other sordid goodies, incidentally) and we were joined by members of Vanguard Spheres, who had a very impressive banner designed by Lyrcist, their web graphic artist, and another framed piece of quality art design from another one of their traditional medium artists who does character portraits, and excellent fan music, all of which you can find on their site. The ebb and flow of people moved around around us pretty steadily for the next few hours until we broke for lunch.

Fricka running her OfflineTshirts table.

Teh phat l3w+z

Me standing around while other people are working.

Marketing and Public Relations: Assumptions can be misleading

A group of Safehouse people headed down stairs to the restraunt and we were joined by the charming April M. Jones, Sigil's new Senior Marketing and Public Relations Manager, who was hired in December of last year. We invited her to join us for lunch, and we had a fascinating and candid discussion with her. April is a veteran of Marketing period, starting her days with Red Storm marketing single player games like Rainbow 6 before moving on to work for Funcom with Anarchy Online, and SOE for Everquest 2, before joining Sigil. April described to us the kinds of things a PR manager has to deal with (like being told to put good spin on the Sony Station Exchange, her first week on the job, which should earn someone a medal for taking on such herculean task as reforming SOE's image with players). She told us how some of the inner workings of decision making goes on in gaming companies, when the desires and demands of the developers come head to head with what publishers want. We talked about celebrities playing games and how they can be great to have around, and be a total pain in the ass to deal with at the same time. (Apparently there are a few intersted in Vanguard).

April Jones, Senior Public Relations and Marketing Manager for Sigil,
and a very nice lady in spite of all that. (I'm kidding April.)

Further more, we talked about what it actually means to market an MMO, and how essentially it's still a brave new world for people like April because no one has ever really run a smash marketing campaign for a game where you want people to buy it year, after year, not to mention subscribe to it. Having learned through hard experience how different it is marketing an MMO versus other kinds of games, April has brought that experience to Vanguard. She even managed to paint a picture of secondary sales that I had never really considered before, how it does actually help some people get into the game and enjoy it because it frees them from time constraints, an admirable point if one I don't wholly accept.

For many gamers, at least for myself I know, PR people usually start out with a big penalty to trust. In many cases the hype and tantalizing half-truths we find on game boxes is their job and responsibility. April managed to humanize what she does (something all Sigil employees excel at) and to show me that, hey, PR people have a job to do that they some times don't even like or agree with, and it's not just about positive spin and advertising dollars. April doesn't just market these games, she plays them too. Can you imagine what it must be like to market the secondary market to people when YOU yourself refuse to play on the secondary market servers?

I can say that I feel pretty good about who is in charge of marketing on Sigil's end. April is pretty down to earth and totally she violated my expectations with her outlook and her honesty. Because it's either that, or they need to give April a pay raise, stat, because she's a PR ninja. I can't wait to see what she has planned for marketing Vanguard.

Next time I'm bringing a hacksaw for LiveQuest

Our crack live quest team. Nymm is at the table, Wotan is
next to him. Strokke is on the right, and Aegis01 looks like he's got
his hand stuck in a can. :)

Trust me, they are far nastier when you find them
still loaded with water along the shoreline.

We headed back up stairs as the LiveQuest was kicking off. Anyone who has been to an Everquest Fan Faire is probably familiar with it, so I guess we could call this a "beta lLiveQuest". No GMs playing NPCs that needed to be hailed, but we did have an extensive list of things to go collect. Together with Strokke, White Eagle, and Aegis01, we pooled our efforts and like many fans, pillaged the flora and shoreline outside the hotel (because NO ONE would use things from the hotel, no no) for items that would pass as stuff like "a venom sac" or "a sword sheath". It's one part scavenger hunt, one part arts and crafts, and one part BSing. I thought we did pretty well, but the competition was pretty stiff...

Thankfully, no one tried to accuse us of setting
up a meth lab.

This is quite a rare image indeed, of Aidden, our Safehouse
Webmaster. This is one among only a few known pictures of him,
the others mostly of him at the Donkey Show in Tiajuana.

I signed up right at the end after
most of the work was done.
Things _almost_ went according to plan.

Sigil Panels: Development Panel, Community Panel, Customer Service Panel, and "How I broke into the gaming industry" Panel.

The demos closed at 2 and after the interm period where the LiveQuest was running, the panels opened up. Being so caught up in the LiveQuest, I actually ended up getting into the Developer Panel pretty late. No worries! The other deft Rogues of the Safehouse got it all on video, which we will be brining to you soon.The panel featured Brad Mcquaid (aka Aradune, aka Darth Mcquaid, Executive Producer, Chairman and CEO of Sigil Games Online) and Jeff Butler taking questions from the crowd. I'll save the in-depth reporting on what I got out of the panels in Part 2, but suffice to say, Brad and Jeff both again demonstrated how much tact and class they have as game designers and as reps for the game. Honesty was the watch word of the panel, followed closely by creativity.

Brad and Jeff answer questions from the
audience during the Developer Panel.

Jeff and Brad broke down their vision for the game to the fans in a way that respected the fans expectations. If something was in the planning phases, and couldn't be commited for release, they'd say so. If there was a cool idea and they liked it, they said so. They talked about how these games grow in layers, each layer building on the old to make something bigger, cooler, and more dynamic. And they expressly stated that they would rather take the time to do something right, and to make it all it can be, rather than making it trivial and doing it half-assed because of time contraints or poorly planned deadlines. Maybe I'm sounding a little like a sycophant at this point, but it's panels like this one that continue to earn Sigil my support. Many developers suffer because they promise the moon and aren't realistic about the game with themselves or fans. They make cheap content and inflate it's value or depth. As usual, managing expectations is lesson that both Brad and Jeff have learned to master, and it was applied in force during the panel.

Fricka representing the Safehouse on the Affiliate panel.

After the panel ended the community broke up into the smaller panels, I bounced between the community and affiliate panel and the Customer Service Panel. I never did locate the "How I broke into the Gaming Industry Panel", which may explain why I've never managed to do it. :P Generally, (I'll talk about these in depth in Part 2 as well) Cindy, Nick, and Paul took questions from the community (many dealing with IGE) and the fansites introduced themselves to the community and explained what it is we do, how we started into it, and why we continue to do it.

I caught less of the Customer Service Panel, but it was at a prime moment. I will say this. Sigil takes their CS very seriously. It's the sort of thing you expect companies to say, but they mean it. Want an example? Jeff Butler. Executive Producer, President, and an avid PvPer with the power to destroy those who displease him. He had a run in with CS and they forced him to agree with policy. No, I'm not making this up. He wanted to make a character named PeanutButter Succubus. Cute as hell, and totally at odds with Sigil's naming policy. Rather than exerting executive privelage or threatening to send the Men-In-Black into the CS department, Jeff relented and had his named changed by CS.

It takes some pretty big stones to confront one of the guys at the top of the heap with a violation of player policy. And it takes a lot of commitment to said policy to follow your own rules even though they are pretty restrictive. What can I say about Sigil's CS execution? Learn the rules, because they know exactly what they mean, and you should too, because they don't flinch when they interpret them. A few questions directed by Kiranth from Silky Venom also touched on really tough issues (like how FD went from exploit to legal tactic). More on this later.

According to Talisker, there is no God.

The banquet.

The Safehouse Table

After the panels ended, the banquet dinner got underway (and of course, so did the drinking) and the Safehouse secured ourselves a spot with Rogue-like efficiency. We really needed 2 tables. Darrin McPherson sat down with us and mentioned some very cool things that I really hope I can share with you guys about the Necromancer. (I need to make sure it is repeatable at this time) I'll say this now. Rogue4life baby, but damn, I'm going to have a Necro alt. They may well be "the" caster class to play, we'll see. In Darrin's words "Necros are Pimp". Capital P. I totally agree with him.

The winners of the LiveQuest, congrats to them all.

The winners of the LiveQuest were announced, and we weren't it. Some rather creative entries might have won, if it hadn't been for the minors and families in the room. The winning team, who didn't get to display their items, will recieve signed copies of the game when it ships. The raffle also got under way. The first and second winner picked up another set of awesome ATi cards, and the last winner, our very own Nymm, won (I think this is the one) a god among sound cards. It has a remote and everything. The middle one however, if you're an old time Vanguard Forums poster, was a bit of twisted irony. Ultar has been a member of the Vanguard Community for quite a long time. And if I had to pick one person that Glip has had to deal with more than anyone else, who has treaded the line on polite discourse more than anyone else, it's him. Watching Glip hand him an ATI All-in-Wonder Crossfire card, was like watching Santa hand his bag of presents to Satan. (I kid) I couldn't tell if Darrin McPherson was laughing or crying when he had his face in his hands, but I'm pretty sure judging by what he said, his faith in cosmic justice took a pretty big hit.

They say that when it rains, god is crying. Well, then
I'm pretty sure a small country was engulfed by a
monsoon when we snapped this pic of Ultar recieving his prize.

Another winner with their prize.

Haha! Victory is Nymm's!

Ikik with his prize.

Cindy Bowens, Mistress of Ceremonies

Can't say I was too impressed with the fair the Sheraton put out. Roast chicken with something orange on top, stuffed with what I think was rice and onions, some thin sliced potatoes, some carrots, and an almost caeser salad. The Tiramisu was pretty tasty though. In a final treat to Fanguard attendees with the (official) closing of the event, everyone recieved a guarenteed spot in Beta 3, and got a poster of their choice of one of the 3 "spokespersons" for Vanguard, and 1 of each poster had been signed by a bunch of Sigil Staff.

The tale of Fanguard San Diego '06 mostly ends here. There were so many people in the downstairs bar (when it finally opened) afterwards that we quickly decided to buy booze and head for the rooms. Before I knew it I had $180 bucks in my hand and was off with Zato to the Liquor Store with orders for strong drink. You know, San Diego is a funny place. You go to one place and buy liquor sure, fine. If you go another 2 miles, you'll find the same liquor that works out to be like 300% cheaper than the first store. Here I get worried about pick pockets when I travel (yes, Rogues worry about pickpockets too) but I guess they just rob straight up in San Diego :p

Glip's room would have been ideal to have this
many people to get drunk in, but he was unavailable,
so we went with Fricka's.

Oloh tilting one back.

What started as maybe 8 people heading for the rooms became 20 by the time I returned. Oloh, Bill Fisher, Nymm and Megan, Kierra, Lenilya, Jeters, Labrynth from Silky Venom and others who I don't remember, even Michelle Butler and Jeff Butler stopped up. I didn't really get to hang out for this one (I had to make a second alcohol run pretty quick with Zato) so maybe Fricka will fill in the gaps for you. We started editting pictures and video and some of it was just as hilarious as when it was shot (when we get the Community Panel Video up, you MUST watch it. You'll know why when you do). We got to talking, and drinking, and eventually we condensed down to Safehouse folks again. We stayed up until about 4:30 in the morning. I wish I could say I was smiliing when I got up 2 and a half hours later to catch my plane, but I'd be a liar. I don't think there's one Safehouse Staff member that didn't go home Sunday night and just crash like a brick.

Don't knock rubbing your nose across another man's
leather coat until you've tried it for yourself.

Jeters, smiling, while Tagad tries to chennel
the force.

So how the hell was Fanguard already?!?!

In all honesty, I wanted to stay longer, even though I think my wallet is allergic to California. I laughed more at Fanguard than I have for a while, and I simply had a blast. I think Fanguards of the future are in good shape based on this experience, and it's a testament to how long the Sigil folks that organize these things have done them. Sometimes the whole Community thing gets a little mushy, but in truth, it's there and it's alive. I saw more diversity that I really expected at Vanguard. Families, couples, kids, lots of adults, and a gaming senior or two. It's one thing to talk about community as an abstract thing or via faceless internet posts, but to see it in the flesh is a totally different experience. To hear 150 people cheer with the same common interests and beliefs is a special thing. It's community.

So Sigil, where to next? Vegas!

Keep checking back with the Safehouse in the coming days, as we've got more writes up, extensive video coverage, and more photos yet to come. Read Part 2 HERE.

The Safehouse Mugshot Galleries

Essential Fanguard Links

List of Affiliated Fan Sites

Thanks for reading.

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