Pandemic Horde Inc.
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Heya Horde,
I just got back from Fanfest 2018 and while I'm exhausted and also extremely hyped. In 2016 we had maybe 4 Horde members coming to Iceland. In 2017 this doubled to 8 and this year I wanna say we had around 50 people!
I love the community building part of EVE, seeing Horde grow and form a core like we have today, are some of the best feels I've had in gaming in a long while. I can't describe how much it means to me that so many of you are comfortable enough with our community to come to Iceland and hang out with us.
We're a young group of players in the scope of EvE and as such I see it as a huge achievement that we already have such a strong core of community members coming to meetings.
Summary of my FanFest
From the moment we landed in Reykjavik, it was on. We had beans waiting at the airport terminal and we went to the city centre with a good group of guys. Since alcohol is heavily taxed in Iceland I maxed out the beer I could get in the duty free show. I exited the baggage hall with 38 0.5 litre cans and boy did I end up regretting that on the long walk to our apartment.
This walk did not get much shorter due to our navigator Dylana who probably was just politely trying for me to get some exercise
. BUT the beer made it to the apartment in one piece and didn’t leak into all my clothes. The beer carried us through most of the week combined with alcohol stockpiles of other beans.
Thursday night is a long-standing tradition, the PL (panfam) dinner at a very upscale place in Iceland with a Michelin star (or used to have a star not 100% sure). Horde represented and filled 2 large tables. The food as always was fantastic and some foodies got to try eating whale for their first time which isn't easily doable in many countries.
For me personally, I find it extremely important that we are a part of these gathering and show up in force. Meeting new and interesting people from our family community is fun but also important. We want to stay one family and with completely different playstyles and us splitting off services as well it is certainly one of my concerns at times that we over time lose more and more touch with PanFam. Which would be a huge shame because showing up at gatherings belonging to a large group of nice guys (and girls) guarantees everyone has a good time and is taken care of.
Everyone looks out for each other if your sick and need some over the counter medicine all you need is ask. If you are locked out of your apartment at the middle of the night because your roommates are in an alcohol induced coma people will offer a place to crash. If your phone is fucked and you require some tools you can bet your ass some awesome nerd has some stuff in his bag to use. I could go on but the point is clear at the end of the day we are family. And it's hard to describe what that feels like until you pull the trigger and come out to one of these events. So far I have not met anyone yet that regretted showing up at EvE Vegas or FanFest and I can guarantee many were on the fence if they should go.
Friday night was the pub crawl but many of us were more interested in hanging out among ourselves so we invited everyone over to the apartment to come chill. I think at a peak we had more than 25 eve players cramped into a tiny apartment but I think everyone had a good time.
Nothing got broken, there were no noise complaints and no one threw up which again makes me very proud that our group can act like adults during these gathering. It's always a bit of a concern when you put a bunch people together for a meet where a large portion is turning up for the first time, there just needs to be one guy who potentially ruins it for everyone.
All days we were going out to have some amazing food and while I grew up in a restaurant and love dining and enjoy a good meal. I also love some good junk food! So Saturday before the party I pinged our event channel with hey let's go eat pizza.
23 beans showed up to eat pizza that night and I hadn’t really prepared for that. We tried a few places but sadly we were considered too much of a hassle by most places and got sent away. So the impromptu dinner didn't go very well, so we split up in smaller groups to go find food our separate ways. This for me was probably the biggest downer of the week, luckily our group of 8 found a place to get some food and so did everyone else. The restaurant we were in had no room but they offered to seat us at a large table in the hallway which I think was a really cool and kind gesture.
I have to say that I had one big concern the first day, previous years it was one big group of panfam with waffles / PL and the few Horde we had. This year with so many us and PL winning the alliance draw there was quite a bit of natural separation even within the Horde groups going out and doing things.
Some alliances who go to these meetings don't mingle much at all they break down by corp and go from there. From my perspective, that is a huge shame but I also realized that I didn't want to force a situation or cause awkwardness. Either consciously or subconsciously panfam members stepped up and took away this fear. I'm really happy with that and can confidently say everyone got to meet new and interesting people.
Saturday it was time for a party, the highlight of any party CCP throws is the permaband. For those not aware CCP employees put together their own own band making EVE inspired songs
It's always super enjoyable to watch the show they put together. And personally, I get a perverse pleasure seeing them get us way more enthusiastic and energized than the normal DJ, (poor guy). However Basshunter (yes that dude from dota and provi) did an amazing job to take off where the permaband left.
Sunday was mostly chill and groups splitting up to go do some much-needed sightseeing. In true Horde fashion, one of our beans managed to get left behind and missed a stargate or 2. He eventually got found by the tour guide but because he's a standup guy who can take it we'll continue to give him shit about it for a while longer. If you are curious who it was he might have obtained a title in-game.
Operation JellyBeans
First off: Huge shout out to Katrina Bekers for helping out with this! For the last 3 years, we have been tossing around the idea of ‘bringing all the beans’ with us to a fan meeting organized by CCP. This year due to Katrina living in Iceland now we finally had a way to easily organize it.
The result can be seen here on Falcon’s Twitter:
Closing
I'm now home and for the first time in 3 years after a fan meet I'm not sick. A good sign for me personally because i've been taking better care of myself in general probably being to tolerate going all out at fan gatherings a lot better. Lets hope it stays that way for Vegas as well and this is the start of a much healthier period.
Speaking of Vegas, last year we had a very large group of Horde member fly to Vegas and chill with us. We’re doing a BBQ again this year which you do NOT want to miss. If you are on the fence on going just fucking do it.
For coordination, you can join our event channel for EvE Vegas here: https://www.pandemic-horde.org/settings/discord/channels
If you have been to FanFest this year please take a little bit of time to share your experiences as well it goes a long way in making others come out to future meets.
Kal
I just got back from Fanfest 2018 and while I'm exhausted and also extremely hyped. In 2016 we had maybe 4 Horde members coming to Iceland. In 2017 this doubled to 8 and this year I wanna say we had around 50 people!
I love the community building part of EVE, seeing Horde grow and form a core like we have today, are some of the best feels I've had in gaming in a long while. I can't describe how much it means to me that so many of you are comfortable enough with our community to come to Iceland and hang out with us.
We're a young group of players in the scope of EvE and as such I see it as a huge achievement that we already have such a strong core of community members coming to meetings.
Summary of my FanFest
From the moment we landed in Reykjavik, it was on. We had beans waiting at the airport terminal and we went to the city centre with a good group of guys. Since alcohol is heavily taxed in Iceland I maxed out the beer I could get in the duty free show. I exited the baggage hall with 38 0.5 litre cans and boy did I end up regretting that on the long walk to our apartment.
This walk did not get much shorter due to our navigator Dylana who probably was just politely trying for me to get some exercise
. BUT the beer made it to the apartment in one piece and didn’t leak into all my clothes. The beer carried us through most of the week combined with alcohol stockpiles of other beans.Thursday night is a long-standing tradition, the PL (panfam) dinner at a very upscale place in Iceland with a Michelin star (or used to have a star not 100% sure). Horde represented and filled 2 large tables. The food as always was fantastic and some foodies got to try eating whale for their first time which isn't easily doable in many countries.
For me personally, I find it extremely important that we are a part of these gathering and show up in force. Meeting new and interesting people from our family community is fun but also important. We want to stay one family and with completely different playstyles and us splitting off services as well it is certainly one of my concerns at times that we over time lose more and more touch with PanFam. Which would be a huge shame because showing up at gatherings belonging to a large group of nice guys (and girls) guarantees everyone has a good time and is taken care of.
Everyone looks out for each other if your sick and need some over the counter medicine all you need is ask. If you are locked out of your apartment at the middle of the night because your roommates are in an alcohol induced coma people will offer a place to crash. If your phone is fucked and you require some tools you can bet your ass some awesome nerd has some stuff in his bag to use. I could go on but the point is clear at the end of the day we are family. And it's hard to describe what that feels like until you pull the trigger and come out to one of these events. So far I have not met anyone yet that regretted showing up at EvE Vegas or FanFest and I can guarantee many were on the fence if they should go.
Friday night was the pub crawl but many of us were more interested in hanging out among ourselves so we invited everyone over to the apartment to come chill. I think at a peak we had more than 25 eve players cramped into a tiny apartment but I think everyone had a good time.
Nothing got broken, there were no noise complaints and no one threw up which again makes me very proud that our group can act like adults during these gathering. It's always a bit of a concern when you put a bunch people together for a meet where a large portion is turning up for the first time, there just needs to be one guy who potentially ruins it for everyone.
All days we were going out to have some amazing food and while I grew up in a restaurant and love dining and enjoy a good meal. I also love some good junk food! So Saturday before the party I pinged our event channel with hey let's go eat pizza.
23 beans showed up to eat pizza that night and I hadn’t really prepared for that. We tried a few places but sadly we were considered too much of a hassle by most places and got sent away. So the impromptu dinner didn't go very well, so we split up in smaller groups to go find food our separate ways. This for me was probably the biggest downer of the week, luckily our group of 8 found a place to get some food and so did everyone else. The restaurant we were in had no room but they offered to seat us at a large table in the hallway which I think was a really cool and kind gesture.
I have to say that I had one big concern the first day, previous years it was one big group of panfam with waffles / PL and the few Horde we had. This year with so many us and PL winning the alliance draw there was quite a bit of natural separation even within the Horde groups going out and doing things.
Some alliances who go to these meetings don't mingle much at all they break down by corp and go from there. From my perspective, that is a huge shame but I also realized that I didn't want to force a situation or cause awkwardness. Either consciously or subconsciously panfam members stepped up and took away this fear. I'm really happy with that and can confidently say everyone got to meet new and interesting people.
Saturday it was time for a party, the highlight of any party CCP throws is the permaband. For those not aware CCP employees put together their own own band making EVE inspired songs
It's always super enjoyable to watch the show they put together. And personally, I get a perverse pleasure seeing them get us way more enthusiastic and energized than the normal DJ, (poor guy). However Basshunter (yes that dude from dota and provi) did an amazing job to take off where the permaband left.
Sunday was mostly chill and groups splitting up to go do some much-needed sightseeing. In true Horde fashion, one of our beans managed to get left behind and missed a stargate or 2. He eventually got found by the tour guide but because he's a standup guy who can take it we'll continue to give him shit about it for a while longer
. If you are curious who it was he might have obtained a title in-game.Operation JellyBeans
First off: Huge shout out to Katrina Bekers for helping out with this! For the last 3 years, we have been tossing around the idea of ‘bringing all the beans’ with us to a fan meeting organized by CCP. This year due to Katrina living in Iceland now we finally had a way to easily organize it.
The result can be seen here on Falcon’s Twitter:
Closing
I'm now home and for the first time in 3 years after a fan meet I'm not sick. A good sign for me personally because i've been taking better care of myself in general probably being to tolerate going all out at fan gatherings a lot better. Lets hope it stays that way for Vegas as well and this is the start of a much healthier period
.Speaking of Vegas, last year we had a very large group of Horde member fly to Vegas and chill with us. We’re doing a BBQ again this year which you do NOT want to miss. If you are on the fence on going just fucking do it.
For coordination, you can join our event channel for EvE Vegas here: https://www.pandemic-horde.org/settings/discord/channels
If you have been to FanFest this year please take a little bit of time to share your experiences as well it goes a long way in making others come out to future meets.
Kal