Oz’s House of the Evil Dead

Ok, I’m using quotes for the next few days to show this is srs bsns. First person to comment with the name of the film, the character in the film that said the quote, and the year the film was released gets a prize of some sort.

So, today was my R&R day, that stands for recovery and reconnaissance. After a massive 4 hours of sleep (thanks jetlag), I wandered down to a breakfast of cheese, ham, cucumber and bacon. mmmmmm bacon. No-one else seemed to be around, so I went back upstairs, burnt some skin off my arm before I remembered how the showers worked, got dressed in my finest tshirt and trundled off to CCP Hq.

Along the way I saw one of the best named ‘combat’ training places ever, Mjolnir. For those that don’t understand it, Mjollnir is Thor’s Hammer. For those that know me, word and visual puns are pretty much the basis of my existence, so seeing that pretty much had me grinning all the way to the office.

I made it to CCP, through the secret construction site shortcut I remembered from the last CSM, and made my way up to reception, which of course is located on the top floor. Makes perfect sense to me…

I smiled, the lovely woman at reception smiled, I said ‘hi’ she said ‘Diagoras warned us about you’, I frowned, she said ‘Diagoras is on his way up’, I said thanks. Someone else from CCP wandered past reception and asked me if I was a member of the Baader Meinhoff, I looked confused, they laughed. Something strange was going on…

CCP Reception

We had a quick discussion about finding a decent piano in Iceland that wouldn’t cost someone their soul to purchase.  Apparently this is a difficult thing to do. I said I would send out some emails and see what I could find. There was much happiness and then Diagoras arrived.

We said hi, I gave him his girly drink present that he was deeply excited about and we wandered down to the games room. Another CCP employee walked past and looked at me strangely. Other CCP people saw me and stopped their conversations. Had I turned into an alien or something overnight? What was going on.

Diagoras then let me in on the little secret – an email featuring all of the CSM’s mugshots had been sent around the company explaining who we were and what to do in case they saw us coming to interrogate them.

The Baader Meinhoff question to me earlier was in reference to the fact that my lovely mugshot actually made me look like a terrorist.  Bastard.

We sat around and had a bit of a chat, had some lunch, I abused him about the flybus pass not being at the airport. We had a brief look over the agenda, and then I went back to the hotel to have a nap before dinner.

Dinner was an epic affair, we took over the restaurant with most of the CSM and a large contingent of CCP Devs.

I got to sit with Diagoras, Abathur, and two guys who I can’t remember their dev names but were called Adam (QA) and Arend (Game Design). Dinner was awesome, I had the super nacho’s – which were pretty super tbh. Then we all migrated over to a nearby bar. Drinks were drunk, bills were not paid, dev’s silently slunk off into the night to continue working leaving poor Arend to fend for himself with a group of CSM members desperate for info. He fought bravely and to his credit kept steering the conversation to high level conepts about what eve was about and what it should be.

Larkonis Trassler (CSM) and Arend (CCP)

At this point I have to admit that this is what I like most about CCP. The devs are players too. A lot has been made about how they shouldn’t be affecting the game, but when you can discuss player concerns with a dev who knows exactly what you are talking about simply because he has experienced it first hand as a player, it makes you understand just how deeply they care about the game and the direction it takes.

What makes it particularly awesome, is that the devs are willing to sit around on their own time and talk to players about those things. As eve players, we are really spoiled. The dev interaction we players get is unheard of for most MMO’s – it may be part of the reason why Eve is as successful as it is.

Anyway, we hung out for a while, my jetlag kicked in severely, and we decided to call it a night.

Tomorrow: When 2 Tribes go to war – Vuk Lau and the GM’s in a  Steel Cage Deathmatch