Fan Faire Atlanta pictures

Fan Faire Atlanta pictures
or, Geeks at play.

I was, for several years, a pretty 'serious' gamer. I don't think I watched tv at all from 2001-2004 (Buffy excepted), unless it was during dinner or while I was working / gaming. Good times, good times... but eventually, staying up til 2am to kill another dragon got to me. Because you know, that dragon was just going to pop up alive again the next day. Or five days later, depending on his spawn cycle. Anywho.

I don't game much at all anymore (and yes, the verb is game, not play - gamers don't really take themselves casually enough to describe what they do as play). EQ, EQ2, and several other games are still installed on my pc, but I haven't logged on in months. I found out a funny thing about myself - I'm much too competitive to "play". If I can't be the best, I really don't want to be in that other world. Logging in for 30 minutes between finishing work and picking up the kids wasn't making me happy at all.

I still have some great friends that I met through gaming though. Some of them were/are guild mates. (For the non gamers, a 'guild' is an online family. And you wouldn't believe how closely you feel, how well you know someone you've spent 14 hours clearing VT with until you've done it yourself. Shard farming, anyone?) Some of them are people I met while I ran a fan site myself. But the really cool thing that hit me while I looked over these pictures was how the parts of my life have overlapped.

This is the same hotel that RWA is holding their conference at this summer. So while I skipped Fan Faire, I'm eagerly looking forward to spending 5 days in July listening to workshops in these same rooms, and drinking a few refreshments in these same bars. If only they'd have that same game room set up, I'd be in heaven...

Thanks for the pictures Merry. Hope my conference is as fun as your faire!
Karen
member of Relic, guild of Unrest