This year’s FanFest was my third, and ever since the first, I had hopes of the trip fully paid though PLEX. This year EVE players got a LOT closer, but surprisingly, a month and a half later, no one seemed to notice…

The 2014 EVE Online Fanfest in my opinion was a very mixed experience. Good and bad game updates, endless cycles of nerfing, rebalancing, and so much more. CCP likes to interact quite a lot with the player community and this again has been a VERY mixed experience. A steady stream of bad in-game events, excellent actions, doubtful initiatives, funny videos, and brilliant parties. If anything can be said, it is that it is never boring. During last year’s FanFest CCP had another such event, and it was badly advertised (as usual). Difficult to find it seemed most people either forgot about it (those that were in Iceland) or were never told (those that were in Iceland, the US, Europe, Uganda, etc), and the thing is… It was truly a special event.
 
CCP had made a booth (apparently having overcome some tricky legal issues) run by the usual mix of CCP employees and confused Icelandic teens were you could trade in PLEX for cash!

Well not really, you could exchange PLEX for CCP minted chips (like those found at casino) which within the Fanfest grounds could be used as if they were real Icelandic money. While selling your PLEX for Isk isn’t novel, PLEX for “Íslensk Króna” most definitely is.
 
After converting a few PLEX at the booth I had a small pile of amusing looking plastic coins which I then proceeded to spend on food, drinks, and goodies. RMT (real money trading) at its best. I even got a bottle of Quafe for a friend (yes, both actually exist), a few beers, the occasional snack, and even a couple of sweet T-shirts. All of it paid for with what was essentially in-game Isk.

It was not an unmitigated success, and some of the vendors and Icelandic teens manning the food and drinks concessions had not been briefed (much like the attendees really). I had to get my card a few times but with everything considered I was VERY happy, and saved a lot of real life cash, at the expense of my in-game fortune, that’s it.

Afterthoughts

 
I have already bought my ticket for next year’s FanFest and I hope they will repeat this initiative as I already have a nice pile stored for next time. Who knows – maybe you can go play roulette or black jack at EVE-Vegas for PLEX soon too. If so, I will be going to the next EVE Vegas for sure.

Now I just need to be able to pay Iceland Air with PLEX too 😀

– Troels