Everquest 2: Summit Comes to an End With a Bang...er, Splash.

I'm writing this from the relative comfort of my home office. It's a balmy 7 below zero here in Minneapolis, and as all good Minnesotans, I'm dressed in layers (four, at this time). I've just spent 11 hours in airports or planes, and it's definately good to be home.

It's hard to think that just over 24 hours ago, I was on the deck of a full replica of the yacht "[http://www.americayacht.com/]America[/url]", helping to hoist sails and staring at the sunset over the Pacific. SOE's Community Relations and Marketing truly pulled out all the stops for this particular Summit, giving the attendees unprecedented access to executives and resources throughout the weekend.

To be clear, this was not a developer Summit. Oh, that didn't mean developers weren't there or that game mechanics issues weren't discussed - and I'll get to some of that more throughout the week in my post-Summit wrap ups. It just means that the primary focus was on areas dealing with SOE's marketing and community interaction. There was some good discussion, a couple of "wow, that could work" moments, and even a few 2AM debates.

I'm exhausted, though. After four days of next to no sleep (and a particularly long and wicked night that started with John Smedley trying to find out how many tequila shots Kendricke could really handle), it would seem that I need to get at least one night's rest before returning to the real world tomorrow.

The first of many write-ups will be here tomorrow night, I can assure you.