Out of Game Events and Gatherings

Greetings fellow Evelings,

I'm fairly new to the area and I've been reading through the forums periodically looking for other local players who would be interested in not only meeting up, but possibly forming a new alliance for players who actually know each other and occasionally meet in real life. It looks like there are quite a few players in the Nashville and Atlanta surrounding areas so I thought this would be a good place to start, first combining players in Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, and then hopefully expanding from there.

First, let me say that this is not an attempt to recruit members for an alliance. This is an attempt to reach out and get a bunch of players together in real life to discuss the potential of such an alliance. Also, I'm not suggesting that I run this alliance. I believe this alliance should be created by the players, for the players and that the leaders should be voted in. I will however commit to performing such out-of-game administrative duties as running the website, team speak server, etc., and obviously assisting in the event plannings.

As for the meeting, I'm thinking that Chattanooga, TN would be a good place to start since it's roughly an even 2 hours from Nashville, Atlanta, and Huntsville/Birmingham. Nothing real soon, maybe the middle of August, to allow enough time to get more people interested and plan to attend. Once we have a better idea of how many people can attend, we'll nail down a time and place.

If you're already in an alliance and have no desire to leave, you're still more than welcome to join us. While the primary focus of this meeting will be to discuss a new alliance, it's still nice to break away from the computer for a day or two and mingle with some real players. If nothing else, it'll be a great chance to meet some people with similar interests and possibly make a new friend or two.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, please reply to this post and let me know your level of interest, whether you'd be interested in assisting with organizing the event, the formation of the alliance, only being a member of such an alliance, or if you just want to get together with other players and tip back some beer.

This post will serve as an active open discussion leading up to the event. Looking forward to your responses!

Svhen

Alliance shenanigans aside, I'd love to participate in a southeast regional gathering. It's always boggled my mind that CCP has an office in Stone Mountain, just outside of Atlanta, and yet I never hear about any Atlanta-area gatherings (though admittedly I don't hang out in World of Darkness circles, and I know there's a lot of vampire RPers in Atlanta).

Chattanooga would be great. It's convenient and a great town with good conference capabilities (The Chattanoogan hotel comes to mind), stuff to do outside of EVE (really cool Aquarium, music festivals, good places to eat, Chattanooga Lookouts minor league baseball games), gorgeous scenery, etc. Atlanta can work for BIG conferences, but has significant problems for smaller gatherings (traffic is utterly horrible, public transit is mediocre at best, international language capabilities are hit-or-miss once you get away from the airport and major conference centers).

Huntsville could also work. A little less centrally convenient, but having a spaceship nerd convention in a facility devoted to spaceships and nerds does have a certain charm...

I'm over in the 575 corridor in northwest GA, but the gf and I travel to Alabama frequently to visit her folks, so Huntsville isn't out of the way for a weekend trip.

If I recall correctly, Ender Black of Podgoo Podcast fame was living somewhere in Alabama, and always struck me as a cool dude.

I could see maybe a June 22 or 29 meetup. There's a Lookouts game in Chattanooga on June 22nd, could be fun...

Works for me. Hopefully, we'll draw some more attention. I may be forced to throw down the "free beer" card...

interested but may not be able to do a aug meet up. been forever since i have been to the us space & rocket museum there. (oh and knoxville area here)

I have one more that will probably join us so that's four so far. I've been trying to recruit friends out of the game too but that's been about as successful as this thread unfortunately. Maybe it's a bad time of the year. People seem to be spending a little more time outdoors. I don't mind holding off until we get more people interested though. If there's one thing I've learned in EVE, it's patience.

I don't like sports but I love some EVE, so count me in.

I'm moving to Huntsville to start a new job in August, I'd be interested in such a meetup!

It hasn't died, just been swamped with RL stuff!

I'd still like to see some of us get together, Nashville, ATL, Chattanooga, Huntsville, wherever... There were only 3-4 responses there for a while but it seems like more people are chiming in now so I'll try to set something up!

Stay tuned!

I'll check it out, thanks.