Archive for the ‘community’ Category
Words fail me right now so I'll leave it to the MAN!LEGEND AAUK (forever our Owl!) to explain things in this open letter posted on his website:
Dear Visitors (NiGHTS fans),
Yes you. I’d like to talk to you for a minute so stop pulling funny faces at images of Will’s dad (hoot, terrible) and touching NiGHTS (if you like that sort of thing) and listen, as I want to tell you a quick little personal tale.
One of my best experiences when at SEGA was working on NiGHTS Journey Of Dreams because I got to interact with you guys. You’re perhaps one of the most loyal group of video game fans I’ve come across. I’ve always had a very good relationship with you lot and I’ve always been keen to try and help out NiGHTS where possible and keep NiGHTS alive. Be it a reference here, a nod there.
Which is why Summer Of Sonic will be paying tribute to NiGHTS’ own anniversary in a few very special ways. The merchandise cabinet will include NiGHTS stuff this year for a start, we will have a special community related reveal amongst other little flourishes here and there. SEGA may not be celebrating it (I’ve no idea why Puyo Puyo gets the anniversary treatment but NiGHTS does not) but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.
What’s that? Have I heard about the NiD15 campaign? Why… yes, yes I have.
Of course that brings me neatly onto my next subject and the main point of this letter. No one, but NO ONE has helped keep NiGHTS going more and fought harder than TRiPPY and DiGi over at NiGHTSintoDreams.com have. In recent years they have become known perhaps for more campaigns such as “Don’t Forget NiGHTS” for Sonic & SEGA All-Star Racing and the aforementioned NiD15 campaign, but people forget because of this just how long they’ve been in the community and how long they (and perhaps TRiPPY more specifically on this point) have been leading it. Celebrating a video game series that hasn’t had a game for a decade is HARD but they still kept things going.
They live NiGHTS, he is part of them. It has shaped them as people, inspiring both through art, music and their philosophy on life and they celebrate the fact it has done so. To dream, be free and be true to yourself. If you cut them they’d bleed purple – except on April 1st when it’d be Reala red of course.
Over the years they have become good friends of mine, but I’ve always wanted to do something a bit more for them then I was able to. I filed in for them in 2007 for an interview with Iizuka-san and hand-delivered a gift to him from them in 2010 which was great but they’ve never been able to meet him. Something they wanted to do so badly.
In fact I have made it something of a personal mission down the years to try and arrange it, the one thing I really wanted to do before I left SEGA, but met with failure every time. I may have left SEGA now, but we had in fact set the wheels in motion before I did. This year WILL be different.
You see, we may not have announced Iizuka-san and indeed Naka-san until quite recently but we had in fact had them lined up for some time. The first thing that was put down for them when they are here? NiGHTSintoDreams.com will be having a private sit down with Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka at Summer Of Sonic to discuss 15 years of NiGHTS history, NiGHTS going forward and more. Best get to thinking up what to say you guys.
Lynne, Niyazi, thank you for all your hard work over the years for the NiGHTS fans. I’m sorry your ultimate reward is a little late, but I do hope you enjoy it.
“A tree that reaches all the way up to the heavens must be a sign of your heart’s resolve.” – Owl, NiGHTS Journey Of Dreams
- ArchangelUK -
http://www.sonicwrecks.com/news/community/sos2011intodreams
*runs around in circles* If you guys have any sensible -questions- for the pair (read as questions and not suggestions) then drop them here and we'll see if we can ask them. Can't promise anything but I'll do my best. We'll also hopefully have a full written transcript of the meeting, audio and photographs!
This Saturday is going to be… surreal.
*Achievement Unlocked ~ Life Complete*
It's been a good few months since we've updated NiD15.com due to being so busy at work but the number of fans wanting a NiGHTS port has steadily been rising! Let's officialy kick this campaign back into gear. It's NiGHTS' 15th anniversary in a few months time and demand for Saturn titles is at an all time high after it was announced last week that the classic Saturn game 'Guardian Heroes' is being… PORTED. Yup you heard me right, SEGA is porting a Saturn game. This pretty much proves that nothing is impossible! So what's stopping us guys from having our favourite game being made available on modern consoles too? Afterall when it comes to being outspoken and having genuine passion for what we do, us NiGHTS fans are a force to be reckoned with. Lets make some noise and get our voices heard. We already managed to change the outcome of one SEGA game by having NiGHTS included as the flagman so we CAN get the Saturn game ported if we really make a show in numbers.
Reading through comments of support for the release of Guardian heroes and other Saturn titles I see constant requests for NiGHTS. But a lot of those people who want NiGHTS ported don't even know our campaign exists. It's your duty as a fan to make sure that word gets around and we get the support that we need to make this happen.
If this -did- happen and we got the original game ported imagine how many more new people would be introduced to NiGHTS into Dreams. The original game is remembered fondly for a reason. Don't let a great title go to waste. The PS2 port being Japan only was incredibly unfair, if more people had known the PS2 port even *existed* then the chances of it coming out over here would have been better. DO NOT LET what happened with the PS2 port happen again to a NiGHTS current console port. Help us before the chance dissapears. This is the best chance we've ever got, the timing of Guardian Heroes being ported has raised public awareness of the SEGA Saturn and we're very close to NiGHTS' 15th and Sonic's 20th. SEGA is having a rip-roaring year with great titles so make sure that this year is the year that NiGHTS returns. And heck, if you're sick and tired of us moaning/demanding/asking for NiGHTS stuff then this is the best chance you have to get us to shut up :p … (for a while)
We are close to 5000 votes now, which for a little campaign ran by two fans is pretty impressive, but we're going to need to see those numbers and the demand still coming in. Get us votes! You're a gamer, you know other gamers, tell your friends about the game and the campaign. Let people know this campaign exists and that we need their support if we're going to make this happen.
Trust me when I say this is a good year for SEGA and fans alike. Please let NiGHTS be a part of this. It's rare that big companies listen to fans but SEGA actually does care. So let's show SEGA we do too.
Here's the SEGA Announcement for Guardian Heroes:
http://blogs.sega.com/usa/2011/05/05/guardian-heroes-announced-for-xbox-live-arcade/
VOTE!
I always wondered how it would feel to write this journal one day and I always hoped it would never come, but I guess good things always have to come to an end. Today Kevin Eva (AAUK) has left the company to work on new things and other such life related stuff. Which I have to say i fullheartedly support as he deserves decades of nice things after all the -effort- he put into his time there. I feel really really sad though. Not a lot of you guys will ever get to understand just how much of a help this guy was to the Sonic and NiGHTS community. Specificaly the NiGHTS community. We were lucky enough to know him in person and he was (and still damnwell is!) a great great friend to us, and we love him to bits.
It feels like a part of our community has come to an end. Kevin did so much for you guys I don't even know where I could possibly start.
I remember back in Nov 28th 2007 we got a message from SEGA Europe ~
"We haven’t forgotten you… far, far from it."
That was all it takes to bring a little order to chaos and prove something massively important to both fan and company. That we can get along.
And it's the truth too. AAUK's involvement with the NiGHTS community kickstarted the return to fan passion for us and erased the high-and-mighty line between fan and company. At the end of the day most of us are fans. We love what we do. We care about the company, the games, the nostalgia, the employees, the history, the screw-ups and the lessons learnt. This guy though, he went 5 steps further. He really gave a solid hardworking damn about us all (even the annoying ones, lol). I imagine that 'promoting a brand to a target online audience' is part of the job description of being a community manager, but actually caring about the characters, fan reception and the fans themselves on a personal level is something that not everyone can stick on a C.V. I think only a real fan can understand that.
If it wasn't for AAUK this website would have died a long time ago. The fans will always be dotted around the internet but thanks to him our site became the main source of everything NiGHTS related. So much great P.R and fun we all had. I mean what other fanbase can say that a company traveled hundreds of miles to their HOUSE to showcase a game in person. That they ended up on national TV and all over gaming magazines because of one guy? That we were so totally FUELED with enthusiasm at being taken seriously in return we worked as hard as we could to get SEGA good P.R, even if it meant acting like idiots sometimes. It was all because we cared. The fans still care Kev, but we're going to be at a hell of a dissadvantage without you at the helm telling us to keep our noses clean and dry behind our ears, be polite and always say thankyou 
I'd like to think that the reason the NiGHTS fanbase developed so well into such a great bunch of people is because of his influence. Kev wasn't just some guy in a suit trying to make numbers. He had true SEGA spirit. Blue blood 
That's the kind of magic that more companies need. Well, that and funny impressions of Owl.
DiGi and I were lucky enough to see a side to Kev that wasn't just him running about at Sonic fan conventions. This is about the NiGHTS community. He made sure that NiGHTS wasn't overlooked at every chance he got. He always made sure our opinons and thoughts were heard by the people that matter, even if it made a difference or not, the real difference to us was that the company was showing a human side and even giving us that inch of a chance in the first place. And that's why all us guys care in the end – thanks for the chance and thanks for taking us seriously. Thanks for always including the NiGHTS lot.
I can only say so much thesedays, but I just wanted to say that after being admin of this place for well over a decade now that I'm not going to just nod quietly and say a brief 'be on your way'. AAUK, you're the man and I'm sure NiGHTS would be thankful too Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and from all the thousands of NiGHTS fans reading this.
For the future I'm not entirely sure where this leaves us as a fanbase in terms of community/creator interaction. Those are some massive shoes to fill ( not saying you've got massive feet Kev XD ) but yeah… whichever way this all goes there are always people who care. I believe we all have a part to play and that Kev done his best till the end.
Dare to Dream and good luck for the future! You will be sorely missed.
PS) Cheesecake plz.
Those of you who remember the humble beginnings of this website might remember an old piece of artwork I done called 'Paradox' featuring Claris, Elliot, NiGHTS and a whole lot of little details from the game. The image featured on our splash page for many years long before we were a wordpress site. Back then we didn't have much in the way of direct contact with SEGA themselves, we made our own fun and our community was small but very hardcore and closeknit.
Fast forward to November 2007. Journey of Dreams was about to make the rounds and a Mr Kevin Eva (AAUK) popped into our lives to unleash the frankly-awesome-power of SEGA's community team. And what a top job he did too, even securing us an interview with Iizuka and coming all the way up to our house in Scotland at the time to promote the new game. Back then he took some prints of my artwork to show Iizuka san in London and talk about the NiGHTS fanbase. As a gift Kev brought back some signed things, one of which being my print of Paradox signed by Takashi Iizuka:
Well then fast foward some 3 years to 2010 where I now work for SEGA Europe myself and AAUK is currently visiting SEGA Japan on work related business. Kevin asked if I wanted to pass anything to SonicTeam, soooo….
I gave Iizuka san the original framed painting to keep! And he remembered it! He liked the print the first time he seen it in 2007 so i figured it'd be fun to suprise him with the actual real one instead. Just to keep him on his toes. Just incase he ever y'know… forgets NiGHTS or something ;D I wrote him a letter in Japanese on the back telling him us NiGHTS fans are still going strong and care about the character AND that we really want to see this port happen. After the comment he made about NiGHTS 3 a while ago I wanted to give him an extra 'across the ocean' nudge. So it's safe to say he's up to date on our situation and even congratulated me for getting into the company *lol* Yeah I've been grinning all day 
Thanks AAUK, as always you're the man … Also, I've heard that Kev is bringing back some mad flavoured Japanese KitKats to give away in Freestuff Friday, so look out for that.
Win!
If you're a regular to DeviantArt.com you'll most probably also be a member of the main NiGHTS fan club there. NiGHTSFan has been around for many years and the growth of the fanbase coupled with the busy life of the owner means things are becoming hard to run it by herself. Jamie is looking for staff to help out, experience running a club prefered but not essential as long as you can follow orders and get work done. Good dedicated staff are hard to come by online, a lot of people are interested for about 3 days, get bored and then just float on over to the next thing. If you're going to offer help make sure you are actually able to do so on a very regular basis.
Interested? Then head on over to this journal here, read the details – then drop Jamie a note telling her why you are suitable for the job.
Thanks
Today I'm very happy to report that our NiGHTS digital port campaign has reached 3000 fans. Thank you for all your support in spreading the word and getting people talking about NiGHTS again. When we started this campaign we weren't expecting so many of you to sign up. So a major thanks is due to each and every one of you who told a friend, posted a topic online, linked back or just simply clicked once on the button.
This number may seem like a lot but we need a lot more than this if we are to convince SEGA that a digital port of of NiGHTS into Dreams is worth their time and money. So keep all that NiGHTS attention coming our way and pass the link around your gaming friends. You don't have to have been around in 1996 to vote for this – if you have a genuine interest in the NiGHTS franchise and want to see it get more recognition then add your click to our page
Great work guys!
And in SEGA related news – I got the job at SEGA Europe as a games tester. To say today is a good day would be an understatement. So happy I could explode in raging-fangirl glitter lol. So I guess now I work for SEGA. How long did that take me? XD 17 years of my life! Never give up on your dreams kids
Every Friday SEGA Europe and SEGA America host a big prize giveaway on Twitter. You can win all sorts of assorted gaming merch, games and very rare collectable things. THINGS! I know you all can't get enough of things.
So anyhoo, today a nice bit of NiGHTS Journey of Dreams merch has gone up for grabs. A signed CD music sampler from JoD. These CD's were made in a very limited quantity for SEGA Europe as a promotional item, so to own one of these SIGNED by TAKASHI IIZUKA is something you should be interested in It's been signed this year too ( so you also get the amusing knowledge that (probably AAUK) hounds the guy to specificaly sign NiGHTS merch for us XD ). Iizuka-san you can never escape the NiGHTS fans! lol
If you'd like to be in with a chance to win this, along with some other spectacular prizes like Amigo ASR concept art prints, just go to Twitter.com and follow the official @SEGA account and wait for further instructions. Remember that you have to be following them and they have to be following you in return. Direct messages only when taking part as regular replies don't count.
Best of luck!
Aaaaaaand here it is! I was waiting for this one to appear!
Team collective BADASS.
Thanks for the great day guys, see you next year
Top row from the left : (Just for Mr 99 down there in the comments) RubyEclipse, DiGi & TRiPPY, Urtheart, Blake, Vger, Nemain, Iceman, Echohawk, Gavin Storey, Graham Seward, John Finlay, James Zeach, Onikage Reaper.
Front row : Angie, T-Bird, AAUK, Johnny Gioeli, Jun Senoue, Dreadknux, Rory, Christophski, Darkspeeds.
Sorry to the few peoples names I don't know XD;
Summer of Sonic 2010 - London. It's been well over a week now but I've been having a hard time trying to pinpoint everything good that happened on the day. I don't mean that in a generic way in the slightest, really, it was THAT good. I wish you'd all been able to attend, but to those of you who I did get the chance to meet and put in all that hard work – thanks for giving DiGi and I a perfect day
So where do i start exactly? Humm, well two days prior to the convention we had a lovely (stealthy- since him coming to SoS was a secret) evening meal in China Town with SEGA America's Ruby Eclipse. I've known Ruby for a good few years now since he used to frequent our forums long before he became a community manager at SEGA, long before any journeying of dreams, owls or other assorted bat-tights. Remember those days? Well Ruby's always been a big NiGHTS fan so it was great to finally just sit down and have a bit of chill-time. It's pretty interesting chatting to Aaron because he's like the SOA version of our AAUK (just without the hilarious Owl impressions). Perspectives make me smile. It makes me happy too that my own community members really follow their dreams. I'm a proud old admin ;-;
Reading the dinner menu was fun, we found you could actually order an ENTIRE roast pig (booked 24hours in advance mind!), but we settled for our regular fare, followed up by almost criminaly delicious deep fried icecream. Afterwards we took him on a bit of latenight sightseeing for photos. There exists a video of Big Ben bonging with DiGi cursing his head off in the background. All in all a great night out with good company.
The next day consisted of me running around doing everything I'd failed to do 3 days beforehand. This year we didn't want to be selling any Studio Imagni stuff at the con since last year was great but we were kinda stuck behind a table most of the time (well poor Jof was!) so this year we wanted to just mingle and enjoy the show. And boy what a show it was!
A few days prior to the convention DiGi and I had travelled down to AAUK's new house. You see, not only was Kevin doing his regular duties as community manager and running a huge fan convention – he was also in the middle of moving home! I'm not entirely sure how he managed to stay sane with all that going on at the same time, but a large box of plastic crabs may suggest otherwise. Kev, Becky and Blake were pretty much juggling home unpacking with Summer of Sonic delivery boxes. That takes some kinda madskills. So we just made it worse for them by handing them a stack of 600 NiGHTS campaign flyers, haha. Yeah the SoS crew were good sports and let us advertise our campaign by putting a flyer into every Summer of Sonic goodie bag this year. If you want to see my art up close you can check out my upload here:
Well after about 5 days of not sleeping due to some random insomnia I was suffering from… SUMMER OF SONIC – HAD ARRIVED!
Up at 6am we were determined to get to The Pavillion early enough to grab us some free swag, which included an amazing Metal Sonic figurine. We love collecting game and anime action figures and stuff so we had to get one of these. Actually we ended up with 2 of everything since we got a bag each. A funky exclusive Sonic print bag made especialy for the convention. If I'm feeling generous enough I might hold a mini competition later on where you can win my bag.
To cut a long story short, long queue was long and it started raining. We were also heckled by some drunken Kiwi's, Rugby fans, which DiGi took great skill in giving chatback to and banishing. Just standing in the line I had a lot of requests for photographs mostly from the general public (probably confused by my slightly mad hair, lol). The event was late in opening but from experience I've never attended any sort of convention where the thing opens on time, I didn't really mind waiting anyway since I knew it would be worth it. A few of the staff came up and talked to us personaly, letting us know something of the setup nightmare the crew were having to deal with inside. Problems with expensive computer equipment being stolen, excess furniture, capacity rules thrown in at the last minute and unhelpful venue staff were really pushing the team to the limit. But amazingly, despite all this, they took it in their stride and continued to give their personal best. I know the Sonic fanbase gets a lot of stick sometimes but when the staff work together to get stuff done they really pull a bit of a Sonic Heroes 'Team work' thing. It's all rather magical, lol. But I'll get into that more later. Standing in the queue we were approached by two lovely chaps from a website I follow on Twitter called Sonicitalia.net they recognized me because of the hair (yeah I get that a lot lol XD). It was at this point that I was told that a lot of attendees rather than wearing name badges have their forum/twitter/facebook avatars printed onto their T-shirts. Great stuff. Suddenly it was a lot easier to recognise folk I knew online!
Then like reaching some kinda spiritual (slightly more blue tinted) Mecca – we were IN. Just narrowly avoiding what became dubbed 'The Pidegon Panic Zone' we were handed two dayglow orange SoS goodie bags by the TROOPER OF A MAN ~ Urtheart. With our heads half in the bags and half remembering how to walk forwards we entered into the main hall which was something of a spectacle of Sonic goodness. My inner NiGHTS fangirl felt both a sudden twinge of jealousy and pride, haha. Nah, I'm just glad that our fanbase is always welcomed so warmly in the Sonic one. I guess we're like the really campy annoying spandexy cousins that only come around once a year to 'borrow' the lawn mower and never return it. But it's all good.
My memory fails me a bit here but i think the first person we bumped into was Dreadknux, telling us that we did indeed HAVE a Studio Imagni table (set up right next to STC's lovely Nigel D none the less), whoops, so if I wanted to use it to sell quick sketches or whatever I was free to do so. I considered making DiGi stand on the table and busk rap style for our lunch but I figured he wouldn't be too into that. So we left the table idea alone (for this year anyway!) and trotted off like ungrateful gits to enjoy the full awesome of the con itself
Something I will say straight away is that I was definately less shy with approaching people than I was last year. I've gotten to know a lot of the Sonic community better since then, especialy the staff, since we all went to Alton Towers and Expo together this year. Great bunch of guys and girls. This year we had tons of people come up and ask us for photos with them, knowing who we were. I guess hassling SEGA so much and being generaly irritating makes you some kinda fandom D listers, lol. We had a good few jokes about burning Sonic merch and campaigning for our own convention. It felt really nice to fit in and share in the laughs. After attending the hideously huge Expo this year I felt a lot more connected to the atmosphere of Summer of Sonic. I mean I might draw anime styled stuff but to be honest I don't really know a lot of anime things, I watch the odd DVD now and then but I wouldn't exactly say I'm a Otaku. Summer of Sonic was different, probably because everyone was there because they were fans of one universal thing – Sonic. Sure they might all have clashing opinons on what makes the series good or have website rivalries online, but for one day everyone just chills the hell out and gets on. It's nice. Very full of nostalgia too. When I was a kid I'd always wanted to go to the comic conventions down in England to meet the Fleetway bunch, but the distance made it impossible. Now I live in London this has been my chance to catch up on everything I missed as a Sonic obsessed teenager.
So many fans turned up! Something like well over 800 I think? After a while I lost count of the people I hugged to death and yelled hello at. We walked around taking in all the sights, eager to see what was to be seen this year. Firstly there was an ASR tournie happening on the second floor which DiGi took part in, good sportsmanship, even if some people were using the Tails boost glitch >___>; ahem. The amazing rare merch cabinet made a welcome return, this year it had the actual Pixel Palace Sonic sketches on show from That Guy With The Glasses. Also the NiGHTS chao plushie and some amazing little Sonic plushies I'd never seen before. There was a crab in the cabinet… but somebody stole Kevins crabs! D: *lol* (that sounds so crazy but it really did happen). It's kinda sad how people will go to a convention and lift stuff like it belongs to them. I hope whoever was kind enough to steal things was jumped on the way home :]
Also two of the main events this year was the presence of both playable Sonic 4 and Sonic Colours. We stood in the line at one point to play Sonic Colours but after seeing how slow the line was moving we felt it best to give up our spaces to the hardcore Sonic fans and wandered on our merry way. From what we seen of other people playing Sonic 4 it looks great! I'm really looking forward to both games coming out. It's odd to say it but for once I'm actually properly excited. You should be too This is Sonic Cycle combo breaking.
Wandering around the hall more we found the crazy mr Elson Wong selling his comics and art (DiGi's evil twin i think!), the STC online crew, Nigel being SWAMPED by adoring fans snapping up more of his original painted art that he was selling last year (I managed to get a quick wave in there), and a big area for people to chill and draw. That's one thing i definately liked this year, the amount of chairs and sitting spaces available. Very comfy sofas. Because it's all well and good walking about but with that many people in one place things get a little hot. Well actually quite a -lot- hot since there was no air conditioning, but to be honest i think it added to the experience haha. What's a real convention without sweaty fellow geeks? XD Other things I got to see was the AMAZING pixel/hama bead comic that Becky and Kev had created by hand. Dot by dot! I was so impressed they finally got it finished considering how massive it was. There was also a table with some neat Sonic customised dolls, backissues on sale and a mystical shop that i didn't get to even breathe on because it was so busy! There was a lot to see and do. This year we mostly hung out at the stage since last year we missed everything. At the stage we were treated to some hilarious animations, flat out comedy moments (come on Vger being forced to Caramel Dansen), Never Mind the Buzz Bombers – with the cutest littlest Sonic fan ever. I swear he knew more facts about Sonic than some of us older people. Which reminds me, DiGi and I had a few mumsy 'aww' moments upon seeing various little kids enjoying themselves on the day. It was a real reminder that Sonic spans real generations, from us kids in the early 90's to todays little guys. I really hope him and NiGHTS continue to be heroes for a new wave of youngsters discovering gaming. In a world full of grey and brown FPS games with not much but death and realism I'm glad that people can still appreciate the colorful imaginative fun games.
There was also a Kareoke singing competition Wrecks Factor Live! The guy who really stole the show was T-Bird's little brother who did a hilariously GREAT performance of the Sonic Underground themesong. Cosplayers were also out in force this year with the chance to win a trophy for best costume on stage. People kept asking if I was cosplaying as Knuckles…. what? XD I think it was my red hair and the goggles. My underlying Knuckles fanboyisms must still be apparent after over a decade, gosh! I kinda wanted to be cosplaying as NiGHTS but I'd have to remake my cosplay. Maybe next year. On my travels around the hall I came aross a BIG THE CAT COSPLAYER – who I promptly attacked for a photo. Just to prove the NiGHTS fanbase has no hard feelings at all towards the feline, even if he did get into ASR and NiGHTS didn't :p
Like I said I bumped into too many cool people to mention but an honorable mention goes out to Syaming-Li who not only is just badass but created the most spectacular Sonic custom converse shoes ever. So we stood there taking photos of his feet – because yes we're weird like that. No, really, look at his shoes:
Dude.
Another honorable mention, actually scratch that, HUGE GLITTERY SLOBBERING THANKYOU, goes to Nemain. She gave us one of the nicest moments of the con. We're just standing there chatting away to people and this girl of clearlyinsanemadness comes up to us brandishing a Christmas NiGHTS plushie. It turns out she won the recent Elliot/NiGHTS ebay lot and wanted to just GIVE us Christmas NiGHTS to keep. For nothing. What the hellllll! XD DiGi nearly cried, seriously. It was so sweet of her to come up and thank us for our campaign and stuff, never mind give us a damn rare as hell Christmas NiGHTS plush. Needless to say she is like my favourite person of the entire convention now and I can't ever thank her enough for the happiness she gave us It's stuff like that that reminds me why I'm a fan in the first place, no not because people sometimes give me free stuff lol, the fact that people love NiGHTS enough to do nice things for other fans. It just reminds you it's all worth it you know? If you can get reactions like that. Christmas NiGHTS was later seen gleefuly downing Baileys and Ice in a drunken binge that shall never see the light of day. As long as Kevin never uploads his photos haha.
Then convention ended on something of an insanely spectacular high with the famous Crush 40 doing a live show for us. Proper mosh pit. I could go on and on about how great it was but all you have to do is watch this video to see how electric the atmosphere was. Singing along with so many Sonic fans was just… wow! Epic stuff. Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli.
After the crowds had left and things had closed for the night we got a chance to talk to Jun Senoue personaly. At the time I didn't realise he'd actually done some work on Journey of Dreams… gah! But he's such a cool guy ;_; So polite and insanely talented. Knowing that we were talking to the guy responsible for so many great melodies over the years just made me infinately happy. He stopped us as we were walking off to tell us that us fans are the reason he is here doing what he loves and DiGi and I kinda fangeeked in unison haha. We love ya Jun!
Then, bizzarely the strangest thing happened for me. We'd just experienced this amazing convention – but the most real fun I had was helping the staff close it up for the night. DiGi and I stayed behind to help out the Sonic lot and it was just… I can't really explain how I felt but, it felt good. These people who were left at the end were my friends. The people who had given their time and love to this convention and here we all were at the end taking down the posters, pulling sheets off tables and picking up litter together. Singing, joking running about like madmen trying to get everything tidy again. I even helped clean the Loo's! (Best way to spend a Saturday night! haha) It was at this point Elson Wong and DiGi really got time to chat and the pair of them were hilarious to listen to. DiGi and him cussing major profanity at the tables as they tried to pull the cloths off just made me lose it. At one point there was an impromtu sing along of Dreams Dreams that carried quite far up the hall. Kev was tired out his brains and STILL managing to give us orders. Me, Ruby Eclipse and Graham from SEGANerds were taking down all the fanart done by people and little kids and it was seriously one of the most blissed out moments of my fandom. Quiet, nice and prettymuch a joint feeling. Proper Teamwork. Eventually it came to an end and we all posed for a staff photo, I hope it appears online soon because I'm probably grinning ear from ear in it.
And then… well then there was a lot of this. I can't remember getting home very well, but that's the sign of a good night out!
Summer of Sonic 2011. You all have to come. Thank you SO much to AAUK and Becky firstly for putting in insane amounts of patience, stress and hard work, I only ever get to see a fraction of what goes on behind the scenes but I know it's more than an undertaking. Becky sista thanks for keeping our Kev sane and healthy Thanks to Dreadknux for being a hardworking cool dood and letting us in the front door (you always make me laugh too much). And to the rest of you ugly lot who put in your beans we love you all (yes even you Rory) and we hope you'll never give up your passion for the fandom. Thanks for the great memories.
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Showing some major community love for new NiGHTS website NiDscores.com! Carrying on from where Scoreattack.net left off, Charlie has pulled on the admin gloves and hopes to reignite some insane highscoring action in you all. All the former highscores have been moved across so nothing has been lost. All they need is your interaction to get the rivalries up and running again I'll be adding my new scores (and DiGi's haha) to the database when I dig my Saturn out soon. I'm rusty! D: And remember you can submit scores for not only the original Saturn version but the PS2 port AND JoD.