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[Gaming Truth]

This is my first year trying to attend Gencon, with a group of 5-6 friends, and this housing lotto does not inspire confidence in me.

It shouldn't be too bad. It just basically means that, instead of everyone trying to register at noon, you'll figure out when you're able to. My room is doing a team thing where we'll compare our windows and the person with the earliest time will register us.

When I registered, I thought I landed the noon slot!

 

[Palmer_v1]

It shouldn't be too bad. It just basically means that, instead of everyone trying to register at noon, you'll figure out when you're able to. My room is doing a team thing where we'll compare our windows and the person with the earliest time will register us.

When I registered, I thought I landed the noon slot!

No way to tell yet, is there? The current timer is just a generic timer.

 

[Gaming Truth]

No way to tell yet, is there? The current timer is just a generic timer.

No. The current timer points to noon on Sunday (EST). At that time, you're supposed to find out your actual window.

 

[Palmer_v1]

So, what kind of stuff is worth getting in the merchant hall generally?

 

[Gaming Truth]

So, what kind of stuff is worth getting in the merchant hall generally?

Tons of stuff. Generally, for gaming companies, I tend to focus on new releases (some stuff debuts at GenCon), though last year, I picked up a bunch of "dents" from Cool Stuff's shelf for nearly 70% off sticker.

I'm huge into art, so I usually devote Saturday to crawling through the Artists Alley (located in the same room, so when I say I devote a day to a subsection of the Merchant Hall ...). Artists, authors, etc. present their wares there. I've purchased art prints, custom playmats, etc. from there.

Oh, forgot something important my friend is huge into. They've backed off this in recent years, but a lot of companies bring promos there. The BGG Store has alleviated really needing to get them at this convention, but there is such a thing. My current work pen is a Dice Tower pen. It's actually really really nice. I couldn't cough up $25 for their playmat though, as nice as it was (too thin a material)

 

[daevv]

So, what kind of stuff is worth getting in the merchant hall generally?

Tons of stuff. Generally, for gaming companies, I tend to focus on new releases (some stuff debuts at GenCon), though last year, I picked up a bunch of "dents" from Cool Stuff's shelf for nearly 70% off sticker.

I'm huge into art, so I usually devote Saturday to crawling through the Artists Alley (located in the same room, so when I say I devote a day to a subsection of the Merchant Hall ...). Artists, authors, etc. present their wares there. I've purchased art prints, custom playmats, etc. from there.

Oh, forgot something important my friend is huge into. They've backed off this in recent years, but a lot of companies bring promos there. The BGG Store has alleviated really needing to get them at this convention, but there is such a thing. My current work pen is a Dice Tower pen. It's actually really really nice. I couldn't cough up $25 for their playmat though, as nice as it was (too thin a material)

I'd also add but not sure if it's every year as last year was my first but try to get one of the coupon books they give out for free at a booth located close to Will Call. It had a tonne of good free promos you could get for just visiting a booth and giving them a coupon. Picked up some promo cards for Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Boss Monster, and some others I forget now. Also got some dice too.

 

[BattleMonkey]

It gets harder and harder to get the new popular stuff at gencon. If your dedicated you can get what you want... But often you are paying full price for a game coming out at retail cheaper in a few months. You do sometimes get exclusive promos but if you don't gt room to take your purchases with you, you spend a ton shipping the games back home. You get stuff early but often at a high cost.

Last year was pretty darn crowded, we were pretty bummed by it and decided to skip this year. We loved gencon but its getting too big and they don't really have anyways to expand or fix it. If the growth continues gencon is going to become a miserable experience. They might need to consider ticket sale caps.

 

[Affeinvasion]

It gets harder and harder to get the new popular stuff at gencon. If your dedicated you can get what you want... But often you are paying full price for a game coming out at retail cheaper in a few months. You do sometimes get exclusive promos but if you don't gt room to take your purchases with you, you spend a ton shipping the games back home. You get stuff early but often at a high cost.

Last year was pretty darn crowded, we were pretty bummed by it and decided to skip this year. We loved gencon but its getting too big and they don't really have anyways to expand or fix it. If the growth continues gencon is going to become a miserable experience. They might need to consider ticket sale caps.

I agree with this entire post. I think the best things to look for are the games that aren't going to be widely available at retail (and for much cheaper prices). My friend picked up a fun little Viking themed trick taking game that was a kickstarter game and to my knowledge is hard to find at retail.

At this point I'd probably only go to play things like Golem Arcana since they run special scenarios at GenCon.

 

[Gaming Truth]

I'd also add but not sure if it's every year as last year was my first but try to get one of the coupon books they give out for free at a booth located close to Will Call. It had a tonne of good free promos you could get for just visiting a booth and giving them a coupon. Picked up some promo cards for Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Boss Monster, and some others I forget now. Also got some dice too.

Aye. Starting the first day of the con, at the end of the second where the various registrations take place, they hand out goodie bags. Shamelessly, I got four of them last year (nice bags plus the need for multiple copies of coupons)

Honestly, going to GenCon is like going to Vegas. There's so much to it, you're not gonna be able to do everything. As we draw closer to August, hopefully this gets brought up again about good tips. Eat @ food trucks, go only to the first Burlesque show, eat at Yats, etc.

 

[Gaming Truth]

Last year was pretty darn crowded, we were pretty bummed by it and decided to skip this year. We loved gencon but its getting too big and they don't really have anyways to expand or fix it. If the growth continues gencon is going to become a miserable experience. They might need to consider ticket sale caps.

I'd somewhat agree with you, but kinda. They have more room to grow within the convention center. I disagree because I think Otakon is a convention that's grown too big and can't do anything about it. The Baltimore Convention Center is maxed out, but more and more people go every year.

 

[BattleMonkey]

I'd somewhat agree with you, but kinda. They have more room to grow within the convention center. I disagree because I think Otakon is a convention that's grown too big and can't do anything about it. The Baltimore Convention Center is maxed out, but more and more people go every year.

They have floor space, but the city itself has no more space to handle more people. The hotels are tapped out, the restaurants are getting worse and worse to get into, the food truck lines are getting ridiculous. Sadly the city itself is not seeing growth in more room and food, outside of Gencon, the city doesn't have need to grow and is stuck as it is pretty much. In a sense, this is also going to be a limiting factor anyways stopping the convention's explosive growth. Dragoncon is an example of a huge con that could be even more massive if Downtown Atlanta could support it, but it's kinda topped off since people can't find places to stay.

As for growing the convention floor... what good is it going to do? Theres TONS of areas of the con that are not being used or not popular or populated. It doesn't solve the problem of the crowds who grow and go to the same booths. Paizo, FFG, Wizkids, all examples of booths that just get worse each year, expanding floor space for more companies and other events isn't going to alleviate the congestion that you will find at the places people want to go to. Last year they expanded the show floor, and mostly added a lot of smaller companies that had little traffic.

The one area they can really improve on is space for events, instead of having events selling out due to limited space, they have alot of space they could add more too. You had rooms hosting events that no one was interested in or tons of ongoing events throughout the con that just never were busy. The arcade last year for example had a huge room dedicated to it, and it was wasted on like 6 coin op machines and almost no one was ever in there. But you go to a company run game event room, and it's in a tiny little room filled to capacity.

 

[daevv]

I've decided to keep track of my board game plays this year on the bgg site. I remembered what I played in the first week and have been keeping track since. I want to see just how much I actually play this hobby I spend way too much money on. So far this year I have 20 plays of 7 different games. Ten plays have been with just my wife, six with the couples only group, and 4 with my hardcore group. I think I'm off to a good start.

 

[Palmer_v1]

So Gencon housing was every bit as much of a cluster fuck as I expected. I've been refreshing for over 90 minutes, while people who had a later start time got in.

No double queen rooms at any nearby hotels.

Fucking trainwreck, and I'm certain the roll aways that were requested will never materialize.

 

[Blizzard]

I went to a birthday party last night where everyone was a bit drunker than usual, but a few people still managed to play some games.

• I finally got to play Coup with the Inquisitor card and allegiance rules. I think I liked it this way better. It made for some amusement while I switched people's teams to let them kill each other, especially if they had no money to switch back that turn.
• I played a couple of rounds of Love Letter. At least it was somewhat fast when people would go ahead and take their turns without thinking too long about it, but the ability to be knocked out by pure luck extremely early was a bit annoying to me. I suppose in theory you are supposed to play a bunch of rounds so that evens out.
• I played Cover Your A$$ets again. As with my family, this probably ended up being the most amusing and loud of the bunch. Lots of stealing and twists of fortune, several ridiculously valuable asset stacks.

 

[Gaming Truth]

So Gencon housing was every bit as much of a cluster fuck as I expected. I've been refreshing for over 90 minutes, while people who had a later start time got in.

No double queen rooms at any nearby hotels.

Fucking trainwreck, and I'm certain the roll aways that were requested will never materialize.

Yeah. My hotel team all failed to get in within the first two hours and when we did, everything downtown was gone. =(

 

[ultron87]

We luckily had someone get an hour wait and dodged the errors. Got a double/double at the Hyatt Regency. This will actually the first time we've ever had a connected hotel, though we will be squeezing six people into it so things will be tight. Happy with that over nothing, of course since it sounds like an hour is about as late as the two bed rooms lasted. When my number finally came up at an hour and forty five minutes, I checked out of curiosity there were some king rooms available downtown but nothing else.

If it weren't for the errors it felt like the system worked about as fairly as the crappy situation of having not nearly enough hotels downtown could.

 

[Gaming Truth]

We luckily had someone get an hour wait and dodged the errors. Got a double/double at the Hyatt Regency. This will actually the first time we've ever had a connected hotel, though we will be squeezing six people into it so things will be tight. Happy with that over nothing, of course since it sounds like an hour is about as late as the two bed rooms lasted. When my number finally came up at an hour and forty five minutes, I checked out of curiosity there were some king rooms available downtown but nothing else.

If it weren't for the errors it felt like the system worked about as fairly as the crappy situation of having not nearly enough hotels downtown could.

Yeah, if there were no errors, the system is as fair as they could do it with as much demand as they have. Of course, it definitely wasn't based on how it turned out to be. I'm slated to be out $50 (cancellation fee) if I can scrounge a hotel closer than 7 miles from the convention center in the coming weeks. That's never fun to know

 

[daevv]

The housing errors screwed three of us out of spots. Luckily we had rooms booked at the Sheraton and Embassy Suites in case housing fell threw. They are regular price but with 3 or even 4 ways we should be good. Booked them last year.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

I should start working on that Twilight Struggle OT for gaming side...the digital version is still due out in March right?

I haven't done an OT since Civ 5...if anyone would like to provide feedback on my in-progress stuff, just let me know and I'll PM you from time to time with what I have.

 

[Karkador]

I should start working on that Twilight Struggle OT for gaming side...the digital version is still due out in March right?

I haven't done an OT since Civ 5...if anyone would like to provide feedback on my in-progress stuff, just let me know and I'll PM you from time to time with what I have.

Sure, I'd love to help.

 

[Jables Swan]

Got absolutely spanked by Flash Point and Legendary: Marvel tonight. Great fun though.

 

[Faiz]

These con housing issues are the very reasons I stopped going to pretty much all the cons I used to frequent. Haven't been to SDCC or Dragon Con in YEARS.

 

[JSR_Cube]

Any impressions of Cthulhu Wars? I am not the biggest fan of Cthulhu and all that but I don't mind it. My group likes Chaos in the Old World quite a bit but we have played the hell out of it. Looking for impressions because the game is crazily priced. I get that it has a lot of figures in it but an MSRP of $200 is pretty unreal.

 

[Dragoshi1]

Ordered D&D Attack Wing Starter Set with the Wyvern Expansion.

Dogfighting dragons just sounds awesome by itself.

 

[BattleMonkey]

These con housing issues are the very reasons I stopped going to pretty much all the cons I used to frequent. Haven't been to SDCC or Dragon Con in YEARS.

Its sadly happening more and more, cons keep growing and really hotels are not going to magically appear just to support a one weekend a year con. Its given rise to many more cons opening everywhere though now, local cons are becoming so much more common everywhere, with many growing each year.

 

[joelseph]

Had 9 people in the lottery. 2 people sub 30 minutes, both errored out. Had a 10th member buy a badge after the lottery started and was able to get our only room downtown. I was 1.40:00 and got stuck with Wyndham on the red shuttle route. If I have to play x2 out of block or can't find something downtown seriously considering getting a refund. The fun for me is being connected with a large group of friends.

 

[joelseph]

These con housing issues are the very reasons I stopped going to pretty much all the cons I used to frequent. Haven't been to SDCC or Dragon Con in YEARS.

SDCC has caps.

Gencon should drop the cosplaying and get back to it's roots. Only gaming.

Considering switching to Bgg/Origin/Geekway for my con fixes.

 

[Palmer_v1]

SDCC has caps.

Gencon should drop the cosplaying and get back to it's roots. Only gaming.

Considering switching to Bgg/Origin/Geekway for my con fixes.

What time of year are those? It seems like this will be my one and only Gencon trip after all this hassle.

 

[joelseph]

Origins
June 11 – 15, 2014
June 3 – 7, 2015

BGG
Weekend before Thanksgiving

Geekway
May 14-17, 2015

 

[Keasar]

I was thinking of perhaps getting a set of metal coins that could be used for a variety of games to get a bit of better feel when playing a game that uses currency. One site Ive looked at is Campaign Coins that sell a Board Game Set of 101 coins for 72 USD.

I was wondering if anyone had any advice/experience with having these around for that purpose? Maybe a cheaper &/or better alternative?

 

[Gaming Truth]

Until the convention itself becomes oversaturated, I'll still go. It's always a great time and there's so much to do, both inside the con and sometimes, outside too. The housing fiasco is pure shenanigans, but it is what it is.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Until the convention itself becomes oversaturated, I'll still go. It's always a great time and there's so much to do, both inside the con and sometimes, outside too. The housing fiasco is pure shenanigans, but it is what it is.

It was already kinda saturated too much for us last year, we got a close hotel no problem, but the crowded halls, overpacked food lines, extra long lines for booths selling out of product too quick, and general lack of room for events killed alot of the fun for us. Many of the events we wanted to do sold out on us, it just wasn't the best trip last year and fear things are just going to get worse.

 

[Faiz]

SDCC has caps.

Gencon should drop the cosplaying and get back to it's roots. Only gaming.

Considering switching to Bgg/Origin/Geekway for my con fixes.

SDCC has caps but it's still a major pain in the ass to get rooms. I'm not sure what you were trying to say.

It used to be no big deal to just leisurely get a room at the Marriot Marina right next door.

 

[joelseph]

I'm saying GenCon should cap or split. Too many people coming for different reasons. It should only be about the games.

And housing IMO IS the reason to go to GenCon. There are more connected hotels to the ICC than any other convention center in the United States. Go to something like SDCC and you and your buddies are going to be all over God's green earth.

And there is no hope for GenCon either. Where should they go now that they are bursting at the Indy seems? Chicago? McMormick and Rosemont convention centers are some of the biggest and best in the world yet suffer the same hotel fate SDCC does. No one has enough hotels connected to a convention center for 50,000+ people.

 

[Blizzard]

Last night I played a bit of Coreworlds as a 4-player group. Unfortunately it turned out the person teaching us was doing a couple of things very incorrectly, and the game would have been a lot shorter and better otherwise. We stopped after 2 phases and I taught them Libertalia.

Even being the only experienced Libertalia player, and teaching everyone, I ended up almost in last place. Very sad. It's still one of my favorite games though.

 

[hort]

Picked up Machi Koro over the weekend.

We played a good number of games from Friday to Sunday, only to realize on Sunday that we were playing it wrong the whole time.

I had missed the rule about only being able to buy one establishment a turn, or flip one of your attractions over. This led to a much different game where someone would buy all six apple orchards in one turn if they had the 18 dollars. Restaurants were not as good here since you could consistently spend all of your money on your turn. This ended when I got 90 dollars in one turn to flip over two of my attractions. I then checked the rule book to make sure we were playing right, and it turns out we weren't


Playing it the correct way is a lot different. I still like it a lot, but it does feel slow when you are used to buying all of the ranches when you have the chance to.

 

[EYEL1NER]

Imperial Assault and War of the Ring arrived today. I very much look forward to reading the rules and learning both games and then never being able to play them with anyone.

 

[Karkador]

I was thinking of perhaps getting a set of metal coins that could be used for a variety of games to get a bit of better feel when playing a game that uses currency. One site Ive looked at is Campaign Coins that sell a Board Game Set of 101 coins for 72 USD.

I was wondering if anyone had any advice/experience with having these around for that purpose? Maybe a cheaper &/or better alternative?

IMO, the metal coins being made for board games tend to be a tad overdesigned, and come off a bit garish. Same with those Litko plastic tokens.
I think I'd perhaps rather find mint-quality coins from another country and use those.

 

[Neverfade]

I was thinking of perhaps getting a set of metal coins that could be used for a variety of games to get a bit of better feel when playing a game that uses currency. One site Ive looked at is Campaign Coins that sell a Board Game Set of 101 coins for 72 USD.

I was wondering if anyone had any advice/experience with having these around for that purpose? Maybe a cheaper &/or better alternative?

https://musedfable.com/?q=catalog/3

I have those. Much cheaper. No complaints.

 

[Mista Koo]

Played and won Sentinels of the Multiverse for the first time. Fun game, but way too much text for me. I didn't bother reading any enemy text.

Also played The Resistance: Avalon for the first time in a while. I was kinda burned out of it since we used to play it religiously but it was still as awesome as ever.

CV and Glory to Rome. Super exited to try them both.

CV seems fun, but I'm more interested in Nations: the Dice Game which is fairly similar.

 

[Experien]

Got my Star Realms double box yesterday from mMarket, it had a hole/dent in the back

Not sure if I should live with it or try to do a return or something. The box does seem to be cardboard.

 

[Keasar]

IMO, the metal coins being made for board games tend to be a tad overdesigned, and come off a bit garish. Same with those Litko plastic tokens.
I think I'd perhaps rather find mint-quality coins from another country and use those.

https://musedfable.com/?q=catalog/3

I have those. Much cheaper. No complaints.

Will definetly check out both options, see what seems most appealing, thank you both.

 

[Gaming Truth]

Will definetly check out both options, see what seems most appealing, thank you both.

Another ideas is to use Poker Chips. Not the casino-quality clay chips, just plastic ones like these: http://www.springbok-puzzles.com/Pr...ode=91-69014&gclid=CJ6C2fPktMMCFURo7AodDWwA4g

It depends on the game. I replaced the paper money in Lords of Vegas and Airlines Europe with the above chips. I don't know why I haven't done it for Power Grid yet (storage/hidden money mechanic?)

I definitely appreciate the metal coins in my Viticulture Kickstarter. They're awesome. But if you go metal when replacing currency, you also have to account for the space and weight changes they'll introduce, hence the plastic chips above.

 

[mercviper]

Tragedy Looper and Roll for the Galaxy came in yesterday. Aww yiss. For Looper I'd already played through 8 of the 10 starting scenarios with a friend's copy so I'm going to be delving into some custom ones soon. That or being the mastermind behind introducing other friends to the game. Muahahahaha...

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

Tragedy Looper and Roll for the Galaxy came in yesterday. Aww yiss. For Looper I'd already played through 8 of the 10 starting scenarios with a friend's copy so I'm going to be delving into some custom ones soon. That or being the mastermind behind introducing other friends to the game. Muahahahaha...

Roll for the Galaxy is so good. I played it a couple more times two player and its just as good as it was multiplayer.

 

[Cat Party]

Apparently XCOM comes out today? I use a question mark because I can't seem to find any confirmation. Is this how Fantasy Flight releases usually work?

 

[Neverfade]

Apparently XCOM comes out today? I use a question mark because I can't seem to find any confirmation. Is this how Fantasy Flight releases usually work?

CSI had it yesterday. FF keeps a timeline on their website of where a game is (development / at the printers/ shipping across the world/ shipping to stores / in stores). Once a game hits shipping to stores, it's usually at CSI within 6 or 7 calendar days. XCOM was actually sort of an outlier in that it took a little longer for CSI to stock than usual. Although pre-orders were briefly sold out so they might have actually gotten some copies last week that only fulfilled those orders and technically restocked yesterday. Dunno.

 

[XShagrath]

Played my first game of Progress today. We played 3-player and it went a little bit long, but it was the first play for all of us. Not really good at reviewing stuff, but I think we all had a good time, and would play it again.

 

[kurisu1974]

Well I didn't expect there to be another D&D Board Game since it's around 4 years ago that The Legend of Drizzt came out, but here it is, sporting the new logo but still compatible with the three previous games and Dungeon Command.

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/board-games/temple-elemental-evil

 

[Keasar]

Another ideas is to use Poker Chips. Not the casino-quality clay chips, just plastic ones like these: http://www.springbok-puzzles.com/Pr...ode=91-69014&gclid=CJ6C2fPktMMCFURo7AodDWwA4g

It depends on the game. I replaced the paper money in Lords of Vegas and Airlines Europe with the above chips. I don't know why I haven't done it for Power Grid yet (storage/hidden money mechanic?)

I definitely appreciate the metal coins in my Viticulture Kickstarter. They're awesome. But if you go metal when replacing currency, you also have to account for the space and weight changes they'll introduce, hence the plastic chips above.

Will look into it as well, though I am leaning a bit more towards metal coins. Storage isnt as big a problem. Its just price and if its worth it.