Well, I booked my trip for GenCon
 

Not bad.. I'll be staying at a Courtyard by Marriott about a .5 mile away from the convention center/RCA dome. Five days hotel and non stop flight for $791 total (nearly $80 of it taxes/fees)

Now comes the hellish part.

Registering for the events I want to attend *laughs*

That opens at 3 PM today, and likely, the crush of RPG folks registering for their favorite events will take down GenCon's server. At least twice ;)

Amazing how big that thing has become. I know most of the Lake Geneva group, though I've never attended a con. They got me into the Empire Builder series of games. I don't recognize any of the names running it these days.

Hey Foz,

You planning on doing True Dungeon? My wife and I are thinking about doing one of the modules, it's supposedly the "big thing". Nothing like geeking out for a few days (where no one knows you...). :D

umm....you can have my badge and tickets and I'll watch your PSP for you. ;)

Always wanted to go along - one day I'll get a chance ..

Sounds like fun! I hear the board gaming component is getting fairly good sized there, maybe I'll try to go one day. I think going to Essen will be first though.

I can vouch for that. I know 2-3 guys from my game group in town that go to GenCon every year. All that 2 of the guys do is boardgames. The third, who only goes occasionally, splits his time between RPG and board games.

Personally, I have no problem geeking out for a weekend, but those LARPers scare the hell out of me!

Several friends of mine are going. I was contemplating it, but I'm just not altogether certain I'd enjoy it.

I'm thinking about it, but I'm not exactly built for dungeoneering

I'll be at Origins in Columbus at the end of June... Boardgaming is what I'll be doing though I'll probably play a few RPG's just because I only play them at the Cons... I'm a big fan of the Panzer Grenadier series. As well as The Gamers series of Civil War games...

-Chas

GenCon sucked after it moved to Indy.

It was a lot better when it was in Milwaukee.

would you happen to be from Milwaukee Izulde? :D

gonna be interesting in a couple years when they tear down the old RCA dome for the Colts new stadium.

Dola: and.. yup.. 3:00 hit, and the Registration servers are suffering meltdown.

(I feel sorry for the poor IT Schlub that has to deal with GeekGasm's like this. there's about 10,000 people constantly hitting refresh OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

"GOTTA GET IN! GOTTA GET IN! GOTTA GET IN!"

Oh wait, that's me! Carry on!)

Just to tell you the damage they're taking, GenCon's FORUMS (nothing to do with the event registration) is at it's max connections (1238)

Sick. Sick I tell you.

damn, i can't go. i have a date that night

does someone want to explain to me what this thing is. from reading the posts it's apparent this is a hardcore fest of geekery and nerdiness, i just want to make sure.

yep, somewhere on the geek scale between this site and painting your face for a football game.

Ayup.. still broken 5 hours in. :)

Yes it is pretty hard core geekery and nerdiness Hell Atlantic.

Jack Chick probably wouldn't like it. Uh-huh.

I'm glad to say I am not going, nor do I know anyone who has even heard of it, much less attending :D

HA,

GenCon is the "Official Dungeons and Dragons convention" put on by D&D original creator, TSR, now Wizards of the Coast.

If you ever were a regular player of Dungeons and Dragons and the like you owe it to yourself to go someday. I went when it was still in Milwaukee with my two best friends from college and had one of the best times of my life there (yes I'm pathetic that way) There's a lot more than Dungeons and Dragons going on, so there's something for everybody into gaming of any sort.

.....now if only E3 was in indy.....i'd solid snake my way into that damn thing. Wonder if security would fall for the old box trick?

geeks

This happens every year with registration. It's freakin' retarded.

I tried to register last night, and thought I could get in, of course it was just them taking it down to try to fix it, and told us to try again today starting at 10 AM.

Guess What..

DOWN again!

Sheesh. Hire some IT folks, guys!

I say that everyone of us who wants to go to E3 should just show up on Sackattacks doorstep and slap him around until he gets us in.

Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt!

If you want to go again, you can crash at my place and I'll drive you up to Indy.


(If I'd known SirFozzie was going, I'd have offered him the same deal and saved him some money (though added a bit of inconvenience since I'm about 40 minutes from downtown). We Red Sox fans have to stick together...since there are so few of us, you know. ;) )

Hey Drake, thanks for the offer, I'm fairly close anyway, besides, you'd get tired of the 40 minute drive each way each day. *laughs*

but if you want to meet up while I'm there, let me know

Dola: WOOT! registered, and all my events were open. Thank god.

maybe I'll do a trip report on the two Hold'Em Poker tournaments I'll be playing ;)

What'd you sign up for?

A Mix..
the two Hold Em Tournaments..
A new miniatures game called Ace Racers
A Legend of Five Rings Booster draft
A primer for the City of Heroes RPG
A board game version of the Tour De France
The new Thieves World RPG
A game session for Weapons of The Gods (Actually had a submission for a contest they ran accepted)
the Formula De tournament
and an XCrawl game

Plus I'll buy some generic tickets for stuff that just catches my eye

Dola: Between this and the anime room and the auction and the dealers room.. My wallet cries. CRIES empty tears.

So do my bankaccount and my credit cards :D

Wow. You aint messin' around. Good stuff and a nice mix! A Texas Hold 'em tournament, eh? Interesting. Did they have one last year too? I guess it makes sense and isn't too far a stretch from the typical GenCon fair.

if its for D&D do you have to go in tights and bring a homemade sword and tip toe around an evil forest (the convention center)? is there role playing involved? i'm not knocking it, i never heard of this convention before. the social interaction of hard core geeks interests me.

like, do all the geeks who attend this convention know they're geeks, or is this like some reverse elitist thing where if you're not geek enough to be down with GenCon then *you* are the uncool, unhip geek?

GenCon has been around for years and years. No costumes are required, though some folks do dress up either for LARPs or just, well, because. This is geekdom at its purest.

For the most part, the geeks there know their geeks and simply revel in it. I guess there are some "hip/pretentious" geeks (see: some Vampire folks), but the majority of folks there are generally good natured and accepting people. There is very little of a "reverse elitst" thing that goes on there.

It's an interesting collection of humanity and the fact that I have no sense of smell does come in handy from time to time.

Apparently this the 2nd tournament they've run. they did one at GenCon Indy 04, and at So Cal's version too.

Do you play holdem in character? Lightning bolt, pocket aces, lightning bolt, sleep sleep?

Of course. How do you play it?