Anyone go to GenCon UK?

[meomwt]

Went to last year's Con, but couldn't make it this year (and, as it happened, couldn't have, as Mrs meomwt has been in hospital for the last week or so ).

Just wondered if anyone was at Reading this year, and if so, what was the experience like?

And who managed to say 'Hi!' to Erik Mona?

 

[bobthehappyzombie]

Hi, yeah we went

It was OK, I enjoyed the boardgames even though none of the volunteers knew the rules to any of the games we played... even when they said they did.
The RPGA games I booked were a wash out, despite great efforts on my part it was impossible to get anything close to organisation out of them... We eventually gave away our (difficult to get hold of) booked tickets as there were no pregens for the games I booked... even though it said clearly on the site that there were, and despite them guffing around for 20 minutes they couldn't loan us a book to make some. We gave them to some guys whom had just made them while we were arguing the toss with the 'organiser'
I played in one D&D 4e game where the guy who 'ran' it was basically a spectator whom had to be reminded to have his turn as the monsters... it sucked hard.
Like I say we had a few laughs at the esdevium boardgames rooms and the boardgame library (much the same experiance, except in the BGL they actually knew how to play the games) but as an RPG event it didn't register on the graph.

 

[RabidBob]

I had to work this weekend (I hate crunch time) but I wanted to go ... but after Bob's report, I'm glad I didn't!

 

[nerfherder]

Ouch! Glad I was able to afford to go to Gencon Indy again this year. Played 13 games, of which 12 were excellent (and the other wasn't bad).

 

[CharlesRyan]

I was there, and I had a considerably different experience than bobthehappyzombie.

Gen Con UK is still about half the con it ought to be, given the size of the UK market, but this year's show was a big step up from last year. I haven't seen any numbers, but attendance seemed solidly up, and I know the number of events was up dramatically. I'm sorry bobthehappyzombie had bad experiences with both the RPGA and the Esdevium areas, but most of the feedback I've seen on those areas was quite different. (Check out UK Roleplayers for a few more reviews.) And when I wasn't working, I had a really good time.

Don't get me wrong: This show still has a long way to go to be what it should be. But (unlike last year) I was glad I went and based on that experience I'd go again next year even if it wasn't part of my job.

 

[bobthehappyzombie]

We had really good experiances last year with the Esdevium guys, they were the reason we came back at all. Perhaps we lucked out this year who knows, but we ended up having to read the rules to every game we played unlike last year.
Last year we had very similar problems with the RPG part but we figured it was just because we went on the Sunday so this year we went on the Thursday... oh well.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I know my brother went (posts as Heselbine on these boards) and was running games throughout the weekend - hopefully he'll drop in and let us know how it went.

 

[CharlesRyan]

I met your brother--he stopped by the D&D room to say hi! Very pleasant fellow.

 

[Minicol]

I was at gen Con UK, and had a very pleasnt experience playing the pathfinder society.
the adventures were great, and the DMs excellent.

I could meet and talk briefly to the Paizo staff, and enjoyed the discussion.

There was a nice dealer's room, certainly small by US standards, by reasnably well stocked. I could find a few collectors that had escaped my grasp so far (no mean feat).

The venue was quite pleasant, and work permitting, I'll try to do it again next year.

 

[Minicol]

Oh and they mentioned attendance around 1700s.

Cheers