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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 7678144" data-attributes="member: 5143">The thing is, I'm fairly certain there is a lot of communication happening between the 4.  The AL staff decide what adventures will be run at GenCon and assign writers to write them and have them done in time for the Con.  They send the list to Baldman months in advance in time for Baldman to enter the games into the GenCon event system.  Then Baldman asks for gaming space, GenCon tells them the size of the space they can spare and how much it costs.  Baldman pays and plans the number of slots according to how much space they have an the adventures that AL has available.  They ask for volunteers and then figure out how best to assign those DMs.Meanwhile, Dave Christ, who is friends from a couple of people from WOTC asks them if they can provide assistance.  WOTC tells them what they can or can't give this year.It's been the same process every year.  The same thing happened this year.  The only difference between this year and others is that WOTC decided to give less than previous years.From what I can tell the last 2 years we've gotten good stuff from the All-Access Pass.  But both years, I got the real impression that WOTC left it to the very last minute to confirm what it was that they could donate, even to Dave Christ himself.  Last year he was on message boards weeks before GenCon stating that he still couldn't confirm what swag we'd get as part of the Pass because WOTC wasn't 100% sure if they could swing what they had promised him and a small shipping delay or a problem getting the product to GenCon would mean that he would now have to disappoint everyone that he promised cool stuff to.  We got advance copies of the Monster Manual that were signed by the dev team.  Which was awesome.  But Dave Christ seemed unsure if it was actually going to happen until the last second.That didn't mean there was a lack of communication.  Just that there are a lot of unknowns when planning something this far in advance with so many moving pieces.The AL staff isn't 100% certain all the adventures they announced will actually be completely by GenCon, but they can work as hard as they can to make it happen.  Baldman Games has to rely on promises from WOTC without knowing if they'll come through.  Baldman has to rely on GenCon to provide the space and not turn the lights off in the middle of the game.  But someone could screw up that as well.  But these people all talk on a regular basis.GenCon and its logistics could be discussed for years and never come to a good conclusion.  Suffice to say that GenCon keeps getting bigger and bigger and therefore prices are going up and space is at a premium.  There isn't a good solution to this.  From what I hear from people in the know, Indy is the ONLY good location for GenCon to continue being GenCon.  The people in charge of the con believe(rightfully) that the point of the con is that is the focus on gaming...24 hour a day gaming with hotels that you can walk to and from easily.  They also believe that being within driving distance of the majority of gamers is extremely important as well.The only city in the entirety of the US that meets that criteria is Indy.  They've investigated other locations before and the answer always is that they'd have to turn the convention into a 8am to 8pm day only convention where people have to take 30 minute cab rides to the convention similar to SDCC and the majority of gamers would have to fly to attend if they want to move the con to a bigger city.So right now, everyone has to put up with the lack of space and find alternate solutions.  And the Organized Play room has done without a microphone for many years.  They just got one for the last couple of years so everyone was spoiled.</blockquote>

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