GenCon Europe - Been yet

[Clumsy Bob]

Ok so this is a little early I guess most people who have been to GC Europe are still there. But for those who have been what did you think? I will give my opinions later when I have more time, just wanted to get this thread started.

Bob

 

[S'mon]

Not exactly buzzing, was it?

Upper_Krust and me had a good time there today, I ran my EN World D&D game despite the best efforts of the 'organisers', but apart from meeting with some designers & artists I found Friday & Saturday were pretty much a complete waste. The attendance was very low, clearly Easter wasn't a smart time to hold it.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

or maybe Europe isint the PLACE to hold it!

move it to NYC!
have all 3 cons in the states!

 

[Clumsy Bob]

Not exactly buzzing, was it? ]

Ain't that the truth

The attendance was very low, clearly Easter wasn't a smart time to hold it.

Maybe, maybe not. It was certainly easier for me to attend on this weekend. I had two lasting impressions of this Con, actually only my second gencon. First was, Mr Johnathon Tweet! a nice guy from what I saw of him in the Ars Magica seminar....... Yes Ars Magica. No offense to fans of this game but Mr Tweet is one of the main guys in D&D (I think) where was the sneak preview of 3.5 or the D&D seminar!
Second, was a lonely figure sat behind a desk at the WotC stand (which had a sign saying something along the lines of 'if you want to buy our products go and see the other stands') This sad and lonely figure was none other then Margaret Weis. Most people in this industry are pretty faceless, you have read their work and love it but if they were to pass you in the street you wouldn't have a clue. Why couldn't she have a sign telling people she was there to 'apperently' sign autographs.
Additionally for WotC, where was the release of one of their products like urban arcana or unapproachable east that no doubt the USA gencon's are sure to receive. Guess we just are not important enough.
Sorry for the little rant

Bob

 

[S'mon]

Our experience was similar - I'm no Dragonlance fan but I felt so sorry for Margaret Weiss sitting alone there, I went up and told her the new art on her books was nice (she agreed). Todd Lockwood was sitting alone also in the artist's area, we had a chat with him about art and got his contact details so Upper_Krust can maybe get a license for some of his art for the Immortals Handbook he's working on.

Friday was pretty grim, the trade hall was nearly empty. I tried to find out about DOGs games at the 3rd floor and was told there weren't any. Not even a dedicated notice board. Ann Dupuis led the 'Secrets of Great Gamemastering' talk - pity she'd only GM'd FUDGE and an occasional D&D rules-cyclopedia game for her husband... She said D&D rules-cyclopedia was clearly the greatest game ever (except for FUDGE).
I looked through the Buffy books at the Eden Studios stall and was so impressed I ended up buying two of them (for about £45) over the course of the weekend. We chatted with various traders.

We were at the Ars Magica seminar on Saturday, mostly to see Tweet of course. Knowing nothing about Ars Magica, I was the one who asked the panel about how they integrated Christian medieval Europe with the Orders of wizards. There were what, maybe 20 people there? And that was one of the better attended talks. It seemed incredible that they'd get Jonathan Tweet over and not have him say _anything_ about D&D or d20, other than a few scraps gleaned in the Ars Magica seminar (sounds like a great game, but I doubt it's my cup of tea). This seemed to be a recurring theme - a Gencon convention with nothing about D&D!

Sunday was better - we attended the 2pm talk about publishing in the games industry. Ann Dupuis seems a very nice person, but FUDGE is clearly a minority taste. John Nephew is entertaining also, but again not doing anything that's of great interest to me. However they dragged George Vassilikos of Eden, clearly a star, & Ian Sturrock (I think it was) of Mongoose out of the audience, and they had some interesting things to say (about d20 in Ian's case!) before we had to rush off at 3pm to run the EN World D&D game I'd arranged - the only actual gaming we got done the whole time, what with there being no DOGs setup at all.

Later on Sunday, we returned to the 3rd floor to watch 'The Gamers' movie at 8pm, and were lucky to catch the end of George Vassilikos' 6pm talk - as it happens he was talking about the whole industry, and there was quite a lively discussion on whether d20 was going to be the Windows of RPGing - George said he used a Mac. 'The Gamers' was a lot of fun, and at least we went home happy that day.

 

[S'mon]

or maybe Europe isint the PLACE to hold it!

move it to NYC!
have all 3 cons in the states!

"Euro-Gencon - that's in Alabama..."

To misquote the Simpsons.

The weird thing is, they actually had a lot of quality guests shipped over from the USA, they just did NOTHING with them. All those celebs sitting lonely and bored in the trading hall on a Saturday afternoon seemed such a waste. The Wizards (or 'Wotsee' as we learned industry types call them) stall was 99% Magic the Gathering, with a corner for the D&D Adventure Game - _nothing_ for real D&D. At least the Mongoose, AEG & Eden studios stalls were decent, to name a few, and we had a good chat with the AEG boss guy about Spycraft and why it was so much better than d20 modern.

 

[Clumsy Bob]

We were at the Ars Magica seminar on Saturday, mostly to see Tweet of course. Knowing nothing about Ars Magica, I was the one who asked the panel about how they integrated Christian medieval Europe with the Orders of wizards. There were what, maybe 20 people there? And that was one of the better attended talks. It seemed incredible that they'd get Jonathan Tweet over and not have him say _anything_ about D&D or d20, other than a few scraps gleaned in the Ars Magica seminar (sounds like a great game, but I doubt it's my cup of tea). This seemed to be a recurring theme - a Gencon convention with nothing about D&D!

And I was the one who asked about the d20 conversion actually not expecting the answer I was given.

 

[Ravellion]

I didn't see Margaret Weis there, otherwise (rofl) I would have tried and made a chat. I actually used some of her books for essays (why do them about Dickens if you can do them about something a bit more... light ), and some direct feedback would have been nice.

I was in the Enworld game as well, and I was the only PC who died I got killed after surrendering to the paladin because he hit me from 10 to 0 in one blow

I had my first RPGA game and would have liked to do a few more, but they just did the same modules over and over again.

Being from the Netherlands originally, I have sad hopes for Gencon Europe next year. It will be fun in Amsterdam, but it definitely won't be your average Gencon, and Dutch roleplayers are nearly all of the beer and pretzels variety, so they won't show up at the cons.

We should all wait for Tallarn's write up and Maldur's pictures for a really good impression.

Rav

 

[S'mon]

We should all wait for Tallarn's write up and Maldur's pictures for a really good impression.

Rav

Hope I don't look too stupid...

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi all!

I pretty much have to echo much of what S'mon and Clumsy Bob iterated.

The event was staged at the wrong time and clearly attendance suffered dramatically.

They made poor use of the celebrities who turned up, especially Jonathan Tweet. (As others before me have pointed out) Why were there no seminars on d20 or 3.5 Ed. - that in itself is insane!

WotC had absolutely no 3rd Ed. D&D 'presence' at the show.

They also staged half the slots so that people couldn't get home, meaning we couldn't attend any evening games. So they had no understanding of the underground railway system.

Additionally the scheduled screenings in the manga room were all pretty much 10 years old. I could have brought them a bunch of stuff that I guarantee would have been much better appreciated (In fact I actually did have some I bought over for S'mon to watch).

On a related note it would have been nice to have had some (fantasy) movie screenings. They did have a showing of "The Gamers" which was great. But in between every few seminars they could have screened a fantasy movie for people. (Again I would have been happy to sort them out in this area with fantasy films I doubt many would have seen).

On the plus side I really enjoyed hearing what George Vasiliakos, John Nephew and Ian Sturrock had to say in various seminars.

I also really enjoyed the ENWorld game and meeting the ENWorlders on the Sunday - that was definately the highlight of the show for me...

...even though Tallarns character still lived at the end of it...theres always next year of course Matt.