Gary Con VIII

[ligedog]

Not sure why they didn't switch to a lottery-based registration system :/

That would have solved most of the server load and I'm-taking-time-out-of-my-day-to-register-and-you-keep-changing-the-time problems.

Also the problems with their premium badge levels which have also been all over the map. There's so much to choose from it could nice to leave it to the mercy of a lottery system.

[Cloak n' Dagger]

Yeah, sorry guys. I guess I participated in the "malicious hacking" when I simply clicked the button that they had sitting on the page.

Yeah same here, if the Checkout button was there, why not click on it. According to the GC forum, they're saying that someone did hack through the system and made off with a pile of special event tickets. Ok, well if that's the case, they should know who the account belongs to since they are registered to that account. Just ban the account and inform said person that they are getting a refund for badges and won't be allowed that the Con. Reset those events and leave the rest alone.

[EOTB]

Yeah, the thought that people wouldn't click on a checkout button if it was available is dumb. In previous years, you would pick your tentpole event and sit there clicking "checkout" over and over as the seconds counted down to zero hour. Of course people are going to do that.

As for any actual hacking, I agree that those people should just lose their registration privileges entirely.

[Chainsaw]

Yeah, the thought that people wouldn't click on a checkout button if it was available is dumb. In previous years, you would pick your tentpole event and sit there clicking "checkout" over and over as the seconds counted down to zero hour. Of course people are going to do that.

As for any actual hacking, I agree that those people should just lose their registration privileges entirely.

Agree completely.

Whether or not any "real" hacking happened, people can't be blamed for clicking working buttons before noon. Too much risk of an admin saying, "Yeah, it started a little early, sorry folks. We'll fix it next year. If you didn't get your top pick, remember, pick up games are fun too!"

I recall that they didn't reset shit after last year's debacle where some people got to register during round one and other people, whose IP's got randomly blocked during the server meltdown, just had to accept selecting from what was left when they re-opened registration for round two.

[Guy Fullerton]

Well ... that was ... interesting. But it mostly worked. I got:

Chainsaw's game on Thursday
Paul Stormberg's Fire Opal game on Thursday
The Tower of Faces AD&D on Friday
tacojon's Necropolis game on Friday
liegedog's game on Saturday

I'll quit there while I'm ahead. I couldn't find anything else good that was still available. But I didn't look to hard, so point out stuff I may have missed.

[EOTB]

I didn't get very much at all. Got stuck in a loop where it would say 1 event was full, and take me back to my cart, where I would have to go "back to checkout" after the event was removed. Try to checkout again. Now 1 more event is full. Back to cart.

Rinse. Repeat. Only two events left by the time it would let me checkout. So much for the benefit of "loading up your cart".

[Chainsaw]

I didn't get very much at all. Got stuck in a loop where it would say 1 event was full, and take me back to my cart, where I would have to go "back to checkout" after the event was removed. Try to checkout again. Now 1 more event is full. Back to cart.

Rinse. Repeat. Only two events left by the time it would let me checkout. So much for the benefit of "loading up your cart".

Same here. I gave up. Pick up games baby!

[francisca]

Well they figured out another way to make the system go tits up. I feel like it wasn't exactly a security breach.

Yeah, sorry guys. I guess I participated in the "malicious hacking" when I simply clicked the button that they had sitting on the page.

YOU DICK!

LOL!

[Wheggi]

Registration was today? Oops. Not that it mattered by the sounds of things

[Chainsaw]

Registration was today? Oops. Not that it mattered by the sounds of things

Yeah, not exactly smooth, but based event submission problems, coin count problems and other things, I wasn't surprised at all. They should get the NTRPG guys to set up their system.

So, what's everyone got? Other than my games Thurs 12PM-4PM, Fri 8PM-1PM and Sat 12PM-4PM, I hve Dave Prata's Friday 12PM-6PM game. Will be looking for some good games Weds, Thurs and Sat nights.

Also, if you are in one of my games and want to roll up your PC via email/PM beforehand rather than using a pregen, let me know.

[Cloak n' Dagger]

So, what's everyone got?

I have giant bag of "fuck if I know", that's what I'm working with right now.

I managed to hang around long enough this afternoon to do the registration 3pm, kept getting the "internal error" msg, kept hitting the place order, never saw much of anything to confirm my order, loaded another tab with my account info, saw 6 instances of every game I tried to register for, under My Registered Events, but I never received any email confirming anything, so I don't know if this means I got hosed and actually had nothing register or I have all of the events I placed an order for and just never got an email. Got back into town an hour or so ago and decided to log on to the site to see if I could find out wtf is going on. Site is down for maintenance so I couldn't submit anything via contact form, posted all of my relevant info on the community forum post for "technical issues" so now I play the waiting game to see how badly, if at all, I get screwed.

[grodog]

Too many good games to try to play!

I got the one game I tried to register for (Ghul's Mystery at Port Greely on Thursday night, which is the only night I'm not running a game until Sunday), so I'll play pickup games when I'm able otherwise.

[capitalbill]

Pretty much in the same boat as everybody else. And I'm only this well off because I had some friends offer to try and register for me this afternoon. Here's the schedule:

Wednesday
Arriving around 5?
Dinner at Popeyes?
Off-grid gaming/Drinking the night away

Thursday
Breakfast in town
Putzing around
2p-6p Handy's AS&SH game
Dinner
Off-grid gaming

Friday
Breakfast in town
10a-2p Sneaking into Keith's AD&D game
Putzing around/Off-grid gaming
8p-12a Sneaking into Chainsaw's AS&SH game

Saturday
Breakfast in town
Putzing around/Off-grid gaming
4p-8p Eli's AS&SH game
Off-grid gaming


Yep, that's a lot of free time for off-grid gaming.

[grodog]

Here's my tentative schedule. When I'm not running a game, during the day I'll be at the Black Blade booth in the dealer's hall. At night I'll be gaming!

Wednesday
- arrive by 7pm, hopefully sooner
- eat dinner; Popeyes?
- set up booth
- sleep

Thursday
- set up booth if not finished Wednesday night, sleep later if booth set up done
- 2pm-6pm: run Tom Moldvay's CH-1 The Morandir Company
- eat
- 8pm-??: play Jeff Talanian's Mystery at Port Greely

Friday
- 6pm-midnight: run grodog's Castle Greyhawk - The Heretical Temple of Wee Jas

Saturday
- 2pm-6pm: run Tom Moldvay's CH-1 The Morandir Company
- eat
- 8pm-1am: run grodog's Castle Greyhawk - Enchanted Orchards of the Arimoi

Sunday, after Exhibitor Hall closes and booth torn down
- eat
- play Moebius Maximum or other pickup game(s)

Monday
- breakfast with Jon at Daddy Maxwells in Williams Bay
- depart for home by 11am, hopefully sooner

[Badmike]

Registration was today? Oops. Not that it mattered by the sounds of things

Yeah, not exactly smooth, but based event submission problems, coin count problems and other things, I wasn't surprised at all. They should get the NTRPG guys to set up their system.
.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA.....

Yeh, maybe Doug could rent out our hamster and wheel to the Garycon guys, but honestly the rodent is looking pretty tired...

Seriously, the only reason we have less problems is that we only have maybe 50-60 people logging in to register when it opens (why do you think we have it at midnight?) and overall maybe 250 people in all sign up for games on the site. Garycon is dealing with multiples of that, it's bound to create a lot of problems. It does pay to have a good system (aka Alex Kammer and Gamehole paid a good chunk for a system that wouldn't crash) but it can be too expensive for a smaller con....we had an offer to set us up with a "break proof" con site but we are talking 3-5k. Just wasn't in the budget. At 1000+ attendees, I think by next year Garycon is going to have to pony up some bucks for a better system. I know that I am planning on attending in 2017 and have no plans to sign up for anything on the site, period.

Mike B.