Re: 2 Weeks to GenCon Indianapolis

On 6 Aug 2004 at 23:00, The GZG Digest wrote:

> Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 16:55:48 -0500
> From: "Dean Gundberg" <Dean.Gundberg@noridian.com>
> Subject: RE: 2 Weeks to GenCon Indianapolis
> 
> Last year we had 8 players in the tourney.  For the effort I put into
the
> tourney, I didn't feel it was worth it.  I do think a tourney could be
> done again in the future, but not until FT 3rd edition is out and
there is
> an bump in the number of FT players out there.

How are was the attendance for the other games? We always had packed 
games for FT in the past. Is the interest in FT declining Stateside?
 
> That was just a big network mess.  

I read about it, and even posted a comment on it to comp.risks (an 
excellent group for anyone interested in risks associated with computers

and electronics; there's a web archive, too.) 

There's one problem, though, that they may not have addressed. They
still 
only had 1 printer for 6 registration terminals. This meant that the 
network problems were amplified by the printing bottleneck.

> That problem will not happen again.  It has
> been reviewed to death and the powers who are GenCon are overprepared
to
> combat any network problems this year.

What worries me is that GenCon has had network, or computer system, 
issues every year since it was taken over from Andon. I remember back in

1998 or 1999 they were still running a dBASE IV app that was clearly not

up to running the convention. I went back through the GZG List archives 
and found my past GenCon reviews. Though last year was extreme, they
have 
yet to smooth over the registration (both players and games) problems.

Now, part of the problem has been their attendance jumping by 50% over 
the last year TSR ran it, but they've never had as efficient a 
registration system as TSR did with their room full of peg boards.
 
> Mongoose likes the look of the full size minis, thus they are using
the
> old B5 Wars masters to make their miniatures.  It does save a lot of
time
> and scuplting costs.	FA fighters will be used but the FA scale ships
are
> not in their plans.  I don't expect to bring out a competing scale.

That bites. I'd buy their miniature rules, but not if it's going to be 
the big scale. I just don't have the space. I wonder if Mongoose could
be 
convinced to release the smaller ships. Probably not, they sound like 
they've made up their minds.

---

Allan Goodall	    http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@att.net   agoodall@hyperbear.com

"At long last, the earthy soil of the typical, unimaginable mortician
was revealed!" - from the Random H.P. Lovecraft Story Generator:
http://www.darkicon.com/Library/randsent.htm