f13.net forums - If you're at Gencon....

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July 19, 2025, 09:14:04 PM

we're back, baby

....then you're at a thread with these people.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHA.

Seriously though, how is it?

Edit: And yes, I do believe that is a mace made of Duct Tape and covered with foam. Damn, that's lame.

Its GenCon. If you go to play miniatures games, you find miniatures games. If you go to find Card Games, you find card games. If you go to LARP, you should seek professional therapy, but you will find LARPs there too.

If you go to GenCon searching for the highest concentration / combination of overweight people and B.O. you'd probably find it in the Card room. Thank god I got out of Magic :P

Quote from: Shavnir

If you go to GenCon searching for the highest concentration / combination of overweight people and B.O. you'd probably find it in the Card room. Thank god I got out of Magic :P

I'm glad I got out of Magic as well. But here's some stellar recruits from the miniatures room.

The people in the card room must be fucking huge. I can't even find pictures of them.

The photographer probably forgot the wide angle lens.

Quote from: Shavnir

The photographer probably forgot the wide angle lens.

*rimshot*

He's here all week folks.

You left out computer games, which has been a growing part of GenCon for the past few years. I went to my first and only GenCon in 2000... I wouldn't mind going again, but playing tabletop games with random strangers really isn't my thing.

Bruce

Gencon is I think still the largest public computer game show in the country. E3 is bigger but in general much of the things there are not open to the public in general.

Gencon has been a really good way of seeing sneak peaks of games that may not be out for another year or so. Hell I saw starcraft a good year and a half before it was released there.

Its a shame they moved it to indy I used to go down as a day trip when it was in milwaukee but indy is just a bit to far from me.

If you like comp games, board games, minatures, fantasy art, card games or just looking at really odd folks Gencon is not a bad place to visit.

kaid

What game was that? A 100X scale Axis and Allies?

I was there as part of a team demoing our latest expansion. Mythic, SOE (EQ/EQ2), Lucasarts (SWG) and NCSoft (CoH/Lineage 2) all had fairly large booths.

Best part of it for me was all the out-of-print game booths. Tons and tons of hard to find stuff all over the place. Sadly no one had any copies of Objective: Moscow, but they at least remembered it and one place had a set of rules and an odd counter sheet. Ah, memories. Unfortunately, I missed the NCDC wargame (an eight-hour long affair modeled after the geopolitical simulations the CIA runs).

Worst part? Well, this is probably the only convention I've ever attended that had a reminder to bathe printed in the show guide. No, REALLY.

Quote from: Arcadian Del Sol

What game was that? A 100X scale Axis and Allies?

It looked like a Axis and Allies knockoff. It was billed as "the world's biggest boardgame" and took up a good chunk of the entrance hall. Didn't make slogging through the crowds much more fun.

Quote from: Lum

Worst part? Well, this is probably the only convention I've ever attended that had a reminder to bathe printed in the show guide. No, REALLY.

are you SURE that wasn't just an internal memo?

oh and the next time you go, I better see some posted pics.

Anime convention program guides usually contain language extolling the benefits of bathing.
To quote one, "Soap is a good, friendly thing. Use it often!"

Sadly, it is ignored more often than not. I'll reserve my diatribe regarding anime cons for another day.

On a related note, is anyone planning on attending Gencon West Coast this year?

I have never heard of GenCon West Coast...where is it held?

Anaheim, within sight of Disneyland. First one was last December. It wasn't as big as normal Midwest Gencon but I had a blast still.

http://www.gencon.com/socalhome.aspx?file=socal

That large game was titled "Attack!" and yes, it is essentially just an axis and allies clone. To promote it they made it huge and let people play on a mat.

What's the excuse for gaming geeks not bathing? I've done many a long gaming session myself, but afterwards, sleep and then bathing are the two priorities.

See but thats the trick at gencon people try keep the gaming sessions going the whole time so they never get to the sleep bathe stage.

kaid

Just imagine: Moist towelettes and Depends could sustain the gaming session indefinately.

I used to go to GenCon every year religiously when I lived in GreenBay and then Milwaukee (religious pun expanded greatly by the fact it used to be held at the Mecca center).

The first few years I went there for the full four day thing with Kaid. The gaming was interesting, but way too hit or miss on if the group you were in was fun or they totally sucked. And the stench of humanity on the last day was nasty in those cramped gaming 'cubes'. The problem at GenCon mainly seemed to be that events started at about 6 am and the latest events went well past midnight or much later. The 'hardcore' gamers would have a full schedule and I guess valued those few minutes more of sleep more highly than showers.

After a few years of that two things happened. 1, we got tired of GMs that had no voice, or were dead tired and having to deal with assholes in the gaming, and 2, in our first few years at GenCon it went from a few games here and there to a floor dominated by video games just as much as any other type of game. From that point on we would usually spend 2 days there, one to see all we could and the second to focus on the games we wanted to learn more about.

I remember oohing and aahing over baldurs gate back when it had the working title 'iron throne'. This was a full 3 years before release. halflife was impressive a full 2-3 years before release (iD wasn't even showing off quake 2 yet). I remember being among the first to drool over the wonder of Command and Conquer when it was first released. Ah, and laughing at the first attempt at mechwarrior 2 that was later scrapped. At that GenCon they had it, but no damage system, and the camera was somehow mismapped to the movement controls so the thing would fly around between their legs, etc... We called it 'U2 Cam'. We actually saw a live demo of the Champions game. And played two different scrapped babylon 5 space games (they were NOWHERE near playable and looked like shit, scrapping them was the right move from what I saw).

This is just a few of the memorable or infamous games, but every year gencon has a really strong PC gaming showing. At least they used to in the Milwaukee days.

The best thing about gencon is that it is more personal than E3. You could come on day 3 and just chat with devs and level designers and actually play the games (or have them demoed for you interactively). E3 too often just seems to show videos and when they do have something playable it is monstrous to get near anything. E3 is a press event, GenCon always seemed the better place for the actual PC gamer. not too much in terms on consoles though when I last went (about 4-5 years ago).

Whether it is worth a flight is up to the individual and whetehr they also like fantasy/scifi art, boardgames, pen and paper rpgs, dicegames, cardgames, wargames, etc...

Quote from: Lum

Quote from: Arcadian Del Sol

What game was that? A 100X scale Axis and Allies?

It looked like a Axis and Allies knockoff. It was billed as "the world's biggest boardgame" and took up a good chunk of the entrance hall. Didn't make slogging through the crowds much more fun.

That's the kind of thing I'd give a body part to participate in.

But you'd only need the wide angle lens if I was naked.