2014 Feedback

[Hymn]

For games, you had to hunt out the table and ward off squatters. Most individuals running games allowed people who pre-register to play. I saw one that just took whomever squatted first and excluded those who pre-registered. Hopefully this will be better communciated and stressed for next year.

 

That's too bad. If Reaper will have me, I definitely want to volunteer to coordinate (at least part of) the gaming next year. Pre-reg lists for GMs, table numbers, etc. could use work. I hope you were able to get into some fun stuff nonetheless!

[JeffyBaby]

It seems the reapercon.com preregistration for games was more of a "plan out your weekend" rather than a true pregistration. According to the game runners I spoke with, they did not have a list of preregs. They were left with either using the honor system, or the first come first served rule of law from years past.

[rarzilla]

This is probably my 7th Year at the con, me and my wife had a great time this year : )

 

On The Auction:

 

I went full try hard for reaper bucks this year, two-three games a day, showed up in reaper shirts everything I could think of. My father in law and multiple friends show up we all played games I collected everything I could and had a influx from one of the PFS Gm's of 500. Bringing me up to 2550 which I thought was awesome. I was counting my hard earned bucks before the auction when one of my Pathfinder colleagues walked up to me and asked what I was doing. I explained and received the following comment "Oh that's good, we made about 3000 just the two of us so we should do well". Crushing defeat.

 

My try hard was completely overcome. Now I did wake up late to get to the games sometimes but I was taken aback. I realized at that point that many people had far far more than I did so I looked over the auction table. I knew immediately that I wanted the chess board but wasn't going to get it. I would like the resin's but we have them in bones this year. I wanted the counter set but my wife didn't. She had her eyes on a Dice and pen set. I have to agree they were pretty darn awesome and I realistically set my expectations of knowing that my 2550 would have to be fully devoted to one object and it would need to be early, as late in the day everyone starts getting desperate. 

 

Auction time. The first Mouse pad goes for over 700 Reaper bucks. Uh oh. That means that my chip supply is looking smaller and smaller. I bid occasionally but only up to 500 on most objects, which just about everything was going for over 500 so no luck there. Finally the dice roll around. (Ha!) I throw my hand up in the air. as bidding gets higher and higher I keep strong and wait it out. I'm confident I'm going to be outbid soon but suddenly I'm the only bidder at 1800. My eyes go wide in shock. To this point we had shirts going for nearly 1500, we had a hoody go for 2k. The dice set on their kickstarter was around 100, plus the box and pens bringing this to probably 150$. Realistically it's a bit much to pay for a set of dice but I seriously considered it earlier in the weekend. Now I was getting it for less than the price of a blanket or hoody. And I won. I walked over and paid still not believing my luck. 

 

Later on I snagged a shirt in my size for 250, and donated to the family of girls for the paint set. Reaper Auctions always go weird but this had several contributing factors.

1 Reaper bucks were more plentiful than ever.

2.They announced the design your own mini about half way through the auction was not available.

3. The scarcity of some of the objects made them more valuable than would other wise indicated, ie a shirt for 2000 or more.

 

I believe honestly I wouldn't have won the dice set if everyone knew about the dyom before it came up, so on one hand I am happy but otherwise I am concerned it wasn't announced at the beginning. It was heartwarming to hear that the girls got the paint set and how much it meant to the father that everyone pulled together for him. I kept muttering to myself about the dice set and how I wanted other things but It was hard to be upset as every item went for more than I originally had afterwards. That is the nature of auctions though. Most people waited too long to get in on items they sort of wanted, to hold out for items that they really wanted. 

 

On the games:

 

In general I enjoyed the games but there were minor mis scheduling with most of them, pfs ran a little late occasionally but much fun was to be had. The tabletops I played were fun. 

 

In General:

 

The food on site was good if a smidgen pricey on the drink side, but there was always water so can't complain too much. My wife got everything from the boneyard she wanted (and more... believe my wallet). The tables for the games could do with a little more structure, and hard start times would be nice, a soft start time of sometime between 9 and 11:30 isn't really easy to plan for for 4 hour blocks. My wife really enjoyed the one class she attended so mission accomplished this year. I look forward to next, as the first transition to a new venue is always a rough ride for any business. Now that they understand the nature of everything before hand I expect next year to be even better. I might not try so hard with the reaper bucks next time though : )

[groovyedwin]

 

For games, you had to hunt out the table and ward off squatters. Most individuals running games allowed people who pre-register to play. I saw one that just took whomever squatted first and excluded those who pre-registered. Hopefully this will be better communciated and stressed for next year.

 

That's too bad. If Reaper will have me, I definitely want to volunteer to coordinate (at least part of) the gaming next year. Pre-reg lists for GMs, table numbers, etc. could use work. I hope you were able to get into some fun stuff nonetheless!

 

That would help and be appreciated.

 

I missed the first hour+ of one game having to make up a character for a system I was unfamiliar with and not given the correct resources since squatters were given the pre-made characters and turned away at another game since all seats were taken although I mentioned I pre-registered it was simply ignored by the individual running it.

 

Just figure I will post a cautionary note early next year to let folks know that it can be more or less a free for all on games even though there is pre-registration online.

 

Classes, seminars and registration all ran smoothly.

[groovyedwin]

I was taking a class during the auction. The auction volume was so loud it almost drowned out the instructor speaking.

 

As the weekend progressed, the class area became messier with people leaving used paint water in cups on the table and not wiping the table off in some cases.

 

Minor things. The con was very nice and definitely something one should attend.

[kacey3]

For games, you had to hunt out the table and ward off squatters. Most individuals running games allowed people who pre-register to play. I saw one that just took whomever squatted first and excluded those who pre-registered. Hopefully this will be better communciated and stressed for next year.

 

Well, I didn't have a single person come to my table claiming to have pre-registered. So if I ran anyone off in favor of squatters, then I applogize.

[Hymn]

 

For games, you had to hunt out the table and ward off squatters. Most individuals running games allowed people who pre-register to play. I saw one that just took whomever squatted first and excluded those who pre-registered. Hopefully this will be better communciated and stressed for next year.

 

Well, I didn't have a single person come to my table claiming to have pre-registered. So if I ran anyone off in favor of squatters, then I applogize.

 

 

I'm sure it was fairly rare. I approached one game I'd pre-reg'd for (and one I didn't) and was immediately ushered in by a player who had sat down and was double-booked anyway. In typical Reaper family fashion, he was quite kind, accommodating, and unnecessarily apologetic. He ended up sitting down at a game the next table over and (I suspect) had a blast. Great people here, game runners and players alike!

[Sanael]

My biggest disappointment of the con is actually that I spent very little time painting. If I can remember to look past all the shiny available in the class schedule, I think I may just try to take one or two very focused classes on Thursday and Friday so I can spend the whole con practicing what I learn.

 

Not literally the whole con. After painting for a while, some of the con will still be spent running up to Jess or Derek or Rhonda or Jim or Anne or Angela or Michael or John saying "OMG I DID A THING LOOK AT IT AND PAT MY HEAD SQUEEEEEE!"

 

...but only sometimes would I do that. I have some dignity. I mean, I'm not CashWiley. ;P

 

On that note, though, I do want to mention the artists. Everyone at those tables was willing to share their knowledge without reservation, and as a whole they all seemed genuinely happy to see someone improve their paint skills. I have the impression that many of them love nothing more than seeing new names taking home Sophies, and the lack of covetousness is pretty cool.

[Heisler]

I had some concerns about the change of venue, I have been to every ReaperCon so this was a huge change for me. I was heavily involved with the Denver conventions for years so I understand the logistical problems associated with operating a convention in a hotel. We survived most of the hurdles and notes have been taken about how some things can be improved.

 

Some things will be harder to deal with. The classrooms can only be increased in size at the expense of the painting competition. The painting competition doubled in size this year which makes infringing on this space difficult. I'm sure possible solutions will be discussed. There really aren't rooms that we can expand into for this so it will have to be something creative.

 

We have already discussed the painting competition. I understand that some of the rules online didn't match up with what the staff (including me) said on site. We provided some updates to the rules that didn't make it on to the website. Our fault we didn't review that section of the website and didn't realize that the old rules were all that were imported.

 

I can tell you two things that will not change: If you have a 4 Day Pass, you must have ALL your entries in by 6PM Friday Night - NO EXCEPTIONS.

You can only enter on Saturday if you have a Saturday only wrist band. Deadline is 12 NOON - NO EXCEPTIONS.

 

We are hoping to have an additional camera station in the contest room to help speed up registration of the contest entries. There is not to much we can do about the lights. This is a chronic problem with almost every convention that has a painting competition. While I certainly appreciate that it can be hard to see the miniatures I will fight any attempts to add lights in the contest room. The possibility of someone snagging a power cord that is snaking its way across the floor (even if its taped down) and up a table and then going across a table is far to great. The last thing I want to see is an entire table of contest entries hitting the floor.

 

While I have seen some good suggestions for the auction. Remember that the auction closes the show, there isn't time after the auction to do a raffle. We might be able to do a raffle before the auction and announce the winners before it starts but it won't happen afterwards. That means you will have to make a decision on where you want to spend your ReaperBucks.

 

Some years we have more, some years we have less, what ends up on the table is what ends up on the table. We did end up with some stuff that had been shoved under the risers while we were taking things down. For that I apologize.

 

ReaperBucks have no value after the auction. Reaper is under no obligation to give them some kind of monetary or credit value at the end of the show and in fact if they ask me I would actively discourage this. Everything in the auction is already "free".

[Hymn]

Some years we have more, some years we have less, what ends up on the table is what ends up on the table. We did end up with some stuff that had been shoved under the risers while we were taking things down. For that I apologize.

 

Thanks for the update! There is certainly no need to apologize. I think these changes are great and am SO looking forward to next year.

[terminalmancer]

I was hoping to prereg for a Pathfinder game, which didn't quite work out. But I did get to play and got into a great game, so I can't complain! It just tickles my danger senses.

 

The lighting for the classes was crap, but I have no idea how to overcome that in a reasonable fashion. I'll probably just bring my visor to class next year.

[Hymn]

I was hoping to prereg for a Pathfinder game, which didn't quite work out. But I did get to play and got into a great game, so I can't complain! 

 

Come to think of it, was the character creation station up and running at any point in the Con? I think I totally missed it...

[terminalmancer]

 

I was hoping to prereg for a Pathfinder game, which didn't quite work out. But I did get to play and got into a great game, so I can't complain!

 

 

Come to think of it, was the character creation station up and running at any point in the Con? I think I totally missed it...

I have no idea... we made first level PF characters at home and brought binders with char sheets with us.

[chefevild]

 For class lighting I would suggest grabbing an Ott-light or comparable portable light. They are small, unobtrusive and can be gotten in cordless varieties. Even if you have a small corded light I noticed temporary plugs/power strips set up under the tables in all of the classrooms I was in. You can grab one for like 30$ or whatever and if you are serious enough to fly/drive to a convention in Texas for painting classes then you aught to be serious enough to invest some $ in a light. I would say Reaper could supply supplementary lighting at the tables but that would be a substantial investment in $ and logistics.

[Hymn]

 For class lighting I would suggest grabbing an Ott-light or comparable portable light.

 

I think you hit it right on the head. It's a must and takes some burden off Reaper. :)