PDA

View Full Version : Date Suggestions



madman
April 9th, 2012, 01:39
Can not change the poll to reflect dates. I think July 20-21-22 Friday-Sunday are as good as any.
Looking at a calendar these days looked good.

Thoughts?

I am also wondering what everyone thinks of time slots.

I was thinking something like
8 AM -12 PM
10 AM - 2 PM
12 PM - 4 PM
2 PM - 6 PM
4 PM - 8 PM
6 PM - 10 PM

Not sure how these work out for the other time zones.


Chris

khersheyjr
April 9th, 2012, 01:42
Looks good to me

Trenloe
April 9th, 2012, 01:51
Sorry Madman, I'm not going on a date with you - no matter how many options you throw out there! ;)

Oh, you're talking about the convention?? :o Yeah, that looks good - I should be back in Australia then so can help out with games in that timezone...

unerwünscht
April 9th, 2012, 02:39
July and August are REALLY bad months to try and setup a convention. I have a convention every weekend in July and August.

madman
April 9th, 2012, 03:06
Just found this. There is not as much going on July 20-22.
Not that I planned it, it is con season!

https://www.upcomingcons.com/

Chris

Litvyak
April 9th, 2012, 03:14
I don't have a problem with the date of July 20-22, but as far as the time slots go, I don't see any reason for a break from 10pm to 8am. Given the global nature of this con, shouldn't it be running around the clock?

Trenloe
April 9th, 2012, 03:19
I don't have a problem with the date of July 20-22, but as far as the time slots go, I don't see any reason for a break from 10pm to 8am. Given the global nature of this con, shouldn't it be running around the clock?
Right - I didn't notice the time slots before. This should definitely be a 24x7 con. If the slots don't fill up that's fine, but with people in GMT +8 to +11 (that I know of), people in GMT and GMT +1 (daylight saving not take into account) and people in GMT -8 then there is no reason why this can't be 24x7 and have slots to cater to that.

madman
April 9th, 2012, 03:31
These were what I was thinking for the USA timezones. Just a start.

I am just, making suggestions. Please follow suit!

I am not directly organizing this, just making suggestions. And though it would be great if somebody was to be the go to person on this. Not sure if anyone wants to do it though. I am just excited to get things moving and make it happen.

Chris

khersheyjr
April 9th, 2012, 03:44
Madman,

Thanks for your suggestions so far :). Setting the date I believe is the first step in getting this convention off the ground. Once a date is set people will be able to commit to either going or not. Setting up an event coordinator is also going to become crucial once people start signing up so that we can cover as much of the time span as possible. Having a variety of different games hosted for players to check out should help as well.
I would also say from my observations that player interest rises as we get closer to the summer months and then wanes again once fall/winter arrives. So in that regard I think that any date during summer will work.

Trenloe
April 9th, 2012, 03:44
These were what I was thinking for the USA timezones. Just a start.

I am just, making suggestions. Please follow suit!

I am not directly organizing this, just making suggestions. And though it would be great if somebody was to be the go to person on this. Not sure if anyone wants to do it though. I am just excited to get things moving and make it happen.

Chris
Yeah, I hear ya! After I posted I was thinking that trying to organise specific slots across multiple timezones with multiple people would be virtually impossible. I think we'll have to leave it up to the individual GM to decide on when they're going to run a session and for how long.

If approaching the con we have some gaps then perhaps some of "the old hands" may step up to fill in the gap, or it can be advertised "GM needed for 8am GMT Sunday" for example.

I'm also wondering (and I'm not sure how feasible this is) if it is possible to have some generic slots and players sign up for those and then GMs can see when they are needed and offer a game. It would be unfortunate if a keen GM who could run a game anytime, comes up with a couple of slots that people don't sign up to because it's 1 hour too early or something similar.

In the end, this con can be "organised" one of 2 ways - like a usual physical location con, with delegated organisers, slots, etc.. Or, more virtual with the ownership being firmly on the GM (and players) to do what they want to do and when. Either way might work?? Whichever way it goes, we'll need a good booking system...

Trenloe
April 9th, 2012, 03:49
I would also say from my observations that player interest rises as we get closer to the summer months and then wanes again once fall/winter arrives. So in that regard I think that any date during summer will work.
Really? Is that just because it is con season in the northern hemisphere summer?

Because I wouldn't have thought that people are more inclined to sit in their house playing RPGs over the internet in the summer months?

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that we're discussing July - I think that will be great. :-)

But, I don't think that we should ignore the winter months for a potential follow up con - how about HalloweenCon??? Dust off your Call of Cthulhu scenarios everyone! Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself... :D

madman
April 9th, 2012, 04:22
But, I don't think that we should ignore the winter months for a potential follow up con - how about HalloweenCon??? Dust off your Call of Cthulhu scenarios everyone! Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself... :D
Funny, I was looking down that same road....


If approaching the con we have some gaps then perhaps some of "the old hands" may step up to fill in the gap, or it can be advertised "GM needed for 8am GMT Sunday" for example.
I would think this could be troublesome. Five people are signed up for a game and there is no GM? Sounds disappointing for them, though it might work out it seems sketchy.


I'm also wondering (and I'm not sure how feasible this is) if it is possible to have some generic slots and players sign up for those and then GMs can see when they are needed and offer a game. It would be unfortunate if a keen GM who could run a game anytime, comes up with a couple of slots that people don't sign up to because it's 1 hour too early or something similar.
I agree. I think most people who will attend understand that they are going to need to find a time slot they can play in. But if we can make it work, then all the better.


In the end, this con can be "organised" one of 2 ways - like a usual physical location con, with delegated organisers, slots, etc.. Or, more virtual with the ownership being firmly on the GM (and players) to do what they want to do and when. Either way might work?? Whichever way it goes, we'll need a good booking system...
I Think we should have some slots at set times. Then all the GM's that are running games at odd times or +0 to +11 or maybe if someone wants to run a horror game that starts at Midnight, then they will just have their own slots. Everyone can post the times and day they want to run it.And then if there are problems , they can get worked out over the next few months.

Dracones Has the domain and the Calendar, and Scheduling Plugin.
at FGIICon.com (https://www.fgiicon.com)

Chris

bdf1992
April 9th, 2012, 04:37
This sounds awesome, and it would be a great way to spread more fantasy grounds love.

Agreed that this would be good to have multiple time per year, as it doesn't require a location. and it would also be a good time to have any discounts or special features added or anything.

even having up to 4 a year sounds good because people take break from tabletops and come back so just about any time we would have enough players and dms to host.

Also agreed that it should be planned in accordance with other cons.

Valarian
April 9th, 2012, 04:44
I still have to check the dates, but the slot times look good. I agree with other posters that having the timed slots is a good plan. The timezone differences should sort out the rest, with the slots being local time equivalents. Having the set slots means that game conflict becomes minimal. Treat it as a normal convention, where the GM posts the scenarios and players sign up for slots.

As for scenarios: I'll see if I can run a few sessions of some games that don't get an airing very much. Exact times slots, I will have to think about. I think it'll be best to keep the number of scenarios to prepare down and run them a number of times so people can choose when they want to play and can shuffle the slots to suit.
1) Corporation (either a published scenario like "Grab the Cache" or a scenario for a one-shot - e.g. Office Politics - EI agents raid offices of a rival)
2) FATE (possibly a pulp or scifi setting - maybe both)
3) The One Ring

Magnatude
April 9th, 2012, 05:47
I have my C&C listed here on the Fg2 Calandar, so if anyone want to join it...
And who knows, sounds like IH might get some fixing by that time, if thats the case, I'll run a game of that too.

phantomwhale
April 9th, 2012, 11:28
Good start - did someone have a booking system in mind to setup some potential games ? Or should we use the FGII game calendar, at least ? (it's not awesome, but now that all the clock shifts have happened, the "setting up games before clock shifts" timezone bug won't sting us and it would keep all the content here).

I know some people looked at some virtual con. hosting sites, not sure what came of them.

Oh, the dates suggested seem good for me.

VenomousFiligree
April 9th, 2012, 13:36
Not sure the FG Calendar is good as you need to be registered to view it, if we're trying to get "new blood" this might be a bit of a hindrance?

What about google calendars? I believe it shows everything in your registered time zone and can be embedded in other sites?

Dracones
April 9th, 2012, 14:39
Dracones Has the domain and the Calendar, and Scheduling Plugin.
at FGIICon.com (https://www.fgiicon.com)


How I have the above setup so far. This uses Wordpress with an Event plugin that handles events and bookings. You have several layers of access to the site

Admin - Can manage users, create/approve/delete events.
Editor - Can create/approve/delete events.
Author - Can create their own events.
Contributor - Can create events, but they must be approved by an Admin or Editor before they publish.
Subscriber - Users who sign up for events get this level of account.

GMs can manage their own events. Users go to an event page (https://fgiicon.com/?event=a-testgm-game) and can signup without any fuss. They get emailed account information so they can log in and manage their bookings. The GM for that event can approve or reject people who apply to their event. He can also download a list of the users in his event so he can email them and what not.

When a GM adds an event(or it gets approved), it automatically goes into the games list. The system is pretty flexible for how we show these.

Anyway, the way I figured it'd work is a few people here would have admin access. GMs sign up to the site and get bumped up to author or contributor access. They could then just dig into adding and managing their events. Schedule the times, schedule when the bookings for the event will be open, manage the signups themselves, etc.

When the con is over every site admin should export the Wordpress site and store it. Next year to host a con all anyone will need is a website with Wordpress. The con site with the event module can be imported in pretty easily.

ragnaroc1011
April 9th, 2012, 17:45
There is also https://warhorn.net that can be setup to schedule the con as well. The group that run that gaming convention in my town uses it. It is free, but the unfortunate part is that someone will need to get all the information from the GM such as time of games, dates, time zones and amount of players wanted and enter it in. From there everyone else will just register to the site and sign up to play. (The GM's will need to signup as GM's for their respective games as well.) It is still a nice resource all in all.

ronnke
April 10th, 2012, 05:32
I do have a question, what is the target audience for the con? Is it just us, or are we aiming at the wider gaming community?

If it's the wider community, then we must take it very seriously. A failure in organisation will reflect badly on FG and since gamers are usually fairly vocal across a number of boards, they will voice their disapproval. This can really hurt Smiteworks. On the flip side a successful con will be a great boon.

I think it's unwise to select a date until a committee has been formed that will handle the organisation of the event. When dealing with people volunteering their time on something that is entirely internet facilitated, my experience has been that things progress slower than normal. There are a lot of things that need to be organised to make this con a success, so any date has to be decided by the committee based on a timeframe in which they feel they can get everything ready.

The first thing we need to do is to identify those people willing to step up and manage this project.

If the target audience is just us, then ignore what I said, because it doesn't really matter if things don't go smoothly. We are already lovers of FG. :)

Dracones
April 10th, 2012, 13:34
I think the intent has been to setup something where outside people can try out Fantasy Grounds. I know I'm going to be pointing my local in person group at the con and I know a few people on /rpg on reddit that'd be interested in seeing how Fantasy Grounds works.

That said, there's going to be issues with the first con. The booking system might blow up, GM problems, maybe the teamspeak server dies under the load, maybe the ultimate vs full licensing becomes confusing, etc etc.

Trenloe
April 10th, 2012, 22:16
The first thing we need to do is to identify those people willing to step up and manage this project.

If the target audience is just us, then ignore what I said, because it doesn't really matter if things don't go smoothly. We are already lovers of FG. :)
I've basically made this comment before - 2 ways we could approach this...

I agree with Ronnke, I think "we" should make a big effort in making this a huge success and getting "outsiders" involved and into the FG fold. As such, I will volunteer my services for the "committee" - happy to help out with game scheduling, general organisation, running games to fill in slots/expand on other areas, cajoling, etc., etc..

SilverEagle82
April 10th, 2012, 22:58
i agree with what trenloes 2nd suggestion
i have no problem with the license as i already have a lite one

Trenloe
April 10th, 2012, 23:02
i have no problem with the license as i already have a lite one
OK, so that means you can play in any of the games. :)

VenomousFiligree
April 10th, 2012, 23:57
I know another populat VT makes their license "open" every now and then to promote the product, can that be done with FG? ie all Full License becomes an Ultimate for the duration of the Con?

wbcreighton
April 24th, 2012, 23:24
Has the date been set ? Seems like it needs to either be set or offer up a couple of choices that the GMs vote on.

Trenloe
April 25th, 2012, 03:09
Has the date been set ? Seems like it needs to either be set or offer up a couple of choices that the GMs vote on.
The date is the first item on the convention committee's discussion list this week.

Trenloe
May 4th, 2012, 05:06
See announcement here:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums...ad.php?t=16509

wbcreighton
May 4th, 2012, 06:48
See announcement here:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums...ad.php?t=16509

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16509

Trenloe
May 4th, 2012, 16:10
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16509
Thanks!

Bl00dy copy/paste error...

Trenloe
June 29th, 2012, 16:23
Updated details here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16809

Includes links to further info for GMs and Players.