Gencon 2007 Report
by Loral on August 26, 2007
I began playing Dungeons and Dragons in high school in the 1989. Back then we played 2nd edition which, in retrospect, lacked a lot of the power of the original and current versions of D&D but managed to keep all of the complexity. Somehow we muddled through the rules of Thac0s, the lack of any demon princes and devil lords, and unique stat bonuses for every stat and still have a good time. I remember fondly the time when we battled Lord Manshoon and one of my players swallowed a spider in his big glass of lemonade at the same time.
Since then I've been playing D&D on and off for the past eighteen years, all of it as a DM. I love the low technology of a tabletop role playing game. I love working out the math and the stats myself. I love building a dynamic story at the table based on some themes, plot seeds, and characters I develop beforehand. I love having a group of friends laughing, rolling dice, eating Doritos, and having a good time.
This year my wife and I decided we would go to Gencon, the biggest tabletop gaming convention in the world. What follows is my account of the best four days in gaming. Everquest players take note that only a part of this article will discuss the lands of Norrath so skip ahead if you care not at all for the rest of it.
Stepping into the Indiana Convention Center on Thursday after lunch, I knew I was in trouble. Immediately I became aware that there was no way I would be able to pack in everything I wanted to do in four days. Looking through the phonebook-sized convention guide, one finds thousands of games going on. My wife, having the clearest head of the two of us, had pre-signed us up for a number of excellent events so we didn't have to scramble too much. Knowing what we know now, however, gives us a great idea about how to handle it next year.
Sometimes, while working at our day jobs, watching popular television, and walking around the malls, one forgets just how many geeks and nerds there are in the world. Walking into a convention hall with thousands of people who all know how to calculate a fighter's attack bonus is a wonderful thing. For a brief four days I learned what it would be like to live in a world of geeks and what a wonderful world it would be. Like the EQ Fan Faires, you get to hang out with thousands of people who all share a passion for a hobby that few in the outside world understand at all. Being this passionate about things like gaming, science fiction, and fantasy is a wonderful thing. It defines us when most people are defined only by their job, their family, or their in-depth knowledge of the political subtleties of American Idol.
Going to a tabletop gaming convention in a post MMO world is an interesting experience. The market is still very strong but one can see how the strengths of an MMO shine through. Throughout my eighteen years of D&D the hardest part is finding a good group. I've had about four or five groups in that time and all of them came to me by sheer luck. There has yet to be a good, efficient, and comfortable way to meet new players for a D&D game. This is where MMOs have such a clear advantage. I can log in, hang out in the Plane of Knowledge, and, though it may take some time, find a group of people who want to adventure. That's a pretty amazing thing compared to the trouble it takes to find a good D&D group.
Within the ocean of events and games, we did get to see a couple of interesting things related to EQ. Our first stop was to SOE's room. Here SOE employees ran demos of their latest in-game collectable card game. Years ago at the first Fan Faire, I talked to one of the other players on our bus ride to the airport. He mentioned that Smed had asked him what he thought of a Magic: The Gathering style game built into Everquest with certain rare cards as loot drops from in-game monsters and certain rewards that carried over to your character. I hadn't heard anything since but apparently that idea solidified.
Legends of Norrath is a beautiful card game, though much of the rules still escape me. If you've ever tried Magic Online, you'll be familiar with the interface. The artwork and mechanics are very strong. The game can be played within Everquest and Everquest 2 as well as with a stand-alone windows interface. Unfortunately there is no flash-based web version, something I would have loved to play on my Mac.
How much impact a game like this will have on EQ is a good question. If the game is too good, we may see hundreds of zombie "AFK: playing Legends" players in the Plane of Knowledge. Not good enough and it will have as much impact as Gems. Still, it is a strong move for SOE and likely to be one of the bigger gameplay shifts in EQ we're likely to see.
Of special note, I asked both an Everquest developer and an Everquest 2 developer what they thought of Legends. I had wondered whether there was any mistrust of a game that was being wedged in by management into the worlds they develop. Both, without hesitation, said "I love it." Both of them talked about a shaky start to the game but both also mentioned that they and their co-workers have been caught staying after hours at work just to play a little more Legends.
I had the honor to meet Mr. Alan Vancouvering, also known as Absor, at the SOE booth a few times over our weekend at Gencon. Absor gave me a nice walkthrough of some of the new zones for Secrets of Faydwer. When I asked Absor what he best liked about the expansion, he said "clockworks". Given what I saw, there is a lot for Absor to like. The theme of the expansion borders on steampunk with huge roaming mechanical constructs walking across the new lands. Dynamic zoning points will keep players chasing the doorways to the next land of adventure. Given the length of time it can take to get a party together and actually into a dungeon, I am a bit apprehensive about making it already more difficult.
And yes, there are working gnomish catapults.
The expansion is still early but there were some excellent looking NPC models and some beautiful zones. One thing Absor mentioned that sunk my heart a little; the raids in Secrets will be starting at Solterius level and going up in at least two tiers of power. Whatever hope I had about skipping Demiplane has been crushed. SOE still seems to hold on to a philosophy of running players through very old content in order to fully explore the newest expansions, a cycle that has repeated itself since Planes of Power. By the time many players climb through the flagging and gearing requirements to get there, even Secrets may be old and out-dated.
Shifting back to my Dungeons and Dragons passions, Thursday night Wizards of the Coast announced the development and 2008 release of Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. More and more over the past few months I have frequented the D&D forums and seen what the hard-core D&D players think of a new edition of D&D. Most of these players have all but memorized the current rules and feel very comfortable with 3.5. They have also spent a lot of money on 3.5 rulebooks which, as they see it now, will become obsolete with the release of 4.0.
My own gaming group, much like my Everquest and Warcraft groups, are not as hard core. We play monthly with the players spending little if any time in between games worrying about the rules or their characters. We like getting together, throwing some dice, shouting when we get a critical hit, and having a good time.
However, over the past three years, our characters have grown to level 16. The game begins to get much more bogged down at the higher levels than it does early on. We have gone from five encounters a game in the earliest levels down to two encounters at the higher levels due to the amount of time it takes to make decisions and verify all the rules.
When I heard what 4th edition would be doing, I smiled. They saw the exact same problems I saw. The typical wizard casting system, known as the Vancian system, is being heavily modified into "at will", "per encounter", and "per-day abilities". Watching wizards throw all their spells away in the first couple of battles is no more. Complicated combat systems like Grapple are also being reworked along with, I hope, the complex Cleric Turn Undead rules.
Combat in 4th edition is supposed to return to high speed, fast and fun dice rolling instead of continually referencing the Players Handbook.
My excitement for 4th edition mimics my excitement whenever I hear about new features for Everquest or Warcraft that help bring the game to the level of the hobbyist gamer. Wizards could have focused on developing more and more complex rule-sets for the current batch of gamers, or they can redevelop the system to help bring new players in. It appears they chose the latter.
Chatting with a couple of the Wizards game designers, it became clear that recently published D&D rulebooks like Book of Nine Swords, the warlock in Complete Arcane, and the three spellcaster classes in Tome of Magic all point towards the thinking in 4th edition. The recent D20 Star Wars Saga Edition roleplaying game also hints at some of the streamlining we will likely see in 4th edition. For my own glimpse at 4th edition, I came up with my own set of 4th edition-style house rules for my newest campaign.
One of the people I met at Gencon stated that they schedule in a whole day just to visit the dealer room and, after spending about four hours in there and still not feeling like I got to see everything I wanted, I can understand why. The dealer room is the heart of Nerd Heaven. Game demos are going on constantly. The costumes, ranging from Darth Vader to a very creative Beholder, add a wonderful atmosphere. Bring your wallet, however. I spent about $50 on dice, $50 on other accessories, and about $150 on various D&D miniatures that I just had to have. One disappointment, I had heard wonderful things about the Wizards of the Coast Dungeon Delve, a one-hour full D&D game hosted at the Wizards booth, but with only three tables, it was almost impossible to get a seat and play. I finally rushed their booth at the beginning of the last day and got to play only to be wiped out in the first room by some water elementals. I wish they had run a lot more tables of that. It was too much fun to have so little time playing.
Instead we played a lot of the RPGA dungeon delve, a 20 minute rapid rolling D&D adventure which, should you win, awarded you tokens with which to purchase dice or select minis. I came home with the biggest bag of dice I ever had.
I consider my first run to Gencon to be our recon run for our future years. Here are my recommendations for future visits to Gencon:
1. Sign up early for the True Dungeon. It was absolutely awesome, worth every penny of the high cost, and very hard to get into if you don't get in early. Don't miss it. Make it the first thing you sign up for.
2. Try to sign up for events outside of the dealer room hours. The dealer room is only open 10am to 6pm but the games go on early morning to late at night. If you leave a day open, leave Thursday open since the best wares will be out with the fewest people.
3. RPGA D&D games are a little bit dry but they are consistent. Sign up for some RPGA games to fill in slots of full RPGs.
4. I heard the Paizo Dungeon Crawl Classic games were a good time. I didn't get to go through any of them but I would like to next year.
5. Make a good list of the minis you want to purchase before you go and add to it as you see ones there. Shop around since the prices on the same mini can change a lot depending on the dealer.
6. Bring lots of food and drinks. You'll find yourself with very little time to buy food while you're running around. Bring something that can tide you over for half a day if you find yourself in a four hour game. Go to a Subway early in the day and get yourself a sandwich you can carry with you.
7. Arrive Wednesday night instead of Thursday so you can get all day Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and half of Sunday. You'll use up all that time without any problem.
8. For a quick and fun minis game, try Red Shirt Monster Mash. It's a one-hour game with about ten players all duking it out in a big dungeon. It costs about a dollar fifty but it's a great time.
Going to Gencon reminded me how much I love this hobby, how much the hobby means to me and defines me, and I can't wait to go back next year.
Loral Ciriclight
26 August 2007
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Ghost of Zek on August 27, 2007 03:50 PM
Great review of the con. Gencon's always been one of the hallmarks of the "gaming" industry. When Gencon glows, so does the biz.
Sad to hear about the direction SOE is going with EQ. But then again, it's not hard to see that with Absor there. He was after all the one on gucomics.com that bashed the very idea of "casual" players, basically telling hobbiests to tough it out or leave.
The random zone points, the push for flagging, all of it pretty much says that EQ will continue to be a game you either buy your way into (more $$ for Yantis), or are bootstrapped into via a "buddy".
The one up-side for EQ hobbiests it appears is that Macro programs just keep getting more powerful. So for the few that are willing, or that have made a business out of it, you could potentially just Macro yourself to that 800 AA point so that you may, just may, get an actual group.
Comment Posted by: xsi on August 27, 2007 05:20 PM
Given our characters' current rate of progression, there's no reason for my family to get SoF, that I know of. Maybe next year's expansion will offer something for all players... even the group game here, from what limited info is available, seems like it will start around TBS level and then go up. For those of us still dealing with DoN and DoD, that does not offer much incentive.
I also don't understand the gnome and steampunk fascination. Gnomes, to me, are the punchline to a long-running and rather dull joke that started years and years ago with the Dragonlance books. How about focusing on some of the more epic high fantasy elements of the game? Secrets of Faydwer.... and SOE chooses to focus on the GNOMES? wtf.
I was hoping that a longer (ie. ~8 months instead of 6) dev cycle for this expansion would result in something more inclusive for all playstyles. Instead, this looks like the focus continues to be on feeding the bleeding edge while the rest of the world stagnates.
/shrug. Hopefully, SOE will prove me wrong. If not, maybe next year's expansion will get my money. In the meantime, the constant server and zone crashes, the west bug, archaic models with their unfinished animations, still unfinished itemization for TSS, etc. all seem like more pressing issues than the need for additional content or collectible trading card games.
Comment Posted by: Alan on August 27, 2007 09:19 PM
As always it was nice to see you Loral. I appreciate the effort you put in to keep this space going. I know how much work it can be.
I wish that I hadn't been working the con. It's been a very long time since I'd been to a con like that, and I realized immediately that I could easily fall back into the habit. It's always nice to see just how many other nerds there are in the world. Next time I go it will be on my own dime and I'll be playing game rather than showing one off.
Of course I wouldn't have been able to grab a copy of Talisman if I didn't have the Exhibitor badge, so I won't complain too much. :)
To address a few comments:
Heh, I'm being bashed for disliking casual player, yet I am the most casual player you've ever met. I just don't have any delusions about what casual means. I don't expect to be fight Kerafyrm with my casual-geared characters, so I don't stress over the fact that I can't.
It's certainly understandable if some folks won't find a lot of immediate use from the expansion. I understand that. But the reality is that we have to keep the top level folks busy for a year. The casual folks should still have a fair amount of content to devour, especially when the level cap goes up. This one has to last a year before the next one, and with a standard expansion cycle to build it in, we had to do what makes the most sense for the game.
And to be clear, there is one zone in location that moves, and it moves because it's attached to the bottom of a walking steamwork. The rest are stationary.
A
P.S. Gnomes is cool.
Comment Posted by: Swampfunk on August 28, 2007 02:05 AM
Swampfunk's Absor Translation:
Absor:"smash smash smash!...casuals need to accept your casual self/role (lol!)... smash drink, nachos, smash! ooooh shiney! smash smash! odeen isn't too long! smash smash! content is for earning. smash."
But I think that Loral did not emphasize the sheer volume of nerds at GenCon... it's ridiculus... think of revenge of nerds... now make it 6000 nerds.
Good news is I have a crap load of dice now. And a new set of 4.0 books. Hurrah, closet DnD gamer ftw.
Comment Posted by: xsi on August 28, 2007 03:50 AM
Gnomes are not cool. Some people -- including the devs, apparently? -- find them amusing and/or interesting. I find them tired and overblown. And didn't we just have clockworks in DoD?
Obviously, that is my opinion, and only my opinion.
As far as the expansion itself goes, I'm sure you're right. Certainly, SOE has the data to determine whether or not there really are sufficient people running out of content to warrant the new expansion. (On the raid front, it's hard to believe, but that's not my area of play, so who can say?) As with many casuals, EQ simply seems to be passing me by. On the bright side, it gives my wife and I lots and lots of empty zones to play in, provided the content does not require more than our three accounts can handle.
At least the snow leopard mount from LoN is pretty.
Comment Posted by: Pootersox on August 28, 2007 02:45 PM
Gnomes are adorable :) but yeah they did clockworks in DoDH, dang it. I was hoping for something wood-elfish myself.
Regarding high end etc: Top guild on Xegony has 'beaten the game' aready: defeated end mob in TBS. At least one other guild will prob be there before the new expansion in November. And Xegony is a "slow" server compared to others. So yeah, the high end needs another year's worth of adventure.
My guild? #4 on server... still needs to beat MM in Demi, just got into Deathknell... we don't need anything but more useable AA's and spells, IMO.
Comment Posted by: sunshadow on August 28, 2007 10:23 PM
Loral, great review shame us Aussie nerds never get to see anything like that, over here.
I am disappointed that SoF didn't throw a bone towards casual guilds. With my current guild we are unable to raid anything that will get me an upgrade to the groups gear I got in TBS and as such I see casual guilds will have a real stuggle for the next year, but most will probably either become more hard core or disband. And No the level increase won't help the situation much as it will take most people the whole year to reach 80.
I am finding it increasingly hard to log into EQ so without some serious thought going into the process of character development from lvl 1-80. The current method of just add more content at the top is a really bad stratagy and needs to be thrown out the window. Instead take a fresh approach and try and decide how you want a new character to go from lvl 1 to lvl 80 with max AA's. And what sort of gear to you want them to amass along the way. This is really complex but at the moment casual are stagnant.
I can kill any casual content in the gear I have so I have no incentive to chase down the few minor upgrades that exist for a casual. So adding more uber casual gear is not going to make the game more fun for me, having 8800hp or 9600hp as a Necro is neither here nor there. So instead of more HP and Mana other thing need to be looked at. Maybe Hero stuff is a step in that direction.
Comment Posted by: Ghost of Zek on August 28, 2007 11:06 PM
Swampfunk,
That was probably the single best Absor Translation of all time.
/salute
Comment Posted by: Kwill on August 29, 2007 10:07 AM
Great article Loral! It was so nice meeting you and your wife at the Meet and Greet.
I was very impressed by what the EQ team is doing with SoF, and the videos posted on the web right now just don't do the graphics justice.
My son and I plan on returning to GenCon next year as well, we had a great time just for the one day we spent there.
As you point out, it's a wakeup call as to how many passionate gamer nerds are actually walking the earth! Conventions like this are a great place for people to get together and share.
Comment Posted by: oldgamer on August 29, 2007 11:47 AM
Sunshadow - Gencon is coming to Australia in 2008: http://www.genconoz.com/
Comment Posted by: sunshadow on August 29, 2007 06:35 PM
Cool, Be interesting to see SOE make the effort and come visit us. Now just got to talk the wife ino taking a holiday in Brizzy.
Comment Posted by: Wycca on August 29, 2007 06:49 PM
You have incorrect information about SoF raids Loral.
The raids start at a pre-Solteris level. The Solteris level raids are Teir 2 raids (and above obviously for Teir 3). That most likely means TSS level raids for Teir 1.
Secondly...you spelled Solteris wrong.
Comment Posted by: Skuz Bukit on August 30, 2007 02:40 AM
I'm pretty sure I heard Absor say on the gencon video excerpt that the raids in SoF are 2 tiered with the first tier being above solteris level both in difficulty & in gear & you would gear up there to tackle the tier 2 events.
Comment Posted by: Skuz Bukit on August 30, 2007 02:42 AM
Hmm, just re-read what Wycca said, I hadn't heard mention of 3 tiers before, but 2 tiers above solteris i had heard.
Comment Posted by: Alan on August 30, 2007 01:10 PM
I was told 3 tiers starting at Solteris... One sec and I'll find out for sure.
Ok, I see where the confusion might have come from. There are essentially three tiers. There is one that's below Solteris, but it's relatively small (helps fill in a bit), and then there are three more starting at Solteris and going up.
A
Comment Posted by: Loral on August 30, 2007 04:39 PM
Thank you for the feedback, Alan.
Comment Posted by: Wycca on August 30, 2007 07:17 PM
I know at the Fan Faire that they identified the top 2 teirs - Meldrath and Crystallos specifically. I'm guessing the teir just before that is a flagging teir. The "small" beginning teir I'm guessing is either some smaller instanced mobs (like DoD) or maybe some open zone bosses (ie like TSS).
I'm guessing that some of the confusion of difficulty comes from the fact that some people are included a 5 level boost, and some are not. I'd wager that many current DP guilds, at 80, would find Solteris to be about the same difficulty for example.
Dunno, regardless, there should be decent content for most guilds, and a level boost will certainly help out older guilds. The year long expansion cycle will be nothing but good.
Comment Posted by: moebius800 on August 30, 2007 11:57 PM
or b: opt and come join the insanity on al'kabor all the expansions you want as long as its the first 4 :)
Comment Posted by: Ghost of Zek on August 31, 2007 04:15 AM
moebius800,
I read your post, and was going to comiserate with you, and then I did a mental double take, and then a small dim light bulb of hope began to glimmer...
Do you mean to say that none of the last 9 travisties of expansions are on that server, or thier "features"?
Um, how can I put this... Would you happen to know if a PC client can log into al'kabor??
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on August 31, 2007 03:05 PM
Yes people forget that there is a single mostly classic server, only going up to PoP and I'm really sure its last patch is BEFORE the bard changes so they can still solo HoH with their eyes closed. The only problem (and its a huge problem) is complete lack of population and the fact that it is mac only. That is okay for those of us with macs but I couldn't get into a truly single player version of EQ. I would imagine there are mac emulators for windows you could download and run EQ Mac on if your PC is strong enough and then you could get on there.
Comment Posted by: Ghost of Zek on August 31, 2007 09:27 PM
Aarkan,
Okay, so it's a MAC only server. Okay. That's a technical issue. Um, so, how "beefy" does the MAC need to be? I mean, I've dropped $399.95 on a video card to upgrade my PC before, I'm just thinking, is this something we can buy a used MAC to get into?
As for support, is there's a pretty solid certainty that SOE has effectively stopped screwing with the game from the MAC point of view? I mean, if we start buying up old MAC's and re-opening accounts so that we can get into a game of EQ that still had the feature set that was causing population growth, is there a good solid chance SOE will NOT screw it up?
Anyway, some feed back on what kinda MAC is needed would be greatly appreciated. Also, any feed back on what the differences are accountwise, etc.
Oh, side note. Has anyone posted about this on the main EQ forums? I mean, I'm sure there's been posts complaining about how SOE "abandoned" MACs. But has anyone pointed out to the 100k rabid classic EQ lovers that have watched the last few offerings from good o'l Alan, and found them to be, erm, lacking? Just a thought. And one can hope SOE won't muck it up.
Comment Posted by: Pharone on September 5, 2007 05:14 PM
Table Top RPGs is where a lot of us came from. Me and five friends get together to play D&D 2nd ed and Planescape once a week. Our ages range from mid 20s to 40. The point is, table top games just don't get old.... they get better.
Comment Posted by: Scrubble on September 8, 2007 01:36 PM
EQ is EQ, if it's so bad then stop playing, it's a game. The momment you do not enjoy any game you should stop playing it.
Comment Posted by: Pharone on September 11, 2007 11:20 AM
That's why I play Vanguard now. My friends and I are having a ton of fun remanescent of the times we had back in the early days of EQ1.
Comment Posted by: Barrant on September 12, 2007 02:50 AM
World of Warcraft is so much fun! You really should give it a try.
Comment Posted by: Loral on September 17, 2007 10:33 AM
Spam spam spam spam spammity spam!
If you haven't noticed over the past couple of years, evil terrorist extremist spammers have, from time to time, flooded Mobhunter's comment system. This results in sometimes hundreds of messages pouring in on any article that isn't locked.
I used to have a month before the search engines picked up the article enough that a spammer would locate it, but that time has shrunk. Now it is about two weeks.
So, I'll be locking comments down two weeks after an article has been posted until I can come up with a better solution.
There are a couple of alternatives to posting, one is to force registration with typepad, the company that produces the software I use for Mobhunter. The other solution is to put in some sort of technology that separates humans from spammers.
The version of Movable Type that I use now is a little out of date and I customized the code a lot to get the little images and funny captions so I'm not crazy about migrating forward to a new version or to a new program - Wordpress comes to mind.
In any case, for the time being, comments will be locked two weeks after the article has been posted.
Thank you,
Loral
loral@loralciriclight.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Email Mike at mike@mikeshea.net for more questions or comments.