Two Sheep, Some Goblins, and a Whole Mess of Whovians

Gen Con 2013 is now in the books.

As we've done the past two years, we made a trek up to Indianapolis for Sunday's Family Fun Day.  For $30, a family of four can get into Gen Con and wander around, the entire area.  If you wanted to play any of the events on Sunday, you have to pay for the tokens, but I've found that you get to run enough demos and talk to the vendors in the dealer hall without needing to join in a scheduled game.*

Two Pirates, a Klingon, a Belly Dancer, and a Wookie
start a band....

Before we even got into the convention center, Mayfair Games was hosting Free Coffee just across the street along with their sheep mascots, Bob and Angus.**  Alas, we just missed the last of the coffee, but since we'd bought our badges online we breezed through Will Call to pick up our badges.  Good thing too, as the line for purchasing badges was incredibly long even early in the day.

We roamed the con with my brother-in-law, who has been coming for years and typically shows up on Wednesday --yes, before the con starts-- just so he can hang out with his friends.  We stopped by the Paizo booth, and the kids got to meet Sean K. Reynolds while he was out and about.  There were goblins everywhere in the Paizo booth, and even goblin masks to wear.  I think if we'd had more time the kids would have probably rummaged through all of the Pathfinder material a bit longer, but Paizo was truly busy the entire day.  Having Ed Greenwood and other authors nearby signing copies of their work certainly didn't hurt either.

Ruling over the D&D Ballroom was Lolth, the Demon Queen of Spiders (and Drow).
And no, a +5 Roll of Newpaper won't help you much with her.

Other places, such as Mayfair Games and Fantasy Flight Games, were running a lot of demos in their spaces.  My wife and I tried a Eurogame, called Planet Steam, which a very heavy economic game.  Heavy doesn't begin to describe it, really; if you like games that have LOTS of functioning options, and then throw in a few things like an auction or two each turn, then maybe you'll like it.  All I can say is that I don't have an MBA, so this sort of game didn't appeal to me.

While I got a chance to slip out and look around***, the rest of the crew tried out some family oriented games such as Spot It! Party Edition by Blue Orange Games and "Run for Your Life, Candyman!" by Smirk and Dagger Games.  Neither would be confused with a deep boardgame, but they were fun and engaging.  I could easily see the Spot It! games being "modified" for use as a drinking game, which would really cause trouble if you get a few beers in you.

The kids just about went bananas over the Who North America booth, complete with TARDIS and a Dalek.  I was actually quite surprised when they decided not to splurge on the Doctor Who - Adventures in Time and Space RPG by Cubicle Seven, but I was informed that since they could get it at one of our local game stores, that wasn't a high priority for them.  But getting a soundtrack was a bit more important.

What, you were expecting River Song?

While I perused the RPG areas****, I discovered that the gaming community has changed.  Even in the past three years, the number of women and families attending Gen Con have gone up.  Yes, I realize that with a name like Family Fun Day you'd expect to see families there, but the sheer number of families keeps on an upward trend.  Just like how the old myth that only teenage boys swilling Monster and Red Bull play MMOs has been pretty much busted, the belief that only nerdy guys who live in their parents' basement play RPGs (and boardgames) has been shattered by the attendees at Gen Con.  

This is a good thing.

There are a lot of fun games out there that people can get together with friends and spend an evening playing, but the stigma of who and what are gamers can turn some people away.  Just like how we MMO bloggers by our mere presence fight the stereotypes that you see splashed all over the media, pencil-and-paper gamers can fight their own stereotypes by welcoming the next generation into the fold.

Besides, these games are a lot of fun, and it's a shame to keep them to yourself.

*That said, the Sagamore Ballroom was filled with people playing Paizo's Pathfinder RPG, and the D&D Hall had a lot of gamers trying out D&D Next as well.  We didn't make it up to the Games on Demand area, but I was told that the place was packed all weekend long with gamers trying out all sorts of different RPGs.

**Never played Settlers of Catan?  Go hence and track down a copy.  You can find them all over, and even in discount stores in the U.S. (such as Target).

***And meet up with an author friend of mine who was in for the Writer's Symposium.  After having talked with him over the past several years, it was good to finally meet up with him in person, if only for about 15 minutes before he had to leave for home.

****Some of the RPG vendors I checked out and talked to included Troll Lord Games (Castles and Crusades), Catalyst (Shadowrun), the Indie Press Revolution booth (including FATE Core and Dresden Files from Evil Hat Games and Dungeon World from Sage Kobold Productions), and Green Ronin (both the Dragon Age and the Champions RPGs). Wizards of the Coast didn't have a vendor area, but had their own section near the main exhibit hall where they were running massive playtest games of D&D Next.  The so-called "grumpy game owner" of years past has begun to give way to a more business savvy and customer friendly version.  Really, you pretty much have to be friendly if you want to stay in business for any length of time. About the only exception to that rule was Steve Jobs, and he could get away with being obnoxious because he was Steve Jobs.

Don't Mind Red, He's Got a Headache

I finally started group content with the kids.

Since they only have one account that they share* between them, the best we could do alone was a 2-man instance.  Luckily for us, The Old Republic has a perfect introduction to an instance with The Esseles, a 2-person Flashpoint designed for L10-12.  No other players in the area, no competition to complete a Heroic 2+ first, and we've got plenty of time to finish without rushing.

The Esseles has the bonus of being one of the best of The Old Republic flashpoints for story, so I knew that'd keep them attracted as well.

So, I pulled out the Old Man, reacquainted myself with how to play a Scoundrel (aka "get up in people's grill and blast them from behind with a shotgun scattergun), and sauntered off to take a trip to Coruscant aboard the Esseles.

My oldest had the first run, and to be honest, that was the smoothest of the bunch.  I told her straight up to let me maneuver into position first, and then backblast to start the fight.  Typically I'd end up taking out a regular enemy, leaving Corso to round up the Strong and/or Elites for us to attack afterward.  While the fighting went well enough, I had to explain the TOR method of choosing who gets to speak in a cutscene**. There was also the little matter of me playing the Old Man as more a devil-may-care type than my original Gunslinger, so I got to see some wording out of him that I ordinarily wouldn't ever see out of Dalaak.***
I heard a "Daa-aad!!" from upstairs more than once, but I shrugged it off.

But there was one problem:  the Esseles crashes at the end on our desktop computer.  Ironically enough, not the laptop, so I was able to restart SWTOR and get back into the Flashpoint before it ended, but still it was quite annoying.

Next came my son, and he was just as wisecracking as I was, but he reserved it more for the group chat. He was a bit overeager at times, but luckily it wasn't too big of a problem.

But my youngest....

I told her at the beginning to let me lead.  I told her that during the flashpoint, too.  Several times, in fact.  She's ten, and I know she can read.  But she still kept running ahead, running the wrong way, running into a boss fight before we cleared out the trash, and in general acting more like someone half her age.

Finally, her behavior caught up with her.  She ran off the edge of a platform and disappeared into space.

I said a silent prayer of thanks that SWTOR flashpoints still let you do that, whereas you're hard pressed to do that in a WoW instance.

"Now," I said as she respawned, "Will you cut it out?"

"Oops," she replied.

"If you pull stuff like this in a regular instance, people will let you die to teach you a lesson.  It's called 'You yank it, you tank it,' and the real tank would get really pissed off at you for this.  Behave better, and let the person who has been here before do the leading."

After the lecture, she shaped up.  I'd rather she get the lesson from me than finding herself vote kicked or being the reason for a wipe.

She also learned that --as a Gunslinger-- her abilities are best when behind cover, whereas my Scoundrel is built to get in the baddies' faces.  She saw me at work and tried to imitate it, but I explained that her best abilities, like the Charged Bolts' bonuses and other assorted goodies she gets in her talent tree, are made for long distance.

By comparison, these runs ended better than the Hammer Station run I had the other day, where the Commando Healer didn't heal and the tank would rush in before I could CC a droid.  By the time the Healer began to get the hang of things, the tank decided we weren't going to live through the first boss**** and dropped group.  In spite of my encouragement, the Healer dropped too, and then after that so did the other DPS.  These people were too willing to throw in the towel rather than try the hard work of actually making it through an instance slowly, grinding out a victory.

Maybe they could have taken a few lessons from some kids.




*My rules.  I get to control the MMO accounts --LOTRO and TOR-- that way, and I also keep track of any activity within the toons.

**TOR has each person select an action and then a random (virtual) dice roll determines who gets to speak.

***I decided to have the Old Man play dumb with Beryl toward the end of the class questline on Taris. Kind of unusual for a guy who flirted with Grand Master Satele Shan in the closing cutscene to the Athiss Flashpoint, but I've decided that I want him to pursue a romance with one of the female companions later, so I want to minimize any repercussions later.  Sometimes it helps having done the Smuggler class story before.

****Nobody had the ability to pick up the canisters, so he decided he'd rather drop instead of actually, you know, TRYING.

Blizzard Announces More Info on "Connected Realms"

...which are sounding exactly like server merges.  They're just not saying that because, well, saying "World of Warcraft to Perform Server Merges" is a way of getting a LOT of negative press.

Patch 5.4 Feature Preview: Connected Realms

To be honest, it sounds more like what has been implemented for The Secret World and is being implemented for Age of Conan than anything else.

Still, they're server merges.  No way around it.  I've been perusing some online listings of active accounts on servers --I still wonder how they manage that-- and I've found that Ysera has dropped quite a bit over the past few years (down to something like 1/4 the size of Area 52), matching what I've noticed in game.  I do wonder how this is going to work long term, and whether a Horde-heavy realm will be matched up with an Alliance-heavy realm to balance things out.

But the merges have begun.  (Just don't call them that.)