PaizoCon Online Will Be Scheduled For May 26-31

Sorry, I'm old I'm not staying up to the AM hours and I am not getting up before 6 AM to play a game. Sleep deprivation is painful.

That's perfectly understandable, I'm mostly doing the noon slots for similar reasons.

Is the games being scheduled up to Paizo or the GMs running them?

Paizo has selected the schedule, but if it fills up with GMs then other offerings will be accepted.

Sorry, I'm old I'm not staying up to the AM hours and I am not getting up before 6 AM to play a game. Sleep deprivation is painful.

Paizo had the opportunity to be schedule flexible and offset the time slots so the work on both coasts, but with typical Paizo arrogance - we're just going to do things our way and Customers have to deal with it.

The original convention was going to be scheduled in Pacific time slots because it was to happen in Seattle. Is it really shocking that in a transition to online play, they would do the same?

I am also on the East coast and while it's not ideal, I've found times that work for me. There's also no cost to attend this convention, so you can sign up for just one slot on a Saturday and not lose any money on it. It seems pretty unnecessary to call this "arrogance".

Arrogant even.

No FoundryVTT? That platform is in my opinion better then some others in the list.

If the GM chooses to use it, then it will be offered.

roysier wrote:

Sorry, I'm old I'm not staying up to the AM hours and I am not getting up before 6 AM to play a game. Sleep deprivation is painful.

That's perfectly understandable, I'm mostly doing the noon slots for similar reasons.

Yep that's the way I see it. I have T,W,F,Sat night time slots to sign up. Possibly Saturday afternoon. Nothing offered Thursday nights or Sundays and I'm not playing at 6 am. So I won't sign up to GM. I Don't have enough playing opportunities and you have to sign up for 4 of

Thankfully I am only interested in playing two of the slots, so I can get my four GM slots in. Being furloughed opened up a lot of time.

Ha ha, Americans and their timezone problems, cute =)

This and other events prove that good society play can be had virtually, as well as in person. I hope this event convinces Paizo to offer, or encourage, a great deal more virtual play. Further, I hope they will have a virtual PaizoCon every year, even if they also have a physical one.

Technically speaking there is 24/7/365 online play available and has been for quite a while. You need only to express interest in the Org Play Online server on Discord and you can pretty much play or GM anytime you want. And if you live in an area where gaming is sparce, you can easily recruit players from anywhere to play with.

I’m not sure we necessarily need a PaizoCon Online every year. They already have a number of official online conventions scheduled by the Online community. Having the live and online events running concurrently might be good, or it might hurt live attendance, especially if the online version was free. Though if you charge for the online version, it might not get the support like this year and be much less successful. Lots of moving parts to consider.

Perhaps they could decide to sponsor one of the existing online conventions, even change the name to PaizoCon Online. To be honest, between PaizoCon, Origins, Gen Con, PaxUnplugged, and UK Games Expo, Paizo’s schedule is extremely busy. Adding another fully sponsored event might be beyond their capabilities.

Ha ha, Americans and their timezone problems, cute =)

It is pretty cute ^^ though honestly in Europe you are facing a similar situation of you are like me an offer a game in our time slot, it can be a bit early for our friends in the UK or a bit late for those in the east ^^

TriOmegaZero wrote:

roysier wrote:

Sorry, I'm old I'm not staying up to the AM hours and I am not getting up before 6 AM to play a game. Sleep deprivation is painful.

That's perfectly understandable, I'm mostly doing the noon slots for similar reasons.

Yep that's the way I see it. I have T,W,F,Sat night time slots to sign up. Possibly Saturday afternoon. Nothing offered Thursday nights or Sundays and I'm not playing at 6 am. So I won't sign up to GM. I Don't have enough playing opportunities and you have to sign up for 4 of

my 6 possible slots to get any GM bonus. So, I'll play where I can and plan other things during the week. I could possibly sign up to GM after I see where I can play and there are time slots where I'm available and there is nothing I am eligible/interested in playing. But, can't do that it's in backwards order.

Every scenario is available to sign up to GM on Thursday night... make sure you are clicking on the actual day in the schedule, because Warhorn isn't able to show all of the slots that have been scheduled all at once on the calendar view.

You also don't have to sign up for 4, you can sign up to GM just one slot if you like!

Sunday there is only one slot, which is tough I know.

roysier wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

roysier wrote:

Sorry, I'm old I'm not staying up to the AM hours and I am not getting up before 6 AM to play a game. Sleep deprivation is painful.

That's perfectly understandable, I'm mostly doing the noon slots for similar reasons.

Yep that's the way I see it. I have T,W,F,Sat night time slots to sign up. Possibly Saturday afternoon. Nothing offered Thursday nights or Sundays and I'm not playing at 6 am. So I won't sign up to GM. I Don't have enough playing opportunities and you have to sign up for 4 of

my 6 possible slots to get any GM bonus. So, I'll play where I can and plan other things during the week. I could possibly sign up to GM after I see where I can play and there are time slots where I'm available and there is nothing I am eligible/interested in playing. But, can't do that it's in backwards order.

Every scenario is available to sign up to GM on Thursday night... make sure you are clicking on the actual day in the schedule, because Warhorn isn't able to show all of the slots that have been scheduled all at once on the calendar view.

You also don't have to sign up for 4, you can sign up to GM just one slot if you like!

Sunday there is only one slot, which is tough I know.

My main question is directed at the Sunday time slot. No one is travelling so why fake a travel time. this is a 3 day weekend. Why use only half of it?. Why schedule Sunday time slot that doesn't work well for people on the west coast who are the primary demographic for attendees of their convention when it's in person. I know the real reason - the insiders want off schedule time to get together and play games internally. That's cool but in this case you are making west coast customers angry over this lack of attentiveness to customers desires. I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Whatever I guess. I shrug and know this whole stated purpose of Paizocon's purpose is for Paizo employees to keep in touch with the customers is null this year. So, I guess Paizo is just throwing us a bone by organizing this their way. Ok. I get it.

What insiders? This is organized by the VO corps, especially the online VOs. Please don't cast aspersions on the character of my fellow volunteers with assumed motives. 'Paizo', in whatever entity you mean, is not organizing this. Your fellow players are.

Also, since I missed answering the initial question and you may not have seen it earlier in the thread, quoting this.

The 6am slot is the last slot because Paizo is going to broadcast the closing ceremony around 11am-noon’ish, so we want to be done at that time. If they are willing to push the closing ceremony back to around 5pm, we can add a slot at noon. We’ll also have the two-hour slot from 9-11am that will include ACS and Quests

Spinning conspiracy theories to justify your ire isn’t earning you any sympathy nor is it productive to this thread and planning of the Con at hand.

It’s very much causing the opposite in all respects.

What insiders? This is organized by the VO corps, especially the online VOs. Please don't cast aspersions on the character of my fellow volunteers with assumed motives. 'Paizo', in whatever entity you mean, is not organizing this. Your fellow players are.

I can stand corrected on that.

But why have a west coast convention with no need for a travel day have only 1 Sunday slot that was designed for East coast time? Why be the only convention I know of to only to take advantage of half of a 3 day weekend? Why even have it on a 3 day weekend? I want to say that's pretty stupid. But I think there is logic behind the decision and I will never know why the decision was made. It was obviously not made with the customer in mind. Which is my biggest complaint about what Paizo has become. It's no longer a little company that got it's market share by listening to what customers want. It does what it wants and turns customers off.

The VO corp are representative of Paizo. The organized play society only runs Paizo games. Paizo chooses the VO corp.

The VO corp = Paizo

Anyway I'm happy something was put on and appreciate the work that was done. The execution of it has a lot to be desired and hopefully can be remedied or at least considered in the future decision making process.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What insiders? This is organized by the VO corps, especially the online VOs. Please don't cast aspersions on the character of my fellow volunteers with assumed motives. 'Paizo', in whatever entity you mean, is not organizing this. Your fellow players are.

I can stand corrected on that.

But why have a west coast convention with no need for a travel day have only 1 Sunday slot that was designed for East coast time? Why be the only convention I know of to only to take advantage of half of a 3 day weekend? Why even have it on a 3 day weekend? I want to say that's pretty stupid. But I think there is logic behind the decision and I will never know why the decision was made. It was obviously not made with the customer in mind. Which is my biggest complaint about what Paizo has become. It's no longer a little company that got it's market share by listening to what customers want. It does what it wants and turns customers off.

The VO corp are representative of Paizo. The organized play society only runs Paizo games. Paizo chooses the VO corp.

The VO corp = Paizo

Anyway I'm happy something was put on and appreciate the work that was done. The execution of it has a lot to be desired and hopefully can be remedied or at least considered in the future decision making process.

Hey Roysier, I think you're misinterpretation the dates of this show. The 3-day weekend (Memorial Day weekend) is May 23-25 and that's when the regular PaizoCon was schedule but we moved the dates for PaizoCon Online to start the Tuesday after Memorial Day and run through Sunday, May 31st. And with all the gaming being organized by the volunteers, I'm sure some of them wanted a bit of their Sunday for catching up on laundry and spending time with their families before heading back to work on Monday.

These volunteers are doing a fantastic job organizing games for folks to play in a last minute effort to engage with those that still wanted to celebrate Paizo and play our games. So far there are more than 900 games scheduled and over 260 GMs participating. For those that don't know, that's waaaay more games and waaay more GMs scheduled to participate in this online version than we get at regular PaizoCon and is more on the level of Gen Con participation.

It was obviously not made with the customer in mind. Which is my biggest complaint about what Paizo has become. It's no longer a little company that got it's market share by listening to what customers want. It does what it wants and turns customers off.

You got some serious rose colored glasses there.

Also pretty sure this whole con is with the “customer” in mind, just because you don’t like the schedule due to your time zone and schedule doesn’t change that. You’re not the only one attending.

roysier wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

What insiders? This is organized by the VO corps, especially the online VOs. Please don't cast aspersions on the character of my fellow volunteers with assumed motives. 'Paizo', in whatever entity you mean, is not organizing this. Your fellow players are.

I can stand corrected on that.

But why have a west coast convention with no need for a travel day have only 1 Sunday slot that was designed for East coast time? Why be the only convention I know of to only to take advantage of half of a 3 day weekend? Why even have it on a 3 day weekend? I want to say that's pretty stupid. But I think there is logic behind the decision and I will never know why the decision was made. It was obviously not made with the customer in mind. Which is my biggest complaint about what Paizo has become. It's no longer a little company that got it's market share by listening to what customers want. It does what it wants and turns customers off.

The VO corp are representative of Paizo. The organized play society only runs Paizo games. Paizo chooses the VO corp.

The VO corp = Paizo

Anyway I'm happy something was put on and appreciate the work that was done. The execution of it has a lot to be desired and hopefully can be remedied or at least considered in the future decision making process.

Hey Roysier, I think you're misinterpretation the dates of this show. The 3-day weekend (Memorial Day weekend) is May 23-25 and that's when the regular PaizoCon was schedule but we moved the dates for PaizoCon Online to start the Tuesday after Memorial Day and run through Sunday, May 31st. And with all the gaming being organized by the volunteers, I'm sure some of them wanted a bit of their Sunday for catching up on laundry and spending time with their families before heading back to work on Monday.

These volunteers are doing a fantastic job organizing games for folks to play in a last minute effort to engage with those that still wanted to celebrate Paizo and play...

OK< that's my bad then.

The times aren't great for me either (US-CDT). Circumstances mean my wife can't take time off work to watch the baby, so all the weekday daytime slots are out. Having gaming going through Monday morning would have added two more slots (Sun afternoon and evening) I could have played.

But you know what?

Free gaming in the slots I can play!

roysier wrote:

It was obviously not made with the customer in mind. Which is my biggest complaint about what Paizo has become. It's no longer a little company that got it's market share by listening to what customers want. It does what it wants and turns customers off.

You got some serious rose colored glasses there.

Also pretty sure this whole con is with the “customer” in mind, just because you don’t like the schedule due to your time zone and schedule doesn’t change that. You’re not the only one attending.

Yeah whatever you say. It has come up on a few of my west coast game sessions. Not even by me. One person loved the 6 am time slots because he has to get up at 4 am to go to work. No one else did. Everyone else was complaining about the schedule.

So if you want to say me and 15 people I gamed with on the west coast last week I will accept that.

I do know it's backwards to the way it's been expressed for this convention but once I see how my play schedule aligns I will see if you still need gm's. And I will volunteer to GM slots where I can't get into things I want to play and work for someone who sleeps regular hours on the west coast.

Sorry but for all conventions I always pinpoint a few things I really want to play and then see what slots are left over and volunteer to GM in those slots. If that doesn't work that's fine i'll just watch Netflix instead.

I do know it's backwards to the way it's been expressed for this convention but once I see how my play schedule aligns I will see if you still need gm's. And I will volunteer to GM slots where I can't get into things I want to play and work for someone who sleeps regular hours on the west coast.

Sorry but for all conventions I always pinpoint a few things I really want to play and then see what slots are left over and volunteer to GM in those slots. If that doesn't work that's fine i'll just watch Netflix instead.

No worries Roysier, we'd love to have you participate in any way you can. And if things aren't lining up right for you for gaming, maybe some of the seminars become an option. There's also the Discord channel where you can chat with various employees as we pop in and out as well as the amazing cast of volunteers, so options abound.

Is there any way to get back to calendar view in Warhorn for PaizoCon Online? I'm stuck in Agenda view and I have to keep scrolling down and press the [Load More Scenarios] button. It takes forever and a day to get to Wednesday, worse for Thursday, etc.

+1M (and then some) with Swiftbrook’s request! TEDIOUS :-(

As a workaround: click on any event entry, then click on the day in the upper-right of the event description. You'll be on that day and able to navigate by day.

You can also replace "schedule/agenda" at the end of the URL with "schedule/2020/05/xx" (26-31) to go to the start of that day.

Hope this helps.

As a workaround: click on any event entry, then click on the day in the upper-right of the event description. You'll be on that day and able to navigate by day.

You can also replace "schedule/agenda" at the end of the URL with "schedule/2020/05/xx" (26-31) to go to the start of that day.

Hope this helps.

That works! And the [Sign Up To Play] [Sigh Up To GM] buttons are displayed making it easier to quickly see which events need GMs.

If it is a virtual game why limit 4h3 times that people can play? Why not allow the gsmes to be played within thr time frame? If it is virtual after all then it is kinda asynchronous during the given time frame right?

If it is a virtual game why limit 4h3 times that people can play? Why not allow the gsmes to be played within thr time frame? If it is virtual after all then it is kinda asynchronous during the given time frame right?

That'd probably be fine if the con were a few dozen tables.

Not so fine when it's well over 2000. You need to make some concessions for the organizers to keep everything rolling.

If it is a virtual game why limit 4h3 times that people can play? Why not allow the gsmes to be played within thr time frame? If it is virtual after all then it is kinda asynchronous during the given time frame right?

Because it still is being framed as a convention. You schedule in slots so that all the players can rearrange at tables between slots. If the slots are offset, you end up with (essentially) two different conventions happening in parallel and the players aren’t mixing.

I’ve been to an in-person convention that tried to do this (having one set of tables start 2 hours after the other) and it did not go well. The playerbase split and a lot of tables didn’t make because people weren’t willing to lock themselves out of two slots on the other “track.”

I mean are they expecting people from Europe and other really different time zones to get up extra early 9r stay up extra late to play? Doesn't seem like a way to bring the community together.

Was the discussion about accommodation of people with disabilities ever resolved? I read a little bit of it and did not like the low blows people were making at someone else's disability to be appropriate. I would hope that Paizo board moderators would take action on those individuals.

I mean are they expecting people from Europe and other really different time zones to get up extra early 9r stay up extra late to play? Doesn't seem like a way to bring the community together.

Was the discussion about accommodation of people with disabilities ever resolved? I read a little bit of it and did not like the low blows people were making at someone else's disability to be appropriate. I would hope that Paizo board moderators would take action on those individuals.

There will be games scheduled by European GMs for European timezone players. That's how you bring the community together, I guess.

That is good to know.

Take note that Yurp is something like 10-20% of Paizo's business at most, so the number of people running such games will likely match the EU playerbase size proportionate to US/CAN.

I mean are they expecting people from Europe and other really different time zones to get up extra early 9r stay up extra late to play? Doesn't seem like a way to bring the community together.

Was the discussion about accommodation of people with disabilities ever resolved? I read a little bit of it and did not like the low blows people were making at someone else's disability to be appropriate. I would hope that Paizo board moderators would take action on those individuals.

The time offset works actually great for me!

9:00-14:00
15:00-20:00
21:00-02:00
03:00-08:00

So that gives me 3 slots to work with if I wish to skimp a bit on sleep.

I mean are they expecting people from Europe and other really different time zones to get up extra early 9r stay up extra late to play? Doesn't seem like a way to bring the community together.

That’s why the schedule is 24 hours. So people on the other side of the world from the US can play without having to flip their schedule. It also provides for people living in the US who are shift workers and are usually awake overnight. Again, they don’t have to flip their schedule for a few days and then flip it back to go back to work. Are the start times perfectly aligned for every tome zone? No, but some concessions had to be made to facilitate our short organizing window and to facilitate scheduling.

Was the discussion about accommodation of people with disabilities ever resolved?

Yes. As was stated, if you are experiencing problems with Warhorn and/or registration contact us and we will help resolve the issue.

Explore! Report! Cooperate!

Reminder, only one more day remaining to sign up to GM at PaizoCon Online. We will close the GM signup window at 12:01am(pdt) on Wednesday.

Player signups will open on Saturday May 16th at 1pm (pdt)

If you signed up to GM 4+ blocks* of events, you will get early access to player sign-ups beginning on Friday at 1pm(pdt) though you will be limited to one player block for each GM block. If you want to play more than that, you can signup for the rest during the open window on Saturday.

*2-hour events like PACS and Quests only count as 1/2 a block so you need to run two to equal one block of a full-length scenario

Alright, I've signed up to run some PACS slots, and will probably add some PFS2 quests on Sunday morning to get me to 4 slot equivalents. However, it seems that all the Discord invite links have expired, or are otherwise no longer working. Can someone post a fresh invite?

Sorry I don't have time to peruse this Thread for the answer--

Can someone please post a link to the Seminars schedule? I won't be able to play PFS but I do want to attend the Seminars and such. I couldn't find anything on Seminars here, just PFS games at Warhorn.

Thanks in advance from a grognard that doesn't understand how this fancy-thinking-box works sometimes.

Alright, I've signed up to run some PACS slots, and will probably add some PFS2 quests on Sunday morning to get me to 4 slot equivalents. However, it seems that all the Discord invite links have expired, or are otherwise no longer working. Can someone post a fresh invite?

Hmm, actually I think the problem is on my end. Lemme beat on it a bit.

Can someone please post a link to the Seminars schedule?

Paizo has not posted the seminar schedule yet

GM registration is now closed. Thank you to all the GMs who graciously volunteered their time. Paizo will have to confirm historical numbers, but I think this could be the largest event we have organized that is not Gen Con. Now, we just have to hope that our player response is as enthusiastic as our GMs.

There are 366 unique GMs running 1312 events consisting of PFS1, PFS2, SFS, & PACS.

Games that did not receive a GM will be deleted over the next couple of days. Player registrations will open on Saturday May 16th at 1pm(pdt). If you volunteered to run 4+ blocks, you will gain early access to sign up to play beginning at 1pm(pdt) on Friday May 15th. Keep in mind, during this early access window you may only sign up for as many play sessions as you are GMing. If you want to play more than that, you can sign up when registration opens on Saturday.

I'm a GM. Now what?

Please be sure to read the instructions listed both in the Discord and the Warhorn entry page. Get your VTT information entered into the Notes for each of your events, ASAP. Also, if you plan to run the game in a language other than English, update that info in the event description. Players will need that info to decide which games they will register for.

Over the next few days, we will add the Discord virtual "table" assigned to your game/s in the notes. This will assist you and your players to come together when the time comes for the event.

Once players have signed up for your event, you might want to contact them and arrange all the preparations so the game can begin on time.

The event# is 2700163

If you have any questions or need help setting up your event, be sure to check into the Discord server. We have a tremendous amount of information contained there and plenty of users happy to help.

Xathos of Varisia wrote:

Nefreet wrote:

This is actually one reason why the OPF was founded. Paizo ran into some legal trouble years ago operating as a for-profit company requesting volunteers in the state of Washington, where such volunteers are supposed to be compensated with wages.

As a non-profit, the OPF doesn't have that issue.

Nefreet,

Wasn't this also tied into the WotC and MTG lawsuit that was very similar? That one was also tossed out of court or a ruling was made that was in favor of WotC. However, OPF continued to exist for organizing Org Play at the cons and stuff.

You are correct. OPF does not have that issue which is a major reason why it exists.

I know it happened with Emerald City ComiCon. IDK about WotC.

Washington state labor law is explicitly clear on this matter. I should know; I was one half of the peeps who brought this to the attention of the OPL.

Reminder, today is the last chance to preregister for PaizoCon Online gaming events. The registration window will close at 10pm(pdt). At that time, any event that does not have enough players to run or does not have a GM is at risk of being deleted from the schedule. Otherwise, see you on a Tuesday for the opening ceremonies!

Not sure if this is a great place to ask this but I'm running out of resources. Is there truly no way, aside from Chromecasting from another device, to run Twitch through a Roku-based smart TV? I'm going nuts trying to figure this out so I can watch PaizoCon while I work from home...