PAIZOCON - The Mother of All Gamer Connections!

[Lilith]

My thanks, not necessarily in order:
To the folks that showed up - y'all were awesome!

To the Paizo staff & the Kobold-in-Chief Wolfgang - I only hope that you had as much fun as we did.

To all the winners - which were all of you! Hope you enjoy the prizes!

But most especially, lots of thanks for Timitius - you did a helluva lot of work being the local boy. Thank you for being the local sherpa guide!

[Rodney Thompson]

Wisely, Timitius refrained from snapping any photos of me; I had feared his camera might burst into flames. ;)

Had a good time this weekend. Thanks to all who organized and participated.

[Mike McArtor]

Thanks to Timitius and Lilith and everyone else involved with putting this all together. :) It was a lot of fun and I'm glad to hear y'all seemed to think it was worth the time.

I was greatly honored to meet so many fine gamers and excellent people, and I truly look forward to doing this again. :)

Now then, for those of you who are sounding off who went, did I have the pleasure of speaking with you? I struggled on Saturday with putting people with their messageboard usernames. :\

[Mike McArtor]

Also: Timitius you managed to catch a glancing shot of the top of my head in one of those pictures, but I know that Cosmo has four pictures of me up on his Flickr page. It looks like my careful attempts at remaining anonymous on the Internet are about to end... ;)

[Jason Bulmahn]

Hey there all,

Paizocon was indeed a great time. Thanks to the organizers and all of the attendees, I had a great time. My little game ran smoothly twice and I might even post up some bits from it here soon on my blog, along with a handful of photos.

Thanks again and I look forward to next year.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

[Nicolas Logue]

I'm so sad I couldn't make it!!!!!!!!!

NEXT YEAR FOR SNIZZLE!

[James Jacobs]

Nicolas Logue wrote:

I'm so sad I couldn't make it!!!!!!!!!

NEXT YEAR FOR SNIZZLE!

You were used as an example SEVERAL times, Nick. You shoulda been there to defend yourself. Too late now!

[Timitius]

Mike McArtor wrote:

Also: Timitius you managed to catch a glancing shot of the top of my head in one of those pictures, but I know that Cosmo has four pictures of me up on his Flickr page. It looks like my careful attempts at remaining anonymous on the Internet are about to end... ;)

Actually, I had a great shot of you playing Russ's game, but I remembered that a ninja should never be seen or heard...so I used a different shot. ;-)

[Timitius]

And I'd like to add my thanks as well....

• To Jason, James, Wolfgang, Wes, Erik, Mike, Josh, Corey, Lisa, Vic, and Cosmo, for attending; you added quite a bit o' street cred to Paizocon!
  
• To Jason, James, Wolfgang, Russ, Dario, Dominic, Robert, Cosmo, and Josh for running games;
  
• To Lilith, for being my "Number One," and helping in so many ways in making this awesome;
  
• To Pete, for helping me make Friday night's activities happen; all you can eat sushi and playing games at the FLGS, Uncles!
  
• To Paizo, Wolfgang, Adam Daigle, Russ Taylor, Dario Nardi, and, of course, Lilith, for donating all the awesome prizes;
  
• To Lilith, for creating a phenomenal Fan Appreciation Award to present to Paizo;
  
• To Stephen and Rodney for attending...it was incredibly cool to see you there! See? There was no angry mob....;-)
  
• To James Davis and Josh Frost for the design of our logo/name badges;
  
• To all Paizocon attendees...you came! Thank you!! (Whew!)
  
• To Paizo, for being Paizo, the best gaming company around!
  
• And to Takasi, for starting this thread and starting the meetup that kicked this whole idea to life.
  

Apologies if I forgot anyone!

[Mike McArtor]

Timitius wrote:

And to Takasi, for starting this thread and starting the meetup that kicked this whole idea to life.

We missed you Takasi!

[Void_Eagle]

Lilith wrote:

Kobold-in-Chief Wolfgang

Absolutely! A lot of us are putting Wolfgang in with the Paizo group (not that that's a bad thing), so I wanted to call out a specific thank you to Wolfgang. We appreciate you showing up and giving us your perspective of what's happening with 3P and 4E, and for running a game.

[Lori B]

Yes - thank you Wolfgang!

It was fun for us kobolds to "help" Zobeck with a little bridge problem. At least we did not end up burning down the Free City, or drowning in the river, or being killed by the clockwork soldier...

Thank you!

[Adam Daigle]

::fake pouts::

Next year, goddamnit! Next year.

::gets a faraway look in his eyes and slowly looks skyward, goofy grin growing into a large toothy smile::

[deClench]

It was truly rockin! I met a lot of great people and had a lot of fun. Time for another one. :)

[Ed Healy]

Um... so... PC'09?

A fall con, after the release of the PRPG, would be cool. IMnsHO.

[Chris Mortika]

At first, I was off-put by the hard limit of 30 attendees.

But, on reflection, it was a good idea. I mean, Origins has lots more people, but how many of them do you actually meet? At PAIZO-con, I really felt able to walk up and introduce myself to everybody and chat and get to know people better.

I suggest raising the limit to, say, 50 -60 attendees, but not much higher.

Again, super job.

[Zootcat]

Chris Mortika wrote:

Thanks to Trent, who managed to haul his posterior out of bed at 6:00 this morning to get me to the airport, and actually managed to provide a nice narrative travelogue of the Seattle area while driving.

You're welcome, Chris! The pleasure was all mine. I hope to see you again next year!

[Zootcat]

I also want to add my thanks to everyone.

Thanks to all the Paizo peeps for showing up, answering questions and running games. That really, really, really meant a lot to all of us that attended.

Thanks to Tim, Lilith and Takasi for slamming this baby together. And to everyone who donated prizes.

Thanks to Chris for splitting the cost of a room with me.

Even though I didn't get a chance to talk to you guys, thanks to Steven and Rodney from WotC for showing up. I apologize for my "If you've ever rolled a craft check, then you are not having any fun" comment. Lol. I don't have any ill will toward WotC or anyone there. :)

And thanks to all the attendees for being lots of fun and really cool to hang out with.

And thanks to Burgermaster for making a Tom & Jerry milkshake.

Trent

[Sel Carim]

Just wanted to add my thanks to the pile! I had a totally awesome time. It was great to meet and game with everyone. Thanks to those who planned the event and organized everything and thanks to the paizo staffers who showed up to answer or questions and thanks to everyone who ran games for us. Can't wait for Paizocon 2009!

[Timitius]

This is a lil' ol' cross-post, from what I put up over at our PaizoCon meetup site for all to see (and thanks to Pete for posting the link up in the PaizoCon 2008 report thread!)...

First of all: Thank you to all you who attended our inaugural PaizoCon 2008. I felt it went VERY well...OK...I thought it was an awesome showing, both on the attendees part AND the guests' part. My thanks to each and every one of you who came and showed your support for Paizo. And to those who took the extra pizza home, too. ;)

Also, to all those who have recently joined the Meetup group: Welcome! And thanks for joining and showing such interest in future PaizoCons. We may have just wrapped up PaizoCon 2008, but work on next year's event is going to need to start much, MUCH earlier than what we did for this year's event.

So, as a beginning, I have started a new poll on our Meetup page: PaizoCon II in 2009...are you in? This is an early start on seeing what kind of support we have for next year. Are we going to be bigger? How much bigger? Bigger as in,"Gee we are going to need three times the space to hold this again"?

Please, old and new members alike, take a moment to vote in the poll, so that we can start the ball rolling for PaizoCon II.

Thanks again, everyone!

[Lilith]

In, and more than willing to be A Fellow Dictator again! Now, what mini to make for the prepayers. :D

[Tarlane]

I found out about Paizocon too late(last day as a matter of fact) but have signed up for the meetup site and barring some sort of undead uprising(maybe), I'll be there next year.

I'm not normally much of a Con person(especially seeing that Paizo won't be down here at ComicCon this year), but I would love to show my support for Paizo and meet some of the folks on the boards.

-Tarlane

[Timitius]

Hi all!

So I know it's been pretty quiet, post-con, in the Paizo Fan Meetup group. I see many of you have been checking in to see "what's up".

A lot of people joined right after the Con, which is very cool! And I posted a poll asking people for their prediction on whether they'd attend PaizoCon II. But I've got lots of questions and ideas on my mind, and I want to keep some forward momentum for next year....so, here's what I posted to the members, and am re-posting for everyone here:

And as for PaizoCon II, several things:
1) Organized Gaming - I suspect that Pathfinder Society will be covering this one. I am going to hold off at even addressing this one until after GenCon. I have to give Nick Logue some time to launch the Society, get it running, and settle in at Paizo. However, I fully anticipate that we will need a large room dedicated to gaming alone.

2) Which brings me to the 2nd item - Location.
Where to hold PaizoCon II? Did the LaQuinta in Bellevue meet everyone's needs? If we rented all three of their conference rooms, would that work? I've also been considering the Red Lion Inn in Bellevue as a possible option...any thoughts on that one?

3) And finally - Events and Duration.
So, obviously we will have Pathfinder Society. And probably panels (some possibly concurrent with gaming), which I'd like to open up to more than just Paizo staff. We have a LOT of partners and contributors to tap. Possibly a writer or game design workshop? A working group to discuss Beta to Final PFRPG? Could we work in a RPG Superstar event that would take place at the Con (a design-on-the-fly contest)?

And are we expanding from a Saturday event to Friday-Saturday? Saturday-Sunday? Three-day event?

Lots of questions. Lots of options. Certainly more than I care to post as polls! I'd encourage everyone to join in here in discussion, or at the Meetup site, of what you think PaizoCon II should shape up to be...

AND if you have not voted in the poll about whether you're going to attend PaizoCon II, well, DO SO NOW. If we are going to be bigger, the sooner we know that, the better for planning.

Thanks everyone!

Tim

[Azoun The Sage]

Gary London wrote:

flash_cxxi wrote:

Paizocon in Australia!!

**Wakes up and wipes the drool, off face and laptop**

Whazzat... ahhh daydreaming again ;)

I had the same daydream about the UK to!!

Me too!!

I also would like to see a West Coast and East Coast one, at least I could make it to one of those with out costing me a serious penny. Well except for the West Coast one now...that would kill me financially, especially with the Gen Con UK just two months away. Now if Paizo would just show to that! ;)

[Timitius]

ATTENTION:

PaizoConII planning is now underway.

First things first: DATE.

I have April 25-27, 2009 down as the default, since that's the last weekend in April, same time we did the first one this year.

Paizo staff, editors, contributors, and artists? How is that for you?

Next: Location, location, location.

Sorry Aussies and Brits. It's still going to be in the Seattle area.

We will be hunting and scoping out a good hotel to have the 'Con and have affordable rooms. Pete Apple has suggested Issaquah, at the Holiday Inn, but with a Motel 6 across the street. I'm all for this, if only for the excuse to eat at XXX Root Beer.

Regardless of the where, we will be planning to accomodate 80-100 people at this one. Prices will be set when I know how much the space will run, but the $25 fee from last seemed to have worked pretty darned well.

That is all. If you have not joined the blessed ranks of your fellow gamers, then do so now: www.paizocon.com

[Timitius]

Timitius wrote:

ATTENTION:

PaizoConII planning is now underway.

First things first: DATE.

I have April 25-27, 2009 down as the default.....

No. No I don't have that down as the default. It's ACTUALLY April 24-26th, 2009, a Friday through Sunday.

Sorry 'bout that. Pesky calendars, changing days 'n dates...'n stuff!

[Mothman]

Timitius wrote:

Next: Location, location, location.

Sorry Aussies and Brits. It's still going to be in the Seattle area.

Doh!

[Timitius]

Just a note for everyone:

PaizoCon II is now taking early RSVPs on the Meetup site. I will soon be setting up payment options, and for an RSVP to be solid and confirmed, the pre-registration fee will have to be paid.

If you haven't already, JOIN! We've got over 100 members now, and it grows every week!

Thanks!

[Gavgoyle]

Timitius wrote:

Just a note for everyone:

PaizoCon II is now taking early RSVPs on the Meetup site. I will soon be setting up payment options, and for an RSVP to be solid and confirmed, the pre-registration fee will have to be paid.

If you haven't already, JOIN! We've got over 100 members now, and it grows every week!

Thanks!

Locked. Loaded. Ready to pay.

[Chris Mortika]

As a cross-post note: I've put out a call for a Pathfinder Play-by-Post game. As a twist, I'm planning to run a session of the campaign Friday night of Paizo-Con II.

So, if you're coming to the convention and you want to play a session in an established campaign where you know your fellow party members well, but are just meeting the players behind the characters, feel free to request a spot.

[Timitius]

Another update: I've set up payments through PayPal again. Those using a debit or credit card will be charged the wonderful fee of $1.07. Those sending me checks or paying out of their PayPal funds pay the straight $25.

I'm also moving to get us all the meeting space at the LaQuinta, plus some of the suites (in case we get 100+). The intention is to get some sponsors to "host" a gaming event in a suite.

When I confirm that we have the LaQuinta, I will post it on the Meetup site.

Lastly....we are 25% RSVPed! Only 75 or so spaces left! Hurry! ;-)

[Wandslinger]

Any airport suggestions? Looking at the possibility of going, but need to look at prices.

[Hugo Solis]

Hey great idea with the Paizocon!!! You just got a new member!, I'll RSVP as soon as possible

[waltero]

Just signed up and paid. Looking forward to it.

[Wandslinger]

So, how exactly does the guest thing work? Can anyone just give me a general rundown of what's up with it?

[Wandslinger]

Alright, I think I've got everything covered. RSVP'ed, and will be paying once September 1st hits. I hope you're all ready for me! Bring on the bodacious beers, great games, and awesome atmosphere!

[Timitius]

Wandslinger wrote:

So, how exactly does the guest thing work? Can anyone just give me a general rundown of what's up with it?

Hey Wandslinger. Sorry I didn't get back to you soon enough. The "guest thing" is just a way that if you and a friend, partner, spouse are coming together, and paying together, then you both don't need to join separately.

We tried last year to have each attendee join the site and RSVP individually, and while it sort of worked, it sort of created more problems than it was worth.

So, each attendee can RSVP for 1 guest coming with them. You each still have to pay $25, though. No two-fer-ones!

[houstonderek]

Daigle wrote:

I was gonna suggest Austin, Texas as a venue and offer spots I knew, but I will certainly head NW if this thing comes to a head. I might even blow Fake of the Red Raven off until then.

man, austin would be cool...

travel restrictions prevent me from going to seattle :(

[SageSTL]

Just RSVPd and paid; I'm planning to be there. I'm not yet able to make travel arrangements (it's still too far out) and get that Friday off- that's the only potential barrier. That, and the seven hour flight... *shudder* Looking forward to it!

[Timitius]

Just a cross-posting from the PaizoCon Meetup site, for all of you that HAVEN'T joined us yet:

We are set. We have the LaQuinta in Kirkland/Bellevue reserved for PaizoCon II. Officially.

I reserved all 3 meeting rooms for Saturday and Sunday, plus their 3 suites for Friday and Saturday nights. The intention of getting the suites is for the extra space to hold some Paizo-run games, as we did last time, in a quieter environment. If anyone is interested in "hosting" one of those suites as a sponsor, just let me know!

In addition, I reserved a block of 20 rooms for all you out-of-towners. And here's the best part of THAT....Better Rates! (single queens @ $85.50; double queens @ $91.80; suites @ $135.00 per night)

When making your reservation (you've got some time, BTW), call them and tell them you are reserving a room in the PaizoCon block...and make sure you are quoted these rates!

Sometime in September, we will be having a PaizoCon II Planning Meeting in the Chatroom (we typically held them on a Thursday night, I think). Of course, I usually pop in to the Chatroom in the evenings to say Hi, field questions and take suggestions, and just generally watch the conversations.

On the agenda will be:

Volunteers for PFS event (both organizers and GMs)
Volunteers for Open Gaming event (both organizers and GMs)
Volunteers for Panel Discussions (both moderators and panelists)
Ideas for Panels (both subjects and scheduling)
Special Event Planning (can we do a "Ascension of the Drow" type event?)
Prize Drawings (coordinator, ideas)
Other stuff I can't think of....but that you have.

Tim

[Hugo Solis]

Hi Tim!

I would love to confirm already but I'm still working on my visa...

I have little time to check all boars and its easier for me to check paizo's board, so if you could post news here every now and then I would appreciate it. I wold love to volunteer for something but my english sucks... soooo...

Saludos!

[Wandslinger]

And I am all paid up! Now, I just have to save all that money for tickets, and car, and room, and food, and...

[Timitius]

Our latest meeting on the PaizoCon Meetup site, for all of you that HAVEN'T joined us yet:

On September 18th at 8 PM (Pacific) we will be having a PaizoCon II Planning Meeting in the Chatroom. When you get in to the chatroom, type "/join paizocon" and be magically whisked away to another tab. :D

This is an initial "kick-off" meeting. I'll let everyone know where we stand, what's been done, and what sort of things we will need to start on.

I am going to try very hard to actually delegate some tasks and responsibilities to other people this time. Some of the things I'm going to be looking for:

Pathfinder Society open gaming: Task Leader; Game Masters, multiple slots, for Saturday and Sunday.

Pathfinder beta open gaming: Task Leader; Game Masters, multiple slots, for Saturday and Sunday.

Discussion Panels: Task Leader, Moderators, Panelists, Panel IDEAS

There are probably other topics of interest and I'll leave those up to attendees to ask or post in response with this announcement, here on the Paizo messageboard, or on our Meetup messageboard.

Thanks.

Tim

[Lilith]

Hey Timitius, I won't make it tonight, but I am willing to donate a mini for a drawing for people who preregister, as well as run another "Industry" panel.

[Hugo Solis]

Yikes... if lilith's not there then I won't know anybody...

[Timitius]

[cast] Resurrect Thread [/cast]

Hey Everyone!

First of all, thank you to everyone that has RSVPed, pre-paid, and chatted with me in the DMTools Chat Room about PaizoCon stuff. We've got over 40 people RSVPed now! It is good to see that the interest is still there, even if I'm not pushing it every day.

It may seem that I've been offline and uninterested, but I assure you that I have not forgotten about PaizoCon!

I've been pretty busy with other things (work, homelife, Norwescon), but we have been considering a few things for PaizoCon II that hopefully will be worked out by the end of October. Depending on the circumstances, however, this may cause the dates for PaizoCon to shift, so while you SHOULD keep RSVPing, I'd advise people to hold off on booking flights and such until these decisions have been made. OK?

More information...soonish.

[Chris Mortika]

Timitius wrote:

... I'd advise people to hold off on booking flights and such until these decisions have been made. OK?

Um, Tim? Too late.

[Hugo Solis]

Mmm. If it moves into May thats no problem for me!

[joela]

Timitius wrote:

More information...soonish.

Coolio.

[waltero]

Unfortunately I have already booked my flight and put in for the days off in April. I hope the dates don't get changed. If they do, I'll try to switch around or else I'll just come visit early.