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I saw my schedule from the Lottory, having Kings of Absalom (Fri 1-6) and the Level 6-9 Jousting (Sat 1-6)
Then I signed up for open slots, Blood on Devil's Platter (Fri 8-1), and Cyphermage PFS (Sat 8-1)
Now my schedule is not showing the two events I originally had, only the two I signed up for afterwards.
Help?!?
[Edit - post clean-up]
I get that Blood on Devil's Platter probably shouldn't have been open for sign-up, but WHAT happened to Kings of Absalom and the Jousting? I got those fairly from the lotto.
Majuba says the same thing happened to him - he was signed up for a game with Pett, but then when he signed up for the open events, he lost the game with Pett. what happened?
I had a seat in Bastardhall that disappeared when i signed up for open events. (I have a seat in the convocation now. would rather have the bastardhall seat)
I think something went down with Friday--my friend who refreshed just after 5 said that the Friday morning games were all close enough to empty that the people in them could be explained by very fast sign-ups. He also got a seat at Devil's Platter due to the fact that everything was empty. He had lost the lottery on Friday and was given no events to start, and unlike Deidre and Majuba, he didn't lose anything for doing this. Is it possible that the system didn't want people to have two lotteried events on the same day since some people got no lotteried games at all that day?
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Is it possible that the system didn't want people to have two lotteried events on the same day since some people got no lotteried games at all that day?
I signed up for a PFS (Cyphermage is a PFS event) on Saturday morning, so that theory doesn't hold water.
I got lucky with Jacob's morning game, but it's not fair to other people. I trust Paizo to do something that's fair to everyone.
Yea, almost everything was empty for me too on friday when I first looked. I only had one event I got into though, and I didn't lose it.
Is it possible that the system didn't want people to have two lotteried events on the same day since some people got no lotteried games at all that day?I signed up for a PFS (Cyphermage is a PFS event) on Saturday morning, so that theory doesn't hold water.
I got lucky with Jacob's morning game, but it's not fair to other people. I trust Paizo to do something that's fair to everyone.
Ah, but PFS isn't a lotteried event.
Anyway, my friend was very happy to get into JJ's game as well, but we're pretty convinced there will be a relottery for at least Friday. I mean, my gf and I got nothing for Friday (together as buddies) and neither did my friend, so it's possible that Friday morning was just not correctly lotteried by the system and then everyone had to compete in the lottery for the afternoon and evening slots. Otherwise it's hard to explain the empty slots given people who got no game on Friday.
Then why did my Saturday afternoon jousting game get deleted from my schedule?
In any case, I'm hoping for a redo of the whole weekend.
It's probably the only fair way to handle it at this point, though if they happen to have a capture of the state of sign-ups right after the lottery, they may be able to restore Saturday at least and then redo Friday only.
It's probably the only fair way to handle it at this point, though if they happen to have a capture of the state of sign-ups right after the lottery, they may be able to restore Saturday at least and then redo Friday only.Then why did my Saturday afternoon jousting game get deleted from my schedule?
In any case, I'm hoping for a redo of the whole weekend.
It's not a perfect solution, and anyone who got a prime lottery event may be unhappy with that -- I wasn't one of those lucky few, incidentally -- but it may indeed be the only fair way to do it.
Any other working professional having issues with how this is being handled? This is my first year to Pazio Con, bought tickets and banquet back in October. Talk about super excited!!! Spend hours going over the lotto events, just to find out it was all wasted and would have been better just to randomly click on events, and focus on getting a PFS character up in levels. Then they hold the open events and remaining sign up at 2PM PST! So those of us who have to work until 5, home at 6 has no chance of sign up vs those who can do it at work or already home. Why isn't this done on a Saturday? And I know what you are thinking, i'm typing this up at at 3 what WTF. Well I am hoping I don't get busted for doing this at work and felt it's worth taking the chance even though its stressing me out. VERY VERY VERY disappointed in this whole process. Close to selling ticket and banquet and boycotting Paizoco!!!!!
So those of us who have to work until 5, home at 6 has no chance of sign up vs those who can do it at work or already home. Why isn't this done on a Saturday?
I think boycotting is a bit melodramatic, but Ether has a point.
*just waiting patiently for the final lottery results*
*just waiting patiently for the final lottery results*
I'm somewhat obsessively refreshing the page, even though it'll probably be a while yet.
I'm okay if I don't get any events, though. Pickup games are often the best part of the convention. I got into the prequel to Citizens in a Strange Planet (or Strangers in a Civilized World, or whatever, I keep forgetting for some reason) last year thanks to it missing some players, and the same with a Swords and Wizardry game. Both were tons of fun.
So those of us who have to work until 5, home at 6 has no chance of sign up vs those who can do it at work or already home. Why isn't this done on a Saturday?I think boycotting is a bit melodramatic, but Ether has a point.
Agreed. Just crazy frusted and just needed to vent. :) I am lucky that I have 5 other friends going and we can just grab an open table and do our own thing. I have been playing/DM'ing D&D for 28 years, it's not like I can't throw a quick campaign together.
Any other working professional having issues with how this is being handled? This is my first year to Pazio Con, bought tickets and banquet back in October. Talk about super excited!!! Spend hours going over the lotto events, just to find out it was all wasted and would have been better just to randomly click on events, and focus on getting a PFS character up in levels. Then they hold the open events and remaining sign up at 2PM PST! So those of us who have to work until 5, home at 6 has no chance of sign up vs those who can do it at work or already home. Why isn't this done on a Saturday? And I know what you are thinking, i'm typing this up at at 3 what WTF. Well I am hoping I don't get busted for doing this at work and felt it's worth taking the chance even though its stressing me out. VERY VERY VERY disappointed in this whole process. Close to selling ticket and banquet and boycotting Paizoco!!!!!
We apologize for any confusion or frustration caused by this. Our tech team is trying to resolve this for everyone.
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Any other working professional having issues with how this is being handled? This is my first year to Pazio Con, bought tickets and banquet back in October. Talk about super excited!!! Spend hours going over the lotto events, just to find out it was all wasted and would have been better just to randomly click on events, and focus on getting a PFS character up in levels. Then they hold the open events and remaining sign up at 2PM PST! So those of us who have to work until 5, home at 6 has no chance of sign up vs those who can do it at work or already home. Why isn't this done on a Saturday? And I know what you are thinking, i'm typing this up at at 3 what WTF. Well I am hoping I don't get busted for doing this at work and felt it's worth taking the chance even though its stressing me out. VERY VERY VERY disappointed in this whole process. Close to selling ticket and banquet and boycotting Paizoco!!!!!
Honestly I am not particularly worried at this point. While I am very excited to be going to my first Paizocon and a little nervous that I won't the games I really wanted to get into I am not that worried. Having dealt with their customer service before with an issue on an order, and having seen them deal with problems my friends have had, I have every confidence that they will get this right. In my experience not only do they make sure things work out with the best possible resolution they also communicate very well and don't leave you in the dark for too long.
Now I don't want to come off like a fanboy, (though I really kinda am) I am just suggesting a little patience is in order. Regardless Paizocon is going to be awesome and I am going to have a ton of fun!
Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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I'll give you some perspective...for the 1st PaizoCon, we had 40 people or so. And the lottery was a top hat. In that hat were slips of paper. Each seat at a game table had a slip of paper with that game's name. People pulled one slip of paper out and BAM! that was the game you were playing in. You could try and swap with someone, but that was the game you got.
Presently, there are 400+ people attending. There are something like 7-8 sessions for the 3-day con. And LOTS of games. So, I'd say it's gotta be a heck of a challenge to fairly distribute gamers to those games. It's even harder to do that AND try to make sure everyone gets a game they really, really wanted.
I think you'll be surprised just how much fun you'll have at a game that you sorta weren't too excited to get. Or how much fun you're going to have even AWAY from the gaming table. PaizoCon is like that....
But, I trust that the Paizo team will set things right soon enough.
(Edit: That said, I do agree that it's disappointing and frustrating to have and then lose a game with the Paizo staff! No disagreement there!)
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I know this is an issue that unfortunately will be resolved when it's resolved and no sooner...
..but do we have an ETA on when Event Signup will be back up? I wasn't able to secure a ticket to PaizoCon until after the lottery due to work issues (making sure I'd have the time off) and open event signup is all I've got. I'd really prefer not to have to sit by the computer all night waiting (especially when the website had told me open signups didn't begin until 4:00 PM PST; not 2:00 PM). I'm not really willing to fly out to Seattle/Redmond for pickup games.
Chief Technical Officer
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Any other working professional having issues with how this is being handled? This is my first year to Pazio Con, bought tickets and banquet back in October. Talk about super excited!!! Spend hours going over the lotto events, just to find out it was all wasted and would have been better just to randomly click on events, and focus on getting a PFS character up in levels. Then they hold the open events and remaining sign up at 2PM PST! So those of us who have to work until 5, home at 6 has no chance of sign up vs those who can do it at work or already home. Why isn't this done on a Saturday? And I know what you are thinking, i'm typing this up at at 3 what WTF. Well I am hoping I don't get busted for doing this at work and felt it's worth taking the chance even though its stressing me out. VERY VERY VERY disappointed in this whole process. Close to selling ticket and banquet and boycotting Paizoco!!!!!
Etherdemon, the entire *point* of the lottery is to make it so that nobody has to sit at their computer at any particular time and go crazy trying to click some button—you get to express your interest in limited-seating events at your leisure during a window that's open for several days.
The events that opened for signup at 2PM are the ones with less limited seating, so if you're not there at 2PM, you're unlikely to miss out. Most of them will remain open for days, and you'd probably be able to get into many of them at any point between signup opening and signup closing.
If you have ideas for a procedure for booking things such as 6-person games with high-profile guests that's more fair to everyone than the lottery is, please let us know about it. Paizo and the rest of our community haven't been able to come up with anything better in the last four years...
Any other working professional having issues with how this is being handled? This is my first year to Pazio Con, bought tickets and banquet back in October. Talk about super excited!!! Spend hours going over the lotto events, just to find out it was all wasted and would have been better just to randomly click on events, and focus on getting a PFS character up in levels. Then they hold the open events and remaining sign up at 2PM PST! So those of us who have to work until 5, home at 6 has no chance of sign up vs those who can do it at work or already home. Why isn't this done on a Saturday? And I know what you are thinking, i'm typing this up at at 3 what WTF. Well I am hoping I don't get busted for doing this at work and felt it's worth taking the chance even though its stressing me out. VERY VERY VERY disappointed in this whole process. Close to selling ticket and banquet and boycotting Paizoco!!!!!Etherdemon, the entire *point* of the lottery is to make it so that nobody has to sit at their computer at any particular time and go crazy trying to click some button—you get to express your interest in limited-seating events at your leisure during a window that's open for several days.
The events that opened for signup at 2PM are the ones with less limited seating, so if you're not there at 2PM, you're unlikely to miss out. Most of them will remain open for days, and you'd probably be able to get into many of them at any point between signup opening and signup closing.
If you have ideas for a procedure for booking things such as 6-person games with high-profile guests that's more fair to everyone than the lottery is, please let us know about it. Paizo and the rest of our community haven't been able to come up with anything better in the last four years...
Yes I understand the concept of the Lottery and my intent was not to put that to the question. It was the concept of having the Open Event and sign up for remaining lottery event at 2 PM in the middle of the week. I think it puts those who can not by or acces Paizo.com during working hours at a huge disadvantage, especially for the lottery events that did not get filled. In the brief moment I was able to scroll down the list of open events there were several that were already fully booked. It just would have bee nice if this was done on a weekend.
That being said. I want to add that as a 25 year plus player of D&D, AD&D and 2e, Pathfinder is an amazing system. 3e - 4e just...well...not what I was hoping for in a DD systm. I commend the Paizo staff and writer for their hard work and great product! In the year and half playing PF I still eagerly await our weekly play sessions. My appolagizes if my initil blog came off rude or demeaning. It was a sense of frustration on a bad lottery draw and a fear of not getting a chance at open sign up for any remaing lottery slots.
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Chief Technical Officer
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In the brief moment I was able to scroll down the list of open events there were several that were already fully booked.
The only really limited events in the open signup section should be Pathfinder Society events, which are usually repeated multiple times during the show... plus, there's a whole lot of them, so even if you wait until the weekend to look for open events, you should still be able to find several scenarios to play at the show.
It was a sense of frustration on a bad lottery draw and a fear of not getting a chance at open sign up for any remaing lottery slots.
The way the lottery is designed, if you gave any lottery event you were actually willing to participate in at least a "1", there should *be* no open lottery events you're willing to participate in. Now, it turns out that due to a bug, there *were* some sessions left open after the lottery, but we'll be filling them from lottery participants before we put the events back up.
I don't understand where the disadvantage is? I'm fairly certain most of the open events are just that...open. It's also my understanding that Blood on the Devil's Platter wasn't supposed to available to sign up as an open event.
If that were the case, if it was a "click refresh madly around 2pm Pacific to try and get one of six slots with James Jacobs," then I could see being a touch upset with the timing.
Today is actually a really good example of why we schedule these things at 2 p.m. Pacific time on weekdays: So the tech staff can be in the office to fix things just in case they go haywire.
As an Sr Network Engineer for 10 years and putting in more night and weekend that would be considered healthy I dare say that it would be a shame if your team is afraid to put in a little weekend work. :p (Just a friedly rub) At what point do I get to make a DC check against Diplomacy?
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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If you have ideas for a procedure for booking things such as 6-person games with high-profile guests that's more fair to everyone than the lottery is, please let us know about it. Paizo and the rest of our community haven't been able to come up with anything better in the last four years...
Certainly something that leaps to mind is changing the system so that one lucky person can't get 2 or 3 sessions with an A-list GM while many other people get none. That's a problem with 3-day randomization with no memory of previous days: a single person can get lucky on all 3 days, as did happen for at least a few people in previous years.
Obviously a lottery comes down to luck to some extent, but it does seem like a reasonable goal of the system would be to prevent attendees from having multiple small-table games with staffers and high profile guests, when others have none at all.
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I was thinking about that just yesterday Russ, but on the other hand, does a 1-day attendee deserve equal chance as a 3-day attendee to get those coveted games? Or put another way, if the lottery was a single run, on average a 1-day attendee's single day would be as "special-packed" as the 3-day attendee's full weekend. As much as evening out the results appeals to me, that doesn't seem quite fair.
Of course, to me, sharing the experience with the other attendees, at PFS and seminars, at the banquet and convocation/etc., is truly what makes PaizoCon so great of a convention. The high-profile games are simply the icing on the cake.
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I'll give you some perspective...for the 1st PaizoCon, we had 40 people or so. And the lottery was a top hat. In that hat were slips of paper. Each seat at a game table had a slip of paper with that game's name. People pulled one slip of paper out and BAM! that was the game you were playing in. You could try and swap with someone, but that was the game you got.
And we walked up hill... in the snow.. both ways.. to get those slips of paper...
Well, ok, maybe not. But I *did* have to carry in a lot of soda.
Disappointed I didn't get my seat in beyond the gates of bastardhall back (I was part of it year 1, was really hoping to get into it again). such is life I suppose.
Got the same Lotto picks as before, and picked up the same open events. All is good.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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I was thinking about that just yesterday Russ, but on the other hand, does a 1-day attendee deserve equal chance as a 3-day attendee to get those coveted games? Or put another way, if the lottery was a single run, on average a 1-day attendee's single day would be as "special-packed" as the 3-day attendee's full weekend. As much as evening out the results appeals to me, that doesn't seem quite fair.
Of course, to me, sharing the experience with the other attendees, at PFS and seminars, at the banquet and convocation/etc., is truly what makes PaizoCon so great of a convention. The high-profile games are simply the icing on the cake.
Number of days attended could be accounted for while still eliminating the chance for multiple top-tier selections. With 3 days, you'd have a much higher change of getting one than a 1 day person by virtue of how many slots you could compete for, you just wouldn't have a chance at getting *two*.
I did get a few of my lottery choices, including one top choice (Swallowtail playtest). Of I think 5 slots I put in choices for, I got events in 2. Up to my third year now without getting an RPG event with a staffer, some of that because in the past I've volunteered to spend more than half the con running events. I'm dialing that back this year.
Hoping the lottery system didn't hand out the moon to anyone this year, so the highly limited contributor and staffer time gets spread out as much as possible.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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I'll give you some perspective...for the 1st PaizoCon, we had 40 people or so. And the lottery was a top hat. In that hat were slips of paper. Each seat at a game table had a slip of paper with that game's name. People pulled one slip of paper out and BAM! that was the game you were playing in. You could try and swap with someone, but that was the game you got.
Or if you volunteered to run a game (ahem), you missed all of those events entirely :) Bless Jason for staying late and running a 2nd game for the volunteers!
So the schedules up now are the right ones? It looks like I lost the one I originally had and got into one different one. Was hoping for a few more successes than one, but I'm sure I'll find some pickup games and have fun.
So the schedules up now are the right ones? It looks like I lost the one I originally had and got into one different one. Was hoping for a few more successes than one, but I'm sure I'll find some pickup games and have fun.
Our logs show that you were signed up for MinionQuest in the original lottery results and this appears to match your current schedule. Was there some other event you are missing?
When I first checked my lottery results it said I was signed up only for Casting Plaster Bricks, as was my buddy. Then the results vanished while the issues were all sorted out, and our new schedules have only MinionQuest (and open events). Which is fine, I'm not going to worry about it. :)
Edit: To clarify, we saw the Casting Plaster on our schedule on Wednesday around 4 pm-ish. I checked the message boards and saw the schedule finalization was still "in progress" and didn't think much more of it till I checked our schedules today and saw MQ instead. I think we'd rather game than cast plaster (though I will miss hanging with SKR) so it's really not a big deal.
CRAP! I was signed up for James Jacob's event Friday morning and after the event fiasco I am no longer in the game and it's full. I'm actually missing a number of events from my schedule now.
-_-
Well at least I still my Rappan Athuk event...
Due to yesterday's technical difficulties, it was necessary to roll back to the initial lottery picks. Since signups after 2 pm were lost, we took the opportunity to fill the friday morning slots that were erroneously not filled with additional lottery picks.
Due to yesterday's technical difficulties, it was necessary to roll back to the initial lottery picks. Since signups after 2 pm were lost, we took the opportunity to fill the friday morning slots that were erroneously not filled with additional lottery picks.CRAP! I was signed up for James Jacob's event Friday morning and after the event fiasco I am no longer in the game and it's full. I'm actually missing a number of events from my schedule now.
-_-
Well at least I still my Rappan Athuk event...
Sorry to hear. But be thankful that you had the opportunity to sign up at the 2 PM time. Unfortunaltely (And I ranted about this yesterday) I got home logged in around 6:30 and all my top prefernce picks were already full. So at this point I am bagging trying to plan it out and will jsut show up and play it by ear, I have not doubt that I WILL have a blast but there will be this taint of disappointment that this is all geared to those who are able to be at home, take a day off, or access this at work and those who have to work are kind of shafted. But hey! At least the techical staff didn't have to work the weekend......
I submitted lottery picks for almost every time slot from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon and uhh.. I got into uhh 2 things. Literally, 2 events. Is that normal? Talk about teh sux.
Good thing I'm flying cross country for this :(
Edit Oh and I didn't get into any games run by Paizo people.
Sigh.
I submitted lottery picks for almost every time slot from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon and uhh.. I got into uhh 2 things. Literally, 2 events. Is that normal? Talk about teh sux.
Good thing I'm flying cross country for this :(
Edit Oh and I didn't get into any games run by Paizo people.
Sigh.
Wow! You got two? Seriously you are one of the lucky few. I did the same as well as 5 others I know and we only got one each. In fact you may want to delete the post in case they take one away...JUSK KIDDING they wont do that. With 400 people going to the Con they wanted to make sure everyone got into at least one event. So congrats!!!
Two is definitely a good haul, Paizonians or no. After all, roughly 10 game-running Paizo staff * 2 games each = ~120 players tops, that's 1 in 4 or 5 probably.
Ether: I'm curious, which Open Events were your top picks and already taken? Perhaps private mail if you prefer.