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So you have your PaizoCon badge and you're looking at the Event Schedule page and wondering what to do? Hopefully the following will help and if not, please feel free to ask questions!
Table of Contents
If you have any questions or immediate concerns, post to this thread or email us at paizocon@paizo.com.
These events are generally small tables of highly sought after games. Generally these games have a limited number of seats available and in order to provide the fairest opportunity for attendees to register for these games, we run an event lottery. To be included in the event lottery and get your chance at these games, you need to register your lottery preferences by Monday, April 27 at 2:00 PM Pacific time.
Instructions from the Event Schedule page
Because event seating is limited, we are using a lottery system to maximize the number of people who are able to attend certain PaizoCon events each day.Mark each event with a ranking from 0 to 4:
0. I do not want to attend this event.
1. Attending this event is the lowest priority for me.
2. Attending this event is a low priority for me.
3. Attending this event is a priority for me.
4. Attending this event is my highest priority.
The lottery will not assign you to events that you gave a 0, and it will not assign you to events with conflicting schedules.
The lottery will assign each day's events in separate rounds. We'll randomize the list of attendees and, going down the list, assign people to one of their highest-ranked available events. When we reach the bottom of the list, we'll re-randomize it and start again, continuing this process until no more assignments can be made. We'll repeat this process for each day. This process is designed to allow the greatest number of people to attend one or more events each day (although we cannot guarantee any particular event or number of events to anyone).
The system is designed so that the more accurately your rankings reflect your desires, the better we will be able to serve you. You'll be happiest with the results if you spend some time considering your relative rankings, and actually use 4s, 3s, 2s, 1s, and 0s. (Using only 4s, for example, would not increase your odds of attending any event—it would just decrease our ability to figure out which events you really want to attend.)
After the lottery has ended, you'll be able to view your events here, and any events that still have open seats will be made available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Not everyone will "win" the lottery and be placed in Lottery Events. The purpose of the lottery is to make the process of signing up for these games as fair as we can. There are far more attendees than there are seats in lottery events. Depending on when your name comes up in the lottery and your preferences, you may not get into any lottery events. If this happens, keep in mind that there are still lots of open event games, seminars, and pick up games run on the fly.
The window for preference selection ends on Monday, April 27 at 2:00 PM Pacific time. We will then announce the results and open Open Registration and Event Trading on Thursday, April 30 at 2:00 PM Pacific time.
These events are generally things open seating, on-going events, or events for Pathfinder Society (except the Friday and Sunday night specials).
Open Registration will begin on Thursday, April 30 at 3:30 PM Pacific time. You cannot select Open Registration events until then.
We have posted all of our available events so that you can more accurately plan your schedule at the show. Please keep in mind that Open Registration events may fill up, and we encourage you to register for them online prior to the convention. You can find these events by selecting "Recommended" or "Not required" under the Registration section on the left side of the Event Schedule page.
You may request one other PaizoCon attendee as your "buddy." You and your buddy will always be assigned to lottery events together. When you make a buddy request, your buddy will be sent an email asking them to accept your buddy request. They must accept your request before the end of the lottery selection process.
The buddy system is intended for guests who need to attend PaizoCon lottery events with another guest such as a parent and child. Because the lottery system can only place buddies in events with two or more open seats, it may limit the number of events available for two buddies to be placed in.
1. Send the Buddy request from the Event Schedule page.
2. When the Buddy gets the email showing their has been a request, the Buddy should go to their event page on their account and accept the buddy request.
3. If the request does not appear on their account page, make sure that you sent the request to the correct email address and make sure that they have a PaizoCon badge on their account.
The buddy system works for lottery events only. For open registration events both you and you buddy need to make sure to sign up for the event. Registration for open events starts on Thursday, April 30 at 3:30 PM Pacific time.
After the Event Lottery results are announced, you can trade your event registration with other PaizoCon attendees from the Event Schedule page. In order to do this, you need to indicate which event (or events) you'd like to offer for trade in the Event Trading section that will appear on the Event Schedule page once Open Registration and Event Trading begins on Thursday, April 30 at 3:30 PM Pacific time.
This is my first PaizoCon and I have little idea what is going on or how I am supposed to sign up for events. There is a lottery, and it seems that I am supposed to put in for what I want to play and how bad 0-4. So if you want to play put 4 and if you don't want to play 0? If you put 4 for something you want more than something else and say put a 3 then you might not get in to either, that's not so bad I'll just go and do a PFS event, well it looks like there are only 6 seats in the time slot for the event I want what if 7 people sign up for it? Why isn't everything in a lottery? My girlfriend is my "buddy" and we want to play together on everything, if I win a lotto does she as well? It allows me to sign up for events that will only hold 6 players as well, should I sign up for those incase I don't win any lottery choices? If I sign up for those and win a lotto should I cancel the event sign up? My buddy is also able to sign up for different events than me, should we both just try to get into the same stuff and make our preference sheet identical?
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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This is my first PaizoCon and I have little idea what is going on or how I am supposed to sign up for events. There is a lottery, and it seems that I am supposed to put in for what I want to play and how bad 0-4. So if you want to play put 4 and if you don't want to play 0? If you put 4 for something you want more than something else and say put a 3 then you might not get in to either, that's not so bad I'll just go and do a PFS event, well it looks like there are only 6 seats in the time slot for the event I want what if 7 people sign up for it? Why isn't everything in a lottery? My girlfriend is my "buddy" and we want to play together on everything, if I win a lotto does she as well? It allows me to sign up for events that will only hold 6 players as well, should I sign up for those incase I don't win any lottery choices? If I sign up for those and win a lotto should I cancel the event sign up? My buddy is also able to sign up for different events than me, should we both just try to get into the same stuff and make our preference sheet identical?
Lottery events are done that way due to high demand and usually very limited slots. PFS is less in demand and thus the lottery is less useful. If you are prompt in the open event selection, you can usually get all the PFS you want, though perhaps not exactly when you want. Honestly, if PFS tables got filled by lottery, I bet fewer of them would muster on time. People would not show up, because the game isn't a top priority for them and you'd have to scramble to fill the table. It happens with 3pp lottery events every year I have been.
For lottery events leave a zero in anything you don't want to play, or where you would prefer an open event, like PFS or a presentation event.
Then, of the things that look fun, rank them higher the more you want to play them. Buddies get seated together for lottery events. So, it may behoove you and your lottery buddy to make similar lottery picks. But, non lottery events are open. Both you and your buddy need to go register for the event once open registration starts.
For now, things are simple, lottery events can be selected ( from now until Monday ). Nothing else is open.
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My girlfriend is my "buddy" and we want to play together on everything, if I win a lotto does she as well? It allows me to sign up for events that will only hold 6 players as well, should I sign up for those incase I don't win any lottery choices? If I sign up for those and win a lotto should I cancel the event sign up? My buddy is also able to sign up for different events than me, should we both just try to get into the same stuff and make our preference sheet identical?
I don't quite understand the inner workings of the buddy system but I can tell you how it worked out for me. Last year was my first. My girlfriend and I linked up as buddies and ended up not getting into many events. We only got into one game, I think because a game needs to have room for you AND your buddy. (Although I'll acknowledge part of our problem might have been unfamiliarity with the lottery system in general.)
This year we're going to try no buddy system, line up our lottery choices as much as possible, and then try and trade our way into games together during the trading period. I'm hoping this works out better for us. I imagine that at some of the high-demand table the odds of getting in are already pretty slim--restricting your options to only when there are 2 seats available makes things unnecessarily difficult.
Good luck getting what you want!
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I'm trying to do a better job navigating the lottery this year.
To confirm, lottery assignments are done one day at a time, correct? Something rated 4 on Saturday would never be competing with a Friday event rated 4 when my turn comes up. Right? But Friday afternoon 4s would compete with Friday morning 4s.
That's how I read it. I'm just trying to be crystal clear. It sounds like the best strategy is to only have one 4 per day, representing your "if I could only get one thing, it would be this" option. If your 4 option isn't available, you'd drop down to the 3s for that day.
And if there is availability in more than one event for which I've assigned a rating (say, things are full and you're down to my 1s), I assume you're going to assign one randomly. I hope you roll dice to pick.
Senior Software Developer
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Your selections for each day affect only your schedule for that day.
For details on how the lottery works, here it is straight from the javadoc:
The source of randomness will be a java.security.SecureRandom using the SHA1PRNG algorithm, seeded by rolling 3d8, eight times. (Yes, physical dice.)*
The lottery will be in multiple rounds, at least one for each day of the convention. For each round,
1. Select a dictator. The list of attendees is shuffled, then the first person in the shuffled list is selected as dictator and removed from the list. If the dictator has a buddy, that person is noted and also removed from the list. (That is, if your buddy gets selected, you and the dictator are both considered to have had your chance in this round.)
2. Let the dictator dictate. We'll collect the list of events for the specified day that the dictator (and buddy) has marked as ranked highest, and shuffle that list.
The first event in the list will be examined: if there's space available for the person selected (and buddy), then that person (and buddy) is assigned to the event. If there isn't space available, then another event is selected, repeating until all highest-ranked events have been exhausted.
Once we've tried the dictator's highest ranked events, we move on to the next-highest ranked list, and so on, until we've assigned the dictator to an event, or the dictator's list of desired events is exhausted.
The shuffle list—select dictator—shuffle events—select event process repeats until we've exhausted either the entire list of attendees, or all the events for the day.
If we've exhausted the list of attendees but not the available events, we start another round for all attendees for the remaining events for that day. If no assignment gets made in a round, we stop doing rounds for that day and move on to the next day.
cs erik: Gary at some point today can you run the lottery on paizo.test?
pmg: no
pmg: i lack the equipment
pmg: MY KINGDOM FOR 3D8!
cort: Ask and you shall receive.
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Chief Technical Officer
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The upshot of all that is this: The lottery will give you the best results if you give it the best, most honest data. And the more events you give a non-zero number to, the more likely it is that the lottery will find an event for you when your number comes up.
And be honest with the 1-to-4 rankings—when your number comes up, they help us figure out which available event will make you happiest. You won't get more events by setting everything you want at "4"—you'll just increase the chances that events you might get are not the ones you would have really preferred.
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Are Banquet tickets refundable, tradeable or transferable? If I've already purchased a banquet ticket, but the lottery matches me with an event during the banquet, what can I do?
Refundable: I would check with customer service on that question
Tradeable: At Paizocon, you can probably trade it off but I would double check.
Transferable: They usually have a board where you can put up your event ticket you do not want and grab one you do.
If this is your first Paizocon, I would recommend the banquet as you will usually have a your table people from Paizo or other guests at your table where you can chat with them during or after the meal. Later during the event, you get a preview of products for the coming year.
Customer Service Manager
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I believe that the lottery calculates the Banquet as an event you are already scheduled for if you have the ticket on your account and will not place you in any lottery events at that time. Tickets are refundable and transferable up to the point when we close online event registration. After that it's up to you to physically transfer the ticket from your registration packet to another attendee. If you have a circumstance that makes something untenable, definitely contact paizocon@paizo.com or customer.service@paizo.com to see if we have additional options based on individual needs.
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I believe that the lottery calculates the Banquet as an event you are already scheduled for if you have the ticket on your account and will not place you in any lottery events at that time. Tickets are refundable and transferable up to the point when we close online event registration. After that it's up to you to physically transfer the ticket from your registration packet to another attendee. If you have a circumstance that makes something untenable, definitely contact paizocon@paizo.com or customer.service@paizo.com to see if we have additional options based on individual needs.
Thanks. Email sent.
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Are Banquet tickets refundable, tradeable or transferable? If I've already purchased a banquet ticket, but the lottery matches me with an event during the banquet, what can I do?Refundable: I would check with customer service on that question
Tradeable: At Paizocon, you can probably trade it off but I would double check.
Transferable: They usually have a board where you can put up your event ticket you do not want and grab one you do.
If this is your first Paizocon, I would recommend the banquet as you will usually have a your table people from Paizo or other guests at your table where you can chat with them during or after the meal. Later during the event, you get a preview of products for the coming year.
It is my first Paizocon, and I'm looking forward to the banquet, but there's one lottery event during the banquet that I'm equally interested in.
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I believe that the lottery calculates the Banquet as an event you are already scheduled for if you have the ticket on your account and will not place you in any lottery events at that time. Tickets are refundable and transferable up to the point when we close online event registration. After that it's up to you to physically transfer the ticket from your registration packet to another attendee. If you have a circumstance that makes something untenable, definitely contact paizocon@paizo.com or customer.service@paizo.com to see if we have additional options based on individual needs.Thanks. Email sent.
The original email, sent to paizocon@paizo.com, received no reply. I sent a second email this morning to customer.service@paizo.com.
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Customer Service Manager
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The original email, sent to paizocon@paizo.com, received no reply. I sent a second email this morning to customer.service@paizo.com.I believe that the lottery calculates the Banquet as an event you are already scheduled for if you have the ticket on your account and will not place you in any lottery events at that time. Tickets are refundable and transferable up to the point when we close online event registration. After that it's up to you to physically transfer the ticket from your registration packet to another attendee. If you have a circumstance that makes something untenable, definitely contact paizocon@paizo.com or customer.service@paizo.com to see if we have additional options based on individual needs.Thanks. Email sent.
I'm so sorry about the lack of response. Looking over it, I know I read it and I thought I had responded. Clearly not though and I am very sorry! I've sent a response now, please let me know if that doesn't work out for you.
I'm trying to do my schedule and I'm wondering if I missed something. Are there truly no Society events except in the morning?
Also, is it safe to assume that the only events that give Society credit are those with chronicle numbers, with the exception of "Out of Retirement," or is there some other way I should be searching?
This whole system is pretty confusing, and I'm worried I won't be able to get in the amount of Society play I anticipated.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I'm trying to do my schedule and I'm wondering if I missed something. Are there truly no Society events except in the morning?
Also, is it safe to assume that the only events that give Society credit are those with chronicle numbers, with the exception of "Out of Retirement," or is there some other way I should be searching?
This whole system is pretty confusing, and I'm worried I won't be able to get in the amount of Society play I anticipated.
There are scheduled PFS games in the morning and evening slots. The games with chronicle numbers and the specials give PFS credit.
If you want to get more PFS credit, give it a day, then look for Warhorn links to schedule mid day PFS. I suspect others may also be interested in doing some PFS.
The window for preference selection ends on Monday, April 27 at 2:00 PM Pacific time. We will then announce the results and open Open Registration and Event Trading on Thursday, April 30 at 2:00 PM Pacific time.
A question about this: does the bolded bit above mean that both those things - announcing results and opening Open Registration - happen at the same time? Or will the lottery results be posted sooner than that, leaving some time to plan for Open Registration? If I recall correctly, there was some time between the two in previous years.
Eagerly awaiting lottery results for me and my buddy...
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The window for preference selection ends on Monday, April 27 at 2:00 PM Pacific time. We will then announce the results and open Open Registration and Event Trading on Thursday, April 30 at 2:00 PM Pacific time.A question about this: does the bolded bit above mean that both those things - announcing results and opening Open Registration - happen at the same time? Or will the lottery results be posted sooner than that, leaving some time to plan for Open Registration? If I recall correctly, there was some time between the two in previous years.
Eagerly awaiting lottery results for me and my buddy...
Yes ... I would like some time to sit down with my buddy and discuss what we want to fill our open spots with based on what we get. Would be best if that could be done by Wednesday night as I won't have a chance to discuss with him again until Thursday night.
Understanding of course that this is a pretty quick turn-around on lottery. I don't know how automated it is ... maybe completely.
It seems unlikely that we'll get results very soon...the Event Schedule page now says that lottery sign-ups will close at 11:59 tonight, and I'm able to change my lottery preferences.
Can Sara Marie or another devoted Paizoan shed some light on this?
The lottery results are historically linked with the start of Open Registration, so yes, they'll be announced at the same time. I can see where this causes some logistical problems for attendees, and we'll likely discuss it when we revisit improvements for next year. We need this additional day between selections and announcement to ensure that everything is going as intended on our end.
We did extend the selection window again until tonight at 11:59pm PST due to some badge adjustments that were not received/addressed in time for some attendees to give them a chance to make selections.
Thanks for the heads up its good to know whats going to happen.
I do have to say I'm amazed that Paizo is dropping the ball this badly on something like this. Based on other posts this is not a new situation and has been the SOP for a number of years?
I don't understand why the announcement of what lottery events people got into and the open sign up going live have to be stacked on top of each other. It seems like it makes things harder for the customers and the staff since they have a deadline to meet for having the results entered.
Would delaying the start of the open signup 24-48 hours after the lottery results are posted really be that big of an impact, since open sign ups are open for 2 weeks?
/rant
Sorry, just trying to get the best experience I can out of my first PaizoCon.
JD
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Customer Service Manager
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Its something we can look into possibly for future years, but my understanding is that it is not currently possible for us to separate showing the lottery results and open registration. Some of these little logistical challenges come up each year as we continue to expand and we are always looking for things that need to be improved, (though no promise for what we are able or not able to change for future processes).
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Its something we can look into possibly for future years, but my understanding is that it is not currently possible for us to separate showing the lottery results and open registration. Some of these little logistical challenges come up each year as we continue to expand and we are always looking for things that need to be improved, (though no promise for what we are able or not able to change for future processes).
Just to be clear, both open registration and lottery results are scheduled to be released tomorrow at 2 PST?
Sara, Thank you for the clarification that it is a technical limitation and that you all are aware of it and looking for solutions for the future.
I do appreciate that everyone at Paizo is willing to communicate about things like this.
JD
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Customer Service Manager
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Should all go well, lottery results will get displayed and open registration will happen at 2pm tomorrow. We've actually just run the lottery (takes only a few minutes) and I noticed that the user I was doing a check on doesn't have all the events they got into on their web schedule. Tech team is helping look into why that's occurring.
Looking over the results, the actual lottery went smoothly. Because of how people enter preferences there's quite a few of the "lottery" events that are wide open for people to choose from.
I don't understand why the announcement of what lottery events people got into and the open sign up going live have to be stacked on top of each other. It seems like it makes things harder for the customers and the staff since they have a deadline to meet for having the results entered.
Actually, having the announcement of lottery events simultaneous makes it fairer, at least in my opinion.
Having a day or so to plan exact schedules would give logging in exactly when open signup happens much higher value. That would both clog the servers (and they already crash or come close most years), and be less fair for those who are not able to log in right away. Speaking as someone who has usually been able to log in immediately but won't this year, I appreciate the delay that sifting through the lottery events received and the events that remain open will cause.
There's plenty of time for signups - delaying it only skews things more.
Just a quick update: we did have a small hiccup with event schedules and their display. Open Registration has tentatively been pushed out to 3:30 PM Pacific time so our tech team can push a fix for it. Once it's open, we'll shout it from our collective mountain tops here, on our blog, social media postings and a mailing :)
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I don't have any events either. Unlikely we both got nothing (I had checked quite a few options) I think it's just part of the current hiccup. I presume you'll see your schedule once it goes live.
Hmmm ... actually I see the one event I was able to schedule before they took it back down, but nothing else. Maybe I DID get nothing.
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Customer Service Manager
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We are having an issue that the Preview Banquet isn't showing up on people's schedules who have tickets. We hope to have that resolved very soon, and you can always check your My E-Tickets page to see if you have a banquet ticket. We were initially going to hold off on the Open Registration until we had it fixed, but it requires us to roll some code so we're just going to push results live now.
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Customer Service Manager
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I am very sorry for the confusion involved at the moment. This has been very jarring to have happened as we thought everything was going to be very smooth this year. Basically, we've moved the Open Registration/Lottery results to 3:30pm. Myself, Robot Chris and Katina will be flagging all the events as lottery so that we get this resolved for people to sign up for events ASAP.
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Customer Service Manager
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How is it possible that lottery events are open (and have empty seats) that I ranked, and the only thing in my event schedule is the Sunday Night Special, which, funny enough, wasn't lottery, and I didn't sign up for it (yet, I though).
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I assume that since the special went from lottery to non-lottery it did not ignore the preferences selected before I made that change as it was supposed to.