So I’m going to Paizocon for the first time this year. About when do the PaizoCon events come out for preregistration?
Thanks in advance
Thanks Tom. Just so I understand, they do a lottery for events, then they do open reg and people can trade or whatever?
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There will be a lottery for high demand events—games run by authors and developers, a small subset of PFS games, games offered by third parties, Pathfinder 2 preview games, etc. The schedule will get posted for us to take a look, and then the lottery will open.
In the lottery, you'll rate things based on how badly you want to play it. It's used solely to communicate to Paizo your order of preference during the lottery. They'll randomize a list of all of us in the lottery, then work down the list. When they get to your name, they'll look at your number 4 rated event. If there is an opening, you're in. If not, they look at your number 3 rated event, etc. If you have more than one at a rating, you'll randomly be assigned one. I believe they go through the whole list, then re-randomize and repeat until that day's events are full.
My personal approach—I'll only have one thing rated 4, so it's clear that Paizo consider that before anything else. I'll try to have only one thing ranked 3, but have sometimes had 2. At the 2 ranking, I start having more events where I'd be fine getting any of them. I still try to limit that level to 3 events or so. Rank 1 is where everything else I'd like to play ends up.
Remember that rating something highly doesn't increase the probability you'll get in, it just tells Paizo your order of preference. Rating a bunch of things a 4 doesn't help. If just means that when your turn to be assigned something comes up, Paizo won't know what you want most.
Most PFS games and panels are part of open registration. When the lottery results get posted, open registration will begin. You'll be able to sign up for PFS events, and grab any open slots in lottery events that didn't get filled. At the same time, trading will open up, so people will be able to offer an event slot and specify what they want in exchange.
Awesome! Thanks Tom!
Hello, I'll probably fly into Seattle the morning of Friday. I'm trying to figure out when the early Friday games start. I noticed on these forums some GMs suggesting their times slots start at 7:45 a.m. Is that when the games actually start, or when doors open to the ballroom, or something else? Thank you very much.
8am was the start session time for most PFS stuff.
8am was the start session time for most PFS stuff.
Thank you!
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Per the email that GMs and HQ vols got, the slot times for the Games are:
Morning 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Afternoon 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM*
Evening. 7:00 PM - MIDNIGHT
Overnight 1:00 AM - 6:00 AM
GMs have to be there 30 minutes earlier to get table assignments and set themselves up.
*Saturday afternoon games must be completed and closed out by 5 to allow time to get the room ready for the Preview Banquet.
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You’re in the right forum! The schedule should be accessible through the Events tab from the PaizoCon part of the site, but there will be a lot of discussion here once it’s up. The place where the events are listed also has a sidebar with your schedule, so once the lottery runs, you’ll see your results there. (This is how it worked in past years, so there’s the possibility of something being different this year!)
There should also be an email from Paizo once the schedule is up and you can set your rankings for the lottery.
Hello. I just received the email about the lottery events, but I have 2 tickets and was wondering if the ratings I set for each event apply to both tickets or just the one with my name on it? I just want to make sure my wife and I can play at the same tables.
From the sidebar on the event listing page:
You may request one other PaizoCon attendee as your "buddy." The lottery will ensure that you and your buddy will always be assigned to events together. When you make a buddy request, your buddy will be sent an email asking them to accept your buddy request. They must have a badge on their individual paizo.com account. You can transfer badges that you have purchased on your My eTickets page (via My Account). They must accept your request before the lottery begins.The buddy system is intended for guests who need to attend PaizoCon events with another guest. 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.
The buddy system only applies during the lottery—once open registration begins, you are responsible for coordinating your schedule with your buddy.
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Hello. I just received the email about the lottery events, but I have 2 tickets and was wondering if the ratings I set for each event apply to both tickets or just the one with my name on it? I just want to make sure my wife and I can play at the same tables.
You need to transfer the ticket to your wife. You won’t get double sign ups having two tickets on your account.
My girlfriend and I go through and just mirror our preferences for the lottery.
There is a buddy system, but we don’t use it. It’s best, in my opinion, for situations like attending with a minor where you’d rather not play that have one of you play alone. The buddy system significantly reduces your chances of getting into the high demand games, since you MUST have two openings at a table for either of you to get the slot. (This is offset a bit by the fact that you’re increasing your chances that one of you will show up early in the list while assigning slots.)
We did the buddy system our first year and got none of our highest preference games. Every year since, we line up our selections and then trade for games to play together. But most of what we play together are PFS games that we get through open registration. We usually only get one ticket to things like James Jacobs’ games.
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The lottery is set to be sorted out by tomorrow. You will see the results and find which games you got into as of 11 AM Pacific. You can hop over to the PaizoCon Events page to see your results.
I was hoping that with an extra day in-between the end of the lottery and the general sign up that we'd find out lottery results a day early, so we can pick out which other events we want to sign up for (especially for those of us that have to coordinate with another person) and be ready to go at 11 on Wednesday.
Yeah, it does seem like opening event registration at the same time as lottery results are posted will result in a mad registration rush before people can fully figure out their schedule.
I was hoping that with an extra day in-between the end of the lottery and the general sign up that we'd find out lottery results a day early, so we can pick out which other events we want to sign up for (especially for those of us that have to coordinate with another person) and be ready to go at 11 on Wednesday.Yeah, it does seem like opening event registration at the same time as lottery results are posted will result in a mad registration rush before people can fully figure out their schedule.
Indeed, this is less than ideal. We were hoping to be able to plan our picks ahead of time, but without knowing what lottery events we got into we can't.