Day 1 began as it always begins, check in. Really, seriously, I need to start planning on coming down on Thursday to avoid Friday. We really didn’t have trouble getting our room, it just wasn’t clean yet. So we got new rooms, but not before the bellman had brought up the bags to the unclean room. Why exactly are there two sets of bellmen? One helps you from the car to check in, the other helps you from check in to your room… two people, they each get half a tip.
With check in behind us, we set out to meet people and do stuff…
This year is seeing a few changes around the old Dragon*Con. Some tracks have been combined or changed, and there are some new ones. The old Tribe stuff has been pulled in to a new Apocalypse Rising track. I think I’m really going to like this one… I went to the kick off panel and we discussed all the ways the world can “end”, but of course apocalypse stories are not about the end of the world most of the time, they are about people surviving the end of the world they knew. Good stuff.
Next up was the MMO Obituary panel where we dragged out the corpses of all the dead (or dying) MMOs and continued to flog them, while at the same time discussing what they did do right and what we hope to see again. The Game Programming track that has finally broken away from the Electronic Frontiers Forums track looks to be another keeper.
Then we decided to wander through the dealer’s room and the exhibit halls… largely its all the same crap that is there every year. Not anything surprising, but some of it is still cool.
Back to the Apocalypse track to discuss pen and paper games. Lots of good stuff out there… Twilight 2000, Fading Suns, Aftermath, Rapture, Shadowrun, Deadlands, the Morrow Porject and more…
Some obligatory standing around and looking at costumes. Some people are crazy, and some are insane, and some simply should not be wearing that.
Last up for the night was a panel called “How NOT to get into the game industry.” I’ve been to the How To panel before, and this was a slightly more humorous take on the same subject… mostly I went to possibly meet Brian “Psychochild” Green, but he canceled, so poo on him.
Time for bed because I’ve been up too long today… and tomorrow is another day…
Ah, sorry to miss you. :/ Dragon*Con was a bit of a mess on the speaker’s side this year due to some changes in how speakers (aka “Guests”) are approved. From what I was told, they got flooded at the last minute and denied everyone except the really famous people. This was, of course, after I had already talked to the EFF track organizer and said I’d speak.
I decided not to attend, given that there’s the other conference in Austin right after. I was going to fly to Atlanta, then to Austin. Two conferences back-to-back, ugh!
Anyway, if you’re a regular I’ll probably be around next year. I love Dragon*Con, and I’ve been told that someone will contact me early so that I can get my application in on time. I look forward to meeting another fan. 🙂