Federation Commander

I should be there by then with a few friends!

In theory, I'll get them Tuesday at 11:55pm. I may or may not wander across the street to D240 to see if anybody is there.

Battlegroup Murfreesboro should be there Tuesday around 1500 hours.
I suppose this means you'll see me on Wednesday...

I should be getting there around 8 pm on Tuesday.

Jean wrote:I should be getting there around 8 pm on Tuesday.

Does that mean I get to drive "baby car" to the hotel? Or will your GPS supercede my GPT?

Well, my travel plans had a slight alteration, so unless you are willing to drive Baby Car from Lynchburg, VA, then I think not.

I'll be meeting up with some friends in Lynchburg on Monday evening and hanging out there. Then one of them and I will head to Columbus (me as navigator, Oh! The Horror!) and he'll drop me off at the hotel on Tuesday before heading back to his own, closer to the con.

Sunday, he's volunteered to help break down the booth if security will let him stay and then we'll head back to Lynchburg, arriving in the wee hours of the morning.

This really helps as I am usually worn out by Sunday and the three hour drive to my hotel was a difficult one.

Baby Car says to tell you hello, though!

Yes, it will have a negative impact for us next year. Many of the people directly responsible for running the events for us cannot get off work then. We are debating what to do; more about the debate will be in CL#43.

Yep. It will definitely affect my plans for next year.
I certainly won't be there for the entire event.

I'm debating a drive up Friday after work and gaming on Satuday and saying, "Hi!" to all, but...
Gas - food - lodging - 6-hour drive each way; just to spend a Saturday laying games when I have a dozen local players. It hardly seems worth it.

We know about the date change, and we are officially not happy.

Lots of unhappy people all around the industry.

GAMA thinks that cheaper hotel rates will mean more attendance, but that's nonsense, and the hotels are full every year even at the higher prices.

Right now, we have the following choices for 2012.

1. Go, have NO events whatsoever (as we have no staff to run them), smaller crowd, lose money.

2. change the SFB annual party to Gencon. Well, I hate gencon and it has other issues which make it problematic.

3. hold our own con or join some small con somewhere, but we'd see 50 total people because of the lack of the "origins carnival" thing.

4. don't go at all, and tell everyone we won't be there.

I am having a lot of trouble in figuring out which evil is least. We will make a decision by November. Until then, don't make any reservations you cannot get refunded.

Not happy with this either.

As Steve said, the part about cheaper hotel rates is a non-starter. People plan for Origins. They save up for it, they know they are going to have to spend money. It isn't a spur of the moment decision based upon how much cash they have in their wallet that day.

Myself, I stay with my sis-in-law 6 miles from the convention center, which is as cheap as it gets.

I have two kids, 13 and 9 - who LOVE Origins. It is a great con for families. I feel comfortable letting the older one go play a game by herself there, and I don't fear losing them like a do at Gencon with it's silly-huge crowds. But the new dates are during the school year. Will I take them out of class for 3 days (Wed, Thu, Fri) to go play games? I don't see that happening. Sucks.

Anyhow, me and mine will be at Origins this year, and buying W&P and BA and maybe the battleships booster box, if I see it there. Probably knocking folks over to get to the "seconds" minis Wednesday morning...

Our challenged starships will welcome going to a good home!

Yes, Bruce is looking forward to recovering the metal from the defective ships and melting them all down.

Going to be a problem this year, as GAMA got pissed at us moving the round table beside our booth, and came up with some bogus reason to move our booth five slots down the row where we cannot do that. I'm threatening to let Petrick take care of the starships at the tournament.

I won't be going, as per usual (sigh...); but I would like to ask those of you who are going if you might consider giving some of the Omega playtest material in the version 2 file a try.

Any feedback you could generate from on-table experience would be very much appreciated.

Gary, if you're talking about the FC stuff, you should track down Mike Filsinger and make arrangements to get him (and me) copies of what you want tested. I can run them off, and he can see if anybody would be willing to give them a test drive.