WT* is PolyCon?

[UnOrthOdOx]

What all went on at the 06 one, anyway?

I can't gaze into my crystal ball and tell you what my job will entail next month, let alone July-August of 09. But if able to, I'ld be at least somewhat interested.

[snoopy369]

We had folks from Firaxis and BHG speak about Civ ... Soren/Dorian gave their GDC presentation on the making of Civ4, Alex and Jon(Trip) gave a talk on modding Civ and showed off some Warlords content, Paul from BHG talked about BHG, Brian Reynolds talked about Civ2/SMAC and his history with it, Sid talked about Sid stuff , and everyone answered questions, and signed stuff. Firaxis also gave away all sorts of random stuff (like old civ games that are well out of print... didn't have any Civ1 original copies though ). Markos and Dan also gave a talk about Apolyton, and there was a talk about the FreeCiv project (Thue I think?). I might have talked about something also, can't for the life of me remember what.

We also toured BHG HQ, and played a 'game night' with some of the folks from BHG (board games, Rise of Legends, etc.) in their office; Mark and Dan toured Firaxis HQ, which wasn't available to the general public because of some projects that were not able to be generally made known; and we had a Civ gaming session with Alex, Trip, Ryan Meier, Soren, and a bunch of us.

I'd want to hold it in Baltimore again if possible, since that would get us the best guests (ie, Firaxis and BHG again, hopefully!)... The main concerns with the '06 one were costs - almost $200 per person plus hotel, which is unreasonably high for anyone who doens't live in the area. Finding a way to pay for the hotel space with far less money would be ideal; either getting corporate sponsorship, or a cheaper place, or both. Using Firaxis HQ or BHG HQ isn't really an option, although it's possible one or the other would permit it; it's too risky that something would come up at the last minute, and they'd not be able to let us in (initially, Firaxis was going to let us do one day at their HQ, but various things prevented that from being possible at the last minute, for example).

Also getting more civ-related content up, particularly adding a day to it (instead of basically just being saturday and a little bit on friday, making it all day sat and sun, and a longer bit fri. for those who can get the time off, would be better). A proper civ4 tourney would be good, possibly including non-LAN players (ie, folks who couldn't attend the conference playing from at home).

I'm not entirely sure if it's practical to keep it to only Apolytoners, also, or if it would be a better experience if others were invited as well. That's a question that any given committee would have to discuss amongst themselves, I think, and decide how exactly it will go. It's certain that a "CivCon" would get much more sponsorship than "ApolyCon" (even if we still called it ApolyCon)...

I'd definitely be interested in talking about these issues in a more defined format (ie a forum) ... Why don't we have anyone who's interested in being on the organizing committee PM me or Dan, and we'll think about what we can do in terms of organization this early. I'd expect anyone who would be on said committee to commit to at attending and to doing some work ahead of time, understanding that it's possible that things might change later but at least at this time be able to 99% commit. Once a few of us discuss some of the ground rules, we can start having more open public discussion about it, which is definitely an important aspect of this.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Methos from CFC
Assuming you all don't mind a CFC'er helping out, I'd volunteer to work on the committee. [Maintaining the Poly only as in the last con]

Of course we'd be glad to have you

Where in Missouri are you from, btw? I spend a bit of time in that state (GF's parents are in Marceline, her brother's in Colombia and the other brother's in KC area)...

[Wiglaf]

Re: WT* is PolyCon?

Originally posted by LordShiva
I just noticed that teh PolyCon forum was closed

Will more inactive sub-fora face a similar fate?

Look what you've done, now they're planning another convention

DanQ, I suggest you contact PIZZA HUT. They will be happy to sponsor your convention. They sponsored my high school graduation, though there was a lot more action going on then than there will be at polycon, I'm pretty sure their main interest is not the amount of screwing that goes on at after parties, but the amount of people in attendance. This being the case, get about 300-400 attendees and eat pizza and you will have your sponsor

[LordShiva]

Re: Re: WT* is PolyCon?

Originally posted by Wiglaf


Look what you've done, now they're planning another convention

I guess "back on topic" doesn't apply to staff members

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by snoopy369
We had folks from Firaxis and BHG speak about Civ ... Soren/Dorian gave their GDC presentation on the making of Civ4, Alex and Jon(Trip) gave a talk on modding Civ and showed off some Warlords content, Paul from BHG talked about BHG, Brian Reynolds talked about Civ2/SMAC and his history with it, Sid talked about Sid stuff , and everyone answered questions, and signed stuff. Firaxis also gave away all sorts of random stuff (like old civ games that are well out of print... didn't have any Civ1 original copies though ). Markos and Dan also gave a talk about Apolyton, and there was a talk about the FreeCiv project (Thue I think?). I might have talked about something also, can't for the life of me remember what.

We also toured BHG HQ, and played a 'game night' with some of the folks from BHG (board games, Rise of Legends, etc.) in their office; Mark and Dan toured Firaxis HQ, which wasn't available to the general public because of some projects that were not able to be generally made known; and we had a Civ gaming session with Alex, Trip, Ryan Meier, Soren, and a bunch of us.

I'd want to hold it in Baltimore again if possible, since that would get us the best guests (ie, Firaxis and BHG again, hopefully!)... The main concerns with the '06 one were costs - almost $200 per person plus hotel, which is unreasonably high for anyone who doens't live in the area. Finding a way to pay for the hotel space with far less money would be ideal; either getting corporate sponsorship, or a cheaper place, or both. Using Firaxis HQ or BHG HQ isn't really an option, although it's possible one or the other would permit it; it's too risky that something would come up at the last minute, and they'd not be able to let us in (initially, Firaxis was going to let us do one day at their HQ, but various things prevented that from being possible at the last minute, for example).

Also getting more civ-related content up, particularly adding a day to it (instead of basically just being saturday and a little bit on friday, making it all day sat and sun, and a longer bit fri. for those who can get the time off, would be better). A proper civ4 tourney would be good, possibly including non-LAN players (ie, folks who couldn't attend the conference playing from at home).

I'm not entirely sure if it's practical to keep it to only Apolytoners, also, or if it would be a better experience if others were invited as well. That's a question that any given committee would have to discuss amongst themselves, I think, and decide how exactly it will go. It's certain that a "CivCon" would get much more sponsorship than "ApolyCon" (even if we still called it ApolyCon)...

I'd definitely be interested in talking about these issues in a more defined format (ie a forum) ... Why don't we have anyone who's interested in being on the organizing committee PM me or Dan, and we'll think about what we can do in terms of organization this early. I'd expect anyone who would be on said committee to commit to at attending and to doing some work ahead of time, understanding that it's possible that things might change later but at least at this time be able to 99% commit. Once a few of us discuss some of the ground rules, we can start having more open public discussion about it, which is definitely an important aspect of this.

I seem to recall someone asking me to help do something about demogames for the thing. But it so happened I had a family vacation in Disneyland scheduled at the same time.

You ever get the demogame thing off the ground? Seem to recall you guys attempting a live mini-demogame or something of the sort?

I could conceivably contribute something towards a demogame portion in 09. Assuming schedule allowed it.

[Methos]

Originally posted by snoopy369


Where in Missouri are you from, btw? I spend a bit of time in that state (GF's parents are in Marceline, her brother's in Colombia and the other brother's in KC area)...

I live in Jefferson City, which is thirty minutes from Columbia. If your ever this way, stop by. My other hobby is caving, so if you ever want to get underground, I can do that too!

[snoopy369]

Ah, I know roughly where that is. South further than I usually go, but perhaps sometime

Caving is fun, i've only gone once (lived in southern New Mexico most of my life, and had a friend in middle school whos dad spelunked). Coffee cave ... named such because when you come out your mom asks if you have been diving in a pool of used coffee grounds

[Theben]

JT was in a car accident? I didn't know.. Hope someone hears from him soon.

[DanQ]

Originally posted by Theben
JT was in a car accident? I didn't know..

-- I had not disclosed this before and I don't think anyone else knew though possibly my fellow ApolyCon '06 Committee members.

Hope someone hears from him soon.

I have tried phoning a contact number I have for him several times over the past 1 1/2 years+, but only ever got voicemail (his voice) and left messages that went unanswered.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by snoopy369
We had folks from Firaxis and BHG speak about Civ ... Soren/Dorian gave their GDC presentation on the making of Civ4, Alex and Jon(Trip) gave a talk on modding Civ and showed off some Warlords content, Paul from BHG talked about BHG, Brian Reynolds talked about Civ2/SMAC and his history with it, Sid talked about Sid stuff , and everyone answered questions, and signed stuff. Firaxis also gave away all sorts of random stuff (like old civ games that are well out of print... didn't have any Civ1 original copies though ). Markos and Dan also gave a talk about Apolyton, and there was a talk about the FreeCiv project (Thue I think?). I might have talked about something also, can't for the life of me remember what.

I see my talk about diplogames left an impression...

Originally posted by snoopy369
I'd want to hold it in Baltimore again if possible, since that would get us the best guests (ie, Firaxis and BHG again, hopefully!)... The main concerns with the '06 one were costs - almost $200 per person plus hotel, which is unreasonably high for anyone who doens't live in the area. Finding a way to pay for the hotel space with far less money would be ideal; either getting corporate sponsorship, or a cheaper place, or both. Using Firaxis HQ or BHG HQ isn't really an option, although it's possible one or the other would permit it; it's too risky that something would come up at the last minute, and they'd not be able to let us in (initially, Firaxis was going to let us do one day at their HQ, but various things prevented that from being possible at the last minute, for example).

I could, in theory, host something at my office in DC for free. It'd be an hourish+ away from Firaxis so it'd probably be too far away to be feasible, but we've got a pretty big and nice conference room. Though if we joined with CFC and attendance doubled... I dunno. But I could have easily hosted the size conference we had back in 06. (I didn't have the office then though)

Originally posted by snoopy369
I'm not entirely sure if it's practical to keep it to only Apolytoners, also, or if it would be a better experience if others were invited as well. That's a question that any given committee would have to discuss amongst themselves, I think, and decide how exactly it will go. It's certain that a "CivCon" would get much more sponsorship than "ApolyCon" (even if we still called it ApolyCon)...

I highly recommend this as well. I suggested it last time too, but as usual, no one ever listens to Ozzy.

[DanQ]

Originally posted by snoopy369
... there was a talk about the FreeCiv project (Thue I think?).

CapTVK gave the Freeciv talk, and OzzyKP the DiploGaming talk as he noted in his post above.

Originally posted by OzzyKP
I highly recommend this as well. I suggested it last time too, but as usual, no one ever listens to Ozzy.

I too believe it's more than reasonable now to think bigger -- i.e. a "CivCon" -- but at the time for '06's we were trying to keep the scale manageable being the first effort.