Gen Con 2011 - Prologue
It's here! It's finally here! It's Gen Con time!
That's right, the gamer equivalent of the Super Bowl has descended on Indianapolis once again, and once again my plan is to tweet and blog from the con. So here we go...
There's really not too much to talk about on the night before gaming-wise except for the swag bag. Which, I'm happy to say, is halfway decent in comparison to other years.
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| Swagtastic? |
While I'm certainly going to miss the Miniature Market coupon this year (unless they are handing them out at the booth), but I have to say that it's pretty impressive.
The first thing that sticks out is the full software for the Rift PC MMO game. Not too shabby, I'd say. Not sure if it comes with any free game time or not, but I will still probably give it a try.
You also get a 30 card deck of Magic cards of a random color. Mine was blue and Dan got red. We've already played a couple of games with them and they aren't bad decks for 30 cards.
There's also one of these in there...
For those of you who don't know what this is, it is a loot token from True Dungeon. That's the popular live action dungeon run that goes on every year here. I hear nothing but good things about it (other than last year's runs were too hard) and I'm seriously considering doing a run this year myself since there's still tickets available for may slots. A bit expensive at $38 a go, but everything I read and hear points to the fact that's totally worth it. If I do try it out I will let you know. I'm more apt to now that I already have some armor, however light, to head in with.
Most of the rest of the swag bag is the various coupons and advertisements that always fill out the bag. Some of them, however, are pretty good. Several are for free things at different booths! Honestly, this is the way to go for vendors wishing to draw people to them. Sure, opening your bag to see a cool freebie or two is awesome, but it doesn't really draw you to a company's booth. Giving you a coupon for a freebie when you visit their booth, however, is a much better return on their investment since you might stay for a demo or buy into their line. I know there are a bunch of stops I'm already planning on making tomorrow for said items including free miniatures, free t-shirts, free cards, free True Dungeon tokens and more.
My only other thoughts about the con so far is that this one already feels like another record year for attendance. I mean it's only Wednesday, but all afternoon the Will Call line was full. And I mean FULL! It stretched for several hundred people every time we walked past it and only seemed to grow in length as the day went on. All I could think to myself was that I was glad that I chose the FedEx option and had my badge shipped.
As I close down for the night, I will leave you with this picture I took at sunset.. Good night from Gen Con!
Until tomorrow,
-Jack
The first thing that sticks out is the full software for the Rift PC MMO game. Not too shabby, I'd say. Not sure if it comes with any free game time or not, but I will still probably give it a try.
You also get a 30 card deck of Magic cards of a random color. Mine was blue and Dan got red. We've already played a couple of games with them and they aren't bad decks for 30 cards.
There's also one of these in there...
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| The matching weapons in this set are the Katana, Bo Staff, Nunchucks, or Sai. |
Most of the rest of the swag bag is the various coupons and advertisements that always fill out the bag. Some of them, however, are pretty good. Several are for free things at different booths! Honestly, this is the way to go for vendors wishing to draw people to them. Sure, opening your bag to see a cool freebie or two is awesome, but it doesn't really draw you to a company's booth. Giving you a coupon for a freebie when you visit their booth, however, is a much better return on their investment since you might stay for a demo or buy into their line. I know there are a bunch of stops I'm already planning on making tomorrow for said items including free miniatures, free t-shirts, free cards, free True Dungeon tokens and more.
My only other thoughts about the con so far is that this one already feels like another record year for attendance. I mean it's only Wednesday, but all afternoon the Will Call line was full. And I mean FULL! It stretched for several hundred people every time we walked past it and only seemed to grow in length as the day went on. All I could think to myself was that I was glad that I chose the FedEx option and had my badge shipped.
As I close down for the night, I will leave you with this picture I took at sunset.. Good night from Gen Con!
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| Sundown in the blue monster of the JW Marriott |
-Jack
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