 October 2, 2011 - 11:31am | Okay, I'm going to start putting this together but I wanted to throw some ideas and questions out there. 1) Planning on at least a East Coast/West Coast track split for some of the activities to allow them to occur are reasonable hours (i.e. not too early and not to late). Should I through in an Europe track as well? Do we think we'll have any pick up over there? 2) It has been suggested that we go Friday/Saturday/Sunday. I, however, am not at all available on Sunday. So I'm likely to set it up so that there is an opening session on Friday and an ending one late Saturday with Sunday scheduled for open gaming and discussion. 3) I think we should have a) scheduled game sessions, b) Organized panel discussions (topics TBD) and c) time set aside for tutorials/demos/special discussions (again topics TBD, these will be open for people to request to do a specific topic). At all times there should be an open chat room for people to just hang out and talk. 4) When should it start on Friday. I have no problem starting in the morning but do we want to wait until "after work" on Friday to start and just go later that night. 5) Length of gaming sessions. I was thinking 4 hours with at least an hour buffer between the end gaming times to the start of other scheduled activities. This would allow a session to "spill over" a bit if needed and time for food as well. Is this too long? Not long enough? Given four hour sessions, I was figuring 1 or 2 time slots on Friday (depending on when we start), 2 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday. Remaining time would be breaks, panel discussions, special topic sessions, etc. Anyway, that's a rough idea. Please post ideas and suggestions. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 October 2, 2011 - 11:57am | How about a guest in chat for an hour? Maybe we can persuade one of the old TSR guys to chat for an hour. -iggy |
October 2, 2011 - 12:30pm | That would fall under those special sessions or panel discussions. But I agree, that would be great if we could pull it off. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 October 2, 2011 - 3:20pm | What format for chat? 20 people in a room typing quesitons? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 2, 2011 - 4:00pm | There would need to be moderator giving each person a chance to ask a question. -iggy |
October 2, 2011 - 4:09pm | There would need to be moderator giving each person a chance to ask a question. email question prior? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 2, 2011 - 4:42pm | Yes, or use a forum thread to gather and rate the questions so the favorite ones get answered first. the list should go to the guest before hand so that he can prepare responses. And have an hour before the guest arrives for the moderator to collect questions. -iggy |
October 6, 2011 - 3:47pm | What do you guys recommend for the length of the scheduled gaming session blocks? 2, 3 or 4 hours? Also, what time would people prefer to start on Saturday morning? I was thinking 8/9 am but am open to suggestions. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
October 6, 2011 - 4:08pm | I think you're going to need a half hour for the game to settle down. With a 3 hour game that gives you 2.5 hours to really game. 3 to 4 hours will probably be what's needed. With four hours I would expect that you could get in the equivalent of 2 module encounter ls but with 3,you'd be rushed to get that much in. But if a game finishes early on a four hour session you'd have a big break. Does it matter if you can squeeze in two full encounters? Could if a you were trying to run the equivalent of a module spread over two or three sessions. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 6, 2011 - 4:25pm | I originally had four hour blocks with a one hour "buffer" between the scheduled end of the game session and when something else started. However, that just didn't seem to really work out with having to deal with multiple time zones and a few "plenary" sessions. I think that a 3 hour game session, with one hour of buffer so it can spill over looks a little better. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
October 10, 2011 - 10:22am | Here is the preliminary schedule for the con. This represents all the possible sessions, I seriously doubt we will actually use all of them unless we get a really significant turnout. The idea is to have three possible tracks: West Coast, East Coast, and Europe. The third is optional if there is a lot of european interest (and by a lot I mean >3 people, enough to run a game session). On Friday there will be an "evening" game session in each track plus an optional "late night" session for those that want to be up to the wee hours of the morning. Saturday and Sunday will each have a "morning", "afternoon", and "evening" session in each track plus the optional "late night" session. In addition, there are a couple of special session planned for Saturday that are timed such that people on all three tracks can attend. The idea here is for some general panel discussions, topics TBD. Each game session is scheduled to be three hours long and almost all of them have an one hour break between when they are scheduled to end and the next activity starts to allow for running over, getting food, etc. There is potentially space for up to 30 gaming sessions, ten on each track if all the "late night" sessions are used and we only allow one game per track per session. It may be that we allow more than one game per session Friday night and Saturday. We'll have to see what demand is. Please comment.Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
October 10, 2011 - 11:48am | Really need to see the sessions mapped out. The tract system sounds lime it would accommodate large numbers of people but just reading it and trying to imagine it, it sounds complicated. Plus have the fun of playing a game on the internet is that you end up playing with people all around the world. However I do get what your trying to do. Perhaps if you created a document in the document section that could be looked at it might be easier to envision the track system. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 10, 2011 - 1:39pm | If you followed the link, they are mapped out but it looks like they need some more explaination. The game sessions all occur at the same time regardless of which "track" they are on. i.e. Game session 7 starts at 10am Pacific/2pm Eastern/6pm London time. So it is in the morning for west coasters, afternoon for east coasters and evening for europeans. But anyone from any of those locations could play in any game going on at that time. The reason for the tracks really was more in my mind to map out the times that say people in Europe would be up and could be gaming but people like me in the Western US would be sleeping and vice versa. i.e. session 3 on Friday starts at 8pm on the west coast but that is 11pm on the east coast and 4am in Europe so there may not be a lot of participation in that session from the east coast or Europe but it might be a reasonalbe late night game for those of us in the western US. I've removed all references to tracks from the preliminary schedule page. Basically there are 4 potential sessions on Friday and 6 session on each of the other two days. When they fall relative to your local timezone determines which ones you might want to play in or referee. I figure people might typically participate in 1 on Friday and up to 3 (or maybe 4) on the other days. The other sessions fall during times you will be sleeping depending on your timezone. Basically there are sessions going on around the clock for the weekend but not everyone will be up for all of them. My plan is to allow up as many games per session as there are referees and players. (I suspect we'll have more players than referees.) I'll try to coordinate it so that there are enough games going on throughout the peak periods (Friday night and Saturday day) to provide playing slots for all that want to play. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 October 17, 2011 - 1:27pm | FYI, Is in March 2012 - might want to work around that con, 22nd thru 25th. I plan on attending, hear they run Star Frontiers games. |
October 20, 2011 - 3:07pm | Ours is going to be two weeks earlier so I think we're okay. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 March 14, 2012 - 11:53am | Shame I found out about you right after the Con ... how has it been? I hope there will be another event later this year?
EDIT BTW, I just learned that the patches would only be available to Con members at the moment. If they become available to others (e.g. like me ;) ) I would greatly appreciate of you drop me a note -- I love the design ... Last game played: Somewhere in the 80th (Vrusk by heart) -- fond of Jugger, a "post-apocalyptic" sport |
March 14, 2012 - 9:34am | I haven't commented in email or the forums about running another game or con event simply because I'm focusing on art and the SFman. I'll support another con event but someone else will need to head it up. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 14, 2012 - 11:56am | Though I am quite busy at the moment as well, I would do my best to lend a hand as well, if needed. Last game played: Somewhere in the 80th (Vrusk by heart) -- fond of Jugger, a "post-apocalyptic" sport |
