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OGC convention of doom
Jul. 31st, 2005 04:11 amI have returned from the land of Manchester, NH and the OGC gaming con. Much good and bad. Overall good, but there are more flavors of bad than good, or something. First, bad:
I was the only person to show up for the L5R tournament. Considering the fact that I sacrificed approximately 4 hours of sleep in order to get there in time for it, this was very irritating.
D&D was a bit worse than I hoped, and I had low expectations. To save time making my character, I stayed close to the same type of character I've been playing a lot lately (psychic warrior focusing on the claw powers and expansion). We had one hideously overlong fight that took place mostly at range (which left many characters with little to do), and then another fight at the conclusion that was unbelievably anticlimactic. Total number of times I activated claws: 0. Total number of times I used Expansion: 0. Total number of times I entered into melee combat at all, in fact: 0. In every occasion, it made more sense to use Energy Missile, which is just plain good, and possibly the most effective ranged action in our entire party. Some players were very childish, but even weirder was that many other players found their childish actions highly amusing. Very baffling.
And finally, I got absofreakinglutely and utterly lost trying to get home. I couldn't find the exit to get back on the Everett Turnpike, drove around aimlessly getting more and more lost all the time, finally ended up on a road that claimed to be route 3 but looked nothing like route 3 as I know it, followed it for dozens of miles, and gave up and stopped at a 7-11 to beg for directions. I was informed that I was on the 'old route 3.' There are two of them. Thankfully, it meets up with the 'new one,' using the term 'new' very loosely, since route 3 as I know it has existed for as long as I can remember. Anyway, I finally got home, just as I was about to scream if I didn't get out of my shoes soon, and was nearing the stage of tiredness that leads to things like hallucinations. I'm only up now because I need to rant to clear my brain in order to sleep, and I was ravenously hungry.
The medium:
Power Grid was...okay. I think it would have been better without all of the experienced players constantly analyzing the state of the game and predicting it's eventual end. I also got talked into decisions that made no sense, and I still don't understand why they should have made sense. It seemed like you had to find a balance between doing well enough to make money to buy more things, and doing poorly enough that other people would be in a position to buy crappy things out of your way so you could buy the better stuff that comes later. It was a strange game. I'd like to try it again, though.
The good:
I played a few fun games of Magic with a couple of people who were playing just for fun, and a very strange game of Puerto Rico - which was apparently strange for one of the other players as well. He bought a construction hut, which I thought was weird, and he in turn was utterly baffled that no one else bought one. I guess his group swears by them. One of the people who nearly won had only 4 buildings by the end of the game, and spent most of it with 2. I still can't figure out how they pulled that off. Lots of corn, for one thing, but there was more to it than that. I gather he's a very good player, though, and nearly always wins in his group's regular games.
I spoke to guest artists Jeremy McHugh and Jeff Menges. Jeff Menges answered lots of my stupid questions, and gave me a very important insight into the realm of the art porfolio. I always felt that I couldn't get a decent portfolio together because every 3 or 4 pictures I create tend to make the 4th or 5th oldest ones look like crap by comparison. It turns out you really only need to send people 3 or 4 pictures. Anything over 5 and it's easier to spot some that aren't as good as the others, which brings down the overall punch of your portfolio. Jeremy McHugh spoke to me before I spoke to him, asking me what medium/tools I used for the t-shirt art. Apparently he had noted the name of the person who won the art contest, and figured that the guy standing there looking at his art with the "Wes" badge was probably that guy. It was so cool that someone actually paid enough attention to the name of the winner to be able to recognize it later, though. Then we chatted about Painter and Photoshop and the differences and similarities between digital and real media. Very, very cool.
Finally, the t-shirt looks pretty cool. Even better, I got to see literally dozens of people wearing my art. That rocked.
I was the only person to show up for the L5R tournament. Considering the fact that I sacrificed approximately 4 hours of sleep in order to get there in time for it, this was very irritating.
D&D was a bit worse than I hoped, and I had low expectations. To save time making my character, I stayed close to the same type of character I've been playing a lot lately (psychic warrior focusing on the claw powers and expansion). We had one hideously overlong fight that took place mostly at range (which left many characters with little to do), and then another fight at the conclusion that was unbelievably anticlimactic. Total number of times I activated claws: 0. Total number of times I used Expansion: 0. Total number of times I entered into melee combat at all, in fact: 0. In every occasion, it made more sense to use Energy Missile, which is just plain good, and possibly the most effective ranged action in our entire party. Some players were very childish, but even weirder was that many other players found their childish actions highly amusing. Very baffling.
And finally, I got absofreakinglutely and utterly lost trying to get home. I couldn't find the exit to get back on the Everett Turnpike, drove around aimlessly getting more and more lost all the time, finally ended up on a road that claimed to be route 3 but looked nothing like route 3 as I know it, followed it for dozens of miles, and gave up and stopped at a 7-11 to beg for directions. I was informed that I was on the 'old route 3.' There are two of them. Thankfully, it meets up with the 'new one,' using the term 'new' very loosely, since route 3 as I know it has existed for as long as I can remember. Anyway, I finally got home, just as I was about to scream if I didn't get out of my shoes soon, and was nearing the stage of tiredness that leads to things like hallucinations. I'm only up now because I need to rant to clear my brain in order to sleep, and I was ravenously hungry.
The medium:
Power Grid was...okay. I think it would have been better without all of the experienced players constantly analyzing the state of the game and predicting it's eventual end. I also got talked into decisions that made no sense, and I still don't understand why they should have made sense. It seemed like you had to find a balance between doing well enough to make money to buy more things, and doing poorly enough that other people would be in a position to buy crappy things out of your way so you could buy the better stuff that comes later. It was a strange game. I'd like to try it again, though.
The good:
I played a few fun games of Magic with a couple of people who were playing just for fun, and a very strange game of Puerto Rico - which was apparently strange for one of the other players as well. He bought a construction hut, which I thought was weird, and he in turn was utterly baffled that no one else bought one. I guess his group swears by them. One of the people who nearly won had only 4 buildings by the end of the game, and spent most of it with 2. I still can't figure out how they pulled that off. Lots of corn, for one thing, but there was more to it than that. I gather he's a very good player, though, and nearly always wins in his group's regular games.
I spoke to guest artists Jeremy McHugh and Jeff Menges. Jeff Menges answered lots of my stupid questions, and gave me a very important insight into the realm of the art porfolio. I always felt that I couldn't get a decent portfolio together because every 3 or 4 pictures I create tend to make the 4th or 5th oldest ones look like crap by comparison. It turns out you really only need to send people 3 or 4 pictures. Anything over 5 and it's easier to spot some that aren't as good as the others, which brings down the overall punch of your portfolio. Jeremy McHugh spoke to me before I spoke to him, asking me what medium/tools I used for the t-shirt art. Apparently he had noted the name of the person who won the art contest, and figured that the guy standing there looking at his art with the "Wes" badge was probably that guy. It was so cool that someone actually paid enough attention to the name of the winner to be able to recognize it later, though. Then we chatted about Painter and Photoshop and the differences and similarities between digital and real media. Very, very cool.
Finally, the t-shirt looks pretty cool. Even better, I got to see literally dozens of people wearing my art. That rocked.
