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So the Artist Alley ran out of tables, and I'm crying favoritism.

For a very long while at the official start of the registration, the link to the registration was very very broken. I had to get it from someone who already knew it and even though I registered in the "Special" group of folk before the regular folk could register on the actual site I'm in a "Lottery" to get in. What I'm angry about is that the people who had a back door of already knowing the link, due to from interviewing regular is that they KNOW people who put Fanime on. They all got there "first" while others had to sit there on a broken website wondering when registration would go up. And now that the people with insider knowledge get their seats the rest have to be picked randomly.

I'd like to propose that due to the outage and the early grabbing of seats, "First come first serve" is not fair, but a form of favoritism based on selective insider-knowledge. If it was really fair everyone would be a part of this lottery to get into the Artist Alley.

So I was thinkin'. Last year we had some great success dressing up one of our guys and sending con-goers on quests. I figure we could do something a bit more planned this year. Basically everyone who wanted to participate could acquire a Munchkin-esque class (Static class with abilities/drawbacks such as "Fighter + 1 to blah"), and then we come up with as many varied and whacky con quests we can think of. With requirements that fit the theme of the game. Players would be rewarded with imaginary XP/Gold to cash in for better in-game abilities, and to pursue greater prizes. Prizes would just have to be whatever booth people are willing to offer, and we'd have to adjust points with some simple paper-playtesting if people became interested.

The Point: Basically to drive interaction and interest in the con, and the booths who are participating. If we can make the game social enough, people will drag their friends around and have a lot of fun at events they may not have gone to, while at the same time engaging possible customers. Also it sounds like great fun. Every NPC gets a "!" and "?" headband.

Possible classes:

First Timer: Required for newbie quests. Gets bonus points for quests involving con activities (Goto X panel and get autograph of X. Pictures at the rave, be on the game show. Sing karaoke.)

Cosplayer: Given to people cosplaying. Required for quests that require cosplayers (Tracking down certain characters, getting pictures with certain groups of characters, bringing them around to act out scenes, etc. etc.)

Jaded Veteran: Has ability to pool points with others (Class for people that want to help their kids/friends but aren't too keen on a lot of con stuff that newbies love)

Gamer: Required for game quests, points for winning games against official NPC's, and other game related con events.

NPC: People designated to give out quests. If not an official NPC (Booth person giving out prizes etc), a player NPC can give out quests and get points for people that turn in quests THEY gave from the official quest book. (Yay social virality)

Photographer: Required for a lot of quests specifically to get photos and especially to get proof. Get bonus points for every quest (They need a camera after all ;)

There are a lot more possibilities. The point being that if we require people to group together to get anything done, then make it socially viral. We can get a lot more people, spending a lot more time with us in the Artists Alley. That can snowball into a lot more interest, sales, and of course. Fun =). Going to leave this up for a couple weeks before deciding on a council of Official NPC's so we can gather, brainstorm, implement, and playtest.

Here's some ideas I had for quest/quest templates:

Get pictures of certain characters/groups of characters (Need Cosplayer/Photographer). People already do this trying to get groups of people together, why not make a game of it? Or make it hilarious with odd character pairings or actions like (Get blah to sit on blah, looking smug)
Beat X at certain games, available from the games room! (Or individual challenges like videos of DDR scores) Endless possibilities since we got consoles, board games, and an arcade right at the con.
Con participation (Events/panels/discussions/the rave/certain anime in the show rooms)

Anyhow. Just an idea. The more people we can get collaborating, giving out quests and prizes, the more successful it will be. Either way it'll be something we'll be doing :3

 Anybody got an update on tables getting assigned.

 So I've been waiting for the artist alley registration, any idea when that's coming together? Because if we can't get a table we don't really want to pay for registration =)