TOPIC: Reviews and feedback

Brad wrote:

bpsymington wrote:

FatalDrakkon wrote: My only consolation is that we don't have to wait a full year before next GenCon because it is technically a few weeks earlier.

Thank the gods. Two years ago my district moved the start of the school year to the middle of August for some insane reason, so for the past three GenCons it conflicted with the first week of school. Not a good situation! Thankfully with GC starting at the end of July next year there will be no more conflict, at least for a few years.

July 30 – August 2, 2015
August 4-7, 2016
August 17-20, 2017
August 2-5, 2018
August 1-4, 2019
July 30 – August 2, 2020

for those who need to plan

So 2017 will be a problem, but other than that I am cool for the next few years!

bpsymington wrote:

Brad wrote:

bpsymington wrote:

FatalDrakkon wrote: My only consolation is that we don't have to wait a full year before next GenCon because it is technically a few weeks earlier.

Thank the gods. Two years ago my district moved the start of the school year to the middle of August for some insane reason, so for the past three GenCons it conflicted with the first week of school. Not a good situation! Thankfully with GC starting at the end of July next year there will be no more conflict, at least for a few years.

July 30 – August 2, 2015
August 4-7, 2016
August 17-20, 2017
August 2-5, 2018
August 1-4, 2019
July 30 – August 2, 2020

for those who need to plan

So 2017 will be a problem, but other than that I am cool for the next few years!

I have the opposite problem. I have a major conflict early August that prevents me from attending GenCon then... So next time most of you will see me will be 2017.

I was a room #5 Zephyr combat DM that had a few tech problems with the Mechadroid. I usually blamed it on faulty Gnomish technology and tried to get it to work. It did work eventually every time and most people seemed to laugh about the faulty gnomish technology. Overall my room went well and I even had a few groups chanting my name.

Larry

Umm in all everything was good. The only thing my party did not like was the final Zephyr combat room with the Wyverns. We only had one DM in the room so 4 of our group just had to stand in the back and do nothing. And even if there was a second Dm they were upset because it was a combat room and they wanted to fight. My groups opinion is it would have been better with some massive Wyvern flying down on the ships deck and we had to beat.

I have no clue what happened in that final room. I saw that there were movie screens, but I didn't have a ranged attack so I got funneled towards the "memorize the blowing air hole" section. By the time that my partner and I had them down, the room was over and we were going through the exit.

That seemed to happen a lot to me. I didn't notice the Hawk Kin Warrior getting sucked out, and I never saw the treasure stamp in the puzzle room 6. Tunnel vision can sometimes be helpful (I'm pretty sure that played a factor in solving the first tube puzzle), but I do wish I had paid more attention to the dungeon itself.

I had a pretty good year at TD this year, one suggestion I have for future years, is for them to make a back side of the Druid board in the training room without the names below the leaves, sort of like what the wizard has with the planar map. It's difficult to test yourself this way, not that I had trouble with my skill tests (mostly because 50% of the DMs used cottonwood as one of their choices to test me with... lol) but it'd still be nice to have.

Chelsea Phillips wrote: I had a pretty good year at TD this year, one suggestion I have for future years, is for them to make a back side of the Druid board in the training room without the names below the leaves, sort of like what the wizard has with the planar map. It's difficult to test yourself this way, not that I had trouble with my skill tests (mostly because 50% of the DMs used cottonwood as one of their choices to test me with... lol) but it'd still be nice to have.

Great idea that I think has been mentioned before. We might also have some unmarked cleric beads and bard runes available.

All in all, another fantastic year and I would certainly echo a lot of sentiments on this thread.

Zephyr:

Room 1 (circuit build) (A): Thought this was a great warm up puzzle that required teamwork but you could easily interact with each other. Did not like the timed damage. Prefer damage be tied to action or final push.

Room 2 (long pipes) (C): This one was a cool design but flawed execution. We went through 3 times and all three times lost time due to the balls getting stuck either at the start of the path or exiting one of the pillars. That plus the latex allergy issue made this one more trouble than it was worth. Loved that the NPC/DM from room 1 followed us to room 2.

Room 3 (Air Elemental) (: Hated to see the Hawk-kin go, but cool effect. Good combat. Lackluster ambiance (only a highly unnoticed fan to represent the monster).

Room 4 (Orb) (A): Loved both puzzle and combat side of this. The force fields were appropriately frustrating for the combat. The moving ball was awesome on the puzzle side.

Room 5 (Switch Puzzle) (D): Group was clueless on this. If there were any useful clues to solve, they went unnoticed. Seemed like brute force that just didn't happen.

Room 5 (Golem) (A): Great animatronic. Solid combat.

Room 6 (Small Pipes) (D): Went through 3 runs and every time we ran out of hoses before it was solved. No real clues and between the noise of the vacuum and the tall prop, it was nearly impossible to hear / see what each other were doing. The 20 second holds just exacerbated the issues.

Room 7 (Wyvern/Controls) (A+): We lucked into great DMs for this. Loved the puzzle / combat interaction. Loved the energy of the one DM.

Talk about hit and miss. Very uneven experience.

Overall score for Zephyr: B

Viper:

Room 1 (columns) (A): Solid puzzle. Nice warm-up. Hated the timed damage.

Room 2 (snake guardians) (A): Solid combat. Nice tease of potential combat avoidance and cool statues.

Room 3 (eggs) (A-): Loved the effect and it was a doable puzzle. Unfortunately, by Saturday the magnets were ridiculously touchy.

Room 4 (floor puzzle) (: Now that I've heard the solution, it makes sense. There were not enough clues available to make this once click.

Room 4 (skeleton generator) (A): Fantastic set up. Loved that you had to take out the sarcophagus first to prevail. The skeleton actors were awesome.

Room 5 (Sand puzzle) (A+): Awesome effect. Great doable puzzle and the damage aspect was very much thematic to the dungeon.

Room 6 (Medusa) (A): Solid combat. Agree that provisions for reversal should exist to reduce the number of permadeaths. The actors were awesome.

Room 7 (Plate/Snake puzzle) (A): Love that the clues were scattered across the dungeon, but that a second but very doable puzzle finished it off.

Room 7 (Vipron / Drow / Priestess) (A+): Great effects and approach. Solid combat. Based on this thread, some softening for lesser equipped parties was probably required.

Overall score for Viper: A

Additional comments:
- Epilogue rooms were a definite improvement over last year.
- Honor system XP has some issues. Would it be possible to have different code sheets for different difficulties?
- Traffic flow in and out of Hall A had some issues. Perhaps have the edge door that is GenCon monitored as the In (with the signage). Skip a door and have the one leaving people would reach first be the exit with an "Exit Only" sign on the outside of the hall?
- Echo the need for the back side of the bard and druid boards to have the symbols without the names. Something like this for the cleric would be helpful too.
- Agree wholeheartedly that if a player can show the physical ticket, the slot should not be resold without the player's consent.
- Hated having to sign the waiver for every single run. Not so much for the hassle as for the obscene waste of paper. I would much rather see this incorporated somehow with the GenCon website when purchasing tickets that require a waiver or at least somehow good for all runs.
- Lighting was a huge problem in the training rooms, and the new yellow lights (some of which weren't very bright at all) made this situation even worse. Lighting in the coaching rooms was hit and miss. I seemed to be in my own light less than I remember from last year, but it was still dark in spots.
- Sound bleed - I could hear the first room GLaDOS all the way in the Viper coaching rooms.
- Wall clues, particularly on the Zephyr side seemed much sparser than in years past and made some puzzles more difficult as a result. When I first started playing (oddly enough when the Medusa last appeared), there were a lot more clues lying around of things to expect further in. The flavor text was one of the things I really enjoyed but sadly don't really see any more.

I'm sure I've forgotten things I wanted to mention, and I'll post when they come to me.

Jim Auwaerter wrote: I have no clue what happened in that final room. I saw that there were movie screens, but I didn't have a ranged attack so I got funneled towards the "memorize the blowing air hole" section. By the time that my partner and I had them down, the room was over and we were going through the exit.

That seemed to happen a lot to me. I didn't notice the Hawk Kin Warrior getting sucked out, and I never saw the treasure stamp in the puzzle room 6. Tunnel vision can sometimes be helpful (I'm pretty sure that played a factor in solving the first tube puzzle), but I do wish I had paid more attention to the dungeon itself.

My friend from work, Eric, came to GenCon and played TD (Zephyr) both for the first time this year. His feedback was: 12 minutes isn't enough time, for two reasons.
1. Some of the puzzles took too long. His idea sounded a lot like the old coaching rooms where there were two and you stayed in one for 24 minutes, staggered with the other. Sounded interesting, but would take more real estate and an extra DM, unless you cut down to 6 rooms, one of them twice as long as the others. But it would allow for more complex rooms.
2. Along those lines, he felt a little cheated that there wasn't enough time to enjoy the great scenery, props and costumes. It was all so rushed. It's hard to argue with him.

But he did like it.

Amorgen Burke wrote: Wall clues, particularly on the Zephyr side seemed much sparser than in years past and made some puzzles more difficult as a result. ... The flavor text was one of the things I really enjoyed but sadly don't really see any more.

Last year, there was apparently a lot of gripes about wall clues being unfairly placed in the "Inn", coaching, and practice rooms. I would have preferred they be moved to within the dungeon, but perhaps they were simply reduced entirely...

The clues in the inn last year were horrible. Oh, you missed looking at the banner because you were too busy working with training aides, push damage!

MorningstarZero wrote:

bpsymington wrote:

Brad wrote:

bpsymington wrote:

FatalDrakkon wrote: My only consolation is that we don't have to wait a full year before next GenCon because it is technically a few weeks earlier.

Thank the gods. Two years ago my district moved the start of the school year to the middle of August for some insane reason, so for the past three GenCons it conflicted with the first week of school. Not a good situation! Thankfully with GC starting at the end of July next year there will be no more conflict, at least for a few years.

July 30 – August 2, 2015
August 4-7, 2016
August 17-20, 2017
August 2-5, 2018
August 1-4, 2019
July 30 – August 2, 2020

for those who need to plan

So 2017 will be a problem, but other than that I am cool for the next few years!

I have the opposite problem. I have a major conflict early August that prevents me from attending GenCon then... So next time most of you will see me will be 2017.

They are all already on my time off calendar at work. I'll be at them all.