No one to blame but ourselves...

I have been attending GaryCon for six years in a row now and each year we "the barbarians at the gates" all log in and ping the crap out of the site trying to be the first ones in. Then, when the gates open, and the barbarians destroy their booty, they sit back and sigh. This barbarian will be ready for another assault at 3 pm est! :0) Who's with me???!!!

 

Actually, Jim Wampler just posted on the GC FB group that someone did actually hack the system and the side effect of them trying to fix it was inadvertently turning the submit button live.

 

That's awesome! I seriously think I would miss the registration issues if one year everything just worked. It builds suspense for the Con! And even when I don't get what I want I still have a great time at the event. I think last year there were GP spots open several weeks after the registration, even games with "old guard" GMs.

 

What!

A barbarian can not be held accountable for their impulses!

This barbarian will be pushing at the gate, just as any respectible barbarian would be!

 

I disagree with the OP statement, there are plenty of Cons that dont have this many issues each year. GameHole Con, for one, has been running for only a couple years and is an EXCELLENT example on overcoming communication issues (lack of, updating social media instead of website) and technical issues (crashes, server loads, hacking?). I think their attendance numbers were on par, if not even a little more than GC this past year.

 

We're all human, what can we do?

 

You are setting an apt example of what we can do!

 

We're all only human, you guys are doing the best you can and I think we all know it, even if there's some frustrations. I know I felt quite a bit frustrated at noon myself. Keep up the great work GaryCon Staff we all know you're trying your darnest and let's all keep our eyes on the prize! A great GaryCon VIII!!!

 

I said this to @mwisconsin privately last night, but I'll say it here too: I've been doing IT professionally for a long time, and so has another of my buddies I'm buying events for. I have a sneaking suspicion that LOTS of us who go to Gary Con have been doing things like this a long time.

If the GC staff got a list of IT grognards willing to help shortly after Gary Con, and reached out to them in, say, October...I think we could help. And I would certainly be willing to throw a few hours in to avoid the ulcers I get every registration.

 

Best defense against a group of barbarians is a capital 1 cc.

 

Yup, sign me up. How about a big open source project that people can contribute to (and audit for security flaws)?

 

You can't compare a convention that's only been only around a couple of years to Gary Con. In my experience since GC IV, GC had no registration problems whatsoever until GC VI, when it got substantially more popular.

 

GC has had issues with registration ever since it implemented on-line registration. This year, the issues just seem to be more complicated to resolve. In past years, the site crashed, people couldn't get back on, and when they did, events were sold out, and many people were frustrated and unhappy. They did, however, know what they did and didn't get by the end of the day. This year, many people (including me) still do not know what they got and didn't get. Also, my initial order seemed to go through fine, except that my cart did not clear out and my coin was not decremented, so I submitted it again. But I thought I was good when I saw the events on my account page listed under "my registered events." I mean, it says MY REGISTERED EVENTS after all. So I waited and chatted with others who were also experiencing similar results, until some started getting e-mail confirmations with the tickets. I kept checking my e-mail for said confirmations and also the GC Facebook page for updates, and only after some time did I suspect there might be an issue with my registration. At this point, I manually cleared my cart and started to register for events in a piecemeal manner, since my coin still had not been deducted. Event after event, I resubmitted for (if tickets were still available), and my chart was cleared out and coins were deducted when I checked out, but still no confirmation e-mails came. I posted my issue through the proper link at that time, and the initial response gave me some hope that my initial order was good and that they just needed to clean up the duplicates. One pass was done on cleaning up my registered events, and I was asked to check for confirmation e-mails. Still nothing. So they cancelled my initial order and one of the orders I had resubmitted and had coinage drawn down on. Still no confirmation email, and no follow up since, but my account page now only shows 5 registered events, and some of my orders (including my initial order) show that they have been cancelled. I am hoping that I will eventually get confirmed on the 5 events still listed, but I really want to know why my initial order did not go through for any events, considering that I was able to resubmit orders for 6 of 9 of the same events (although 1 was subsequently cancelled by staff due to "erroneous" availability). I did not get the internal server error message on the initial order, but obviously something didn't work. I think that the majority of the issues that everyone experienced were a result of that unfortunate bug.

 

Sorry, when were you able to check yoru account last? The site still says it's down for maintenance as far as I can see. By the by, I have much the same issue but have not heard from anyone.

 

The only event I got a confirmaiton on was for my VIP event, but that happened before reg started.

 

My brother and I both got our email confirmations. One email looks like they are the tickets for the event you can print. Not sure if they are providing tickets when you check in at the con or not now.

 

I for one have not lost faith, although I admit I was a bit excited yesterday at noon when you guys were unbeknownst to most of us, triaging a hack to the system. That said, I'm happy to give you guys the time you need to figure out who got what and when. I'm not sure if others have the issue, but the site appears to still be down so people I imagine are waiting for some sort of answer and resolution. We all know you guys are working super hard and doing your very best to deliver. I imagine a good deal of the frustration is that so many of us saw things as registered in our accounts, but now have no idea what that means if anything. Do you guys plan another round of registrations? I have to be honest, I'm really not clear on what your plans are to resolve this all.

 

I have gotten nothing in my email from Garycon...I cannot check from my phone, but as of a.gew hours ago, the site was still down so I could not check my registered events. having said that, at least SOME registratons went through, because one game I'm running is booked solid.