Grading: Vending Room: 6 Thoughts: No clearance boxes this year. Not all tables were filled. No video games to buy this year, actions figures were waaaaaaaaay too expensive even for me. Swords were cool, scratch n sniff star wars book was even cooler. I would have liked to see that guy again with all those posters for next to nothing. Wall scrolls seemed way too overpriced. No amazing gun booth from a few years ago still. *I wanted to see them again* Way too much bleach, naruto, death note. No old school love. Not one tenchi muyo plushie, figurine, or poster to be found. I was sad indeed. Fast Food anime won me hands down this year.
Video Game Room: 4 Thoughts: As much as I love the game room, this year was balls compared to last year...or any other year for that matter. Half of the tvs were OFF WTF? Rock band was neat and all but too much room. They should maybe get a special bemani room in the future. And ddr was just xzypher(or whatever) on loop for three days, I swear. Once again, there were those gamers that wouldn't share and sucked balls. Some staff was great, others didn't know what was going on when, nor did they even care to bother wanting to know. Tournaments were retard. Don't have sign up sheets if you're not going to use them and for the love of god, figure out the style of tournament BEFORE the tournament begins. SSBM was balls because they decided that they wanted brawl last second and three sign up sheets later even though they refused to do so on the forums. Everyone was practicing SSBM for nothing it would have seemed but we at least got them to branch the tournament into two. We got robbed at Halo3. Everyone got second chances and also were judged by KD spread until Doug and I played and lost one game by one point and they decided at that moment to switch back to single elimination and we were then disqualified. Oh and PS - Don't advertise team slayer 4v4 and then refuse to have 4v4. It's fucking retarded and our team is pissed off about it. I did not see one god damned neogeo and that made me sad.
Cosplay Contest: 3 Thoughts: shit shit shit. Judging was at 10:00am and with a cap? BAD IDEA. It filled up with lackluster costumes. There were a couple of costumes that rocked, but most of the audience had better costumes on. Bore bore bore. A huge disappointment to me.
Dance: 8 Thoughts: Way way better than any other year. I could actually dance and people actually looked like they were having a good time. Randomly humping old friends always equals a good time.
VG:I concur about the Video Game room. They really needed to get their shit together. While it is great that they have all the music games, they REALLY need to put that shit in another room. You weren't there when I tried to shout as loud as I could to get people to play their matches for SC2, and I believe that most of the staff didn't even know it was starting (minus Cheesy of course). Had I actually had access to the mic beforehand, SC2 would've been much better. For the CvS2 tourney, I had some pretty cool random dude help me get the mic working since none of the VG staff didn't know what to do. The guy watching the Halo tourney didn't help cuz he was too busy with Halo 2, and when he tried to contact other people via walkie talkie to help me out, no one was on that line. They need to work on communication because I find it ironic that they have communication devices and yet, no one is on. Maybe I'm being too harsh on them. I dunno. I also didn't like the fact that they re-did the sign-up sheets for SSBM because people wanted an SSBB tourney. Let SSBM go out with a bang and then bring in the new series. Regardless I had no desire to play during that time so I guess I should be thankful.
Dance: I liked '06 dance better than this years. I needed more variety to be honest. It was cool that there were circles formed for several people to jump in and show their moves except the one dude with glasses who failed miserably.
Cosplay Contest: I did not know about the judging for the cosplay contest (which is why I gave it a score I didn't know for sure it deserved). Thats gotta suck
I was probably being too lenient with the scores. I might edit it later
Seriously, a year doesn't go by without someone telling me why the costume contest was a disaster. The problem is you have to judge every costume prior to the contest, and that means limited judging slots. If we don't do prejudging, 90% of the experienced contestants talk about how our con's contest is an unprofessional joke. Could someone please explain to me what the heck we're supposed to be doing? You know I love you Anne, but seriously -- there's a point where I sometimes wonder why we bother trying to make anyone happy at all with that. At least no one went off at me about it in person this year like the year I was a judge.
Vendor room? I don't know why there weren't more clearance prices either. I think it's because a lot of vendors aren't selling as much in each show this year with the crowded con season, and so they can't afford to lose the margin on items. We actually had more vendors in there than last year (we added tables - there was a whole extra middle island) but two didn't show up (one canceled literally at the last minute and the other... who knows). So, yeah - a few empty tables, but more vendors.
As for the video game room... the big problem is just that there isn't another physical room to put the music games in. When we were in the Plaza, we had a separate Bemani room. The Ramada just doesn't have the extra room (although square footage, power and air circulation in the Ramada video game space is significantly better). We WANT a separate room for music games (which is why some stuff was put in 812 for some tourneys) but the upstairs rooms don't have the outlets for it, and neither do the rooms we use for the anime theaters (let alone that we'd have to sacrifice an anime theater). Sometimes you just have to say "This is what we can do, let's make the best of it"
But hey -- we added more fans this year, so at least it wasn't as warm. :P
I thought the Dance was great this year too (well, except my laptop crashing... geh... but that's not really anyone's fault besides the guys who ported mPlayer to OSX). That "20+ minute song" Anthony complained about was a live mix by Thor -- and I think it was great.
I concede that 2007 might have been better, but I'm sorry -- 2008 beats the pants off of 2005 and 2003. :P
I'm starting to feel a little guilty for hijacking Lau's eljay but I must respond to this lest I dwell on it any longer. I'm not a staffer for NoBrand and I never have been. The most I have done is put in some volunteer time here and there. Granted if I had it my way, I would have always been on staff but that's a mute point into my personal life and doesn't really matter in the spectrum. I think I bitch this year because it's the first con that was a struggle for me to afford and to get to. Three nights in a hotel plus almost 20 hours of travel time and I brought my fiancee with me. It was his first con ever and I have done nothing but explode and gush over how amazing NoBrand is as a convention to him. The one thing I did not want to happen was for him to have a bad time and for him to perhaps then pressure me into abandoning the con because I could not understand its worth.
Doug actually talked to me in great length about the video game tournaments and the lack of structure and was wondering if perhaps the staff might be interested in him designing some formatted tournament brackets. We would also be interested in writing up designated rules for some of the tournaments that would be enforced no matter what. No last second changes, no throwing out of sign up lists. We did literally sign up for SSBM 3 times and still did not end up on the final bracket and had to be re-added again.
I think that GH had it right with preliminaries. That was a fantastic idea and I commend everyone. Also the amount of fans in the game room was fantastic. The check out system of games was great.
I tend to forget to add in the improvements and kudos when I'm in a rant and I'll make a point to express otherwise in the future.
2008 doesn't win out 05 and 03 based solely on the fact that the awesome chemistry of original staffers wasn't there this year. I got to see Sean Orange briefly on Saturday night and again for his panel, but there was no Gogira being crazy, David being cynical, Kevin being Kevin, Pesso being insane, Garfunklett being all in charge, or others that stand out in my mind. Like I said to you at the con, your presence and your efforts mean a whole lot to me and to many others. It wouldn't be the same without you and I dread the day you step down for good.
Well, Josh was originally going to help with the video game room planning, but he got called back into service (he was able to come back for the con, but unable to help plan things) so that kind of affected things. I've always viewed the video game room as a slowly improving slope, personally.
I also take consolation in knowing that we have a pretty good room for the con's size anyways.
Sean and I always avoid each other at cons, and yeah -- I missed vinnk too -- but the 2005 con had some of our biggest disasters. We hid them extremely well, but they still happened (not to mention the Plaza falling apart every two minutes) so I guess that effects my gauge. I consider success a bit on that scale too.
*shrug*
And I do appreciate the trip you make to come. Seeing you was awesome. :)
2005 had the best -hiding in the stairwell, over tired, avoiding the commotion, random amazing conversation- moment for you and I of all cons. And of course...the legendary Vinnk Strawberry Pie video.
2006 was pretty hot because we formed TEAM SEERYUZ BIDNEZZ THAT NIGHT. It was just magical in some way. It was almost as good as Team Diglet. Ima go find that entry with all of our pics from NBC '06 :V
I still love the pic where CJ is throwing money at me with possibly the most terrifying facial expression of all time. And there was that MOTHERFUCKING DRAGON
Hijacking LJs is the cool thing to do now em I rite? :] I don't care if you hijack my LJ since I find it boring anyways so do whatcha gotta do.
Yeah I may have sounded bitter about all of this, but I really did have a great time at NoBrandCon. I understand that it must've been very hard for you guys to give a fair judgment during the cosplay contest. I just didn't expect it to end so quickly.
As for the VG room, I appreciate what all you guys could did (especially with the increase in fans this year). I just didn't like seeing SSBB everywhere and I don't know why they decided to start a new sign-up sheet for SSBM and SSBB. I think there are a few more tweaks we could work on to make the tournaments great. I did sound like I wasn't giving NBC a chance but maybe I feel like the people who run the VG room should at least be aware of what's going on. I believe only Cheesy knew about my tournaments and I didn't know whether or not I was allowed to use the mic because I was thinking someone might not like the idea of someone not staff using the mic.
Bemani room in 2005 was an excellent idea, and it was a huge success as well. My friends Nate and CJ helped contributed a lot to that room with their bemani equipment and it was great to have all the music/dancing games in another room. I don't blame you guys and I understand that you guys can't find a room. I still blame mostly myself and I didn't expect people to bail out on me during the SC2 tourney. The people who signed up obviously didn't show and thats the main reason why I got so upset. I'll discuss this with the VG staff regarding people not showing up for their tourneys.
"20+ minute song" Anthony complained about was a live mix by Thor Don't get me wrong I thought it was a great song for the first 10 minutes but then it just got kinda repetitive. I still liked the dance though (Trains + Pyramid = Solid).
You guys did a fine job regardless of my complaints I'll see you guys next year :]
Vending Room: 6
Thoughts: No clearance boxes this year. Not all tables were filled. No video games to buy this year, actions figures were waaaaaaaaay too expensive even for me. Swords were cool, scratch n sniff star wars book was even cooler. I would have liked to see that guy again with all those posters for next to nothing. Wall scrolls seemed way too overpriced. No amazing gun booth from a few years ago still. *I wanted to see them again* Way too much bleach, naruto, death note. No old school love. Not one tenchi muyo plushie, figurine, or poster to be found. I was sad indeed. Fast Food anime won me hands down this year.
Video Game Room: 4
Thoughts: As much as I love the game room, this year was balls compared to last year...or any other year for that matter. Half of the tvs were OFF WTF? Rock band was neat and all but too much room. They should maybe get a special bemani room in the future. And ddr was just xzypher(or whatever) on loop for three days, I swear. Once again, there were those gamers that wouldn't share and sucked balls. Some staff was great, others didn't know what was going on when, nor did they even care to bother wanting to know. Tournaments were retard. Don't have sign up sheets if you're not going to use them and for the love of god, figure out the style of tournament BEFORE the tournament begins. SSBM was balls because they decided that they wanted brawl last second and three sign up sheets later even though they refused to do so on the forums. Everyone was practicing SSBM for nothing it would have seemed but we at least got them to branch the tournament into two. We got robbed at Halo3. Everyone got second chances and also were judged by KD spread until Doug and I played and lost one game by one point and they decided at that moment to switch back to single elimination and we were then disqualified. Oh and PS - Don't advertise team slayer 4v4 and then refuse to have 4v4. It's fucking retarded and our team is pissed off about it. I did not see one god damned neogeo and that made me sad.
Cosplay Contest: 3
Thoughts: shit shit shit. Judging was at 10:00am and with a cap? BAD IDEA. It filled up with lackluster costumes. There were a couple of costumes that rocked, but most of the audience had better costumes on. Bore bore bore. A huge disappointment to me.
Dance: 8
Thoughts: Way way better than any other year. I could actually dance and people actually looked like they were having a good time. Randomly humping old friends always equals a good time.
My scale:
NBC '07 > '06 > '05 > '04 > '03 > '08.
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Dance: I liked '06 dance better than this years. I needed more variety to be honest. It was cool that there were circles formed for several people to jump in and show their moves except the one dude with glasses who failed miserably.
Cosplay Contest: I did not know about the judging for the cosplay contest (which is why I gave it a score I didn't know for sure it deserved). Thats gotta suck
I was probably being too lenient with the scores. I might edit it later
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aaahahahahaha! I saw that and LOL'd a LOT
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Vendor room? I don't know why there weren't more clearance prices either. I think it's because a lot of vendors aren't selling as much in each show this year with the crowded con season, and so they can't afford to lose the margin on items. We actually had more vendors in there than last year (we added tables - there was a whole extra middle island) but two didn't show up (one canceled literally at the last minute and the other... who knows). So, yeah - a few empty tables, but more vendors.
As for the video game room... the big problem is just that there isn't another physical room to put the music games in. When we were in the Plaza, we had a separate Bemani room. The Ramada just doesn't have the extra room (although square footage, power and air circulation in the Ramada video game space is significantly better). We WANT a separate room for music games (which is why some stuff was put in 812 for some tourneys) but the upstairs rooms don't have the outlets for it, and neither do the rooms we use for the anime theaters (let alone that we'd have to sacrifice an anime theater). Sometimes you just have to say "This is what we can do, let's make the best of it"
But hey -- we added more fans this year, so at least it wasn't as warm. :P
I thought the Dance was great this year too (well, except my laptop crashing... geh... but that's not really anyone's fault besides the guys who ported mPlayer to OSX). That "20+ minute song" Anthony complained about was a live mix by Thor -- and I think it was great.
I concede that 2007 might have been better, but I'm sorry -- 2008 beats the pants off of 2005 and 2003. :P
PS - you know I think you're awesome Anne. :P
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Doug actually talked to me in great length about the video game tournaments and the lack of structure and was wondering if perhaps the staff might be interested in him designing some formatted tournament brackets. We would also be interested in writing up designated rules for some of the tournaments that would be enforced no matter what. No last second changes, no throwing out of sign up lists. We did literally sign up for SSBM 3 times and still did not end up on the final bracket and had to be re-added again.
I think that GH had it right with preliminaries. That was a fantastic idea and I commend everyone. Also the amount of fans in the game room was fantastic. The check out system of games was great.
I tend to forget to add in the improvements and kudos when I'm in a rant and I'll make a point to express otherwise in the future.
2008 doesn't win out 05 and 03 based solely on the fact that the awesome chemistry of original staffers wasn't there this year. I got to see Sean Orange briefly on Saturday night and again for his panel, but there was no Gogira being crazy, David being cynical, Kevin being Kevin, Pesso being insane, Garfunklett being all in charge, or others that stand out in my mind. Like I said to you at the con, your presence and your efforts mean a whole lot to me and to many others. It wouldn't be the same without you and I dread the day you step down for good.
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Well, Josh was originally going to help with the video game room planning, but he got called back into service (he was able to come back for the con, but unable to help plan things) so that kind of affected things. I've always viewed the video game room as a slowly improving slope, personally.
I also take consolation in knowing that we have a pretty good room for the con's size anyways.
Sean and I always avoid each other at cons, and yeah -- I missed vinnk too -- but the 2005 con had some of our biggest disasters. We hid them extremely well, but they still happened (not to mention the Plaza falling apart every two minutes) so I guess that effects my gauge. I consider success a bit on that scale too.
*shrug*
And I do appreciate the trip you make to come. Seeing you was awesome. :)
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I don't care if you hijack my LJ since I find it boring anyways so do whatcha gotta do.
Yeah I may have sounded bitter about all of this, but I really did have a great time at NoBrandCon. I understand that it must've been very hard for you guys to give a fair judgment during the cosplay contest. I just didn't expect it to end so quickly.
As for the VG room, I appreciate what all you guys could did (especially with the increase in fans this year). I just didn't like seeing SSBB everywhere and I don't know why they decided to start a new sign-up sheet for SSBM and SSBB. I think there are a few more tweaks we could work on to make the tournaments great. I did sound like I wasn't giving NBC a chance but maybe I feel like the people who run the VG room should at least be aware of what's going on. I believe only Cheesy knew about my tournaments and I didn't know whether or not I was allowed to use the mic because I was thinking someone might not like the idea of someone not staff using the mic.
Bemani room in 2005 was an excellent idea, and it was a huge success as well. My friends Nate and CJ helped contributed a lot to that room with their bemani equipment and it was great to have all the music/dancing games in another room. I don't blame you guys and I understand that you guys can't find a room. I still blame mostly myself and I didn't expect people to bail out on me during the SC2 tourney. The people who signed up obviously didn't show and thats the main reason why I got so upset. I'll discuss this with the VG staff regarding people not showing up for their tourneys.
"20+ minute song" Anthony complained about was a live mix by Thor
Don't get me wrong I thought it was a great song for the first 10 minutes but then it just got kinda repetitive. I still liked the dance though (Trains + Pyramid = Solid).
You guys did a fine job regardless of my complaints
I'll see you guys next year :]
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