"Fall-In! 2017" Topic

Folks, it is that time again…. I know most of you are thinking about Hcon 2017… I hope to see a lot of you there!

BUT….. events for Fall-In! 2017 opened June 19th…. as promised. Very few have either remembered this or taken advantage of it.

What does this mean to you? Event submission for the PEL will be closing a lot sooner than you might be thinking!

So.. GET OUT TO THE FALL-IN! 2017 web site and get your games in so they will be in the PEL!!!!

Thank you all for your continued support!!!

Dan

I also wanted to add….. there will be a midnight madness flea market….

I have not decided if I will move another session OR add an additional one. It will be experimental and highly regulated.

Cost will be the same or possibly cheaper…. more on that later.

Working on it! Hey, at least I did my room reservation.

How many open gaming tables will be unavailable due to the midnight flea market?

It seems like the HMGS site is down, as well as the Fall In! 2017 site. So, my GM sign up might have to wait.

Just tried the HMGS and Fall-in! sites. They both seem to be up and running.

What's the dates?

The open gaming folks are not going to be happy about the midnight madness. Have you seen how packed that area is in the evenings with gaming?? I'm all for more flea markets. It was done at Hcon a few years ago and it was a flop. Will be interesting to see how many people show up especially the dealers since part of the argument is that they want this so they can attend too.

Have my room reservations and submitted 3 games – all on an arctic table

Fall-In 2017 PEL is to be published September 20. <makes arithmetical gestures in the air while the two brain cells flash bravely in the darkened void, trying to establish a long-abandoned connection> Thaaaaaaatttssss….muttermuttergrumble, carry the 2….. 62 days!

Jon spake: "Have my room reservations and submitted 3 games – all on an arctic table"

Gee, I'll bet that is not a Stalingrad game you're planning, Jon…. B^D

Hey, Dan:
Do you think mentioning that Lancaster is on the Amtrak Philly-to-Harrisburg Keystone Route would be of service to those thinking of attending?
link

Also, the train stops in Middletown, which is where Harrisburg International Airport is, for those who are flying in.

The open gaming folks are not going to be happy about the midnight madness. Have you seen how packed that area is in the evenings with gaming??

Count me in with the "open gaming folks". My friends and I pounce on a series of tables right at the end of the last flea market. We tend to put on big games with 6-8 players. Seriously, do the vendors want to spend their free time at a flea market? I thought they are usually chilling out or playing instead.

I was one of those folk who did not notice that event submission had started so early, due to being busy with my kid underfoot all the time, it being summer. I checked the website last week, saw that events had to be submitted by August 21 (I think it was that date, but I wrote the 20th on my calendar as a reminder), failing to notice that it was the date for 2016!

Some kind soul updated the site shortly thereafter, putting up the new deadline for submission (July 21), but seemed to have not actually told any of the members. So I missed the deadline, thinking I had another month to get the game sorted out enough to submit it. No dice.

Yeah technically I can still submit it, but since it won't be in the PEL, and therefore attendance will stink, why bother?

A little communication would have helped a LOT in this case. Neither the HMGS Facebook page nor the Yahoo group had any mention of the new and improved date.

Be really helpful if the organization could actually make it easier for the members to run games.

Just had the same experience as billclo. I was on the site last week, and as of then, it was still showing as "TBD."

Well, as a GM who's run a game there for the last 10-12 years, I have no inclination to put on a game if I'm going to pay anyway.

Same here, and I think my entire Club Room (I'm in with the Carnage & Glory Club) got blindsided on this, so all of us and all our games missed the deadline as well.

Our coordinator, JS, checked and informed us on 20 July of the 21 Aug deadline, so that means the drop dead date was published the day of or day before it occurred? I dunno for sure, but seriously?

I've never supported free GMs because its only $ 20 to begin with, and really, have HMGS pay me for having fun and having my ego stroked? So its not about the money, to me its about (IMHO of course) a lack of attention to detail for an implied contract that is supposed to encourage GMs to attend. And Billclo is correct, absence in the PEL multiplies the chance of people not showing.

I really do understand that this is a non-profit corporation run by volunteers, so DO I think a little slack needs to be cut for these folks now and then. That said, there does need to be a minimum level of quality required. I'm a retired O-6, and spent the last 15 years in education management, so I hope I'm at least a little qualified to speak, and maybe there are some facts unknown, but if this happened on my watch – nothing personal mind you – and it wasn't corrected within 24 hours, someone would be unemployed.

JMTSW YMMV, Colonel Bill
ageofeagles.com

Whaaaat?

Then count out my game and my friend's. Both PELA award winning GMs. Nice going guys.

Yep. Guess my Indochina game will have to be unofficial.

Brilliant.

Dan
Is it true that the PEL deadline was July 21st?

It is, as that is what is posted now.

Given this misstep on the part of the staff, wouldn't it be reasonable to extend the deadline so the convention can register more games?

No offense, but requiring the info a quarter of a year in advance, falling a week after the last convention, and during the heart of family vacations – seems like the organization is expecting rather a lot from the volunteers who are the main draw for their convention.

I would also suggest that if the printing date of the program booklet is what is driving this – then perhaps it is time to question the time, effort and expense of that and consider alternatives that are cheaper and easier to update, and use modern technology like cell phones and other personal electronic devices.

From what was posted on the Yahoo group, it looks to me like the biggest bottleneck is a) editing the database (maybe could be speeded up with more warm bodies?), and b) having YM (whoever they are) load the database, which can take a LONG time indeed.

I can tentatively accept why the deadline for event submission has to be so long in advance. BUT, we need to be told exactly when that is well in advance, not after it has passed. There should have been at least one, perhaps several email blasts and something on the Yahoo group and HMGS Facebook page as soon as this date was known.

I find it difficult to believe that upper management didn't know until a few days ago that the PEL deadline was 21st of July.

Given how long YM takes to get around to doing their job, would it be feasible to find another company to run the registration, etc, possibly speeding up that part of the process?

I assume its a misstep, but maybe not. While I also agree that 21 Jul 17 is way too early, had the deadline been published at the same time as the start date, I might bitch, but ultimately sux to be me as I was properly informed. Evidently this did not happen here.

So I actually have my event ready to go, just waiting for the final word from our Club Coordinator who also thought it was 21 August as of the 20th. And of course, nothing from HMGS as of yet.

FML.

Colonel Bill

YM has been a huge debacle, and is largely dependent on one or two people – so I am told.

The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. The people who manage the official HMGS site – the YM one and the FB page, are not the same page, nor likely communicating on a regular basis with the con staffs.

Why on earth isn't the convention events managers posting things on TMP, where a large majority of the gamers/GMS reside? There is nothing that likely says they have to, but the benefit is so self evident to be a no brainer.

The communications and timelines for Hcon and FI are stepping all over each other. One con too many? Maybe. Especially if the deadlines are occurring during and right after the last con.

Just to make sure, I checked all the emails received from database@hmgs.org (yes, I keep everything) because they will also send out info blurbs like voting deadlines on occasion. Nothing there so I remain stunned.

Colonel B

Note Dan (CD) hasn't posted here since 6 July, and as far as any of us know, the Events Manager has never posted to TMP (not that I am aware of).

I couldn't find anything either doing searches online, here at TMP, on Facebook and my own emails. I can't even find the announcement of the 19 June date, but the "as promised" comment in the OP implies somebody requested the early date?

Colonel B

It's good to know that I'm not the only one thinking he was going mad. I've had August 21st on my calendar at work since the beginning of the month. Sure, I could have misread it, but the whole concept of prime event submission taking place largely before the previous con is ludicrous.

HMGS has updated the FALL IN! timeline.

Jun 19 GM Registration Opens
Jun 19 Vendor Registration Opens
Jul 21 Deadline to Advertise in Flyer
TBD Deadline to have game listed in PEL
Aug 14 Promotional Flyer Mailed
Aug 14 PEL Published
Sep 4 Attendee Registration Opens Online
Sep 23 Deadline to have games printed in the Program

Hopefully good news. I better get cracking on readying a game listing then. The cutoff date could be "updated" at any time, I guess.

Huzzah! Let me finish pumping out my basement and I'll submit my game (and renew my membership).

Far better customer service from HMGS than the local hardware store that sold me the last sump pump… At least there's no loss in the war room. Everything on shelves starts at the 3ft line.

Good, looks like I'm back on…should post scenario directly.

A glitch, true. But…you can't say they aren't trying to correct their errors. Let's face it: they want your games to run. Now get out there and submit 'em, boys! (and girls!)

Woo hoo! I was able to submit my 2 games.

So are the dates for submission revised? Because having the cut off date for Fall-In PEL submission 1 week after Historicon is dumb dumb dumb.

I can't even begin to think and plan my scenario until a week or two of recovering after a con.

Ok, so I was locked out of TMP for some reason, just got allowed back in.

Guys/folks/Ladies and gentlemen…..

You can see when I posted this… July 6th.. because the HMGS Fall-IN! 2017 event reg had seen so few events submitted I had to make yet another reminder…. I made this reminder multiple times on different platforms.

I find it amazing that everyone knows Historicon opens events before CW and closes then pretty much right afterward….. why, after 3 years of me telling all of you has no one taken me seriously or gotten the point?

Every day I push back event sub because "I wasn't thinking of Fall-In.. I was still thinking of Hcon"….. hurts the show.

It takes 5 mins to enter an event…. 10 for slow typers…. how is it a crisis of national status because folks did not heed the emails of posts?

For those of you who thought to try and pull in favors and complain "over my head"…. shame on you…. your mistake is not my concern. I hate to sound mean here, but you were warned and no one cared.

For those of you threatening to NOT run events.. Pella winning events or otherwise.. then don't. How dare you call me to carpet because of your own lack of foresight….

For those who claim it said Aug 21st…. you are sadly mistaken. That was old, outdated information cached on your computer or search from 3 or 4 years ago….. THAT information was NOT on the 2017 Fall-IN! page E-V-E-R.

I was able to verify this as all of the old info is still out there in cyber space. Also, I know in emails I said to a few of you 8.21…. that was MY fault in the email, but the web site NEVER said that. It said TBD and then Jul 21

I don't know what to say.. I have done all I can to grow, make the show better and with your help.. have done so….

Now I am being called out because folks didn't have the foresight to realize I meant what I said about close dates and somehow this is my fault? You are all adults and I do not feel I need to hold your hand.

As a GM, you guys somehow manage to pay attention to Historicon's dates while attending Cold Wars…. AND meet the event sub deadline, yet Fall-IN! is still treated as a show where you swamp the event manager at the 11th hour on the day events is closing???

WHY?

A point of fact….. Historicon has very few if any games come in after the PEL closing…. just after CW…. so why does Fall-IN! get crushed in the last day of event submissions? You have all year to prepare… and, a lot of you run the same events at all 3 shows or at least overlap some of them.

You guys really don't know the amount of work you burden the event manager with when you do this.. it crushes the deadlines and timelines…. it throws the show off schedule…. I could go on.

The team and I have worked very hard to tweak the schedule for 2017 to create a new timeline…. events will be open for a little longer. Please check the HMGS Fall-IN! 2017 web site….

ALSO.. PLEASE CLEAR YOUR CACHE.. your saved links, etc…. if you do not refresh these each year, you will be taken back to the header page for the older show.

Dan Murawski

And.. to add proof to the pudding.. THANK YOU DUNCAN for posting what was Originally on the web page.

See how the TBD date is nestled between July 21 and Aug 14…. one would think that the date TBD would fall either on or between those two dates.. not after… am I the only one who can figure that one out???

Jun 19 GM Registration Opens
Jun 19 Vendor Registration Opens
Jul 21 Deadline to Advertise in Flyer
TBD Deadline to have game listed in PEL
Aug 14 Promotional Flyer Mailed
Aug 14 PEL Published
Sep 4 Attendee Registration Opens Online
Sep 23 Deadline to have games printed in the Program

For what it's worth, I just checked the FALL IN! site and it now says PEL deadline is 7/21.

copy and paste below:
DATE DEADLINE
06.19.2017 GM Registration Opens
06.19.2017 Exhibitor Registration Opens
07.21.2017 Deadline to have game listed in PEL
08.14.2017 PEL Published
09.04.2017 Attendee Registration Opens

Oh, and while I'm here, I still get an error message when I click the "sign in" button on the HMGS-YM site. That's been going on since Sunday.

Duncan

Duncan,

I'll let the IT guy know.
Also.. the calendar will be updated… I thought it was already….

I just checked… events should be reading PEL closure of Aug 4th now. I was only going to do a week… until July 30th, but it will close at midnight the 4th… any events after that will be put into the PEL updates and be considered as having NOT met the deadline…. and… if 200 events roll in that Friday night…. well, there will be other issues as events only has 2 days now to turn around the data…. which means no sleep as it is a lot of work.

Dan

Dan,

I know how much work it is -- I did event for Historicon for five years. And that was before Historicon games shrank by 20%.

And I learned then that human nature being what it is 90% of the games come in on the last day. There is no point in bitching about it.

And BTW, if HMGS sticks to it's usual definition of midnight on August 4th then we can expect the cutoff to be at 00:00:00 Friday morning, not 23:59:59 Friday night.

Duncan

Dan,
When are the Vendor contracts going out as I haven't received one yet………………..

Regards,
George Guerriero
MMTS

Poniatowski,

I don't frequent this forum much (mostly hang around the sci-fi section), so I wouldn't have seen any posts about event submission dates. I don't recall seeing any in my email either.

That said, in my case, I get busy with my son underfoot all summer, so checking the website for the deadline date tends to get forgotten. I probably ought to just put on my paper calendar for the upcoming year to check July 1 or so. I suspect many GMs just get busy during the summer and plain old forget. Certainly I find getting people to get any gaming-related things done for me takes way longer than usual; that doesn't usually improve until well into September as most people are in "summer mode". :(

I don't do Historicon, so I can't blame that.

This is my #1 pet peeve with HMGS. Why is the cutoff for game hosting submission so early? We have hosted games before but there always is that early cut-off, like booking for Fall-In during or right after Historicon. Really? You don't know how many games we have NOT hosted because of this onerous deadline. Now my Brother-in_Law doesn't even come to the HMGS Con's because of this.

Now I expect to get browbeaten from HMGS, maybe even from Dan who I respect, on how it's so much work to get the PEL out. Hey, you have a couple of 100K in the bank, why not spend a few dollars to get this done properly? Hire someone and let the submission be like 45 days from the CON!

So let's get this out in the open, and let HMGS tell us all the problems, all the issues, all the reasons why we can't let game masters get their games in. These people are the backbone of the convention, volunteering their time and putting countless time in prep work for the good of the hobby. Are we the only ones sick of this?

So we will be told, these are the rules. Maybe we need to change the rules, and get some people in that can do it.

What do you think?

"…there will be other issues as events only has 2 days now to turn around the data…."

So if you are telling us the need to publish the PEL is driving it, might I ask, why? Is it to advertise, or get people to pre-register? If the later, just how many people out of the convention population pre-register for games? More importantly (and meaningful), how many actually show up for those games? I'm only asking as the published PEL date seems to be what is driving this need for games to be registered a quarter of a year in advance.

Double G, the vendor registration information is just about ready to go out.

I find it amazing that everyone knows Historicon opens events before CW and closes then pretty much right afterward….. why, after 3 years of me telling all of you has no one taken me seriously or gotten the point?

I have a very simple answer. Because its not what people want from their convention.

Quote:

"For those who claim it said Aug 21st…. you are sadly mistaken. That was old, outdated information cached on your computer or search from 3 or 4 years ago….. THAT information was NOT on the 2017 Fall-IN! page E-V-E-R.

I was able to verify this as all of the old info is still out there in cyber space. Also, I know in emails I said to a few of you 8.21…. that was MY fault in the email, but the web site NEVER said that. It said TBD and then Jul 21"

For everyone's information here is what the Fall In home page said on 17 June 2017, via an 8:23 am capture provided by the Wayback Machine run by archive.org. Take a look and compare it with the quote above and then make your own judgment.

link

I've always thought the deadline too early, but if properly notified in advance, I've met it. Indeed, as a manager I can't imagine why one would set a start date but not an end date for a process at the same time.

Here the issue was the fact that unlike Historicon (which had a PEL deadline of 31 Mar 17), this information was not made public until after the fact, or at least not that I can find anywhere. Otherwise GMs believe what they see online, and as of 17 June this year, this is what was online, and I suspect for many weeks after. Noting that the bottom of the date listing specifies Fall In 2017 with the right dates, I doubt this was a chache issue, and really, its not the GMs job to question information from management. There is a default expectation it will be accurate.

Nevertheless, finding out it was our fault was not a surprise.

Ciao, Colonel Bill

Game, set and match to Colonel Bill.

On behalf of all those (including myself) who relied on the Aug. 21 deadline, thank you.

Thanks also to those at HMGS who extended the PEL deadline to Aug. 4th.

Bill,

That is last years information or older with Next/this years art posted (2017). Please send me the date you took that image… that image could only have been taken in the very short time where the site was actually being updated… something is not right there. Not one of those dates matches anything from this years rough draft or any revisions. However, it did bring to light one thing… as the website is updated, it needs to be locked out.

It also says on the website.. dates subject to change, check back often.. as the website is a living page… everyone seems to forget to mention that as it does not fit their argument.

Events was extended.. anything coming in late this year will NOT be consider for the PEL.

On to something new….

There will be a Friday night "Midnight Madness" flea market…this session will be in addition to the regular Friday session….
1. Vendors WILL BE ALLOWED to sell in it
2. Pre-reg cost for a table is only $15 USD (onsite $25 USD)
3. It will start at 11pm and run until 2am
4. It will be staffed

There will be board games to "borrow" at the events desk, much like there was at Historicon.

I didn't take the image. The non-profit archive.org did a complete, total Webcrawl as part of their Wayback Service of the Fall In site at 8:23 am on 17 June 2017. It is now a permanent, public record at their Website and reflects exactly what the site displayed when captured. There is no error.

I manage two Websites myself and my experience with multiple types of software, to include Dreamweaver and Web based CMS like Wix, is that none allow a page to be published simultaneously as it is being updated. If that is what the Webpage looked like on 17 June 2017, it is because it was deliberately, willfully published that way when updating was completed. There is no other explanation.

You indicated the issue was with your customers and uncleared caches, because the 21 August 2017 date was not displayed (quote) "E-V-E-R." The archive.org capture proves this was simply not the case. So when my club room coordinator says that's what it said when he returned from Historicon, I have no reason to doubt him.

Also, remember how browser chache works, per Symantec Inc (Norton Antivirus; quote), "Internet browsers use caching to store HTML web pages by storing a copy of visited pages and then using that copy to render when you re-visit that page. IF THE DATE ON THE PAGE IS THE SAME DATE AS THE PREVIOUSLY STORED COPY, THEN THE COMPUTER USES THE ONE ON YOUR HARD DRIVE RATHER THAN RE-DOWNLOADING IT FROM THE INTERNET."

Bottom line is that if a chached page was rendered by all us customers, its because the actual Webpage showed exactly the same thing.

Might I proffer a different explanation and recommendation? You made a mistake. It might have been far more productive say "My bad, apologies tendered, I'll figure out what happened so it doesn't happen again, but for now let's extend the deadline to XXXX so we can get games registered for a good convention" rather than suggest we were the problem?

Kisses, Colonel Bill
IT Director (Emeritus), Central Penn College