GaryCon was virtual this year, making it easier for people participate. With the end of the pandemic still probably months away, this made perfect sense to the organizers. I say it was a good call since many, including myself, have had their jobs displaced for a long time. This has made access to funds for travel and lodging difficult. Many things that we just did in person have all gone virtual. Now we can go places and do things that would have been impossible before-and it is not just entertainment; options for shopping, doctor visits, jobs, etc are all wide open now.
But is there anything we cannot do in the virtual world that we only could do in person? Other than touching the merchandise in the vendor hall? Not much! We can still shop, chat, and play games. We can even watch other games or groups to see how they run their sessions, and maybe learn something new in the process. Just like an in-person event, way too much was going on to take part in everything that was happening . I can only be in one game at a time. And yes, we can still chat on Discord and watch live sessions on Twitch.
Many different digital platforms were used over the 4-day Con. Twitch and Discord have already been mentioned. I fully utilized both the streams (as a viewer) and the chat on the Twitch app for Windows. I do not like some of the feature that Twitch lacks when running within a browser. GaryCon as it's own Discord server, containing a great number of different rooms, both text and voice.
While gaming, I used quite a few platforms: Discord, Zoom, Roll20, and Fantasy Grounds. By the end of the Con, I can say that I became proficient with the basic features of each. I already had experience with Discord and Zoom, but i did not have enough time to configure digital backgrounds on the fly for each of them.
This was the first GaryCon I have attended and actually the first Con since 1995. I had a blast, getting to play in a number of scenarios as well as getting access to many different streamers. Getting to see Lord Gosumba's Grand Joust and a run of JS1 Horror in the Huuls were epic enough
Yes, I would definitely like to attend GaryCon again, in addition to other Cons around the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment