Virtual Mepacon

Over the last year, the staff at Mepacon has had to wildly adapt to situations.  First was the loss of their downtown Scranton hotel due to general hotel incompetence.  That forced them to find a site last second, and the far roomier Mountain Laurel Resort was the result.

Thanks to the wonders of COVID-19, Mepacon had to cancel their first con dates in April, rescheduled for this past weekend, and despite slowly improving conditions, were forced to cancel that and set up an online version of the event.

Disclaimer:  I'm a guy who's quite content with Roll20  and the more "old-fogey" versions of social media.  I have a Twitch account for the instances I can watch the Happy Jacks RPG Podcast records live (last time I did that was over a year ago), and I set up a Discord account to look around.  

With ever-evolving family stuff and yardwork for the weeknend, I didn't partake in any games, my usual prowling grounds of the auction and dealers hall weren't available (although some vendors appear to have con-related promotions I could take advantage of), I can report that the first online-only iteration of the con was a success. 

Sure, Discord looks like AOL message board and ICQ had a love child circa 1997.  I have programs from work that I wish to set on fire daily that are more intuitive and are more display-friendly.   However, once you figured out how everything was set up, one could investigate the open games and get the necessary information to register and play.

Some games used the Discord server, others used Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds.  Online board games seemed to available with their own platform (I'm learning about that now).  Heck, in the waning hours of the con on Sunday, I found a Mepacon Digital Coloring and a Roblox group, which my kids could have jumped into.

I relegated my time between Twitch and Facebook Live with scheduled discussions between con staff, the vendors, games designers, and other folks in the hobby.  It was nice to see some familiar faces and learn a new story about a convention director wearing a bunny suit, and holding a sledgehammer.

I doubt the story inspired this figure, but you never know...

From the DartFrog06mm Blog

Previously, I was never a big panel guy outside of Ken and Robin on site or the five minutes from Comic-Con, but the numerous little panels talking with one of their vendor (and sponsors of the con), the big problems of a con, and the general convention wrap-up were all very entertaining.   I would definitely jump into more of these in digital or face-to-face settings.  Heck, if they need a pseudo-grognard for a panel, I'm sure I can deal with hearing myself speak about the whipper-snappers with the d20 OGL rolling dice on my lawn, err.... I mean dice tray.  THAC0 Baby!

I'm really hoping the possible doom-and-gloom of the Fall doesn't come to fruition and we can all meet face-to-face in White Haven, November 6th-8th.  However, if we can't, I'll be willing to completely book my time away from the family to look myself in the office and game.  Better

With that being said, the two biggest tidbits from all the convention staff's live streaming event?

• Mepacon is working on another online event for July 11, 2020, to supplement, not replace the face-to-face conventions. More info to come.
• This con was supposed to be the announcement of a one-day convention, co-organized by The Portal in Bethelehem, with help from the folks at Mepacon.  This untitled convention (perhaps I missed that) is tentatively scheduled for August 22nd at the Lehigh Valley Hotel off US 22 and PA 512 (the old Holiday Inn, then Best Western for the old-timers).  Definitely more info on this as it becomes available.