The Energon Pub

Gee golly, that is whack yo. For sheezy.

That's right, I'm white.

Taking everything into account, I'm in agreement with those who think at this point they should revert to the tried-and-true fax system. What concerns me (on top of everything else) is that when the online system goes up and they get the huge influx of orders, they won't be able to properly process them by convention time. Our green/blue/whatever slips for pre-registrants might come just a week before the convention, or not at all, instead of the usual month or even longer. Even worse, it opens the door for a LOT of potential issues, miscommunications and organizational clusterf***s. Especially for those intending to buy multiple sets (luckily I'm aiming for one, but I know some people who're out for a little extra cash).

Hopefully they'll make good on their promise to have things up sometime next week. I have a feeling the TFCC Q&A discussion at the con is going to be both packed and volatile this year...

It sounds like some people had a lot more luck than others - hopefully they get these bugs fixed quickly and then we can all get registered and happy.

That is, until we wait for 3-5 hrs in the Thursday lines.

I almost forgot at 2 and was afew minutes late, like 2:05 I think. Didn't have any problem and finished the whole thing in about a minute flat. The time they give you is plenty, we all know what to expect by now and don't need to read every single line on each page. If you can't finish in that amount of time, either your connection is really slow or something is bogging down your computer.

Last night when I tried the registration, it hung up for over a minute on the first form that ask how many were attending, thought it was my odd browser (version of Seamonkey), but must have been the connection because it didn't repeat today.

Btw, did registration on a 10 year old laptop with a 700mhz pentium III, so there's no real excuses for not being able to complete the form in the alloted time.

Apparently I had a brain-fart, as I do have enough money on my card to register for Botcon. Even with all the price increases and/or online service fees. I thought my stuff would be over 500 bucks, but it's just over 400 bucks. $305 for the Primus Package, and then either $85 or $100 for the Class and another $10 for an online service fee. Bringing the grand total to either $400 or $415 depending on what they actually charge.

Liftgate wrote:Btw, did registration on a 10 year old laptop with a 700mhz pentium III, so there's no real excuses for not being able to complete the form in the alloted time.

There's plenty of reasons to not complete a form in 7 minutes. Got a baby? How about a parent trying to complete a form while dealing with an uncooperative child? What if you aren't sure of the choices and are reading the brochure while completing the form?

Of course you could make the argument that someone should try filling out a form until they're absolutely ready. I just feel that it isn't very customer friendly. I'd be more concerned about making it customer friendly for everyone else than trying to worry about how to accommodate 100 people for a customs class.

I now decided that I will not be going to Botcon this year. Registration for something like this should not be this difficult.

Seibertron wrote:

Liftgate wrote:Btw, did registration on a 10 year old laptop with a 700mhz pentium III, so there's no real excuses for not being able to complete the form in the alloted time.

There's plenty of reasons to not complete a form in 7 minutes. Got a baby? How about a parent trying to complete a form while dealing with an uncooperative child? What if you aren't sure of the choices and are reading the brochure while completing the form?

Of course you could make the argument that someone should try filling out a form until they're absolutely ready. I just feel that it isn't very customer friendly. I'd be more concerned about making it customer friendly for everyone else than trying to worry about how to accommodate 100 people for a customs class.

I thought the customizer class was only for 25 people on both days coming to a grand total of 50? Did I miss something?

honestly i felt it was very user freindly..I knew what I wanted before hand though..I can see how some unforseen difficulties could complicate things ( infants, kids, rabid squirrels) Only problem I had was the last screen before the cc registration..It didn't give a option to not take a tour or the customizer class..I registered like 15 times today and it always went smooth but that part left scratching my noggin...

LiKwid wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Liftgate wrote:Btw, did registration on a 10 year old laptop with a 700mhz pentium III, so there's no real excuses for not being able to complete the form in the alloted time.

There's plenty of reasons to not complete a form in 7 minutes. Got a baby? How about a parent trying to complete a form while dealing with an uncooperative child? What if you aren't sure of the choices and are reading the brochure while completing the form?

Of course you could make the argument that someone should try filling out a form until they're absolutely ready. I just feel that it isn't very customer friendly. I'd be more concerned about making it customer friendly for everyone else than trying to worry about how to accommodate 100 people for a customs class.

I thought the customizer class was only for 25 people on both days coming to a grand total of 50? Did I miss something?

honestly i felt it was very user freindly..I knew what I wanted before hand though..I can see how some unforseen difficulties could complicate things ( infants, kids, rabid squirrels) Only problem I had was the last screen before the cc registration..It didn't give a option to not take a tour or the customizer class..I registered like 15 times today and it always went smooth but that part left scratching my noggin...

You are correct. 50 total not 100.

Teh first 100 used to get a special Botcon pin. Not sure if they still do or not.

Seibertron wrote:There's plenty of reasons to not complete a form in 7 minutes. Got a baby? How about a parent trying to complete a form while dealing with an uncooperative child? What if you aren't sure of the choices and are reading the brochure while completing the form?

The thing is, the brochure has been out for some time now. Maybe not everyone is the same, but I like to get real familiar with what about to drop $300-$500 on well ahead of time. Also, the registration is up for everyone to try out and get to understand right now, the only thing changing will be the wording. As far as babies and children, that's personal matters out of FP's control, you know that.

I don't know if the timer is the best method, but what if there's far less sets than normal and they sell out? As far as I aware that's never happened, but from what I've heard this is also the first time they've kept everyone in total dark for so long, so who knows what's going on.

Actually, they just updated some stuff on the registration site.

Has anyone else tried the registration again and got sent through what appears to be the REAL thing? I don't know what I did, havn't been able to do it again, but for a second there I thought registration was actually open. Add on sets are $210 I think, or it was $215. And the processioning fee is $6, not $10.

Customization class is missing from the options though. Also, in order to get this to work you may have to run though registration once, then clear your cache and cookies, then try to log in again.

Liftgate wrote:Has anyone else tried the registration again and got sent through what appears to be the REAL thing? I don't know what I did, havn't been able to do it again, but for a second there I thought registration was actually open. Add on sets are $210 I think, or it was $215. And the processioning fee is $6, not $10.

That was there yesterday, also. There's an option for 'botcon' and member test in the first drop down. Pick the 'botcon' option and you'll get the same results you wrote about. Of course, both options are still placeholders until the official announcement, as we all know

Just did a test everything seemed to go smoothly. The UI is horrible, and I really don't think it's very modern. Additionally, I'd love the option to pick *either* customizing class, as I'm pretty flexible on the day. I hope the code that disables it if full actually works.

HighPrime wrote:

Liftgate wrote:Has anyone else tried the registration again and got sent through what appears to be the REAL thing? I don't know what I did, havn't been able to do it again, but for a second there I thought registration was actually open. Add on sets are $210 I think, or it was $215. And the processioning fee is $6, not $10.

That was there yesterday, also. There's an option for 'botcon' and member test in the first drop down. Pick the 'botcon' option and you'll get the same results you wrote about. Of course, both options are still placeholders until the official announcement, as we all know

Really? :-\ Huh. I don't think it had the botcon drop down menu first time I went through it though. Yeah, pretty sure that wasn't there on my first visit.

Liftgate wrote:

HighPrime wrote:

Liftgate wrote:Has anyone else tried the registration again and got sent through what appears to be the REAL thing? I don't know what I did, havn't been able to do it again, but for a second there I thought registration was actually open. Add on sets are $210 I think, or it was $215. And the processioning fee is $6, not $10.

That was there yesterday, also. There's an option for 'botcon' and member test in the first drop down. Pick the 'botcon' option and you'll get the same results you wrote about. Of course, both options are still placeholders until the official announcement, as we all know

Really? :-\ Huh. I don't think it had the botcon drop down menu first time I went through it though. Yeah, pretty sure that wasn't there on my first visit.

Yes, 2nd visit going forward (cookies, it seems) it shows up. Just noting that I went through same deal and you aren't crazy

I tried to create an account and password. I chose not to put my real address and phone since this in not a real event. All I got was an "error page". No account of any kind was created. Whats up with that ? Does this site even work ?

Less than 50 days to go... will they get it done before they hit 40? Before 30? Stay tuned!