The Good
1. With one exception (see below) the RPG's I played were a lot of fun, with good players, and good GMs.
2. The Horticultural Hall was really cool. Looking at all the games and saying "yep, played that, played that, played that, my roommate had that one" was quite the nostalgia trip. And playing Joust was a hoot.
3. Unexpectedly uncrowded. Given the sell-out, and the speculation about how many badges it took to sell out (most guesses were around 72,000 to 75,000) I expected the crowds to be crazy, even with the additional space. In reality there wasn't a substantial increase in attendees, so the crowd ended up feeling smaller than last year since they weren't as densely packed.
4. Say a bunch of old friends, and made a few new ones.
5. Can of Whupass was fun as always.
6. The Quantum Black events were a ton of fun, and our GM was great.
7. The folks manning the Customer Service booths were pleasant and helpful.
8. I didn't do Will Call this year, but when we went past it Wednesday evening the line was within the cattle pen, rather than stretched out past the Maryland Street food court, as it has been in years past. Huzzah, Gencon staff!
The Bad
1. Our Cthulhu Hack game (Save Innsmouth) was a total railroad, ending in two characters being told "you die" with no dice rolled, no chance to take any action, and no chance to affect anything.
2. Those God-awful announcements in the dealer hall. Seriously, the blaring announcements should be restricted to emergencies and announcements that the hall is closing soon.
3. The escalator between the mall and ICC was broken all weekend. Seems like they should have been able to set it to act as stairs just like the one going the other way so there would at least be stairs each direction.
4. Lucas Oil stadium was a bit lacking in signage directing traffic to the stadium floor. We got a bit lost and ended up climbing up to the level above before realizing our mistake. No harm done, but room for improvement there.
5. The perennial problems of gamer funk, rolling luggage and ginormous bludgeoning backpacks haven't gotten any better.
6. No-shows for RPG's. One of our games was saved by having a buddy of the GM play, and one game ran with half the scheduled players. Both were sellouts during preregistration. Given how hard it is to get tickets for some of these events, it's strange that when it comes time to play so many people blow them off.
7. Rolling Asian Delight (the food truck). My wife and I had the General Tso's Chicken, and the meat was like eating jerky it was so tough. Blech!
The Ugly
1. Super-loud gaming rooms. We had a couple RPG's in the ICC, and the rooms were stupidly loud. Putting 12 tables in a room with no sound deadening is hell for someone with hearing problems. Our GMs were quite accommodating, but even sitting right next to him it was still difficult to hear.