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It's that NOVA Open time of year again, folks!

Registration opens at 8PM US EST on Monday, February 1, 2016. This will be the primary info and QA thread for Dakka, which is often a major site for such things.

Our site = http://www.novaopen.com
Book your hotel rooms EARLY, they will sell out: https://aws.passkey.com/g/55247835

Convention Overview and Information -
The NOVA Open is a Washington, DC area Tabletop Wargaming Convention with a strong focus on organized play, charity, hobby seminars, and social connection. 1,200 gamers attended in 2015.
2016 will be the 7th year of the NOVA Open, whose origins lie in a 32-person outdoor charity BBQ tournament held in 2009 in Springfield, VA.
The NOVA's legacy events include a 256-slot Warhammer 40,000 GT, but it now hosts 100+ player events in X-Wing, Warmachine, Malifaux, and large organized play tracks in numerous other game systems.
NOVA hosts some of the world's best hobby instructors - Justin McCoy of Secret Weapon Miniatures, Roman and Raffa of Massive Voodoo, Jessica Rich of Brush Mistress, Caleb Wissenback, and many more. Seminars are offered all day, every day of the con, and include new 4-hour hands-on workshops as of 2016.
NOVA partners with a sister organization, a formal 501(c)(3) charitable foundation known as the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation to raise funds and awareness in fighting critical causes around the world. We especially focus on leveraging the compassion of fellow wargamers and hobbyists to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and the Fisher House Foundation. We primarily achieve this through an international consortium of brilliant miniature figure artists who collaborate to create world-class pieces of miniature art, including full armies, display boards, and individual show pieces. These are raffled and auctioned off through a combination of world-wide online raffles and at-NOVA raffles and silent auctions. Entering its 4th year, the NOCF raised over $25,000 for charity in 2015.

Interested attendees, partners, and vendors with questions should contact novaopen@gmail.com

For all events overviewed below, check out novaopen.com for event primers containing detailed information, schedules, and more

New Game Systems for 2016 -
Warhammer 30,000 / Horus Heresy - Led by some of the same personnel who've brought acclaimed Heresy era events to AdeptiCon in recent time, NOVA is proud to present a full suite of Heresy-era organized play opportunities throughout the NOVA weekend, inclusive of an escalation tournament, multiple campaign-style opportunities, and multiple mega-battle styled opportunities.

Star Wars: Armada and Imperial Assault -
With nearly 130 X-Wing attendees last year, it was only a matter of time before these two exceptional games joined the growing range of star wars-related activities available at NOVA. All Star Wars events occur in a major ballroom, with the gaming tables wrapped around a gorgeous centerpiece developed purely for the enjoyment of attendees at NOVA - a to-scale (X-Wing "big ship" scale), 11.5 foot Imperial Avenger-class Star Destroyer, complete with lights and sounds. It has to be seen to be believed, capable of dominating a 20,000 square foot gaming hall on its own.

Event-Specific Overview Information
Warhammer 40,000 - NOVA offers numerous distinct events for Warhammer 40,000 players and enthusiasts. We host a 256-slot, 8-round Warhammer 40K GT; a 30-team "Trios" team tournament pitting 3-man teams in alternating 1v1 and 2v2 games vs. opponents in a very casual and laid back setting; a 32-player Invitational for a $1,000 cash prize; a weekend-long Narrative that combines world-class gaming and terrain with social, team-building wargaming both on and beyond the tabletop (think war councils, planning sessions, and the like in places like our charity bar and lounge). We also offer a "Nightfighter" track for those who spend the day in other activities to join in on some of the Narrative battles at night.

New in 2016, the 40K GT is shifting its army construction rules to better align with the structures of the widely-used ITC format, enabling players who participate in primarily ITC events to attend NOVA without major force alterations. We've also taken our highly regarded missions to the next level, further refining them after their best year yet (95% attendee approval in post-event survey).

Warmachine/Hordes - NOVA hosted over 120 Warmachine players in 2015, participating in 8 distinct events (besides iron arena / open play). We expect that to increase substantially this year, due to increased demand and popular feedback, as well as the addition of a 9th event to the schedule and a cleaned up events calendar (that, for the health of all WM players, now actually includes a set-aside "sleep, for the love of Hordes" time).

Malifaux - NOVA proudly hosts Wyrd's North American National Championship for Malifaux. This will be our third consecutive year offering expanding Malifaux events, and the 2nd year of the National Champs. Last year's initial offering of 54 slots sold out, and we expect the same to happen this year. We've also added a more diverse array of other Malifaux gaming opportunities, including Shifting Loyalties campaign components. We'll once again be joined by Wyrd personnel, including their design team lead (Aaron Darland) and the designer of Malifaux himself (Justin Gibbs).

Age of Sigmar - Age of Sigmar will be in Year 2 at NOVA, including both narrative/casual and organized/competitive gaming opportunities throughout the weekend.

Infinity - Infinity is one of our most comprehensive event offerings on an annual basis, though space is always limited and in high demand. This year we'll be joined by Carlos of Wyrd, and we're adding a selection of narrative events to the already-busy ITS schedule.

Star Wars Gaming - X-Wing saw nearly 130 unique attendees last year, with more expected in 2016. We have some special announcements and surprises from FFG in store for attendees as well (Though we can't quite mention them yet!). We are also proudly bringing several Imperial Assault and Armada events to the tables for 2016. A full-on Shipyard is in the works as a new terrain production item to go along with last year's 11.5 foot long star destroyer!

Lord of the Rings - NOVA has the best Lord of the Rings terrain anywhere on the planet, including GW HQ. Seriously. It also hosts one of the larger LOTR GTs Stateside, attended last year by players from as far away as London and Quebec. We host a full range of LOTR events at NOVA, with over 50 unique LOTR players in 2015.

Blood Bowl - About 14 people came to play Blood Bowl in 2014, and nearly 30 different players participated in BB events in 2015! We look to grow yet again, with our third annual exciting year of Blood Bowl ahead.

Dark Age & Wrath of Kings - Cool Mini or Not is bringing its booth, demos, and more back to NOVA in 2016. Along with this, they'll be running another series of events for Dark Age and Wrath of Kings. SuperNOVA bags are also likely to once again include some pretty swanky goodies, courtesy of CMON.

Drop Zone Commander / Drop Fleet Commander - NOVA will very possibly be the first site of Drop Fleet Commander events, and we'll be allowing pre-registration to reserve spots for DFC. While you'll be able to get your first spot on the list, we will not charge for DFC events until confirmation of on-time delivery / fulfillment of kickstarter promises.

Magic the Gathering - A variety of MTG events will go on at NOVA in 2016, including a number of events catering to the timeframes and availabilities of our tabletop gamers.

Capital Palette - The NOVA Open's incredible juried miniature figure art competition and exhibition is getting a revamp this year, including moving to an Open Forum format (each Category will win a Best in Category, but there are unlimited #'s of potential Gold, Silver, and Bronze finishers in each category). There will still only be a single mini to win the coveted Best in Show and its accompanying Crystal Monument. This year's event is being directly organized, judged, and run by none other than Justin McCoy, Roman Lapatt, and Raffaele Picca! It is their and NOVA's paint competition for 2016!

Seminars - The list of seminars offered at NOVA this year is exhaustive, highlighted by courses from McCoy, Roman, Raffa, Wissenback, and RIch. Check the website for exhaustive details as we put them up, and don't miss out! Many seminars sold out last year - these teachers are in extremely high demand, and it looks like NOVA is likely to be one of the only places you can take courses taught by Roman and Raffa!

The NOVA Open Charitable Foundation Lounge - In addition to charitable activities with miniature figure art, armies, and more, the NOCF also converts an awesome set of suites at the Hyatt Regency into a Bar and Lounge, with all proceeds benefitting the charitable causes supported by the NOCF. Discount beverages and snacks are available all weekend long amidst a highly energetic, fun, social environment. Every night in the lounge is a night to remember, full of some of the biggest and brightest stars of the hobby having a beer or a cocktail (or just a soda, water, or coffee) with you and talking about whatever suits you. Last year also saw the addition of impromptu live music to the bar, and we're looking to expand that as well in 2016. It's one of the coolest places to be in our hobby, and everything you do is not only cheaper than most bars and restaurants ... it benefits great causes! Room 1850 in the Hyatt, all weekend long, through the end of the con on Sunday night after the award and closing ceremony.

Vendors - We can already confirm some of our best vendors are returning for 2016, and we're hard at work locking the rest and more in. Already good to return are:
KR MultiCase
The Toledo Game Room ("That Bits Guy" you always see in the halls at AdeptiCon)
Atlantis Comics and Games
Cool Mini or Not
Grex Airbrush
Secret Weapon Miniatures
Greenman Designs
Tectonic Craft Studios
Stiff Neck Studios

and more!

Get ready to sign up at 8PM on Monday, February 1
Let us know here or elsewhere if you have any questions!

Last year was a blast and a great first time experience, I cant recommend the event enough from casual to competitive.

Jan 15 newsletter - Primers, SuperNOVA, and more
http://conta.cc/1OnsJrn

These missions are looking amazing.

Fully expecting to attend this year. And by attend I don't mean pay for it an have yet another life changing crummy end of summer that makes it so I can't go and all I'm doing is yet again goosing the prize pool for others 2 years in a row is more than enough of that!

Great to hear, and keeping my fingers crossed that you don't run into any more trouble

Registration opens in just a couple days, on Monday at 8PM US Eastern.

If you haven't done a SuperNOVA yet, here are the basics:


We still only have 100, which sold out in under an hour last year.

KR sweetened the pot further this year, for those who don't get a SuperNOVA in time, but still register early. The first 400 NON-SuperNOVA registrants have a shot at a golden ticket from KR, ranging from 50% off items to $300 valued Kaiser4 bags, redeemable at the KR MultiCase booth at NOVA. So get in on being one of the first 100 SuperNOVA or 400 Swag Bag recipients on Monday evening.

Schedule and Webstore links are now live via http://novaopen.com

Registration is in less than 9 hours from the time of this post, at 8PM US EST. SuperNOVA, Malifaux National Champs, all X-Wing events, and much more will all sell VERY quickly. Do your schedule / event description homework and get set for reg to open.

Don't miss out on what you're looking for!

Seminars are also fully updated, including the addition of Jessica Rich's classes, some of which are epic sounding.

Website: http://novaopen.com
Webstore: https://novaopenstore.com/
Schedule: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6qMuAG1UTYaUjlzREt2d1o3Vzg/view
Hotel Rooms (20% of block is gone already): https://aws.passkey.com/g/55247835

Mike - will the 40k Invite include the bracket challenge again? That was a lot of fun.

Yes

Nice. Also, SuperNOVA secured!

Just in case folks are trolling here as well, early registration rush broke PayPal. The site captured all SAP registrations and wait lists in the first half hour, when they were all gone, so we will work to post-resolve that. PayPal seems to be fixed now, so you should go in and register, inclusive of CAP, for any events you want. The store-side will handle any SAP upgrades deducting the prior CAP cost, once we can move back to the captured list of those first 114. We will likely tackle cases where people lost their SAP pole position on an individual basis, and procure additional SAP as needed to resolve those early birds who were messed over by the errors.

Yeah I was having some distinct problems on my mobile device and had to put it down for a business call. Thankfully when back it seems the site had gotten over that hiccup but the SAP's were taken. Threw myself on the Wait list (no 33!) though so hopefully that gets expanded if possible. Would love to finally get my multi-year benies lol!

We should be resolving the SAP stuff today.

Basically, PayPal thought the high # of registrations that went flying through in the first 60 seconds was some kind of error or attack, and turned off the coms between the store and PayPal for "xx" minutes. Fortunately, as the store didn't break, we had a clear record of exactly who clicked purchase and when. So, resolving.

Hey Mike,

Having dealt with homebrew webcarts and PayPal API integration for the better part of a decade, I feel your pain. I know Matt used to spend countless hours dealing with this. The most important lessons I recall were:
1. Make sure you have the correct type of PayPal account. We would notify Paypal well in advance to expect a high rate of activity, if you set that up properly and notify PayPal so they flag your account, that should help.
2. Carts that process, but do not complete payment, are a problem with the cart proper. PayPal is always updating their API rules, and having a cart that really only gets used once a year means it is easily to miss stuff.

We had our fair share of registration issues and growing pains over the years, and the blame was always on our end (a database that couldn't handle the number of connections, limits on email per hour on our web host, etc). PayPal processes 9500 transactions a minute. We were able to do 900-1000 an hour a few years in a row only hindered by our server's inability to keep up with the volume.

While it is too late to fix the web cart issues for launch this time, the best advice I can give you is to move away from PayPal and self-hosted the web carts. It will cost a little bit but a proper Merchant Account costs less per transaction than PayPal fees. It will be well worth it in the end, just make sure that you find a service that will charge per user not per ticket sale and has flexibility to scale as you grow.

Ultimately, you are doing the best thing and working to make it right for your attendees. That is all you can do so keep your head up!

Happy to discuss our experiences further after you've had a chance to breathe, .. it does get better.

-Hank

Really appreciate it, Hank.

We've completed remedying the PayPal issue, and most emails have been sent out.

Additionally, nearly 70% of the hotel rooms are gone, putting us near to where we were by July of last year. Grab a room while you can.

Wish my team and I could be there, but we're running a 3 day GT immediately before and will be absolutely dead, haha!

Good luck with the event!

No worries! Good luck running your own GT!

As we hit 75% of our room block filled up, and as we're down to under 100 "first 400 swag bags" (on top of the 100 SuperNOVA), wanted to give people that update.

Hotel room booking and registration is at the same place today as it was in July of last year. Recommend not waiting.

Drone factory gonna get nerf for NOVA right?

The FAQ team is still figuring out some of these questions, though we traditionally do not outright change rules due to balance perceptions. But that is going to be the call and purview of the 40K GT/Invitational lead and the FAQ group.

We are also tweaking our missions up, to address some perceptions of the scoring system permitting collusion. We want to avoid the traditionally poor GT situation with Battle Points where a closer game yields fewer battle points due to a differential-type/pool-points situation. We'll also have some minor tweaks to the 40K missions as a whole in terms of secondaries/etc. to further improve them.

While we plan to ask the hotel for whatever remaining rooms they can spare us, last night's newsletter release pushed our hotel room block up to 85% of the initial block filled. So I'd snag a room while possible.

Also, Roman and Raffa's classes in particular have begun to sell out, but several of the classes taught by all of the different instructors only have a couple spots left.

The 100 SuperNOVA bags sold out in 6 minutes. The 400 first registrants thereafter (for Convention Access Passes) receive SWAG bags, inclusive of the potential for KR Multicase golden tickets. We are down to only a very few of these, sub-100.

Sold out events ...
Roman's Blending School (4 Hour Class)
Horus Heresy Asymmetrical Campaign
At least one of Jessica Rich's "TNA: The Art of Painting Hot Chicks"
SuperNOVA, of course

The following events are nearly sold out:
Horus Heresy Escalation
Malifaux - Treacherous Ties
Malfiaux North American National Championship
X-Wing Narrative (Both Rebel and Imperial)
X-Wing Championship
Horus Heresy Big Blam
Both X-Wing Hunger Games events
Star Wars Armada Championship
Malifaux Narrative
Several of the live-action speed painting compteitions
And a lot more are at half sold out or beyond

We are also tweaking our missions up, to address some perceptions of the scoring system permitting collusion.

Yeah, there seemed to be way too much of that last year. Even if all the results were genuine it left a bad taste in mouth for a bunch of players.

 The Everliving wrote:

We are also tweaking our missions up, to address some perceptions of the scoring system permitting collusion.

Yeah, there seemed to be way too much of that last year. Even if all the results were genuine it left a bad taste in mouth for a bunch of players.

Just my perspective, but really didn't see/hear of any. A couple of us joked, in hindsight in poor taste, about it, but didn't come across instances of people in the top bracket who had. Again, just from they people I interacted with.

Yup - the original purpose was to deal with some of the Rock Paper Scissors of the game (i.e. if you are both going after the same objective(s) without choice, you're more likely to get screwed on match-up, which is an increasing problem in an increasingly unbalanced game) and to not penalize people in seeking Battlemaster / Bracket shift-ups because of closer games. The obvious "well, great player A barely beat great player B while great player C crushed newbie D in round 1, yet great player C gets the most points???"

BUT perceptionally or otherwise (it certainly did happen at least on some tables, though we had very few 19-18 finishes across the entire tournament), it was certainly possible for players who were already established in terms of who was going to win or lose to ask their opponent to make it 19-19 (or just give them a few extra by "talking through" the last few turns) and calling it a W or L on tiebreaker.

We're discussing some fixes for this, which currently include (in no particular order):

Giving in to making it differential based

Making it linear - a Win on game points = "2" battle points, a Tie on game points = "1" battle point, and a Loss = "0" (you'd still break ties on points destroyed for purposes of W/L pathing).

Making the various subcomponents of the mission (i.e. Primary, Secondary, Tertiary) linear/all-or-nothing, so if you win Primary, you get "x" points, lose Primary, get "y" points, tie Primary, get "z" points, again using the points accrued as a simple determiner for whether you w/l/t the P/S/T, then awarding points based upon that outcome.

So ... TBD, though input and discussion always welcome. What it will not remain, however, is as it was - where you simply earned Battle Points equal to the # of in-game points earned, aka 0-19.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 FTGTEvan wrote:

 The Everliving wrote:

We are also tweaking our missions up, to address some perceptions of the scoring system permitting collusion.

Yeah, there seemed to be way too much of that last year. Even if all the results were genuine it left a bad taste in mouth for a bunch of players.

Just my perspective, but really didn't see/hear of any. A couple of us joked, in hindsight in poor taste, about it, but didn't come across instances of people in the top bracket who had. Again, just from they people I interacted with.

Add-on: Evan, there were a few guys, frankly some of the better known players, who were kind of a mess to watch as they went running around bouncing up and down about it and shouting at organizers and the like. The reaction surprised me, b/c what was said out loud was that "everyone" was just giving their opponent 18 or 19 points and taking 19 of their own. The stats completely refuted this, as folks could have looked upon Torrent. The results aren't littered with magical 19-18 and 19-19 finishes.

BUT what *DID* happen were at least a few occasions of people trying to get this to happen and being turned down by their opponents, probably at least once where it did happen, and - much more commonly - people "talking through" the last couple turns once both players knew who was going to win, and "talking through" how many points each thought they'd get. As you can imagine, if Player A thinks he's got the Win and Player B tells him it's his win either way, but can we talk through how many points we should get, Player A is probably going to be generous about whatever B says he'd have earned by end-game. So, you had situations where time would be running out, and the score might be 12-3, let's say, and the player who admits he'll lose and initiates the "let's just talk through the rest" ends up in a final score of, say, 16-12. If they'd played to time or played 'genuinely' to the end, the score in these cases were often likely to have actually been more like 13-5. So you had players getting +6-7 extra BP, through semi-scurrilous means (often pretty innocent, but incidentally still wrong).

These more realistic cases are why we're adjusting, as opposed to the overreactions and exaggerations of the few who were screaming bloody murder about it.

I'm intrigued by the idea of all-or-nothing primaries; Phil mentioned the idea of playing both primaries as an all or nothing and a friend and I tried it out. The score felt a lot more lopsided than the game was. That said, having them all-or-nothing pretty solidly sidesteps the situation you mentioned, Mike, of the winning player "giving" the losing player free BPs.

 The Everliving wrote:

We are also tweaking our missions up, to address some perceptions of the scoring system permitting collusion.

Yeah, there seemed to be way too much of that last year. Even if all the results were genuine it left a bad taste in mouth for a bunch of players.

Some local tournaments use NOVA missions and sometimes I let my opponent grab objectives in the last turn if it won't affect my own score. But it sounds like y'all are talking about making up numbers?

Easy solution there: make scoring zero-sum. Adepticon uses differential scoring: Your score = Your Victory Points +plus+ 15 -minus- Your Opponent's Victory Points. So both player's scores always add up to 30. And you only get zero points if your opponent gets 30 more than you do (or you concede.)

Zero-sum scoring inherently is poor, and done far too often. It basically says a closer game is a worse performance by the winner. The problem there is this:

If I beat Nick Nanavati by one point, I get the lowest possible winning BP total.

If I beat Joe "First tournament Ever" Fluffarmy 30-0, I get the highest possible winning BP total.

The system just rewarded me for getting an easy matchup, and punished me for winning a hard match-up.

It's basically inverse strength of schedule scoring. It would be fine if the field was ranked or all players were roughly equal, but in modern 40K tournaments it is exactly the opposite case. The field isn't ranked, the first round(s) are basically random paired, and the player skill differential is dramatic.

It"s not popular to say, but from a fairness perspective, differential scoring in large, open 40k tournaments is outright bad, and TOs should seek better solutions (which is what we're trying to solve).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit/Add -

One leading idea being tossed about right now is to basically add a bonus for diff, instead of making it differential-based, and thus minimizing the aforementioned diff issue while also solving the incidental collusion issue.

This solution would do something like this:
"Winners earn Bonus BP equal to the number of BP more than their opponent they score, to a max of 6."

So a 12-6 win becomes an 18 for the winner, 6 still for the loser. A 19-18 win becomes a 20 for the winner, still 18 for the loser. But allowing your opponent to creep up closer to you in points that he didn't actually earn would directly subtract from the max you could score.

MVBrandt wrote:

It"s not popular to say, but from a fairness perspective, differential scoring in large, open 40k tournaments is outright bad, and TOs should seek better solutions (which is what we're trying to solve).

wow those are great points. you've changed my mind, thank you.

are these missions close to final?

I feel like the tertiary mission always being destroy a unit is sort of bland and encourages people to bring deathstars. Considering TWC won both the invite and open last year I would hope that tertiaries would be somewhat more varied.

That is indeed being discussed.

MVBrandt wrote:
That is indeed being discussed.

Awesome and please for the mother of god, make us aware of important FAQ updates (unlike some other large GT that recently happened). Thanks for the timely response and I am beyond ecstatic to be attending NOVA, its been a few years for me.

 LValx wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
That is indeed being discussed.

Awesome and please for the mother of god, make us aware of important FAQ updates (unlike some other large GT that recently happened). Thanks for the timely response and I am beyond ecstatic to be attending NOVA, its been a few years for me.

Hi! I'm Phil and I'm a Co-Lead of the GT. Every time I've added/changed/generally updated the FAQ I've been posting a change log to here: http://40kfaq.com/

Hope this helps