Our goal for this year is to top this at the MMO Track Party… (Photobomber not included)
Typically, I loathe San Diego Comic Con and all of the incessant corporate shilling that goes on there, however, I have to admit that any event that can result in photo ops like this can’t be all bad.
We got rolling a little bit late today due to a balky laptop, but we’re up and running. Grim has “tagged in” Jay to play for a bit, and we’re up to level 11 in about 2 hours of playtime. If you’re interested in saying hello, or showing some support, we’re on the Lothar server (Horde side) and the character name is “Mooskulls” With pledges and donations on-site, so far, we’ve raised enough money to cover a couple a couple of Jay’s medical visits. Every little bit helps!
Thanks!
Team Grim
So, by now, I’ve probably inundated you with information about our WoW-a-Thon fundraiser for Jay. I wanted to take a second and explain how this is going to work.
We’ve been soliciting donations (see PayPal link on the DC*MMO main page), but there may be some confusion about how the “WoW-a-Thon” plays into this. No, we’re not expecting anyone (else) to play WoW for 24 straight hours. I’ll let Krystalle give a little background on this idea first.
Taken from this story on Massively.com
The idea of a WoW-a-thon was spun off from both the Desert Bus for Hope marathon (http://desertbus.org/) and the Extra Life marathon for charity held in the past. (http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/10/17/blogger-plays-games-and-heals-kids/) Additionally, as this is being run by many of us involved with the Dragon*Con MMO track, it seemed only fitting that we play Jay’s favorite MMO — the one where most of the Dragon*Con MMO staff have been in a guild together over the years — World of Warcraft.
So here is how our version of this is going to work.
Each “WoW-a-Thon’er” will create a new character in World of Warcraft with no heirloom items or twinkage. The goal is to start “from scratch” and level up that character as fast as they can.
We will be accepting pledges from anyone who cares to “sponsor” a “WoW-a-Thon’er”. A pledge is an agreement to donate X amount of money per level gained during the event. (24 hours) If you pledge 5 dollars, and your WoW-a-Thon’er gets his character to level 40, you will donate 200 bucks. Pledge amounts can be whatever you are comfortable with from 50 cents to millions of dollars, but remember, that amount is multiplied by the number of levels that your sponsored player gets in 24 hours.
We are allowing “teams” of WoW-a-Thon’ers because many of us are old and decrepit, and probably couldn’t find our keyboards with both hands and a hunting dog after 24 straight hours of play. Some teams will form “on-site” at the fundraiser, but my team (Myself, Trevor, Ian, and Loch) is ready to go.
If you would like to make a pledge, please use the “Contact Us” form on this site and include
If you would like to form a team and join us, please contact us before the fundraiser so that we can keep track of your pledges as well.
If you’d like to attend the event at Battle & Brew, there is a 20 dollar cover charge, half of which goes to pay the bartenders and service staff who will be taking care of us all day (and night) and the other half of which will go directly to Jay.
Every single dime we raise from pledges will go to Jay and his family to help out with his medical bills. Everyone who has given their time and energy to this is doing so because of their own generosity. Thank you to Sean and Greg at Battle & Brew, Matt at Massively.com, Krystalle, Ian, Loch, Trevor, and everyone else who has given up their time and energy to make this happen.
Many of you have heard the story, so I’ll keep it brief for those who haven’t. Jay Sturrock was recently diagnosed with cancer. Lots of people deal with that news every single day, and it sucks. But Jay is not “lots of people” to me.
He’s one of my staffers at Dragon*Con and most of you have at least run into him at the convention.
He has been like a brother to me for the past 20 years.
He has a wife and 6 children to whom he has dedicated everything he has.
He is one of the last of a dying breed in this world, a Good Man.
But I’m not asking for your help for any of those reasons. I’m asking for your help because this is a rare opportunity. As many of you know, I’m an avid video gamer. Some might say a little “too avid”. I want to put that habit/hobby to good use.
We’re doing a 24-hour “WoW-a-thon” at Battle & Brew in Marietta on July 9th, starting at 8:00. Money collected at the door will go to help Jay take care of his medical bills. Even though “they got it all” when he had surgery, his medical bills are going to be staggering. He needs our help.
All you have to do to help is show up.
If you would like to pledge a small amount for the WoW-a-thon (think of it like the old March of Dimes “Walk-a-thons” but with World of Warcraft instead of actual physical exercise), that would be great. If you’d like to make a donation but cannot attend, that would be great too.
I’ll be posting more information here as things build up to the big event, but I’d like to start by thanking Sean and Greg at Battle & Brew for agreeing to host this event.
…shamelessly copy them.
A City Councilman in San Diego, wanting desperately to make San Diego’s “ugly step-sister” convention into something remotely approaching cool, has called for the organizers of San Diego’s Comic-Con to hold a parade during the convention just like a certain convention in Atlanta that we all know and love.
Some selected tidbits from the article:
“The bottom line is San Diego needs to let its hair down a little,” he said. “We can get so tied up in some of these major issues, which of course are important, but to be a big city you have to have great events and you have to let down your hair some.”
Translation: “Our stiff corporate-con is starting to bore the hell out of the geeks who are tired of major studio promotional booths with booth babes who can’t spell “Elektra”, but who have the sole redeeming quality of being able to completely rock a spandex body suit.”
“I want to see the mayor in his Batman costume that I know he has tucked in the back of his closet somewhere and I want to see him leading the parade.”
Translation: “We’re still embarrassed to admit that we’re fans, but we have no problem taking money from those who aren’t.” Seriously, we have a city councilman “outing” the mayor as a fan of Batman? Even if this is hyperbole used to sell the fact that a parade would be a huge crowd draw, you know why there aren’t as many costumes at Comic-Con as there are at Dragon*Con? Nobody wants to “compete” with the paid models and actors who have costumes made by industry professionals. It’s like wearing a home-made Mickey Mouse costume to freakin’ Disney World. Unless you’re under the age of 5 (let’s face it… they’re adorable at that age.), it’s kinda pathetic.
and.. my favorite.
“Atlanta-based science fiction and fantasy convention Dragon Con hosts a parade, which draws over 2,000 people.”
Translation: You missed a couple of zeroes there, slapnuts.
Since you’ve probably written this off as just another intemperate rant from Uncle Grimmy, let me clarify something. I don’t ever want Dragon*Con to become like Comic-Con. Comic-Con is a convention where people go to “watch the show”. They go to catch a glimpse of their favorite celebs. They go to listen to panels where “experts” talk to each other in front of an audience, giving opinions which don’t mean anything more than the opinions of each person paying 100 bucks/ticket to watch them talk. It is a convention where studios and large corporations hire booth babes to pitch whatever craptacular idea has spewed forth from marketing.
Dragon*Con is run by fans, for fans.
We, the fan, ARE the show at Dragon*Con. Guests and panelists actually interact with fans. Dragon*Con doesn’t close down at 5:00 PM each day. That’s just when things are getting warmed up. It means that the volunteers who run Dragon*Con may not always be professionals (because, let’s face it… We’re not.) but we will always bust out butts to make sure the convention remains a convention that we’d want to attend as fans. Why? Because that’s what we are, first and foremost. Fans.
The next time you see questions like
“Why isn’t Dragon*Con run out of the World Congress Center?”
“Why don’t they cap ticket sales to Dragon*Con?”
“Why don’t they hire a company to staff and run Dragon*Con?”
“Why don’t they bring in more big sponsors to keep badge prices low?”
My answer, and I can’t speak for the powers that be, is that each of those things would make Dragon*Con less of what it is, and more like Comic-Con and related “Corporate-Cons”. No thanks.
| © 2010-2012 D*C MMO | Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha |