GalCiv3 Forums
I think it'd be neat if there were a meet & greet sort of event for a major milestone such as the first Alpha release. I myself only live a few hours outside of the Detroit area.
You SIR aren't a Founder! Now to act shallow and pedantic!
I saw this and threw my money at them instantly.... now I'm poor... 
No worries if you're not a founder... your genius ideas can be help enough!
Rochester all the way
How about online? I'm from Switzerland, also not quite in the region...
He's only brought out to scare children, like the boogeyman.
This does seem to be the only practical way to do this; unless, someone buys me a ticket. Because the founders are all around the world, or is this for everyone not just founders, Just remember that whatever video chat we use it will have to be a free one, so everyone can participate. Because if we require a paid one a lot of people may not participate who wants to.
Financial barrier is only one obstacle on the way, paperwork is another one - getting visas may be quite difficult and time consuming. Even if we can find country that does not require visa (for example, Ukraine in Europe for now), there still be travel-related issues, time, cost, jetlag.
So I agree, online "convent" is best option. However, we shouldn't forget about different time zones, so we either need several convents in suitable hours for local residents, or we need conventathon that'll go for at least 24 hours, so everyone could participate. Since game is Steam-bound, maybe Steam community will be nice place to have gaming spree: webcam drinking, VOIP dice poker, remote brawling, "undress cruiser" roulette chat... Not necessary in that order.
I'm in Perth, Western Australia.
If there's any other Gal Civ III elites in my region I'd be more than happy to meet up and have a chat - it'd be a great way to brush up on the old knowledge skills ready for the new game!! It'd be a great feeling to be able to go toe to toe with the AI from day one of the alpha! 
We don't necessarily have to have a online meeting at the same time. Good point on time zones. I don't want to be the one running a 24 hour chat though.
If we won't have online meeting at same time, than why do anything - these or Steam boards will do nicely, aren't they?:) IMHO the whole point of convent is being able to "chat" (maybe even talk via voice, for those with microphones/headsets and broad channels) in real time. Old guard will be able to share their experience and help newcomers to became part of the family. Sort of.
More than once I had to stay awake for more than 24 hours non-stop, it's not that bad. Unless you're required to participate in highly intelligent discussion - quite problematic thing to do hour sixteen and beyond.:) (this smilie isn't crazy enough to reflect my facial expression after such sleep deprivation;))
If we really about online convents in different time zones, we need to decide which zones are going to be key ones and gather "neighbors" around them.
Whether these convents are going to be similar to "IRL" convents with "round table conference" and experience's (or at least impressions') exchange between different time zones, is subject to discussion. On one hand, it would be nice to have certain summary, yet it'll take some additional work to combine, on the other hand, we can simply store long sheets of conversations, leaving anyone free to dig through, looking for lumpets of gold, so to speak.
Probably creation of some sort of uniform questionnaire would be wise to simplify at least core info summarization. IMHO, of course.
The important question would be, what would we discuss that we are not discussing here already???
Something people are reluctant to discuss when they have "conversation" on forums with all delays' periods, but less reluctant, when they have real-time communication. 
Somewhere nearby there is topic about "preorder", and there is reply about some people buying freshly released games (going for freshly released movies, reading recently written book, etc) just to be able to have conversations with friends about "new and trendy stuff". I admit, I don't understand this kind of activity, when you doing something just to be able to keep up "protocol" conversation about new stuff, yet forget about new stuff you just sa almost right after credits roll. Especially when that new stuff is 6 hours long and costs 80 bucks.
To some extent, proposed convent is similar to activity I mentioned above, yet it different, because GalCiv games are anything but one-time, short-term "blockbusters"; quite the contrary, they have rather long trail, moreover, GC3 is currently in development, so proposed convent could be used not only as general "opinions exchange", but as tool to improve the game, given early status. "Round table" format in general could be used to "break the ice" and make even timid members of community willing to participate, without that "what the hell am I doing here" residue.
Of course, online form of convent has its limits, and you raised most obvious one, but if total cost of it will be zero, then why not? Especially if Stardock could gather uniform info from those convents.
If we really about online convents in different time zones, we need to decide which zones are going to be key ones and gather "neighbors" around them.
Whether these convents are going to be similar to convents with table conference" and experience's (or at least impressions') exchange between different time zones, is subject to discussion. On one hand, it would be nice to have certain summary, yet it'll take some additional work to combine, on the other hand, we can simply store long sheets of conversations, leaving anyone free to dig through, looking for lumpets of gold, so to speak.
Probably creation of some sort of uniform questionnaire would be wise to simplify at least core info summarization. IMHO, of course.[/quote]
Good points maybe you should host this.
Well what you would probably get is a few people talking and everyone else listening while someone would make a comment every so often. What exactly we will be discussing is whatever you want, Posting isn't the same as conversing. It would probably be a little awkward since we don't really know each other.
Not for 24 hours non-stop. And we need to have guidelines with Stardock, for creating those uniform questionnaires.
See no problem with that - purpose of "round table" convent is exactly to let people meet and knew each other, and share their experience. While it may not be the most suitable one, it is hardly most complicated, even if simple networking event will be aimed mostly on knowing each other better.
I hope that drought uneffected you.
Ha, we aren't allowed to complain too much about our horrible drought because we wont really feel it for a few more months and because its in the 50's, 60's, and 70's here. The snow impacting the rest of the country is much more of an issue at this time. Later though, our farms that produce over 50% of the countries agriculture will dry up... then there will be issues with milk, cheese, nuts, fruit, and vegetables : (
Familiar feeling.
I wondr when newsreel going to publish success of metalurgists and kids gathered tonnes of scrap metal, just to help country grow.
I maybe ok with this.
Detroit is close enough to Toronto that I can make the trip if it was on the weekend.
People do the craziest things Comic-Con, Star Trek Conventions etc......
Picture a group of nerds talking about these type of things and the game.
Been a Founder since the Founder Elite offer was emailed to me but with the Alpha far in advance I decide to wait before I logged into the forums again.
Good to be back.
I almost live downstairs from Stardock (Plymouth Twp, MI), so that would be possible.
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