February 17, 2025

The 2025 ACDC After Action Review

Armchair Dragoons PAO, 29 January 2025

This was our 6th ACDC and 7th overall digital wargame convention.  Remember that back in 2021, we held 2 ACDCs as we added one in June when Origins vacated their original weekend during the Summer.  Our first convention was called the “Virtual Dragoons Assembly” before we developed the ACDC moniker.

As with all of our events, we ask the audience for their feedback, and share it with you to see how we’re doing.


ORIGINAL OPORD ~ REGISTRATION ~  LIVESTREAM ARCHIVE ~ AAR ~ PODCAST


Did You Have A Good Time?

Every year, we ask “Most importantly – did you have a good time?”

While the majority of people did, we still got a couple of “meh” votes.  It’s nice that we’re over 90% in the top 2 blocks, but we’re still under 50% for “Hell yes” and we’d like to get that up a bit.

click charts & graphics to enlarge

We also ask “What did you think of the event selections”

Our “great variety” response have fluctuated over the years, but this is the lowest since our first virtual convention.  Clearly, we need to work with the pool of GMs and publishers to bump up the variety a bit.  This would also help with the overall number of events, too.

Interestingly though, this year we specifically focused on bringing in some new & different events, and pushed some others (like the minis wargames) to try and raise awareness of some events that don’t normally grab people’s attention.

Are players just looking for us to “play the hits” and focus on the top-line games from GMT, Compass, and Decision?

Or is continuing to give smaller publishers like Catastrophe Games and Wharf Rat Games, as well as Keith Tracton’s and Code: ATLAS’s independent productions a better service to the hobby even if it costs us a few votes here?


Events & Comparisons to other ACDCs

Our event count was down slightly from last year, but that largely a reflection of fewer seminars / talk shows with some of our usual hosts being tied up with other activities that weekend.  Our badge count went up from last year, which was nice.  We’re still nowhere near our previous highs of either, but the combination of “screen fatigue” and real-world conventions coming back has likely killed those high numbers for us.  Also, SDHistCon now running a pair of online conventions each year probably eats into that audience a bit, as well.


Events & Schedules

We did make a dedicated effort this year to both (1) ensure some events were scheduled earlier in the day to make it easier for the Europeans to participate, and (2) publicize the heck out of those times.  The couple of folks from Europe who joined the fun were effusive in their thanks & praise, but it would be nice to get the non-US participant head count up a bit higher if possible.

We were a little lighter on talk shows and presentations this year, in part because we had some schedule conflicts with a few of our regulars.  This did cut into the non-game programming we had on offer this year, but we’re hoping that rebounds in the future.  There have been some ACDC’s in the past where we were literally wall-to-wall with talk shows from 10am-10pm US EST, but not this year.

One thing that has evolved in the digital convention space is the “GM plays while a bunch of people watch” event, which is halfway between a game session (everyone in the room makes decisions & touches pieces) and seminar (everyone watches 1-2 people do something).
In the future, we’re probably going to look to distinguish those types of events so that participants are well-informed at sign-up whether they’re actually playing the game, or watching someone else play while asking questions or occasionally providing input.

 


Your Turn to Sound Off

We asked the usual registration / pricing questions, but we’re no longer asking about whether or not this is a good time of year to hold the convention, as it’s either going to remain on MLK weekend, or we’ll shut it down.  With our in-person Fall Assembly in October every year, there’s simply no other place in the calendar for us to hold another event.

 


What are some specific quotes from the audience?

For the first time, we asked if there was a specific GM or event people would like to call out in a comment and here are a few excerpts

Hermann does a heck of a demo!

Raider Drop Zone was awesome!

Vez was A+ as a host and designer!

Jason W for Epipolae, the VUCA folks for New Cold War, and Dr. Wictz all ran engaging and interactive events. 

Alan of the Montebello game was present, helpful and did a nice job. Much appreciated. 

Pedragon’s host Andrew was fantastic. 

 

As always, we asked “If there’s one thing we need to make sure we sustain for next time, what is it?”

The schedules ! It was great to have them fit all timezones.

The up-front setup was excellent.  Each event that I participated in was clear as to where and when the event would be held.

Keep the communication and organization. It was well thought out. Or it seemed to be. I am sure it is a ton of hard work behind the curtain. 

The laid-back attitude

Loved the seminars & talk shows!

Streaming games live in Discord was really useful.

 

We also asked “If there’s one thing we need to improve for next time, what is it?”

Evening happy hour from the chit show, so attendees and talk and interact outside of morning coffee – basically a social time.

More true wargaming, I think I will try and host an event next convention

Wished all the sessions were recorded somehow. Missed some due to overlapping schedules.

Broadening event start times — felt like things tended to clump in 2-3 windows. US Evening starts for games particularly felt like a shortfall (granted these are the ones that are inaccessible to Europe – but might push into availability for AUS/NZ)

The schedule is a tad (just a tad) difficult to find – it was pinned up top of the General channel and that is good. Having a place where we can tell family where we’ll be the following day is helpful. Tidy up just a bit.

The assortment of games. Not that there were not a breadth of options but rather what parts of the hobby they represented. This isn’t something you as the organizer control and you’re dependent on GMs stepping forward so this is not a “could do better” rather a “for me x would have been nice”. It seems like traditional hex and counter games were overall under represented and that is my preference in the hobby.

More! I enjoyed the morning coffee open forum discussions. Let companies host a channel to discuss upcoming games or offer demos. 

The possibility of more EU designers or publishers marking presence IF possible. Also a dedicated area/schedule for unpublished games to be shown having content makers go through and showcase.

Change human nature to make people better at participating?  Really the only downside was low turnout for some of the play sessions or demos.

Several of these suggestions lead back to the same thing we brought up last year: we need some help.  Specifically, Brant needs some help.

We’re looking for 1-2 people who can help out with a couple of specific areas.

  1. Participant engagement: reaching out to publishers & designers to bring their games and events to the convention and trying to find & recruit as many players and participants as possible.  We need someone out there pounding the pavement and beating the drum to come join in the ACDC, and get those commitments as early as possible.
  2. Documentation:  Help guides for Discord.  Getting started with VASSAL and/or TTS (and/or all the other available options).  Updating the public-facing schedules on our site and publicizing them.  GM help guides and screen-sharing advice.  Streamyard help for people joining us for talk shows & presentations.  There’s a lot!  Some of this may well exist and we just need to consolidate it into an easy-to-find location.

These are both things that are needed to respond to some longer-running issues that have been mentioned multiple times over the years, but have to get dealt with going forward.

Truthfully, Brant is going to need either (or both!) of those folks in place by the time we wrap up the Fall Assembly in October, or the 2026 ACDC might not happen.

And speaking of, as of now . . .

The 2026 ACDC is scheduled for 16-18 January.


ORIGINAL OPORD ~ REGISTRATION ~  LIVESTREAM ARCHIVE ~ AAR ~ PODCAST


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