I hate you Gen Con.  3rd year in a row that I submit at the exact time the button goes live, the website freezes, and then I need to go back and the wishlist submission is "unclicked". You really need to program this properly. 6,100 in line because I needed to resubmit a list I already submitted.

I find it harder and harder to support a company that can't handle their own submission process.

I got hit this year by the submission error too.  Bad spot in the housing lottery, and bad spot in event picks...boo.
 

Happened to me as well; it's why I'd rather have it automatically run wish lists without our intervention.  I'm not expecting to get super rare events out of it, just avoid 503 Service Unavailables from saying "Yes, really, put me in a random spot in the queue." :(

All I want is to be put into the que when I hit the button, its not really too much to ask.  But they never try and improve the system.

I agree, and sympathize. Got affected the same way, and watching all the wish list events get filled while I wait is not helping. Well, there is always hunt for open spots.

I got several 503 errors, some after my wish list had been submitted.  Not really sure what that means, just that I'm usually in the 1,500s or the 2,000s and this year I was like 5,800 or something.
 

As I write this I am still waiting in Que...watching as all my events slowly get "greyed" out. Next GC will say don't worry it's not the end of the world if you didn't get the events you want - keep checking back. pretty much the same response for the housing process - it's not the end of the world if you don't get a hotel room downtown, keep checking back as rooms become available. Becoming quickly disillusioned with GC and not really caring about their customers.

Gen Con isn't responsible for making sure everyone gets what they want. 6000 (maybe more, but did see some people say they were in the 6000s so let's use that) are competing for spots in 13,000 events - some with 4 spots, some with 300. How is this not caring about their customers? Even if the system was completely flawless, you still risk being later in the queue. 

Yeah I usually have to "game" the system.  For one thing I keep my wish list open in two separate browsers and two different windows.  I submit in both, then open up new tabs of the same page in both.  I never "refresh" unless I have an active window somewhere.

The gencon webpage seems to be (and always as been) optimized for IE so if you're trying this in FF or Chrome you're at the very least lagging a few seconds behind IE users (I've tested this for a number of years), which can be crucial.... as you're learning.

Then resubmit your wishlist even after paying for your cart items...you never know what will be released two hours from now.

I had windows in 3 different accounts in Firefox, Chrome, and IE this year (my brothers were at work and had me check out for them).

I clicked submit in the IE window first.

The IE window came in 500+ slots further back in line than the other two.

So - I think you're fitting a pattern of IE superiority where there is none.

This year I submitted with Chrome for the first time, after having used FF every previous year.

My place in line was 209, which is by far the best I've ever done.

Earlier a Gen Con moderator mentioned that the spots in line are randomly assigned in the begining.  I imagine it works that the first X# of people are assiged in spots 1 - 5000 (making up the number..)  So if you are 90 seconds late you may still be in the front of the line.   One person I know hit the refresh button,  had the screen crash, came back on and had spot number 455.   I didn't and hit it exactly as it progressed and had spot 2479

Queue positions were not randomly assigned. That was for hotel registration.

Position was determined by when the button was clicked and the server processed it.

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Derek Guder
Event Manager
Gen Con LLC

I had a ton of 503 errors but in the end got what I wanted. I know its super frustrating (was delegated like 4800), but some events opened up after 2 hrs into registrations, so in the end i got everything except some Wednesday pick up games. persistence pays off.

I really don't understand the need for Gen Con to require all of us to sit at our computers to hit submit at the exact same time and pray the server decides to process ours first. Here's a suggestion for a better solution:

Lock wishlists at noon eastern on event reg opening. Gen Con then randomly assigns an order to all wishlists and processes them without user interaction. Keep all wish lists locked until 2 hours after processing begins to ensure all lists were processed. Then open wish lists for everyone to add new events to replace ones they did not get.

This would remove server strain, eliminate customer frustration from submission fails, and be much fairer than the luck of the server draw we all participate in now.

Don't be disheartened if there was a game you really wanted to take part in but couldn't get in before it sold out. You can always show up with generics and, if there is space available, still get to play. Sometimes people have to miss games last minute (I missed one last year because my hotel shuttle bus never showed and we were 45 minutes late getting to the ICC). Sometimes the GM is willing to add one or two more people to an already full table. It's no guarantee certainly, but it's still an option to pursue if there's nothing else you want to do with that time slot.

Didn't get ANY of the events I wanted...My kids didn't get any of the events they wanted at the time that works for us, had to redo my entire schedule.  If I wasn't running 2 events I'd seriously consider not going this year.  I'd be spending $360.00 in badges to essentially go shopping at a big gaming store.  (This doesn't count housing and transportation either)  I was hoping that I'd be able to get at least one of the events I wanted.  I know that the response will be check back as some people will cancel or you can check with GM's at specific events and hope that they'll let you in.  In my experience that doesn't really work.  You either ending up sitting there and being told at the last minute, "Sorry" or they give you a teritary character that doesn't really have much to do.  I watched this happen 2 times at events I had tickets for last year.

I understand how it works, but I must say I'm really disappointed.

But things will open up between now and August.  So don't lose hope...I just minutes ago dived on to an event that I had missed with my original que (1360 or something like that).  I ended up with about half my wishlist and I was ok with that....considering my last year at Gen Con I got almost nothing from my wishlist.

That's interesting info about the Chrome.  For some reason Chrome always seems to lag a little behind IE for me and their forums have never (until recently) been Chrome friendly...but I prefer Chrome.  

But many of you have had great luck with it, it seems.

For me this was the first try out of the last four where it didn't hang up on clicking "submit"...it waited a while then gave me a place in the queue.

What *really* annoys me, as a solo attendee, is that when it tells me I'm 3800 in line it doesn't really mean 3800, it means 3800 plus all the friends those 3799 people are buying for as well...which seriously reduces the odds of getting into smaller events e.g. many of the RPG sessions; all it takes is one person buying for a group of 6 and bang goes that event.

I clicked right at noon and I was 6100. This would be so much better if they only processed like the first 5 items on someones list so the wishlist really mattered.