So does anyone know if the housing process will be similar to how it was in 2015?  For a lot of us a mess?  Just trying to plan out contingencies

I don't yet have any information indicating anything different from last year's process.

gee fun.  And heard a rumor about vigs is there any info about that?

I believe returning VIGs are scheduled to get an email this week.

Does anyone know what the pre-registration badge price will be?  I am trying to start budgeting.  Please and Thank you.

That houseing lottery was brutal. Looks like another 6 months of scanning housing block at 3am and snagging open rooms.

 Well hopefully Gencon does not allow people to skip ahead of others waiting for the housing block. That sucked. If it happens again the four of my friends and I will not be coming back.

Looks like the plan is to once again do the lottery and "fix the technical issues".  Sounds like there's a strong chance I won't be attending again if I get a bad lottery number.

Will not be attending, again this year, because of the hotel lottery.

What was so bad about it last year?  This is going to be our first year going.

I already made a contingency plan of booking a palce a bit further away for a decent price and plan to rent a car (which will still end up around the same price, possibly cheaper than getting a hotel right there), so I know we're gonna make it either way....but how is a lottery such a bad system?

That's the 2nd time I've seen a reference to people cutting in line for hotel rooms.  How does opening multiple browser windows help someone cut in line?

Regardless, if it's fair now, then great.

I always simply used one browser to get a hotel, right at the opening time, and always got a downtown hotel no more than 3 blocks from the convention center.  Then last year's lottery caused me to not be able to get a room closer than the airport. 

50000 people hitting refresh to get the next avaible conetion if you have multiple browser on a couple of machines and your friends are also doing it it would increase the odds of one of the times you hit refresh that a conetion would be open

Yeah it didn't require fancy multiple computer shenanigans to get a good hotel before the lottery, just a willingness to be on at the exact time and have a plan. Pick a slightly less popular downtown hotel, have all your info already in word so you can copy/paste to fill in forms, and you could be in, out, and done with a good hotel by 12:05. No multiple computers, no special internet connection, just strategy and timing.
The lottery is hands down the worst system they've yet had and I too am saddened by its reappearance. My only hopes are that there is no other large event that weekend taking rooms away from the housing block(e.g. concert), and that the number of cheaters last year was so high that there will be a marked difference this year. Last year if you weren't in the first hour and a half you were done when it came to getting a downtown hotel. If that expands to at least two and a half hours then maybe the system isn't as terrible as I think.
Here's how to game the lottery system: Make sure every person in your party has their own separate account. Have them each buy their own badge individually - this is important. See, each account gets one shot at rooms, not each badge. So if you buy all the badges for yoru family/party. you get one lottery entry. Whereas if each member buys their own, they each get an entry. Then you can use the earliest one for your best chance to get the hotel you want. It's not much but it's what we have.

As an aside, I hate the wish list system for events as well- it's the main reason I don't preregister for events any more, except for things that almost certainly won't sell out.

Bottom line, demand far exceeds supply, especially in recent years.  The lottery is, IMO, the best way to keep things fair (by leaving everyone at the mercy of the random number generator).  Having everyone buy their own badge may increase your chances of getting a good number, but you're still talking only a few more lottery entrants out of thousands also hoping for good luck.  And pretty much every system can be gamed in some way. 

I do truly believe that the con staff have looked at every conceivable option and chosen the best one--but nothing can change the fact that way more people want a downtown room than there are rooms available. 

Another problem I had with the lottery was that it changed registration from a 5-10 minute process to a 2 hour process of being tied to your computer waiting for your turn.  If there HAS to be a lottery, I hope it's not a random number that you have no idea when it's going to be your turn, and instead it's assigned times, preferably announced when you buy your badge.  I don't see why I should have to login at noon EST (which is 9am Sunday morning for PST) only to find out that I really need to be there 2 hours later.  It would be much better to buy my badge on Friday, and get an email Saturday saying that my lottery time is 2pm EST and be able to plan around that.

It's bad enough having to pay a $10 refund penalty on a badge simply to find out you can't get a good hotel and cancel the trip.

I wish I could find a room outside the housing block for a reasonable price so as not to reward this god-awful system, but unfortunately as I said in another thread there's a ton of price-gouging going on outside the housing block.