Since 2003, Indianapolis has been host to Gen Con, one of America’s largest role-playing game conventions. The event takes place at the Indianapolis Convention Center.

Gen Con began in 1967 as an informal gathering of war game enthusiasts at Lake Geneva, in the Wisconsin home of Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax. A year later, Gygax organised the first formal convention at the Lake Geneva Horticultural Hall with roughly 100 attendees.

Gen Con’s name is a derivation of “Geneva Convention”, given the convention’s origins in Lake Geneva. The name is also a play on words, as the Geneva Conventions are the name of a set of important international treaties regarding war, and the earliest Gen Cons had a focus on wargames.

Attendance steadily rose from five thousand paid admissions in 1985 to a peak of 30,000 in 1994, making Gen Con the premier event in the role-playing game industry. In 2005, it was reported that Gen Con generated the most direct visitor spending of any annual convention in Indianapolis.

In 2006, Gen Con organisers announced plans to provide more show space for video games, to allow video game businesses a place to show their products after the downsizing of the Electronic Entertainmnt Expo (E3), the annual trade show for the computer and video games industry. Gen Con described their intentions as to “pick up where E3 left off”, despite Gen Con’s owner Peter Adkison several years earlier claiming that he did not want Gen Con to become a “mini E3”.

Gen Con LLC also runs Star Wars Celebration, the official Star Wars convention. The second and third Star Wars Celebration events, held in 2002 and 2005, to mark the release of ‘Attack Of The Clones’ and ‘Revenge of The Sith’ respectively, were both also held at the Indianaplis Convention Center.

Celebration III in 2005 saw over thirty thousand fans attend over the course of the weekend. One of this celebration’s most noteworthy events was the unprecedented Q&A session with Star Wars creator Geroge Lucas, his first such appearance since the Star Wars 10th Anniversary Convention in 1987. With approximately ten thousand fans in attendance over the course of three half-hour sessions, Lucas personally answered several dozen fans’ questions about the saga.

Gen Con’s success has lead to the show travelling to a number of other countries including France, Spain and the UK, where the event has been taken place annually since 1994, at various locations throughout the country.

Gen Con 2008 takes place in August and promises to be another fun-packed weekend which will undoubtedly attract many convention-goers, so hotels in

Indianapolis are likely to be in demand by anyone wishing to get in on the action for themselves, so it makes sense to book early to avoid disappointment.

Welcome to the beginners guide for Mafia Wars and in this article I am going to focus on the Facebook edition although all of the tips can be applied to all versions.  So log into your Facebook account and search for the Mafia Wars application and we will get started.

The Mafia Wars application on Facebook automatically finds all of your Facebook friends who are already playing this fun yet highly addictive game mind you depending on your age demographic will determine how many people are already part of your Mafia family.  The goal of Mafia Wars is to become the head honcho with the strongest family who puts fear into other Mafia families.

As a brand new player the goal right now is to just focus on pulling jobs that will earn you both cash and experience.  What you are looking for in a job is one that pays very well but is pretty easy on the energy level for as you have just started your energy level is pretty pathetic.  The good news about energy is it does replenish on its own every few minutes automatically.

Property is a very big deal in the Mafia Wars game but unfortunately you need to be at least a level four before you can access this part of the game.  When you are able to purchase property I recommend you do so as soon as possible for with real estate your bank account will grow much faster as it earns around the clock.

When it comes to fighting in the Mafia Wars universe there is one big rule to follow.  The rule is never fight someone who is at a higher level than you are for it is not going to end good the majority of the time.  When you do start to fight other Mafia Wars family aim for opponents who are similar in size and strength.

The Godfather plays a very significant role in Mafia Wars and he does dictate what takes place in the streets and how quickly you climb the ladder of power in the game.  The key with the Godfather is to keep him happy by going above and beyond the call of duty.  Kind of a pain in the butt but it will pay off hugely in the long run.

Since Mafia Wars is so popular a number of trainers or bots have come out to give you the complete advantage over other players in the Mafia Wars universe but they will also get your account put six feet under. There are a number of strategy and cheat guides created by the top Mafia Wars players that will help to accelerate your progress while making sure that every cheat and techniques is 100% legal.  Dominate Mafia Wars Strategy Guide