Response from the Swiss Academy

Response from the Swiss Academy to the Open letter from Mike Tinne http://groups.google.ch/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/browse_thread/thread/dbf0a832a3ed4e4a/024a474da1221aee?hl=fr&q=Mike+Tinney&lnk=ol& Dear Mr. Tinney, First of all we would like to thank you for the work you have accomplished and are still doing for all of the VTES players. This letter is our "open answer" to your "open letter" published just two month ago. We took some time composing this not only because Swiss people like to take their time but, also to give us the opportunity to think about the practical side of the issue at two recent tournaments in Prague and Germany. As you mentioned, not everything has been perfect since the game's debut but, let us contribute with what we believe is working for the game now. What has been done so far: Princes from all cities have done a great job with communication and we can tell links are being created between playgroups worldwide. Not only is it easy to join a prince, but it is also easy to find players everywhere you go to. People seem to be motivated and show a lot of goodwill facing communication tasks. The game's merits: 1. One of the most important ones is the game's social dimension. Indeed VTES is more than just a card game, it is a social game. 2. The connection with the World of Darkness adds a bit of fantasy to the game and building your own deck according this vision can be very rewarding. Yet the main interest of the game seems to reside in developing and executing your strategies. Luck can be easily factored as not relevant in this game. 3. The dynamic created by the five player's prey-predator relation takes some heavy psychology to master. Table control is the art of keeping everyone happy when actually only one player can win the game. The game's spirit: We would like to emphasise here the overall sportsmanlike spirit that predominates at international tournaments and which we specially appreciate. To us, playing VTES means meeting players from just about everywhere but, it also means making friends with your game's enemies, sharing strategies. All this more social and "unprofessional" side of the game is very valuable. To us it seems important that huge sums of money stay out of the game for, it would ruin the friendly spirit that makes tournaments enjoyable. Also a very small difference in prizes between the winner and the others avoids new player's frustration. What could be improved: Internal Policy: We could begin with having an internal policy that ensures that any sent mail actually gets a reply within, say, three weeks. Even if it's only a generic answer. What really matters is that players know someone is lending them an ear and that their query will be considered later on. Playgroupvtes.com: Creating a tool to help you find your own town's players seems necessary. Information could be provided that would allow you to contact anyone that has ever signed in. It could, for example, be a webpage like "playgroupvtes.com" offering every player the possibility to be registered on his town's player list. But, to be effective, the link to this player list needs to be reproduced on every starter and booster. This way anyone buying cards would have an easy way to find other players and start playing. As far as technical tools are concerned, a last detail would be making the online Archon easier to use. Prize support, a travel opportunity: Changing the prize support system could be very useful for connecting playgroups to each other. We could think of prize support consisting of a flight, for instance the winner of the CE could get a flight to go to the NAC. It is then more than likely that many other players will, on their own behalf, accompany the prized one. Prince help database: Concerning the role of princes, these volunteers could use some help with a guide to their activities: how to organise a playgroup; how to organise a demo; how to organise a tournament. A world championship: It would be very exciting if we could organise a world championship. It would motivate most players and, be an opportunity to have a major event. This could also help establish relationships between the different playgroups. Stability of the game: There is also an other aspect of the game itself that could be improved; considering the fact the game is mostly played by players between 20 and 35 years old, we could improve the number of cards that are kept playable. Most players like the game because they don't need to change the way they play every half a year. Controlling the rhythm and quality of editions is crucial. Play testing: We find it great that a European coordinator has been named and we are looking forward to seeing the next step of this evolution: which would be having European play testers. Since we seem to approach the game slightly differently in Europe than in United States it would only be normal that European players get to share their vision on the cards of the next edition. This is why we proposed ourselves to be play testers as part of this European VTES world. These are the things we believe could be currently improved in VTES, we hope our vision of the matter helps you getting new perspectives and we look forward to keeping contact with you. Best Regards, Olivier Perez Prince of Geneva Headquarters of the Swiss Academy This letter has been compose and written by: Jens-Thilo Rumphorst Swiss National Coordinator Gabriel Carnino Pablo Carnino Ruben Feldman current number 1 player Mathias Matzler Damien Wursten Prince of Lausanne Thomas Piguet

Olivier_PEREZ wrote: > Play testing: We find it great that a European coordinator has been > named and we are looking forward to seeing the next step of this > evolution: which would be having European play testers. That's not a "next" step, BTW. That's an old step. It was enacted long ago. Other continents as well.

Solid stuff from Oliver and the rest of the Swiss. I heartily agree! >which would be having European play testers. Years ago I do remember participating playtests of Final Nights and IIRC Bloodlines run by Orava, the venerable Prince of Helsinki. We didn't continue involvement in playtests of further sets as AFAIK & IIRC it took quite a heavy toll on everyone's available free time which might have been quite marginal even before playtesting. Orava most likely will know this better than me, but at least I'm under the impression that this one European playtest group dropped out in its own vollition. Cheers, Janne/Lönkka VTES NC Finland

LSJ schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] It should be noted that usually there is no common knowledge about who is playtesting and who not, because even by telling that you are playtesting to an "outsider" you are violating the NDA. So probably LSJ ist the only person on the planet (well perhaps some folks at WW too) who actually knows who is playtesting and who not. -- Johannes Walch

Johannes Walch wrote: > LSJ schrieb: >> Olivier_PEREZ wrote: >>> Play testing: We find it great that a European coordinator has been >>> named and we are looking forward to seeing the next step of this >>> evolution: which would be having European play testers. >> >> That's not a "next" step, BTW. That's an old step. It was enacted long >> ago. >> Other continents as well. > > It should be noted that usually there is no common knowledge about who > is playtesting and who not, because even by telling that you are > playtesting to an "outsider" you are violating the NDA. While most playtesters seem to prefer to remain anonymous, it isn't because of the NDA.

[ quoted text not captured ] It's because they are a non-mouse. Oh it hurts!

> It's because they are a non-mouse. > > Oh it hurts!- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - People have gone to Hell for less, XZealot. ;) RE: OP: A fairly reasonable response, and hopefully a good sign of further support & communication to come. I'd especially stress the importance of the social element. The problem with any game involving 'big money' (big being a very subjective term, of course) is that it radically changes the state of the game. At the end of the day, people WILL stop at nothing once valuable prizes are at stake. I especially liked the idea of tangible things such as transport to the next event, that provides an excellent motivation that only is useful within the game itself. VTES is, imo, golden not because of the game itself, but because of the community it created. The game just helped to foster that through the mechanics of how it works. - Dave

Johannes Walch wrote: > It should be noted that usually there is no common knowledge about who > is playtesting and who not, because even by telling that you are > playtesting to an "outsider" you are violating the NDA. The NDAs I've personally signed have had an expiration date of 18 months. There was at least one thread discussing playtesting from years ago: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/browse_thread/thread/3e55f8c1fb0d285e/ebc539e408ef1197?lnk=gst&q=NDA+and+talking+about#ebc539e408ef1197 I also have first-hand knowledge of a European playtest group from as early as 2002. I assume (but cannot personally confirm) that it was not the only European playtest group at the time, and I also assume (but also cannot personally confirm) that there have been European playtest groups prior to 2002. - Ben Peal

On Dec 19, 4:32 am, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > LSJ schrieb: > > > Olivier_PEREZ wrote: > >> Play testing: We find it great that a European coordinator has been > >> named and we are looking forward to seeing the next step of this > >> evolution: which would be having European play testers. > > > That's not a "next" step, BTW. That's an old step. It was enacted long ago. > > Other continents as well. > > It should be noted that usually there is no common knowledge about who > is playtesting and who not, because even by telling that you are > playtesting to an "outsider" you are violating the NDA. Actually, you're not - since you haven't signed the NDA when it's handed to you, you're under no obligation to refrain from telling people "I got an NDA and was asked to playtest" (for instance, if you decide not to particpate.) Also, the NDAs aren't retroactive.(nor is the NDA itself confidential.) And as Ben notes, the NDAs typically expire after 18 months (from the date of signing, not the release date of the set.) > Johannes Walch -John Flournoy

On 19 Dec, 16:23, benp...@gmail.com wrote: > Johannes Walch wrote: > > It should be noted that usually there is no common knowledge about who > > is playtesting and who not, because even by telling that you are > > playtesting to an "outsider" you are violating the NDA. > > The NDAs I've personally signed have had an expiration date of 18 > months. There was at least one thread discussing playtesting from > years ago: > > http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/browse_t... > > I also have first-hand knowledge of a European playtest group from > as early as 2002. I assume (but cannot personally confirm) that it > was not the only European playtest group at the time, and I also > assume (but also cannot personally confirm) that there have been > European playtest groups prior to 2002. There's been playtesting in the Netherlands - years back, even. I'm sure LSJ or WW knows or could retrieve all the playtest history (unless he doesn't care after a certain period), but that doesn't matter, I think: apparently the SA wasn't aware of it, and they want to now. Enough evidence now exists for them, I reckon. Tobias

> I'm sure LSJ or WW knows or could retrieve all the playtest history > (unless he doesn't care after a certain period), but that doesn't > matter, I think: apparently the SA wasn't aware of it, and they want > to now. Enough evidence now exists for them, I reckon. > > Tobias- Unless he's worried about angry VTES lynchmobs looking for ex- Playtesters over certain cards, maybe? :)

[ quoted text not captured ] Can I ask you to react to the other proposition from the Swiss Team? The one i'm the most interested in is having a link on every booster to an internet page to find other player around .

Olivier_PEREZ schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] That is entirely up to Oscar and the rest of the V:TES team @ White-Wolf. Perhaps he can comment on that. By the way: the idea has come up before a few times allready, but it was never really put into reality. -- Johannes Walch

On Dec 20, 9:08 pm, Olivier_PEREZ <olivier.eni...@gmail.com> wrote: > Can I ask you to react to the other proposition from the Swiss Team? > The one i'm the most interested in is having a link on every booster > to an internet page to find other player around . While this isn't a bad idea, how is it really different from the current White Wolf player locator on the WW website that is advertised in the rulebook? -Peter

Try to be realist. Today if you do not know the game and buy a few booster and like iti you will never think about finding other player around you. If it's written on all booster: find other player by contacting the prince of your city on www.princevtes.com It's much more easier. Recently in Geneva we discoverd a knew playgroup that didn't know about the comunity and was playing for 10 years...

[ quoted text not captured ] NEW not KNEW For Fuck's Sake ! ^^

Olivier_PEREZ wrote: > Try to be realist. > Today if you do not know the game and buy a few booster and like iti > you will never think about finding other player around you. > > If it's written on all booster: > find other player by contacting the prince of your city onwww.princevtes.com > > It's much more easier. Exactly. Why advertise the player groups in only the starter deck rulebooks when you can advertise the player groups in _every_ V:TES product? It doesn't cost anything to do. Just print a line of text on the wrapper or box. The more you actively inform people that people play the game, the more likely they are to play the game - and therefore the more likely they are to buy the game. - Ben Peal

[ quoted text not captured ] I know you would understand the Swiss way of thinking...

On Dec 21, 1:04 pm, Olivier_PEREZ <olivier.eni...@gmail.com> wrote: > Try to be realist. > Today if you do not know the game and buy a few booster and like iti > you will never think about finding other player around you. While I am in no way opposed to adding an extra advertisement on a booster, I'm being a realist. The rulebook already has information about finding other players around you. The White Wolf website makes it incredibly easy to do so. The problem is not a lack of information. > If it's written on all booster: > find other player by contacting the prince of your city onwww.princevtes.com This is on the WW website already. I mean, again, yeah, it would in no way hurt anything to have a pointer on the booster wrappers. But anyone already with a modicum of want to do so can easily locate Princes and nearby playgroups and whatever. And the rulebook already points to this information. > Recently in Geneva we discoverd a knew playgroup that didn't know > about the comunity and was playing for 10 years... This isn't 'cause it is hard to find local playgroups and it isn't 'cause there wasn't readily available information that comes with the cards. It is 'cause people are lazy and don't necessarily follow instructions that come with their products if they don't feel it is necessary to do so. If the local playgroup wanted to find out about the community, they could have done so in 2 minutes on the internet (if you type "vampire the eternal struggle" into google, the first link is the WW VTES homepage, and from there, the world!). Again, it is in no way a bad idea to have pointers on booster wrappers. But really. The information is already there and already available and already easy to access and already in the rulebook. -Peter

On 18 déc, 23:49, Olivier_PEREZ <olivier.eni...@gmail.com> wrote: > Response from the Swiss Academy to the Open letter from Mike Tinne > What could be improved: > > Playgroupvtes.com: Creating a tool to help you find your own town's > players seems necessary. Information could be provided that would > allow you to contact anyone that has ever signed in. It could, for > example, be a webpage like "playgroupvtes.com" offering every player > the possibility to be registered on his town's player list. But, to be > effective, the link to this player list needs to be reproduced on > every starter and booster. This way anyone buying cards would have an > easy way to find other players and start playing. As far as technical > tools are concerned, a last detail would be making the online Archon > easier to use. > This is very true, and especially, "check" if princes are active or not We all know that a lot of registered princes are just not active anymore, and their email adress as well. It should be nice if white wolf would just send a mail once in a year to prince, just asking if the prince is still willing to appear on the WW princelist. We could have some kind of tool like facebook to register players. That would be great. > Prize support, a travel opportunity: Changing the prize support system > could be very useful for connecting playgroups to each other. We could > think of prize support consisting of a flight, for instance the winner > of the CE could get a flight to go to the NAC. > It is then more than likely that many other players will, on their own > behalf, accompany the prized one. > I agree on the principle. > Prince help database: Concerning the role of princes, these volunteers > could use some help with a guide to their activities: how to organise > a playgroup; how to organise a demo; how to organise a tournament. > Again, I like the idea. > A world championship: It would be very exciting if we could organise a > world championship. It would motivate most players and, be an > opportunity to have a major event. This could also help establish > relationships between the different playgroups. > I'm not really motivated by this idea actually. I mean, in themselves, the EC are the NAC are far enough for me. However, I do think that it might give some kind of prestige to the game, but as a player, I'm not sure I would attempt it, even though I do like competition. > Stability of the game: There is also an other aspect of the game > itself that could be improved; considering the fact the game is mostly > played by players between 20 and 35 years old, we could improve the > number of cards that are kept playable. Most players like the game > because they don't need to change the way they play every half a year. > Controlling the rhythm and quality of editions is crucial. > isn't it the case already? > Play testing: We find it great that a European coordinator has been > named and we are looking forward to seeing the next step of this > evolution: which would be having European play testers. Since we seem > to approach the game slightly differently in Europe than in United > States it would only be normal that European players get to share > their vision on the cards of the next edition. This is why we proposed > ourselves to be play testers as part of this European VTES world. > To me, that last paragraph just ruined your mail. [ quoted text not captured ]

Huruem wrote: > This is very true, and especially, "check" if princes are active or > not We all know that a lot of registered princes are just not active > anymore, and their email adress as well. It should be nice if white > wolf would just send a mail once in a year to prince, just asking if > the prince is still willing to appear on the WW princelist. I don't know if they still do it, but I know when i was a prince some years back we'd get emails every so often along the lines of 'reply to tell us you're still active or we'll take you off the list'. -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'yahoo' to email)

Peter D Bakija schrieb: > On Dec 21, 1:04 pm, Olivier_PEREZ <olivier.eni...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Try to be realist. >> Today if you do not know the game and buy a few booster and like iti >> you will never think about finding other player around you. > > While I am in no way opposed to adding an extra advertisement on a > booster, I'm being a realist. The rulebook already has information > about finding other players around you. The White Wolf website makes > it incredibly easy to do so. > > The problem is not a lack of information. > >> If it's written on all booster: >> find other player by contacting the prince of your city onwww.princevtes.com > > This is on the WW website already. I mean, again, yeah, it would in no > way hurt anything to have a pointer on the booster wrappers. But > anyone already with a modicum of want to do so can easily locate > Princes and nearby playgroups and whatever. And the rulebook already > points to this information. It愀 is all a matter of visual communication. Why do you think the food industry puts information such as 100% sugar free or 100% fat free in xxxl letters on the front of each food grade packagings? Consumers could just read the nutrition information. Why do you think most end-consumers are not able to use software correctly? Because 90% of them do not read the user manual! People nowadays are stressed and tend to read over things. Thus important information must be presented in a special way to attract their attention. thats why! regards, Andreas

In article <fknr3l$tjk$1...@news01.versatel.de>, Andreas Nusser - Privat <time...@scram.de> wrote: > It愀 is all a matter of visual communication. Why do you think the food > industry puts information such as 100% sugar free or 100% fat free in > xxxl letters on the front of each food grade packagings? > > Consumers could just read the nutrition information. > > Why do you think most end-consumers are not able to use software correctly? > > Because 90% of them do not read the user manual! > > People nowadays are stressed and tend to read over things. Thus > important information must be presented in a special way to attract > their attention. There is only so much you can do to make people do things. You could tatoo a website address on every VTES player's forehead, and most folks *still* wouldn't go to that website. As I said before, the problem that you are trying to overcome here is not one of lack of information. It is trying to overcome people's inertia. The information (i.e. how to find other VTES players) is already easily available and dropped in people's laps. If folks aren't going to a VTES website based on the information in the rulebook, what makes you think they will go there based on information printed on boosters? Again, I'm in no way opposed to printing pointers on booster backs--it costs nothing to do and requires no further infrastructure to be established. But I think it is kind of foolish to think that it will make a significant impact on people's habits. If folks aren't going to see and use this information in the rulebook, why are they going to see and use it on booster packs? Currently, if someone who plays VTES is remotely interested in finding other players, and have used a computer ever, they can find them in less than 2 minutes (I just opened up google, typed "vampire the eternal struggle", clicked on the first link, saw "player registry" and clicked on that. Players from your city instantly.) This information is in the rulebook even if you aren't savy enough to figure it out on your own. Again, sure--put it on booster packs. It couldn't hurt in one bit. But I'm unconvinced that it would have that significant of an impact on the system at all. 'Cause people aren't finding neighboring playgroups due to not being able to or not knowing how. It is 'cause they don't want to be bothered for whatever reason. And if they don't want to be bothered, they aren't going to suddenly want to be bothered by seeing a pointer on a booster pack. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "Find hungry samurai." -The Old Man

> Currently, if someone who plays VTES is remotely interested in finding > other players, and have used a computer ever, they can find them in less > than 2 minutes (I just opened up google, typed "vampire the eternal > struggle", clicked on the first link, saw "player registry" and clicked > on that. Players from your city instantly.) Actually, there are alot of players on Facebook and MySpace that are not on the player registry. I know because I just did a search in my state, louisiana, USA, and I found 3 players that I have never heard of or from before. So perhaps just using social networking sites is a big help as well. Can anyone think of another social networking site that I didn't list that would be good to add? Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr XZealot Archon of the Swamp

[ quoted text not captured ] Vampire Freaks? http://www.vampirefreaks.com [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <91674dd4-bb02-490f...@w56g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, XZealot <xze...@cox.net> wrote: > Actually, there are alot of players on Facebook and MySpace that are > not on the player registry. I know because I just did a search in my > state, louisiana, USA, and I found 3 players that I have never heard > of or from before. Oh, I'm sure there are countless players that aren't on the registry. But it is unlikely that the reason that they are on the registry is 'cause the information is too obscure for them to access--if they wanted to be on a VTES player list, I'm sure they would have found the VTES player list. If they wanted to find other players via the internet, they would have done so. It is really easy to do so, and if you have any amount of internet kung fu (and by that I mean the absolute minimal kung fu, i.e. "can use google"), you can find VTES players. Even without having ever read the "hey! go here to find VTES players and information!" in the back of the rulebook. The issue is not a lack of information. Peter D Bakija [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 18, 5:49 pm, Olivier_PEREZ <olivier.eni...@gmail.com> wrote: > Luck can be easily factored > as not relevant in this game. Care to elaborate on this sentence? My experience is quite the opposite, but perhaps you mean something else by it. -- David Cherryholmes

[ quoted text not captured ] What he means is that he only plays Tier 1 decks. He only brings decks to tournaments that have won other tournaments. Pretty much the same stuff you see in Magic. [ quoted text not captured ]