Gencon 2005 Event Registration Information

Event Information: Game ID: TCG00298 Title: North American Championships Last Chance Qualifier Event Description: The last qualifier before the North American Championships. This is a standard constructed tournament with three rounds plus a final. No elimination (everyone plays all three rounds). Each round is three hours. The first round starts promptly at 4:00 pm, so arrive early. Event Type: TCG - Tradable Card/Dice Game Game System: Vampire: The Eternal Struggle CCG Rules Edition: Current Age Requirement: Teen (13+) Experience Required: Some Experience Needed Event Duration (hours): 8 Event Start Date: 8/18/05 4:00 PM Event End Date: 8/19/05 12:00 AM Event Cost: $6.00 Gaming Group/Sponsor: White Wolf Publishing / Camarilla Game Master Name(s): Vampire: Elder Kindred Network Location: TCG HQ Event limit: 80 Registrations Available: 64 Game ID: TCG00299 Title: North American Championship Round 1 and Shadow Twin Event Type: TCG - Tradable Card/Dice Game Game System: Vampire: The Eternal Struggle CCG Rules Edition: Current Age Requirement: Teen (13+) Experience Required: Some Experience Needed Event Duration (hours): 8 Event Start Date: 8/19/05 12:00 PM Event Cost: $6.00 Gaming Group/Sponsor: White Wolf Publishing / Camarilla Game Master Name(s): Vampire: Elder Kindred Network Location: TCG HQ Game ID: TCG00300 Title: North American Championship Round 2 and Shadow Twin Draft Event Type: TCG - Tradable Card/Dice Game Game System: Vampire: The Eternal Struggle CCG Rules Edition: Current Age Requirement: Teen (13+) Experience Required: Some Experience Needed Event Duration (hours): 8 Event Start Date: 8/20/05 12:00 PM Event Cost: $6.00 Gaming Group/Sponsor: White Wolf Publishing / Camarilla Game Master Name(s): Vampire: Elder Kindred Network Location: TCG HQ Thanks for Jay Kristoff (http://columbusvtes.tripod.com) and LSJ for the info. Carpe noctem. Lasombra http://www.TheLasombra.com Your best online source for information about V:TES. Now also featuring individual card sales and sales of booster and starter box displays.

That really sucks you know? What gives with the 2 day championship? Now you have to buy the whole weekend gencon badge instead of just 1. And then you have to pay TWICE to play in the whole final. I know I know, everyone that plays card games should be independently wealthy and not trifle over a 60 something dollar badge(instead of $20) and a $6 sign up fee instead of $12. but come on. that alone is almost another box of cards that I could be buying from white wolf instead of giving everything i own to gencon. What happened to all the talk of moving the championship out of gencon anyway? That would really make more sense if from here on the event is going to be 2 days. Seriously its not like the VTES'ers are going to use that gencon badge for much of anything since our events are always 8 hours long on a good day(but figure 10 just in case) At least if i'm forced to be at gencon all weekend i might as well be able to play some other games. now i have to do the qualifier, round one and round two. boo to this craptastic change. I'm sure this is some how the fault of the europeans! haha

"The NosferatuStuff" <roans...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1120762987.9...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > That really sucks you know? What gives with the 2 day championship? > Now you have to buy the whole weekend gencon badge instead of just 1. > And then you have to pay TWICE to play in the whole final. I know I > know, everyone that plays card games should be independently wealthy > and not trifle over a 60 something dollar badge(instead of $20) and a > $6 sign up fee instead of $12. but come on. ...etc. The following is a transcript from Steve Wieck's post on the Prince's Conclave mailing list addressing why the North American championship was to be changed to a two-day. PLEASE NOTE: this message was sent on OCTOBER 14 of 2004 and represented preliminary thinking, which may differ from the decisions eventually arrived at. I copy it because it is the best source of summary information about the thinking that went into the change. You will note that the focus is basically on what the best format for determining a continental champion was and no consideration is being placed on how this will affect badge fees for the competitor. In general, I would say that playing for a continental championship involves playing a lot of games at fancy venues so I don't really agree with your problem. The years I've gone to Gencon, I've seen a lot of people running around the place who don't seem to consider themselves independently wealthy, but it does cost something, yes. Maybe not everyone can afford that but then, not everyone has to play for the big championship, either. Considering what you're doing, I don't see the beef. > From: "Steve Wieck" <ste...@white-wolf.com> > To: "'Conclave'" <conc...@list.white-wolf.com> > Subject: VEKN Conclave - Draft of New Championship and Australian > Qualifier Rules for Princes to Review > Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 15:52:36 -0700 > > Princes, > > Two policy changes that need your input and suggestions for any changes > before they are made into a final version. > > Steve Wieck > WW > > > ------------------------------------------ > Large Championship Tournaments Process > > Why Change? > ------------------- > In very large tournaments such as the EC and NAC many players believe > that 3 rounds of play is too few to properly select finalists and a > Champion. > > Also, many believe that it very large tournaments, you must play a > high-risk, high-yield deck type to reach the finals, which limits the > deck variety that is brought to play to decks that can not just get > table wins but also get table sweeps. > > It is believed that the Championship selection process would be improved > by adding more rounds to the large tournaments. > > A group of past and present EC and NAC organizers have discussed many > proposed solutions and what follows is the end result of those > discussions. > > The proposal is offered to the Conclave at large to discuss and make > suggestions for the next two weeks. Feedback form the Princes will then > be incorporated into a final policy which will be effective in 2005 and > forward, but WILL NOT CHANGE EC 2004! > WILL NOT CHANGE EC 2004! > WILL NOT CHANGE EC 2004! > WILL NOT CHANGE EC 2004! > > What is the Proposed Policy? > --------------------------------------- > Continental Qualifiers are unchanged. For Continental Championship > events there will be 2 formats for 2005. > > 1. The Traditional Format will continue to be used for the Australian > and South American Championships. There are no changes for these events. > > 2. The North American Championship (which will be held again at Gen Con > Indy) and the European Championship (In Budapest) will become 3 days of > events instead of 2. > > For the NAC, the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) will move to Thursday. > The Championship Round 1 will be Friday. This will be a > standard 3+F event. It will earn the standard Continental Championship > rating coefficient for player ratings purposes. > The top 40 players from Round 1 will advance to Round 2 of the > Championship on > Saturday. > For Round 2, players may change their decks and all standings, VPs, > etc,. from Round 1 are ignored. Round 2 is played as a standard 3+F and > its finals determine the 2005 North American Champion. > > For the EC, this will be the same except the event will probably run > from Friday to Sunday. If the EC 2005 organizers face difficulties in > making the event 3 days, then we will submit a contingency plan for > Prince review if that happens. > > > > Australian Qualifiers > > The proposal is offered to the Conclave at large to discuss and make > suggestions for the next two weeks. Feedback form the Princes will then > be incorporated into a final policy which will be effective in 2005 and > forward. > > Why Change? > ------------------- > Australian players feel that their VTES community was better served by > the prior Qualifier rules (top 50% on nonquals, max 10) than the new one > (top 25% of nonquals). > > What is the Proposed Policy? > ----------------------------------------- > 1. Australian Continental Qualifiers go back to using the prior rule for > the number of players who qualifiy for the AC from all regional > Australian Continental Qualifiers > 2. Players at Australian Qualifiers must still have placed in the top > 25% of nonquals in order to be considered qualified for any other > Continental Championship event (any such event other than Australia's). > > > We will begin organizing 2005 Qualifiers after November 1st. Please do > not ask about 2005 Qualifiers at this time. > > Regards, > > Steve I do not know if all of these bullets were ultimately resolved as Steve laid out, here. Some may have gotten altered during or after the conclave discussion of them. Fred

[ quoted text not captured ] Vampire being popular and not a dead game is at fault. It is now a 2 day championship because of the number of participants. I think I can best explain with an example (these numbers are probably not entirely accurate for North America, but maybe). Lets pretend it is a 1 day championship and 100 people show up. In order to make the top five you will (most likely) need 3 TW and probably 12-15 VPs. How likely is it that combat decks can pull that off? Wall decks? Decks that aren't stealth bleed? Pretty boring championship if you "have" to play stealth bleed to have any shot at the final table. Now lets look at the 2 day championship. Again 100 people show up for day 1, but this time 40 people (last I heard it was 40) qualify for day 2. You can now play any tourny worthy deck and have a reasonable chance of making the top 40. Now day 2 is only 40 players large and you don't need 3 sweeps to make the finals of the NA championship. More deck diversity = better championship at least IMHO. Now if only 41 people show up for day 1, the 2 day championship will be pretty lame, but lets hope not. And maybe I'm wrong and only 20 people from day 1 will qualify, I'm pretty sure we'll have a good deal more than 20 for day 1. As an aside, if you want to spend $60 (badge) + $18 (3x $6 event tickets) on a box of cards instead, why don't you just come to GenCon and volunteer to demo Vampire at the White Wolf booth when you're not playing in tournaments. I heard they gave a box of boosters to those that ran the demos at Origins (I don't know what the time commitment was to get a box though). Later, ~Rehlow

The Lasombra wrote: > Event Information: > > Game ID: TCG00298 > Title: North American Championships Last Chance Qualifier > > > Game ID: TCG00299 > Title: North American Championship Round 1 and Shadow Twin > > > > Game ID: TCG00300 > Title: North American Championship Round 2 and Shadow Twin Draft Don't forget: Event ID: 1865 Game ID: TCG00301 Title: Create-A-Clan Open Event Description: An unsanctioned format. Each player brings a crypt of custom vampires he or she creates for this event (see for rules on vampire creation and other details). Event Type: TCG - Tradable Card/Dice Game Game System: Vampire: The Eternal Struggle CCG Rules Edition: Current Age Requirement: Teen (13+) Experience Required: Some Experience Needed Event Duration (hours): 6 Event Start Date: 8/21/05 9:00 AM Event End Date: 8/21/05 3:00 PM Event Cost: $4.50 Gaming Group/Sponsor: White Wolf Publishing / Camarilla Game Master Name(s): Vampire: Elder Kindred Network Location: TCG HQ Event limit: 150 Registrations Available: 145 -Ben Swainbank

Thanks for the insight. I would say I agree mostly with why it is two days. Doesn't really answer any of my main beef's however which is why its held at gencon? and why you have to pay so much to some other company to play in the championship. Look all i'm saying is if you are going to start having an event that is 3 days long...trying to paste it on top of another event that is only 4 days long isnt such a steller idea. in my case gencon is 4 days of gaming. there are things other then VTES that might be fun to do, but this championship is basically an all or nothing deal. they are saying, if you want to play VTES we are going to own your whole weekend, and you are going to pay and pay and pay for it. i dont think that kind of hardline strategy is good for a game seeking player growth. i would imagine it would be better for gencon to be showcasing VTES in smaller 1-2 round tournaments that people could stop in for between other events and give it a try rather then having to commit such a tremendous amount of time to. it is, after all, gencon: the game convention and not, VTES the weekend. as much fun as it would be to have VTES: the weekend i think those 2 should be seperate and the bigger picture should be examined. and when, exactly, would you do demoing for 8 hours if you are playing 8 hour tournaments 3 days straight? maybe i will. VTES iron man!

"The NosferatuStuff" <roans...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1120771311.0...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > Thanks for the insight. I would say I agree mostly with why it is two > days. Doesn't really answer any of my main beef's however which is why > its held at gencon? and why you have to pay so much to some other > company to play in the championship. Look all i'm saying is if you are > going to start having an event that is 3 days long...trying to paste it > on top of another event that is only 4 days long isnt such a steller > idea. Yes, I see what you're getting at. If reducing the cost for participants is a priority, you're right: a better way to do that would be to hold the NAC at some other venue. In theory, they could even hold it alongside Gencon at another venue in Indianapolis over the same days. That way, people who want to go back and forth could still do that. I don't know exactly what considerations lead White Wolf to do the NAC the way they do. However, were I the one in charge, I would be want the maximum exposure for my game which translates into having my big year-end super-cool championship-of-da-hol'-woild tournament actually take place _in_ the biggest game convention of the year where lots of players, retailers, and game business luminaries could see it on the schedule and in the flesh. I think it's especially impressive that scores of players are sitting around playing in a single tournament and if that tournament is a 2-day affair, so much the better. That may not be much help for you in the short run, but if it drums up more business in the long run, that means more players for us and hence, more opportunities to play. Anyway, just my $0.02. I don't really know one way or the other, myself. Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: > "The NosferatuStuff" <roans...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1120771311.0...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > > Thanks for the insight. I would say I agree mostly with why it is two > > days. Doesn't really answer any of my main beef's however which is why > > its held at gencon? and why you have to pay so much to some other > > company to play in the championship. Look all i'm saying is if you are > > going to start having an event that is 3 days long...trying to paste it > > on top of another event that is only 4 days long isnt such a steller > > idea. What's especially funny is that V:TES players have been known to tack on a few extra days of our own *before* GenCon even starts. So the Week of Nightmares is 7+ days of V:TES pasted on top of another event that is only 4 days long. Frankly, I'd be just giddy to ditch GenCon. I think a roving event might be nice. I'll fly to Mexico City one year, somewhere in Canada the next, then Boston or Atlanta or Las Vegas or Seattle... yum! > Yes, I see what you're getting at. If reducing the cost for participants > is a priority, you're right: a better way to do that would be to hold the > NAC at some other venue. In theory, they could even hold it alongside > Gencon at another venue in Indianapolis over the same days. That way, > people who want to go back and forth could still do that. The smarties at GenCon are all over this. They go out of their way to make sure people don't run events in Indy as a way of bypassing the entrance fees. -Robert

"Robert Goudie" <rob...@vtesinla.org> wrote in message news:1120778708.7...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > Frederick Scott wrote: >> Yes, I see what you're getting at. If reducing the cost for participants >> is a priority, you're right: a better way to do that would be to hold the >> NAC at some other venue. In theory, they could even hold it alongside >> Gencon at another venue in Indianapolis over the same days. That way, >> people who want to go back and forth could still do that. > > The smarties at GenCon are all over this. They go out of their way to > make sure people don't run events in Indy as a way of bypassing the > entrance fees. Hmmm. That's interesting. How do they propose to do that, if then entities involved are completely independent of GenCon? I can see an approach to regulating, say, a company like White Wolf if White Wolf wants to run a booth and any activities at GenCon. But if some group that kept GenCon at arm's length in their business dealings just ran some event in parallel with GenCon, I don't see what GenCon could do about it. Fred

[ quoted text not captured ] For starters, no hotel in Indy is going to risk their relationship with GenCon so they can cater exclusively to VtesCon that just happens to be running the same weekend. So that places your event at the airport hotels instead of downtown. -Robert

The NosferatuStuff wrote: > I'm sure this is some how the fault of the europeans! haha Certainly not. The "European" proposal was a 2 day event, the 3 day suggestion was made by US players. And we did our European Championship separated from any type of convention. It costed 10EUR for the whole weekend and we had nearly 200 players in total at the event. Most of them had good fun AFAIK. -- johannes walch

Robert Goudie wrote: > For starters, no hotel in Indy is going to risk their relationship with > GenCon so they can cater exclusively to VtesCon that just happens to be > running the same weekend. So that places your event at the airport > hotels instead of downtown. Why stick to Indy (and GenCon) anyway? Indy is totally boring and in the middle of nowhere. I could imagine a bunch of better places all over the US. -- johannes walch

[ quoted text not captured ] I think (thought?) Fred was talking about running an event in Indy without actually making people pay the GenCon admission. I could have misunderstood, of course. You are sooooo right. We can do much better than Indy. I think the EC is a fine example of how a rotating event can work. Of course, the EC could have instead been located centrally or located at Euro GenCon and everyone be forced to travel every year but what could be more fair than sharing the hosting privilege. :) I was daydreaming with a buddy yesterday about someday hosting a NAC event in Los Angeles on the Queen Mary or at a Hollywood landmark or Las Vegas. I'd also love to go to Canada or Boston or Atlanta or New York. I can understand WW wanting *exposure* for V:TES but GenCon V:TES events would still exist at Indy even if the NAC were held elsewhere. I mean, people go to Origins, right? I flew to GenCon event before the NAC existed. Frankly, I think that if people are looking to try new games, they'll demo in the dealer room. I doubt many people even realize V:TES is in the CCG room let alone actually become interested in the game by seeing it played at GenCon. And we aren't getting casual V:TES players to just stop by for a game...the only people playing V:TES at GenCon are hardcore V:TES players--especially now that the V:TES events take up 3 of the 4 days at GenCon. Let's stop paying GenCon for the privilege of using their tables! -Robert

Robert Goudie schrieb: > You are sooooo right. We can do much better than Indy. I think the EC > is a fine example of how a rotating event can work. Of course, the EC > could have instead been located centrally or located at Euro GenCon Using the EURO GenCon would increase the entry fee again. Better be independent and rent cheap locations. > I can understand WW wanting *exposure* for V:TES but GenCon V:TES > events would still exist at Indy even if the NAC were held elsewhere. > I mean, people go to Origins, right? I flew to GenCon event before the > NAC existed. Frankly, I think that if people are looking to try new > games, they'll demo in the dealer room. I doubt many people even > realize V:TES is in the CCG room let alone actually become interested > in the game by seeing it played at GenCon. I doubt that there has been ever a VTES demo game at GenCon at the WW booth! I think it is better to do a benefit-cost analysis. IMO it is hardly worth the money to be present with VTES at GenCon. Use the money to demo the game at 2-3 tables, do a small tournament and save the rest of the money to support stores and princes. And btw: Let the NAC be organized by princes organizes and have the NAC move around! Indy gets boring after the second or third year! > And we aren't getting > casual V:TES players to just stop by for a game...the only people > playing V:TES at GenCon are hardcore V:TES players--especially now that > the V:TES events take up 3 of the 4 days at GenCon. > > Let's stop paying GenCon for the privilege of using their tables! Yep! I am all for it.

Andreas Nusser wrote: > I doubt that there has been ever a VTES demo game at GenCon at the WW booth! Having been in one, I would disagree.

Andreas Nusser wrote: > Robert Goudie schrieb: > > You are sooooo right. We can do much better than Indy. I think the EC > > is a fine example of how a rotating event can work. Of course, the EC > > could have instead been located centrally or located at Euro GenCon > > Using the EURO GenCon would increase the entry fee again. Better be > independent and rent cheap locations. I agree. I brought it up because some people view Indy as a good location because it is centrally located. But of course "Centrally located" is just a fancy way of saying "always far away" or "always close", depending on where you live. :) > > I can understand WW wanting *exposure* for V:TES but GenCon V:TES > > events would still exist at Indy even if the NAC were held elsewhere. > > I mean, people go to Origins, right? I flew to GenCon event before the > > NAC existed. Frankly, I think that if people are looking to try new > > games, they'll demo in the dealer room. I doubt many people even > > realize V:TES is in the CCG room let alone actually become interested > > in the game by seeing it played at GenCon. > > I doubt that there has been ever a VTES demo game at GenCon at the WW booth! I don't think I'd go that far. :) Oscar is currently getting volunteers for demoing at GenCon. I'm just saying that aspect can continue even if there's no NAC. > > Let's stop paying GenCon for the privilege of using their tables! > > Yep! I am all for it. Excellent! Okay, now we've got two of us on board with the plan. :) -Robert

"Johannes Walch" <johanne...@vekn.de> wrote in message news:dalkjc$dcq$2...@news01.versatel.de... [ quoted text not captured ] Well, for Robert's purposes, just because that was the theorectical question I was posing for him: "How can GenCon stop other entities from running events in Indianapolis in parallel with GenCon?" It was kind of a side question. To play Devil's Advocate, the reason to hold a NAC in Indy over the GenCon days is so players who WANT to can go back and forth between it and GenCon and those who don't won't have to pay for a GenCon badge fee. In this whole thread, I'm hearing a lot from gamers who's incentive it is to get only VTES play for the plane-fare/car-rental/hotel-accomadations/badge-fee money. There are a lot of VTES players who wouldn't mind dabbling in other games and GenCon is a huge orgy of other games. It's why Fabio Macedo said the South American Continental Championship was held so early this year: because that was the weekend when the big South American game convention was held. A lot of people like to do it all in one week. That said, I personally don't think it's written in stone that the Continental Championship has to be held that way. I'm just saying it has its appeal. Fred

"Andreas Nusser" <a.nu...@vekn.de> wrote in message news:dam423$p7k$1...@news01.versatel.de... > I think it is better to do a benefit-cost analysis. IMO it is hardly worth the money to be present with VTES at GenCon. I'll put it this way: a *LOT* of game companies seem to disagree with the concept that it's not worth being present at GenCon. And if you're going to be present, why not put 80+ gamers on display playing your game on multiple days in front of the precisely right group of people you want seeing that? Demo, support, and advertise all you like, I just don't know HOW a game company is going to buy that kind of publicity by other methods. Fred

"Robert Goudie" <rob...@vtesinla.org> wrote in message news:1120835986....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... >> > Let's stop paying GenCon for the privilege of using their tables! >> >> Yep! I am all for it. > > Excellent! Okay, now we've got two of us on board with the plan. :) Strategicon left a bad taste in your mouth? Los Angeles broke free of the convention mode for tournaments after years and years. Now you're trying to export the revolution? ;-) Fred

[ quoted text not captured ] I'm not sure about how all of this works together. Is the actual tournament itself meant to attract new players? It would seem different companies have different goals. For some, they make a big spectacle and try to attract attention and gain interest in their games--the CCG room becomes an extension of the dealer room! For others, the CCG room is just where the game is played and the dealer room is where they try to attract new players. For me personally, I explore new games in the dealer room. The CCG room is where people go to play whatever game they spent all that money (entrance fee, plane tickets, etc.) to come play. In any event, V:TES has never made much of their convention appearances--even when we had those fancy 6ft tall standees. I doubt anybody even knows we are playing V:TES in the CCG room. Other than the listing in the book, V:TES gets little publicity by holding the NAC event at GenCon. If WW doesn't want to sponsor the con itself and put V:TES in a big spot by the door and hang 50 foot banners, give out demo decks to all attendees and display the games on TV screens then we're not really putting 80+ gamers on display anyway--we're just leasing the tables. If the players must spend money to use GenCon's venue so that WW can get publicity for the game, I'd rather take up a collection and buy some additional magazine advertisement. :) Hell, I'll bet we could get a couple of pages writeup in a game magazine about a standalone V:TES event held outside of GenCon. Whereas, at GenCon itself we're a small fish in a big pond. -Robert

Frederick Scott wrote: > Los Angeles broke free of > the convention mode for tournaments after years and years. Now you're > trying to export the revolution? ;-) Well, It seems to me (in my opinion) that the quality of Gencon has declined in the last couple of years. Yes, Indianapolis is a better location for travel and hotels. But I agree with some previous responses that perhaps a rotating location might be better, especially with a multi-day championship. Of course this year I'm staying home, saving a week's worth of time and approximately $1500 (and this doesn't count the time and money saved by not having to attend a Qualifier). To get the same prize support as the NAC finalists, I'm going to spend about one minute online and order 2 boxes of KMW for $130. Look, I made out better than if I had attended the NAC at Gencon. Perhaps WW should come up with some kind of incentive to make spending a week's vacation time and $1500 more attractive-to encourage "local" players to branch out and play in higher level events. Now here comes the "play for the love of the game" responses. Ben Spaulding

[ quoted text not captured ] Exactly. :) Hey, if the Olympics can rotate, then so can the NAC. :) We spent about 8 years running tournaments at our local convention. Eventually the numbers started to dwindle. We started paying $40+ to pay the admission into a place where we'd play 4 V:TES tournament and then go home. The problem was that we were playing with the same people that showed-up to our home playgroup. We hung on for a couple of extra years thinking it was worth the entrance fee because we were "advertising". We eventually came to the conclusion that we gained few new players at the convention and that could be made-up for in other ways. We went through the same thing again trying to support GenCon So. Cal. We spent a ton of money to go to that crappy con and play V:TES. The only way we could even get the right tables was to go in the far corner of some kiddie area. NO-ONE saw V:TES played at GenCon So. Cal and we players footed the bill for the sake of advertisement. Now we run our events outside of the convention. We have some devoted players who *work at* advertising and creating newbies instead of crossing our fingers and hoping that the convention does the hard work for us. Now we have a $15 admission instead of $40+. Now we use the admission for tons of prizes instead of leasing the convention's tables. V:TES is an unusual character. I don't think it operates like other CCGs. Whether that's because of the complexity or the game length, the average age or income of the players, I dunno. I think we'd do just fine without "advertising" by holding the NAC at GenCon. -Robert

"Robert Goudie" <rob...@vtesinla.org> wrote in message news:1120839087....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > > Frederick Scott wrote: >> "Andreas Nusser" <a.nu...@vekn.de> wrote in message >> news:dam423$p7k$1...@news01.versatel.de... >> > I think it is better to do a benefit-cost analysis. IMO it is hardly >> > worth the money to be present with VTES at GenCon. >> >> I'll put it this way: a *LOT* of game companies seem to disagree with >> the concept that it's not worth being present at GenCon. And if you're >> going to be present, why not put 80+ gamers on display playing your >> game on multiple days in front of the precisely right group of people >> you want seeing that? Demo, support, and advertise all you like, I >> just don't know HOW a game company is going to buy that kind of >> publicity by other methods. > > I'm not sure about how all of this works together. Is the actual > tournament itself meant to attract new players? It would seem different > companies have different goals. For some, they make a big spectacle and > try to attract attention and gain interest in their games--the CCG room > becomes an extension of the dealer room! For others, the CCG room is > just where the game is played and the dealer room is where they try to > attract new players. The only reason I can see to adopt the latter attitude is just that you don't want to spend the effort to promote in the CCG room. But I don't know that it takes a lot of actual effort to promote there, however. I'm just pointing out that you get free publicity simply by having your tournaments on the schedule. And if you pack a large room with tournament players, that tells other players, retailers, and distributors that your game has an impressive following in a way that's physically discernable. I suspect the experience of seeing a bunch of real life bodies walking around with decks filling up table after table is likely to make more of an impression than advertising in magazines or elsewhere. > For me personally, I explore new games in the dealer room. The CCG room > is where people go to play whatever game they spent all that money > (entrance fee, plane tickets, etc.) to come play. Sure. But which games do you go to the dealer room to explore? There's a million of them. I know I get a lot more curious and open to looking at a new game when I've seen players actually playing it somewhere. And far more so if I've seen it played in a number of places. > In any event, V:TES has never made much of their convention > appearances--even when we had those fancy 6ft tall standees. I doubt > anybody even knows we are playing V:TES in the CCG room. I don't know. I think people notice those things. At times I walk across large halls without bothering to notice what folks are doing but a lot of times I do notice. And if I'm standing around between rounds, I frequently wander around the nearby tables and make note of what's being played and who plays it. I'm not personally much of one to go try other CCGs (since I tend to be an "all-or-nothing" CCGer, I've discovered over the years and VtES sucks up my available time for it nowadays) but anyone who's looking for a new CCG to pick up will certainly get exposed to VtES this upcoming GenCon. And, in large part because of the NAC - at least, IMHO. Fred

In message <1120839798.8...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> writes: >Exactly. :) Hey, if the Olympics can rotate, then so can the NAC. :) Paris or London for the NAC, then? -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

In message <1120839087....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> writes: >I'm not sure about how all of this works together. Is the actual >tournament itself meant to attract new players? It would seem different >companies have different goals. For some, they make a big spectacle and >try to attract attention and gain interest in their games--the CCG room >becomes an extension of the dealer room! For others, the CCG room is >just where the game is played and the dealer room is where they try to >attract new players. It's not necessarily about spectacle, or about turning the CCG room into the dealer room. A good solid show of tournaments and events (newbie tuition, competitions, promo giveaways etc.) can have a beneficial effect on keeping the game, especially if you can get a large number of players involved. (Where "large" is "bigger than any current non-Magic/Pokemon type game.) I mean, I might pick up a deck or two of a game if it looks interesting, but if I can play a newbie tuition thing now and join in a tournament this evening, I'm going to enjoy it more. And quite possibly buy more stuff. Also, with a game like V:TES which has been around for ages, a good show of tournaments can make people think "Oh, that's still going. And it's not just 10 players in the championship. Coo. Maybe I'll dig out my cards..." Of course, on top of that, you're aiming to get all the existing players enjoying things, buying new cards to compete with, or whatever. [ quoted text not captured ]

Robert Goudie wrote: > In any event, V:TES has never made much of their convention > appearances--even when we had those fancy 6ft tall standees. I doubt > anybody even knows we are playing V:TES in the CCG room. Other than > the listing in the book, V:TES gets little publicity by holding the NAC > event at GenCon. You don't count the (local?) TV coverage at GenCon 2004? They interviewed Steve Wieck during either the Championship or the last chance qualifier last year.

[ quoted text not captured ] Yeah, I remember that. I think it was for the Game Show Network. I looked for it on TV for a long time afterwards and never saw anything. So no, I don't count that. :) -Robert

James Coupe wrote: [clip] > A good solid show of tournaments and events (newbie tuition, > competitions, promo giveaways etc.) can have a beneficial effect on > keeping the game, especially if you can get a large number of players > involved. (Where "large" is "bigger than any current non-Magic/Pokemon > type game.) > > I mean, I might pick up a deck or two of a game if it looks interesting, > but if I can play a newbie tuition thing now and join in a tournament > this evening, I'm going to enjoy it more. And quite possibly buy more > stuff. That's probably a good way to go. Though, that sounds better suited to a GenCon with more and smaller tournaments instead of a Last Chance qualifier and two-day championship. People rarely play in a demo and then commit 6+ hours to a tournament. > Also, with a game like V:TES which has been around for ages, a good show > of tournaments can make people think "Oh, that's still going. And it's > not just 10 players in the championship. Coo. Maybe I'll dig out my > cards..." Certainly true. > Of course, on top of that, you're aiming to get all the existing players > enjoying things, buying new cards to compete with, or whatever. Of course. That part is the same even if you rotate the event. I don't see the European players suffering from the rotating format. -Robert

Wouldnt that be 3? cause I seems to remember starting the complaining about this. (cause that's all i really do is come out of torpor to complain about things that are screwing with my lovely game) seriously the one side seems to be saying: "we need people taking up space at con's" and the other side seems to be saying "we need to hold our big tournaments someplace other then con's" Well it seems to be that those 2 things are not mutually exclusive. just because we save our big tournaments for our own VTES:Con doesnt mean no one would show up and play at gencon ever. Think about it this way, we are already packing full time tournaments into the con's. Origins was running 5 thursday nights, 2 on friday, 2 saturday, and another 1 sunday. when does the VTES population have a chance to get out and do any demoing? word of mouth advertising? i'd seriously venture to say that no one that plays vtes has time to pick up on interest people show by checking out the cards for the games because of how long we are trapped in tournaments. new guy: "hey this game looks fun. i just checked out the white wolf booth and got a couple precon's" any VTES player: "sweet, this game rocks and you will love it. its got everything that the other CCG's are missing" new guy: "alright, well do you want to play or can you help me tweek my deck" any VTES player: "sure, just stick around till after this tournament and we'll all help you, we're already half done!" new guy: "awesome, half done huh, so you should be done and ready to help me soon?" any VTES player: "yeah half done, so there is only more hours to wait!" new guy: "uhhh, i'll stop back later then..." <---famous last words from a person who will never show up again i really think the best way to solve the VTES problem is to change the way tournaments run at the big conventions. there should be small every other hour tournaments, 1 round each. make it more of a parallel to the magic arena style where you may play in five different 1 round events over the weekend, 1 of which may have been sealed, 2 constructed and 2 draft...and then tally the results at the end for a final final or a couple of finals. give diversity to the events. give breaks to people so that we, the VTES people can actually leave the fuzzy green tables and go experience the rest of the con and not miss out on playing for the next 4-6 hours. let new players get in for a short time commitment, with the ability to try new decks or tweek their existing ones. -Stuff

"The NosferatuStuff" <roans...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1120851148.6...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > seriously the one side seems to be saying: "we need people taking up > space at con's" and the other side seems to be saying "we need to hold > our big tournaments someplace other then con's" Well it seems to be > that those 2 things are not mutually exclusive. just because we save > our big tournaments for our own VTES:Con doesnt mean no one would show > up and play at gencon ever. No, but I think you're missing the point. The attraction of an NAC is much higher than just some random VtES tournaments. Though admittedly, it sounds like the way Kevin did up Origins has a separate form of appeal. But it's not the same thing as attending a "big, important" tournament. So the point is EXACTLY having the big championship tournament in the same place as the all-games orgy. So people can enjoy both in a single trip. > Think about it this way, we are already > packing full time tournaments into the con's. When I did WoN, I actually liked that schedule. Night and day VtES for the few days leading up to GenCon, then official tournaments during the day mixed in with roaming the dealer room and other types of games during the evening. Late at night, more VtES back in the hotel and then sleep was gotten....I forget...when did I get any sleep? Whatever. The point is, you can only get that mix at GenCon. > i'd seriously venture to say that no one > that plays vtes has time to pick up on interest people show by checking > out the cards for the games because of how long we are trapped in > tournaments. But, again, you're missing the point. Just getting someone's attention with large tournaments going on the floor is the point. I don't think it's necessary to understand the exact process through which each individual new player gets hooked. Many may not do anything about it at GenCon at all but the game will register when they see it played back in their home city. Or they may wander by the WW booth and see it later. Who knows? The point is that you've made an impression by showing them a zillion people playing it at one place at one time. > i really think the best way to solve the VTES problem is to change the > way tournaments run at the big conventions. I guess to me, it's conjectural that there even is a "VTES problem". No one way of doing things is optimal. The Origins model has its appeal and, to me, the GenCon model also has its appeal. I'm sure Robert or someone else could come up with a pretty nice setup for the CC run away from any conventions, too. But I'd miss the opportunity to do GenCon in its current form. Fred

"Robert Goudie" <rob...@vtesinla.org> wrote in message news:1120830761....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > > > Let's stop paying GenCon for the privilege of using their tables! > I'm all for that. Raille

In message <1120848645.0...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> writes: >That's probably a good way to go. Though, that sounds better suited to >a GenCon with more and smaller tournaments instead of a Last Chance >qualifier and two-day championship. People rarely play in a demo and >then commit 6+ hours to a tournament. Well, plenty of games other than V:TES can get it down lower. Also, V:TES can get it down lower if it was (say) a 2R+F tournament - as a newbie, I probably know I'm unlikely to reach the final. Also also, if it was something like a Speed of Thought tournament, it could be a couple of hours of play. But knowing that I *could* play in a tournament that day if I wanted does help. I've had people try to talk me into buying into some card game or other before, and the fact that there was only one tournament (or no tournaments) on at a major convention is often quite telling about how much return I'll get on my investment. I don't think that you necessarily have to have the North American championship there, of course, but significant tournaments do help. Storyline tournaments, qualifiers or whatever could also potentially show a significant presence for a card game. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Robert Goudie" <rob...@vtesinla.org> wrote in message news:1120835986....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > Andreas Nusser wrote: >> Robert Goudie schrieb: >> > Let's stop paying GenCon for the privilege of using their tables! >> >> Yep! I am all for it. > > Excellent! Okay, now we've got two of us on board with the plan. :) > Make it Three. My vote is for an entirely different consideration, though. GenCon falls every year on my (and my son's) birthday. In future years, this may be great, as he and I can go together for gaming fun. In the short term (what with him being one, going on two), it makes travel to GenCon impossible for me. A rotating location and timeframe will give more players the opportunity to participate over time (that argument was used to justify moving the EC around, if I recall correctly. It holds true for the US, too, I think). And I'd prefer either a cheap regional convention, or none at all. VTES is big enough now to easily host its own NAC without an associated con. The growth and popularity of the Week of Nighmares all but proves that. DaveZ Atom Weaver

David Zopf wrote: > "Robert Goudie" <rob...@vtesinla.org> wrote in message > news:1120835986....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > > Andreas Nusser wrote: > >> Robert Goudie schrieb: > >> > Let's stop paying GenCon for the privilege of using their tables! > >> > >> Yep! I am all for it. > > > > Excellent! Okay, now we've got two of us on board with the plan. :) > > Make it Three. ...we're halfway there now. :) > And I'd prefer either a cheap regional convention, or none at all. VTES > is big enough now to easily host its own NAC without an associated con. The > growth and popularity of the Week of Nighmares all but proves that. WoN. That reminds me... The WoN was very difficult to setup this year. When you are trying to tack an event like WoN onto an existing con, your options are very limited. We had few choices with locations and none with dates (had to be near GenCon and had to be set in the days leading up to GenCon). Then we had to get GenCon to provide us space at a hotel (which they were very good about) so we'd have dedicated V:TES space once GenCon began. Much of the WoN this year (up until the con begins) will be at the RAM--not complaining but noting that we had very few options. Now, to be fair, a WoN leading up to a rotating NAC would also have to be set in the days leading up to the NAC and locations would be limited, etc. The difference would be that when someone is choosing dates and locations for the NAC, they would be taking the WoN into account. A location for the NAC could be chosen that would facilitate (centrally located and affordable rooms, etc.) a WoN lead-in. Another point in favor of rotating.... Costs could be reduced for travelling players by locals who are willing to house them for the duration of the event. This happens at the EC and many other cons in the US, for example. I don't recall seeing much of this for GenCon. A NAC with a regional host can more easily make these types of cost-saving offers. -Robert

James Coupe wrote: > In message <1120848645.0...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, > > I don't think that you necessarily have to have the North American > championship there [GenCon], of course, but significant tournaments > do help. Storyline tournaments, qualifiers or whatever could also > potentially show a significant presence for a card game. Yes, something significant should still remain at GenCon. I wholeheartedly agree. I think GenCon could even be improved as an advertisement for V:TES by making the events more suitable and friendly to noobs. In any event, moving to an off-site NAC would need to be part of a comprehensive plan that also addresses the gap left behind at GenCon. -Robert

[ quoted text not captured ] i highly favor a rotating NAC as well. i dont think that finding space for a WoN would be that hard. I do agree that gen con should hold a major tournament as well. So here is my proposal: Lets have the NAC rotating around the us. to fill the gap Gen Con should hold the US Nationals, which should be a 2 day event using the championship format. In addition gencon could host the limited (draft) nationals as well. That would fill the gap pretty well. I guess the German EC last year set standarts for future Continental championships (kudos to Johannes, Andreas and all the other organiziers). having the tourney and housing at the same location was simply awesome. that could be achieved so easily in the us (more easily than in europe because of the different structure of the hotels). so WW please give it a try. stefan just my 2 cents stefan

On Mon, 11 Jul 2005, Stefan Ferenci wrote: > In addition gencon could host the > limited (draft) nationals as well. Now you're talking. Matt Morgan

A few points regarding the possibility of moving the NAC from GenCon: - First off I just want to point out that a lot of the "me too" responses regarding a rotating system come from European players, who almost certainly are not representative of most North American VTES players. I don't expect the European Championship to base their location and scheduling based solely on my personal convenience and I don't imagine that catering to international convenience is at the list of priorities for the South American and Australian Championships. - Secondly, while a rotating system certainly does have several advantages, the process of selecting a location can be extremely cumbersome. This can quickly boil down to lame politicking where political alliances (and not the merits of each location) seem to take the forefront. As examples of this, I point to discussions concerning the Great Lakes Qualifier this past year and the European Championships from a few years ago. - I am still extremely disappointed by the lack of cooperation and communication concerning discussion of the most recent Great Lakes Qualifier. The actual Qualifier itself was superb and Ankur did a great job running it. But the e-mails amongst the Great Lakes Princes (or lack thereof) during the selection process was glaringly disturbing. Instead of coming to a consensus through compromise, it seems more like a default decision was made when everyone else simply gave up on the process. In addition, I quickly grew annoyed by the "hey, vote for me this year and I'll vote for you next year" discussions. - In addition, I also recall some of the discussions concerning the EC location (back when Germany, Hungary, and Sweden were in the running). At the time, I did my best to not interfere. But as an observer, I was also frustrated by all those "hey, vote for me this year and I'll vote for you next year" deals. - Lastly, I do want to emphasize the importance of exposure at gaming conventions. From my experiences at Origins and GenCon, I consistantly see people watching the game who turn out to have played years ago and didn't realize that the game was still alive. In fact, this past month at Origins I distinctly recall meeting several such individuals. So...just playing Devil's Advocate as always. With regards, Eric Chiang P.S. Following GenCon, it may be a good idea to start preparing discussions about the Great Lakes Qualifier 2006 (assuming that VEKN makes no significant changes to the qualifying system). Hopefully this time around, more of the Great Lakes Princes will put in some actual effort in the matter...

echia...@yahoo.com wrote: > - I am still extremely disappointed by the lack of cooperation and > communication concerning discussion of the most recent Great Lakes > Qualifier. The actual Qualifier itself was superb and Ankur did a great > job running it. But the e-mails amongst the Great Lakes Princes (or > lack thereof) during the selection process was glaringly disturbing. > Instead of coming to a consensus through compromise, it seems more like > a default decision was made when everyone else simply gave up on the > process. In addition, I quickly grew annoyed by the "hey, vote for me > this year and I'll vote for you next year" discussions. On the other hand, quite a lot of conversation took place between some of the GL princes via methods other than group e-mail; several face-to-face chats, for instance, between more than 2 of the Princes, and more conversations in private emails and on the phone. Additionally, this was discussed publically on the newsgroup in at least one long thread. I don't think the choice this year was 'consensus through comprimise' or 'default because people gave up' - Ankur made a very specific proposal (over the newsgroup, even), several princes and a number of players said 'great!' and none of the princes was prominently jumping up and down going 'that sucks, let's do something else!'. I'm not a prince, but I didn't see a lot of 'compromising' going on - a number of people objected to holding it in Michigan, Chicago did not necessarily have access to the same site as last year (since the relevant suburban now-ex-Prince stopped participating in VTES) and only Ankur and Jill were really proposing to possibly host beyond that - and Ankur had a very good deal available. Since you clearly feel like you got shafted by the entire process, Eric, what would you have preferred? > With regards, > Eric Chiang

[ quoted text not captured ] Word Up. Although if we had a third major American VTES event, it might begin to strain my ability to attend them all. (Origins, GenCon, some future rotating NAC...) It might help if the NAC wasn't in the summer like Origins and GenCon are, but then it might run into the same time frame as EC scheduling. :-) Josh only has so many vacation days

[ quoted text not captured ] Actually, I do not feel like *I* was shafted at all. I don't mind traveling for VTES so it wouldn't have made a big difference to me personally whether the Great Lakes Qualifier had been held in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, or Wisconsin. I was attending two Qualifiers before the Great Lakes Qualifier (New Jersey and Boston) and I qualified at the Boston Qualifier so by the time the GL Qualifier had rolled around, it's not as if I had a personal stake in qualifying. I do feel like *someone* got shafted though (which is one of the main reasons I'm continuing to push the issue). This year, I think it was really Wisconsin and Minnesota players that totally got the shaft. In 2005 we have had or will have Qualifiers in Lafayette, IN, Columbus, OH, and Indianapolis, IN. If you live in the Indiana/Ohio area it's great to have 3 qualifiers all within a few hours worth a drive. If you're in Wisconsin or Minnesota for example, you're pretty much shit out of luck. In regards to the GL Qualifier discussion, I initiated a group e-mail on September 6th, 2004. Initially we had a good response, with 17 e-mails up till September 10th. Then there was absolutely no response until September 22nd. It was also around this time that we decided to get non-Prince feedback by posting on the newsgroup. By early November we still had not reached consensus and Milwaukee dropped out of the race to get the discussion going. By late November we still hadn't gotten very far and getting people to talk about the issue felt like pulling teeth. Even by the end of December things still had not been finalized (regarding where to hold the event). In the end, we needed to get the U.S. National Coordinator involved who finally helped put the issue to rest at the end of January. Maybe I'm just completely out of my mind but it's my personal opinion that it should *not* take 5 months to choose a location and finalize it. By the end of January I was still regularly getting e-mails and calls from players in Ohio, Boston, Atlanta, and Colorado asking me "what the hell is up with the Great Lakes Qualifier?" Of course there were some excellent "face-to-face chats between more than 2 of the Princes." Then again when one Indiana Prince jokingly referred to those chats as "sooper-secret discussions", we ended up with a Michigan Prince getting "riled up" about the issue. And then we had the one Illinois Prince who was definitely way too pushy about the issue and trying to rush his proposal through because his convention staff were "forcing" him to make a hurried decision. You mentioned "a very specific proposal" from Lafayette. I actually remember quite the opposite. For *quite some time* I was suggesting that each of the potential venues do some research and actually provide some potential plans instead of simply saying "hey we'll do a qualifier." For a long time there were few takers willing to actually supply details. You mentioned that "Chicago did not necessarily have access to the same site as last year (since the relevant suburban now-ex-Prince stopped participating in VTES)." That is actually false. The same site was available for the event and the now-ex-Prince only stopped participating in VTES *after* the Qualifier discussion was finished up. In a discussion with that Prince several months afterward, he told me that he felt he really needed the Qualifier in order to maintain interest in his playgroup. He didn't get the Qualifier, his playgroup is defunct, and he resigned as Prince. I'm sure you can connect the dots. As I plainly said on the newsgroup then and reiterate now, my initial preference was towards Chicago. But after Ankur and Jill stressed the importance of "fairness" (during one of those much lauded "face-to-face chats") I came to the realization that the "fairest" choice would be Milwaukee (though by that point they were no longer interested in hosting). There was a slipshod and unscientific vote tally on the newsgroup which ended up which a valid vote tally of : 3 Chicago, 2 Milwaukee, 5 Lafayette. One other Prince and myself voted for Milwaukee out of principle (even though it had withdrawn from the race), though Chicago was both of our second choices. And even then I pointed out that we had not even come to a consensus on *how* a vote should be conducted. (Based on # of Princes? # of players? # of states?). So all of this is why I'm more than a little jaded about the painfully frustrating process of selecting a venue. If one region had such a tough time, one can only imagine how arduous selecting a championship venue would be. With regards, Eric Chiang P.S. I also want to state, for the record, that I was unfortunately not able to attend this year's Great Lakes Qualifier because of a last-minute obligation that came up. My absence had nothing to do with the frustration I had regarding the Qualifier discussions and it was *not* done out of spite. (Interestingly, this year I was also not able to attend the Atlanta Qualifier due to scheduling issues, even though I had attended that Qualifier the past two years before). Sadly enough however, there are some players in the Great Lakes region who *will* refuse to attend tournaments out of spite or due to perceived slights. These players will also complain incessently about how some playgroups "never" attend their events when that is totally untrue.

One other thing. It seems like the issue of a "rotating Championship" crops up at least once every year or so. I find it interesting that the issue of a "rotating Qualifier" doesn't come up nearly as often. Based on my research (and please do correct me if any of it is incorrect): - Boston/Mansfield, MA has held a Qualifier every year for the past four years [2002, 2003, 2004, & 2005]. - Atlanta, GA has held a Qualifier every year for the past five years [2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, & 2005]. - Washington, D.C. / Rockville, MD has held a Qualifier every year for the past five years [2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, & 2005]. - Los Angeles, CA / Montrose, CA has held a Qualifier every year for the past five years [2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, & 2005]. - The Seattle, Washington area (Seattle / Redmond / Tacoma) has held a Qualifier every year for the past five years [2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, & 2005]. If people truly think that a "rotating event" is that great, then why don't they put their money where their mouth is and, in the same spirit, rotate regional qualifiers as well? - Boston, why don't you let Connecticut (David Zopf?), Maine (Ben Spaulding?), New York (Nick Watkins?), or New Hampshire (Ben Swainbank?) have the Qualifier for once? - I love Atlanta, but aren't there also decent playgroups in North Carolina (Charlotte? Durham?) and South Carolina (Columbia?). - D.C. is always fun but I don't see why Delaware or Pennsylvania (Harrisburg? Philadelphia? Pittsburgh?) can't give it a try. - Instead of holding the Southwest Qualifier in L.A., why don't we try moving it to Northern California? Alternatively, I'm sure Kevin Mergen in Las Vegas or Frederick Scott in Phoenix would be capable of running a great tournament. - And finally, maybe we should experiment and hold the Northwest Qualifier in Oregon, Idaho, or even the one Princedom in Alaska? Man, despite how dysfunctional the Great Lakes region can be, at the very least there's been good diversity in regards to Qualifier locations (two years in Michigan, one in Illinois, and one in Indiana). This year, it was also a nice change to see Louisiana hold the South Central Qualifier since Texas held it in 2001, 2003, and 2004 (trivia note: it seems there was no South Central Qualifier at all in 2002). Think of this more as a thought exercise than a serious proposal. I am interested in seeing however whether those who clamor for a rotating event do so because they genuinely believe in the principle, or whether it's just a convenient justification for their personal preferences. With regards, Eric Chiang

echia...@yahoo.com wrote: > One other thing. > > It seems like the issue of a "rotating Championship" crops up at least > once every year or so. I find it interesting that the issue of a > "rotating Qualifier" doesn't come up nearly as often. > - Los Angeles, CA / Montrose, CA has held a Qualifier every year for > the past five years [2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, & 2005]. > If people truly think that a "rotating event" is that great, then why > don't they put their money where their mouth is and, in the same > spirit, rotate regional qualifiers as well? Seems like you are assuming your recent bad experience is a common occurrence in all regions---it's not. While the SW qualifier has been in L.A. every year through 2005, I have sent out an email every year and no other prince has expressed interest. Few even respond. The ones that do have all said "L.A. is okay with me!" > - Instead of holding the Southwest Qualifier in L.A., why don't we try > moving it to Northern California? If they express interest, it would make sense for them to host an event. Sure. They've had a vibrant community for years. > Alternatively, I'm sure Kevin Mergen in Las Vegas Kevin, having recently become the prince of Vegas, has yet to run any events. Jumping to hosting a qualifier is a bit much. > or Frederick Scott in Phoenix would be capable of running > a great tournament. Fred's always okayed the SW event being in Los Angeles. If he ever wants to host one, he should certainly have the opportunity. So far, the SW qualifier has rotated among all of the cities that have expressed interest in hosting it. :) (this is the re-typed, shorter version of my reply---google ate the last one!) -Robert

"Robert Goudie" <rob...@vtesinla.org> wrote in message news:1121208299....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... >> Think of this more as a thought exercise than a serious proposal. I am >> interested in seeing however whether those who clamor for a rotating >> event do so because they genuinely believe in the principle, or whether >> it's just a convenient justification for their personal preferences. > > Through 2005 the SW Regional qualifier already rotates between all 1 of > the cities that have expressed interest in hosting the event. If No. > Cal. or Phoenix (those are the only 2 other active cities that I can > think of) or any other active city I'm forgetting ever expressed an > interest in hosting the event, it would certainly be fair to share. To back up what Robert is saying, there's been just about zero desire by anyone involved to ever have a qualifier anywhere else but Los Angeles, as far as I can tell. Every year Robert has been diligent about offering the subject for discussion by all princes in the region and evert year there is no discussion except a chorus of, "OK"s in response to his proposal to once again have the qualifier in Los Angeles. It makes a lot of sense for our region for two reasons: organization and geography. Los Angeles has an excellent, vibrant group of players, many of whom are capable of serving as judges and assisting with other aspects of tournament organization. They demonstrate this periodically by putting on excellent two-day, four-tournament events, one of which serves as host event for the qualifier. Other cities probably _could_ do this as well (particularly Northern California, which has a group of fairly active, capable princes) if they wanted. But LA just does it anyway, as a matter of course. The qualifier is basically just thrown on top of an event I'd still drive to otherwise. Geography also works out hugely in LA's favor. Large cities in the region form a diamond, with the Bay Area/Sacramento on top, Phoenix on the bottom, and Las Vegas and Los Angeles in the middle. But Las Vegas is not very accessible from any place but Los Angeles due to how roads and mountains are laid out. Basically, the largest, best organized city is also in the middle and is the most accessible. Slam dunk decision - until such time as the people here want to move it just for the sake of moving it or something. Fred

echia...@yahoo.com wrote: > One other thing. > > It seems like the issue of a "rotating Championship" crops up at least > once every year or so. I find it interesting that the issue of a > "rotating Qualifier" doesn't come up nearly as often. Or you could simply have *more* Qualifiers. Why not give each Region the ability to hold two or more Qualifiers? As long as each one gets the same number, it would at least give the appearance of fairness. Heck, you could even potentially tighten the qualifying threshhold somewhat to keep the number of seats roughly the same. [Aside: I am curious what percent of NAQ qualifiers actually participated in the NAC. Anyone got that info?] Speaking as a Westerner, we do have to travel extremely long distances to get to various events just due to population density and mountain ranges. Some have more time and resources to make this happen. Might be another way to both increase visibility and lower travel barriers. Of course, this says nothing about "quality," but after just reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I'll take a pass on that for a while. :) Jeff

echia...@yahoo.com wrote: > John Flournoy wrote: > You mentioned that "Chicago did not necessarily have access to the same > site as last year (since the relevant suburban now-ex-Prince stopped > participating in VTES)." That is actually false. The same site was > available for the event and the now-ex-Prince only stopped > participating in VTES *after* the Qualifier discussion was finished up. > In a discussion with that Prince several months afterward, he told me > that he felt he really needed the Qualifier in order to maintain > interest in his playgroup. He didn't get the Qualifier, his playgroup > is defunct, and he resigned as Prince. I'm sure you can connect the > dots. I had "connected the dots" long before he _officially_ resigned, when said Prince had held a grand total of one poorly-attended tournament since the last Qualifier. Plus he'd botched the prize support for it, resulting in many months of excuses and promises never fulfilled - assuming he replied to email at all. I thus still feel very comfortable in claiming that he effectively 'stopped participating in VTES' - certainly as a Prince - immediately following last year's NAC. > With regards, > Eric Chiang -John Flournoy

On 12 Jul 2005 15:00:38 -0700, echia...@yahoo.com wrote: >There was a slipshod and unscientific vote tally on the newsgroup which >ended up which a valid vote tally of : 3 Chicago, 2 Milwaukee, 5 >Lafayette. And at least 3 Atlanta. Carpe noctem. Lasombra http://www.TheLasombra.com Your best online source for information about V:TES. Now also featuring individual card sales and sales of booster and starter box displays.

jeff...@pacbell.net wrote: > Might be another way to both increase visibility and lower travel > barriers. Of course, this says nothing about "quality," but after just > reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I'll take a pass on > that for a while. :) You are aware that _Lila_ was listed as source material/recommended reading in 1st edition Mage, right? In Lila he talks a lot more about static and dynamic quality, which is pretty much the beating heart of Mage. Well, it was until they gutted it. -- David Cherryholmes crossing fingers for the new Mage game

echia...@yahoo.com wrote: > - I love Atlanta, but aren't there also decent playgroups in North > Carolina (Charlotte? Durham?) and South Carolina (Columbia?). I'd have to crash a few World of Warcraft servers first. -- David Cherryholmes

Matthew T. Morgan wrote: > Now you're talking. I also think that would rock, and I'd like to plug it being a sealed deck event with some booster draft to pad it out. Straight booster draft is a little *too* random for my taste; it's too easy to get stuck with a pile that flames out on the launchpad, and organizers don't necessarily have it figured out which expansion work with which others (nor do I, necessarily). Of course some starters *seem* better than others, but each new expansion has shaken that up a bit (e.g. one of the anarch decks might not be such a bad base). I know I'd stack the Assamite starter with a few KMW and FN boosters for tuning against any other starter deck. I'd dare call it focused, and having a focused anything is an enormous edge in draft. -- David Cherryholmes

David Cherryholmes <david.che...@gmail.com> wrote: > Straight booster draft is a little *too* random for my taste; it's > too easy to get stuck with a pile that flames out on the launchpad, > and organizers don't necessarily have it figured out which expansion > work with which others (nor do I, necessarily). I would say that, having run several draft events, both official and non-official, I can give you a good idea which sets work well together for booster draft. Duffin and Peal could also probably chime in, here, but they run more crazy shit that I do, just for the wacktastikness of it. ;) All SW works well, as long as you don't have insane 1st or 2nd edition packs. All CE works real well, but is a bit boring. Bloodlines is... interesting... but doesn't really synch with anything else. 50/50 SW/BH was pretty good. 40/30/30 SW/BH/GE was pretty good, but less stable than SW/BH-only. 50/50 FN/KMW was really, really good, I thought. Matt? Oscar? Dave, Dave. Just another reason you should have come to Origins, man. ;) NEXT YEAR: the 2nd Annual David Cherryholmes Invitational. > David Cherryholmes Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

Eric Chiang wrote: > - Boston, why don't you let Connecticut (David Zopf?), Maine (Ben > Spaulding?), New York (Nick Watkins?), or New Hampshire (Ben > Swainbank?) have the Qualifier for once? I suppose you need to know the story of qualifiers in the Northeast. The first Northeast Regional Qualifier (in 2001) was held in East Rutherford, NJ by Stephen Buonocore. Stephen had to step away from the game, so a vacancy for the qualifier opened up. Both I (then the Prince of Boston) and Grant Garvin (the Prince of Seekonk, MA, also serving the Providence, RI area) had separate proposals to host a New England Regional, but when Stephen bowed out, it meant that whatever qualifier we ran would serve the entire Northeast, so we decided to work together on it starting in 2002. Grant did the coordination with TotalCon (as he'd done a lot of work with them in the past, and suggested that con in the first place) and I headed up the judging. We worked together again in 2003, and in both years, I was annoyed that people called it "the Boston qualifier", since I felt it did a disservice to the work Grant, from the separate Seekonk/Providence playgroup, had put into it. In 2004, Grant took a break from the game, and I ran the qualifier with the help of Ben Spaulding, the Prince of Bangor, Maine (he was already qualified, having been a finalist at the 2003 NAC, and offered to help judge). In 2005, I was no longer Prince of Boston, having accepted the role of US National Coordinator, and so Josh Feuerstein, the third Prince of Boston, ran the Northeast Regional Qualifier at TotalCon. In the years of running the qualfier at TotalCon, there weren't any alternate proposals from other playgroups to run the qualifier, as far as I remember. However, Nick Watkins of NYC expressed interest in having an additional qualifier that would serve the NY/NJ/PA "tri-state" area, as in his opinion there was a large enough and separate enough base of players to support it. He contacted me, Josh Duffin, and Chad Brown (and possibly others) about the idea, and it was eventually decided to have David Lapp of New Jersey host a 2004 qualifier in New Jersey, in addition to the qualifiers in Massachusetts and DC. It was a big success, so he ran another one in 2005, which had unfortunately low attendance due to a major snowstorm that shut down the Northeast. I very much hope he or someone else runs a qualifier in that area next year, as it's abundantly clear that there are enough people in that area to support it. Speaking of which, I would also be in favor of re-doing the regions in that area to have a New England Region (CT, RI, MA, VT, NH, ME) and a Tri-State Region (PA/NY/NJ). If WW doesn't like that, I'm all in favor of continuing to have the additional NJ qualifier, much as there's an additional qualifier at Origins. As much as MA, NJ, and DC are fairly close together, the fact of the matter is that the base of players in those areas are large enough and separate enough to support their qualifiers on their own. So, the Northeast Regional Qualifiers at TotalCon have not at all been an exclusively Boston thing, but rather they've been a collaborative effort in New England. In addition, we were (and will continue to be) very supportive of the creation of the new qualifier in the region. As US National Coordinator, I'm very open to the idea of re-organizing states to better suit their needs with respect to regional qualifiers. So, if Ohio or any other state is looking to change their region, please contact me. - Ben Peal, US National Coordinator ninjaGR...@NOREALLYNOSPAMofdoom.com

fudjo wrote: > Eric Chiang wrote: > > - Boston, why don't you let Connecticut (David Zopf?), Maine (Ben > > Spaulding?), New York (Nick Watkins?), or New Hampshire (Ben > > Swainbank?) have the Qualifier for once? Additional Information. If you look at the US map, you'll see that Maine is basically surrounded by Canada. A couple of years ago, I had written up a proposal for another NAC Qualifier to be held in Maine. I was going to run this event in either Bangor or Portland, which is accessible from all directions. I contacted all the Canadian Princes North, East and West of me. I thought we could host a really large event in Maine with the playgroups to the South (MA,NJ,NY,etc.) and a wide range of Canadian players (Toronto, Montreal, QC, Nova.S., etc.). Plus since Maine is vacation land, we have the logistical support to host travelers (along with other things people could do while here). But I received only a couple of responses and most stated they just wanted to attend their local events. So I trashed the idea. A peak behind the curtain just for you. Ben Spaulding

<echia...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1121205638....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > John Flournoy wrote: >> echia...@yahoo.com wrote: > I do feel like *someone* got shafted though (which is one of the main > reasons I'm continuing to push the issue). This year, I think it was > really Wisconsin and Minnesota players that totally got the shaft. In > 2005 we have had or will have Qualifiers in Lafayette, IN, Columbus, > OH, and Indianapolis, IN. If you live in the Indiana/Ohio area it's > great to have 3 qualifiers all within a few hours worth a drive. If > you're in Wisconsin or Minnesota for example, you're pretty much shit > out of luck. The fact is no matter where the GLQ is some group is going to get the short end of the stick. Its life most people learn to deal with it. > issue to rest at the end of January. Maybe I'm just completely out of > my mind but it's my personal opinion that it should *not* take 5 months > to choose a location and finalize it. By the end of January I was still > regularly getting e-mails and calls from players in Ohio, Boston, > Atlanta, and Colorado asking me "what the hell is up with the Great > Lakes Qualifier?" I'm not qualified to make the diagnosis on your mental state, but good planning for an annual event that going to move should be planned out 12-18 months in advance. I make that evaluation based one my involvement with military training schedules which get planned out at minimum 12 month before hand, and thats with scheduling a fixed schedule at same sites and locations. We did a bang up job having gotten this completed in a mere 5 months. > You mentioned that "Chicago did not necessarily have access to the same > site as last year (since the relevant suburban now-ex-Prince stopped > participating in VTES)." That is actually false. The same site was > available for the event and the now-ex-Prince only stopped > participating in VTES *after* the Qualifier discussion was finished up. > In a discussion with that Prince several months afterward, he told me > that he felt he really needed the Qualifier in order to maintain > interest in his playgroup. He didn't get the Qualifier, his playgroup > is defunct, and he resigned as Prince. I'm sure you can connect the > dots. No. I can't. It sounds like sour grapes and a play group that already was falling apart. If the only thing that was keeping the group playing was being able to have a Grand event in their domain, then the only thing not having the NAC caused was a early disbandment. It simply would have been this year rather than next year. > There was a slipshod and unscientific vote tally on the newsgroup which > ended up which a valid vote tally of : 3 Chicago, 2 Milwaukee, 5 > Lafayette. One other Prince and myself voted for Milwaukee out of > principle (even though it had withdrawn from the race), though Chicago > was both of our second choices. And even then I pointed out that we had > not even come to a consensus on *how* a vote should be conducted. > (Based on # of Princes? # of players? # of states?). Have each player in the region cast a vote. Based off the WW data. Votes need be tallied 9 months prior to the preliminary event date. > So all of this is why I'm more than a little jaded about the painfully > frustrating process of selecting a venue. If one region had such a > tough time, one can only imagine how arduous selecting a championship > venue would be. Similar to the above. have groups vote via email to the local prince on there selected venues, forward the list to the coordinator, coordinator ranks sites based on a yet to be created scheme, and then asks the princes to vote on location. Once a location is selected it automatically is removed from the next X years selection process. Just my 5cents (Inflation) Raille

<echia...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1121188972.9...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... >A few points regarding the possibility of moving the NAC from GenCon: > > > - Secondly, while a rotating system certainly does have several > advantages, the process of selecting a location can be extremely > cumbersome. This can quickly boil down to lame politicking where > political alliances (and not the merits of each location) seem to take > the forefront. As examples of this, I point to discussions concerning > the Great Lakes Qualifier this past year and the European Championships > from a few years ago. Seems you don't have the knack for politics. You need to stick to fashion. And thats not a jab at your waredrobe. Really. > - I am still extremely disappointed by the lack of cooperation and > communication concerning discussion of the most recent Great Lakes > Qualifier. The actual Qualifier itself was superb and Ankur did a great > job running it. But the e-mails amongst the Great Lakes Princes (or > lack thereof) during the selection process was glaringly disturbing. > Instead of coming to a consensus through compromise, it seems more like > a default decision was made when everyone else simply gave up on the > process. In addition, I quickly grew annoyed by the "hey, vote for me > this year and I'll vote for you next year" discussions. The whole thing quickly boiled down to NOT Michigan, due to outside influences. And Ankar had a good place and Jill was not really ready. It was just one of those things where the best was offered first and no one cared to debate, argue or complain. Occasionally life tosses you roses. > - In addition, I also recall some of the discussions concerning the > EC location (back when Germany, Hungary, and Sweden were in the > running). At the time, I did my best to not interfere. But as an > observer, I was also frustrated by all those "hey, vote for me this > year and I'll vote for you next year" deals. Politics. You need to shake hands a lot with people, its just how its done. > - Lastly, I do want to emphasize the importance of exposure at gaming > conventions. From my experiences at Origins and GenCon, I consistantly > see people watching the game who turn out to have played years ago and > didn't realize that the game was still alive. In fact, this past month > at Origins I distinctly recall meeting several such individuals. Concur. But there other cons than gencon. > > > So...just playing Devil's Advocate as always. Your just a good one too! > P.S. Following GenCon, it may be a good idea to start preparing > discussions about the Great Lakes Qualifier 2006 (assuming that VEKN > makes no significant changes to the qualifying system). Hopefully this > time around, more of the Great Lakes Princes will put in some actual > effort in the matter... Good point. Make it so. Raille

David Cherryholmes wrote: > I also think that would rock, and I'd like to plug it being a sealed > deck event with some booster draft to pad it out. Straight booster > draft is a little *too* random for my taste; it's too easy to get stuck > with a pile that flames out on the launchpad, and organizers don't > necessarily have it figured out which expansion work with which others > (nor do I, necessarily). Of course some starters *seem* better than > others, but each new expansion has shaken that up a bit (e.g. one of the > anarch decks might not be such a bad base). We usually do it the following way: shuffle all the starters library cards together as well as the vampires. From the two stacks build "virtual" boosters 3 vampires and 11 library cards or any other fitting ration. With these "virtual" boosters and the normal boosters a regular booster draft is conducted. And, by the way, we usually have more then 10 players (most of the time all of them for the < 20 player tournaments) in one drafting pod so the booster doesn´t come around and you don´t have to "synchronize" tables. -- johannes walch

echia...@yahoo.com wrote: > A few points regarding the possibility of moving the NAC from GenCon: > > - First off I just want to point out that a lot of the "me too" > responses regarding a rotating system come from European players, I count 3. Andreas, Stefan and me. Not a lot, I would say ;-) > who almost certainly are not representative > of most North American VTES players. Of course not. But then again the represent the "oversea" attendance minority, and I think it is important to make it as convenient as possible for those who take the allready very long trip. For the EC one of our optimization goals was to maximize "oversea" attendance, because it brings a good flair to the whole event. So it is wise to choose a location that : - is close to international flight relays (e.g Atlanta, New York) - has "things to do" (=tourism) except the championship (e.g California, New York ....) > I don't expect the European Championship to base their > location and scheduling based solely on my personal convenience and I > don't imagine that catering to international convenience is at the list > of priorities for the South American and Australian Championships. We don´t expect "you" to do anything based on our convenience as well, but we contribute our opinions as -one of many arguments- why the NAC probably shouldn´t be at GenCon (there a lot of pro arguments, too). And we contribute our experience how to host a Continental Championship with 100++ players from many (mostly faraway) nations. -- johannes walch

"David Cherryholmes" <david.che...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:11d8v6d...@corp.supernews.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Dave, Thanks for crashing a few World of Warcraft servers so I could "enlighten" myself to the true nature of a competitive playgroup. :) -- Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr XZealot Archon of the Swamp

Kevin M. wrote: > 50/50 FN/KMW was really, really good, I thought. Matt? Oscar? Well, it would be really good, as long as you only have 4 people in each drafting pod. Assuming 4 per pod, it is likely that, by virtue of "natural selection", each person will end up with one clan, and so everyone will end up with a viable deck. With, say, 5 people in a draft pod, two of them end up drafting the same clan, which will end up either with three people with good decks and two people with kinda lame decks *or* four people with good decks, and one person with a super lame deck. Which I wouldn't know anything about or anything :-) Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 "So in conclusion, our business plan is to sell hot, easily spilled liquids to naked people." -Brittni Meil

Matthew T. Morgan wrote: > I told you you should've drafted more Tortured Confessions. They can be > played by any clan! Heh heh. If I got a second one, then I wouldn't have had to use that Trumped Up Charges I couldn't play legally... > > Who would've thought Lorrie Dunsirn would squeal? Ooo. Awsome... [ quoted text not captured ]

On 13 Jul 2005 05:23:43 -0700, "bspaul" <bspa...@excite.com> scrawled: >fudjo wrote: >> Eric Chiang wrote: >> > - Boston, why don't you let Connecticut (David Zopf?), Maine (Ben >> > Spaulding?), New York (Nick Watkins?), or New Hampshire (Ben >> > Swainbank?) have the Qualifier for once? > >Additional Information. > >If you look at the US map, you'll see that Maine is basically >surrounded by Canada. ... >attend their local events. So I trashed the idea. A peak behind the >curtain just for you. no one wanted to go probably because of all that totally freaky stuff that always happens there. Clowns in sewers, aliens, authors going insane, that sort of thing. salem http://www.users.tpg.com.au/adsltqna/VtES/index.htm (replace "hotmail" with "yahoo" to email)

> David Cherryholmes <david.che...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Straight booster draft is a little *too* random for my taste; it's >> too easy to get stuck with a pile that flames out on the launchpad, >> and organizers don't necessarily have it figured out which expansion >> work with which others (nor do I, necessarily). My preference is for straight booster draft. It certainly took some getting used to before I came to like it, but now it's my favorite format (yeah, above constructed too). I'm not that big on the idea of sealed because any two starters will tend to resemble one another while booster draft decks are all over the place. Also, seems like the majority of sanctioned limited events are booster drafts so it would make more sense for the championship to be of the same format. I don't think I've ever played in a sanctioned sealed event. Seems they're few and far between. On Tue, 12 Jul 2005, Kevin M. wrote: > All SW works well, as long as you don't have insane 1st or 2nd edition > packs. We had a couple weird packs in the Origins draft "hey, this pack has five vamps and this one has only one!" but I think given the huge pods and fact that we had ten packs each (which I guess might sometimes be cost-prohibitive), it all came out in the wash. SW is, I think, a very good draft set. Tight discipline spread. Plus, there's Gratiano. He's so good. > All CE works real well, but is a bit boring. I think CE has some real power cards. Not that hard to pull a Parity Shift or KRC. I thought it was interesting that SW decks tended to do better than CE decks at the Origins draft. I think that might be because SW is tighter with more good options while the competition over the really strong prince cards in CE will be very high. Parity Shift and Second Tradition are both likely first picks. > Bloodlines is... interesting... but doesn't really synch with anything > else. I think a smattering of Bloodlines is pretty good anywhere, actually. Outferiors look a lot better in limited. Plus, Ahrimanes are quite good in draft. Sure, there's a lot of basically unusable junk in Bloodlines, but you can get some real gems. Howler or The Siamese + a few (C2) Speak with Spirits = a deck. > 50/50 SW/BH was pretty good. > 40/30/30 SW/BH/GE was pretty good, but less stable than SW/BH-only. Personally I've had better experiences drafting Gehenna than I have Black Hand, but that's probably just random luck. Gehenna has some nice surprises (Giangaleazzo and any Gehnna card, for example). The vampries are pretty good. Library cards not so much. > 50/50 FN/KMW was really, really good, I thought. Matt? Oscar? Good? Well, I was surprised at how not ridiculously bad it was. I don't know if that quite makes it good. KMW is a pretty good draft set especially if you like drafting Assamites (as I do). The most amusing thing about my deck (other than getting three trophies for burning Mata Hari in combat) was all the Final Nights Quietus combat which normally isn't regarded that highly. I sadly didn't get a chance to play my Eruption of Vitae, but dealt out some pain with Scorpion's Touch, Dagon's Call and Exuding Blood to say nothing of the not-so-shabby combo of Thin Blood + Stutter-Step (very nice with Tegyrius or Joe "Boot"). At the same time, everyone involved in that draft was fairly experienced. It might've been a frustrating experience for a newbie. My first draft experience was CE and that was frustrating because everybody came up with much better decks than I did. I thought I was hot stuff because I got a couple Bondings and guys who could play them. Then Trey ousted me with a freaking Carthage Remembered! > Dave, Dave. Just another reason you should have come to Origins, man. ;) > > NEXT YEAR: the 2nd Annual David Cherryholmes Invitational. It's totally worth it. I wasn't a believer until I saw the schedule. By the way Kevin, you should email me your mailing address so I can send you those cards. Matt Morgan

On Wed, 13 Jul 2005, Peter D Bakija wrote: > Kevin M. wrote: > >> 50/50 FN/KMW was really, really good, I thought. Matt? Oscar? > > Well, it would be really good, as long as you only have 4 people in each > drafting pod. Assuming 4 per pod, it is likely that, by virtue of "natural > selection", each person will end up with one clan, and so everyone will end > up with a viable deck. With, say, 5 people in a draft pod, two of them end > up drafting the same clan, which will end up either with three people with > good decks and two people with kinda lame decks *or* four people with good > decks, and one person with a super lame deck. > > Which I wouldn't know anything about or anything :-) I told you you should've drafted more Tortured Confessions. They can be played by any clan! Who would've thought Lorrie Dunsirn would squeal? Matt Morgan

I'm not sure why I'm responding to this really. The issues are done and we're hijacking the Gencon thread. I do think however that you have blown this thing far out of proportion. I didn't feel as much politicking as you're suggesting, and I certainly don't think that the last word on the issue ought to be what I just read. There were lots of discussions, compromises, and generally good teamwork that went into the GLQ; that needs to be highlighted, not overshadowed by these kinds of negative comments. Infighting, politicking, and shennanigans weren't hallmarks of the GLQ process, and I won't brook any suggestion to that effect. I'd also just like to point out that the GLQ is consistently a really large event. For the past 3 years running, we've had an attendance of 40+ players, hailing from across the region. From my impressions, that seems like the third-largest qualifier in the states (with GenCon and Origins being the largest ones). We also have a region with *four* very active, very large playgroups. We may take longer to settle on a location, but we're democratic and we put forth a fantastic event each year with stellar attendance. As you can see from other responses, there just isn't as much vtes or as many strong playgroups who *want* to host elsewhere in the country. This fact is a positive statement for the Great Lakes. That it comes along with a certain amount of additional overhead (choosing the location) is to be expected. We take pride in our qualifier, and we want to make sure we put our best foot forward each year. Sometimes it takes organizational time to decide which that is, as we collectively understand what we can offer to the region. > I do feel like *someone* got shafted though (which is one of the main > reasons I'm continuing to push the issue). This year, I think it was > really Wisconsin and Minnesota players that totally got the shaft. In > 2005 we have had or will have Qualifiers in Lafayette, IN, Columbus, OH, > and Indianapolis, IN. If you live in the Indiana/Ohio area it's great to > have 3 qualifiers all within a few hours worth a drive. If you're in > Wisconsin or Minnesota for example, you're pretty much shit out of luck. By this logic then, if the qualifier is not in Wisconsin or Minnesota each year, they will be shafted each year. GenCon and Origins will not change locations in the forseeable future. Are you then suggesting that it be in either WI or MN each year? If we're going to make a generic decision based upon recurring events such as the ones you've mentioned, then there is in fact no decision to be made: Each year should be set in the northern part of the GL region, and definitely no further south than Milwaukee. And, as far as I know, we discussed the option of a fixed qualifier location, and from my understanding, the GL has decided to rotate. This decision was made years ago, but certainly well before discussions were begun about 2005. Does this preclude Chicago's bid? Possibly, but note that as a region, we didn't exclude that choice. Cause we're nice people like that. Anyway, a rotating qualifier system has the consequence that sometimes some people have to drive longer distances, and other years, shorter distances. It happens. This year WI and MN players got "the shaft". Next year, it will likely be someone else. Only teleportation can save us from this. I'm working on it, but until then, the vtes community will just have to drive. > my mind but it's my personal opinion that it should *not* take 5 months > to choose a location and finalize it. By the end of January I was still > regularly getting e-mails and calls from players in Ohio, Boston, > Atlanta, and Colorado asking me "what the hell is up with the Great > Lakes Qualifier?" The above paints an unnecessarily over-dramatic picture. There were no disasters, so no need to have this happen. > Of course there were some excellent "face-to-face chats between more > than 2 of the Princes." Then again when one Indiana Prince jokingly > referred to those chats as "sooper-secret discussions", we ended up with > a Michigan Prince getting "riled up" about the issue. And then we had First off, I don't appreciate the mocking way in which you consider the face-to-face discussions. Perhaps you weren't privy to them, but certainly they were serious, on-topic, and addressed issues. Many princes, and all of the ones who wanted to host (with the exception of David) were there. We had a good talk, and opened things up. Perhaps I should have recognized that David might have felt left out of the loop (since he wasn't there), and not have joked about said conversation in the newsgroup post you reference, but this was a *five-minute* misunderstanding, over what you describe as an arduous affair taking 5 months or so. Are you really trying to suggest that this had anything to do with anything? I don't think David took any real slight, and it was clear after a moment that no such was actually intended. (As proof of that, David graciously brought me Thai food at the qualifier while I was judging and didn't poison it. I still owe him for that. . . .) > You mentioned "a very specific proposal" from Lafayette. I actually > remember quite the opposite. For *quite some time* I was suggesting that > each of the potential venues do some research and actually provide some > potential plans instead of simply saying "hey we'll do a qualifier." For > a long time there were few takers willing to actually supply details. The very specific proposal was in fact, quite specific. So were proposals from other domains, either via the newsgroup, personal e-mail, or face-to-face discussions. Each indicated some estimate on costs, availability, weekends in question, accomodations, driving considerations, beer, and women. I think it was quite sufficient to make a decision. I'm certainly not going to put in effort 6 months in advance of a qualifier to schedule rooms, track down hotels and get price quotes, reserve a venue location, find a topless bar willing to run a special vtes edge program, and hit up players for other information if we're not running a qualifier. It's silly to suggest that princes go to these lengths. The proposals were as specific as was necessary during the planning phase. I can't imagine what more you might want. Perhaps you are of the opinion that the qualifier should have been fully organized by the end of 2004. Regardless of the timeframe, your organizational constraints are your opinion and should be interpreted as such, rather than as some implied failure of the GL region to organize an event in some reasonable time frame. > In a discussion with that Prince several months afterward, he told me > that he felt he really needed the Qualifier in order to maintain > interest in his playgroup. He didn't get the Qualifier, his playgroup is > defunct, and he resigned as Prince. I'm sure you can connect the dots. I feel bad for Rob Sachs because recruiting is hard, but we (as a region) can't decide to hold the qualifier in location X because doing otherwise would kill the local playgroup in X. If he needed tournaments to maintain interest, he should have run tournaments. Which, to my knowledge, was not done more than once during his entire tenure as a prince. Recruiting and maintaining a playgroup involves more than just lobbying for a qualifier; qualifiers have a different purpose. He should have traveled or encouraged traveling to the *VERY* nearby Chicago domain for the non-trivial number of tournaments which were held there, or north to the tournaments in MI that are only 1-1.5 hours away. If they really needed tournament exposure, they could have come to the newbie rich Lafayette in 2 hours and played here. I never once saw anyone from that troupe at any of those tournaments. Between the three domains (two of which were extremely close), there have been lots of tournaments at regular intervals. If rides were an issue, carpooling was probably an option. Trains were available from Chicago to Lafayette for $12. . . . There are lots of options and always have been. There are no dots to connect here except the ones which you're attempting to force upon this community through some perceived associative guilt. A qualifier's purpose is not to maintain interest of a fledgeling domain. That's a prince's job. > As I plainly said on the newsgroup then and reiterate now, my initial > preference was towards Chicago. But after Ankur and Jill stressed the > importance of "fairness" (during one of those much lauded "face-to-face > chats") I came to the realization that the "fairest" choice would be > Milwaukee (though by that point they were no longer interested in > hosting). Fairness insomuch as the region had *already* decided to rotate. (See previous years.) Suddenly stopping, therefore, would be perceived as unfair. I'm glad you decided that Milwaukee would be the fairest choice. Note that that decision suggests that you had already prioritized the myriad concerns in running a qualifier. Your priority list may not match others. So, it came down to the fact that you had a vote in the ultimate choice. You exercised your vote and affected the process. That's what people do. (Whether that was an appropriate vote is another matter that I'll discuss in a minute.) > There was a slipshod and unscientific vote tally on the newsgroup which > ended up which a valid vote tally of : 3 Chicago, 2 Milwaukee, 5 Slipshod and unscientific? Prove it. There's no need for an accusation of this sort, especially when great care was taken to handle the voting and reporting. If you had issue with the process, you should have brought it to me privately, rather than over this public forum. I can assure you that no mistakes were made (and corrections were solicited in the case that some were made). I'm not sure how one becomes more scientific than say, counting votes of people, making sure that they aren't spoofing, checking every possible place a vote may have been cast, and enumerating the tally once it was done. With some small understanding of the scientific method as a Ph.D. candidate, I can't fathom any more care could have been taken. Even then, if there were mistakes made, there was a clear place for them to be corrected. No one indicated any disagreement with the tally. If you took issue with the fact that only princes could vote, you need to recognize how untenable it is for players in a region to uniformly vote on such an issue. If you require votes according to states, you'll note that each major playgroup of the Great Lakes Region is in a different state. If you fall back to the most reasonable voting scheme, you then weight each prince's votes based upon their playgroup's size. In such a measure, there were certain votes which shouldn't have been admissable/worth much. If I might add, yours was among the ones which was tenuous based upon that metric. Just food for thought. > Lafayette. One other Prince and myself voted for Milwaukee out of > principle (even though it had withdrawn from the race), though Chicago > was both of our second choices. And even then I pointed out that we had > not even come to a consensus on *how* a vote should be conducted. (Based > on # of Princes? # of players? # of states?). Votes for Milwaukee were irrelevant, because at the time votes were solicited, it was explicitly stated that Milwaukee was not a choice. Jill had already graciously pulled Milwaukee's bid. Who's politicking then by further obscuring the decision-making process to rehash decided issues? We're trying to decide a qualifier here, not implement some method for civil disobedience. As far as deciding how the voting should take place, I think that once we put forth at the table that we want to maximize GLQ attendance, we leave it to each prince to consider their own capability to decide the best choice consistent with those constraints. We are working together as a team, and everything doesn't have to be spelled out if the intentions are good. This is a fair assumption to make, since we're only trying to create the best damned event the Great Lakes can manage. > So all of this is why I'm more than a little jaded about the painfully > frustrating process of selecting a venue. If one region had such a tough > time, one can only imagine how arduous selecting a championship venue > would be. I think that the process was far less painful than you think. If you're posting on behalf of someone who was well and truly of the opinion that they were shafted, let them post. Your reasonings don't convince me that this was the case. Maybe theirs will, and we can make appropriate adjustments for next year. > P.S. I also want to state, for the record, that I was unfortunately not > able to attend this year's Great Lakes Qualifier because of a > last-minute obligation that came up. My absence had nothing to do with Eric, I certainly didn't conclude any perceived slight based upon your attendance at the GLQ. Not everyone thinks this way, and it's insulting to presume that others do/did. Most people probably didn't even care. Moreover, I'm not sure why its relevant to the discussion. > had attended that Qualifier the past two years before). Sadly enough > however, there are some players in the Great Lakes region who *will* > refuse to attend tournaments out of spite or due to perceived slights. > These players will also complain incessently about how some playgroups > "never" attend their events when that is totally untrue. Why is this a needed component of your argument? These kinds of vague accusations can really be hurtful, as someone might ask themselves, "Is he talking about me?", even when it's not directed at that person. The newsgroup is not a place to air dirty laundry in unrelated threads. Your post should not contain jabs and slights. It should not contain hints to other issues which aren't even relevant to the topic at hand. You should not present biased, unfair comments detailing one side of the irrelevant issue in an unrelated thread. I don't fully know what's going on with this comment, but you have almost certainly angered some people with it. I would apologize if I were you. Bottom line, Eric: Do you really feel that the GL region isn't working together? I don't feel that. We all run tournaments. We all travel. We all play vtes. If you have issues with individual people, take it to those people. Don't make a bad name for the GL region because things didn't progress the way you wanted. Or perhaps make some constructive suggestions to improve the process. I personally am glad to be around great people. The GL is full of helpful, friendly folks who are happy to oust you at a moment's notice. There are many veterans, solid players, and enthusiastic new entrants to vtes. We have a supportive region. Personally speaking, all of the neighboring domains have been very encouraging as Lafayette grew. That comraderie is not only present, it is growing. We have a regular GL-only trophy in the Sandwich Tournament Series, and there are tournaments within a hundred miles of any playgroup on a regular basis. I don't know that any other region can claim such things. For the record, the Great Lakes region is a hard-working region. We foster vtes at all levels, have good communication, and generally work and play well together. I think we did a fine job this year in qualifier-related issues. I think we did a fine job last year as well. I think we did a fine job the year before that. We're all about doing fine jobs. We plan to continue to do what we do best. And as such, I don't want anyone to think that we are anything else other than what we are. . . a solid, strong region with a cohesive organizational structure. After all, there's no way we could have such a consistantly well-attended qualifier otherwise. Ankur Gupta Prince of West Lafayette "Funny thing about corn. . . it organizes itself."

Ankur Gupta wrote: > > > By this logic then, if the qualifier is not in Wisconsin or Minnesota > each year, they will be shafted each year. GenCon and Origins will not > change locations in the forseeable future. Are you then suggesting that > it be in either WI or MN each year? If we're going to make a generic > decision based upon recurring events such as the ones you've mentioned, > then there is in fact no decision to be made: > > Ankur Gupta > Prince of West Lafayette > "Funny thing about corn. . . it organizes itself." how about creating more regions in the US (maybe North GL and South GL) if there are enough players to support such a move? so nobody needs to feel shafted. Ben, Oscar?

Stefan Ferenci writes: > how about creating more regions in the US (maybe North GL and South > GL) if there are enough players to support such a move? so nobody > needs to feel shafted. > > Ben, Oscar? I'm all for adding more qualifiers so long as there's a large enough and separate enough base of players to support them. While we're on the subject, perhaps we should add Germany as a North American region, since Germans will be regular attendees of the NAC, and they've been very vocal contributors to discussion of now the NAC should be run. ;) [ quoted text not captured ]

Johannes Walch writes: > Of course not. But then again the represent the "oversea" attendance > minority, and I think it is important to make it as convenient as > possible for those who take the allready very long trip. For the EC one > of our optimization goals was to maximize "oversea" attendance, > because it brings a good flair to the whole event. So it is wise to > choose a location that : > > - is close to international flight relays (e.g Atlanta, New York) > - has "things to do" (=tourism) except the championship (e.g > California, New York ....) This is the North American Championships, not the North American And Andreas And Johannes And Stefan Championships. Its purpose is to serve the championship needs of the North American continent, and to generate exposure for the game by being a high profile event. Serving the needs of players from other continents would be nice, but it's not a top priority. Though you did get a special qualifying exemption to attend the NAC, didn't you? If the NAC were to rotate around North America, then it would do just that: rotate around the various regions of the US, Canada, and Mexico much as the EC rotates around the various countries in Europe. When it ends up in LA and Vancouver, then you'll just have to suck it up and deal, just as the American contingent will have to suck it up and deal with the long trip to Budapest (I know of at least 5 of us who are going). Mind you, I was thrilled by the European and Australian presence at the NAC last year, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing you all again (and hopefully more of you!). Assuming we go forward with the plan to do rotate the NAC around North America, I'll be really happy that players from other countries will get to see the delights around the continent, much as we get to see those that Europe has to offer. > And we contribute our experience how to host a Continental > Championship with 100++ players from many (mostly faraway) > nations. "To an American, 200 years is a long time, and to a European, 200 miles is a long way." ;) From an American's perspective, there are no "faraway" nations within Europe. North Americans travel further, on average, to attend the NAC than Europeans travel to attend the EC. Assuming the NAC switches to a rotating system, consider how far I'd have to travel to get to LA compared to someone from Portugal traveling to Budapest. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] but dont forget that i am not german at all stefan

Stefan wrote: > but dont forget that i am not german at all I most certainly have not forgotten that you're Austrian. :) (though does the Ferenci name indicate some Hungarian ancestry?) However, it's mainly Germans who lobby to get things in the US changed in their favor. ;) - Ben

fudjo wrote: > > And we contribute our experience how to host a Continental > > Championship with 100++ players from many (mostly faraway) > > nations. > > "To an American, 200 years is a long time, and to a European, > 200 miles is a long way." > > ;) That's funny as hell and so true. LOL. For a little perspective, if the NAC were held in Bangor, Maine the west coast attendees would travel over 2,700 miles to attend. Attendees from London would need to travel about 3,000 miles. Or another shocker: Indianapolis is about 1,800 miles from Los Angeles but London to Athens in only 1,500 miles. -Robert

fudjo <fu...@optical.mindstorm.com> wrote: > I'm all for adding more qualifiers so long as there's a large enough > and separate enough base of players to support them. What about adding a second qualifier onto an already existing region, if that region can hold multiple qualifiers? And what if one or both of those qualifiers are largely attended by non-region based players? > - Ben Peal, US National Coordinator Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas [ quoted text not captured ]

fudjo wrote: > > And we contribute our experience how to host a Continental > > Championship with 100++ players from many (mostly faraway) > > nations. > > "To an American, 200 years is a long time, and to a European, > 200 miles is a long way." > > ;) That's funny as hell and so true. LOL. [ quoted text not captured ]

Kevin M asks: > What about adding a second qualifier onto an already existing > region, if that region can hold multiple qualifiers? And what if > one or both of those qualifiers are largely attended by non-region > based players? Oh certainly, and we already have precedent for that in the cases of the Origins qualifier and the New Jersey qualifier. [ quoted text not captured ]

"bspaul" <bspa...@excite.com> wrote > > If you look at the US map, you'll see that Maine is basically > surrounded by Canada. Oh no, they're on to us! Withdraw, fellow Canadians! > I contacted all the Canadian Princes North, East and > West of me. I thought we could host a really large event in Maine with > the playgroups to the South (MA,NJ,NY,etc.) and a wide range of > Canadian players (Toronto, Montreal, QC, Nova.S., etc.). Plus since > Maine is vacation land, we have the logistical support to host > travelers (along with other things people could do while here). But I > received only a couple of responses and most stated they just wanted to > attend their local events. So I trashed the idea. A peak behind the > curtain just for you. In general, V:tES organization in Ontario *sucks*. I can say that because I am a "Prince" and regularly travel to play this great game of ours. We are so disorganized that our 2005 qualifier was run by a prince from Quebec, in a town that borders Quebec, for the ostensible reason that it would allow a large number of Quebec players access to an additional qualifier. Due to the fact that few Ontario princes even bothered to get involved in the discussions, I can't say that I blame these Quebec players, and I sincerely hope that they had a successful tournament. It does, however, reveal the sorry state of Ontario V:tES. Half the princes don't even bother to respond to emails. It has been a source of much frustration for myself and a few other players in the area, who I hope will realise this is not directed at them. As for the other provinces, I don't really know. Canada is a lot more spread out than the US, making inter-city planning more difficult. We are probably similar to the Australians in this regard, except that we still speak proper English and aren't descended from criminals, eh. Cheers, WES VEKN "Prince" of Windsor

"Stefan Ferenci" <nos...@thankyou.com> wrote > > > how about creating more regions in the US (maybe North GL and South GL) if > there are enough players to support such a move? > so nobody needs to feel shafted. Have there been any statistics produced showing the approximate number of players per region? In my experience, GL seems somewhat top-heavy compared to other regions, so splitting it into two might be warranted. Cheers, WES

> - Boston, why don't you let Connecticut (David Zopf?), Maine (Ben > Spaulding?), New York (Nick Watkins?), or New Hampshire (Ben > Swainbank?) have the Qualifier for once? > I think this idea is swell. I'll finally be able to qualify if Ben's playing.

Robert Goudie wrote: > Frederick Scott wrote: > > "Andreas Nusser" <a.nu...@vekn.de> wrote in message > > news:dam423$p7k$1...@news01.versatel.de... > > > I think it is better to do a benefit-cost analysis. IMO it is hardly worth the money to be present with VTES at GenCon. > > > > I'll put it this way: a *LOT* of game companies seem to disagree with > > the concept that it's not worth being present at GenCon. And if you're > > going to be present, why not put 80+ gamers on display playing your > > game on multiple days in front of the precisely right group of people > > you want seeing that? Demo, support, and advertise all you like, I > > just don't know HOW a game company is going to buy that kind of > > publicity by other methods. > > I'm not sure about how all of this works together. Is the actual > tournament itself meant to attract new players? It would seem different > companies have different goals. For some, they make a big spectacle and > try to attract attention and gain interest in their games--the CCG room > becomes an extension of the dealer room! For others, the CCG room is > just where the game is played and the dealer room is where they try to > attract new players. > > For me personally, I explore new games in the dealer room. The CCG room > is where people go to play whatever game they spent all that money > (entrance fee, plane tickets, etc.) to come play. > > In any event, V:TES has never made much of their convention > appearances--even when we had those fancy 6ft tall standees. I doubt > anybody even knows we are playing V:TES in the CCG room. Other than > the listing in the book, V:TES gets little publicity by holding the NAC > event at GenCon. If WW doesn't want to sponsor the con itself and put > V:TES in a big spot by the door and hang 50 foot banners, give out demo > decks to all attendees and display the games on TV screens then we're > not really putting 80+ gamers on display anyway--we're just leasing the > tables. > > If the players must spend money to use GenCon's venue so that WW can > get publicity for the game, I'd rather take up a collection and buy > some additional magazine advertisement. :) Hell, I'll bet we could get > a couple of pages writeup in a game magazine about a standalone V:TES > event held outside of GenCon. Whereas, at GenCon itself we're a small > fish in a big pond. > > -Robert You hit the Bulls eye my friend! You and I have 10 years of working Cons with our game, though on a smaller level. There will be much discussion on this topic but we both know this *MUST* eventually end up with the same conclusion we have. It's two expensive to play VtES at a Con. Eventually you'll lose players unless you can make it more attractive to them, by rotating it and make it less expensive and better prizes. The biggest hype on our tourneys was that for the $15 dollar entry fee 90% of the participants got that back in prizes (or more!), door and tournament. And the weekend paid for it's self from the operators cost as well. WIN WIN! And player will be back. ***JediMike***

Someone wrote: >> - Boston, why don't you let Connecticut (David Zopf?), Maine (Ben >> Spaulding?), New York (Nick Watkins?), or New Hampshire (Ben >> Swainbank?) have the Qualifier for once? I'd guess it is 'cause the "Boston" qualifier (which, ya know, isn't actually in Boston) is always at Totalcon, which is a big convnetion (possibly the biggest reigonal con in the NE) that always gets lots of people. The qualifier at Totalcon is likely going to get more people than a stand alone qualifier in any of the other mentioned cities. Like, using me as an example, I go to Totalcon most years 'cause it is a big weekend of all sorts of games, including a VTES qualifier. I'd be unlikely to play in a stand alone qualifier in some other environment around the same time. [ quoted text not captured ]

"***JediMike***" <Jedi...@rebelscum.net> wrote in message news:1121545747.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > Robert Goudie wrote: >> If the players must spend money to use GenCon's venue so that WW can >> get publicity for the game, I'd rather take up a collection and buy >> some additional magazine advertisement. :) Hell, I'll bet we could get >> a couple of pages writeup in a game magazine about a standalone V:TES >> event held outside of GenCon. Whereas, at GenCon itself we're a small >> fish in a big pond. > > You hit the Bulls eye my friend! You and I have 10 years of working > Cons with our game, though on a smaller level. There will be much > discussion on this topic but we both know this *MUST* eventually end up > with the same conclusion we have. It's two expensive to play VtES at a > Con. Eventually you'll lose players unless you can make it more > attractive to them, by rotating it and make it less expensive and > better prizes. Mike, I think it's a little bit different situation, Strategicons vs. GenCon. You guys are a committee whose objective it is to put on VtES tournaments on behest of groups of people who are already VtES players. White Wolf, on the other hand, has to take a broader view of the situation and consider the long term benefits of keeping VtES in the public eye. And GenCon is a much more effective vehicle for that purpose than a 3-times-a-year regional game convention (and an arguably sorry one at that). I also think people will tend to tolerate higher costs at a place like GenCon. I wouldn't predict what will eventually happen, myself. But whatever that is, I don't think it will be for exactly the same reasons as what you guys experienced with your events. Fred

fudjo wrote: > This is the North American Championships, not the North American > And Andreas And Johannes And Stefan Championships. Yes, I know, I can read. Even the English language. But I can only express the Johannes opinion as a little hint to those who are in charge. I said "from our point of view it would be good to ...". It is up to those in charge to evaluate opinions. > Its purpose > is to serve the championship needs of the North American continent, > and to generate exposure for the game by being a high profile event. > Serving the needs of players from other continents would be nice, but > it's not a top priority. I did not post it as a top priority but as an added bonus. Having a probably "better" place is good for everybody, not just the oversea travellers. > Though you did get a special qualifying > exemption to attend the NAC, didn't you? No. I don´t know that I have such a special exemption. I only proposed a slightly different qualifying scheme (valid for all players) to Steve and as it turned out after the usual whining in the Conclave list that it would be too much of a hassle to introduce it, it was discarded. > "To an American, 200 years is a long time, and to a European, > 200 miles is a long way." > > ;) :) > From an American's perspective, there are no "faraway" nations > within Europe. North Americans travel further, on average, to attend > > the NAC than Europeans travel to attend the EC. Assuming the NAC > switches to a rotating system, consider how far I'd have to travel to > get to LA compared to someone from Portugal traveling to Budapest. What´s the point? -- johannes walch

Johannes Walch wrote: > fudjo wrote: > > Its purpose > > is to serve the championship needs of the North American continent, > > and to generate exposure for the game by being a high profile event. > > Serving the needs of players from other continents would be nice, but > > it's not a top priority. > > I did not post it as a top priority but as an added bonus. Having a > probably "better" place is good for everybody, not just the oversea > travellers. Absolutely correct on both accounts. Hopefully, the places where future NACs are held (if the rotating NAC idea is adopted) will actually be interesting to those within North Amer. Most locations we find interesting will probably be attractive to our international visitors as well. I've never been to Boston or Atlanta or Canada but I'd certainly like to extend my stay and explore a bit while I'm there. Indy...well, I didn't see much reason to leave stay 5 minutes longer than I needed to. :) A side note...A couple of us were talking about bringing our spouses to GenCon Indy this year. The spouses were initially interested....at least until they searched around on the web for stuff to do they decided Indy wasn't all that interesting. -Robert

Johannes wrote: > No. I don´t know that I have such a special exemption. I only proposed a > slightly different qualifying scheme (valid for all players) to Steve > and as it turned out after the usual whining in the Conclave list that > it would be too much of a hassle to introduce it, it was discarded. It was discarded? Huh...I don't remember Steve saying so on the Conclave, but I guess his lack of further comment indicates such. :( I was fine with the idea (with some adjustment)... > What´s the point? The point is that there's no such thing as a "faraway nation" in Europe. :) - Ben

fudjo wrote: > It was discarded? Huh...I don't remember Steve saying so on the > Conclave, but I guess his lack of further comment indicates such. > :( I was fine with the idea (with some adjustment)... Yep. He said something about "mixed opinions" ;-) and after all it tangled only very few players. > The point is that there's no such thing as a "faraway nation" in > Europe. :) What might not seem faraway for an elephant can be quite faraway for an ant :)) -- johannes walch

I'm not saying take VtES out of Gencon, I'm merely stating that something as player specific as a National Championship (and a Week of Nightmares as well), that caters to the majority of an experienced player base, should be conceived from a mindset that benefits said group. I personally don't feel that Gencon is that answer. I've also recently have gotten heavily into German board gaming and the appeal of going to Gencon to only play VtES is becoming less and less appealing. That said, even if nothing changed, I would still continue to go to Gencon (WoN) and continue only playing VtES because that time spent with all the other players in priceless to me and I enjoy the camaraderie of hanging with all the other great players almost as much as I enjoy VtES it's self. So I'm just saying to have that experience while visiting other parts of North America, or even going only to Atlanta if WW chooses to do it close to home for $ reasons, while not feeling like my whole Gencon experience is gone because I choose to hang with the VtES crowd, would be more beneficial to the overall VtES/Gamers experience. Keep VtES at Gencon. Keep the presence of tournaments there. Focus on getting new players; I'll volunteer my time to help. But the National Championship combined with the WoN should be, I believe, a separate less expensive event altogether. Again, just my $.02 ***JediMike***

"***JediMike***" <Jedi...@rebelscum.net> wrote in message news:1121731392....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > I'm not saying take VtES out of Gencon, I'm merely stating that > something as player specific as a National Championship (and a Week of > Nightmares as well), that caters to the majority of an experienced > player base, should be conceived from a mindset that benefits said > group. I personally don't feel that Gencon is that answer. But you can't view any one particular form of the NAC, including a rotating NAC, as a form that benefits the entire group of the experienced player base. No form does that. GenCon benefits some members of that group and not others. The rotating NAC benefits some members and not others. You can't look for a single solution to the problem because none exists. > That said, even if nothing changed, I would still continue to go to > Gencon (WoN) and continue only playing VtES because that time spent > with all the other players in priceless to me and I enjoy the > camaraderie of hanging with all the other great players almost as much > as I enjoy VtES it's self. So I'm just saying to have that experience > while visiting other parts of North America, or even going only to > Atlanta if WW chooses to do it close to home for $ reasons, while not > feeling like my whole Gencon experience is gone because I choose to > hang with the VtES crowd, would be more beneficial to the overall > VtES/Gamers experience. But that's not a valid conclusion because those particular set of priorities don't speak for all people who are experienced VtES gamers. Some people will want to attend the NAC and attend GenCon but won't have the time or money to do both. If you move the NAC out of GenCon, you've just cost them the opportunity to do that. Add that to the point that they may not care about the amount of money you're saving them (which is fairly trivial compared to the amount of money that would have to be invested in an entire second trip) and they won't conclude it's a good thing. Fred

"***JediMike***" <Jedim...@rebelscum.net> wrote in message news :1121731392.091222.17960@o13g2­000cwo.googlegroups.com... >> I'm not saying take VtES out of Gencon, >But you can't view any one particular form of the NAC, including a >rotating NAC, as a form that benefits the entire group of the experienced >player base. Yes I can! :) >But that's not a valid conclusion It is to me, thats why it's *MY* $.02 ;) Look I understand both sides of the issue I'm mearly stating my opinion. And that opinion stems from the fact that L.A. would have more attendees to a NAC that was 1/2 the cost, bottom line. ***JediMike***

"***JediMike***" <Jedi...@rebelscum.net> wrote in message news:1121734161.3...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... >Fred wrote: >>But you can't view any one particular form of the NAC, including a >>rotating NAC, as a form that benefits the entire group of the experienced >>player base. > >Yes I can! :) Not honestly. Or just say, I don't think that assertion means what you think it means. >>But that's not a valid conclusion > >It is to me, thats why it's *MY* $.02 ;) > >Look I understand both sides of the issue I'm mearly stating my >opinion. And that opinion stems from the fact that L.A. would have more >attendees to a NAC that was 1/2 the cost, bottom line. OK, that's fine - but you're making the wrong assertion. It's one thing to state that a rotating NAC benefits you personally. You can also say that it benefits some subset of experienced VtES gamers whose priorities were those you spoke. Just understand there are OTHER experienced VtES gamers whose priorities are OTHER than that - and they will be hurt by it. In short, your $.02 is fine - but it doesn't speak for everybody, which is effectively what you were claiming in your prior post. And by the way, I also don't see how you're getting "an NAC that was 1/2 the cost, bottom line". I can see hotels being a little cheaper since you're not holding the NAC where there's a giant gaming convention. But air fare's pretty much a wash (sometimes will be higher, sometimes lower depending on where the NAC is), convention fees are a relatively low cost item in proportion n to the rest, so I can't figure out how you're calculating this. Fred

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 19:21:29 -0700, Frederick Scott <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > OK, that's fine - but you're making the wrong assertion. It's one thing > to state that a rotating NAC benefits you personally. You can also say > that it benefits some subset of experienced VtES gamers whose priorities > were those you spoke. Just understand there are OTHER experienced VtES > gamers whose priorities are OTHER than that - and they will be hurt by > it. In short, your $.02 is fine - but it doesn't speak for everybody, > which is effectively what you were claiming in your prior post. I think that this point has been well reiterated. It is a valid point, but aside of cautioning us not to hold this proposed change to be an absolute good, it does very little to help the actual decision-making, if it needs help at all. What method do you propose to actually represent the interests of the majority in this case? I think that in all fairness, the best solution is probably the one which benefits most of the "experienced" VTES players (unless the NAC is seen as an event that attracts a lot of n00b attention to the game). If more people would find a rotating NAC convenient, and on the average more people could attend it, then it is probably a good idea; otherwise, it is a bad idea. Surveying that information is probably harder than it seems. Everyone has their opinions. Maybe if the majority of VTES players who attended the last NAC would say that they would prefer a rotating championship? -- Bye, Daneel

"Daneel" <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message news:opst5bvc...@news.chello.hu... > On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 19:21:29 -0700, Frederick Scott <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > >> OK, that's fine - but you're making the wrong assertion. It's one thing >> to state that a rotating NAC benefits you personally. You can also say >> that it benefits some subset of experienced VtES gamers whose priorities >> were those you spoke. Just understand there are OTHER experienced VtES >> gamers whose priorities are OTHER than that - and they will be hurt by >> it. In short, your $.02 is fine - but it doesn't speak for everybody, >> which is effectively what you were claiming in your prior post. > > I think that this point has been well reiterated. It is a valid point, but > aside of cautioning us not to hold this proposed change to be an absolute > good, it does very little to help the actual decision-making, if it needs > help at all. It helps in that it gets people off of assuming this proposed change is for the absolute good. Yea, all right, maybe I've repeated myself more times than necessary for the vast majority to get the point. I guess something about this has fired up my pet peeve about people trying to claim the moral high ground when they haven't quite looked at the issue from a couple of other relevant perspectives that they probably should have. > What method do you propose to actually represent the interests of the > majority in this case? I haven't proposed one because I'm not the one making the decision. What would be the point? > I think that in all fairness, the best solution is > probably the one which benefits most of the "experienced" VTES players > (unless the NAC is seen as an event that attracts a lot of n00b attention > to the game). If more people would find a rotating NAC convenient, and on > the average more people could attend it, then it is probably a good idea; > otherwise, it is a bad idea. Well, that might be so if the group of players putting it on were (in your words) "'experienced' VTES players". But they're not. VEKN puts it on and at this point, VEKN is basically White Wolf. So presumedly White Wolf will do whatever is best for White Wolf, as they should. For obvious reasons, I'm sure they'll take the interests of experienced players under consideration, as that probably has a lot to do with how many cards and other game-related merchandise they'll ultimately sell. But it isn't necessarily the the only consideration, I would guess. Anyway, how they decide is not really that important to me as long as they do it in a fairly rational way. I just felt like the impression some people seemed to be trying to sell (that all experienced players would surely prefer to change the status quo) needed to be countered. Fred

Daneel wrote: > On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 19:21:29 -0700, Frederick Scott > <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > >> OK, that's fine - but you're making the wrong assertion. It's one thing >> to state that a rotating NAC benefits you personally. You can also say >> that it benefits some subset of experienced VtES gamers whose priorities >> were those you spoke. Just understand there are OTHER experienced VtES >> gamers whose priorities are OTHER than that - and they will be hurt by >> it. In short, your $.02 is fine - but it doesn't speak for everybody, >> which is effectively what you were claiming in your prior post. > > > I think that this point has been well reiterated. It is a valid point, but > aside of cautioning us not to hold this proposed change to be an absolute > good, it does very little to help the actual decision-making, if it needs > help at all. ? Yes, it does -- examining all sides of an issue before making a decision tends to lead to better decisions. Even if there are no hard numbers, just raising the awareness of alternate/possible/additional criteria is a good thing. -- LSJ (vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep (remove spam trap to reply) Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

Johannes wrote: > What might not seem faraway for an elephant can be quite > faraway for an ant :) I'm not fat!!!!! - Ben

"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message news:JsZCe.42192$4o.15552@fed1read06... > > "***JediMike***" <Jedi...@rebelscum.net> wrote in message > news:1121734161.3...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... >>Fred wrote: >>>But you can't view any one particular form of the NAC, including a >>>rotating NAC, as a form that benefits the entire group of the experienced >>>player base. >> >>Yes I can! :) > > Not honestly. Or just say, I don't think that assertion means what you > think it means. > >>>But that's not a valid conclusion >> >>It is to me, thats why it's *MY* $.02 ;) >> >>Look I understand both sides of the issue I'm mearly stating my >>opinion. And that opinion stems from the fact that L.A. would have more >>attendees to a NAC that was 1/2 the cost, bottom line. > > OK, that's fine - but you're making the wrong assertion. It's one thing > to state that a rotating NAC benefits you personally. You can also say > that it benefits some subset of experienced VtES gamers whose priorities > were those you spoke. Just understand there are OTHER experienced VtES > gamers whose priorities are OTHER than that - and they will be hurt by > it. In short, your $.02 is fine - but it doesn't speak for everybody, > which is effectively what you were claiming in your prior post. > See, this really confuses me about your posts. Say the NAC stayed put at GenCon. The people that benefits today are basically the same people it would benefit next year. The people for whom its impossible to attend also remains more-or-less the same. Now, say you rotated the NAC to four regional locations, once per year, one of which was GenCon (and I don't personally care if they're tied to a con, or not). How can you logically support that such a scheme would allow fewer people to participate? I can see that, some of the time, the people for whom GenCon is ideal would be inconvenienced to some extent, but the fact that such a rotation at least gives those for whom GenCon is an impossibility a few other options once every couple of years that makes me conclude its the better long run model for seeing a wider variety of players in attendance. I personally believe that this aspect, giving each player a chance to participate, is _at least_ as important as the total annual raw attendance, and is something that keeping the NAC at GenCon doesn't address in any fashion whatsoever. DaveZ AtomWeaver

"David Zopf" <david...@snetx.net> wrote in message news:JzbDe.986$lX2...@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com... > > "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message > news:JsZCe.42192$4o.15552@fed1read06... >> It's one thing >> to state that a rotating NAC benefits you personally. You can also say >> that it benefits some subset of experienced VtES gamers whose priorities >> were those you spoke. Just understand there are OTHER experienced VtES >> gamers whose priorities are OTHER than that - and they will be hurt by >> it. In short, your $.02 is fine - but it doesn't speak for everybody, >> which is effectively what you were claiming in your prior post. >> > See, this really confuses me about your posts. Say the NAC stayed put at > GenCon. The people that benefits today are basically the same people it > would benefit next year. The people for whom its impossible to attend also > remains more-or-less the same. The notion that maintaining the same arrangements year in, year out will benefit the same people year in, year out is undeniable. I wasn't addressing that. But your comment above strikes me as focusing on some mighty narrow criteria for how to judge the appeal of the NAC. Anyone who can't attend an NAC because of geography is actually likely to be in pretty big trouble wherever it's held, unless you're proposing to gut the thing and get people in and out on a single weekend. I sure hope not. Right now, with the WoN, GenCon, and NAC, we have a week-long event. I understood the point of this whole discussion to be mainly about getting it out of GenCon for convenience and cost savings (IMO very minimal cost savings), not to "make it possible" for certain people to attend who couldn't otherwise. I don't really see how it does that except in a small number of cases. > Now, say you rotated the NAC to four regional locations, once per year, > one of which was GenCon (and I don't personally care if they're tied to a > con, or not). How can you logically support that such a scheme would allow > fewer people to participate? Because I don't beleive it allows fewer people to participate in any given year. How does it do that? Rotating it might make it more conventient for more people to attend in some given year over the course of several but in any single year, I don't see how it allows for any greater participation. It just alters who has the best advantage. I've explained why I like the current system: the quality of the single event is much better than either the NAC or GenCon if you split off the former from the latter. Where would the Week of Nightmares go? Probably wouldn't exist, I think. If anywhere, I suppose it would be likely to go with the NAC, making the VtES opportunity at GenCon a shadow of its former self, I don't care how many tournaments you ran there. I happen to LIKE GenCon and I like the VtES party they hold there. Moving the NAC would drive a stake through it, allowing no one the opportunity to participate. > I personally believe that this aspect, giving each player a > chance to participate, is _at least_ as important as the total annual raw > attendance, Sure. But I don't think rotating does what you're claiming in does in terms of allowing people the opportunity to participate, I don't think current system locks people out from participating more than is appropriate, and I think there are other important criteria for such an event. Fred

In message <VscDe.43070$4o.12174@fed1read06>, Frederick Scott <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> writes: >Anyone >who can't attend an NAC because of geography is actually likely to be >in pretty big trouble wherever it's held, unless you're proposing to gut >the thing and get people in and out on a single weekend. I sure hope >not. Right now, with the WoN, GenCon, and NAC, we have a week-long >event. I don't think the idea of a not-at-an-expensive-convention rotating NAC precludes the possibility of having other events around it. If people wanted to organise such, it would be quite possible to organise something along the lines of WoN (or even WoN, if people wanted to move it) into the week/part-week before the newly moved NAC. Or having a 2R+F Storyline tournament on Friday evening/Saturday morning, or whatever else people wanted to do. In some ways, bits of that would be easier if you weren't competing with a large con, in that flights may be cheaper, hotels less booked up and gaming spaces (meeting halls, or whatever) easier to book. Of course, that all rather depends on whether the people who want to do such things will want to organise them somewhere else and how much of a deciding factor GenCon really is (either for or against). -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:SPan1RQC...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > In message <VscDe.43070$4o.12174@fed1read06>, Frederick Scott > <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> writes: >>Anyone >>who can't attend an NAC because of geography is actually likely to be >>in pretty big trouble wherever it's held, unless you're proposing to gut >>the thing and get people in and out on a single weekend. I sure hope >>not. Right now, with the WoN, GenCon, and NAC, we have a week-long >>event. > > I don't think the idea of a not-at-an-expensive-convention rotating NAC > precludes the possibility of having other events around it. It doesn't preclude it but it makes it harder to do. People who would show up for GenCon plus WoN might not have the incentive to show up for just the NAC (which they might not be qualified for and/or might not care that much about) plus WoN. This actually _does_ disclude a real segment of the population - which in turn makes it harder to justify the extra days to the remaining folks. > In some ways, bits of that would be easier if you weren't competing with > a large con, in that flights may be cheaper, hotels less booked up and > gaming spaces (meeting halls, or whatever) easier to book. Maybe. These are more planning issues than cost issues, I suspect. Cheap flights to GenCon aren't hard to come by but you have to plan months in advance. Hotels are probably less flexible but there's still an element of that to it. In any event, I think the travel issues are far less important than the overall incentive to even attend the event. Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: > Where would the Week of Nightmares go? Probably > wouldn't exist, I think. If anywhere, I suppose it would be likely to go > with the NAC, making the VtES opportunity at GenCon a shadow of its former > self, I was assuming the WoN would move with the event. IMO, cities making proposals to host the NAC would also have to include a WoN plan. -Robert

"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message news:VscDe.43070$4o.12174@fed1read06... > > "David Zopf" <david...@snetx.net> wrote in message > news:JzbDe.986$lX2...@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com... >> >> "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message >> news:JsZCe.42192$4o.15552@fed1read06... >>> It's one thing >>> to state that a rotating NAC benefits you personally. You can also say >>> that it benefits some subset of experienced VtES gamers whose priorities >>> were those you spoke. Just understand there are OTHER experienced VtES >>> gamers whose priorities are OTHER than that - and they will be hurt by >>> it. In short, your $.02 is fine - but it doesn't speak for everybody, >>> which is effectively what you were claiming in your prior post. >>> >> See, this really confuses me about your posts. Say the NAC stayed put at >> GenCon. The people that benefits today are basically the same people it >> would benefit next year. The people for whom its impossible to attend >> also >> remains more-or-less the same. > > The notion that maintaining the same arrangements year in, year out will > benefit the same people year in, year out is undeniable. I wasn't > addressing that. But your comment above strikes me as focusing on some > mighty narrow criteria for how to judge the appeal of the NAC. Anyone > who can't attend an NAC because of geography is actually likely to be > in pretty big trouble wherever it's held, I guess I don't have the right angle for explaining why this is wrong. If you move the NAC closer to a person's backyard, then its more likely they'll show up, plain and simple. > unless you're proposing to gut > the thing and get people in and out on a single weekend. I'm not. > I sure hope > not. Right now, with the WoN, GenCon, and NAC, we have a week-long > event. I understood the point of this whole discussion to be mainly > about getting it out of GenCon for convenience and cost savings (IMO > very minimal cost savings), not to "make it possible" for certain people > to attend who couldn't otherwise. I don't really see how it does that > except in a small number of cases. > The cost savings arguments were from other people, not so much from me. Everyone brings their own ideas to the table, yadda yadda. I suppose we have different ideas about exactly how many people would respond favorably to a change to a rotating NAC. Being one in that "small number of cases" who consistently cannot ever make GenCon, I might be biased. But I don't think so. Its simple math that a moving NAC over multiple years provides the opportunity for a wider variety of people to attend. Even alternating between DragonCon and GenCon would accomplish that. What I don't see is how the number of attendees you seem to think would be lost due to taking GenCon out of the NAC picture could be even a small fraction of the number who could be gained by rotating it... >> Now, say you rotated the NAC to four regional locations, once per year, >> one of which was GenCon (and I don't personally care if they're tied to a >> con, or not). How can you logically support that such a scheme would >> allow >> fewer people to participate? > > Because I don't beleive it allows fewer people to participate in any given > year. How does it do that? Rotating it might make it more conventient > for more people to attend in some given year over the course of several > but in any single year, I don't see how it allows for any greater > participation. It just alters who has the best advantage. > If it doesn't impact the raw attendance, and satifies a wider variety players, then it should be done. > I've explained why I like the current system: the quality of the single > event is much better than either the NAC or GenCon if you split off the > former from the latter. Where would the Week of Nightmares go? Probably > wouldn't exist, I think. If anywhere, I suppose it would be likely to go > with the NAC, making the VtES opportunity at GenCon a shadow of its former > self, I don't care how many tournaments you ran there. I happen to LIKE > GenCon and I like the VtES party they hold there. Moving the NAC would > drive a stake through it, allowing no one the opportunity to participate. > I doubt it would be as melodramatic as you imply, but here we get into the realm of opinion as to what makes a good event for VTES, and your opinion is of no greater value than mine, or any others. GenCon, while interesting and fun, isn't as special as you imply, if the response I've heard from people who frequent it, and other cons, is to be believed. I'm all for the Week of Nightmares attached to a big con and the NAC, but I don't see why it has to be GenCon every year. Pick GenCon, DragonCon, a Northeast con,and a West Coast con, and rotate it every four years. I'd expect that the variety will appeal to those who find Indy boring, the cost savings for regional attendees will give you a significantly different looking roster each year, and the die-hards will be there each and every year. >> I personally believe that this aspect, giving each player a >> chance to participate, is _at least_ as important as the total annual raw >> attendance, > > Sure. But I don't think rotating does what you're claiming in does in > terms of allowing people the opportunity to participate, You yourself said that airfare is the "big expense" (an accurate statement). Take it away, and you'll see different people attending. Simple. > I don't think > current system locks people out from participating more than is > appropriate, *and I think there are other important criteria for such > an event.* > * emphasis mine... Such as? DZ AW

Frederick Scott wrote: > "James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message > news:SPan1RQC...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > > In message <VscDe.43070$4o.12174@fed1read06>, Frederick Scott > > <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> writes: > >>Anyone > >>who can't attend an NAC because of geography is actually likely to be > >>in pretty big trouble wherever it's held, unless you're proposing to gut > >>the thing and get people in and out on a single weekend. I sure hope > >>not. Right now, with the WoN, GenCon, and NAC, we have a week-long > >>event. > > > > I don't think the idea of a not-at-an-expensive-convention rotating NAC > > precludes the possibility of having other events around it. > > It doesn't preclude it but it makes it harder to do. Yes, it would require more planning to make a WoN rotate along with the NAC. The WoN could probably be done for less $$$ and the accomodations could be perfectly suited, etc. For example, back in Milwaukee we had the best WoN at a perfectly designed hotel that was 20 minutes away from GenCon. With a rotating NAC, the host city would choose a location for the NAC that also had a perfectly designed hotel that is close by, inexpensive, geek friendly, or whatever. All factors could be taken into account at the time of the location for the NAC is chosen. > People who would > show up for GenCon plus WoN might not have the incentive to show up > for just the NAC (which they might not be qualified for and/or might not > care that much about) plus WoN. This actually _does_ disclude a real > segment of the population - which in turn makes it harder to justify the > extra days to the remaining folks. The NAC would certainly have to be a worthwhile event to attract V:TES players who may not already be qualified. Again, that just brings me back to wondering which V:TES players are going to GenCon for something other than V:TES. Or more precisely, I'd like to see the future a few years down the road and see what a rotating NAC and WoN would look like as well as how GenCon would fare. I certainly can't say with any certainty what the outcome would be if the plan were adopted. But I can tell you that I'd personally be happier if the event rotated. I'll enjoy having it closer to home once in a while and I'll enjoy visiting other V:TES communities when it isn't close to home. Maybe I'm just getting older but my favorite part of GenCon is hanging out with players away from the con itself. I won't miss the excitement and spectacle of the BigCon (tm) and would prefer a NAC location that felt more like the big WoN from a few years back. -Robert

"David Zopf" <david...@snetx.net> wrote in message news:hhdDe.409$MF2...@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com... > > "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message > news:VscDe.43070$4o.12174@fed1read06... >> The notion that maintaining the same arrangements year in, year out will >> benefit the same people year in, year out is undeniable. I wasn't >> addressing that. But your comment above strikes me as focusing on some >> mighty narrow criteria for how to judge the appeal of the NAC. Anyone >> who can't attend an NAC because of geography is actually likely to be >> in pretty big trouble wherever it's held, > > I guess I don't have the right angle for explaining why this is wrong. If > you move the NAC closer to a person's backyard, then its more likely they'll > show up, plain and simple. "More likely they'll show up" I'd concede. Earlier you were talking about people who couldn't possibly attend. There's a pretty sizable difference. If Joe Player doesn't want to attend the NAC because they wouldn't hold it at his house, I don't have that much sympathy. It's a CONTINENTAL CHAMPHIONSHIP fer cryin' out loud! You want to go for it, you should expect to get on an airplane and make hotel reservations. :-P > Being one in that "small number of cases" > who consistently cannot ever make GenCon, I might be biased. But I don't > think so. OK, could you explain what you cannot ever make GenCon? I'm confused how that can be, unless you have kind of an unusual job situation or something. Most of the things I can think of aren't going to be much different except for the people whose city it rotates into and even a lot of those aren't going to have their problem fixed. > Its simple math that a moving NAC over multiple years provides > the opportunity for a wider variety of people to attend. ... > If it doesn't impact the raw attendance, and satifies a wider variety > players, then it should be done. That's where we disagree. Satifying a wider variety of players over the course of the years is one nice thing but it isn't the only goal. >> I've explained why I like the current system: the quality of the single >> event is much better than either the NAC or GenCon if you split off the >> former from the latter. Where would the Week of Nightmares go? Probably >> wouldn't exist, I think. If anywhere, I suppose it would be likely to go >> with the NAC, making the VtES opportunity at GenCon a shadow of its former >> self, I don't care how many tournaments you ran there. I happen to LIKE >> GenCon and I like the VtES party they hold there. Moving the NAC would >> drive a stake through it, allowing no one the opportunity to participate. >> > I doubt it would be as melodramatic as you imply, but here we get into the > realm of opinion as to what makes a good event for VTES, and your opinion is > of no greater value than mine, or any others. Sure. But it's of no less value, either. Mostly I've posting in response to pat statements like yours, above: "If it makes it somewhat more accessible once in a while to more people, then it must be done." No, not necessarily. > GenCon, while interesting and > fun, isn't as special as you imply, if the response I've heard from people > who frequent it, and other cons, is to be believed. I don't know who you've been talking to or what their criteria is but that is simply wrong. I think some VtES gamers certainly don't care about the other parts they have no intention of partaking in and obviously a lot of people are put off by the lines, parking issues, planning you have to do to attend and so forth. Your milage may vary, as I've always conceded. But none of this refutes what I said. > I'm all for the Week of Nightmares attached to a big con and the NAC, but > I don't see why it has to be GenCon every year. Pick GenCon, DragonCon, a > Northeast con,and a West Coast con, and rotate it every four years. It may be that DragonCon would offer a comparable experience and maybe FINALLY GenCon West could offer a pale shadow of it. (The problem with West Coast cons is that they lose too many people from the east side of the country, I think. The reason it doesn't work that way in reverse is that there just aren't that many gamers in the West. All this is just my impression, though.) I don't know what would offer a like experience in the Northeast. But, of course, all this got started because people proposing to rotate the NAC *away* from large cons so they didn't have to deal with large convention fees, lines, hotel and traffic conjestion, and so forth. So by proposing to rotate it among large cons, you're now on a collision course with that end. >>> I personally believe that this aspect, giving each player a >>> chance to participate, is _at least_ as important as the total annual raw >>> attendance, >> >> Sure. But I don't think rotating does what you're claiming in does in >> terms of allowing people the opportunity to participate, > > You yourself said that airfare is the "big expense" (an accurate statement). I also said that by planning, there's no reason air fare can't be held to the same cost as the air fare to any arbitrary city and time. So you're saving people the planning, not so much money. >> I don't think >> current system locks people out from participating more than is >> appropriate, *and I think there are other important criteria for such >> an event.* >> > * emphasis mine... Such as? I've stated them all over this thread and the "How can we make a rotating NAC a reality?" thread. You ought to have to read SOME other posts in this discussion besides just the ones that respond directly to yours. (And some can be deduced just from my previous post.) Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: > >>But that's not a valid conclusion > > > >It is to me, thats why it's *MY* $.02 ;) > > > >Look I understand both sides of the issue I'm mearly stating my > >opinion. And that opinion stems from the fact that L.A. would have more > >attendees to a NAC if it was 1/2 the cost, bottom line. > > OK, that's fine - but you're making the wrong assertion. It's one thing > to state that a rotating NAC benefits you personally. You can also say > that it benefits some subset of experienced VtES gamers whose priorities > were those you spoke. Ok Fred, you win *that* was the subset of experienced VtES gamers I was adressing. (which IMO is the majority) Just understand there are OTHER experienced VtES > gamers whose priorities are OTHER than that - and they will be hurt by > it. I understand, but I'm pushing MY adgenda, if others will be hurt they can speak up and present their rebuttle. In short, your $.02 is fine - but it doesn't speak for everybody, > which is effectively what you were claiming in your prior post. Can anyone REALLY speak for EVERYONE in any single post. I just assume that anyone reading any particular thread by any particular person knows that there are rarely absolutes in any disscusion. No execptions to this one. It should just be a givin that there is no one *RIGHT* answer for this situation or we would already be doing it. Therefore most opinions discused will be simply that, opinions. > > And by the way, I also don't see how you're getting "an NAC that was 1/2 > the cost, bottom line". I can see hotels being a little cheaper since > you're not holding the NAC where there's a giant gaming convention. But > air fare's pretty much a wash (sometimes will be higher, sometimes lower > depending on where the NAC is), convention fees are a relatively low cost > item in proportion n to the rest, so I can't figure out how you're > calculating this. > > Fred Because sometimes the qualifier will be held west of the rockies and therefore driving distance (van pool), hotels most likely won't be held in a convention city (except maybe Vegas) so rooms could be found at half the rate closer to the building where it's being held. I'm sure there are other cost cutting methods that have advantages in a non-Con setting. Well I guess I'm up to $.06 by now huh? ***JediMike***

If it were up to me I would REQUIRE WoN to be a part of ANY proposal package from a city that wants to hold the NAC. No exception! ***JediMike***

"***JediMike***" <Jedi...@rebelscum.net> wrote in message news:1121816762.2...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... > Can anyone REALLY speak for EVERYONE in any single post. I just assume > that anyone reading any particular thread by any particular person > knows that there are rarely absolutes in any disscusion. Well, OK, I understand that. But a lot of posts in this thread have come off with the subtext, "Everyone wants the things rotating NAC will provide so it's obviously superior." By now I've tooled far past simple Devil's Advocate and am onrushing madly towards ranting nutcase. The men in white coats have been searching for me for the past day-and-a-half. I broke into some old lady's basement and am posting this from an old laptop I found gathering dust in her storeroom. >> And by the way, I also don't see how you're getting "an NAC that was 1/2 >> the cost, bottom line". I can see hotels being a little cheaper since >> you're not holding the NAC where there's a giant gaming convention. But >> air fare's pretty much a wash (sometimes will be higher, sometimes lower >> depending on where the NAC is), convention fees are a relatively low cost >> item in proportion n to the rest, so I can't figure out how you're >> calculating this. > > Because sometimes the qualifier will be held west of the rockies and > therefore driving distance (van pool), hotels most likely won't be held > in a convention city (except maybe Vegas) so rooms could be found at > half the rate closer to the building where it's being held. I'm sure > there are other cost cutting methods that have advantages in a non-Con > setting. So you're touting cost savings in the year GenCon is nearby to you personally at the expense of people on the other side of the country? Not exactly the whole story the first time but OK, I see what you mean. I didn't know Indianapolis was considered a "convention city" like Las Vegas, though I suppose it is during GenCon week. I still have some doubt about how much you'll save on rooms unless the venue correspondingly sucks more. I mean, couldn't Week of Nightmares be held in a much cheaper motel and save everyone a lot on the rooms in Indy, too? Points is, you don't save that money because you're choosing not to save that money. Oh, oh! Heard a crash upstairs. Got to go, real quick now!... Fred

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 23:46:57 -0700, Frederick Scott <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > "Daneel" <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message > news:opst5bvc...@news.chello.hu... >> On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 19:21:29 -0700, Frederick Scott >> <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> >>> OK, that's fine - but you're making the wrong assertion. It's one >>> thing >>> to state that a rotating NAC benefits you personally. You can also say >>> that it benefits some subset of experienced VtES gamers whose >>> priorities >>> were those you spoke. Just understand there are OTHER experienced VtES >>> gamers whose priorities are OTHER than that - and they will be hurt by >>> it. In short, your $.02 is fine - but it doesn't speak for everybody, >>> which is effectively what you were claiming in your prior post. >> >> I think that this point has been well reiterated. It is a valid point, >> but >> aside of cautioning us not to hold this proposed change to be an >> absolute >> good, it does very little to help the actual decision-making, if it >> needs >> help at all. > > It helps in that it gets people off of assuming this proposed change is > for the absolute good. Agreed. > Yea, all right, maybe I've repeated myself more times than necessary for > the vast majority to get the point. I guess something about this has > fired > up my pet peeve about people trying to claim the moral high ground when > they > haven't quite looked at the issue from a couple of other relevant > perspectives > that they probably should have. I didn't mean to come across like bashing you for this or something. I don't mind it, and can see where you are coming from; even agree in some of your points. It's just that your reasoning is currently completely reactive. There is a proposal, you analyze it and show its weak spots. So far so good. Yet the existence of the proposal itself and the vocal support it seems to have shows that there may be a desire to change things. So it would do good to actually quantify (or somehow rationally assess) the benefits the current and the proposed systems each offer - especially regarding appeal to players. I just wanted to direct the discussion in that direction. >> What method do you propose to actually represent the interests of the >> majority in this case? > > I haven't proposed one because I'm not the one making the decision. What > would be the point? Okay, let me rephrase. Do you think that one option would be better for the current (or future) VTES community? Do you think that it is possible to discern which option that would be? Can you think of a good method for representing the interests of the VTES community in the decision-making process? > Well, that might be so if the group of players putting it on were (in > your > words) "'experienced' VTES players". But they're not. VEKN puts it on > and > at this point, VEKN is basically White Wolf. So presumedly White Wolf > will > do whatever is best for White Wolf, as they should. For obvious reasons, > I'm sure they'll take the interests of experienced players under > consideration, > as that probably has a lot to do with how many cards and other > game-related > merchandise they'll ultimately sell. But it isn't necessarily the the > only > consideration, I would guess. VEKN may basically be White Wolf, but let's not forget the point of VEKN. If, in a theoretical scenario, White Wolf ever really goes against player interest, it will lose VEKN one way or the other. Not to mention that I find it hard to conceive how it wouldn't actually be in White Wolf's best interest to make sure the championships are as popular as possible. > Anyway, how they decide is not really that important to me as long as > they > do it in a fairly rational way. I just felt like the impression some > people seemed to be trying to sell (that all experienced players would > surely prefer to change the status quo) needed to be countered. Agreed. -- Bye, Daneel

On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 10:37:43 GMT, LSJ <vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com> wrote: >> I think that this point has been well reiterated. It is a valid point, >> but >> aside of cautioning us not to hold this proposed change to be an >> absolute >> good, it does very little to help the actual decision-making, if it >> needs >> help at all. > > ? > Yes, it does -- examining all sides of an issue before making a decision > tends to lead to better decisions. Even if there are no hard numbers, > just raising the awareness of alternate/possible/additional criteria is a > good thing. Yes, in theory it is. No arguing there. In practice though I don't know what the most important criteria are for those people who actually make the decisions. It makes it possible that the actual decision will not be based on such player input, because of other factors in the equation. -- Bye, Daneel

"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote > > If people wanted to organise such, it would be quite possible to > organise something along the lines of WoN (or even WoN, if people wanted > to move it) into the week/part-week before the newly moved NAC. Or > having a 2R+F Storyline tournament on Friday evening/Saturday morning, > or whatever else people wanted to do. I'm not sure where to throw this in... here seems as good a place as any. As some of you already know, I live in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, which is frankly not a big V:tES hotspot. In fact, with a few occasional exceptions, I am pretty much the only player, and travel to play more often than I get to play here. It is, however, a perfect place to host a convention-style tournament. The downtown economy is somewhat geared to support our casino, which frankly isn't doing as well as the city had hoped. As a result, we have plenty of relatively cheap hotel rooms, places to host events, and lots of restaurants and nightclubs etc. It is the perfect place to host smallish conventions, or an event such as the NAC. Windsor is centrally located, relative to many major cities. We're right across the river from Detroit, four hours eastish of Chicago, four hours westish of Toronto. There are shuttles to and from Detroit Metro Airport. Because Canada is a third world country *cough*, the exchange rate is favourable for US visitors. In fact, most local businesses deal in both $CDN and $USD. I can't say for sure, speaking as a resident, but I would think that a few days stay here would be a lot cheaper on the whole than Indianapolis, GenCon or no. So, if there is to be consideration of moving the NAC around the continent a bit, I'll put this out there. I would be very happy to help organize the event here, if there is sufficient interest. I'm assuming the powers-that-be that make such decisions will notice this post and hang on to it for future reference. Cheers, WES

In message <1121804462....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> writes: >I was assuming the WoN would move with the event. IMO, cities making >proposals to host the NAC would also have to include a WoN plan. It might be reasonable, or a good suggestion to make to a host city, but I don't think that stipulating it as a hard-and-fast requirement is necessarily a good idea. As a worst-case example, imagine that one year you have two cities saying they want to run the NAC. One city has a fairly lack-lustre approach, which effectively has a hotel they can book, a couple of crates of boosters for some draft events and not a lot else. But it does meet the criteria of having a WoN plan - get up and play V:TES every day, go to bed. The other city can't manage a whole week off - the main organisers in that city simply couldn't get the time from work. But they could put together a four day weekend which was jam-packed with stuff - a rolling set of 2R+F tournaments starting every couple of hours, a Build-Your- Own-Storyline tournament that they've spent time and effort creating beautiful "proxy" cards for to represent key factors in the storyline tied in with their location, a hotel happy about doing a couple of social events (a barbecue round the pool or whatever), a decent bulk discount to make the hotel more affordable, organised a local singles seller/trader who's happy to come along with his stock one afternoon in between rounds of a tournament, and so on. (Note: not all of this would necessarily be practical - but you see the point I'm making.) Which would I rather attend? -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

"Daneel" <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message news:opst7dhp...@news.chello.hu... > I didn't mean to come across like bashing you for this or something. I > don't mind it, and can see where you are coming from; even agree in some > of your points. It's just that your reasoning is currently completely > reactive. There is a proposal, you analyze it and show its weak spots. Sure. That's what people do who think the proposal is not as good as the existing situation. > So far so good. Yet the existence of the proposal itself and the vocal > support it seems to have shows that there may be a desire to change > things. So it would do good to actually quantify (or somehow rationally > assess) the benefits the current and the proposed systems each offer > - especially regarding appeal to players. What makes you think such things can be quantified? As I have pointed out repeatedly, the relative merits of the existing system and the proposal(s) for change can't be quantified. Preference depends on one's priorities. My comments aren't so much intended to resolve the situation in favor of the status quo as they are just to point out why some of us have good reason to prefer the status quo. But ultimately, if it changes, I'll still manage to find happiness, somehow. > I just wanted to direct the discussion in that direction. That direction is a rabbit hole, useless in the extreme. >>> What method do you propose to actually represent the interests of the >>> majority in this case? >> >> I haven't proposed one because I'm not the one making the decision. What >> would be the point? > > Okay, let me rephrase. Do you think that one option would be better for > the current (or future) VTES community? No, I do not. One option would be better for some in the community and not as good for others. The other, vica versa. The community as a whole has no basis for a preference on the matter. Fred

"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote > > What makes you think such things can be quantified? Could not the North American princes be polled? (after gauging preferences from their respective player base) Seems like it would be fairly easy to get a relatively good inkling from such a poll. Cheers, WES

"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message news:wXdDe.43075$4o.6533@fed1read06... > > "David Zopf" <david...@snetx.net> wrote in message > news:hhdDe.409$MF2...@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com... >> >> "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message >> news:VscDe.43070$4o.12174@fed1read06... >>> The notion that maintaining the same arrangements year in, year out will >>> benefit the same people year in, year out is undeniable. I wasn't >>> addressing that. But your comment above strikes me as focusing on some >>> mighty narrow criteria for how to judge the appeal of the NAC. Anyone >>> who can't attend an NAC because of geography is actually likely to be >>> in pretty big trouble wherever it's held, >> >> I guess I don't have the right angle for explaining why this is wrong. >> If >> you move the NAC closer to a person's backyard, then its more likely >> they'll >> show up, plain and simple. > > "More likely they'll show up" I'd concede. Earlier you were talking about > people who couldn't possibly attend. There's a pretty sizable difference. > If Joe Player doesn't want to attend the NAC because they wouldn't hold it > at his house, I don't have that much sympathy. It's a CONTINENTAL > CHAMPHIONSHIP fer cryin' out loud! You want to go for it, you should > expect to get on an airplane and make hotel reservations. :-P > I'd agree on that point, too. >> Being one in that "small number of cases" >> who consistently cannot ever make GenCon, I might be biased. But I don't >> think so. > > OK, could you explain what you cannot ever make GenCon? I'm confused how > that can be, unless you have kind of an unusual job situation or > something. > Most of the things I can think of aren't going to be much different except > for the people whose city it rotates into and even a lot of those aren't > going to have their problem fixed. > Again? OK, the rest of you who have seen me bitch about this before, avert your eyes. My son and I share a birthday. Without fail (for the last seven years anyways) GenCon falls on that day. Until Colin (son) is at least another six or seven years older, there is sim;ly no chance that I'll be able to take him away from family for the sole purpose of attending GenCon. Granted, sometime in the future, its gonna make one helluva good birthday present for him (and me). Until then...? >> Its simple math that a moving NAC over multiple years provides >> the opportunity for a wider variety of people to attend. > ... >> If it doesn't impact the raw attendance, and satifies a wider variety >> players, then it should be done. > > That's where we disagree. Satifying a wider variety of players over > the course of the years is one nice thing but it isn't the only goal. > I never said is was a solitary goal. But it is an important one... >>> I've explained why I like the current system: the quality of the single >>> event is much better than either the NAC or GenCon if you split off the >>> former from the latter. Where would the Week of Nightmares go? >>> Probably >>> wouldn't exist, I think. If anywhere, I suppose it would be likely to >>> go >>> with the NAC, making the VtES opportunity at GenCon a shadow of its >>> former >>> self, I don't care how many tournaments you ran there. I happen to LIKE >>> GenCon and I like the VtES party they hold there. Moving the NAC would >>> drive a stake through it, allowing no one the opportunity to >>> participate. >>> >> I doubt it would be as melodramatic as you imply, but here we get into >> the >> realm of opinion as to what makes a good event for VTES, and your opinion >> is >> of no greater value than mine, or any others. > > Sure. But it's of no less value, either. Mostly I've posting in response > to pat statements like yours, above: "If it makes it somewhat more > accessible > once in a while to more people, then it must be done." No, not > necessarily. > Slight misquote. I said it also would need to not impact raw attendance. I also, in so many words, concede the need for the NAC to remain visible at cons, although it seems we disagree on the importance of exactly which con (or cons) that is... >> GenCon, while interesting and >> fun, isn't as special as you imply, if the response I've heard from >> people >> who frequent it, and other cons, is to be believed. > > I don't know who you've been talking to While I won't attribute that perspective to any one player, I amassed the conclusion by speaking with VTES regulars, and people from VTES groups I've established (Boston, Charlotte, NW Connecticut). I constantly ask because I'm obviously curious about the event, having never attended. Its a general trend acros, oh, perhaps a couple hundred inquiries... > or what their criteria is but that > is simply wrong. I think some VtES gamers certainly don't care about the > other parts they have no intention of partaking in and obviously a lot of > people are put off by the lines, parking issues, planning you have to do > to > attend and so forth. Your milage may vary, as I've always conceded. But > none of this refutes what I said. > >> I'm all for the Week of Nightmares attached to a big con and the NAC, but >> I don't see why it has to be GenCon every year. Pick GenCon, DragonCon, >> a >> Northeast con,and a West Coast con, and rotate it every four years. > > It may be that DragonCon would offer a comparable experience and maybe > FINALLY GenCon West could offer a pale shadow of it. (The problem with > West Coast cons is that they lose too many people from the east side of > the country, I think. The reason it doesn't work that way in reverse > is that there just aren't that many gamers in the West. All this is just > my impression, though.) I don't know what would offer a like experience > in the Northeast. > Honestly, probably nothing. Most NE cons are smaller in nature (convention floor space is much pricier), > But, of course, all this got started because people proposing to rotate > the NAC *away* from large cons so they didn't have to deal with large > convention fees, lines, hotel and traffic conjestion, and so forth. So > by proposing to rotate it among large cons, you're now on a collision > course with that end. > As I've said before, my opinions are my own, and I recognize that htis line of thought doesn't coincide with the thread majority. *shrug* So what? It has its own merits and drawbacks, and is a bit of a compromise position between your "Keep it at GenCon forever" and Robert's "Montana Hinterlands WoN/NAC retreat" (J/K, Goudie ;-)... >>>> I personally believe that this aspect, giving each player a >>>> chance to participate, is _at least_ as important as the total annual >>>> raw >>>> attendance, >>> >>> Sure. But I don't think rotating does what you're claiming in does in >>> terms of allowing people the opportunity to participate, >> >> You yourself said that airfare is the "big expense" (an accurate >> statement). > > I also said that by planning, there's no reason air fare can't be > held to the same cost as the air fare to any arbitrary city and time. > So you're saving people the planning, not so much money. > Right, my comment was pointed at the fact that a rotating NAC saves money, as once every X years, players close to it can opt to drive instead of fly (and possibly either commute from home, or to the "crash with a local" thing). For those whom the airline ticket is the big expense and obstacle, they getthe chance ot attend once in a blue moon. Its better than nothing. I love A Gupta to bits, but I'm more than a little resentful that he gets to commute tot he NAC every year. I'd like that nicety every once in a while... so would the guys in Atlanta, so would the guys on the West Coast, so would anyone on a budget... >>> I don't think >>> current system locks people out from participating more than is >>> appropriate, *and I think there are other important criteria for such >>> an event.* >>> >> * emphasis mine... Such as? > > I've stated them all over this thread and the "How can we make a rotating > NAC a reality?" thread. You ought to have to read SOME other posts in > this > discussion besides just the ones that respond directly to yours. (And > some > can be deduced just from my previous post.) But you haven't prioritzed them. I thought a re-statement might give me a better understanding of what you consider important (other than the fact that you love GenCon, and think the NAC should be high profile... I got that. ;-) DZ AW

James Coupe wrote: > In message <1121804462....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, > Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> writes: > >I was assuming the WoN would move with the event. IMO, cities making > >proposals to host the NAC would also have to include a WoN plan. > > It might be reasonable, or a good suggestion to make to a host city, but > I don't think that stipulating it as a hard-and-fast requirement is > necessarily a good idea. > > As a worst-case example, imagine that one year you have two cities > saying they want to run the NAC. > > One city has a fairly lack-lustre approach, which effectively has a > hotel they can book, a couple of crates of boosters for some draft > events and not a lot else. But it does meet the criteria of having a > WoN plan - get up and play V:TES every day, go to bed. Well, yeah. Certainly this sucks. But hopefully they'd be selecting from among cities that all have a good plan for a NAC and WoN. If the NAC proposals aren't very good no amount of WoN magic should get that city selected. So fine. We don't make it a requirement but an ideal proposal would include a WoN proposal. And if it comes down to two very good NAC locations but one has no WoN opportunity it shouldn't be chosen. -Robert

"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message news:d2hDe.43085$4o.10468@fed1read06... > > "***JediMike***" <Jedi...@rebelscum.net> wrote in message > news:1121816762.2...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... >>> And by the way, I also don't see how you're getting "an NAC that was 1/2 >>> the cost, bottom line". I can see hotels being a little cheaper since >>> you're not holding the NAC where there's a giant gaming convention. But >>> air fare's pretty much a wash (sometimes will be higher, sometimes lower >>> depending on where the NAC is), convention fees are a relatively low >>> cost >>> item in proportion n to the rest, so I can't figure out how you're >>> calculating this. >> >> Because sometimes the qualifier will be held west of the rockies and >> therefore driving distance (van pool), hotels most likely won't be held >> in a convention city (except maybe Vegas) so rooms could be found at >> half the rate closer to the building where it's being held. I'm sure >> there are other cost cutting methods that have advantages in a non-Con >> setting. > > So you're touting cost savings in the year GenCon is nearby to you > personally at the expense of people on the other side of the country? Wait, wait wait. Weren't you the one, Fred, who was saying that, once you step on that plane, the expense is more or less a wash regardless of the US destination? I agreed with that sentiment, but you seem to be contradicting yourself here. There really is no "at the expense of people on the other side of the counrty". There are the Locals, who get the NAC for cheap (a small group), the Regionals, who get to drive and rideshare (a larger group), and theres the Rest of Us, who hop a plane and stay at a hotel (or crash with locals). What I think Jedi Mike is saying is that, if the NAC has a static home, which group you fall into is also static. It seems more fair to me if it weren't so. > Not exactly the whole story the first time but OK, I see what you mean. > > I didn't know Indianapolis was considered a "convention city" like Las > Vegas, though I suppose it is during GenCon week. Indy certainly is a convention city, but not in the glitzy style of Vegas... Its more a place where conventions are held when people want to get business done (fewer distractions... a lot fewer ;-). I've attended five work (chemistry)-related conventions there in the last four years. I'll be there in September of this year for COATING 2005. http://www.iccrd.com/conv/calendar/convcal.asp The ICC is probably only slighty less popular than McCormick Place http://www.mccormickplace.com/ in Chicago, which I understand to be the most active convention site in the US. DaveZ AtomWeaver

> I love A Gupta to bits, but I'm more than a little resentful that he gets > to > commute tot he NAC every year. I'd like that nicety every once in a > while... so would the guys in Atlanta, so would the guys on the West > Coast, so would anyone on a budget... Right, so the Texas and Louisiana players think the NAC should be held in the South Central Region with it being centrally located for both East Coast and West Coast Travel with several major hubs to choose from. We could hold it in Dallas or Houston or... Lafayette, LA :) -- Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr XZealot Archon of the Swamp

Wes wrote: > "James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote > > > > If people wanted to organise such, it would be quite possible to > > organise something along the lines of WoN (or even WoN, if people wanted > > to move it) into the week/part-week before the newly moved NAC. Or > > having a 2R+F Storyline tournament on Friday evening/Saturday morning, > > or whatever else people wanted to do. > > I'm not sure where to throw this in... here seems as good a place as any. > > As some of you already know, I live in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, which is > frankly not a big V:tES hotspot. In fact, with a few occasional exceptions, > I am pretty much the only player, and travel to play more often than I get > to play here. > > It is, however, a perfect place to host a convention-style tournament. I won't comment on Windsor specifically but it does lead to a question. I've been assuming that a rotating NAC would only stop in cities with active play communities. To borrow a formula from someone else in this lengthy thread... you get all the local players, many regional players who will drive to the event, and some players who will fly in. When selecting a location that isn't a big V:TES hotspot, that "local players" contingent will be missing. Should that rule out a city? I'd assumed so up until this point. Is it possible that a city could be a perfect location and make up for the lack of local support by attracting tons of regional and flying players? I guess it is possible but it sure seems like an uphill battle. Any other thoughts? -Robert

Robert Goudie schrieb: > Wes wrote: > >>"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote >> >>>If people wanted to organise such, it would be quite possible to >>>organise something along the lines of WoN (or even WoN, if people wanted >>>to move it) into the week/part-week before the newly moved NAC. Or >>>having a 2R+F Storyline tournament on Friday evening/Saturday morning, >>>or whatever else people wanted to do. >> >>I'm not sure where to throw this in... here seems as good a place as any. > > Should that rule out a city? I'd assumed so up until this point. Is it > possible that a city could be a perfect location and make up for the > lack of local support by attracting tons of regional and flying > players? I guess it is possible but it sure seems like an uphill > battle. Any other thoughts? > > -Robert Hi everyone, being one of the guys who started this thread I would also comment: if players and the VEKN decides that it might be worthy to take a look if the NAC can be moved around, why do not you all collect possible criterias and have them anaylsed in a rating matrix (with a total of a hundred percent)? e.x. airport 10% costs for location 15% attractivness of location/surroundiung city 10% local player basis 20% and so on. Andreas

Andreas Nusser wrote: > if players and the VEKN decides that it might be worthy to take a look > if the NAC can be moved around, why do not you all collect possible > criterias and have them anaylsed in a rating matrix (with a total of a > hundred percent)? Yep, I was thinking basically the same thing. Hopefully some continued discussions here might give us an idea of what people find important (and how important they believe each factor to be). -Robert

Robert Goudie schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] Then why do not we start a separate thread with criterias not discussions! Being European I think you should begin mister Goudie! Andreas

Andreas Nusser wrote: > Robert Goudie schrieb: > > Andreas Nusser wrote: > > > >>if players and the VEKN decides that it might be worthy to take a look > >>if the NAC can be moved around, why do not you all collect possible > >>criterias and have them anaylsed in a rating matrix (with a total of a > >>hundred percent)? > > > > > > Yep, I was thinking basically the same thing. Hopefully some continued > > discussions here might give us an idea of what people find important > > (and how important they believe each factor to be). > > Then why do not we start a separate thread with criterias not discussions! Or we could just continue to bury this under GenCon 2005 Event Registration Info... :) > Being European I think you should begin mister Goudie! Not being European, I think I will Mr. Nusser. -Robert

> I love A Gupta to bits, but I'm more than a little resentful that he gets to I like chikken. Ankur Gupta Prince of West Lafayette "On the other hand, corn does not like chikken."

[ quoted text not captured ] i really do not think that finding appropriate citys would be such a major problem. every larger vtes community has at least 2 dedicated (crazy ;-) ) players, who for sure would create a marvelous event. out of the blue LA, Atlanta, DC, Boston and Columbus would be perfect places to host the NAC. stefan

"XZealot" <x_ze...@NoSpamcox-internet.com> wrote in message news:dblle8$3sb$1...@domitilla.aioe.org... > >> I love A Gupta to bits, but I'm more than a little resentful that he gets >> to >> commute tot he NAC every year. I'd like that nicety every once in a >> while... so would the guys in Atlanta, so would the guys on the West >> Coast, so would anyone on a budget... > > Right, so the Texas and Louisiana players think the NAC should be held in > the South Central Region with it being centrally located for both East > Coast > and West Coast Travel with several major hubs to choose from. We could > hold > it in Dallas or Houston or... Lafayette, LA :) > Gators which ate your cards don't count as playgroup members, Norm... A dmaned Yankee like me would have a whole different set of problems in a place like Lafayette ;-) (queue the 'Deliverance' music...) OTOH, New Orleans seems to be pretty reasonable for a destination as far as airfare and hotel cost goes, so long as you avoid the major events (Mardi Gras and the Jazz festival). I hear there's a few touristy things to do around town, too. DZ AW

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote in message news:dblb7...@enews1.newsguy.com... [ quoted text not captured ] You could. And that wouldn't be bad information to have, depending on how White Wolf wants to think about this. When I posted the above, I really meant that there's no way to quantify the benefits of any particular way to do the NAC because what's a "benefit" and how beneficial that thing is depends on what you want out of it. Fred

"David Zopf" <david...@snetx.net> wrote in message news:FEsDe.4336$IG2....@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com... >> So you're touting cost savings in the year GenCon is nearby to you >> personally at the expense of people on the other side of the country? > > Wait, wait wait. Weren't you the one, Fred, who was saying that, once you > step on that plane, the expense is more or less a wash regardless of the US > destination? I agreed with that sentiment, but you seem to be contradicting > yourself here. There really is no "at the expense of people on the other > side of the counrty". Sure there is. Even if the expense of any given plane ticket is about the same (I don't think that's strictly true and I don't think that was exactly what I said but I'll go with it, for argument's sake), of course it's still at someone else's expense. You're not creating "goodness" out of vacuum, even in this sense. If people around Southern California don't have to get on an airplane where once they did, then people in Indiana do - so the move is at the latter's expense. It's always at someone's expense. That's the whole problem with looking at it the way you do. There is no free lunch in this sense. You're always robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's somewhat of an equalization over time (I say somewhat because many regions will never get an NAC) but I don't find that point to be a very big deal. > What I think Jedi Mike is saying is that, if the NAC > has a static home, which group you fall into is also static. It seems more > fair to me if it weren't so. Sure. But the cost of the fairness isn't worth it. Fred

"David Zopf" <david...@snetx.net> wrote in message news:f1sDe.542$sl...@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com... > > "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message > news:wXdDe.43075$4o.6533@fed1read06... >>> Being one in that "small number of cases" >>> who consistently cannot ever make GenCon, I might be biased. But I don't >>> think so. >> >> OK, could you explain what you cannot ever make GenCon? I'm confused how >> that can be, unless you have kind of an unusual job situation or something. >> Most of the things I can think of aren't going to be much different except >> for the people whose city it rotates into and even a lot of those aren't >> going to have their problem fixed. >> > Again? OK, the rest of you who have seen me bitch about this before, avert > your eyes. My son and I share a birthday. Without fail (for the last seven > years anyways) GenCon falls on that day. Until Colin (son) is at least > another six or seven years older, there is sim;ly no chance that I'll be > able to take him away from family for the sole purpose of attending GenCon. > Granted, sometime in the future, its gonna make one helluva good birthday > present for him (and me). Until then...? Well, OK. But this doesn't make it "impossible" for you to attend. It's all choice. I wouldn't want to tell you how to raise your kid or how to set priorities; it's kind of a laudable sacrifice really. But if attending GenCon, the NAC, and WoN is important to you, it wouldn't be completely unreasonable for a person to miss his son's birthday (why do you have to take him away from family?). Or even to take him away from family. It's not like it'll cause him or others in your family severe emotional scaring or anything. Life is choices; I don't consider this to be a situation where attendence is "impossible". I've missed GenCon quite often myself for reasons not as good as yours. But I don't tend to look at it as if it were "impossible" for me to attend. This year it would be highly impractical but I could have done it by missing something else very important to me. That said, of course, I'm sure there are people out there who have more compelling reasons they can't ever attend GenCon. I just think it's ultimately a very rare situation. >>> GenCon, while interesting and fun, isn't as special as you imply, >>> if the response I've heard from people >>> who frequent it, and other cons, is to be believed. >> >> I don't know who you've been talking to > While I won't attribute that perspective to any one player, I amassed the > conclusion by speaking with VTES regulars, and people from VTES groups I've > established (Boston, Charlotte, NW Connecticut). I constantly ask because > I'm obviously curious about the event, having never attended. Its a general > trend acros, oh, perhaps a couple hundred inquiries... Yea, but I suspect you've been habitually talking to a class of people who don't appreciate GenCon's positive qualities and/or mistake its negative qualities (the lines, expense, and so forth) for LACK of positive qualities. A lot of people tend to do the latter. "I had to wait in the badge line for over an hour. This place sucks! I don't know what people like about it!" Well, they things that are orthagonal to the issue of how long the badge line is. But if you're not starving for huge dealer rooms with fancy over- the-top booths, millions of gaming events, pickup games lining the corredors, and that sort of thing, you may come back with a sour-puss story about the whole affair. Don't buy it. It really is an awesome place, when you can look past the downsides. > As I've said before, my opinions are my own, and I recognize that htis line > of thought doesn't coincide with the thread majority. *shrug* So what? It > has its own merits and drawbacks, and is a bit of a compromise position > between your "Keep it at GenCon forever" and Robert's "Montana Hinterlands > WoN/NAC retreat" (J/K, Goudie ;-)... All right. Rather than bicker with you about this, I should concede that this an accurate position. It's a reasonable compromise with some benefits for each side. > I love A Gupta to bits, but I'm more than a little resentful that he gets to > commute tot he NAC every year. I'd like that nicety every once in a > while... so would the guys in Atlanta, so would the guys on the West Coast, > so would anyone on a budget... Bleh! My resentment of Gupta is based on the fact that he gets to commute to GenCon every year. But I suppose it's not important why we hate as it is to simply have hate in your heart. Go forth and be in seething resentment, my son! >>>> I don't think >>>> current system locks people out from participating more than is >>>> appropriate, *and I think there are other important criteria for such >>>> an event.* >>>> >>> * emphasis mine... Such as? >> >> I've stated them all over this thread ... > But you haven't prioritzed them. I thought a re-statement might give me a > better understanding of what you consider important (other than the fact > that you love GenCon, and think the NAC should be high profile... I got > that. ;-) What do I need to prioritize? I just said that the current NAC/GenCon/WoN event that's currently put on is the best single attraction in a week of time you could possibly put on. If you split them, neither the NAC nor GenCon will be as good, not by a long shot. And to me, that is too much of a loss to worry about whether one particular region is the only one to have the advantage of having it close by every year. Fred

"Robert Goudie" <rob...@vtesinla.org> wrote > > I won't comment on Windsor specifically but it does lead to a question. > I've been assuming that a rotating NAC would only stop in cities with > active play communities. To borrow a formula from someone else in this > lengthy thread... you get all the local players, many regional players > who will drive to the event, and some players who will fly in. When > selecting a location that isn't a big V:TES hotspot, that "local > players" contingent will be missing. > > Should that rule out a city? I'd assumed so up until this point. Is it > possible that a city could be a perfect location and make up for the > lack of local support by attracting tons of regional and flying > players? I guess it is possible but it sure seems like an uphill > battle. Any other thoughts? There are large playgroups within a close distance. For example, Columbus, Ohio, which I forgot to mention, is about three hours south. Detroit is pretty much dead as far as I can tell, but the outlying suburbs like Ann Arbor are still quite active, and that's only about a 45 minute drive. Everything is close enough that *I* travel a lot to go to tournaments, so it makes some sense that we are close enough for them to come here. I'm assuming that large playgroups aren't a huge consideration, as it was stated that accessibility and cost are considerations. Windsor has that, at the very least. Thanks for considering. Cheers, WES

"Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message news:1lzDe.44027$4o.20676@fed1read06... [ quoted text not captured ] <blink> <blink> Ditch my son's birthday to go play games? I can think of no better definition of "impossible" out there. Other words come to mind "inconceivable" "stupid", "familial suicide". We're talking about the guy who in all liklihood will be picking my retirement home, you know ;-) No, impossible is a word that works just fine. I'd urge the VTES players with kids to respond and let us know how you would handle the situation, if you were in it. > It's > all choice. I wouldn't want to tell you how to raise your kid or how to > set priorities; it's kind of a laudable sacrifice really. But if > attending > GenCon, the NAC, and WoN is important to you, it wouldn't be completely > unreasonable for a person to miss his son's birthday !!! > (why do you have to take him away from family?). Mixed examples in the same comment, sorry. (At some later date when he's older, I'll be taking him to GenCon for our birthday). Its not a physical impossibility to ditch out, but the "family aftermath" of such a decision renders it effectively "impossible", not that I would be away on his birthday by choice in the first place... > Or even to take him away from family. It's > not like it'll cause him or others in your family severe emotional scaring > or anything. Life is choices; I don't consider this to be a situation > where attendence is "impossible". > Perhaps its a combo of my own commitment, and the tight-knit nature of my family, but it adds up to the same thing. > I've missed GenCon quite often myself for reasons not as good as yours. > But I don't tend to look at it as if it were "impossible" for me to > attend. > This year it would be highly impractical but I could have done it by > missing something else very important to me. > I guess that comes down to a matter of semantics,then. Call it "impossible", call it "highly impractical to the point of being rejected". If the NAC weren't at GenCon every year, my problem would be solved. > That said, of course, I'm sure there are people out there who have more > compelling reasons they can't ever attend GenCon. I just think it's > ultimately a very rare situation. > There are certainly an abundance of more common reasons, which is why I've never raised my own circumstance as a reason for arguing for a rotating NAC. I guess i just expect the number to be much larger than you do. I guess we won't know, unless the system is changed somehow <wink>. [ quoted text not captured ] What I actually ask if for them to compare GenCon to the other majors, like Origins and DragonCon, if they've attended them. No one really rags on GenCon in the manner you say (it _is_ a big VTES event, after all...), but they find the other venues to be similarly entertaining, enough so that some prefer Origins and/or DragonCon to GenCon. I didn't say it wasn't a great event, I merely said it wasn't unique in that respect... >> As I've said before, my opinions are my own, and I recognize that htis >> line >> of thought doesn't coincide with the thread majority. *shrug* So what? >> It >> has its own merits and drawbacks, and is a bit of a compromise position >> between your "Keep it at GenCon forever" and Robert's "Montana >> Hinterlands >> WoN/NAC retreat" (J/K, Goudie ;-)... > > All right. Rather than bicker with you about this, I should concede that > this an accurate position. It's a reasonable compromise with some > benefits > for each side. > *GASP* Someone's gonna revoke your usenet license for that!!!! :-) But thanks... >> I love A Gupta to bits, but I'm more than a little resentful that he gets >> to >> commute tot he NAC every year. I'd like that nicety every once in a >> while... so would the guys in Atlanta, so would the guys on the West >> Coast, >> so would anyone on a budget... > > Bleh! My resentment of Gupta is based on the fact that he gets to commute > to GenCon every year. But I suppose it's not important why we hate as it > is > to simply have hate in your heart. Go forth and be in seething > resentment, > my son! > LOL!

"David Zopf" <david...@snetx.net> wrote in message news:b4NDe.4679$IG2....@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com... > > "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message > news:1lzDe.44027$4o.20676@fed1read06... >> "David Zopf" <david...@snetx.net> wrote in message >> news:f1sDe.542$sl...@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com... >>> "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote in message >>> news:wXdDe.43075$4o.6533@fed1read06... >>>>> Being one in that "small number of cases" who consistently >>>>> cannot ever make GenCon, I might be biased. But I don't >>>>> think so. >>>> >>>> OK, could you explain what you cannot ever make GenCon? >>>> >>> My son and I share a birthday. Without fail (for the last seven >>> years anyways) GenCon falls on that day. Until Colin (son) is at least >>> another six or seven years older, there is sim;ly no chance that I'll be >>> able to take him away from family for the sole purpose of attending >>> GenCon. >> >> Well, OK. But this doesn't make it "impossible" for you to attend. > > <blink> <blink> Ditch my son's birthday to go play games? I can think of > no better definition of "impossible" out there. Other words come to mind > "inconceivable" "stupid", "familial suicide". We're talking about the guy > who in all liklihood will be picking my retirement home, you know ;-) No, > impossible is a word that works just fine. > > I'd urge the VTES players with kids to respond and let us know how you would > handle the situation, if you were in it. See, this is where you maybe you need to hear that, yes, you possibly could handle the situation otherwise if attending GenCon (for whatever reasons) were something that was highly important to you. I understand the arguments for not doing it and I agree that they're pretty good ones. In your place, I suspect I'd do the same thing. But it's totally unbalanced (IMHO) to say you absolutely don't have a choice. If other people didn't understand then they're not trying that hard. (Of course, that often happens.) (On the other hand, sometimes you have make your own choices whether other people who have no say it understand or not. But you then have to deal with the implications, of course.) > Perhaps its a combo of my own commitment, and the tight-knit nature of my > family, but it adds up to the same thing. It sounds like the values in your particular family are so weighted towards what you see as family responsibilities that you don't even see a choice here where you actually have one. Not every family looks at it this way. >> That said, of course, I'm sure there are people out there who have more >> compelling reasons they can't ever attend GenCon. I just think it's >> ultimately a very rare situation. >> > There are certainly an abundance of more common reasons, which is why I've > never raised my own circumstance as a reason for arguing for a rotating NAC. > I guess i just expect the number to be much larger than you do. I guess we > won't know, unless the system is changed somehow <wink>. Somehow, I suspect we'll never know. >> I suspect you've been habitually talking to a class of people who >> don't appreciate GenCon's positive qualities and/or mistake its negative >> qualities (the lines, expense, and so forth) for LACK of positive >> qualities. A lot of people tend to do the latter. "I had to wait in the >> badge line for over an hour. This place sucks! I don't know what people >> like about it!" Well, they things that are orthagonal to the issue of >> how long the badge line is. But if you're not starving for huge dealer >> rooms with fancy over-the-top booths, millions of gaming events, pickup >> games lining the corredors, and that sort of thing, you may come back with >> a sour-puss story about the whole affair. Don't buy it. It really is an >> awesome place, when you can look past the downsides. >> > What I actually ask if for them to compare GenCon to the other majors, like > Origins and DragonCon, if they've attended them. No one really rags on > GenCon in the manner you say (it _is_ a big VTES event, after all...), but > they find the other venues to be similarly entertaining, enough so that some > prefer Origins and/or DragonCon to GenCon. I didn't say it wasn't a great > event, I merely said it wasn't unique in that respect... Ah, OK. That does put the comment in a different light. Ironically, having only attended GenCon, I was somewhat disappointed when I first attended Origins. That was in San Jose, California back when I used to live there. It was the last time Origins rotated out to the west coast before settling in Columbus. It was supposed to be a national con and it just wasn't in GenCon's league, IMHO, which really annoyed me given what I had been anticipating. At the time, I was told Origins was a bit lame that year because it was on the west coast and never did as well out west. But when I attended the Origins in Philadelphia (the following year or two years later, I forget), it was really no bigger or better that I could see. But yea, the difference is not going to strike anyone as being all that massive. Origins is a lot more like GenCon than some regional con. I guess it just depends on which way the anticipation is set up. If you're used to GenCon and anticipate Origins will be exactly like GenCon, Origins will disappoint. OTOH, if you've attended Origins and you're told GenCon is so much better or something, you may not be very impressed when you get there because it's not really _that_ much better. (I've never attended DragonCon so I can't say about that.) >>> As I've said before, my opinions are my own, and I recognize that htis >>> line of thought doesn't coincide with the thread majority. *shrug* So what? >>> It has its own merits and drawbacks, and is a bit of a compromise position >>> between your "Keep it at GenCon forever" and Robert's "Montana Hinterlands >>> WoN/NAC retreat" (J/K, Goudie ;-)... >> >> All right. Rather than bicker with you about this, I should concede that >> this an accurate position. It's a reasonable compromise with some benefits >> for each side. > > *GASP* Someone's gonna revoke your usenet license for that!!!! :-) But > thanks... Yea, I'm getting old. Jes' don't have the wherewithal I used to... ;-) Fred

> Bleh! My resentment of Gupta is based on the fact that he gets to > commute to GenCon every year. But I suppose it's not important why we > hate as it is to simply have hate in your heart. Go forth and be in > seething resentment, my son! Well, I guess I'll be able to commute to GenCon every year despite this conversation. . . . The question is whether I'll be able to commute to the NAC. Man, so much hatred. Hatred leads to suffering. Suffering leads to sloppy play. Sloppy play leads to ousting at the hands of Gupta. Let the hate games begin. I like chikken. Ankur Gupta Prince of West Lafayette "Corn hates us all more than we could ever know."

> I do feel like *someone* got shafted though (which is one of the main > reasons I'm continuing to push the issue). This year, I think it was > really Wisconsin and Minnesota players that totally got the shaft. In > 2005 we have had or will have Qualifiers in Lafayette, IN, Columbus, > OH, and Indianapolis, IN. If you live in the Indiana/Ohio area it's > great to have 3 qualifiers all within a few hours worth a drive. If > you're in Wisconsin or Minnesota for example, you're pretty much shit > out of luck. Bear speaking for Jill, Dave Buerger, Matt Strehlow, and etc.- We, the Wisconsinites, felt no shaft. Most of us were otherwise occupied that day. Those of us who attended, enjoyed the qualifier, and in fact, enjoyed the trip. Good day. -BEAR