The National Championship Events offer year-round opportunities for high level competition outside of the traditional "Road to Worlds." Find out more about a National Event near you!
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By nobthehobbit (Daniel Pareja)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Moderator
#233283
Cersan wrote:
nobthehobbit wrote:
Cersan wrote:Screw up is totally on CC and Australian organizers, not the players.
This should be resolved somehow.
What Australian organizers? It's certainly not on anyone in the Brisbane group, I'd think. Maybe it's partly on stoovie, but it's not on anyone lower than him.
I don't really know about how it is organized there, and it is certainly not about pointing fingers. But surely Organized play must pay attention to what happening, no matter who it will be Stoovie or James or even Charlie. All that matters is that players should not be notified one day prior major event like it happened.
I don't disagree on that point, just that your comment could be read as pointing fingers at the Brisbane group for this mess. The only people this debacle could be on are stoovie and anyone above him--James, Neil and Charlie.
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By RedDwarf (Unjustly Banned)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#233286
Latok wrote:Not good enough, explain the reasons AND have them make sense as to why it's impossible to move a Nationals from the day/week before Continentals to 7-8 months before Continentals and not miss an entire year.
I'm not going to explain or justify every decision we make. That is a recipe for never getting anything done.

If you're unhappy with how I run Organized Play, I suggest you petition the Chairman to fire me.
Latok wrote:Not only is your explanation idiotic because you say it's calendar year and the start is February 1st but it seems like you think it's complicated or difficult to change it.
I don't "think" its complicated or difficult to change. I "know" it is impossible to change it. That's because when we moved the year to end in January I was told that was as late as we could move it.
Latok wrote:any simpleton could tell you the National "year" should be end of Continentals -> start of Continentals
All of our high-level competitions - Nationals, Regionals, Continentals and Worlds - are based around the calendar year. Having a shifting Nationals year as you suggest only creates complexity where it isn't needed.
Latok wrote:What the f*** are you's doing other than making 1E terrible
Please watch your language. This is supposed to be a family-friendly site.

Thanks for your feedback. I'll pass it along to the appropriate person.
Iron Mike wrote:So is the National calendar completely unhinged from Worlds?
I'm not sure what you're asking. As I wrote above, all of our high-level tournaments are based around the calendar yrear (which for the purposes of this discussion is February 1st to the following January 31st). The scheduling of one has nothing to do with the other.
Iron Mike wrote:Since Greg Dillon is now the 2013 AusNat champion, could we then hold another Nationals next May, so there are two AusNat byes created for Continentals and Worlds?
Nationals offer the top two players byes to their next local Continentals; and yes, a country could have two Nationals between their annual Continentals. Equally, a country could have no Nationals between their annual Continentals. This is because we allow Nationals to be held at any time of the year.
chompers wrote:At times I have the memory retention of a goldfish but I seem to recall it went something like this .....

2012 Nationals were not held in Oz because the CC decided they would be replaced with something else. The something else never happened and the Nationals magically reappeared for some areas whilst others missed out.
We never decided to replace Nationals with something else. We discussed the issue - and we still are - but they were never replaced.
chompers wrote:Why sabotage that for a silly mistake based on a rule that doesn't even exist.
Just because you didn't know about a rule doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I understand people are angry at what happened, and I know I would be in the same situation. That being said, I'm highly offended that people seem to think I did this on a whim. We have rules for a reason. To allow them to be broken is unacceptable.
nobthehobbit wrote:
Cersan wrote:Screw up is totally on CC and Australian organizers, not the players.
This should be resolved somehow.
What Australian organizers? It's certainly not on anyone in the Brisbane group, I'd think. Maybe it's partly on stoovie, but it's not on anyone lower than him.
This is an Organized Play issue. It is 100% my fault. Please direct all your comments at me.
 
By Honest
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
2E Australian Continental Champion 2019
#233288
What is the bigger mistake-Incorrectly allowing an event to be sanctioned, advertised and scheduled as a Nationals for a couple of months, or downgrading it 36 hours before the event?

James has made his decision on this. I completely disagree with it, and am still appalled by it, but I have made my case as best I could, so I will move on.

Honest
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By AdmiralG
 - Alpha Quadrant
 -  
#233305
To hopefully close this matter I would like to add my 2c’s worth.

Having assimilated the information now in the open (and which, hopefully will be included in some manual or guide), I believe the Director of Organised Play has acted correctly and in the spirit of the rules and structure of our community. Additionally, I also would like to applaud him for having the strength of commitment, and support for our game, to make a call AND stand by it and admit to a mistake. And, I for one would hope that he remain in the position for as long as possible on the basis of his honesty alone. I wonder how many of us and our wider community leaders would be prepared to own such a public error.

It may have been better to have found the problem earlier, but I implore all members of the community to remember that our Committee members are “Volunteers” and are the people who do the things for us without compensation. People make mistakes. Volunteers have other lives.

A positive out of this may be that more of us are now aware of the scheduling of our higher level events and can be watchful to ensure this doesn’t happen again. I am sure the Committee will be putting checks in place to prevent a re-occurrence.

Whilst the downgrading has produced much consternation, most of it is because of the enormous cost that some of our players have to incur to travel to events away from their homes. As a result of this cost, players prefer to only travel to attend high level events and when one such event is pulled out from under them they become disillusioned and disgruntled, as they feel they have wasted their funds for little effect and less reward. This is when we have to remember that community is important and that getting together to share a common enjoyment is what our society in general is about. Accordingly, an apology from the Committee may be appropriate to those players who have incurred unrewarded expense as a result of the downgrade,

In relation to the past weekend, I thank Mike 2E for the effort he put into the weekend and the effort he puts into trying to build our game in this Region, not forgetting we did still have two events decided as National Titles. I also thank Stoovie for his devotion to expanding the game, and most especially I thank the players who travelled from so far to participate.
Without all these people we would not have the participants to play the game.

AdmiralG
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By Maelwys (Chris Lobban)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Community Contributor
#233308
AdmiralG wrote:his is when we have to remember that community is important and that getting together to share a common enjoyment is what our society in general is about.
This.

When I travel to a high-level tournament (which unfortunately isn't nearly often enough anymore), it's not for the badges or the byes. It's for the people. I usually don't even play in the main event, preferring to stick to the side events (which are essentially locals). The only reason why I put more effort to travel to these large events is because they're like a beacon, and so I know that a lot of other players will also be traveling to them. It's just a good excuse to meet up with a lot of other players from all over the place, and play games with them.

So even though this tournament lost it's status as a high-level event (so no badge or bye), because of the lateness of the status change it fortunately still kept it's status as a beacon (at least, as far as I've heard so far, nobody cancelled their trip as a result of this). It still drew players in from all over. You still got to spend the weekend playing with all sorts of folks that you normally don't get to play. Sure, nobody came out at the end with a fancy title (at least, not for 2E... 1E and Tribbles still did), but isn't the community what it's really all about? I hope that people there weren't in such a sour mood on the weekend that they lost that sense of enjoyment from spending time together, socializing, and playing games with other gamers from all over.

Now I know that I don't represent all players, and for some I'm sure the title/byes are indeed more important. And for those, I'm sorry that this situation sucks so much. But hopefully everybody can at least try to focus on the good meeting of friends that happened over the weekend, and not on the title that wasn't awarded.
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Second Edition Rules Master
By Latok
 - Second Edition Rules Master
 -  
1E Australian Continental Champion 2019
2E Australian Continental Runner-Up 2019
#233367
A lot of people were/are really upset with how late the change was made because that's just terrible communication in and around the CC and while that is a cause for concern and something to complain about I think there is something worse.
RedDwarf wrote:
Iron Mike wrote: So is the National calendar completely unhinged from Worlds?
I'm not sure what you're asking. As I wrote above, all of our high-level tournaments are based around the calendar yrear (which for the purposes of this discussion is February 1st to the following January 31st). The scheduling of one has nothing to do with the other.
This is my problem, a clear lack of common sense and some how no desire or will to fix a crap system. "The scheduling of events that are linked to each other have nothing to do with each other", the CC at it's best I think.

How does Australia move the Nationals event from 1 week before Continentals to 7-9 months before Continentals without missing an entire year?
RedDwarf wrote:All of our high-level competitions - Nationals, Regionals, Continentals and Worlds - are based around the calendar year. Having a shifting Nationals year as you suggest only creates complexity where it isn't needed.
Complex would be 2 Nationals from the same nation giving byes to the same Continentals, ok maybe not complex but really really stupid. What's also not complex is a proper season based around the events at the end of the season instead of being based around nothing. 2013/14 season for the 2014 Continentals, 2014/15 season for the 2015 Continentals. Hard stuff I know but I swear I remember something similar. Oh yeah, a shit load of really popular sports do the exact same thing.
 
By Honest
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
2E Australian Continental Champion 2019
#233373
Maelwys wrote:
AdmiralG wrote:his is when we have to remember that community is important and that getting together to share a common enjoyment is what our society in general is about.
This.

When I travel to a high-level tournament (which unfortunately isn't nearly often enough anymore), it's not for the badges or the byes. It's for the people. I usually don't even play in the main event, preferring to stick to the side events (which are essentially locals). The only reason why I put more effort to travel to these large events is because they're like a beacon, and so I know that a lot of other players will also be traveling to them. It's just a good excuse to meet up with a lot of other players from all over the place, and play games with them.

So even though this tournament lost it's status as a high-level event (so no badge or bye), because of the lateness of the status change it fortunately still kept it's status as a beacon (at least, as far as I've heard so far, nobody cancelled their trip as a result of this). It still drew players in from all over. You still got to spend the weekend playing with all sorts of folks that you normally don't get to play. Sure, nobody came out at the end with a fancy title (at least, not for 2E... 1E and Tribbles still did), but isn't the community what it's really all about? I hope that people there weren't in such a sour mood on the weekend that they lost that sense of enjoyment from spending time together, socializing, and playing games with other gamers from all over.

Now I know that I don't represent all players, and for some I'm sure the title/byes are indeed more important. And for those, I'm sorry that this situation sucks so much. But hopefully everybody can at least try to focus on the good meeting of friends that happened over the weekend, and not on the title that wasn't awarded.


However you try to rationalise this, the point still remains. I spent $750 and took a day off work when it turns out I didn't have to, all because of an oversight. I could have had a very similar tournament experience for $10 20 minutes drive from home, not burnt a days holiday and have been $740 better off. You see why I am pissed?

Honest
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 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#233456
Just got back from Brisbane and I wanted to express my disappointment on this one along with everyone else that traveled to Brisbane, either long (2200 miles) or not so long (driving down from the mountains near Brisbane).
RedDwarf wrote:I can only apologise to everyone involved again. I didn't feel good doing this, but fully expected the pitchforks to be out if we allowed Australia two Nationals events in the same year. I knew I was going to upset people whichever decision I made, and decided to enforce the rules rather than bend them.
I'm going to focus on this because it has the only valid arguments I can see.

1) 2 nationals in the same nation is bad:
I would completely agree with this if you will also retroactively cancel the second nationals that has been held in the US each year. The Brisbane tournament exceeded one of the 2012 US nationals so size isn't the validator, why do the US get two "national" level tournaments and AU only get one?
Other examples:
Canadian nationals had only 4 players
The danish nationals (9 players and a great job by peter) were 336 miles from The German Nationals (10 players and congrats to Thomas). While the Brisbane "Nationals" were 453 miles form the Sydney ones. If you'd like, I'm happy to kick Queensland out of the country, comparatively it's far enough away.

2)The rules say we can't have 2 nationals. Perhaps the rules have changed since 2012 so I'm going to try VERY hard to find where this is ever mentioned but again, 2 US nationals.

The organised play guide, despite having a nice section on the structure of leagues does not mention the requirements for high level tournaments. Interestingly I've found that there is a sanctioned format called "Cool" where think I could win a national championship by tournament organizer decision.

The "Championship events" page has no mention of what makes such an event.

The only thing I could come up with on the national championships board is this (from 2010):
Does having (potentially) four (4) US National events risk alienating European countries and/or Australian players?
I'll tell you right now that having 2 certainly isn't helping.

Searching the site for organised play posts I came up with this one for the supposed 2013 nationals: https://www.trekcc.org/articles/index.p ... cleID=1156 no where is it mentioned that this would be my chance to get the 2013 nationals attendance badge.
Changes to organized play 2013 (https://www.trekcc.org/articles/index.p ... cleID=1107) does not mention nationals at all.

So really, the fact is there is no rule. I'll be happy to be corrected on that and if it is a CC internal rule I'd ask that it be made public.

3) Not in reference to the above, but I'd also like to point out that Australia has only one feeder event to our continentals where all other continentals have at least 3. With extra playgroups actually growing up around here (to my shock and awe of our local organizers) it is very unfair to force our distant players to come to us in sydney to get a chance at a bye.

The worst thing about all this is that this second nationals (I'm still not sure how we had a first) doesn't have ANY impact on any other players anywhere else in the world, the reigning national champion seems cool with the title passing on and we finally get the second feeder event that we need. Why cancel the event with almost literally seconds to spare when it has so little impact on anyone but the players involved?

After all of this is done, I'd also like to congratulate Mike2E for running a local level tournament that exceed in size the majority of Regionals and 8 of the last 2 year's nationals events, including the Australian nationals, all while being a generally cool guy.
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Director of First Edition
By MidnightLich (Charlie Plaine)
 - Director of First Edition
 -  
Prophet
#233491
I want to thank everyone for keeping the discussions civil and polite, even when there are great emotions involved. It's a testament to our community that we can remain friendly and discuss things logically even when we are angry and disappointed.

Here's the situation: we, as an organization, dropped the ball. No individuals or groups are to blame for this; instead, our processes are. Nationals have long been an afterthought, something that we had in place but never really worked to promote or encourage or formalize. In truth, while they've been important to the local players and organizers, they haven't been important to us. We've had a few efforts over the years to improve this situation, but there's been little movement on that. Nobody is to blame for that, or this situation, but us.

So first, allow me to apologize to all of the players that were affected by this situation. I hope that you were all able to have fun and enjoy each others company over the course of the weekend. It is the purpose of this organization to promote such events and not to cause hurt or ill feelings. You have my sincerest personal apologies, and the official ones of this organization as well.

Secondly, we will be making changes to how events of this type are scheduled, promoted, and executed. These changes have been a long time coming, and it's unacceptable both to me and to this community that they still have not been implemented. Had they been, this entire situation would have been avoided. I will be working with our OP team to implement these changes as soon as possible. We will also look at options for making these changes retroactive so that we can restore some of the status to this event.

Finally, I again want to thank all of those players that participated in this event, both at the event itself and here on the forums. I've never been more proud of this community than I am now, to see that a civil and respectful discussion about a sensitive issue can be held.

We will keep you informed as we work to ensure this type of thing never happens again.

-crp
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By Walzo
 - Alpha Quadrant
 -  
2E Australian Continental Quarter-Finalist 2019
#233718
I was going to comment earlier, but I wasn't angry enough and I want to remember it as the time I went to Brisbane to play in an interstate Trekcc tournament for the first time.

I now know it probably will not be my last interstate tournament and hope the next Australian nationals event is even better. I hope the 2014 Australian Nationals can be held around the same time next year and is confirmed about 6 months in advance to improve attendance.

All I can say is that I'm unhappy that Garry isn't getting the recognition he could have got, but happy that I didn't loose more ratings points (not that I care about the rating, I'm playing this for the fun).
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