[Broshak]

This is just personal preference here, but I won't ever travel to a Gencon Worlds. If the NA players hold worlds at a more interesting tourist destination it would become a much more attractive prospect.

[sexecutioner]

BREAKING NEWS: Worlds is now an online event, no one can complain about the location anymore.

TK

Das ist not gut nein!

Worlds should always be a 'face to face' matter. There's nothing better than to be across the table from someone at a top tier event.

[Latok]

BREAKING NEWS: Worlds is now an online event, no one can complain about the location anymore.

TK

I'll play if it's on untap.in, cheating is far too easy on Lackey.

[sexecutioner]

BREAKING NEWS: Worlds is now an online event, no one can complain about the location anymore.

TK

I'll play if it's on untap.in, cheating is far too easy on Lackey.

Plus imagine if Lackey went down halfway through the event haha

[sexecutioner]

I'm personally looking forward to a good excuse to go to Australia in a couple of years.

If people are concerned about player numbers or the number of (or apparently lack of) high level players attending, then you have a few years to save up some pennies and follow suit

I'll sexecute you all with an army of Kangaroos

[Latok]

When Worlds leaves the US, the US loses one of its two big tournaments. Instead of having Continentals somewhere and Worlds at Gencon, we just have Continentals at Gencon and... nothing. so North America just suffers the loss of one of its two big tournaments. This to me is a much bigger problem.

How is that different to other continents?

North America is 65% of the Trek Population. Europe is 28% of the population, Australia is 7% of the population. Worlds should seek to cover the most ground. it isn't bad to move it around, but make sure it is in an area that can cover a ton of people.

See dumb numbers again, "an area that can cover a ton of people" doesn't at all translate to numbers at the event.
A much more important number is the number of people that would realistically show up (like 50 for Gencon) because it ain't going to be 180 every year if it's back at Gencon annually, is it?
Like I said, I'll back a frequency rotation based on some useful numbers.

[chompers]

..... 180 .....

I want to talk about this number. How do we make that happen? I've crunched some numbers and given the most favourable of conditions we might hit 50 players at a major event in Australia.

Europe and America have so many more players. So how do we maximise attendance at major events in those areas?

Whatever, however, I want to help!

[Fritzinger]

At what Cost? The same Australian Continentals would have been the same size. 22 people seeking the crown. 10-15 people showing up because we begged them.

There far more motivations than you allow for. To list a few others:

- want to test themselves against tough competitors
- want to play something fun while hanging out with trek friends
- new to the game and brave/curious enough to try out some high level play <- this is where my only dropped opponent fits
- just want the foils

Most of these are present at every worlds. Any of them can become more committed if they have a good time. Are you really saying they don't matter because their top priority isn't winning?

Gencon went from 43/34 to 20/16... How is that in anyway good for Trek in North America, *or* Australia?

This is so confusing and backwards. A bunch of experienced players who know exactly what they were missing chose not to play at Gen Con. How does that affect whether this game attracts new players?

OTOH, this same situation saw the attendance of 10 - 15 new players in Australia. This is good for the game in a way that makes experienced people playing 8 more games kind of irrelevant, especially if the experienced people will only ever play worlds.

[Fritzinger]

In the years N.A has had Worlds, how many new players has it generated?

I really think having Worlds at Gencon is a mistake. No regular group is at Indy

Australia Worlds 2015 and this discussion has helped me put my finger on one big disadvantage of Gen Con. You can teach someone for free, give them a deck for almost free, run practice events so they get some experience in the weeks preceding, but you can't buy plane/hotel/registration for them.

Kieren was able to teach an army of new people the game with the knowledge that they just had to take a short train ride to the worlds venue. He had a period of months to do this.

North Americans can organise until they're blue in the face but they can't get fringe players who weren't planning on attending Gen Con to go.

Gen Con volunteers can demo until their fingers bleed, but they can't convince people who've just learned the game to give up 8 - 12 hours of the Con for a game they just discovered for the first time. And if they did, there's every chance that they wouldn't understand why they're losing, unlike the player who has played a few times and can identify things to improve on.

Gen Con might be important for advertising the game, so maybe North America's biggest event needs to happen there regardless. If so, I would say to organisers of lower tier events: don't just focus on mobilising forum regulars to travel to your event. Teach new people in your area. Those people haven't heard yet that nothing except worlds is worth playing in. Become less jaded about the non-worlds titles, build some hype. How often do people get such good odds to become US National Champion of anything?!

[ntimmons]

Also, thanks for implying that Trek Masters: Orlando - not to mention Trek Masters: Maryland, Trek Masters: San Diego, Trek Masters: Minnesota, Trek Masters: Chicago, US Nationals, and Canadian Nationals - are "...nothing."

stop it. you know what I mean.

[Mogh, Son Of Worf]

All this would stop if people would actually go to tournaments because of "all the fun" they apparently have at the big live events and would not need a big name like "world championship" to pull names. In common tongue "world championship" / "continental championship" / "national championship" mean something, they indicate the best players and organisers of course want to use those names to draw attendance but the name can not live up to what it ends up being.

I'm in the boat of getting rid of those names. "Masters" is a great name, it sounds important enough so people can make excuses to travel to a "big" event but it doesn't really mean anything in the end. "Regionals" is fine as well because nobody really cares what a region is and the name is not connotated.

[nobthehobbit]

Also, thanks for implying that Trek Masters: Orlando - not to mention Trek Masters: Maryland, Trek Masters: San Diego, Trek Masters: Minnesota, Trek Masters: Chicago, US Nationals, and Canadian Nationals - are "...nothing."

stop it. you know what I mean.

Not necessarily. I'd still like an answer to my earlier question:

When Worlds leaves the US, the US loses one of its two big tournaments. Instead of having Continentals somewhere and Worlds at Gencon, we just have Continentals at Gencon and... nothing. so North America just suffers the loss of one of its two big tournaments. This to me is a much bigger problem.

In years when Worlds has been in North America, do Europe and Australia each also have two big tournaments? If so, what are they? If not, why should North America always have two when at least one of those areas has only one?

[JamesValEson]

BREAKING NEWS: Worlds is now an online event, no one can complain about the location anymore.

TK

Das ist not gut nein!

Worlds should always be a 'face to face' matter. There's nothing better than to be across the table from someone at a top tier event.

This made me chuckle because I thought back to playing Caleb Grace in Final Confrontation for Worlds 2007. We Had played Many time before that in person in MN, but this was So much more fun as we were throwing back and forth U2 references, and I had placed a 1E Mitchell card with the prize support (since we both were RAtM and Audioslave fans).

BDubs

[HoodieDM]

Why dont we put together a list of like 12 cities (inc GenCon/Indy) in the US that would be great places to hold Trek Masters. Then we hold four of those 12 cities each year hitting a "region" of the U.S. and they go on a three year cycle. Based on multiple factors like attendance/side events/feedback from the community (we are still all a community here), the next time that area runs a Trek Master, we turn it in Nationals/Continentals/Worlds there that year. Here are my thoughts, subject for vote/opinion but based on playgroups:

Northwest:
Seattle
Portland
Sacramento (not sure on playgroup but aiming for Northern California)
Minneapolis

Southwest:
San Diego
Las Vegas (not sure on playgroup but great place)
Phoenix (not sure on playgroup but great place)
Texas (was it Austin play group?)

Northeast:
Indianapolis/GenCon
Chicago
Maryland
Ohio/Kentucky

Southeast:
Orlando
Charlotte
Atlanta
Tennessee

Thats four major events each year and you know each quarter we are going to have a big event. Its an easy layout. We dont have to make things complicated to make this work...

~D

[Honest]

Why dont we put together a list of like 12 cities (inc GenCon/Indy) in the US that would be great places to hold Trek Masters. Then we hold four of those 12 cities each year hitting a "region" of the U.S. and they go on a three year cycle. Based on multiple factors like attendance/side events/feedback from the community (we are still all a community here), the next time that area runs a Trek Master, we turn it in Nationals/Continentals/Worlds there that year. Here are my thoughts, subject for vote/opinion but based on playgroups:

Northwest:
Seattle
Portland
Sacramento (not sure on playgroup but aiming for Northern California)
Minneapolis

Southwest:
San Diego
Las Vegas (not sure on playgroup but great place)
Phoenix (not sure on playgroup but great place)
Texas (was it Austin play group?)

Northeast:
Indianapolis/GenCon
Chicago
Maryland
Ohio/Kentucky

Southeast:
Orlando
Charlotte
Atlanta
Tennessee

Thats four major events each year and you know each quarter we are going to have a big event. Its an easy layout. We dont have to make things complicated to make this work...

~D

From an outside POV, that seems like a fantastic idea

Honest