Ideas for Gen Con 2017.

[silverclawgrizzly]

All right Mage Warriors I'm opening up the flood gates for ideas on how to make the Gen Con 2017 tournament event better than this years. While I actually consider this year a success I'm always thinking of ways to improve. One thing I'm thinking is to limit the entries to 16 and thus create a 4 round first day event. That reduces an hour and 15 minutes from the overall invested time you need to play through and is more appealing to many I know.
Prize support will remain excellent next year and will most likely even improve over this years. Food and beverages will be served again next year as well.

Any other ideas, particularly coming from those who have actually run their own events or were in this years tournament, are welcome to be discussed in a civil manner.

[Sailor Vulcan]

What if 30 people really do want to sign up? I think we need some sort of preliminaries outside of the main tournament.  I would recommend using octgn for preliminaries except that not everyone uses octgn. Maybe we can have everyone arrive early and host preliminaries in a hotel or something? Or maybe some kind of combination of the two.

[Borg]

If you get to 32 people you just create two 16-player groups with the winners of both groups playing the SuperBowl

[Sailor Vulcan]

If you get to 32 people you just create two 16-player groups with the winners of both groups playing the SuperBowl

Limited table space.


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[silverclawgrizzly]

Do to the nature of Gen Con preliminaries will not be an option. Players already dedicate two game spaces of very valuable time to this event. Asking them to dedicate more is counter productive. Also this event does not have qualifiers of any kind. To do so would exclude new players who wish to enter simply to test themselves and get better.

The main turn off factor is the time factor. Now I know I can't shorten the round time limits but by capping at 16 I can decrease the overall investment. Keep the ideas coming.

[Biblofilter]

I would like 100+ particispants and an event running from Thursday to Sunday

Could you run 4 different heats on day 1? With 1 qualifier from each heat, and then allow people to play as many heats as they want to.

I would love if you could open say heat A, B and C for coaching newbies then let them enter a later heat if they want to.

Do what they did in Germany.

[wtcannonjr]

I would like 100+ particispants and an event running from Thursday to Sunday

Could you run 4 different heats on day 1? With 1 qualifier from each heat, and then allow people to play as many heats as they want to.

I would love if you could open say heat A, B and C for coaching newbies then let them enter a later heat if they want to.

Do what they did in Germany.

What format did they use in Germany?

[Sailor Vulcan]

I want an Academy scavenger hunt! Everyone registers a custom Academy spellbook, and then they have to find and defeat a certain number of each Academy mage then go to the Arcane Wonders booth to get a prize.


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[silverclawgrizzly]

On the whole we don't want to take up more time from people. Gen Con is not Europe and the fan base that's over seas just isn't at Gen Con. It could be built up, but it's not there yet. Asking for a four day commitment wouldn't be practical at this point.

Also lets focus on the tournament event itself. An Academy scavenger hunt should maybe be it's own thread?

[wtcannonjr]

On the whole we don't want to take up more time from people. Gen Con is not Europe and the fan base that's over seas just isn't at Gen Con. It could be built up, but it's not there yet. Asking for a four day commitment wouldn't be practical at this point.

Also lets focus on the tournament event itself. An Academy scavenger hunt should maybe be it's own thread?

It might help us to focus our ideas if you summarized the set of constraints you see at Gen Con. Many of us have never been there and don't know the design constraints you have. Also, what outcome are you looking to improve next year? If this is fixed in your mind, then we can focus our ideas to identify options for you.

[silverclawgrizzly]

Well there's a fair and valid point. My goals for Gen Con 2017 in no real order

1. In crease attendance. While I was happy with 12 I'd like to bump it to 16 next year. Now obviously we can't control the chaotic nature of the con but we can do our best.

2. I'd like a fun and competitive atmosphere that's balanced with welcoming new players. Contradictory goals somewhat but I believe a balance can be found.

3. I wish for this event to strengthen and grow the Mage Wars community. Overall I think it does that to some extent as the books are published and matches taped. If we can expand on this that's cool.

4. I'm always interested in ideas for prize Support.

Now obstacles:

1. Space is a premium at Gen Con and it ain't cheap. I'm in no position to speak on that at all. However more casual play can and will be planned next year.

2. Big con with a lot going on. We compete with every other game ever thought of as well as lots of special events. Now with more expansions comes more appeal so that helps. A lot more options of play will be available next year.

I do want to say I appreciate the ideas so far. Even if it seems like I don't agree I still need to consider more angles so keep em coming.

2.

[RomeoXero]

Not for nothing Griz, but increasing attendance and capping play at 16 seem counter intuitive. I know you got 12 this year but last year was much bigger no? I know it's my absolute dream to compete at gencon, and i would be devastated if i managed by some miracle to get there, only to be turned away because i was number 17.

[silverclawgrizzly]

Last year was actually 17. I get the counter productivity and I fully admit the 16 cap isn't likely. It's an idea however. Gotta figure out more of em

[Sailor Vulcan]

I think the main problem with mage wars organized play at cons is insufficient time and space. We always end up needing to try to compensate for this with weird rules that mess with the metagame, like the 75 min time limit. There is currently no way to make a tournament truly and adequately meet all three goals within the kind of time and space constraints that are typical at gen con and other such cons. You might be able to meet two out of three of those goals, but not all three at once. At least one of the three goals needs to be given up to meet one or more of the others.

I would say to prioritize goal 3 first and foremost. Spreading the game will make it easier for Arcane Wonders to afford more time and space for their events, and it will give us more people to play against.

After goal 3, the next most important is goal 2. However, I propose that casual play be promoted more for newer players. We should encourage players to play casually and get some experience before they participate in big high level tournaments. I would say someone should have played *at least* five full games of Arena before they participate in a high level Arena tournament.

I mean, when someone goes to register for the tournament, you can ask "Have you played a full game of Mage Wars Arena at least five times before?" and if they say "no" then you say they can still enter the tournament if they want to but that you recommend that they play the game a bit more first. This should lower the number of newbs clogging up high level tournament play.

As for goal 1, I think it is important to increase *attendance* not necessarily tournament participation.

What we'll need is to get a decently sized space for people to play casually and get help with spellbook design, then get some good coverage for the tournament proper, and encourage new mage wars players to watch, and give out a prize to new players for spectating--maybe a promo card, or coupons for mage wars merchandise or something.

Thoughts?

[silverclawgrizzly]

I agree with you most of the way here Sailor. I'm personally a huge fan of time limits as I 1. Don't see them taking away from meta that much and 2. Have no desire to sit and judge 5 rounds of 5 hour matches.....

I'm going to chew on this for a bit, think it over at work today, and get back with my full response but just wanted to mention that I like how you're thinking on this man.