[Cryptoknight]

If you played an CCG with us this year, please give us some feedback.

Please tell us both what you did and did not like.

We're aware that some folks ditched the draft and messed things up for those who participated, and we're working on a fix for that already.

[SheikTheGeek]

Cryptoknight, on May 21 2010, 11:18 AM, said:

If you played a Tabletop Boardgame or a Non-Collectible Card Game with us this year, please give us some feedback.

Please tell us both what you did and did not like.

I know time is always an issue, but Id like to see at least one Double Elimination or Swiss Tournament done each year. I mainly play YuGiOH, so when theres less than 20 people signed up and we have a good 4 hours to work with I see no reason why cant stretch out the tournament a little bit using one of those methods. Everyone gets a chance to play a bit longer and have more fun being in the tournament. Also, 2 big thumbs up for FINALLY getting the prize support up to date and having it consist of recent booster packs that people would want.

[SheikTheGeek]

Cryptoknight, on May 21 2010, 11:17 AM, said:

If you played an CCG with us this year, please give us some feedback.

Please tell us both what you did and did not like.

We're aware that some folks ditched the draft and messed things up for those who participated, and we're working on a fix for that already.

I didnt attend the booster draft, but I think its the amount of time spent between "sign ups" to the part everyone goes for "the handing out of packs" the amount of time spent in there takes way too much time and is a little too much for most people too sit and wait. Im guilty of "ditching" the draft last year, but heard nothing of it. I know I wasnt the only one, I can only guess there was more this year? Last year I waited over a hour after sign ups had ended for packs to even be handed out. Im well aware of the DCI practices, but I feel that its something that should be mentioned since the way its advertised, for most people it pretty much means "free packs" I doubt they care about DCI ranking or even know what they are. Taking into account this is ACEN and most people are not tournament goers.

[Cryptoknight]

SheikTheGeek, on May 22 2010, 07:29 AM, said:

I can only guess there was more this year? Last year I waited over a hour after sign ups had ended for packs to even be handed out. Im well aware of the DCI practices, but I feel that its something that should be mentioned since the way its advertised, for most people it pretty much means "free packs" I doubt they care about DCI ranking or even know what they are. Taking into account this is ACEN and most people are not tournament goers.

I think we had close to 20 ditch this year, and this year the draft started faster and was better organized from what I noticed. It's not just, "Hey Acen is giving away packs!" If that's all it is, I'll take the thousands of dollars worth of Magic we get each year and run more Type 1 and Type 2 tournaments and use it as prize support, and we'll just quit having the draft.

If you sit for the draft, and we give you packs, at a minimum we expect that you'll open said packs and draft out of them. We don't like it, but if after that point you forfeit your first round's play and drop, that's your decision to make. At least at that point you didn't just walk off with the unopened packs, which we don't want.

The other problem we have is about 1/3 to 1/2 of the players do care about DCI rankings. This year we didn't report to DCI, which disappointed several participants (especially those who actually placed). We also ran single elim instead of Swiss with 128 people, which made many people happy. Instead of the draft taking 14 hours like it did in 2009 we were done by 6pm, and if we hadn't had to deal with the droppers, we might have finished even earlier.

[Hodoku]

SheikTheGeek, on May 22 2010, 07:29 AM, said:

I didnt attend the booster draft, but I think its the amount of time spent between "sign ups" to the part everyone goes for "the handing out of packs" the amount of time spent in there takes way too much time and is a little too much for most people too sit and wait. Im guilty of "ditching" the draft last year, but heard nothing of it. I know I wasnt the only one, I can only guess there was more this year? Last year I waited over a hour after sign ups had ended for packs to even be handed out. Im well aware of the DCI practices, but I feel that its something that should be mentioned since the way its advertised, for most people it pretty much means "free packs" I doubt they care about DCI ranking or even know what they are. Taking into account this is ACEN and most people are not tournament goers.

Welcome, and thanks for the feedback.

Each year we try to streamline the process, but like any tournament, the time between sign-ups and action is ALWAYS significant. While most people come to play and a large portion of them DO care about DCI rankings, we try to make it quick and fun for everyone.

However, a serious issue that we have had since the beginning of this draft is pack theft. Since the ACEN draft is free, people get their friends to come just to get packs, without intention of playing. This year, we had 17 people do this. I had to turn away 11 people at the door because sign-ups were full. Ditching is unfair to people that actually want to play, and adds about an hour to an hour and a half to sign-up and seating before the draft begins. Thankfully, we are always looking for ways to speed up our system and next year I think will be the smoothest, fastest draft we've ever had.


Another point of interest for Magic: the Gathering players: What other formats would you like to see tournaments for? This year I had a big group ask for Elder dragon highlander tournaments, and the 4AM reverse drafts were a blast. I want to do both next year, but feedback is always appreciated.

[SheikTheGeek]

Well 20 is a lot more than I was guessing it as. I can see where it would be an issue.

[tatterpillar]

I did not make it to the Naruto Tournament this year Was it sanctioned? What was the entrance cost and what were the prizes? How soon do I need to register (roughly/average time before the con) for 2011?

[Cryptoknight]

tatterpillar, on May 23 2010, 10:47 AM, said:

I did not make it to the Naruto Tournament this year Was it sanctioned? What was the entrance cost and what were the prizes? How soon do I need to register (roughly/average time before the con) for 2011?

None of our tournaments cost attendees anything other than their badge fee.

I don't believe our tournament was sanctioned, and nobody showed up for it this year.

Naruto, Kingdom Hearts and Vampire the Eternal Struggle are presently on the chopping block for removal from the CCG tournaments list for next year unless there is an incredible outpouring of support for each of them. If there is, we may have the tournament again next year, but if there aren't attendance numbers to back them up, we will find alternative CCGs to run tournaments for in 2012.

[tatterpillar]

Oooo, sucky!

Hrmmm.. I may check with my local card shop about this. Thanks for the info!

[Atomisk]

SheikTheGeek, on May 22 2010, 07:25 AM, said:

I know time is always an issue, but Id like to see at least one Double Elimination or Swiss Tournament done each year. I mainly play YuGiOH, so when theres less than 20 people signed up and we have a good 4 hours to work with I see no reason why cant stretch out the tournament a little bit using one of those methods. Everyone gets a chance to play a bit longer and have more fun being in the tournament. Also, 2 big thumbs up for FINALLY getting the prize support up to date and having it consist of recent booster packs that people would want.

The biggest problem with Swiss is that unless I institute a time limit on matches(which some people want and others do not) is that stall decks will eat up everyone's time, making the games exponentially longer. I mean, if you looked at the Saturday tourney(And the only reason we weren't at 64 seats was because of our amazing magic draft aptly luring away our players), you ended up with people who finished their games in 10 minutes and then they had to wait 30 for the last ones to finish. And If we do hit max(Like we almost did for the 32 seat tourney on Friday), then there is no way we could do swiss. Beside if you want to play more, it's not hard to find someone in the TCG HQ to play... That's just what everyone else was doing long, long after the tournies for yugi were over.

Also keep in mind that not everyone wants to stay around and play for the whole con. Some people just want to hit up the tourneys and afterwards go catch a panel, run by the dealers room, eat some food, even go play in another tourney, or something else I'm not thinking of. I certainly don't remember many people asking if the tourney could go longer at the con... More like I was hearing a lot of people asking how much longer till the end of the round.

Though thanks again for the compliment on the boosters. We do try

Cryptoknight, on May 23 2010, 01:30 PM, said:

Naruto, Kingdom Hearts and Vampire the Eternal Struggle are presently on the chopping block for removal from the CCG tournaments list for next year unless there is an incredible outpouring of support for each of them. If there is, we may have the tournament again next year, but if there aren't attendance numbers to back them up, we will find alternative CCGs to run tournaments for in 2012.

Yeah, Kingdom hearts actually died and no one showed up the day of the tourney to play, so we won't be carrying them for next year. And while 3 people claimed to be interested in the Naruto tourney, only 1 person(a Sasuke cosplayer) showed up for the tourney Saturday... So unless that game becomes suddenly popular at Acen, I doubt we'll hang onto it.

As for Vampire the Eternal Struggle... I don't recall anyone playing that ever.

[SheikTheGeek]

Quote

The biggest problem with Swiss is that unless I institute a time limit on matches(which some people want and others do not) is that stall decks will eat up everyone's time, making the games exponentially longer. I mean, if you looked at the Saturday tourney(And the only reason we weren't at 64 seats was because of our amazing magic draft aptly luring away our players), you ended up with people who finished their games in 10 minutes and then they had to wait 30 for the last ones to finish. And If we do hit max(Like we almost did for the 32 seat tourney on Friday), then there is no way we could do swiss. Beside if you want to play more, it's not hard to find someone in the TCG HQ to play... That's just what everyone else was doing long, long after the tournies for yugi were over.

Also keep in mind that not everyone wants to stay around and play for the whole con. Some people just want to hit up the tourneys and afterwards go catch a panel, run by the dealers room, eat some food, even go play in another tourney, or something else I'm not thinking of. I certainly don't remember many people asking if the tourney could go longer at the con... More like I was hearing a lot of people asking how much longer till the end of the round.

I completely understand. I was just saying, just be examining the number of entrants and given the amount of time...Double Elimination or even Swiss could be done on days where theres a very low turnout. If people want to leave early, they will drop out of the tournament regardless.

[applekidjosh]

I was introduced to Dominion by a nice guy that ran my friend and me through the rules and a sample game. He was super nice, but I don't think he was even Acen staff. I really appreciated it though.

[Cryptoknight]

applekidjosh, on 07 October 2010 - 08:49 PM, said:

I was introduced to Dominion by a nice guy that ran my friend and me through the rules and a sample game. He was super nice, but I don't think he was even Acen staff. I really appreciated it though.

While technically Dominion isn't a CCG it does have the construction properties of one. We really do want to do more with Rio Grande Games, they have several good ones out there (the three of the top of my head are Race for the Galaxy, Puerto Rico, and Dominion). And we appreciate the feedback regarding this.

[Audri]

I played in the Friday Magic Swiss event. For the amount of players that the event had, it was extremely well run. I'm a tournament organizer myself and was impressed how well the TO kept things moving along.

[shamurai77]

Regarding magic and people leaving I totally understand why. Drafting takes a LONG time. How much stuff at the con do people want to miss for a draft? I would love to see another solution where we can open packs and perhaps do multiplayer games like 2 headed dragon with constructed. Play 2 out of 3 and do elimination. That will go MUCH faster and the people who lost from elimination can just leave and it won't matter. Or if they want to stay they can play some casual games with each other.

I for one will not be drafting if that happens, but if there is a more elegant solution like I suggested then myself and 3 friends wil be there. We all have commander decks ready for the con, and have everything for archenemy, planechase, pauper, and any other casual constructed format.

This post has been edited by shamurai77: 11 May 2011 - 09:05 PM