So, there is a VERY vibrant X-Wing scene here in Auckland, New Zealand, with two stores running regular game nights and store championship events and support from several clubs.

There is a fair amount of $$$ being dropped on Fantasy Flight, just on X-Wing along (not to mention the other popular games they produce which are widely played).

I looked eagerly to see which of the major stores would be offering Assault on Imdaar Alpha (or if both would) only to see that not only are there NO opportunities to play ANYWHERE in New Zealand but there are none in Australia either?!?

This is NOT BLOODY GOOD ENOUGH!

When I spoke to the staff at Vagabonds Games (one of the two most supportive stores and the one where I regularly play for game nights) they said that the supplier had told them that the pack was simply not available in our part of the world.

NOT

BLOODY

GOOD

ENOUGH!!!

Are we not "good enough" customers?

US cities a tiny fraction of the size of Auckland get this event, the same can be said of many of the sites in the UK and Canada... so it is NOT about the number of customers.

Why the antipodean prejudice Fantasy Flight?

hey, Singapore didnt get it too

*pats on back*

Australia and New Zealand clearly aren't a large enough demographic to worry about having any events, frankly I don't see why you feel entitled to participate in one.

It's just a pre-release, not a championship. Not really worth getting worked up about.

Australia and New Zealand clearly aren't a large enough demographic to worry about having any events, frankly I don't see why you feel entitled to participate in one.

Um did you miss the part about considerably smaller cities in the US getting events wheras Auckland, NZ (let alone Australian cities like Sydney of more than 4 million people) get nothing? seems like an oversight to not expand you customer base where people are asking for it.

Maybe you should remember that it was a limited opportunity, and it required the FLGS to order the kits, on a first come first serve basis. If your stores didnt get any, they either didnt order them or put in their order to late. Try thinking your rants through next time, instead of blaming FFG right away

FFG may not have confirmed all the details for international venues.

From the FFG webpage:

Check back soon for additional international venues!

Last updated on Wed Apr 23 20:45:53 -0500 2014

Maybe you should remember that it was a limited opportunity, and it required the FLGS to order the kits, on a first come first serve basis. If your stores didnt get any, they either didnt order them or put in their order to late. Try thinking your rants through next time, instead of blaming FFG right away

I can assure you that the kits were requested in a more than timely fashion (i.e. the day they were announced) yet the Aussie/NZ distributers were flat out told they weren't getting any.

Australia and New Zealand clearly aren't a large enough demographic to worry about having any events, frankly I don't see why you feel entitled to participate in one.

Um did you miss the part about considerably smaller cities in the US getting events wheras Auckland, NZ (let alone Australian cities like Sydney of more than 4 million people) get nothing? seems like an oversight to not expand you customer base where people are asking for it.

Yeah,

That kind of arrogant ignorance is fairly typical of attitudes towards us.

There are FAR smaller cities being given the opportunity to participate, yet nothing for us?

These things aren't free, our stores TRY to order them but it seems our money isn't good enough?

I'm in Australia, my LGS has the only X-wing Regional for the entire state of Queensland. The owner of the store looked into the application process for Assault the day it was announced. While he hasn't been told what the OP's store supplier was told, he still hasn't been told either way. He's as much in the dark about the Pre-release as I, a lowly customer, am.

It's a shame that we apparently fall short of the player base in countries like Slovakia (Yeah right), but things are what they are. Hopefully it's just a matter of the main page with the localities listed isn't yet up to date.

BTW - Smart-*ss comments and belittling people and their home countries doesn't help grow communities. Keep your small mindedness to yourself in the future. We live in a global community now, and I for one think that all interested parties have a 'right' to have access to a global hobby, no matter where their country is located, or how 'big/important' it is deemed to be.

Cheers

Maybe you should remember that it was a limited opportunity, and it required the FLGS to order the kits, on a first come first serve basis. If your stores didnt get any, they either didnt order them or put in their order to late. Try thinking your rants through next time, instead of blaming FFG right away

Maybe take your own advice huh!!!!!

Maybe you should remember that it was a limited opportunity, and it required the FLGS to order the kits, on a first come first serve basis. If your stores didnt get any, they either didnt order them or put in their order to late. Try thinking your rants through next time, instead of blaming FFG right away

You bloody fool, its no rant, its a fact that we here in NZ were never going to see this event as NZ and OZ were not aloud them .

Maybe take your own advice huh!!!!!

Yeah, I didn't post this when we weren't on the initial post, I waited 'till I had spoken to the stores.

I'm not 100% sure about Australia but those of us in New Zealand aren't being permitted to buy the pack.

That BITES.

Sort it out Fantasy Flight!

I guess it's the sacrifice we make for living in the best country in the world, that you can't get to play in bigger events. Clearly the markets in New Zealand and Australia aren't big, but we still want to be included.

Gotta agree with the Admiral - not good enough, FFG.

I think you should look first at the distributors in NZ and AU. Pixelpark and Good Games respectively.

Maybe you should remember that it was a limited opportunity, and it required the FLGS to order the kits, on a first come first serve basis. If your stores didnt get any, they either didnt order them or put in their order to late. Try thinking your rants through next time, instead of blaming FFG right away

You bloody fool, its no rant, its a fact that we here in NZ were never going to see this event as NZ and OZ were not aloud them .

Maybe take your own advice huh!!!!!

Well since you want to be a tosser about it, i'll let you cry yourself to sleep while i get to enjoy the 4 events that my "little city" got

FFG havn't confirmed the venues for International Imdaar events yet, and nowhere in the UK has yet been confirmed to run it. Keep calm and wait patiently!

I don't post often, but I felt compelled to log in and post on this topic. Lets just all take a step back and relax. This is a great game with many passionate players and being an Australian myself, I can understand the disappointment of my countrymen and cousins over the strait.

For our American friends, could you imagine if FFG limited the game kits to say the ten largest cities in the USA only? Maybe you can get an understanding of how some of these people feel.

Really at the end of the day, for a company that is trying to increase it's global market share and develop new markets, would it have been that hard logistically for FFG to allocate kits to each world region for a first come, first serve basis?

I'm sure that they have international sales data they could have looked at to allocate the kits.

For those lucky enough to have an event to participate in, May the Force be with you and I look forward to the battle reports on the forum.

For those who live in countries other than the US, please note that FFG keeps updating their list of "international" venues, so it's far from a sure thing that no kits were allocated to NZ or Oz. It would be a puzzling business decision, at the very least, to have made sure Slovakia could participate, but not do the same for the market in Australia.

And for those who are dismissive of Australia and New Zealand, either drop the superior tone or get better at it. I mean, seventeen posts with no mention of sheep, hobbits, or drop-bears*? That's practically criminal--much like the founding population of Australia! (See, that's how it's done.)

*Of course the same uncritical mode of thinking would also conclude that all Americans are arrogant, war-mongering religious zealots, so discussion of that point is probably also fair game.

I know of one store around Melbourne who is running the event. Tezza, come help our friends here to get it to New Zealand? You know I'll be there soon.

One thing I would point out is that these kits are all being airshipped out of China for the Assault on Imdaar Alpha event. It's possible that FFG couldn't justify chartering a plane specifically to Australia for the low quantity of events that would be held. I'm not a logistics expert, but I have a feeling that FFG doesn't just call up UPS and say "I wanna ship these to this LGS in Austrailia" and then pay $25.99 or whatever postage. There's a distribution network that FFG uses that'll likely have to be apart of any distribution of the AIA kits, potentially for union reasons.

And this isn't even getting into customs. Perhaps FFG realizes that the Aussie customs takes 2 weeks longer, or doesn't have a priority "lane" to get stuff through. And from the time that the ships were available, even if they airlifted them straight to Australia, they wouldn't clear customs and then be distributed in time to support the WORLD WIDE prerelease date of May 30th. Sure, they could delay the AU dates, or they could delay all of the dates, but then you start looking at extra $$ to ship out vs. time available before the rest of everything gets there. And at some point, it doesn't make sense.

Now, these are all potential reasons I've thought up, that have nothing to do with FFG being an evil company who's prejudice against all ya'll down under. They may not be the real reasons, heck, they're probably not the real reasons. But there's a lot that goes on in a business to successfully run a business. Keep in mind that they expect to turn a profit from this prerelease. I'm sure somewhere in their projections, they've predicted that if players see the W4 ships in action, they're going to be buying more of them, and therefore there will be a profit. And perhaps that's WHY some of these small towns in USA got kits when other places didn't... It pretty much is a set cost to transport 100 kits vs 500 kits to the USA, so they might as well get as much coverage in a "targeted" area without saturating it (IE, if every customer was shipped his/her own kit, that would be fully saturated). It's a big world out there with lots of obstacles!

Polite, timley and as many emails from different people directly to FFG, rather than a post on the forum, will more than likely generate a more direct observation from the company.

Angry or inflamatory messages are typically ignored. Giving clear indications of how many players there are, what kind of potential market penetration is still untapped, along with potential revenues are all good things to touch on.

There are some other well-reasoned suggestions as to why it isn't done. Global shipping and customs can be a real pain in the butt sometimes too.

Again, don't forget to contact the distributors for your region/country. A company like FFG doesn't keep a presence everywhere, that's why they have distributors.

All good and somewhat viable reasons.

What confuses me however, is that my LGS manage to have Aces in stock 2 days before release, and had left over stock after pre-orders were filled. That alone gives me hope that it's just a case of FFG having not update their 'international list' for the pre-release yet. I just hope that the release of waves doesn't end up going the way of the SW card game. I've been told we could have to wait up to 2 more months just to get the 2nd Force pack from the current release. I don't think my mind could handle that happening with my X-wing as well. O.o Eeep.

I also agree, cooler calmer heads prevail in these situations. Polite, concise emails to FFG directly will make a big difference, not angry forum posts. Mind you, I do understand the knee-jerk 'feelings' that led to the post. It's annoying, and it's not something those of us in the southern hemisphere enjoy having to contend with on a constant basis. Hence the odd angry post from time to time.

Fingers crossed it's just a clerical error/delay. But if it isn't, it will definitely be a downer. Having said that, my pre-order of 4+ of everything in Wave 4, and my 2 big ships won't be being cancelled because of a missed pre-release.

Cheers

I think you should look first at the distributors in NZ and AU. Pixelpark and Good Games respectively.

Yeah, my local games night store asked and got told straight "there are none for your country".

That's just not good enough.

I wonder if it could be a legal issue?

I don't know much about the laws in Aus or NZ, but I do know in the MMO world they will often run contests that involve giving stuff away and they can't run those contests in some countries due to gambling/lottery laws.