Alright everybody,

After going to GenCon and experiencing people quiting UFS (a great card game) to play Naruto/DBZ (terrible card games) soly because of better prize support, I have decided to do something about it, as long as FFG agrees with my intentions. We ran a pretty successful Regional here in Lubbock Texas this summer and dished out over $3,000 to make sure people had a good time. I am very passionate about keeping this game going and even making it stronger and more popular then it has ever been. So I want to get feed back from you players. What do you think of me volunteering my time and money to host a UFS pro qualifying tournament cuircut?

It will go a little something like this:

We will start by having 4 tournaments every year beginning after Worlds and continueing until the next Worlds. These tournaments will hopefully be in 4 equaly accessible cities so that everyone can make a tournament. I plan on changing the cities every year, unless we find one that is perfect for everyone. (I still think we should do regional tournaments as well).

Now Prize support- I don't know what FFG can supply for this, hopefully they will be onboard since I am pretty much advertizing UFS at no or minimal cost to them. Otherwise here is what I want to offer you players:

First Place at any of the qualifiers- A Plane ticket to the next GenCon and if FFG agrees a buy in round 1 of singles. If UK or Canada has any scouts that are willing to run a big event like this, I will work with you to incorperate it as part of the same cuircut.

In addition I will work on getting PS3's, Lap Tops, Promo Cards, Art Prints, Shirts, Rings, and anything else I can manage for you guys. Boxes of cards are also a must. Let me know if there is anything (reasonable) that you might want me to supply.

For top 8 I will try to get similar awesome prizes (if we get good enough show outs, we might even be able to award top 16!).

Now to make this happen, and to get UFS at a real competetive level, I am going to need help from all of the scouts out there, as well as you players. If you could post here approximately how many players you have in your area and which area you are from, we should be able to get our first 4 cities pin pointed. Also we need dates that conflict as little as possible with everyones schedules to host these events. Scouts, what I need you to do is, if we have an event in your area, please volunteer your time at the event to help get things going. Also If you live neer a college, I highly recomend that you do at least some of your monthly events on the campus in a heavy foot trafic area. Do demo games there and give out cards, characters, demo decks and what ever else you can think of. I will be hosting Free tournaments at Texas Tech once or twice a month and all of those 4 shuriken cards I don't really need any more are going to be used to get new players into the game.

This is my plan, please post your thoughts and comments so we can make this happen. I brought this up to James and Steve at GenCon but they were busy of course with many other things, so hopefully now, they can take the time and look at what I am trying to do. I do not think we will be able to do an event until 2010 just because it will take alot of organizing, but you never know.

Also, please contact me if you have any other ideas at [email protected] or call me at 806-252-3404. I'm Jason with Jasco Games.

This is a great idea, i love it, I am currently rebuilding the local playgroup in Fort Myers, Florida, and i do have a regional event at the end of september that i ran last year, which will continue every year untill UFS is dead, we get a good turnout for it. I would be up for putting in time and effort to make my favorite card game break out of the funk and get stronger than it is...

this might accually stop me from quiting however only if one was done in the uk (then i would look at traveling to the usa which i really wanna do). I suppose it all comes down to how fesable it really is

El Paso TX Area Scout

Total Players: Around 8-10

Elpaso where were you for the Lubbock regionals? we had a great event, you should have come! thanks for the numbers though!

Tuesday, I will do what I can, you scouts will have to do alot of the work though, So if you let them know abou this we can hopefully put something together. I would love to see UK, Canadian and US "Pros" showing up to worlds every year!

This is a pretty interesting idea. Too bad i cannot really work on it as i'm not in the big canadian centers... and as well, I need a playgroup pretty bad xD

Tulsa OK 4 players.

jasco games said:

It was just a bad date for most of us but I did actually want to come

I've posted a reply over to you on the UK forums, but I'll post another one here.

I think this is a great idea, it's the perfect way to pull people into playing, as it gives a true incentive to want to win. My only worry is that it will attract the wrong kind of people into the game and we end up with real bastards like Magic and Yugi have had in competetive environments. However, I am totally on board with this. If you can get into contact with me through either AIM (ViewtifulJoee) or MSN ([email protected]) then I'll try my damndest to get this up and running in the UK too.

Hope to hear from you sooner rather than later,

Joe xx

I'm liking it.

The problem lies in the feasibility of such a thing.

Don't get me wrong, it will be lots of work, but I am confident we can pull it off.

CALLING IAN, KEENAN, MONTY, MARCUS, ALL THE XAVIAN GUYS, AND ALL OF THE OLD DR. NOS GUYS! COME BACK TO UFS! THE TIME OF RETRIBUTION IS NIGH!

Atlanta, Georgia: 14-18ish if all our retired guys come out. And were getting more now.

Murfreesboro we have anywhere from 6-10 roughly. i'm sure more would get in esp the mtg players if the prizes get super epic.

i think this is just what the game needs, hype prizes, brand new card pool pretty much, only 3 sets out is awesome for getting people into a new game, esp a game where it takes a investment to get good.

to be real i honestly think money prizes would be better than items such as laptops etc. boxes of product and money will get the most people to play.

Madison, WI- 4-8 players (scouted by me)
Janesville, WI (30 min south of Madison)- ~4-6 players, more when Tekken hits (scouted by Jypsy)

There's also Kenosha and Milwaukee, WI about 1.5-2h east of Madison, but I'm not sure about their playerbase. (I'm not 100% sure on who's the scout in Kenosha, but I believe it's JDub, and TripsEX is Milwaukee's scout)

Green Bay, WI (~2.5h north of Madison) has ~10 players last time I heard/was up there. (scouted by boot2dahead)

I believe there's 1-2 other playgroups in WI but I'm not familiar with them.

I know that there are some people who don't play the game over NY cause they never felt the prizes were worth it....

Anderson, SC if we have all of our players active we have 8-12. Currently we have about 6.

i think the time is now and if we don't there would be a drastic change for those who feel it's not worth playing this game to lose out on money. times is rough and the game need to put out something for us to strive on and for the stores who keep the ufs packs in the little corner of stuff that never sell. when this game came out it was the rated what number 3? as best tcg out now. to be quite frank it's no where need what it is now. with the new rotation has to be the best move but of course the prize need to change as well.

$326.50 for gencon for cardboard promos that are worth $6.00 bucks, where is the justifaction in that. no more "this game will lose it's purity if people care about money". i know a couple of people are upset after buying warriors dream boxes at world's and cant play them because of the rotation. bad enough i had to go to coolstuff to get rid of stuff i can't use and they are the ONLY one who sell and buy UFS.

currently were dealing with no foil cards so which the value is no longer there, lack of support from stores who think the game sucks because of course money reasons. i'm at a point were if the game was to cancel anytime soon i would be highly upset and i would do anything to make this game continue if i could. we are know we would die to keep playing this game no matter what the cost, that's a true die hard fan.

i spoke to steve and he was concern about players quiting early at single worlds 09, and it just had to do with players feeling that they had no chance in making it becuase there was only top 8. he explained that he too was a hardcore player for a game he played and played it until it was over just for the love of the game. the block 3 format put alot of players in fear of losing or not wanting to deal with the certain things they thought were annoying and brainless and that's just in any tcg of course. i know for sure that top 16 should have been called no matter what, because it is a major tourney so forget the numbers we knew that was the best call.

i'm done ranting, i just hope for the best and that we can keep this game sane and have some type of support to help benefit us, the players who love the game and want to keep it that way.

I find this quite humourous that you would make such a bold statement stating people play Naruto/DBZ (terrible card games) for prize support only. I play them because I enjoy it. If I was really concerned with prize support only, I would not bother with card games period, since they are an expensive luxury item that does not hold its own value. What bothers me about UFS, is not just the lack of prize support, but seeing the longevity of UFS beginning to dim. Card games, in them own rights, are a relatively "dying" investment, in ANY game; but I would rather see my money going into something that might last a while longer than a year or two, not stating that UFS or any card games now will die within that span, but making a simple point-in-case.

It all boils down to what people enjoy. If they enjoy playing UFS, they will play it. They won't play it because the prize support is amazing, because what will that matter if they think the game is boring? I, personally, find it annoying when I play UFS and play with people who say, "So-so is my favorite character from Street Fighter," or "I love this guy he owns in Soul Calibur," only to find out that they don't even play the game. I don't go into Yugioh matches stating that I love that monster because he is awesome, etc. etc. if I don't know a **** thing about them; but I guess it all boils down to my old school fight game blood. If someone wants to play me in a fighting game, pick up the sticks, and let our skills talk for us. I'm not going to sit around and play a mock fighting game system and pretend its enjoyable when half the **** time I'm busy trying to read the 40 foundations on the other persons' side. Give me a break. AND TO BE CLEAR, I am not saying UFS is a bad game before the fanboy flamers jump on my case, I just do not find it enjoyable, but then again maybe it will be after the rotation.

At worlds, I was in a constant state of "pissed-off" mode during Teams, facing the same old wall of boredem and 4 attacks in a deck. It blew. Then Singles came, and I was faced with the choice of dealing with that crap for the next 10 hours or just cut my 10 dollar loss and go do something else, which I did. Do I regret not playing Singles? Somewhat, but mainly because I wanted that Chunners artwork and I traveled all this way to GenCon to NOT play in the game I intended to play in; but that was my own mistake, so whatever. Now moving on to Wandering Master, which I was told the wrong time by a FFG employee, I ended up losing, which, to be honest, pissed me off. I couldn't believe the one event I was looking forward to the most from UFS, I was told the wrong time and showed up 30 minutes late, to find out I had technically lost. And how was I treated after that? I wasn't even looked at. I was brushed off and waved to the booth and then they gave me 2 promo packs filled with cards that had rotated. Sweet. Probably the best pity promo backs I've ever seen. Not. I'm sorry that I traveled 20 hours in a stinking car with 6 other guys to make it there to play and meet people and I didn't even get as much as a second glance from the company I tried to support. Don't get me wrong, everyone else I met there was awesome. There was not one person there I could say I did not enjoy their company, but UFS really died for me at worlds.

Depending on how everything plays out, I probably will try to make Nats just to see everyone again because lets face it, the people make the game and UFS has an amazing community. I just wish FFG could reflect the community.

Now to get back on TOPIC, if you really think it is feasible to round up that kind of money, to make a pro circuit tour, then by all means, I commend you; but reality check, you're competing against huge mega companies that piss away more money in an hour than people make in a year. That kind of prize support for them is a coffee break on a Wednesday afternoon. How can you honestly think you can pull that kind of money to just rent out places, bring in amazing prize support, and depend on FFG to help supply you with it, when they themselves haven't put much effort into it in the first place (Not saying they won't support this, but I find it highly unlikely that they will willingly trust tons of money to a non-employee). Let's get real, this isn't fantasy land where we can wish what we love into a blooming sucessful business. This is the real world. And ideas on paper sound great. But where is the business plan, the financial backing, and risk/reward factors that this might bring? You might need to draw up a little more than rough sketches of randomly playgroups across the country if you really want this to succeed.

-Steven

I really think this is a great idea. My concerns have been voiced pretty much already, just as long as hard currency doesn't come into prize support I'm all for it. My philosophy is that if you put money as a prize, people start working for it, and it becomes and job and puts everyone on edge rather than just for the fun. After 5th round at worlds I was 1-3-1 and pretty much said screw it, but the "losers" table was loads off fun since we were all playing offensive decks. And really, as much as I wanted a Jin Promo pack, I was VERY happy with my SCIV Misturugi print. Anything like that, including art prints of the card art if thats possible, would be AWESOME, what if we could get it foiled?? Now that would be a sweet thing to have on your wall, or just a BIG print sized card that was foiled. Thats FFG's department, but tickets, games, product; these are good things.

I honestly think this is a great idea but I am not sure how you will get it all to work.

I also think major tournaments should be top 16 and not top 8... just sayin'

Hi, this is Ross from Patriot Games in the UK, I ran the Soul Calibur UK Nationals last year, and have ran several UK regional, AoP and FoP tournaments.

In terms of the UK supporting this, our official organised play program is managed by Steve Graham at Estikutum on behalf of Fantasy Flight. His username on the forums is Tallgeese, and after agreeign this program with FFG he should be your first point of contact for any program you would like to introduce to the UK.

I was surprised to see your thread, mostly because UFS is a very small card game compared to other games, and I honestly do not see the feasibility of introducing a several-thousand dollar prize structure involving multiple tournaments an d countries for a game which only attracted 80 people to its World Championships at the biggest Games convention in the world.

I find it admirable that you would go so far to support UFS, and by using your own resources, and I have done the same thing myself on a much smaller scale in the UK when the game was organised by Sabertooth (who took a much greater interest in the UK than FFG), but I can't see any way in which this would not lead to you losing your money. To perform some simple maths, there were 80 people at the World Championships. A lot of people travelled to this, but a lot more people did not, so I will assume that you will get an average turnout of 40 people per tournament on this program, since there will be 4 different ones. Now, $3,000 divided by 40 makes an entry fee of $70 per player, after you make a small loss of $200. No-one would want to pay that much for a tournament. Also, you are advertising this as a Pro Tour Qualifier, but what would people qualify for? At the moment people do not need to qualify for Worlds.

FFG/Sabertooth's argument in the past has been that they do not want UFS to be a game about money, and they call the shots, Giving away PS3 consoles, iPods, etc will attract players, but if your event is not backed by FFG then you will have no official backing and no promo support to give away, so I would advise contacting them before making any arrangements form this thread.

I also have concerns that introducing tournaments for big prizes would be detrimental to the format as is the case in other PTQs for Magic, Vs, Yu Gi Oh, etc, and remove the fun aspect form the UFS tournaments. With UFS in trouble at the moment, I'm not sure it would survive such an impact.

This is only a brief post before I start work, but if you would like to talk about this with me any further, feel free to PM me. I have experience in organised play programs for several games and may be able to offer an alternative viewpoint or advice on running a program.

- Ross

Just Doin' Work said:

I would much rather see DIFFERENT boring decktypes face off(UFS) rather than the same dominant deck always winning(Naruto).

jasco games said:

The work is fine.

It's the cash money that's gonna lack.

Well I scout In Nortern VA, I get 4-6 people weekly, and possibly could have 8-10 if i can get everyone who plays all to show up at the same time. On the other hand, I Manage a store that can easily handle 40-60 man tournaments.

So you can let me know what your doing, I would be interested in helping out.

my contact info: [email protected]

stores info:
Game Parlor Woodbridge

14400 Smoketown Road,

Woodbridge, VA 22192

703-551-4200

www.gameparlor.com

Umigame