I would also like to state that worlds will be played by some great players (who have won regionals) but also allot of meh players who got their ticket just because they are faster. FFG need to either allow for a bigger tournament or create some type of point system).

Err, yea, but that was gonna happen anyway right? The system really has nothing to do with that. Limited seats does.

Well it kind of does, the points work in "if you have X amount of points and X amount of title wins you get invited to worlds early ect.

Me too Paul. I'm coming from Saskatchewan. Where are you coming from?

Jacob

Coming from Edmonton. We'll have to get all the Canadians together while down there.

I would also like to state that worlds will be played by some great players (who have won regionals) but also allot of meh players who got their ticket just because they are faster. FFG need to either allow for a bigger tournament or create some type of point system).

Err, yea, but that was gonna happen anyway right? The system really has nothing to do with that. Limited seats does.

This. It was announced WELL in advance the exact time and date registration would open. If you were there clicking at noon I'll bet you got in just fine. But no matter how they ran it, with only 256 seats there were going to be a lot of disappointed people. If you waited until the evening or something, thems the breaks, it was pretty clear it was going to sell out.

This. It was announced WELL in advance the exact time and date registration would open. If you were there clicking at noon I'll bet you got in just fine. But no matter how they ran it, with only 256 seats there were going to be a lot of disappointed people. If you waited until the evening or something, thems the breaks, it was pretty clear it was going to sell out.

@pbpancho

Blunt, but essentially correct. I've been checking in with FFG regularly, waiting to actually see a Nationals announcement (like prize support for instance) and all of a sudden I see this notice pop up about Worlds, detailing the exact "when and where" as it were for not only the event, but the ticketing process.

They were pretty clear that you would want to get on it as fast as possible because it was going to sell out. I know that sometimes this comes off as marketing hyperbole to drum up interest and a sense of urgency, but if we're being honest with each other, if there's something that's going to be in limited quantities, then the early bird gets that worm.

I know that the realities of life sometimes get in the way and we need to work out logistics to see if we can get time of work, get the go-ahead to leave our families for a few days, etc, but we had a few weeks notice on the dates, and if we're still being honest, unless the dates conflicted with some kind of important family event (like a wedding anniversary), then you could have had that conversation much sooner than now with your partner. It's not like you can't rough out approximately when Worlds was going to happen this year, even if you didn't know the specifics.

Anyways, I will agree that the two-tiered ticketing process was a little bit of a stumbling block, as you would be furiously refreshing your inbox to get the redeem code email to log back in to the ticket site to fill it all out, hoping that in the few minutes that passed that you would not miss out because someone got their email routed to them sooner.

The only way you were getting in without a reserved spot was if you were on the website, waiting to go at the time it went on sale. I've done the same thing for concert tickets for a show I've wanted to see and have seen it sell out just as fast, if not faster, and we're talking about thousands of people trying to get in. If the demand exceeds the supply, there are probably going to be enough motivated people who are going to do what they have to do to make sure they get their tickets,

Ducking into the bathroom at work for 10 minutes while you sit in a stall and try and do it all on your cell phone is a better plan that waiting until you get home, for instance. If it was going to work out that registration was in the middle of the night for you (or day if you work nights) because of time zones, then you can make the decision to set an alarm to wake up on time to order.

I haven't seen a lot of laments from people with serious exigent circumstances that prevented them from being at the ticket portal at 11:59 CST and hitting the refresh button to make sure they can click that "select" button as soon as it appears. If you can honestly say that you just weren't physically able to make it happen, including reaching out to your friends/family/peers to try and buy a ticket, then I can empathize with the situation. Sometimes we miss out on fun events like this because life happens, but if you were planning to go, and (being honest with yourself) "could" have been in front of a web browser at the time to do it, but chose not to, then you were making a bad bet.

For everyone else that was rearing to go on time and didn't make it into X-Wing, or whatever other event they wanted, I know it sucks, but that's the nature of a situation like this; it's basically a lottery. I think long-term if FFG keeps this system, they'll be able to populate the Worlds events with more "winner" players by default with reserved seating, which would make it more difficult for someone else to randomly buy a ticket, but it looks like that's where it's going.

We'll see how this all pans out in the long term.

Yeah, I mean, I'm on vacation right now, and was on a bus in rural Spain, but I had 2 family members in the states standing by as backups if my wifi connection wasn't stable enough. I wasn't taking any chances!

Yeah, I mean, I'm on vacation right now, and was on a bus in rural Spain, but I had 2 family members in the states standing by as backups if my wifi connection wasn't stable enough. I wasn't taking any chances!

Now there's a guy that wanted to go to Worlds

.

While i understand about the times and such. I mean work screwed me and i get that. But to me I would think they know the popularity of Star Wars and such. They honestly, next year, hint hint, have all the Star Wars games a separate week. Have FFG Star Wars games The first week. That way you can have more people for X-Wing, You can run 2 sets of 256 people and have 2 sets of Armada. I just think that would be a more viable option knowing what they know of Star Wars products. And if the movie is good, which it will be, Will ONLY INCREASE all of popularity of their Star Wars games. ESPECIALLY X-Wing.

Or, I don't know, use some of the ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF SPACE AVAILABLE near their center and at surrounding hotels. I understand the concern that off-site players won't purchase the concessions and impulse items that make an event like this financially successful, but this is a train wreck. I'd bet money the thinking was that people who didn't get in to X-Wing would somehow be pushed into playing other games, which would help those games sell (and the fact that X-Wing is set for Wednesday so those players will be around to play non-miniatures reinforces this belief). Ask K-Mart if forced scarcity works. They habitually ran "super sale ads" for items they intentionally held extremely low inventory for in order to get people in the store, on the theory that they would buy other items when they couldn't find what they were looking for. All they are managing to do by creating artificial scarcity is infuriate their own customers and tarnish their reputation.

Crossover/incidental/add-sales (whatever term FFG uses for it) do work, but bait and switch does not. This isn't (quite) bait and switch, but the idea that angry customers will come anyway and will then be motivated to spend more money is silly.

Yes, I know I'm making a lot of assumptions. Maybe this can be best explained with simple incompetence (usually the correct explanation rather than conspiracy). But if it was intentional, I'm trying to figure out what logic (even flawed logic) could have led to such a mess.

Artificially limiting the field has left many more people upset than who were appeased.

Artificially limiting the field has left many more people upset than who were appeased.

What do you mean artificially limiting? I doubt they're thinking, well we could fit 500 but let's just do 256

What do you mean artificially limiting? I doubt they're thinking, well we could fit 500 but let's just do 256

For whatever reason - size of venue, lack of desire to make enough t-shirts, phase of the moon, whatever - FFG set a (fairly low) cap on the number of participants at this year's X-Wing world championships. No one sets that number but them, thus they have artificially capped the field at a certain number of participants.

I just want to know if tickets are transferable. My back up efforts paid off, but I wound up with more than one ticket to all three games, xwing, ia and armada.

wrong thread - thanks multiple tabs!

That's stretching the definition of artificially pretty far. If my boss sets my salary at X, I wouldn't consider that artificially limiting my earnings.

None of us know the exact reasons the limits were set where they were, although we can make educated guesses. I'm pretty sure that they weren't picked arbitrarily though.

I understand the frustration of everything selling out in 30 seconds. It would be nice to be able to go and not have to hover over a machine.

However, at the same time, how could they do anything about that? There's people standing by ready to go...what are they supposed to say? "Sorry, Timmy, I know you have money and are trying to buy a ticket this very second, but someone else might want to go in 10 minutes, so we need to give them a chance. Before you..a person who's here...right now...."

Maybe it's because I gave up on going to anything larger than a store championship, but I don't see what the problem is. There's limited space. FFG knows better (much better) than you what they can handle/manage, so they set the rules. So...bummer...maybe next time? Sure, it sucks that there are a ton of rabid, deserving fans who can't go solely due to space constraints. But, there is the reality of what they are able to do, and this is it.

They did 2 flights of 256 last year at Worlds. The game has grown this year. Then they allowed one flight of 256. I'd say that was an artificial cap as opposed to a soft cap.

I understand the frustration of everything selling out in 30 seconds. It would be nice to be able to go and not have to hover over a machine.

However, at the same time, how could they do anything about that? There's people standing by ready to go...what are they supposed to say? "Sorry, Timmy, I know you have money and are trying to buy a ticket this very second, but someone else might want to go in 10 minutes, so we need to give them a chance. Before you..a person who's here...right now...."

Maybe it's because I gave up on going to anything larger than a store championship, but I don't see what the problem is. There's limited space. FFG knows better (much better) than you what they can handle/manage, so they set the rules. So...bummer...maybe next time? Sure, it sucks that there are a ton of rabid, deserving fans who can't go solely due to space constraints. But, there is the reality of what they are able to do, and this is it.

Its limited because of how they are running it. They ran 2 flights of 256 last year with same accommodations.

My understanding was last year's flights were 128 players each (for a total of 256 possible participants).

I understand the frustration of everything selling out in 30 seconds. It would be nice to be able to go and not have to hover over a machine.

However, at the same time, how could they do anything about that? There's people standing by ready to go...what are they supposed to say? "Sorry, Timmy, I know you have money and are trying to buy a ticket this very second, but someone else might want to go in 10 minutes, so we need to give them a chance. Before you..a person who's here...right now...."

Maybe it's because I gave up on going to anything larger than a store championship, but I don't see what the problem is. There's limited space. FFG knows better (much better) than you what they can handle/manage, so they set the rules. So...bummer...maybe next time? Sure, it sucks that there are a ton of rabid, deserving fans who can't go solely due to space constraints. But, there is the reality of what they are able to do, and this is it.

Its limited because of how they are running it. They ran 2 flights of 256 last year with same accommodations.

2 flights of 128, not 256. SO it is essentially the same amount of space as prior. The issue is the game has grown exponentially and more people are interested in playing at Worlds.

I think selling out in 4.2 seconds shows that this game has grown to a level they never expected.

Perhaps it's time to run an x-wing worlds event all by itself, so world (other games) week 1, worlds (x-wing) week 2.

Then run X-wing worlds: Standard and Epic, with 3 flights of 256 for standard and 128 for Epic. And a final day of the top cut's from each of the 3 flights.

Pretty sure even if they had 700+ spots open worlds x-wing would still sell out in under an hour.

-One of the disappointed who missed the cut.

I think selling out in 4.2 seconds shows that this game has grown to a level they never expected.

Perhaps it's time to run an x-wing worlds event all by itself, so world (other games) week 1, worlds (x-wing) week 2.

Then run X-wing worlds: Standard and Epic, with 3 flights of 256 for standard and 128 for Epic. And a final day of the top cut's from each of the 3 flights.

Pretty sure even if they had 700+ spots open worlds x-wing would still sell out in under an hour.

-One of the disappointed who missed the cut.

Holy Crap, the exaggeration in this thread is amazing. 4.2 Seconds? more like 35 Minutes. I had time enough to message a friend reminding him to register for the event and he got in around 12:15/20ish.

They probably should have increased the size, but realistically, trying to do all these worlds events in one weekend is really just not feasible, and that is doubly true if they have to run multiple flights for a single game.

I agree, they should probably split it up into Star Wars Worlds and then Everything Else Worlds and do them on different weeks. Then they could have X-Wing running most of the week concurrently with the other Star Wars Games with less issue. The reality is their OP/Tourney scene is growing much faster than the company is able to support, from my viewpoint.

The real question is at what point would even that not be enough? Honestly I think a better Idea might be to make Worlds an invite-only event and take the top x of each Regional/National, add in former worlds players, and be set. That way it would be a relatively static number each year, and there wouldn't be any registration, as it were, at all.

Last year was 2 flights of 128 and the second day wouldn't have been close to full if not for many players that didn't advance on day one trying again.

I think selling out in 4.2 seconds shows that this game has grown to a level they never expected.

Perhaps it's time to run an x-wing worlds event all by itself, so world (other games) week 1, worlds (x-wing) week 2.

Then run X-wing worlds: Standard and Epic, with 3 flights of 256 for standard and 128 for Epic. And a final day of the top cut's from each of the 3 flights.

Pretty sure even if they had 700+ spots open worlds x-wing would still sell out in under an hour.

-One of the disappointed who missed the cut.

Holy Crap, the exaggeration in this thread is amazing. 4.2 Seconds? more like 35 Minutes. I had time enough to message a friend reminding him to register for the event and he got in around 12:15/20ish.

They probably should have increased the size, but realistically, trying to do all these worlds events in one weekend is really just not feasible, and that is doubly true if they have to run multiple flights for a single game.

I agree, they should probably split it up into Star Wars Worlds and then Everything Else Worlds and do them on different weeks. Then they could have X-Wing running most of the week concurrently with the other Star Wars Games with less issue. The reality is their OP/Tourney scene is growing much faster than the company is able to support, from my viewpoint.

The real question is at what point would even that not be enough? Honestly I think a better Idea might be to make Worlds an invite-only event and take the top x of each Regional/National, add in former worlds players, and be set. That way it would be a relatively static number each year, and there wouldn't be any registration, as it were, at all.

Yes, I exaggerated to say 4.2 seconds... but 35 minutes is probably an number based more on their sh*tty registration process rather than the actual time it would have taken to sell out.

I like the idea of invites due to top X of regional/national events. Maybe do invite until a month before the event, and then open it up to open registration if any of the invitee spots are not yet confirmed.

Or maybe do like most events with uncertain attendance and open preregistration a month or two before the planning deadline. That way, you can use preregistration numbers to get a good idea of expected attendance, and plan accordingly.