1 minute ago, kmanweiss said:

play devil's advocate.

Yeah, and I'm gonna tell ya it's a thin defense at best.

2 minutes ago, kmanweiss said:

If you try to space it out from holidays, you'd find it difficult to ever have it.

Oct 7-9 Columbus/Native American day, Oct 28-31 not an official holiday, but tied up with lots of family based Halloween stuff. November 10-12 Veteran's Day. November 23rd through 26 is Thanksgiving. December 23rd through December 25th is Xmas. December 30 through January 1st is new years. January 14-16 is Martin Luther King Jr weekend. Some of those are obviously larger than others in scope, but some that might not matter to you may be incredibly important to others.

bull. Straight up. Just follow the federal holiday calendar. Took me 30 seconds to look up the list it wouldn't take me more than an hour to schedule every event at least 7 days from a holiday. Done. Period.

http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/2017-federal-holidays

9 minutes ago, kmanweiss said:

And that's only the stuff that applies specifically to White Christians in the United States. If you consider this North American and included other religions or people of other ethnic cultures things get crazy. Do you disrespect the veterans by making them choose between VFW events and regional? Do you worry about Canadian Thanksgiving, or family members of Pearl Harbor survivors that travel to be part of the remembrance? How about Revolution day? What about the Chinese New Year? Hanukkah? Kwanza? Feast of Tabernacles? Who gets priority? Who's a bigger PR disaster?

Nope, don't even have to open this big nasty can of worms. Stick to the federal outline for holidays, and for the most part you're fine. Might lose a few people to Easter Sunday or some other religious crap, but then again, if FFG had any common sense they'd know better since it's ALWAYS on Sunday.

This isn't complicated stuff here.

14 minutes ago, kmanweiss said:

But FFG can't be expected to determine the best time and location for all the events around the globe, and doing so can open an entire new can of worms where they start butting heads with venues. (these 3 weekends work the best...too bad, we want THIS weekend...the store is closed that weekend due to store member getting married that day and all employees are part of the wedding party...too bad, that's the date)

Yes, they can. They make hand over fist off this game, and the games like it, they can spend a couple of hours at the beginning of every year figuring out which weekends are no good for which countries, it's not rocket science.

Weren't not talking about some obscure little hallmark holiday, we're talking about Thanksgiving weekend, literally in the top 3 "Important American Holidays". They can figure it the **** out.

18 minutes ago, kmanweiss said:

Beyond all that, I doubt your venue ONLY carries FFG stuff right? Perhaps other events are happening, or maybe the store would have staffing issues for other times. Who knows.

I know. I know because I'm the organizer. I wasn't allowed to be part of the regional registration process, and therefore didn't know what dates he had to choose from, or this freaking mistake would not have happened. He communicates with me directly with me about scheduling for these events because I run them and it makes him money. There's not conflict in staffing. No other events in the way.

20 minutes ago, kmanweiss said:

So they step back, accept the plausible deniability, and let the venues select the dates.

If that's the case, then again, FFG needs to get it's **** together.

That's a terrible way to handle a business.

39 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Sorry mate, as far as I'm concerned the majority should have rule here. The majority of players find a holiday weekend a outright **** time to schedule an event.

I contacted 3 major groups before we got our approval and asked whether they'd come, before the date was revealed, confirmed all yes. Now, I have 5 confirmed "no" and quite a few unanswered, from the looks of it. The entirety of the Columbus group won't be out. Many of the Cleveland area members are the ones confirmed "no" and I'm fairly certain the PA group, including @BiggsIRL and his guys are considering WV over OH because of the dates.

Like I have family I want to visit?

I am literally getting off of a 12 hr shift on Black Friday Overnight at the hospital, climbing into a friends car, and catching every moment of sleep I can so that we can go to Ohio AND WV. Such is my dedication to sniping a Regional... Er... The Armada community.

1 minute ago, BiggsIRL said:

Like I have family I want to visit?

I am literally getting off of a 12 hr shift on Black Friday Overnight at the hospital, climbing into a friends car, and catching every moment of sleep I can so that we can go to Ohio AND WV. Such is my dedication to sniping a Regional... Er... The Armada community.

That's actually a big relief. I've been listening to the Ohio groups frenzy about the dates. I still can't believe PA didn't get a store this year.

3 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

That's actually a big relief. I've been listening to the Ohio groups frenzy about the dates. I still can't believe PA didn't get a store this year.

Mr Nice Guys, the only store big enough, does not have an Armada community. They literally didn't even bother with a Store Champ this year.

Our local best (only) Armada game store Drawbridge Games has 4 tables. 6 if you used cardboard extenders on the 4x4 and set up a folding table. (We have)

On an unrelated note I also wanted to invade Detroit, but my work schedule is to chaotic to make it happen. Oh well.

26 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I know. I know because I'm the organizer. I wasn't allowed to be part of the regional registration process, and therefore didn't know what dates he had to choose from, or this freaking mistake would not have happened. He communicates with me directly with me about scheduling for these events because I run them and it makes him money. There's not conflict in staffing. No other events in the way.

The guidance from FFG on the date requirement was:

"Choose 3 Preferred dates, any Saturday between the middle of November and the End of March."

Because I was part of the process. That was all the advice stores were given. There was no statement of what dates FFG would prefer, only that you were to put in 3 dates, and they would vet and choose from amongst those 3 dates if you were granted one, in order to prevent scheduling conflicts.

That's it.

And I'm really sorry you feel so upset about this...

For me, I just wish there was more than one within a 12-15 hour drive that didn't cross an International Border. Since Myth Games is going to have a pretty low hard-cap on players (sub-20, I believe)... But at least they're not holding it until Feb...

... Hopefully the Roads will be unblocked by then.

59 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Sorry mate, as far as I'm concerned the majority should have rule here. The majority of players find a holiday weekend a outright **** time to schedule an event.

Well you are friendly.

I personally live in a town away from my family and away from my friends. In the UK we have bank holidays which are long weekends. Most go and spend these with friends and family. For me they are sometimes the most depressing when I reconsider whether it was worth prioritising a career this much.

This is thanksgiving we are talking about. I dont get the complaints. Be thankful that you have family to spend it with, time better spent than pushing plastic about. And be thankful that FFG are still there for those who are not, keeping regionals going so they dont have to be lonely at some of the loneliest times.

Why be upset about your good fortune?

Well, if we want to get angry, fine...

Over 41 million people in the US don't celebrate Thanksgiving in any sort of fashion. Countless more barely see it more than a long weekend to eat Turkey. On top of that, the holiday is on Thursday, the event isn't. I never travel for it. I'd love to have something to do that weekend.

I've seen first hand what happens when the game company forces venues to do things their way. Venues stop supporting that product, they stop having events. FFG left it up to the venue. Your venue choose poorly. It's on them, not FFG.

Going off federal holidays is almost nonsense. Labor day? Columbus day? Presidents day? These aren't exactly big event weekends, but they are holidays. Many venues would likely LOVE to have those weekends, but you're saying they should be off limits. Then there are weekends like Mother's Day and Easter that aren't Federal but have way more significance that Labor/Columbus/Presidents day. How about Valentines day falling on a Saturday? There are regional issues also where Columbus day could be REALLY big in one area, but not for the majority of people across the country.

This may be bad for you, it may be good for others. But as soon as FFG gets involved, it gets messy. Then you have a company supporting a certain set of days, several of which have little importance, over non-federally supported holidays which my be EXTREMELY relevant in a certain area.

Heck, it wasn't that long ago that there was a complaint similar to yours but it was about the event date NOT being on a holiday weekend. It was wedged between two holiday weekends and people were upset because they were traveling for those weekends and didn't want to/couldn't afford to travel for yet another weekend. Why the heck wasn't the event tied to one of those official holidays when everyone would be available? But in your mind all those people are just flat out wrong.

Keep in mind that they'd need to step in at that level across the globe, and know and understand the cultural importance of it around the world...or they could just let the vendors tell them when it's good. Which yours did...and they said Thanksgiving weekend.

Before anyone gives @Darth Sanguis any more of a hard time for being upset about this, I want to thank him for all of his hard work keeping the Ohio community engaged. I have heard about it second hand all the way out here in CA, and he get's a lot of credit in my book. I don't think the people like him and so many others (many of whom active on this board, general thanks to all of you too!) that take time out of their lives to sacrifice so others can know there is a day they can get together to push spaceships get enough credit because it doesn't seem like a major thing to those that just show up and play. But it's a huge investment of time and the burnout rate for volunteers doing that is unfortunately incredibly high.

I get you're upset Darth, and can totally see why. Sorry that this is going to cause you, as the guy helping to make it happen, to take time away from your family on a weekend you didn't particularly want to or even cause you to miss an important event in a game that you have worked so hard to support.

That said, I have to admit that I do think the way FFG has structured the dates, allowing the local vendors with direct contact to clientele choose the dates, is still overall the best one (or perhaps, least flawed would be a better way to put it?), but it doesn't change the fact that when stores are shortsighted and do stuff like this it sucks.

1 minute ago, BrobaFett said:

Before anyone gives @Darth Sanguis any more of a hard time for being upset about this, I want to thank him for all of his hard work keeping the Ohio community engaged. I have heard about it second hand all the way out here in CA, and he get's a lot of credit in my book. I don't think the people like him and so many others (many of whom active on this board, general thanks to all of you too!) that take time out of their lives to sacrifice so others can know there is a day they can get together to push spaceships get enough credit because it doesn't seem like a major thing to those that just show up and play. But it's a huge investment of time and the burnout rate for volunteers doing that is unfortunately incredibly high.

I get you're upset Darth, and can totally see why. Sorry that this is going to cause you, as the guy helping to make it happen, to take time away from your family on a weekend you didn't particularly want to or even cause you to miss an important event in a game that you have worked so hard to support.

That said, I have to admit that I do think the way FFG has structured the dates, allowing the local vendors with direct contact to clientele choose the dates, is still overall the best one (or perhaps, least flawed would be a better way to put it?), but it doesn't change the fact that when stores are shortsighted and do stuff like this it sucks.

Thanks man.

Maybe that's just it for me. I mean, I really fought to keep people interested after Rodney moved (say "Hi" to him for me the next time you see him lol). There was a point when it was just 2-3 people. I've reached out on here, on facebook, I've run I literally can't even count how many demos to get new players, hosted quarterly kits, ran store championships.... to have all that work get screwed over by what is, let's be honest, lazy (at best) scheduling. It's not great. Would it have been so hard for someone at FFG to say, "hey, maybe we shouldn't use this date.... it Thanksgiving, it's gonna lose them participation"? Is this not a common sense issue here?

Or at the very least had some dialogue with the owner?

Part of all my anger has to do with the general lack of investment FFG seems to have towards Armada in whole. They just don't seem to give a ****.

@Darth Sanguis may i ask where out of ohio do you play? Ive been wondering whos got a decent community in the north east.

All of the women in my family are out the door by 6:30 pm on thanksgiving day to go shopping and don’t come back until Friday afternoon and then they go straight to bed. I guess I don’t really consider it much of a holiday other than to eat a lot and to watch a few football games and enjoy the freedom of all females being out of the house for a whole evening. I find more enjoyment in the time with my other relatives for a few hours I guess but by 6pm I’m ready to leave and get to see them again next year. Lol

I'm with @Darth Sanguis on this. Ik @Drasnighta is trying to defend FFG and their policies, but quite frankly, this round of regionals is awful because FFG is giving so much freedom to the stores. Dates should be blacklisted, tournaments should be spread apart so players can make it to multiple regionals if they wish, and FFG should be doing more to promote their product. I think there are less tournaments than last year, which is not good for the state of the game.

If we want to look at the bottom line, if the stores that have tournaments around holidays do not get the numbers to make a profit, I don't see why they would hold another tournament or support Armada. This in turn cuts into FFG's profit on Armada, which in turn hurts literally everyone who plays Armada. Just like Darth Sanguis said, the tournaments are what move product. If FFG isn't going to try and organize Armada tournaments, I don't see how this game will continue to survive.

Honestly, they don't have to do a whole lot. Stores have almost 4 months to schedule, which is about 10 Saturdays, without me looking at the upcoming calendar, for tournaments to be run. 50 states means 5 tournaments a weekend, and have FFG stagger the tournaments so people on the East coast can go to multiple tournaments, and the West coast can do the same, etc, etc. FFG should be more proactive and find stores that sell a lot of Armada product. Pretty sure that's easy to track by checking POs. Ask them if they want to hold a tournament. If not, they should check local stores because clearly people are playing Armada in the area. I don't have any experience in marketing or advertising, but this seems like a no-brainer to me.

Just now, Undeadguy said:

Pretty sure that's easy to track by checking POs

You might be surprised how utterly incompetent some people are in this kind of basic analytics...

1 minute ago, Ardaedhel said:

You might be surprised how utterly incompetent some people are in this kind of basic analytics...

I for one am never surprised by the utter incompetence of people.

Just now, Megatronrex said:

I for one am never surprised by the utter incompetence of people.

I always think that, and then they find a way to surprise me anyway.

1 minute ago, BrobaFett said:

I always think that, and then they find a way to surprise me anyway.

I am so ready for our robot overlords. Bring on Skynet.

19 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

I'm with @Darth Sanguis on this. Ik @Drasnighta is trying to defend FFG and their policies, but quite frankly, this round of regionals is awful because FFG is giving so much freedom to the stores. Dates should be blacklisted, tournaments should be spread apart so players can make it to multiple regionals if they wish, and FFG should be doing more to promote their product. I think there are less tournaments than last year, which is not good for the state of the game.

If we want to look at the bottom line, if the stores that have tournaments around holidays do not get the numbers to make a profit, I don't see why they would hold another tournament or support Armada. This in turn cuts into FFG's profit on Armada, which in turn hurts literally everyone who plays Armada. Just like Darth Sanguis said, the tournaments are what move product. If FFG isn't going to try and organize Armada tournaments, I don't see how this game will continue to survive.

[...]

Stores have almost 4 months to schedule, which is about 10 Saturdays,

I think the issue here falls with the store. 10 Saturdays, and they choose the least profitable one? FFG cannot be blamed for their poor choice. Especially when the Saturday that doesn't work for one may work for another. Instead of arbitrarily assigning dates and hoping it doesn't inconvenience a lot of people, let the stores pick what is best for their local community (and hence profits). If the store is incapable of doing that, FFG ought not to be blamed.

25 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

I think the issue here falls with the store. 10 Saturdays, and they choose the least profitable one? FFG cannot be blamed for their poor choice. Especially when the Saturday that doesn't work for one may work for another. Instead of arbitrarily assigning dates and hoping it doesn't inconvenience a lot of people, let the stores pick what is best for their local community (and hence profits). If the store is incapable of doing that, FFG ought not to be blamed.

Guess we have to wait and see what the turn out is.

34 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

You might be surprised how utterly incompetent some people are in this kind of basic analytics...

I mean, I think it's easy because I do it. Falls under my "other duties as required" clause in my contract

Just need to be organized.

@Darth Sanguis I disagree with your position about where scheduling responsibilities should lie, but I really respect your passion for the game and the community. I sincerely hope this isn’t “it” for you.

I’ll be at the MI regional (I’m local), but I’m now planning on coming down to Ohio as well just to bolster your numbers and get another game in. It’s only three hours from me to you, I did it spontaneously when a friend in cuyahoga falls had an emergency once. I look forward to meeting you.

Added bonus: I am genuinely terrible, so playing against me should help the general morale of the Ohio community

8 hours ago, kmanweiss said:

I'm not saying your wrong here, just want to play devil's advocate.

If you try to space it out from holidays, you'd find it difficult to ever have it.

Oct 7-9 Columbus/Native American day, Oct 28-31 not an official holiday, but tied up with lots of family based Halloween stuff. November 10-12 Veteran's Day. November 23rd through 26 is Thanksgiving. December 23rd through December 25th is Xmas. December 30 through January 1st is new years. January 14-16 is Martin Luther King Jr weekend. Some of those are obviously larger than others in scope, but some that might not matter to you may be incredibly important to others.

And that's only the stuff that applies specifically to White Christians in the United States. If you consider this North American and included other religions or people of other ethnic cultures things get crazy. Do you disrespect the veterans by making them choose between VFW events and regional? Do you worry about Canadian Thanksgiving, or family members of Pearl Harbor survivors that travel to be part of the remembrance? How about Revolution day? What about the Chinese New Year? Hanukkah? Kwanza? Feast of Tabernacles? Who gets priority? Who's a bigger PR disaster?

Should FFG be studying the diverse historical background of each area where events happen to try to decide what cultures to offend with their timing and placement of events?

Again, I'm not saying your wrong. It seems like a poor choice of weekends to me also. But FFG can't be expected to determine the best time and location for all the events around the globe, and doing so can open an entire new can of worms where they start butting heads with venues. (these 3 weekends work the best...too bad, we want THIS weekend...the store is closed that weekend due to store member getting married that day and all employees are part of the wedding party...too bad, that's the date)

Beyond all that, I doubt your venue ONLY carries FFG stuff right? Perhaps other events are happening, or maybe the store would have staffing issues for other times. Who knows.

Basically, it's a complicated mess for FFG to be any more involved than they are. So they step back, accept the plausible deniability, and let the venues select the dates.

Lets stop a moment and examine your arguments. That's actually important in this case, because I agree with you on something unimportant: American (as ka USA) holidays have some incredibly awkward traditions.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are perhaps the ultimate American Tradition holidays, which is kinda funny because Christmas was a heathen old world custom until the early 19th century. Now, they are the two holidays that represent American dedication to family, friends and community. That's where this issue is really coming from.

Our national Independence Day is the national "get drunk and burn meat" holiday, just like we celebrate other independence and national heritage days (4th of July, Cinco de Mayo, St Patrick's Day, Chinese New Year, Oktoberfest etc).

Memorial Day is only a thing if you're am actual veteran.

Labor Day might be a thing if you're a union rep and up for election.

Veterans Day is a random 3 da weekend, unless you live in Hawaii or have a grandfather who fought in the Pacific theater, in which case no acknowledgement but a beer and a nod is sufficient. There are fewer than a hundred survivors of Pearl Harbor, which is what we're really acknowledging.

Presidents day is either the day we swear in a new one, or go buy a mattress. Maybe both.

Boxing Day is the day we acknowledge we don't have butlers because we're all poor.

I read through some of this, I know it is rough, but 3 other guys and myself are climbing into the car on 11/25 at about 4 or 5 to drive from Reno to San Jose. It is not optimal, but we are doing it for the chance. If it were any other weekend, we might have had 2 or 3 more players. It is a sacrifice, but all things considered, it is 2 days after the Holiday. My wife is fine with it since most of us will be over family by that time anyway and we have a life to live.

29 minutes ago, Mig1921 said:

I read through some of this, I know it is rough, but 3 other guys and myself are climbing into the car on 11/25 at about 4 or 5 to drive from Reno to San Jose. It is not optimal, but we are doing it for the chance. If it were any other weekend, we might have had 2 or 3 more players. It is a sacrifice, but all things considered, it is 2 days after the Holiday. My wife is fine with it since most of us will be over family by that time anyway and we have a life to live.

Listen, this isn't a attempt to brag but I'm one of the guy who's actively working to bridge our groups. I'm going to be there after trading several favors around. With a bit of luck, several of us will be waiting to challenge you.

I'm really happy that the Reno crew is going to be represented. I am. But your players have come at the cost of at least 6 of the most prolific and consistent Armada players more locally who can't attend. This isn't even about local vs regional or national. This is about a net 2 player drop, 2 players who are critical to our local scene. God willing it stays that limited.

Shortly into January we have another 3 day American weekend with Presidents Day and MLK day. Plenty of events could and will occur that weekend. This would have been a great opportunity, announced well in advance, for a tournament. And I bet most of your players could have attended with a bit of hard work to get time off.

And by the way, we're really anticipating rolling out the bloodstained red carpet for you lot. Do you realize how starved we are for fresh, succulent meat? I don't think I've clubbed a baby seal to death since August and nobody has tried my bounty yet.