1 hour ago, Makaze said:

, but this is worlds not just anyone should be able to compete.

I think anyone should be able to compete ala World Series of Poker. FFG needs to increase facilities to accomodate.

How can anyone say they are the best in the world when it was a **** lottery system of competitors? That is like the nba playoffs being randomly selected and the warriors and cavs are not chosen. Is the team that wins that system the best team in the league - world champions?

I got in, and IMO it's a B***S*** system. Scrubs like me that can't even top a Regionals shouldn't be getting invites over players that did well in last years worlds or players that just won a System Open!

IMO, if they want to do a lottery system, they should allocate a percentage of the slots for that, like maybe 50-100. So that way we know that 75% or so of the field are players that have actually proven their mettle in the past, and then a small percentage of the field are randos that will get farmed for MOV by the lucky players that get paired against them.

On 2018-02-24 at 8:14 PM, tortugatron said:

That doesn’t have anything to do with it. As long as your internet is reliable, you’re fine.

If you have access to the internet as the ticket sale starts. You know, there are quite a number of jobs where you cannot or are not allowed to use internet access. Similarly, if you are asleep, as you work e.g. night shift or are in another time zone .

Esp the latter, World's is world's by name only, it's more like US.

Let's face it; Worlds may have the title of "Worlds" but coruscant is the ture worlds for the creme dela creme.

3 hours ago, Managarmr said:

If you have access to the internet as the ticket sale starts. You know, there are quite a number of jobs where you cannot or are not allowed to use internet access. Similarly, if you are asleep, as you work e.g. night shift or are in another time zone .

Esp the latter, World's is world's by name only, it's more like US.

Just plan better? Go take a bathroom break and get on your phone. Wake up at night then take a nap later. Call in sick? I know I’d do what it takes to sign up...

I asked if Joel Andrew or I could trade our extra Corascant invites for a world invite. Was rejected

man I want those templates though.

Also yes, if it is done at the right time the US can take their lunch break Europe is at home and Australia is already waking up which covers the vast majority of the player base.

For example: 2PM CST (minnesota) is 9pm in Berlin and 7 am in Melbourne

Last year they also had a variety of sign-up times. I think it ended up being 4 in total?

35 minutes ago, AlexW said:

Last year they also had a variety of sign-up times. I think it ended up being 4 in total?

I think it was 3.

Just now, tortugatron said:

I think it was 3.

I think that was what was scheduled but think they added one more for tickets that weren't claimed? I could be blending the wrong years.

20 minutes ago, AlexW said:

I think that was what was scheduled but think they added one more for tickets that weren't claimed? I could be blending the wrong years.

Who knows. Either way there was a wide difference in signup times.

14 minutes ago, tortugatron said:

Who knows. Either way there was a wide difference in signup times.

yea the issue last year wasn't the sign ups. It was the terrible service that they used to do the sign ups

17 minutes ago, Timathius said:

yea the issue last year wasn't the sign ups. It was the terrible service that they used to do the sign ups

Better than the service they used the year before... :/

I think a lottery system is probably the most fair, but I think it could be implemented much better. Having spots set aside for regional winners, allotments for international players, and having players rank the events they wish to attend in order of preference.

But what I really don't understand is why all of a sudden people are saying this format waters down the competition. True, the system doesn't give preference to the best players in the world, but neither did their previous methods. Was there something about clicking refresh until you're in that gave an advantage to good players? No. It gave advantage to players who had an opportunity to register within a narrow window, but that doesn't select good players vs bad ones. So what gives?

If people are already to put an asterisk next to this year's winner's victory, then it should've been applied to all the previous wins as well for literally the exact same reason.

4 minutes ago, Sekac said:

I think a lottery system is probably the most fair, but I think it could be implemented much better. Having spots set aside for regional winners, allotments for international players, and having players rank the events they wish to attend in order of preference.

But what I really don't understand is why all of a sudden people are saying this format waters down the competition. True, the system doesn't give preference to the best players in the world, but neither did their previous methods. Was there something about clicking refresh until you're in that gave an advantage to good players? No. It gave advantage to players who had an opportunity to register within a narrow window, but that doesn't select good players vs bad ones. So what gives?

If people are already to put an asterisk next to this year's winner's victory, then it should've been applied to all the previous wins as well for literally the exact same reason.

You should reread this thread.

3 minutes ago, tortugatron said:

You should reread this thread.

Okay, done.

I stand by my comments.

There's no reason to believe that one method of arbitrarily selecting attendees will result result in a more "watered down field" than another arbitrary method.

23 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Okay, done.

I stand by my comments.

There's no reason to believe that one method of arbitrarily selecting attendees will result result in a more "watered down field" than another arbitrary method.

Exactly. This whole idea of “only the hardcore are going to sit there and hit refresh and therefore they are the best players” is utter garbage.

4 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

Exactly. This whole idea of “only the hardcore are going to sit there and hit refresh and therefore they are the best players” is utter garbage.

It’s actully not.

42 minutes ago, Sekac said:

There's no reason to believe that one method of arbitrarily selecting attendees will result result in a more "watered down field" than another arbitrary method.

This game take a lot of practice to be good at. And, while certainly not 100%, there's a strong correlation between the people who prioritize X-wing enough to put in that time and the people who set an alarm and hit refresh a bunch in years past. The old system sucked, no doubt, it also had arbitrary elements to it and that's part of what people were complaining about. But it was not entirely arbitrary, this year is.

26 minutes ago, Makaze said:

This game take a lot of practice to be good at. And, while certainly not 100%, there's a strong correlation between the people who prioritize X-wing enough to put in that time and the people who set an alarm and hit refresh a bunch in years past

Is there, though?

What is the correlation?

How do you know there's a correlation? Gut feeling? Anecdotal evidence? Empirical study?

4 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Is there, though?

What is the correlation?

How do you know there's a correlation? Gut feeling? Anecdotal evidence? Empirical study?

Really...? Are you asking if I've done a rigorous scientific investigation and multi variate analysis, obviously not. But do you honestly think that, on average, someone who occasionally plays kitchen table x-wing casually is going to be as diligent about logging on at a specific time to get tickets vs. someone that travels to multiple large events and not just plays but actively practices multiple times a week? Or are you just being pedantic?

19 minutes ago, Makaze said:

Really...? Are you asking if I've done a rigorous scientific investigation and multi variate analysis, obviously not. But do you honestly think that, on average, someone who occasionally plays kitchen table x-wing casually is going to be as diligent about logging on at a specific time to get tickets vs. someone that travels to multiple large events and not just plays but actively practices multiple times a week? Or are you just being pedantic?

Do you really think “Kitchen Table” players are going to spend $80 on a ticket, $350 on a flight, $200 on a hotel?

11 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

Do you really think “Kitchen Table” players are going to spend $80 on a ticket, $350 on a flight, $200 on a hotel?

Most of them? No, certainly not. But there are a heck of a lot of casual X-wing players. Plus my supposition was that, again on average, the more dedicated the player the more likely they were to set aside the time to nab a ticket in years past. That extends past just the kitchen table crowd up through the store players, the hardcore, and on up through the people that attend multiple regionals. With each successive group spending more time on the game and therefore being both more skilled and more likely to get a ticket under the old system.

But if you want to approach it from a different angle look at the number of high level players from the top 50 who were there last year but won't be there this year (Howard, Foss, Farmer, etc.). If both systems are equally arbitrary and there's no correlation at all then how is that occurring? Did that just magically happen or did the change in ticketing system cause it?

36 minutes ago, Makaze said:

Or are you just being pedantic?

I don't think asking what you're basing your assumptions on is pedantic, I think it's a fair question.

Based on your answer, I think we can rule out the 3rd option and narrow it down to probably a mix of gut feeling and anecdotes from frustrated players. Not a great basis for impuning the quality of competition for an event that hasn't released all of its tickets yet and hasn't actually occurred.

If, say, Paul Heaver wins it again (no idea if he made it in or not, but just as an example), will we chalk it up to the poor quality of the field? Probably not. Or is our preemptive dismissal of the victor just put in place in case some no-name "scrub" from Singapore wins it?

Without doing my own empirical study, I can only speculate that the vast majority of Worlds participants are middling players, with only a small minority of "true contenders." My hunch is that will be true of this year's event as well.

Personally, I think the right way to handle it is to see what actually happens before we make declarations about what the quality of competition was.

Or maybe I am just being pedantic.

Just now, Sekac said:

I don't think asking what you're basing your assumptions on is pedantic, I think it's a fair question.

Based on your answer, I think we can rule out the 3rd option and narrow it down to probably a mix of gut feeling and anecdotes from frustrated players. Not a great basis for impuning the quality of competition for an event that hasn't released all of its tickets yet and hasn't actually occurred.

If, say, Paul Heaver wins it again (no idea if he made it in or not, but just as an example), will we chalk it up to the poor quality of the field? Probably not. Or is our preemptive dismissal of the victor just put in place in case some no-name "scrub" from Singapore wins it?

Without doing my own empirical study, I can only speculate that the vast majority of Worlds participants are middling players, with only a small minority of "true contenders." My hunch is that will be true of this year's event as well.

Personally, I think the right way to handle it is to see what actually happens before we make declarations about what the quality of competition was.

Or maybe I am just being pedantic.

The problem is that if Paul (I haven't heard about him specifically yet either) isn't attending then that absolutely straight up puts a massive asterisk on the event.

As for some scrub from Singapore, that's a rather ironic thing to say given the actual situation. The reality is that we don't know how many tickets will be released in the followup lottery and there's a chance that some of the currently out in the cold US based players will be able to get in. But many of the international players simply can't afford to book vacation time, lodging, and especially flights on such short notice. So it's actually international talent that's being most hurt the most by this change.

And you're absolutely correct about worlds typically being a good chunk of middling players with a smaller group of real heavy weights. The issue is that that group of heavy weights is going to be proportionally smaller this year.

17 minutes ago, Makaze said:

The problem is that if Paul (I haven't heard about him specifically yet either) isn't attending then that absolutely straight up puts a massive asterisk on the event.

Sure. But shouldn't we also put asterisks on Paul's wins when Nand wasn't there? Is there an asterisk on Nand's win when Justin wasn't there?

Worlds has never been a competition of the best of best. It's a competition of those willing to jump through hoops and able and willing to pay.