2 hours ago, Oli_186th said:There is DEFINITELY a difference in reactions and analysis. This might be a little cultural, not sure, but the american podcast pages have been really really salt filled recently. I'm confused as to why because we are probably in the most open meta ever.
Not just the podcasts either; just look at the OTT reaction to the latest news article.
4 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:Not just the podcasts either; just look at the OTT reaction to the latest news article.
Negative does not mean "over the top." Sure, there are a couple people worried about a QD nerf but it seems that leveler heads have prevailed. And, is it surprising considering the tone they took in the difference between the US and European Opens that weekend?
As for the salt on the podcasts, it's true that I think the three most well-known have been full of it lately, but a couple of them have had some interconnectedness, including the same guests to some extent. There are another 4-5 podcasts that don't have that same feel (Barons, Radio TCX). How many prominent podcasts does Europe have? I have no idea because they don't tend to advertise here.
Edited by AlexWActually.... Singapore on top
all hail world champ, Mr. Phua!
....at least for the rest of April.
8 hours ago, AlexW said:How many prominent podcasts does Europe have? I have no idea because they don't tend to advertise here.
I would advise checking out http://www.186th.org for our podcast 
or even https://suchanxwinghipster.wordpress.com if you're looking for good, regular European material 
(All about the self promotion !)
Edited by Oli_186th1 hour ago, Oli_186th said:I would advise checking out http://www.186th.org for our podcast
(All about the self promotion !)
Shamelessness is truly life's greatest skill ♥
On 3/31/2018 at 12:32 PM, FTS Gecko said:Not just the podcasts either; just look at the OTT reaction to the latest news article.
Given the content of that article, I don't think the reactions were surprising.
That article provides no new information (the results of those tournaments have been all over the forums and Facebook for a while) and, regardless of whether that was actually the intent, it does leave the impression FFG is trying to sweep some meta issues under the rug/pretend everything is fine. I'm.genuinely puzzled why somebody at FFG.expected something good out of publishing it.
1 hour ago, LordBlades said:That article provides no new information (the results of those tournaments have been all over the forums and Facebook for a while) and, regardless of whether that was actually the intent, it does leave the impression FFG is trying to sweep some meta issues under the rug/pretend everything is fine. I'm.genuinely puzzled why somebody at FFG.expected something good out of publishing it.
Who said it was supposed to provide any new information? It was a recap of the weekend's System Open events - nothing more than that. nothing less than that. It followed the format of the previous System Open recap: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/2/22/cracking-the-metagame
...which, by the way never generated anywhere near as much faux indignation and outrage as the latest article did.
I'm genuinely puzzled as to why so many forumgoers have apparently decided to jump on the hatewagon for what was essentially a review of two big Organised Play events.
Edited by FTS Gecko1 hour ago, FTS Gecko said:Who said it was supposed to provide any new information? It was a recap of the weekend's System Open events - nothing more than that. nothing less than that. It followed the format of the previous System Open recap: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/2/22/cracking-the-metagame
...which, by the way never generated anywhere near as much faux indignation and outrage as the latest article did.
I'm genuinely puzzled as to why so many forumgoers have apparently decided to jump on the hatewagon for what was essentially a review of two big Organised Play events.
I missed the previous article for some reason, so.I judged this as a stand-alone piece and not part of a series.
As such, the vibe I got after reading it was 'let's not talk about the fact that Rebels are dominating left&right, instead let's talk a lot about this one tournament where they didn't'.
15 minutes ago, LordBlades said:I missed the previous article for some reason, so.I judged this as a stand-alone piece and not part of a series.
As such, the vibe I got after reading it was 'let's not talk about the fact that Rebels are dominating left&right, instead let's talk a lot about this one tournament where they didn't'.
Yeah, I think most people did. This one got highlighted and posted in a lot of other places.
A little late but before anyone makes a huge deal about how wildly different the meta in Europe is, Birmingham had in the top 54 had 6 Palp Aces, 5 trip imp aces, 5 Ghost/Fenn, 4 Nymranda, and a collection of other Meta staples like Assaj and Rey at 2-3x with at last count more than 10 lists missing of the top 54. Probably don’t want to draw too many conclusions from just the top 8 of the 54 person cut one way or another.
Well I am from Serbia (not Siberia, a common mistake), in Europe, and a couple of us have travelled by car to Regionals in Romania, 18 hours round trip. To SOS in Krakow, 20 hours round trip. To Hungary, 10 hours round trip, and we consider it being very close. I've travelled to Greece, Spain And Czech Republic by plane. And we all have jobs, families, other regular obligations. It costs us significantly, less if we pack more people in the car, but to Romania only two of us went. And we have tournaments here in Serbia as well.
We have 20-25 days off of work annualy. We usually take only friday for the day off work if go to the tournament abroad.
In other words, it is an individual dedication that counts, not the distance. All of you can take one day free, it is only a question if you will. X-Wing makes us happy, that is why we dedicate our time and money.
If a 3-4 hours round trip is too much for you, well, you really are not that much into X-Wing in the first place IMO.
2 hours ago, Jagos said:Well I am from Serbia (not Siberia, a common mistake), in Europe, and a couple of us have travelled by car to Regionals in Romania, 18 hours round trip. To SOS in Krakow, 20 hours round trip. To Hungary, 10 hours round trip, and we consider it being very close. I've travelled to Greece, Spain And Czech Republic by plane. And we all have jobs, families, other regular obligations. It costs us significantly, less if we pack more people in the car, but to Romania only two of us went. And we have tournaments here in Serbia as well.
We have 20-25 days off of work annualy. We usually take only friday for the day off work if go to the tournament abroad.
In other words, it is an individual dedication that counts, not the distance. All of you can take one day free, it is only a question if you will. X-Wing makes us happy, that is why we dedicate our time and money.
If a 3-4 hours round trip is too much for you, well, you really are not that much into X-Wing in the first place IMO.
Congrats on your dedication and the amount of time you can spend playing X-wing. I wish I could.
Do you think most people in Europe are taking multiple 18-20 hour round trips to tournaments and that US players aren't as willing? Ironically, that would point to European players taking X-wing much more seriously, which is kind of the opposite of the OP. I'm sure there are US players that do that as well. That's not really what most people are saying, nor are they saying a 3-4 hour round trip is too much.
Not sure where that number (3-4 hours) came from, though at one point I pointed out that most US players are lucky to have one regional within a 5-hour drive (10 hour round trip) and very unlikely to have multiple large tourneys within that range. It's also that European players, generally, don't actually have make that same commitment as often as US players to attend multiple tournaments and that helps to account for larger turnouts.
My point was that once you reach a certain time/distance it becomes a significantly larger commitment, both in terms of time and money. That threshold is hit much more quickly and often in the US if one wants to go to multiple large tourneys. I don't know what to tell you if you think that has no affect on attendance.
Edited by AlexWIn my opinion, Europe is easy to travel. If you live in or near a decently-sized city (anything with an airport) you can be anywhere within half a day of leaving your home (most flight go for 1.5-3 hours, depending on destination). Prices are also quite affordable (150-200 euro with a good airline, going as low as 40-50 euro with a low-cost airline booked a few months before for a round trip). Additionally, it seems to me many young and middle-aged Europeans are used to travel (every large city I've been in was quite packed with tourists and most flights I've been on have been quite full).
The ease of travel is dependant on the income, so it is not that easy for many of us here in Europe as well. As you said, one has to commit.
Speaking of distance, I was really not aware that for most players in US it is the case that they should consider themselves lucky if there is a regionals tourney within 5 hours drive, one way. That sucks big time. I thought that most players are located in reasonably large cities, and that they have stores there, and as such have regionals. But it seems I am wrong so sorry for the assumption.
To be fair, it's not always easy to get to Regionals in the UK either (especially when they sell out 120+ places in under 24 hours...)
18 hours ago, Jagos said:Well I am from Serbia (not Siberia, a common mistake)
Hahaha, @Jagos you made my day 
See you in Italy, or in Croatia or whatever!
On 31/03/2018 at 11:32 AM, FTS Gecko said:Not just the podcasts either; just look at the OTT reaction to the latest news article.
It’s easy to conflate the opinions of the small, vocal online community with those of the masses. Me have less podcasts in Europe ( or at least less well known/regarded) and those we have are still positive about the game as a whole.
Listening to the top 3-4 US centred podcasts you would think that the game is dying on its **** and attendances are plummeting. We in Europe know that this perception is demonstrably false.
This constant drudgery is why I’ve cancelled my podbean subscriptions to Mynock, Krayt and Gold Squadron.
1 hour ago, Dreadai said:Listening to the top 3-4 US centred podcasts you would think that the game is dying on its **** and attendances are plummeting. We in Europe know that this perception is demonstrably false.
I wonder if there's some cultural difference here. In the heights of negativity, the game was dying and turnouts were non existent. We went from having 10+ people on weekly nights to between 1 and 3.
That was the height of nym, though, things have gotten better attendance wise. At least locally now it's been slowly "recovering"
Edit: Forgot the original point. At least around here, the negativity/exodus happened in person long before it was online
Edited by Brunas5 minutes ago, Brunas said:I wonder if there's some cultural difference here. In the heights of negativity, the game was dying and turnouts were non existent. We went from having 10+ people on weekly nights to between 1 and 3.
That was the height of nym, though, things have gotten better attendance wise. At least locally now it's been slowly "recovering"
There may be cultural differences to consider, but it’s not an American vs. European thing. Some communities in my area pushed through times of negativity with minimal player drop off. I think it had more to do with individual wants and expectations.
6 minutes ago, SabineKey said:There may be cultural differences to consider, but it’s not an American vs. European thing. Some communities in my area pushed through times of negativity with minimal player drop off. I think it had more to do with individual wants and expectations.
Yeah, cultural differences is the wrong phrase for sure.
7 hours ago, Jagos said:The ease of travel is dependant on the income, so it is not that easy for many of us here in Europe as well. As you said, one has to commit.
Speaking of distance, I was really not aware that for most players in US it is the case that they should consider themselves lucky if there is a regionals tourney within 5 hours drive, one way. That sucks big time. I thought that most players are located in reasonably large cities, and that they have stores there, and as such have regionals. But it seems I am wrong so sorry for the assumption.
It's true that a lot of players are located in big cities, but those big cities are far apart, so if there's not one in your town, you have a drive ahead of you. That said, I really meant "more than one" within 5 hours (though you can see by this map there are large a lot of decent sized cities that have much further to go than that). I think that we probably lose a lot of rural X-wing players because they can be pretty far afield of any X-wing regional.
2 hours ago, Brunas said:I wonder if there's some cultural difference here. In the heights of negativity, the game was dying and turnouts were non existent. We went from having 10+ people on weekly nights to between 1 and 3.
That was the height of nym, though, things have gotten better attendance wise. At least locally now it's been slowly "recovering"
Edit: Forgot the original point. At least around here, the negativity/exodus happened in person long before it was online
A difference in expectation or in mentality. A lot of folk go to tournaments in the UK to have fun, see friends, and hey , maybe win some stuff.
There is a small hyper competitive element of course, but there seems to be very little of journeyman players bringing the latest power list and hoping to auto pilot it to victory.
3 hours ago, AlexW said:It's true that a lot of players are located in big cities, but those big cities are far apart, so if there's not one in your town, you have a drive ahead of you. That said, I really meant "more than one" within 5 hours (though you can see by this map there are large a lot of decent sized cities that have much further to go than that). I think that we probably lose a lot of rural X-wing players because they can be pretty far afield of any X-wing regional.
As someone in the Dallas area, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US, that map makes me sad again at this regional season.
Makes total sense to me; X-Wing is a European game after all.
Cheers
Baaa
On 4/2/2018 at 12:37 PM, AlexW said:It's true that a lot of players are located in big cities, but those big cities are far apart, so if there's not one in your town, you have a drive ahead of you. That said, I really meant "more than one" within 5 hours (though you can see by this map there are large a lot of decent sized cities that have much further to go than that). I think that we probably lose a lot of rural X-wing players because they can be pretty far afield of any X-wing regional.
Pull up that map and look at the three closest to me. The nearest is 1:45 away according to Google Maps granted I don't know how well it accounts for winter driving. From there one is supposedly just under 5 hours away (winter driving again) and a third says 4:13 to 4:57 depending on the route taken. The one in the Twin Cities would almost be doable as a round trip for the day unless of course one happens to make the cut and is thus playing into the wee hours. The next two are pretty much out of it as far as a "quick" round trip is concerned. Now all three of these happen to have room for 120 but that doesn't look to be too common and if they fill up how many rounds it that before how large a cut?
The other "wonderful" thing about living out in the country is that you may not have an easy time getting any kind of group together to share those long haul trips and if you do then you could easily be adding in a bunch more "meetup" time and expense.