Hello,

I am writing here to let everyone know of what has been for me a major dissatisfaction at the upcoming Austrian Regionals scheduled for the 4th of May.

On the 9th of April I contacted Frank Ksander, the tourney organizer, asking if the tourney was open to non-austrian players, the joining fee and the whereabout. The following day I got a reply by the tourney organizer stating that I'd have received full informations about the tourney in a day.

The 13th of April, after receiving no information, I promted for a reply asking if he knew who was coming to the tournament.

Four days passed without further reply until I prompted the T.O. again, stating I was in the process of booking my flights and lodging (see, I am not from Austria, but I like the game and I enjoy the odd tourney here and there).

Meanwhile, given the lack of answers, I tried to contact Wolfgang, a known austrian player, asking if he knew anything about the event, but he said he wasn't likely to attend and knew nothing more.

Yesterday (April 22) I received an e-mail from the event organizer stating that due to the fact that the prizes won't be available the tourney will be postponed to the 25th of May. Unfortunately all my flights and lodging have already been booked.

Now, I might be a tad too bummed about it, but I think this is a major blunder and makes for a really poor experience: the lack of communication by the event organizer was rather disconcerning, and the random date change which was not weighted against the inconvenience it would have brought to the players. Furthermore, while I agree that the prizes not being available might have not been the best news for the players at the tourney, there could have been different solutions (for example mailing the prizes). Really, I think the reschedule should have been only if there was an objective, serious cause to not play that day.

As a general observation, I think this paints the whole Regionals experience on a pretty shaky light. If tourneys announced for a month can be rescheduled with such an ease, there is almost no reason to put effort in participating. And to be honest, given how much there are claims that this game needs help, well, alienating players willing to make the effort to fly out for your tourneys doesn't seem the best idea to promote the game. Also, given the frequent moaning about the lack of players at events, one should expect some effort in run things smootly. Instead this is a prime example of why Cthulhu events are so ill attended.

To sum this up, while I think there is no direct responsability from FFG on all of this, I think there should be some effort to avoid such situations.

By the way, I've heard from other players, which might or might not chime in, that there have been no answers to their questions from other event organizers, so if you are a t.o., please do not be a douchebag and at least make an effort to make our tourney experience a pleasurable one.

Carioz said:

I agree, though, that what the Austrian host should have done is to ask the registered players about their preference, i.e. move the date or play without prize support which is what the Netherlands host did. However, this might still have had the same end result, since it's too late to cancel your booking.

Ouch, that sucks Carioz. It's too bad about the poor organizational skills of some has ruined the event. Maybe some in the Austrian meta can still get together to play with you so you can still make the trip, and maybe see some other sights as well?

@jhaelen: see the difference here is the Netherlands T.O. took steps to make sure the players could enjoy the tourney as much as it was possible, instead of just dumping the blame on "prizes not arriving" and make sure to work as little as possible.

On a side note, the ideal T.O. would have just mailed the prizes to the winners.

@Danigral: given the lack of communication I am encountering even in follow up e-mails I have doubts I can schedule anything in Vienna.

Carioz said:

E.g. today I finally received the first four Netrunner data packs. It's been quite impossible to get them any earlier. Occasionally they showed up in online shops but were either immediately sold out or simply didn't arrive, so they were removed from the shop after they got tired of waiting.

I wonder if FFG is having issues with their printers or just with their shipping? This is starting to remind me of the final days of TSR…

I just want to give my 2 cents on the discussion, since I am a bit disappointed too on the handling/managing of the regionals (at least outside US).

First, I have to say that the Netherlands/Amsterdam regional is cancelled, and I am deeply sorry for that.

There are problems on a few different levels, as far as I can see;

1- Lack of good communication/shipping with FFG: it has been very difficult/impossible to communicate or have information in time from FFG. This, per se, would not be a big problem, but the fact is that this particular problem directly affects a lot of other things (see below).

2- Player base: the player base is spread across Europe. That means, if I want to try to gather a bunch of players I HAVE TO communicate with them, and try to find a date to accomodat as many people as possible (notice: I started investigating this in January/February, hoping to give enough time to organize the trip to the players).

3- It is indeed possible to send the prizes by mail, but it is something I DO NOT want to do, and there are several reasons for that. First, it takes time, and in my current situation (I'm writing my PhD thesis) time is a big commodity for me Second, it costs money: even if I was able to have 12-15 players and make them pay 10 euro each (for a prize support that I find anyway NOT worth those 10 euro, but ok, this is my idea) I can barely cover the costs. Since shipping prizes would be due to FFG delay in sending them, I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to pay more for someone else fault. Things gets worse if less people show up. (2 years ago, in fact, I payed the full price for the regional kit and didn't ask anything from the players, because I think it was already too much they had to travel to come to a small tournament…but that's me, I guess).

4- Lack of organization/comunication between different regional TOs: I tried to contact the France/Belgium/German communities, got some answers but there was no real group organization behind (and that should be a goal to keep in mind, with such a small player base).

All together, this makes things very difficult to handle if one tries to do something which is useful and enjoyable to the entire player base. I have some ideas for future tournaments and how to organize them, but it will require some effort from TOs from all around Europe and I don't know how realistic is that.

Anyway, to conclude, my suggestions from experience are the following:

a) do not count on FFG for prize support. Try to find alternative ways to get it (or better: do not expect the prize support in time for your tournament. Collect any type of prize you can, from any source - game night kit, old regional prizes, various Cthulhu merchandise you can find - and use that for the tournament)

b) Ask to the player base for the tournament date, but do not try to accomodate the people. At some point, you just have to decide a day and do it on that day, regardless of who is coming or not (if I could go back, I would have done the tournament in April and that's it).

With that said, at this point I hope I can make it to some other regional, but I seriously doubt it ^^

cheers

Konx

As a side note, I received the prizes for the Italian regional one week after paying for them, so the "can't receive the prizes in time" looks even more strange. Oh and for those wondering, yeah, no answers from Franz Ksander on the two follow-up emails.