What Is the Plugged-in Tour?

By Lomiat, in The Plugged-in Tour

If all of the feedback for this thing is negative, you can be **** sure FFG will never have something like this on a global scale. This is a test run, let them see how it goes on a small scale before getting so angry.

Full Disclosure: One of the events is being run in my FLGS but I promise you my response would have been the same even if this was happening halfway around the world

Ditto.

Holding a tournament? Awesome.

Getting to meet the development team? Super awesome!

The ID voting? Dumb!

It sucks that there's been R&D for an ID that's just going to get thrown away. That's a waste. Am I going to participate in the tournament, if I can? Hell yes! The reason for that is not because I want to vote for my favorite ID, though...it's because it's a Netrunner tournament. I might be a little sad if my favorite doesn't win, but it's not that big of a deal for me. That's why I don't think I would feel differently if I lived in a region where there was no tournament. I have more IDs than I know what to do with already. I haven't even started making decks for the Creation & Control IDs yet, and we're gonna have Reina Roja in a month or two. They're producing IDs faster than I can make decks for them.

Edited by skwizzle

What they should've done is have the hobby stores organize the tourneys and post the votes with FFG. That being said, they should have created tourney kits for these stores and issue them to stores that will participate. Players can petition the stores to hold the tourney, so no one will get left out. When you think about it, the votes shouldn't be that hard to tally if done this way.

This way, we can use the stores as magnets/hubs of tourney play no matter where they are in the world, and their voices can be heard re: the future of the game/metagame

FFG, hope you're reading this.

Full Disclosure: One of the events is being run in my FLGS but I promise you my response would have been the same even if this was happening halfway around the world

The responses here have quite honestly been very sad. FFG decides to do something nice for the community and instead of praise they get attacked. "How dare they do something live where not every single person who wishes to participate is able to?" This is a cool idea. Have an entire development team travel and interact with some of the community members from different areas. See what their take is on the game and maybe throw in a bonus or two.

It is easy to support it and be condescending and rude to other players who are not as fortunate when you actually get to attend one. FFG employees are not required at all of these by any means.

It is easy to support it and be condescending and rude to other players who are not as fortunate when you actually get to attend one. FFG employees are not required at all of these by any means.

Maybe they thought they could get a better feel for their player base by actually going out and meeting more of the players.

It is easy to support it and be condescending and rude to other players who are not as fortunate when you actually get to attend one.

About as easy as dismissing the opinion of someone more fortunate than you?

Full Disclosure: One of the events is being run in my FLGS but I promise you my response would have been the same even if this was happening halfway around the world

The responses here have quite honestly been very sad. FFG decides to do something nice for the community and instead of praise they get attacked. "How dare they do something live where not every single person who wishes to participate is able to?" This is a cool idea. Have an entire development team travel and interact with some of the community members from different areas. See what their take is on the game and maybe throw in a bonus or two.

It is easy to support it and be condescending and rude to other players who are not as fortunate when you actually get to attend one. FFG employees are not required at all of these by any means.

I really did not mean to be either rude or condescending (I suppose my closing of the post was a bit harsh) but if that's how you perceived my post I apologize. All I wanted to point out is that some of the outrage that I am reading here doesn't make any sense. My gain does not mean it is your loss. And again it makes perfect sense as to how and why they choose the locations that they did and they did not mean to leave anyone out on purpose. So I suppose you can lament your fate of having to live in a non-ideal place for gaming but don't attack the staff of FFG when they are doing something cool even though they don't have to. As far as staff not being required to be there to me that's the coolest part of all this. I mean a netrunner tournament is cool and everything but I can usually get that at least once a month if I'm willing to drive a bit but to actually talk with the designers is the coolest part of this.

The responses here have quite honestly been very sad. FFG decides to do something nice for the community and instead of praise they get attacked. "How dare they do something live where not every single person who wishes to participate is able to?" This is a cool idea. Have an entire development team travel and interact with some of the community members from different areas. See what their take is on the game and maybe throw in a bonus or two. The logistics of this type can quite honestly be a nightmare so clearly they are going to want to stay within a relatively close area. North America is HUGE. They can't travel to every single place so it makes sense that they picked the east and west coasts (the most densely populated areas in the US) and the midwest because their headquarters are in MN. The decisions make perfect sense. They are not being capricious, they are not trying to purposefully spite anyone, this is just the way the cards fall (pun semi-intended). If they would set this up world-wide and have their team travel all over from Johannesburg to Sevastopol trying to placate every single person who plays their game the next data pack would have cost $100 to cover the cost and would take 3 years to come out because the team would be too busy flying around the world instead of actually doing their jobs developing the game.

As far as a select few making the decisions I highly doubt that the meta in the three regions they picked is somehow completely different from the rest of the world. I would be very surprised if the results would turn out differently if they did open this up universally so even that argument isn't very valid. But yeah guys grow up, your offense to this is just silly.

I understand your view on this - that it's impossible to transport a dev team across the world. However, do we really need a dev team to turn up? Not really...most could be easily run by the venues or by a trained group of regional staff to travel in certain regions.

What FFG is doing is a nice venture - really, I'm impressed and I've never said the event itself is a bad idea. Only that the catchment areas and the prize support is not what the global Netrunner community want. If it was another alt-art promo - fine. But Gabriel Santiago is a key runner in many netrunner communities and a full-art one for US only is disappointing.

From what I have heard today, Spain now get the alt-art PSF so there may be hope yet that we can get other promos internationally. No-one was making an attack; some people just wished to put across to FFG ways that they could improve their plugged-in tour. Surely consumer feedback is the best tool for the board games industry...?

My view on this is that a tour could easily have been run internationally, except the US in some areas would have the dev team turn up. As stated above, the dev team isn't necessary for this event - only TOs from a variety of regions.

I understand your view on this - that it's impossible to transport a dev team across the world. However, do we really need a dev team to turn up? Not really...most could be easily run by the venues or by a trained group of regional staff to travel in certain regions.

In my opinion, you and a lot of other people making this argument are missing the point of the program. This is not about the swag or the vote, these are just part of what is expected from an event program such as this. If they merely wanted to get swag out there, they can just pump out the next game night kit. This is about FFG wanting to be there, to interact with the players directly and take the temperature of the competitive meta and player base, which they usually don't get to do outside of GenCon/Worlds.

Also, let us keep in mind that FFG probably picked stores they had worked with in the past and that had run events well for them,

Aside from waiting for FFG to expand and perfect its Organized Play, folks can work with their stores to make sure that leagues are being run there, and that the store is communicating with FFG and expressing interest in current/future programs.

I know this wont solve all the problems folks are expressing here, but it is a path to helping end some of the problems.

As far as the international concerns, some good points are expressed in the other similar thread. Folks should find out who publishes the game in their area, and discuss this directly with them.

Oops. Also, see front page. :P

Edited by Damoel

I think the limits are based on people traveling, not ill-will. They were very friendly and courteous, and wished they could include more venues. But, well, budgeting. FFG is not Coca-Cola/The NFL, etc.

So, if you can go to and support this, please do, more positive feedback and revenue will enable further tours, and encourage your friendly local gaming store to look into whether they should let FFG know they want to play host next time.