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We went in today to set up. Pax is going to be awesome! Super FNM is going to be special. If you are going to play in any event this weekend that would be the one NOT TO MISS! That is all I am allowed to say.
We have 2 rooms to use. One will be primarily our larger events while the other will be primarily drafts, intro deck league play and demos. We will be drafting at a round table too which is really cool. The area looks great.
Stop by and say hello
Tom Shea
Does the Intro Pack League games (playing against anyone that is available) count toward your event count and ranking?
stop by and say hello
Tom Shea
Thanks guys for having space for it! I'm actually going to show up to the pre-release events for the next batch of cards.
I'd love to see a PAX MtG:Online league or events!
I'm also thinking about setting up a fan based mtg event for next year based on MicroProse's 1997 game "Magic:The Gathering(Spells of the Ancients and Duels of the Planeswalkers expansions)" if there's enough interest. Think of it as a game on top of the game!
WoW - US Quel'Dorie - Daxius DwPr(Disc/Shadow) 80
Give Back to those who serve us Become a Black Pie Day Pieoneer!
I have to say, this was the most disappointing part of PAX for me.
I was so excited to try a Team Minimaster. In fact, it was #2 on my list of "must do's".
However, on Saturday night @ 7:00 chaos broke out.
First off, they said it would be capped at 150 people. I was told there were 200 entered and they were trying to make room.
Second, many teams including ourselves were not on the list for the deck building seating.
Third, after a SECOND attempt, our names were still not on the list for the team pairings.
Fourth, only the second day of MTG tournaments, they ran out of basic land!
Finally, some of the staff was getting quite grouchy and refused to help us in the chaos. When I signaled for a judge, I told them we had no team to face. He responded, "I don't know anything anymore". And walked away.
I realize it was stressful, but these are the folks whose job it is to organize it. (btw, these were DCI MTG staff, NOT Enforcers).
Anyone else have frustrations? Or did I just happen to go to the one super unorganized MTG event this weekend?
Unfortunately, the events were run by TJ's. Their employees are usually nice, but their events tend to be largely disorganized. The most egregious was a Magic tournament at their store last fall in which a wastewater pipe (read: Poop Pipe) burst or overflowed in the tournament area. They cleaned up the area a bit, but didn't bother to section off that area, leading to more than one person getting hit by wastewater at different times. Completely unprofessional.
At PAX, they were unprepared for each event I participated in. At Friday's MiniMaster, they told people to "sit anywhere" for deck construction, and then after delaying the start, decided there'd be assigned seating and everyone had to get up again.
On Saturday, there was no assigned space for the Grand Melee, and as of the starting time, I had to ask a few TJ's employees before finding one who could even direct me to the person to ask about whether it was happening at all. When it did start, they failed to properly explain the unique rules to the Grand Melee format. Judge calls were relatively frequent, but the judge kept leaving the room, so we'd have to halt the game to find him. Good thing we were only 12 players, and I didn't expect him to hover over our event the whole time, but there were so many other Magic matches in the room, you'd think he could have at least stuck to the same room!
On Sunday, Team MiniMaster started relatively on time, but the format rules weren't explained well, and things like being able to comment on your teammate's plays were not told to the players. I guess it doesn't matter too much when the format's so silly and it's an unranked casual tournament, but with $300 prizes going to winners, it's nice to be able to know whether or not you're allowed to comment on your teammate's plays.
The prize support was stellar, and they were usually nice, but like I said, they're disorganized and kind of bumbling a lot of the time.
1)People who registered got left off the list
Paper based registration will do this to you every single time. You are almost guaranteed to have slips of paper forget to move from one stack to another. We had to deal with this alot and finally the ubergeeks in my group decided to make a standalone program for registering for our events that could run from any PC. A database is alot easier to manipulate than a stack of papers. After a few times of transcribing the info ourselves(they fill out a sheet, we enter and confirm it while standing there) we eventually set up crappy comps around our events that ran the registration/entry app and fed directly into our database.
2)Match Pairing display caused lots of crowding
Regular printouts either need to be supplemented with multiple copies in multiple locations, or better yet a scrolling LCD(this is probably our favorite addition to our events) with entry listings and opponents in alpha order.
3)Wait times can really kill interest
Waiting for almost an hour for the 2 man mini to start almost had me walking away to go do something fun. Huge tournaments should be broken into subflights with staggered start times. Especially single eliminates where a lot of players can feel cheated if they waited a long time to play only a single match.
I've got plenty more insight to offer if anyone who is looking to put together their own MtG events wants to PM me, don't want to clutter up the thread with too much QQ when I really did have a great time.
WoW - US Quel'Dorie - Daxius DwPr(Disc/Shadow) 80
Give Back to those who serve us Become a Black Pie Day Pieoneer!
This happened 2+ years ago, it was a pipe from a sink, not a toilet, and we no longer are doing PTQs or any large events at TJs. The staff can't really be responsible for unforseen events such as this, and I'm not sure what this has to do with THIS events professionalism. As for events that are largely disorganized our numbers disagree with that. Our PTQs are the largest in the country and end earlier than most events with the same number or less rounds. Keep the complaints to specific issues at this event and we'll do our best to fix them, please don't attack our crew for doing the best they could.
We couldn't put you back on the pairings, our software wouldn't allow it. We had to do it by hand.
We did not run out of basic land, we were running out. We run out of basic land at GPs, it happens, we coped.
This should have been brought to my attention.
I don't really want to get defensive here, but I think we did a fine job. There was some chaos, but we were coping with numbers we didn't expect.
Adam
We did it like any other large magic event. We have plenty of experience doing this. We were a top 10 market for Pre-releases and a top 5 market for PTQs. People not being on the pairings was a software error that we had to correct by hand. There are very few people in the world that can do this sort of thing, so I wish that was recognized.
As I explained in the other thread this was not possible with the prize support that WotC provided and the event pre-planning we did.
I don't want to get completely jerk-face about it all, but your statement is indicative of too-low expectations. That events are routinely late and chaotic is not a "fine job."
For instance, to smooth out a MiniMaster event: First cut off sign ups 5 minutes before the event. Gotta start on time. Each participant should receive a ticket for their product. Then you can just let them sit wherever, and trade their packs for the ticket. Any employee can hand out packs. While that's going on, data entry from sign-ups can be finished, and pairings will be ready by the time deck construction is finished.
The sheer amount of disorganization is really off-putting, and it lowers your total business done as well, since we can't play in as many events because they lag and overlap more than they should.
I am sorry that was your perception of the event, and we'll work hard to fix it in the future.
As for the ticket + go build idea, that's not really how any magic event I've ever worked at has worked (my experience numbers in the hundreds of tournaments btw). We sit people for construction so we can answer any questions, so we know where they are and can keep an eye on construction, and so we can know when most construction is done. We don't mind late signups for a limited tournament, we can just sit people anywhere to build their decks. We'll generally allow people to enter with 15-20 minutes left in build time.
Adam
1) Interest in the teams event was huge. It was almost double the size of the regular mini master events run that weekend. During the sign in process, the fire marshal entered the fray, and we had to work with him and the event enforcers to move the crowd around until he was satisfied.
2) Sign ups continued quite past the posted start time of the event, and we wanted to get everyone that wished to play we could possibly fit into the event. Turning people away is even less fun then delays.
3) The computer software ran into problems, where the teams were missing from the roster despite being entered in, and it refused to be fixed. We ended up running parts of the event by hand on paper until the entire event could be re-keyed into the system. This was the largest cause for the delay, and difficult to avoid.
We hope people had a good time despite the delay in starting the event. The whole weekend was exhausting, but rewarding work. It was great to see so many new faces enjoying the game, and working through difficult challenges like Saturday's team event is a great learning experience for us. Sunday's team event was seated with packs and building in a little over 5 minutes, and we avoided using the teams computer software completely to ensure there was no repeat of the problems we faced on Saturday.
Ok. This is a pet peeve of mine. "It's not how we do it" is a poor excuse. Things can change for the better. New ideas are good. I realize WOTC is making money, but they'd make more and have a more positive following if a few changes were made for better organization. If hundreds of tournaments have been run, why aren't there caps and better systems in place to allow for changes after the "initial input"
Which one is it? People can sit anywhere, or assigned seating is a must? If assigned seating for deck construction is not necessary, then why have the sheets to tell people where to sit?
I appreciate the feedback. The explanations are good. Thanks!
Sure sure, what I meant is "we've heard these things before, we take advice but we mostly know what works and what doesn't." We capped the 2nd tourny after some input and realization about our play space. We also added a scorekeeper and totally changed how we used the software to run the event (the Sunday event went much smoother). There are small things we can change that have huge benefits to the tournament. Some of the big things we won't change since we have utilized these methods time and time again, they're what are staff is used to and in most normal cases they work very well. Saturday@PAX was an edge case, one we will plan for in the future.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, we can append people to the end of the "build-area". Should have been clearer there.
I develop software and user interfaces when Im not pretending to be a planeswalker so if you need help beating a program into submission or creating a new one that is specifically tailored for PAX(since majority of the events are unranked) let me know how to help out!
I've got a Minimaster "league" setting up at a few local shops around here thanks to learning about the format. It's a pain in the ass yet rewarding at the same time. It will really put your building skills to the test with such a limited card pool. Sometimes tho you are really wanting to punch lady luck in the face when you see whats actually in your pack...
WoW - US Quel'Dorie - Daxius DwPr(Disc/Shadow) 80
Give Back to those who serve us Become a Black Pie Day Pieoneer!
If you're interested in learning about the software we have to use for tournament reporting, log in to the DCI page with your DCI number and password and click the link that says Downloads. You can download the software there and play with it. Unfortunately, DCI Reporter is a bit outdated and likes to eat team events. It seems to take an expert to bully it into submission, and thankfully we have t best scorekeeper in t eworld IMHO. She can fix anything that DCI Reporter eats.
This is something that I've heard quite often, not only from TJ's staff, but other organizers, and as a player, I can tell you that it's just not true.
At an event like PAX, there is so much stuff to do, that while I'm excited to play Magic, I want it to start so that it can finish, and I can do something else. When an event is scheduled for 2pm, and actually starts at 2:30, that's 30 whole minutes I could have wandered the expo hall, or got lunch, or taken a short nap. If I arrive at 2:25 for a 2pm event and I'm told, "Sorry, we started promptly at 2pm," I wouldn't be mad. I'd say, "Oh well, when is the next Magic event?" or "I guess I'll go check out something else, I'll be back promptly at 6 for your ___ event."
For things like FNM, the same sort of thing arises. Starting on time means that people aren't stuck in limbo waiting for it to start, unsure whether they have time to get dinner or start another casual game on the side. Starting on time means the first round also ends sooner, some people might drop, and the folks who arrive late can always be the first in the queue for a side draft.
The only, ONLY time when delaying an event is preferable to turning people away is PTQs, where there won't be another "later" PTQ happening in the day, and the tournament "means something."
As a player (and a person just in general) who nearly always arrives on time, and is mature enough to accept the consequences of being late, it really bugs me that TOs are willing to waste so many people's time for the few extra dollars from the late entry fees. It's even more insulting when they pretend like they're doing it as a service to the community. Instituting and maintaining a culture of events starting on time would do a lot more for the community at large.
I've matched wits with both DCIR and Mantis and fueled my rage into an unoffical updated version of a newer DCIR. It's still in development and is currently only for my personal use in unsanctioned events mostly because I really don't want a C&D letter or lawyers showing up at my door when all I wanted to do was let people spend more time playing and less time organizing.
WoW - US Quel'Dorie - Daxius DwPr(Disc/Shadow) 80
Give Back to those who serve us Become a Black Pie Day Pieoneer!
A group of judges and I tried to create a platform-independent version of DCIR a while back, but then WER came out and we lost interest.
DCIR has been abandoned by WotC however. They do not want people using it anymore except for larger events.
A decent sized WER update should be out "soon" (We had a meeting with WotC discussing this topic at PT San Diego).
Adam
Any chance we'll see a web only version that doesn't require a download? That would allow for flashmob type events.
WoW - US Quel'Dorie - Daxius DwPr(Disc/Shadow) 80
Give Back to those who serve us Become a Black Pie Day Pieoneer!
Actually I meant to say a web based version companion, not making it web exclusive. As a causal organizer it would be great if I could be able to handle alot of my boring tasks from my iPhone.
WoW - US Quel'Dorie - Daxius DwPr(Disc/Shadow) 80
Give Back to those who serve us Become a Black Pie Day Pieoneer!
I guess iPhone can do anything these days. I must look into getting one of these devices. I'm not sure I can imagine TO functions on iPhone though. I like a full keyboard for data entry.
WoW - US Quel'Dorie - Daxius DwPr(Disc/Shadow) 80
Give Back to those who serve us Become a Black Pie Day Pieoneer!