Spring Regionals Feedback What did you think?

[Atlas]

Toronto player here, from an adult's perspective (not a student), outside the city.

location: the location was great, right in the heart of the city made it easy to get to and find. sundays are nice relaxing days with not much going on which was doubly good traveling in and out of a busy city like toronto.

timing: the registration seemed to take a long time, 1 1/2 hour of registrations being open may have been too long for a small event like this. there was a lot of downtime for people who arrived early. seniors and juniors finished earlier than masters and as such were announced their standing while masters were still battling giving a slight annoyance.

other comments: no top cut sucks, yadda yadda yadda. spectators were bored given that they had nothing to spectate.

the hack checking went very smoothly, once at registration using the infrared(?) boxes and again after the third round where they checked the cartridges. as layell mentioned aparently some people were complaining about a hacked mon, but i still dont see what was wrong with it.

a lot of people are complaining about the shelmet participation card, from playing tcg events i get the reason. but this is a vgc event and as such a downloadable pokemon would have fared better.

staff was great. thanks for your hard work!

 

[dragonexpert]

The special boxes at registration do not check if a Pokemon has been hacked. It just is used to download the tournament rules to your cartridge.

 

[Sprocket]

The special boxes at registration do not check if a Pokemon has been hacked. It just is used to download the tournament rules to your cartridge.

I kinda suspected this. Sounds to me like they could kill two birds with one stone: download the tournament rules, then hack check on the spot.

 

[dragonexpert]

I have contacted TPCi with the main concerns everyone has. I will try and keep everyone updated on the status, provided I will be allowed to by TPCi.

 

[redghost]

Hello,

I have a few comments about the Surrey VGC, also from an adult perspective. I will try to differentiate them from other commenters.

I should preface with some background information. I don't play Pokemon, I started to fiddle with R/B on the bus when I was younger and all I ever do on a cartridge is play the battle tower. I pretty much quit from 2009-2011 and now I don't know all of the current hybrid types and I don't know all of the abilities (like Heatran with Flash fire, I had to look it up for a random battle). There were numerous times I had to check the strength of my non-stab moves to figure out what was actually better when accounting for resistances.

I made my own core and added complimentary pieces with somewhat unique movesets to be as effective as possible. Due to my inexperience, I expected one win and was astonished to go 5-1.

I was a person who was unfortunate enough to lose the tiebreaker but that doesn't bother me. I determined that a three turn sequence consisting of 560-1 odds worked against me and caused my lone defeat but I think that I could have played the sequence differently and determined the outcome myself. If you don't want to worry about losing the tiebreakers, win all of your matches (until the final).

Major thanks to the organizers, they did a great job and it makes me want to try and play in a league (or at least more regularly) and I will work to get some other people to play as well in future events.

I feel that the location is a great location for this tournament and the city of Surrey and local community have put a lot of effort into the area to improve the aesthetics and safety.

If [VGC] uses the same location in the future, it would be great to have signage at the doors in the week(s) leading up to it. If you're taking your child to the mall and they see a sign to play pokemon (for free!), AND win prizes, they would be more likely to join (especially seeing it repeatedly).

Additionally, not all of us shop at every store so we could miss the host store (which is not central in the mall) to learn of the event.

The prizes were somewhat pointless; I will give mine to a friend's son and he'll be thrilled and we gave the hat away on site.

The atmosphere was surprisingly good, there seemed to be lots of energy, particularly the juniors that got excited when they won or killed something.
The staff, again, were overall terrific and full of life.

I had a friend that had an exam upstairs and was unable to join me but she came down to visit after. The timing could be changed but you can't accomodate everybody (It turns out that 1 week earlier or 1-3 weeks later and I would be unable to participate).

My thanks to the host organizers and the national organizers and I look forward to participating again and maybe looking into some of the stuff here.

Cheers!

 

[dragonexpert]

It is up to your area's PTOs to advertise upcoming events in the area. A fair number of PTOs have a website that lists upcoming events. One could certainly make the event on Facebook to advertise it.

 

[Drifblim]

Philly, Seniors Division:

Location: Certainly OK, but Newark would be better.

Timing; I am kind of indifferent about this. I would like to play around Noon, so I am not still waking up like 2011 Newark.

Other stuffz: Music was kinda fun, I don't see why everybody is hating on the great and sorta classic songs they always play. Extending prizes to T8 was cool, it would be neat if the stuff looked a bit more interesting or exclusive, I would trade all of the additional knicknacks for a Pokemon T-Shirt if I could. The timing and organization for Masters sounds really bad, hopefully that can be remedied next time. Less waiting in between rounds, but that isn't too big an issue.

 

[Firestorm]

It is up to your area's PTOs to advertise upcoming events in the area. A fair number of PTOs have a website that lists upcoming events. One could certainly make the event on Facebook to advertise it.

I think it should also be up to TPCi to help make the larger events a success with better advertising overall. I've seen Play! Pokemon Google ads. Having some of them be specific ones for Regionals would be helpful as would more of a web presence like they had last year with the official site. I'm not sure what they did to help advertise the regionals in 2010 and 2011 but turnout for those were much higher than this year's regionals so replicating some of that would be useful.

 

[MurraMyrrh]

Meh, I might as well write down my experience. Feedback is feedback, right?

• Location: I was in the Houston VGC Masters devision. I was really happy to hear that it was in Houston, considering that I lived there for a handfull of years and it would be easier to navigate than say, Dallas or Austin. The hotel was nice, but it was not the best place for a tournament of any kind. The echo was just bad, and I had a hard time catching any anouncement.
• Timing: Not bad timing for me, but I do know a few people had complications because of jobs or schools. The delays were slightly annoying, but understandable.
• Other comments: I LOVE the swiss rounds. I didn't feel a ton of pressure of being 'eliminated' if I made one poor move. And under pressure, you're not thinking as clear. I really, really, REALLY want this to be a standard way of play. It's really just better, hands down.
• I agree with whoever said that hack checking should be part of registering, because I did not like the fact that my wining made me a target for a hack check. Even if it's not on the same machine, you should register, move to the hack checker guy, have him check, then you're done. Not that hard, even though there where like, 148 of us. But if you split that into three lines, still not that hard. Time consuming, but it prevents that stall between rounds.

 

[Gengar16]

Toronto, Canada VGC Regionals

Hey Guys,
New to this forum but I’m quite active on the Pokegym and Pokebeach under the same username. I was one of the judges at the Eastern regionals in Canada; was wearing a Gengar plush hat throughout the day. Ill reply to a few of the concerns of the VGC at this tournament below!

I attended Toronto and as the first VGC there some things need to be addressed.

Location: The Convention Centre is a great location, and the con at the same time wasn’t a huge deal for many of us.
Timing: What an awful time to place a tournament, I was lucky my exams were over, but others could have been in the midst of studying. Trying to stuff together all of the vgc’s in one day was obnoxious really. I really wish the planning was a bit better because registration for the VGC’s started at 9:00, the subway doesn’t leave from Downsview Station (the most north station) until 9:00. Rushing to get there isn’t fun.
Prizes: I love the hats and it was a nice little thing to go on, but I think the Shelmet card was a bit insulting because that thing is worthless, not a mascot pokemon, it sucks, it needs a Karrakablast and it’s evo just to be useful. I don’t get handing out such a worthless card.

The PTO arranged the place with Comic Con so we could get a better turnout. Also, I know a lot of people were disappointed with the timing with the TTC but that’s really a TTC issue not ours. I had to wake up at around 5 just to bus down there to help judge and prepare for the event.
The promo card isn’t what we decide on its what TPCi does. The Karrablast was given out at Cities fyi.

Hack Checks: This is a joke, I’ll just say that a player noticed an illegal mon and it was still allowed to play. We know the legal limits better than these systems. Just kick out people who hack right at the beginning, it’s so much easier. I won’t say much more because of the ban on evading hack checks but things that need to be checked are not and it ruins the attitude of many players who could sniff out a hack.

The Hack checking system is bulletproof. We only DQed 1 individual in the tournament. If you had an issue please call a judge next time.

Spectating: One person who came along was barely allowed to watch, was it because they were worried she’d help? Guess what players are literally sitting next to each other and we would often just comment on us or if we overheard other things from the players next to us we would also chip in some humour.

Spectators are not allowed. Its a major problem in the TCG and the judging staff did not want any issues for the VGC as well. I personally caught someone texting the other player what his opponents had. Its a TCG and VGC rule for a reason.

French players: There was an issue because one player had a French game cart, I’m not sure if Quebec has English or French games, but surely an exception could be made for anyone in Quebec to play in their own language, even if it did happen to be an import. This seems like an inconsiderate thing that an American company would overlook on Canadian players.

Canada in General: There are tons of players in Canada who would love to participate in these tournaments, and limiting the locations to just two isn’t enough. A few more would do wonders for the general community.
This all may seem harsh, but I’m being honest here. I’ve been waiting a long time to play in the vgc’s and considering the treatment of Canadian players in the past we’d like a bit more recognition. I still plan on playing in Nationals and I hope it runs much more smoothly.

French Players: We only had 1 issues with a French cartilage. That was the fault of TPCi as they did not take into effect the French versions. I was told it would be resolved for Nationals but theres no guarantee. TPCi is expanding the VGC so more tournaments are sure to come. Make sure to tell your friends to attend Nationals to show TPCi that we have the Numbers for more tournaments.

I agree with everything you said.

And let me just say this: Oh my god the cart thing was so fucking dumb. Please excuse my choice of words, but it really was. They've been selling both the French and English versions of the game in Quebec since HeartGold and SoulSilver were released. Seriously, it took me 9 hours to get to Toronto, and if they would've told me "Sorry, can't play you have a French cart" I would've been so fucking pissed off. We're living in a bilingual country, so why can't people play with French carts? >_>
My friend was told like 3 times that she was sitting too close to me while I was playing. As you said, players could pretty much comment on each other's games if they wanted so I don't see why it was an issue. Also my friend knows nothing about Pokémon, so yeah.
The venue was pretty cool, I think registration was kinda early but it's not that much of a problem.
Also please change the dates of the regionals next year. The only reason I was able to attend the Regional in Toronto's because I didn't have an exam on Monday... still, I have 4 exams left this week. I think it'd be much better if they were in late April/early May.

Thanks for your feedback. A few things not mentioned above:
The French cartilage was on the fault of TPCi not programming the tournament info. I was told it SHOULD be resolved for Nationals. We only had 1 issues thankfully.

Toronto player here, from an adult's perspective (not a student), outside the city.

location: the location was great, right in the heart of the city made it easy to get to and find. sundays are nice relaxing days with not much going on which was doubly good traveling in and out of a busy city like toronto.

Location was suppose to be the centre for everyone. Only problem was the Subway starting at 9.

timing: the registration seemed to take a long time, 1 1/2 hour of registrations being open may have been too long for a small event like this. there was a lot of downtime for people who arrived early. seniors and juniors finished earlier than masters and as such were announced their standing while masters were still battling giving a slight annoyance.

Registration was the standard amount of time as mandated by TPCi. If you came early you could battle other players while you wait for the tournament to start. It also gives players from out of town to wake up at a reasonable time to get there before registration ends. Juniors and seniors ended earlier because there were less people therefore less swiss rounds.

other comments: no top cut sucks, yadda yadda yadda. spectators were bored given that they had nothing to spectate.
the hack checking went very smoothly, once at registration using the infrared(?) boxes and again after the third round where they checked the cartridges. as layell mentioned aparently some people were complaining about a hacked mon, but i still dont see what was wrong with it.
a lot of people are complaining about the shelmet participation card, from playing tcg events i get the reason. but this is a vgc event and as such a downloadable pokemon would have fared better.
staff was great. thanks for your hard work!

We were told that we could only run swiss at our first VGC. Afterwards due to the feedback we received we are planning for a top cut at nationals but once again it is not guaranteed. The T.V. thing could be planned for nationals but it was our first tournament therefore TPCi did not know how many people will attend.
We managed to finish all the hack checks by round 3. Only 1 junior was caught in the first round. Thanks for the compliments. In terms of the participation I agree with the pokemon as it is much more useful for the VGC players, however we got only what we were given to give out. Hopefully, they will change that for nationals.
Thanks for the compliments. It was the first time we ran it and from a judging perspective the tournament went by smoothly.

See you all at Nationals!

 

[Teya Tsuki]

i went to the one in philly. the only positive thing i can say about it was i had the most fun there, with meeting new people,cosplaying, and how tough everyone was.
on the downside, the previous tournaments made this one look like butt. no official announcer, no pokemon characters walking around, no blown-up pokemon, no music, and a small room. and being delayed 3 hours annoyed me so much. i was there at 8am but woke up at 430am to get there. i waited forever to play

 

[Vineon]

Now to get a French pokemon cartridge to attend and participate in to see if they realize what 'Canadian Nationals' should entail.

If they don't, I'm actually crazy enough to pull some drama.

 

[El Scorcho]

Location- I was at the Houston VGC for Masters. I thought that having the event at the hotel was good since our group got a room there and it made things very convenient once we got into Houston. The drive was a little long from Oklahoma (a little over 8 hours) and about twice as long as the drive to Dallas for last years regional. That being said I know that everyone in our group had a great time at the event and thought that the travel time was worth it.

Timing- I didn't seem to bother anyone in my group as our finals are all 2 weeks from now, but having a big event around finals time is probably a very bad thing for those of us in college.

Format- Top Cut would be nice, but Swiss is a HUGE improvement over single elimination. It allows for everyone to play more rounds and gives everyone a full VGC experience.

Other Comments- I thought that the event was run very well under the circumstances (I understand there were some technical difficulties.) I also thought they did a great job of hack checking. They had almost everyone checked after a few rounds (I never even got checked at the fall regional in MO.)

Overall I feel like these tournaments are heading in the right direction. The events are putting a lot of pressure on PTO's and they have NO experience running VGC events so they are obviously going to make some small mistakes. Now that they have a better feel for how VGC events will go, they will be better suited to handle most of the issues that people have been having.

 

[FearZeCrawdaunt]

Not very important but would be fun: I appreciated the Shelmet promo card. But the problem is I don't play TCG so while its 'cool' I don't get the same enjoyment. Additionally prizes of TCG card binders don't mean too much to VGC players (where perhaps a sticker skin for the DS/3DS would be nice).

To be fair, the TCG players could have cared less about Shelmet too. :P But I agree that if they're going to be promoting the video game, they need video game prizes. The same goes for weekly pokemon leagues (like the one I run). We have video game battles, but our VG players get a promo card for their battles and have to have 24 battles to earn the first thing they'll care about (a League Badge/Pin).

As for the hack checking issue and less-than-knowledgable hack-checkers... I may take up the gauntlet next year and join the hack-check crew next year at Regionals if TCG doesn't prevent me from doing so (Top Cut). If nothing more, it would be good to have someone who knows that an EV spread of 252/252/8 has something wrong with it.

Next year I might try and get more involved with the organization front (if Sandy would let me), if nothing more before the tournament in terms of training volunteers.