Spring Regionals Feedback What did you think?

[Roz]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

[dingram]

Location: Last year's location in GA was way more convenient for me. But this location was decent as well.

Timing: Fine

Other: They could've done better with the free stuff they handed out at the beginning. The wristbands said Pokemon Regionals 2011. TVs would've been nice to show a few battles to viewers. Overall it was okay.

 

[Smith]

I feel like the Houston regional (which strangely hasn't been brought up yet) was, first of all, a really fun time and I'm glad I went. Reading what everybody else said, i feel like it was run much better than the other regionals people are talking about- there was music, the commentator at least tried to be lively, the venue was cool (although the surrounding area was a tad sketchy), and when technical difficulties arose they were addressed as quickly as possible (I won't pretend like I wasn't angry when we were delayed an hour, but the people running the event tried to keep us posted and dealt with it as quickly as possible when it was, in fact, completely unforeseeable).

Also, Swiss format is just such a massive improvement it's ridiculous. I mean, this year I was hanging out with somebody I eliminated round 1 last year that finished with the same record as me, 6-2. He DID NOT deserve to lose round 1 last year, he is a better player than that. It in general just fosters a better battling environment, since the attitude wasn't "I'm going to eliminate you" as much as it was "I'm going to beat you, but I hope you go and boost my tiebreakers" if that makes any sense. People weren't trying to change their match ups by hanging back in line or anything and it made me actually want to hang around good players or people I liked without fearing playing them. I can think of literally no down sides. The lack of top cut was disappointing, but I think at the end of the day most of the good players placed fairly well.

TV Screens have also been beaten to death but seriously, these help. My brother, who doesn't really play Pokemon, had nothing to do when I was battling (he was playing Fire Emblem the whole time). If not TV's, then having things going on besides just the tournament is cool. I understand that you need to increase man power to run a Swiss format, but there are activities that can be organized that don't require intense staff supervision. Another thing about TV's that has NOT been said, however, is that I feel that using these to project match ups and ranking at the end would be a lot more efficient and professional since we wouldn't all have to crowd around tiny pieces of paper in tiny font and instead could just look up at the screen like an airport. It would also prevent the area in front of the match ups from turning into a moshpit like it inevitably does. If you have 2 or 3 screens, you could just show ~40 matches on each screen, which doesn't strike me as unrealistic.

Hack checks as a part of registration should just go without saying, considering how little time it takes to just do one at a time as people register. Rounds stretched on an extra 10-15 minutes thanks to hack checking random people, and if that was done at registration I feel like rounds could just last the 15 or so minutes it take to finish a battle.

I also want to talk about the wisdom of using Houston as a location in general. I had no qualms about the venue, since the hotel was rather nice, but I sincerely liked the Arlington Convention Center a lot better. I may seem biased since I live 4 hours from Houston and about 30 minutes from Arlington, but the surrounding area was a lot nicer and Dallas in general is a much more central location for everyone coming from Louisiana, Oklahoma, etc. coming to the event.

I want to emphasize, however, that this experience was definitely a positive one and that this was a fun regional for me. Thanks for hosting these things!

 

[Expert Evan]

Philadelphia was a great place to go, in the downtown area, places to go nearby, and was quite spacious. Having the masters start 3 hours later due to lots of juniors/seniors sort of messed up our plans on the 3 hour drive back home, and the price of parking was expensive as we ended up paying $29 at the garage across the street. At least my wife had something to do while we were playing, that is until everything else downtown was closed then had to wait almost 2 hours until we were done.

Personally I liked Newark's location better since it was conveniently closer to home and parking was free. Having swiss format is still far better than elimination so that none of us could get bored, and we didn't care much about the king of the hill though we wouldn't mind getting wondercard pokemon again which originally attracted my attention back during the JAA days of 2006.

Nintendo continues to learn from its past mistakes, so hopefully this will continue to be a positive step forward.

 

[tofucocoa]

I agree with pretty much all of bert's post, but I'll add on to some of it.

- No MC, no music. I could live without music tbh, but not having Nick there is a bummer. McCord really made the past events come alive.

If we really wanted music, we could probably just get the judge's permission and start blasting 'Eye of the Tiger' through computer speakers or something. McCord for life, though.

- Not watching other player's matches after you had finished your own. I thought that this would have at least been mentioned, as scouting in the past was explicitly forbidden.

I can definitely see scouting becoming a problem, but if the people competing don't have a problem with it, it should be allowed. You know, questions like "Hey, Person1 and Person2, can Person3 watch?" and if either 1 or 2 say no, 3 shouldn't be allowed. This would probably add stress to the staff, but I'm the kind of guy who likes doing this, and not for scouting!

- Hack checking needs to be a part of the registration process. Period. I was checked right after my R4 battle, and it seemed a bit random & abrupt. (dude picked up my DS from the table I was at, ejects the cart and then asks my name) I can understand that they were in a hurry to get it done, but it needs to be a more formal part of the whole process, not just a "whenever the staff gets around to it" type of thing.

THIS. I couldn't record a battle because of this, though it wasn't a good one to begin with. It might stem from the staff not having enough DSes to check with (I only saw one guy checking carts and he was using a DSi, meaning this checker is most likely an app), in which case they should supply more of those or something. Redoing the mysterious 'white box' could also be in order, since I doubt they do much besides supply tournament info to the game card. MAYBE this is coming in VGC13 when we have B2/W2??

+ The venue (Classic Center) was very nice, and the room the event was in was big enough. Also, there was no food/drink restrictions like at the Gwinett location from the past two years, hence no price gouging on bad concession food. You did have to pay for parking though, but it was reasonable. ($5)

YES, THIS. It's kind of minor, but I would've gone hungry if we were at Gwinett. The judges should be on the lookout for drinks though, for obvious reasons.

 

[breh]

I went to CA.
Location: The place was pretty awful and far more cramped than last year; agreeing with Kid Kadabra that it just gives "an aura of gloom". I preferred last year's venue to that of this year's.
Timing: No issues
Other Comments: I think everybody can agree that registration was terrible. I was one of those "scrubs that didn't preregister" (EDIT: I wasn't aware that you even could preregister in the first place; I thought it was just like last year where you just went and they put your name on a card and that was it... I realized I had a "POP ID" at 11:30 PM lol); the experience was terrible. To give a visual diagram (in fantastic jpeg quality!) of what it looked like:

(right side of the image is the wall, entrance at the green dot)
The red dot is where I started out (around 8:50-ish) and the green one is where I was at 10:00. Hopefully this is a good example of how goddamn slow the line moved.

Hack checks at the beginnings of registration would actually be a pretty good idea, tbh. IIRC, metabou lost a match because of a guy running 252 in all stats on all of his mons.

 

[Huy]

YOU SHOULD HAVE PRE-REGISTERED! IT TAKES LIKE 2 MINUTES.

 

[LPFan]

Here:


Location: I was glad regionals was closer this year. It was relatively closer to where I live (west side of Austin), so it took my dad about 3 hours to get there on Friday. Problem was though that traffic was bad, I forgot to bring directions, we had to stop to look at maps, so we got lost in Houston for 2 more hours...
We were already a day early for regionals, since my little brother wanted to try the cards on Saturday.
Timing: Timing was good. Took us 20 minutes to get everyone registered, with an attendance cap of 78. Took us 3-4 hours of 7 15 minute rounds.
Other Comments: No lunch break, so I was starving after round 3. Enough said.

 

[soul_survivor]

Its was a realy nice experience and all(went to philly).

-It was cramped up though. I couldn't move around as ludiimpact said without saying excuse me.

-A better Top Cut. This really needs to be implemented. Tiebreakers aren't the best way to determine top4. Its basically if you lose pray your opponent continues to win or your spot in t4 wont be guaranteed. This happened to me to where I lose due to RS Flinch to a average player and I had to hope he went flawless. If he did and I got the spot though Biffster(sorry if I spelled your name wrong) wouldn't have made topcut which wouldn't have been to great. Other players that missed topcut were Thegr8. Something like top16-32 depending on attendance would be all right imo.

-Timing:Masters was scheduled to start at 2. We started 3:30, and it ran later than usual VGC's.

-Most people covered my thoughtw exactly. Other stuff thats been said is background music, and a bigger location haha

 

[dragonexpert]

I actually had a friend who had an interesting situation where either the opponent was hacking(because he would have had an impossible amount of max HP) or the in-game tiebreaker system isn't working how we were told it would work the last time the rules for it were posted, too, but I didn't try and get a hackcheck for it since it was in an irrelevant round 7 game between 4-2s and they'd signed the slips already so it was too late, anyway.

Here is how the tiebreakers work according to the information packet I got:
1) Number of remaining Pokemon.
2) Remaining average percentage of HP.

I'm not positive what it was beyond that, but I do know those are the first two tie breakers.

In regards to signing the slips, we did have one person that got caught in Seniors division after the slip was signed. We were able to issue the DQ then T.O.M forced the Senior Division to get repaired, which lead to a small delay.

(Also thanks for responding to these dragonexpert. I wish we had noticed you were on forums earlier. Would have loved to chat your ear off at the event. next year!)

Skype is the best way to contact me or look for Arceus on PokeBeach's PO Server. I don't always respond on the forums if I'm not PM'd.

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.

At the Madison venue we were enforcing a no spectators policy; not even parents were able to be in the area the games were being done. It works the same way in the TCG. This gives the players more space and also helps prevent scouting. I'm pretty sure this is a fairly universal rule.

Hack checking needs to be a part of the registration process. Period. I was checked right after my R4 battle, and it seemed a bit random & abrupt. (dude picked up my DS from the table I was at, ejects the cart and then asks my name) I can understand that they were in a hurry to get it done, but it needs to be a more formal part of the whole process, not just a "whenever the staff gets around to it" type of thing.

I do agree that it could be advantageous to do hack checks at registration for Regionals, but when attendance is going to be the really high levels like it is at Nationals, the time it takes does add up. Myself and a couple others had to do a deck check of every deck entered into the TCG Regionals. It does slow things down a bit so it just isn't as good at larger scale events.

 

[Synre]

I'm not positive what it was beyond that, but I do know those are the first two tie breakers.

Last we were told it was actual HP as the third tiebreak. (Which, to finish the story, is the problem: the Pokemon that lost isn't capable of having more max HP than the Pokemon that lost had and it was 1-1, both at 100%.)

EDIT: And assuming http://assets5.pokemon.com/assets/cms/pdf/op/tournaments/2012/pokemon_tournament_rules_11_1_2011.pdf is still accurate that's still the case, so there's a 100% chance the Pokemon was hacked.

 

[Cybertron]

Hi, my name is Aaron, I'm a Senior, and I attended the Philadelphia Regionals this past weekend. I am both a TCG and VGC player, so I'll have some feedback for both areas. I'll try my best to not repeat what everyone else has already said.

Location: I'm not the biggest fan of Philadelphia. Out of all the Regionals I've attended (Providence, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Newark), Philadelphia is probably my least favorite. Since this Regional is limited to the North East specifically, our only real options are in NY, NJ, and PA. NY is way too expensive, which I understand. I would love to see them hold both TCG and VGC at the Meadowlands Exposition Center where VGC has been for the last two years. It's easily accessible (Managed to find my way home by taking the bus from there, which was also rather cheap) and is a much larger venue than the Philadelphia one was. I mean, I'm fine with Philly, but I didn't exactly feel very comfortable around the area.

The size of the convention room was also too small. They should have expected a large turn-out, seeing how much we've promoted Spring Regionals and the fact that the North East has always had the biggest Regionals. The numbers are there. It's a fact. Even with 80+ Juniors and 160+ Seniors, that's a lot of people you have to fit into a room. We were fine with like 500+ Juniors/Seniors at Newark back in '10 and '11, and although it was run differently, it worked. If it's held in Philly again next year, please be more prepared. I understand this is the first year that TCG organizers are running this, but I hope that with time, it'll run more effectively.

It also helps making sure that an official TCPi representative is there. I really enjoyed talking to Liesik at RI, and I didn't get to talk to Dave as much over there, but he made me feel a lot better, knowing that there was someone who knew what they were doing there. Dave's decision to run 2 flights with 7 swiss rounds each and a Top 8 was incredible. I hope they will stay consistent with this change, and I'll talk more about this in the next paragraph.

In terms of format, there are a bunch of ways I could see things working out so that no one is disappointed by how they finish. The first way is, still keeping straight swiss rounds, meaning only swiss and no top cut. The only thing I would change is adding 2 more rounds than the number of rounds than the minimum amount of rounds. What I mean is, for example, with exactly 128 people, you're supposed to have 7 rounds to make sure there is 1 X-0 in the end. The numbers don't always work out nicely though, and as we've seen, there are often times where 3-4 X-1s do not make it into the Top 4. Missing a potential $300 and trophy because of an uncontrollable variable is incredibly disappointing, and although there isn't much we can do to fix this, adding 1 or 2 more swiss rounds would help this tremendously. This makes it so that in the end, there won't be those 3-4 X-1s missing the cut. Of course, doing this makes other people upset because there will always be people with the same record who bubble out, but it's an alright solution. I feel like this would work better for Juniors and Seniors, and not so well for Masters.

The other solution is, obviously, top cut. I think what we did at Philly was almost perfect. The only thing I would have changed was taking the Top 8 players from each flight rather than the Top 4, so you would ensure that pretty much anyone with an X-1 record will get in. I'm a bit iffy about flights since one will often be a lot more stacked than the other, but in the end, the best players still ended up in the top. 2 flights, 6-8 swiss rounds, and a Top 16/8 is the best Regional format for Masters IMO.

As for environment, I really think we need at LEAST tvs. VGC is all about the environment and the spectators, in my opinion. I loved playing on the TV. I loved it when people cheered for me when I did something right. I loved the energetic feeling I got when there was hax in the battle (although I didn't enjoy the hax itself lol). I really think they need to add TVs to make our Regionals more lively. I suggest the idea of having a TV at Table 1, and maybe 2 and 3 for the entire day, and that Tables 1-3 be at a separate area (sealed off preferably) than the rest. This shouldn't be too hard to set up, and it'll really keep the environment going for those that are not playing or are already done with the match. Granted, it isn't as great as last year since we won't be able to watch all the battles, but it gives Juniors/Seniors that stay something else to do, and also allow for Masters to watch how their Junior/Senior pals are doing. At least have a way to display the Top 8, Top 4, and Finals match. TCG is even able to stream their top matches now. Now we have no ways of watching it live. I know that we're trying to match TCG now, but you don't have to change everything! The TV and music was what really made VGC memorable and special, don't get rid of them :(

However, if we are going to add TVs and such, we need to make sure that the events don't run too late. There's no reason for anyone to stay just to watch a single match if it's 8:30, like it was in PA. It seems like at all the other Regionals, there was a decent crowd by the end, but there was literally 3 people left when Wolfey and JiveTime finished over here. It sucks, that should not be the environment of a championship match. We seriously need to work on timing here at the North East. I know it's incredibly hard to deal with 500+ Juniors/Seniors/Masters as organizers, but this was the biggest problem we had to deal with this year. It didn't help that it was on a Sunday and that most of us had school the following day. Seriously. I got home at like 1 AM that morning, and had to wake up at 6 AM for school. I mean, I normally get 5-6 hours of sleep a night, but not after coming back from Philly, exhausted from a long weekend.

Hack checking... please make sure your judges and organizers know what they're doing. Make sure your software works. I also really think people that are disqualified should at least be informed of what was wrong with their team. ffs, I still don't know why Dom was dqed in Philly. His EVs checked out when we looked on PO, and we were told he had "extra EVs." This probably meant that he had 1-3 extra ones, but a confirmation would have been really nice, especially when he was so far into the tournament already. Hack check everyone in the beginning of the tournament. It takes like 1 minute per kid, and this should be done while registering.

Consistency with note taking. Allow it for everyone, or don't allow it. I don't like how half of us were allowed to take notes while the other half were. Talk to your staff about this beforehand, and come to an executive decision.

I have more, but this is what was on my mind for now. I'll update later though.

Thanks to the organizers at Philadelphia though. The delay in Masters was really shitty, but everything else ran decently. I don't know how I managed to pull my butt of bed to go to school that next morning though, lol.

 

[Feathers]

Hack checking... please make sure your judges and organizers know what they're doing. Make sure your software works. I also really think people that are disqualified should at least be informed of what was wrong with their team. ffs, I still don't know why Dom was dqed in Philly. His EVs checked out when we looked on PO, and we were told he had "extra EVs." This probably meant that he had 1-3 extra ones, but a confirmation would have been really nice, especially when he was so far into the tournament already. Hack check everyone in the beginning of the tournament. It takes like 1 minute per kid, and this should be done while registering.

in BC i think all of the top players( i think top 16) were checked and it was only done with a DSi after the matches were done. the person next to me was DQ'd, and when he asked what was wrong, he was told that they didn't know, it only told them he had an illegal move on his scizor. i wanted to ask to see but i was still playing. it didn't even take 30 seconds on the DSi "app" or whatever it was. i don't know if anyone called hack check after matches but i think there were 3-4 cheaters called out closer to the end, which is a little sad...

my other opinion was to possibly extend match time by maybe 5 minutes. ideally 30 would be nice but i know that would get a bit ridiculous time wise. there were quite a few timeouts when smogoners faced each other. it is a little annoying to know that you can outstall strategy X with ferrothorn but you aren't given enough time for that to actually work and someone who would have lost is given the win even if their pokemon may not have survived the next two turns.

i stalled out TR once but there was nowhere near enough time for me to do it again once TR was back up even though i might have had a chance. i feel like waiting out the timer should not be a winning strategy... sometimes turns took a full minute to process with IR connection even if the systems were right in front of each other. i preferred when they provided the systems, even though i loved to see everyone's cool covers and cases.

 

[dragonexpert]

I think 30 minutes would be too long because you could do at least 1.5, if not 2, battles on the DS systems in 30 minutes which is the current time limit for TCG Rounds. I could see possibly 20, but if battles are really taking that long, we need to figure out why? If one player is taking a long time to move consistently, I believe judges should be able to step in as defined in the Tournament Rules document.

28. Time Limits
Tournament staff is responsible for running a timely event. To assist in this effort, POP has established guidelines for time limits during various portions of the event.
28.1. Pre-game Time Limit
If team preview is enabled, players have 90 seconds to view their opponent’s team and select their Pokémon.
28.2. Mid-game Time Limit
Any mid-game effects, such as selecting a move or retreating Pokémon, are to take place in a reasonable amount of time. If a judge feels that a player’s pace is unwarranted, that player will be subject to the Game Tempo section of the POP Penalty Guidelines.
28.3. Match Time Limits
Single-game matches should be a minimum of 15 minutes. For best-of-three matches, each game should be timed individually, and should be a minimum of 15 minutes. The specific time limit for each round’s matches should be announced by the Tournament Organizer at the outset of the tournament.

Because the battle will automatically end after fifteen minutes, there needs to be something else that can be done since you can't exactly issue a time extension unless the time limit wasn't hard coded in the rule set. I will see if I can get anywhere talking with some of the TPCi staff.

I know that cases on the systems can sometimes cause problems with the IR connection since it relies solely on that to continue the battle. There were times I had to adjust systems to get the battle to advance.

While in theory the boxes seem nice, the thing is how much it would cost since each of the Regionals were on the same weekend. I have a feeling that might be why it was elected to not have the boxes.

 

[Lucien Lachance]

@Smith

All your points are spot on. They did a good job with what they had.

Least he got to play an amazing game like Fire Emblem. X.X

@Grubbs

They asked if we wanted a lunch break so blame the little kids who don't need to eat.

 

[kamz]

Pleasenton, CA

Location Amazheng Location!!!!!!! I loved the venue. Great and easy parking ( even though it was $8 a day for parking). Great and cheap hotels near by which could be shared with friends and were still pretty cheap. The venue itself was HUGE. Really big and had good space for everyone and had an area outside to eat and chat with friends. People who say it is bad have to understand TCG has to play there as well.

Timing Well for most regionals it took a while but Cali had so may people not pre register :( so it took a while but rounds went fast and we finished pretty quick. Other than that can't really help timing happening cept for people not pre registiring but its alrite.

Other No big screens was like damn but all I think is what they did with them if they were there and now we dont use them. Other then that fun regionals and I hope it is there again!

 

[ultimatedra]

Sprocket, I am going to break some of your comments up and go off of them if you don't mind.

At CO there was a lack of 'Nintendo' presence, if you catch my drift. Sure you had the "VGC Regionals" banners and the tournament staff, but I didn't see a single staff member dressed as a Pokemon. It felt like a local affair, and not really a big deal.

I agree that past regionals had a "Convention" feel to them. It is nice and all to have, but it is a competition. We did have Brad from TPCi come down to help out with the event if that matters.

No top cut in CO which was another disappointment. However not being eliminated was a definite plus. I think there should always be a top cut regardless of the size of the tournament.

Amen brother. T16 cut would have been great.

I want to see a LOT more "local" VGC tournaments, even if it's just at the city or state level. I guarantee if they were held monthly or quarterly, everywhere would see a big turnout, even if no prizes or Nats spot was guaranteed.

That is up to your local PTO and judging staff. You can get your local PTO's contact from Pokemon.com and let him know you want more local VG tournaments. Worse comes to worse offer your services to run them for him/her.

The guy who ran the Colorado Springs Regional was very new to the whole thing of swiss. He is a TCG guy first, VGC guy second, and this new format was very difficult and taxing for him. There was so much chaos going on between rounds. That's how I ended up with a draw on my win-loss record; I got reassigned battle pairings, but I was already mid-battle with someone (whom I thought was my proper opponent) before hearing about it. Me (and the guy I was supposed to battle) agreed to taking a draw, and moving on with the tournament. He ended up getting top 8, so good for him! Me, not so lucky.

Dwayne and Ron are great guys - just not 100% in the VG. I will tell you right now that after the tournament was over, I was asked to come into the staff meeting and give my opinions. I brought a whole lot of the same issues mentioned here to their attention. One of the big things I think that was skipped was a PROPER player meeting before round 1. The PTO's just kindof assumed that everybody knew how swiss pairings and how tournament operation worked. It didn't dawn on them that this regionals was a 1st time for about 90% of the players, so players didn't know what/where pairing were or even what a match slip was. I told them this in the meeting and they agreed and that it will be fixed for future events. They know the problems and are working to fix them. That is at least a start right?

Oh yeah - we have a huge room so the chaos wasn't NEARLY as bad as it was at other regionals.

The hack check was also not without fault. In addition to someone (in another war story) getting defeated by an obviously hacked Dragonite that passed the hack check, a guy at CO was disqualified because an otherwise-legit Pokemon failed the hack check somehow: A gen 3 Zapdos imported to gen 4, taught Tailwind and imported to gen 5, failed the hack check because a gen 3 Zapdos isn't supposed to know Tailwind. Not saying the Zapdos wasn't hacked at all, or other Pokemon weren't hacked, but still, it's suspicious.

The zapdos could have been disputed. With reason like what you said they would have listened and let him continue. See also Mattj's worlds weavile.

Speaking of hack check, at CO it was a double hack check: first at registration, and a second time between rounds. This contributed to the chaos, especially at the initial stages of the tournament.

This is incorrect. There was just the registration process at the beginning. If there was a hack check at the beginning, then we wouldn't have had to re-pair EVERY round and the event would have gone faster. Sure, we were done before 4pm but there was a lot to improve upon for future years.

Now for my own comments:
I personally saw a lack of knowledge of the judge staff as a whole. There were only 1-2 that had at least a decent amount of knowledge and the rest just went through the motions. When I had an issue with a spectator talking to my opponent and I called a judge, he was unsure about the penalty's for VGC and another straight ignored the issue. Because I knew these things have to be reported, and the judges never did, the issue escalated FAR beyond what it needed to be.

Hack check lines were a joke. Winners had to report for a check between rounds unless you already got one. My matches didn't go very quick so I got to Top16 in round 6 and still never had a hack check. I later talked to the PTOs and they were giving me crap about it (we are friends so i took it as a joke).

Also - SIDE EVENTS!!!
Saturday was 100% TCG. Period. End of story. I saw sprockets in the lobby trying to pick up spare games to pass the time, but nobody should have had to do that. There was plenty of space for 8-man tournaments to be ran. If it was a staffing issue, I would have gladly dropped from TCG to run them. Even if there weren't any prizes it would have boosted the VG attendance for day 1 and maybe even got higher numbers if they gave out starter decks for them to play with. Same with day 2.

That is all I have - And I will be sending this thread along to the PTO's I know so that they can review it for autumn regionals.

~ulti

 

[lolfailsnail]

The biggest problem I had with the Houston regional was that it was pretty clear that the staff had no idea what they were doing. I was pretty mad when the event coordinator went to bed on Friday night before the side events that day were finished. :/ I had to go get my prize on Sunday instead, and instead of the $20 gift card I was promised I got 4 packs of pokemon cards that I'm never going to use. Another thing about the staff was that they pretty much only knew anything about the TCG format and didn't have a clue about what would happen at the VGC event. Seriously, Kenan asked like 10 different staff members about the possibility of a top cut and none of them gave a real answer, and some of them even said that there was a very good chance of there being one. Needless to say, Kenan and I were disappointed when we both made it into the Top 16 and we learned that there wouldn't be one.

The hack checks were pretty bad there as well. I got asked to stay at my table for like 5 minutes after almost every match that I won (yeah, they only hack checked people that won for some reason). I was actually glad that they were doing the checks the first time, but by the fourth I was growing pretty impatient. My hack checks were pretty quick, but I'm pretty sure that Kenan had to sit at his table for like 20 minutes after Round 2 because none of the staff would go over and help him.

Oh well, it's their first year and I'm hoping that they improve next year. Even though everybody else has said it, I just want to say that swiss without Top Cut is one of the worst ideas that TPCi has ever had. And have at least one TV for the finals, I was playing right next to LPFan in the final round and even I couldn't tell what was happening. Even though I had a ton of fun hanging out with everybody, the event itself was much worse than Dallas in 2011 and a lot of things need to be changed. I really hope that Nationals has the same feeling that it did last year or I will be very disappointed.

 

[Chill Murray]

Nearly everything that I want to say about the Philly regional has been said already, but there is one point I'd like to add:

Why not hack check as part of registration? It might make the registration process a little bit longer, but I feel like the tournament would run much more smoothly as a result.

 

[skarm]

First off I'm going to write a big one here for the Surrey, British Columbia regional and start with some kudos:

Thank you!:

• To Sandy, our PTO. I'd never had an experience with her before, but I know she is a constant in the Western Canadian events in the Vancouver area. She was incredibly friendly, and went out of her way to help a friend and I find our Play! Pokemon IDs when we didn't have them with us. We had pre-registered (more on this later), but Sandy was overall a great lady who was enthusiastic and was trying to manage one of the bigger events. Kudos.
• To TPCi for agreeing to give Canada their own Regionals and a National Championship event. While I very much enjoy hanging out with my friends in the States, having our own events is a nice change. It saves myself a lot of money on travel among other smaller details.

Onto the review:

Location: I don't know much about the Vancouver area since I live in Saskatchewan, and am from Toronto originally, but I've heard from locals repeatedly that Surrey is a rather shady area. I didn't have any problems, but I can understand why. I respect the decision to host an event in a suburb instead of Vancouver proper given the obvious cost differential between the two. The mall itself where the event was held was very nice despite the area otherwise.

Timing: This didn't matter to me, but it mattered to others as has been pointed out by other participants. I'm not in school and work full time, so dropping a vacation day for travel isn't an issue for me. Given that one of the age groups is dominated by University and College students trying to land the event outside of the typical finals time periods would be a great asset in the future. I know of a few diehard players that were unable to attend the event because of school conflicts.

Registration/Pre-Reg: We had pre-registration available for this event. I did so as did my friends. However, we still had to fill out a piece of paper including Play! Pokemon ID and basically every piece we provided prior and stand in line. I thought this entirely defeated the purpose of pre-registration.

TOP CUT. This is beating a dead horse, I know, but as Synre and others have mentioned in this thread it is seriously the most important aspect of changing the format to Swiss. Before I go further, the change from single elimination to Swiss was absolutely fantastic.

The reasoning presented earlier in the thread sums up my thoughts and arguments. Strength of schedule is something I have absolutely no control over other than my own personal record (which can be influenced by a few dice rolls in either direction). We had a couple of 5-1s that did not make Top 4 despite only dropping a single game. They had no control over who they faced in earlier rounds and it shouldn't be held against them. I myself would have landed approximately 5th or 6th had I won my final match and would have been in this boat.

I was rather disappointed to learn that Philadelphia managed two flights + top-cut when other events were straight swiss. I understand this decision was based on the number of entrants, but I know a few other US regionals at the very least could have warranted a top 32/16/8 top cut. I believe that even Surrey could have benefited from a top 8 top cut (which I would not have made so this isn't just for me!) given it was a smaller regional.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe TCG regionals always will have a top cut regardless of the number of entrants.

Additionally, a Top-Cut feature would be more enjoyable for spectators if paired with a TV or projector for them to watch the battles on the single elimination tree and for eliminated players to enjoy an ending to the event.

Officiating: Do not take this to be a slight towards the staff running the event because I fully recognize that this was their first time running a VGC event, and doing so concurrent with TCG as well.

The decision for whether or not to allow note taking is just one aspect. In Surrey, I know TRE was accused of his opponent of breaking the rules. The judge ruled that TRE was well within his right, and so no punishment was given. This was not uniform across other regionals as we've learned. If the debate is that there could be too much leeway with what is "game detail" etc., then a straightforward ban on note taking would be more preferred than not being sure which way the organizer will go in that particular event.

Hackchecking needs to be done during registration. I know the counter-point is that this would take time, but realistically, you have to scan in the team anyway. Hack checking them is only an additional safeguard against cheating. I know at least one person was disqualified later in the event. I wasn't hack checked until after my final round, and neither was my opponent (who was in line for a prize). Had we been hacking we would have severely messed up some other honest folks day.

In addition the staff need to know what they are looking for. Given that this was the first event, it is no surprise. When the answer is "I don't know what's wrong", that isn't fair to the player. Certain promo mons come up as hacked (or they did in 2010 etc) so the player needs to be able to discuss the issue. At least one person needs to be knowledgeable enough to answer the harder questions or do the checks themselves.

To this point if any organizers for the Surrey regional would like to discuss further about this, I'm more than willing to discuss what has been done in previous years and what the ideal situation would be.

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). In other regionals in the past promotional mons were given out. I don't know how difficult this would be to run a hotspot, and would likely need to be authorized by TPCi higher ups. Something to think about, though.

Bring back Eye of the Tiger/Final Countdown. Its just not the same without it.

EDIT:

Time limits: Can't believe I forgot this earlier. I had two matches finish by timeout that were exceedingly close. Another three had under a minute or two. 15 minutes for close matches between good players is not enough and since tiebreaking software can't read the situation it isn't a fair ending most of the time. Bumping this to 20 minutes I believe would have solved all my issues.

 

[HoustonPokemon]

The biggest problem I had with the Houston regional was that it was pretty clear that the staff had no idea what they were doing. I was pretty mad when the event coordinator went to bed on Friday night before the side events that day were finished. :/ I had to go get my prize on Sunday instead, and instead of the $20 gift card I was promised I got 4 packs of pokemon cards that I'm never going to use. Another thing about the staff was that they pretty much only knew anything about the TCG format and didn't have a clue about what would happen at the VGC event. Seriously, Kenan asked like 10 different staff members about the possibility of a top cut and none of them gave a real answer, and some of them even said that there was a very good chance of there being one. Needless to say, Kenan and I were disappointed when we both made it into the Top 16 and we learned that there wouldn't be one.

The hack checks were pretty bad there as well. I got asked to stay at my table for like 5 minutes after almost every match that I won (yeah, they only hack checked people that won for some reason). I was actually glad that they were doing the checks the first time, but by the fourth I was growing pretty impatient. My hack checks were pretty quick, but I'm pretty sure that Kenan had to sit at his table for like 20 minutes after Round 2 because none of the staff would go over and help him.

Oh well, it's their first year and I'm hoping that they improve next year. Even though everybody else has said it, I just want to say that swiss without Top Cut is one of the worst ideas that TPCi has ever had. And have at least one TV for the finals, I was playing right next to LPFan in the final round and even I couldn't tell what was happening. Even though I had a ton of fun hanging out with everybody, the event itself was much worse than Dallas in 2011 and a lot of things need to be changed. I really hope that Nationals has the same feeling that it did last year or I will be very disappointed.

1. I was the Event Coordinator and I was downstairs in the ballroom until the very end at 1:30 am. Ask Austin Baggs, he won the Stage 2 event and I sat there at the next table and watched it. I also stayed behind to make sure every single door was locked and everything was secured.

2. The winner of the VG and TCG side event received a $20.00 gift card from one of our vendors, I let the winners choose which one they wanted and handed them their gift card personally on Saturday BECAUSE the vendors didn't arrive until Saturday morning. 2nd place received 4 packs.

3. Our VGC staff didn't come in until Sunday morning, so yes, I didn't expect our TCG staff to know about the VGC. Had you read ALL the information on two different websites, along with on Pokemon.com, you would've known there was no top cut. I would think you would've looked this up before traveling so far for an event.

4. I reminded everyone at the beginning of the event that there would be no top cut. TPCi announced along time ago that there would be no top cut. I guess you weren't listening.

5. I guess you weren't listening again when I announced after round 1 that no players needed to stay seated for checks. NO rounds were held up by hack checking. The only small hold up in between rounds was due to us double checking my TOM entries for wins / loses which only took about 3 minutes. We only hack checked during the actual round time.

6. To wrap this up, I'd like to thank everyone for coming out and playing.

 

[Team Rocket Elite]

The decision for whether or not to allow note taking is just one aspect. In Surrey, I know TRE was accused of his opponent of breaking the rules. The judge ruled that TRE was well within his right, and so no punishment was given. This was not uniform across other regionals as we've learned. If the debate is that there could be too much leeway with what is "game detail" etc., then a straightforward ban on note taking would be more preferred than not being sure which way the organizer will go in that particular event.

Actually, I didn't have any problems with the judges for the note taking issue. I had seen sixonesix's post earlier about note taking being disallowed at his event so I double checked things with a judge beforehand to make sure I was allowed to take notes. The problem I had was an opponent who was particularly paranoid about me taking notes during the match. I called over a judge since I figured that was the easiest way to explain to him that I was allowed to take notes. The judge ruled that I was allowed to take notes like the previous judge. I'm not sure how well the note taking rule is communicated among the judges so there could have been a problem if the second judge ruled against me but they didn't.

However, it would be nice if there was more consistency in the note taking rules. At the Salem regional I was told I could write down whatever notes I wanted during the battle. At Surrey, it was slightly changed to my opponent had to be allowed to see the notes as well. Not a huge difference, but if I had known I would have brought more blank sheets of paper so my opponents couldn't see my notes from previous rounds.

Personally, I don't see the problem with limitless note taking during a match unless it delays a match. For me, it was mostly stuff I would review after the tournament was over rather than for the current match.

 

[BlaqJstr]

Philadelphia Regionals
Being this is my hometown I can still say we had some flaws.My first VGC experience came in 2009 <My number got skipped but I stayed to check things out> and the energy within the room was ecstatic.Obviously I thought all VGC were ran the same way
Location-Great location since it was kinda like my backyard.The room was small but I have idea to get more space will be explained later on

Timing- Everybody should know by now that Pokemon is getting bigger and I think Juniors and/or possibly Seniors should start the same day as the TCG portion of regionals since by the look of things those divisions are smaller than Masters.As you may have heard we were delayed 3 hours<kind of ridiculous getting up so early just to wait even longer>

Other-I still wish that environment made me feel more appreciative.It was so dry kinda like Toxicroak with Dry Skin in a Sunny Day<sorry>
No music,monitors,announcers,retail,giveaways or side-events.I felt as thought I didn't even belong at the tournament.<By the 3rd round I was on my 3rd monster and still didn't get no motivation>.
Maybe us fans will contribute to the VGC to possibly liven things up

 

[Firestorm]

I attended the Western Canada Regional.

Location
Although I'd love the Vancouver Convention Centre at some point if we increase our numbers enough, Central City is a solid place for the tournament. It's pretty easy to get to by transit, has a food court, and the staff already have a good relationship with the place so it's probably easy for them to deal with.

Staffing
Vast majority of the staff were awesome. Even when I was told to shut up during skarm vs Articuno64 the guy did it in a good-natured way! The local TCG staff are great so this was expected =)

Atmosphere
I had my hopes so low that I was somewhat impressed by what we had! I'd still love it if we could get some battle music going. TVs of course are a must in future years as has been mentioned. Give us something to watch. Maybe nothing during swiss, but give us a top cut that we can see! And seriously. Give us a top cut next year like TCG has. I think TPCi has got the message by now though.

Timing
Mid-April is literally the worst time of the year for this as has been mentioned multiple times. There were a number of people I know who couldn't make it due to final exams and projects. In fact, being held in a space right under my university I was actually visited randomly by a friend or two who were just checking out what all the commotion was about downstairs then pop back up because they had to finish working on their stuff. Last year's May dates were far superior and I think TCG players would appreciate it as well.

Schedule Improvements
Aside from moving it to May, the actual start time and end time were great. Registration went a bit longer than expected but that was I think due to the larger number of people coming than I expected. I think pre-registration could be done better though. I'm not sure what the California PTO used but down there they were scanning people's printed pre-registration slips through. That would have definitely sped up the process!

Also, this is for TPCi rather than our staff, but putting information on the website about the Battle Box would be very helpful. Props for grabbing people who knew VGC and setting up a help desk to direct people to when they needed help setting up Battle Box or when their teams were rejected.

Suggestions (mostly to TPCi) to increase turnout

• Giving away an event Pokemon at the event would definitely attract more people to it. The Eevee in 2010, the Larvitar in Europe this year, etc. are all great attractions for the casual player.
• Would really appreciate more tournaments in the circuit. Maybe at the SPT and City level at first then down to Battle Roads a year or so after. The more local tournaments there are, the more people who get involved with them and want to travel out to the regionals. Without doing this, the new format feels like a waste. Let's go all the way if we're going with the TCG format. The only reason I don't mind the downgraded spectacle of the new regional format is because I think that we're going to get a more fleshed out tournament series out of it in the future.
• Increasing the number of weekends that SPTs were on increased the participation in our TCG Provincial quite a bit. Spreading the regionals out a bit more for both autumn and spring over two or three weeks (2 - 3 per weekend) would make for a larger turnout and allow us to see more of our friends almost like the old VGC format! I understand regionals were already split to a fall and spring one, but I think going further would help!

Problems with Prizes
Honestly, I still don't understand how eligibility for prizes works. At first I thought regardless of where you win, you got a prize to your home national. Then I thought that if you win outside your country, your travel prize passes down but you keep your byes. Now I'm starting to get word that you keep the $300 if you win outside your country but you aren't eligible for the flight and hotel. I have no idea about the byes but I think you keep those. Clarification is required and it's required early in the process. I know this affected quite a few people's decisions to attend regionals like the ones in Oregon, British Columbia, and Ontario.

Canada is a Bilingual Nation
A player at our regional wasn't able to use his French game cart because the magic box wouldn't accept it. This is unacceptable. Our staff phoned headquarters and found out that this was indeed the case and being the outstanding people they are, were able to track down a spare English copy of the game to trade his Pokemon to and play (seriously props for that). I imagine the players in Ontario had a bigger problem than ours being so close to Quebec. This shouldn't happen.

Time Limits
VGC '12 needs a longer time limit. Multiple matches I saw went to time and they were not stall teams by any means. 15 minutes was alright for VGC '11 but '12 needs something a little longer. I think 20 would be good.

 

[Age of Kings]

Pleasanton feedback. Much needs to be improved, but a lot was done right. Hopefully my post doesn't get taken as a constant string of QQing because Pokemon events are generally extremely organized and run very well. This was no exception.

Location: I know the San Jose Convention Center is under construction but I would prefer NorCal VGCs return to SJ. Numbers were hurt a little bit by the venue being in a less central location and personally I was almost unable to go because there is no easy way to get there via public transportation.

Timing: I know it's not the fault of the event staff, but we got there at 8:30am and registration took so long the tournament did not start until 1pm. The vast majority of the people who had not pre-registered were kids with their parents. Therefore, I think that Masters should start later than the other divisions: Juniors and Seniors should be held in the morning, and Masters later like previous years.
Other than that, I think the calendar date was perfect and did not conflict with any of the major CA university systems' academic calendars to my knowledge. I actually prefer them being in early to mid April before schoolwork becomes too hectic.

Other comments: I know you guys really want us to play the TCG, but the prizes should be more relevant for VGC players who place under the top 4. The binder and playmat would have been worthless to most of us, it would probably just be sold on Ebay or something. Some relevant Pokemon merchandise, perhaps stuff from the Pokemon Center/Nintendo World stores, would be great especially since the vendors were reselling them for insanely ridiculous prices.

Top cut. Swiss is excellent, except you're running it without top cut despite TCG using that format. Keep them the same please.

The hack checkers seemed to know what they were doing. I'm glad that they're making the effort to get staff who are more familiar with the games, kudos.

These are just pet peeves of mine, but some tournament etiquette should be encouraged. I don't appreciate people loudly commentating on their matches for instance. Clarifying on whether or not note-taking is allowed as others have mentioned should be in order although I'm not particularly against that. I'm just saying that tournament staff should note what is and isn't acceptable behavior during play.

will be edited over time