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 greyknight12 wrote:
Regardless of rule complexity or 8th Edition issues, it's an incredibly positive thing that action was taken, and on a top 16 player no less. Up until now, the only consequences for illegal lists or cheating was ridicule by the internet.

Technically, there wasn't action taken against him.

Everything was self-inflicted.

From the disqualification to the coming here to try to clean stuff up and the ensuing purification of his black soul.

 greyknight12 wrote:
Regardless of rule complexity or 8th Edition issues, it's an incredibly positive thing that action was taken, and on a top 16 player no less. Up until now, the only consequences for illegal lists or cheating was ridicule by the internet.

Correcting, the guy took action himself. The TO seemed to be perfectly fine with him playing on, just without the relic going forward.

 Ordana wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
Regardless of rule complexity or 8th Edition issues, it's an incredibly positive thing that action was taken, and on a top 16 player no less. Up until now, the only consequences for illegal lists or cheating was ridicule by the internet.

Correcting, the guy took action himself. The TO seemed to be perfectly fine with him playing on, just without the relic going forward.

I'm curious where you got this, "The TO seemed to be perfectly fine with him playing on," since it's false. Everyone, players, the TO, and the assistant TO knew immediately what had to happen. The only decision to make was whether to record it as, "Expelled by TO" or, "Forfeit/Withdrawn." "Expelled by TO" implies the player in question does not agree that they have broken rules and therefore contests their removal from the tournament. "Forfeit/Withdrawn" implies the player in question agrees that they have broken rules and therefore do not contest their removal from the tournament.

Hint: I'm the TO.

DCannon4Life wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
Regardless of rule complexity or 8th Edition issues, it's an incredibly positive thing that action was taken, and on a top 16 player no less. Up until now, the only consequences for illegal lists or cheating was ridicule by the internet.

Correcting, the guy took action himself. The TO seemed to be perfectly fine with him playing on, just without the relic going forward.

I'm curious where you got this, "The TO seemed to be perfectly fine with him playing on," since it's false. Everyone, players, the TO, and the assistant TO knew immediately what had to happen. The only decision to make was whether to record it as, "Expelled by TO" or, "Forfeit/Withdrawn." "Expelled by TO" implies the player in question does not agree that they have broken rules and therefore contests their removal from the tournament. "Forfeit/Withdrawn" implies the player in question agrees that they have broken rules and therefore do not contest their removal from the tournament.

Hint: I'm the TO.

OOOOH SNAP

DCannon4Life wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
Regardless of rule complexity or 8th Edition issues, it's an incredibly positive thing that action was taken, and on a top 16 player no less. Up until now, the only consequences for illegal lists or cheating was ridicule by the internet.

Correcting, the guy took action himself. The TO seemed to be perfectly fine with him playing on, just without the relic going forward.

I'm curious where you got this, "The TO seemed to be perfectly fine with him playing on," since it's false. Everyone, players, the TO, and the assistant TO knew immediately what had to happen. The only decision to make was whether to record it as, "Expelled by TO" or, "Forfeit/Withdrawn." "Expelled by TO" implies the player in question does not agree that they have broken rules and therefore contests their removal from the tournament. "Forfeit/Withdrawn" implies the player in question agrees that they have broken rules and therefore do not contest their removal from the tournament.

Hint: I'm the TO.

Thanks for the clarification, but unfortunately, confusion comes when given the context that we were given. Which largely seemed like the TO was unwilling to flat out DQ him, so he decided himself to pull himself from the event to make the decision at that time.

That was clearly not the case, but I guess that is between the two of you.

At the end of the day, it was still a withdraw instead of a disqualification.

Kinda like those times when you screw up at work and the HR guy is like: "Well, you can either quit, or we can fire you. The choice is yours." Of course you say: I voluntarily quit.

Seems like a very similar situation.

Unfortunately, your disclosure of what really happens kind of turns all of that on its head.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Thanks for the clarification, but unfortunately, confusion comes when given the context that we were given. Which largely seemed like the TO was unwilling to flat out DQ him, so he decided himself to pull himself from the event to make the decision at that time.

That was clearly not the case, but I guess that is between the two of you.

At the end of the day, it was still a withdraw instead of a disqualification.

Kinda like those times when you screw up at work and the HR guy is like: "Well, you can either quit, or we can fire you. The choice is yours." Of course you say: I voluntarily quit.

Seems like a very similar situation.

Unfortunately, your disclosure of what really happens kind of turns all of that on its head.

I'm not sure what gets turned on its head. Let me be very, VERY clear: Gonyo voluntarily forfeit his current game, withdrew from the tournament, and forfeit any/all ITC points he would have earned without coming anywhere NEAR putting the TO in a position where an ultimatum had to be given. He didn't argue. He didn't make excuses. And THEN, because his opponent wanted to, rather than just walk away, Gonyo played out the forfeited game.

DCannon4Life wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
Regardless of rule complexity or 8th Edition issues, it's an incredibly positive thing that action was taken, and on a top 16 player no less. Up until now, the only consequences for illegal lists or cheating was ridicule by the internet.

Correcting, the guy took action himself. The TO seemed to be perfectly fine with him playing on, just without the relic going forward.

I'm curious where you got this, "The TO seemed to be perfectly fine with him playing on," since it's false. Everyone, players, the TO, and the assistant TO knew immediately what had to happen. The only decision to make was whether to record it as, "Expelled by TO" or, "Forfeit/Withdrawn." "Expelled by TO" implies the player in question does not agree that they have broken rules and therefore contests their removal from the tournament. "Forfeit/Withdrawn" implies the player in question agrees that they have broken rules and therefore do not contest their removal from the tournament.

Hint: I'm the TO.

Well I'm glad to hear I was wrong :p
I was going off of Andrew's own account earlier in the this thread

I offered to drop, and they agreed that was the best option.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/150/753409.page#9900281
Which made me believe there was an option other then DQ. Probably my mistake for trying to infer to much.

On a side note,
I don't entirely agree with your differentiation of terms. DQ to me doesn't mean that the offender disagreed with the ruling. Just that the fault was big enough to warrant a removal from the tournament. Forfeiting is for people who cannot continue for some other reason (like an emergency they need to go to). But this is just personal opinion and has no real bearing on this story.

 Ordana wrote:
On a side note,
I don't entirely agree with your differentiation of terms. DQ to me doesn't mean that the offender disagreed with the ruling. Just that the fault was big enough to warrant a removal from the tournament. Forfeiting is for people who cannot continue for some other reason (like an emergency they need to go to). But this is just personal opinion and has no real bearing on this story.

Fair enough.

Cheers

why not have the BCP app open up the lists for everyone to see once the Tournament starts ? Seems like a good way of crowd sourcing the lists. Adepticon was one of the few Tournaments i saw that allowed you to view lists as the Tournament was going on. Usually its closed to outside the players in the Tournament.

That is way too late I am afraid.

It always seemed kind of odd to me that more players don't upload their list to BCP as text documents prior to the tournament. Instead we have these janky pictures of a list that was printed in a hotel lobby, folded a dozen times, and assaulted by dorito fingers. If players uploaded their list as text prior to the tournament, judges could quickly look over the high seeded players list to make sure there are no gotchas. Because it would suck to fly out to a tournament, make it to the final 16, and get DQ'd for a bone headed mistake on my list.

Some are modifying their uber lists until the last minute and others are scared to revealed their secrets too far in advance. But most are simply lazy.

Perhaps the tournament community would be better served by having pre-qualifiers at capable rogue trader stores for major events, so by the time it comes around you're already down to the top 100, or top 150?

The idea of gigantic one-off tournaments doesn't seem to scale very well.

 Marmatag wrote:
Perhaps the tournament community would be better served by having pre-qualifiers at capable rogue trader stores for major events, so by the time it comes around you're already down to the top 100, or top 150?

The idea of gigantic one-off tournaments doesn't seem to scale very well.

Would sucks for folks who can't make it to those qualifiers but would still like to participate.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Perhaps the tournament community would be better served by having pre-qualifiers at capable rogue trader stores for major events, so by the time it comes around you're already down to the top 100, or top 150?

The idea of gigantic one-off tournaments doesn't seem to scale very well.

Would sucks for folks who can't make it to those qualifiers but would still like to participate.

I think the idea would be to make it so that there are lots of little qualifiers held at shops that prove they can handle running the events.

I mean, it's not exactly a bad idea.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Perhaps the tournament community would be better served by having pre-qualifiers at capable rogue trader stores for major events, so by the time it comes around you're already down to the top 100, or top 150?

The idea of gigantic one-off tournaments doesn't seem to scale very well.

Would sucks for folks who can't make it to those qualifiers but would still like to participate.

Also sucks for the organizers who now have much smaller events and thus less money. Something like that could make sense if it were like NOVA where there is an open and invite tournament, but as the standard 40k event for a large convention qualifiers seem like a non-starter. I mean maybe ITC could do like an ITC championship where they invite the top x players from the ITC rankings, then have that be separate from the ITC season championship based on points. It wouldn't be perfect but if you want a small elite event it seems like the best approach.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Perhaps the tournament community would be better served by having pre-qualifiers at capable rogue trader stores for major events, so by the time it comes around you're already down to the top 100, or top 150?

The idea of gigantic one-off tournaments doesn't seem to scale very well.

Would sucks for folks who can't make it to those qualifiers but would still like to participate.

I think the idea would be to make it so that there are lots of little qualifiers held at shops that prove they can handle running the events.

I mean, it's not exactly a bad idea.

Using shops is a bad idea because the level of play at each is no where near equal, so if I go to my LGS and beat up on a bunch of scrubs, I get in but some guy that plays at a super competitive store might now. I think ITC points would be better if they wanted to do it.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Perhaps the tournament community would be better served by having pre-qualifiers at capable rogue trader stores for major events, so by the time it comes around you're already down to the top 100, or top 150?

The idea of gigantic one-off tournaments doesn't seem to scale very well.

Would sucks for folks who can't make it to those qualifiers but would still like to participate.

Agreed, but as the tournament community grows, it will be easier to find a tournament. When 8th dropped I was within driving distance of roughly 1 tournament per month.

Now, i'm able to drive to about 4 tournaments a month, to the point where i actually have to pick and choose which shops i want to play at! Of course, there are millions of people out here in the Bay Area, and the population density is very high.

So, YMMV depending on the state / city you live in. Maybe this would be better served in a trial fashion for a large event out here. Sort of like a NorCal Open, with 10 or so qualifying RTTs to trip the field down to the top 200 (finishers 1 & 2 from each event).

I still think the point stands, though - the current setup doesn't scale as tournaments become more and more popular, especially at big cons that already draw a crowd.

Breng77 wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Perhaps the tournament community would be better served by having pre-qualifiers at capable rogue trader stores for major events, so by the time it comes around you're already down to the top 100, or top 150?

The idea of gigantic one-off tournaments doesn't seem to scale very well.

Would sucks for folks who can't make it to those qualifiers but would still like to participate.

Also sucks for the organizers who now have much smaller events and thus less money. Something like that could make sense if it were like NOVA where there is an open and invite tournament, but as the standard 40k event for a large convention qualifiers seem like a non-starter. I mean maybe ITC could do like an ITC championship where they invite the top x players from the ITC rankings, then have that be separate from the ITC season championship based on points. It wouldn't be perfect but if you want a small elite event it seems like the best approach.

Awww, too bad.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Perhaps the tournament community would be better served by having pre-qualifiers at capable rogue trader stores for major events, so by the time it comes around you're already down to the top 100, or top 150?

The idea of gigantic one-off tournaments doesn't seem to scale very well.

Would sucks for folks who can't make it to those qualifiers but would still like to participate.

I think the idea would be to make it so that there are lots of little qualifiers held at shops that prove they can handle running the events.

I mean, it's not exactly a bad idea.

Using shops is a bad idea because the level of play at each is no where near equal, so if I go to my LGS and beat up on a bunch of scrubs, I get in but some guy that plays at a super competitive store might now. I think ITC points would be better if they wanted to do it.

Your objections are literally invalid since the current situation is exactly what happens anyways whenever a shop announces a "tournament" with any kind of prizes.

Sorry, not sorry--if people were told that there's ITC qualifiers that were going to be held there? I don't think you'd see the "scrubs"(codeword for "casual players" I guess...) lining up to play in it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

I still think the point stands, though - the current setup doesn't scale as tournaments become more and more popular, especially at big cons that already draw a crowd.

Alternatively, maybe events should stop calling their stuff "tournaments" and instead just call it something else.

Having seen things like Ard Boyz and other such qualifier events in the past, I have zero faith in them. Mostly because half the people that would show up to a store had never been seen before and were just there to avoid competition from wherever they normally played, and the drama level spiked notably at most such events.

I dont seee what value they add, at least that isnt matched or exceeded by its own new issues.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Alternatively, maybe events should stop calling their stuff "tournaments" and instead just call it something else.

*cough* organizedgamingconventions *cough*

Having player rankings, and other strong incentives to win is a mistake (IMHO). When people super care about the results of the game that's when you get That Guy behaviors... and rewards kind of bake that into the game, when it might not exist. (Of course, some people are just gak monsters regardless, but still).

Playing should be its own reward.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Having seen things like Ard Boyz and other such qualifier events in the past, I have zero faith in them. Mostly because half the people that would show up to a store had never been seen before and were just there to avoid competition from wherever they normally played, and the drama level spiked notably at most such events.

I dont seee what value they add, at least that isnt matched or exceeded by its own new issues.

It doesn't matter if it's "qualifier" events or things like that. As long as there's some kind of prize involved, you'll get the traveling TFGs. I'm going to be avoiding my local shop on Saturday past a certain time because of the Shadespire tournament they're hosting and knowing there will be several of those kinds of people.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Alternatively, maybe events should stop calling their stuff "tournaments" and instead just call it something else.

Ahh I see we're back to the no true tournament. We all know it isn't a tournament until its a perfect event. Also again I find your general opinion on 'well that's too bad for the event organizer' laughable - guess what if its too bad for him, its too bad for anyone who attends because he isn't going to continue running it since his chances to break even are now slim to none.

You've got a real high horde you ride about events where effectively you're pretty demanding about how and what they should be without being willing to, you know, do the work yourself.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Perhaps the tournament community would be better served by having pre-qualifiers at capable rogue trader stores for major events, so by the time it comes around you're already down to the top 100, or top 150?

The idea of gigantic one-off tournaments doesn't seem to scale very well.

Would sucks for folks who can't make it to those qualifiers but would still like to participate.

Also sucks for the organizers who now have much smaller events and thus less money. Something like that could make sense if it were like NOVA where there is an open and invite tournament, but as the standard 40k event for a large convention qualifiers seem like a non-starter. I mean maybe ITC could do like an ITC championship where they invite the top x players from the ITC rankings, then have that be separate from the ITC season championship based on points. It wouldn't be perfect but if you want a small elite event it seems like the best approach.

Awww, too bad.

It is too bad, those organizers need to at least break even to keep running events. If that is prevented from happening, then those events no longer occur. So yeah, providing a reason why it won't happen is totally worth sarcasm. If you want to run an event that functions like you describe, do it.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Perhaps the tournament community would be better served by having pre-qualifiers at capable rogue trader stores for major events, so by the time it comes around you're already down to the top 100, or top 150?

The idea of gigantic one-off tournaments doesn't seem to scale very well.

Would sucks for folks who can't make it to those qualifiers but would still like to participate.

I think the idea would be to make it so that there are lots of little qualifiers held at shops that prove they can handle running the events.

I mean, it's not exactly a bad idea.

Using shops is a bad idea because the level of play at each is no where near equal, so if I go to my LGS and beat up on a bunch of scrubs, I get in but some guy that plays at a super competitive store might now. I think ITC points would be better if they wanted to do it.

Your objections are literally invalid since the current situation is exactly what happens anyways whenever a shop announces a "tournament" with any kind of prizes.

Sorry, not sorry--if people were told that there's ITC qualifiers that were going to be held there? I don't think you'd see the "scrubs"(codeword for "casual players" I guess...) lining up to play in it.

No it isn't, every shop offers some prize for their events, and as often as not it is primarily local people that show up. Maybe an ITC championship slot on the line would change that, maybe it wouldn't. That largely depends on the location of the store. So unless the stores are going to be hand picked and vetted (more work), and extremely limited. It doesn't work. Local guys go to their local shops tourney regardless of what is the prize, because they want to play games. Getting an "invite" for winning a local RTT seems like a terrible plan. ITC points are far better, at least it proves consistent good results.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

I still think the point stands, though - the current setup doesn't scale as tournaments become more and more popular, especially at big cons that already draw a crowd.

Alternatively, maybe events should stop calling their stuff "tournaments" and instead just call it something else.

Alternatively you could stop caring what actual tournaments (by the definition of the word) call themselves because you don't own the term and get to decide who uses it and how.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Having seen things like Ard Boyz and other such qualifier events in the past, I have zero faith in them. Mostly because half the people that would show up to a store had never been seen before and were just there to avoid competition from wherever they normally played, and the drama level spiked notably at most such events.

I dont seee what value they add, at least that isnt matched or exceeded by its own new issues.

It doesn't matter if it's "qualifier" events or things like that. As long as there's some kind of prize involved, you'll get the traveling TFGs. I'm going to be avoiding my local shop on Saturday past a certain time because of the Shadespire tournament they're hosting and knowing there will be several of those kinds of people.

You get a ton more of it as you raise the stakes, and making it a qualifier to an event with a larger prize does just that. Most events have so little on the line prize wise as to be trivial as the reason most people attend.

I dunno, I won almost $70 for first place at a tournament recently. In the past 6 months i've spent hundreds of dollars of store credit thanks to tournaments. It's nontrivial prize money if you attend enough events. If you're on a fixed budget, over the course of a year getting a free $1,000 to spend on the hobby is a big fething deal.

 Grimgold wrote:
It always seemed kind of odd to me that more players don't upload their list to BCP as text documents prior to the tournament. Instead we have these janky pictures of a list that was printed in a hotel lobby, folded a dozen times, and assaulted by dorito fingers. If players uploaded their list as text prior to the tournament, judges could quickly look over the high seeded players list to make sure there are no gotchas. Because it would suck to fly out to a tournament, make it to the final 16, and get DQ'd for a bone headed mistake on my list.

Yeah, that seems completely bizarre to me. Even in our tiny casual local leagues the players need to post their list to the league organiser as RTF files by a deadline, and when everyone has posted theirs they're published online for everyone to see.

I'm getting the feeling that the main beef here isn't the cheating/mistakes or whatever, it's that many of the tournament players don't fit neatly into the stereotypical boxes some posters here have for them. This thread has covered a lot of ground but it always keeps coming back to the tournaments are bad premise and so are the people who play in them.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Alternatively, maybe events should stop calling their stuff "tournaments" and instead just call it something else.

Ahh I see we're back to the no true tournament. We all know it isn't a tournament until its a perfect event.

Well no, the bit about not calling their stuff "tournaments" is to make it a bit less (for lack of a better term) hypercompetitive. Calling things tournaments, for whatever reason, seems to bring some very not great people out of the woodwork.

Also again I find your general opinion on 'well that's too bad for the event organizer' laughable - guess what if its too bad for him, its too bad for anyone who attends because he isn't going to continue running it since his chances to break even are now slim to none.

Yeah, no. The idea that someone running tournaments at a big event is going to get hurt significantly by others having "qualifiers" that are run in advance is the part that is laughable.

Y'know, the argument that was being put forward?

You've got a real high horde you ride about events where effectively you're pretty demanding about how and what they should be without being willing to, you know, do the work yourself.

I've ran events in years past. I know that it can be rough.

I also know that there's a lot of people who do a shoddy job running events to start with and think they're entitled to players and their money by dint of being the only game in town.

Breng77 wrote:It is too bad, those organizers need to at least break even to keep running events. If that is prevented from happening, then those events no longer occur. So yeah, providing a reason why it won't happen is totally worth sarcasm. If you want to run an event that functions like you describe, do it.

Again: If organizers are "needing to at least break even to keep running events", it makes me very curious as to where/how they're running the events to start with--especially in light of the idea of the existence of having "qualifying games" for big events would somehow mean that the big events aren't going to be profitable.

No it isn't, every shop offers some prize for their events, and as often as not it is primarily local people that show up. Maybe an ITC championship slot on the line would change that, maybe it wouldn't. That largely depends on the location of the store. So unless the stores are going to be hand picked and vetted (more work), and extremely limited. It doesn't work. Local guys go to their local shops tourney regardless of what is the prize, because they want to play games. Getting an "invite" for winning a local RTT seems like a terrible plan. ITC points are far better, at least it proves consistent good results.

I'm calling bull. My local GW is hosting a Shadespire tournament soon and a full half of the slots allocated are going to people who never stepped foot in the shop before they found out that he had free swag for Shadespire.

Also, lol @ you assuming that events wouldn't have some kind of tracking to do the "invites". I mean what do you think they'd do, just give the winner an invite to a national event?

Alternatively you could stop caring what actual tournaments (by the definition of the word) call themselves because you don't own the term and get to decide who uses it and how.

Sure, but if they wanted to make money since they're apparently on such razorthin margins? You'd think they'd want a way to appeal themselves a bit more.

You get a ton more of it as you raise the stakes, and making it a qualifier to an event with a larger prize does just that. Most events have so little on the line prize wise as to be trivial as the reason most people attend.

This is just demonstrably wrong, as Marmatag illustrated.

There's a few people local to me that just basically travel between a few shops and their tournaments--they use their winnings to start up new armies every other quarter. That "little on the line prizewise" adds up when places host tournaments every few weeks with maybe $50-$100 in store credit for prizes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
I'm getting the feeling that the main beef here isn't the cheating/mistakes or whatever, it's that many of the tournament players don't fit neatly into the stereotypical boxes some posters here have for them. This thread has covered a lot of ground but it always keeps coming back to the tournaments are bad premise and so are the people who play in them.

The sad part is that the majority of self-described "tournament players"(which is an important distinction--these are people who describe themselves as "tournament players") that I've met absolutely do fit into stereotypical boxes.

One gentleman, for example, is apt to try to rush you during your turns while dragging his out, tries to call you out on rules if you don't know it from the top of your head when he asks without knowing applicable rules for his stuff in the same way, will try to drag in a buddy of theirs that is usually around to 'officiate' a disputed rule, etc.

 Kanluwen wrote:

The sad part is that the majority of self-described "tournament players"(which is an important distinction--these are people who describe themselves as "tournament players") that I've met absolutely do fit into stereotypical boxes.

One gentleman, for example, is apt to try to rush you during your turns while dragging his out, tries to call you out on rules if you don't know it from the top of your head when he asks without knowing applicable rules for his stuff in the same way, will try to drag in a buddy of theirs that is usually around to 'officiate' a disputed rule, etc.

Pretty anecdotal evidence you have there. I could easily share counter experiences but neither is valuable at all. It appears you've taken issue with tournaments and effectively have decided the brush you paint them with is accurate and it seems like you're here to prove that.

 Marmatag wrote:
I dunno, I won almost $70 for first place at a tournament recently. In the past 6 months i've spent hundreds of dollars of store credit thanks to tournaments. It's nontrivial prize money if you attend enough events. If you're on a fixed budget, over the course of a year getting a free $1,000 to spend on the hobby is a big fething deal.

I mean that works if you always win or place. Otherwise you pay out in gas, food and entry fees. If you don't win then you usually end up breaking about even. Now if you wanted to play the games anyway it is nice, but it is hard to make a lot of money that way unless like I say you always win.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Breng77 wrote:It is too bad, those organizers need to at least break even to keep running events. If that is prevented from happening, then those events no longer occur. So yeah, providing a reason why it won't happen is totally worth sarcasm. If you want to run an event that functions like you describe, do it.

Again: If organizers are "needing to at least break even to keep running events", it makes me very curious as to where/how they're running the events to start with--especially in light of the idea of the existence of having "qualifying games" for big events would somehow mean that the big events aren't going to be profitable.

Large hotels and convention centers? Which cost money to rent, building terrain costs money, renting tables and chairs....seriously big events are super expensive.

No it isn't, every shop offers some prize for their events, and as often as not it is primarily local people that show up. Maybe an ITC championship slot on the line would change that, maybe it wouldn't. That largely depends on the location of the store. So unless the stores are going to be hand picked and vetted (more work), and extremely limited. It doesn't work. Local guys go to their local shops tourney regardless of what is the prize, because they want to play games. Getting an "invite" for winning a local RTT seems like a terrible plan. ITC points are far better, at least it proves consistent good results.

I'm calling bull. My local GW is hosting a Shadespire tournament soon and a full half of the slots allocated are going to people who never stepped foot in the shop before they found out that he had free swag for Shadespire.

Also, lol @ you assuming that events wouldn't have some kind of tracking to do the "invites". I mean what do you think they'd do, just give the winner an invite to a national event?

You were the one talking about qualifiers, either it will work like old Ard Boyz, which basically had a store call up and sign up to run a qualifier. Which means anyone can run one. Or you do like the NOVA invite used to and use other GTs, but that results in a very small event. Or as I said you can use ITC rankings, which seems the best method if you want to have a "top guys only" event.

Alternatively you could stop caring what actual tournaments (by the definition of the word) call themselves because you don't own the term and get to decide who uses it and how.

Sure, but if they wanted to make money since they're apparently on such razorthin margins? You'd think they'd want a way to appeal themselves a bit more.

By reducing attendance? I'm confused. Take LVO, right now 500 players. If the idea is to have qualifiers so that there are only say 100 players, that is 20% of the current attendance how is that appealing to more people? Fewer attendees means smaller room block means higher rental prices. So are we charging like $70 to play the qualifiers to then provide that money to the big conventions to offset their loss of attendance? Or are we trying to stretch our thin staffing to running an additional event? Or renting the hall for more days for that event? Or renting a different location that all these people will travel to on a different date? You obviously haven't thought any of that through. Some events used to do qualifiers back in the day, but those did not prosper near to the event of things like NOVA or LVO.

You get a ton more of it as you raise the stakes, and making it a qualifier to an event with a larger prize does just that. Most events have so little on the line prize wise as to be trivial as the reason most people attend.

This is just demonstrably wrong, as Marmatag illustrated.

There's a few people local to me that just basically travel between a few shops and their tournaments--they use their winnings to start up new armies every other quarter. That "little on the line prizewise" adds up when places host tournaments every few weeks with maybe $50-$100 in store credit for prizes. Great, that is less common near me apparently, and would cost a bunch of money to do so unless again you win every week. To get to a tournament every week near me, that probably costs me a tank of gas a week ($30) + Entry fee ($20) + Buying lunch ($10) so that is ~$60. So if I win $100 a week that is great. If I win every other week but place, maybe still ok. If I don't finish in the money every week it starts to be a lot less attactive.