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sometimes the plant can become potbound..
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Author:  jacko [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:31 pm ]
Post subject:  sometimes the plant can become potbound..

please note, I'm not putting this up to start a fight, It's just an observation of how "growing the game" might not work.

I am looking for solutions, I am not passing any critism or judgekment anywhere.

(jacko sticks his head out of the bunker)

I'm not sure that the virtual sets "grow" the game.
(jacko ducks and waits for pause in explosions. and waits, and waits)

we have made the game very exclusive. I admit, I am in the middle of nowhere gaming wise. Our irregular group counts 3, thats 3. All of us being in the same room at the same time would be lucky to be once a year.

However we have had people say, "what are you guys playing?....looks cool...where do you get the figures?...what do you mean they don't make them anymore?...Download and print them out without the figures?... nah I don't need to get into that."

(jacko presents a white flag)

now I realise that other people have much bigger groups and are more well equipped than us, but we can't find anyone interested in joining us for love or money (or beers for that matter).

I am not craping on anything that the community has done or is doing, I just think that as we look to the future we make sure that we have not closed the door on late comers who could be really important to our game.

I'm all ready to hear that I am wrong. Does anyone know someone whose first set was DotF?

Author:  Weeks [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

Richard heck. 2 finals trips at regionals. First set, dotf.

Is that you needed?


You also dont need to be afraid to voice your opinion, so long you do it respectfully. You did it respectfully so i wouldnt worry.

One thing ive done is play on vassal, the nearest group to me is 2 hours in atlanta so i obviously cant just hop over for a quick game. Get your group on vassal if you like playing. Many members of the Design Team use it to play/practice and its a cool way to meet newer people. Id suggest that.

Author:  jedispyder [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

And one thing you have to think of, if not for us, the game would be completely dead. Hell, even with the V-Set my group (Cincinnati) has completely dissolved into other games and we we were usually in the Top 10 talked about groups due to how much work out group did in the community. So the V-Sets will definitely not help all groups, but we're doing the best we can. There's absolutely no way for us to create new figures so the best we can do is create customs.

Author:  jacko [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

I think you have proved my point.

you can't grow a little group with vsets.

"regionals! Oh I dream of the day when we might have regionals!"

Our group and others like it will wither and die, or at least not grow bigger than our pot allows.

Author:  jedispyder [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

jacko wrote:
I think you have proved my point.

you can't grow a little group with vsets.

"regionals! Oh I dream of the day when we might have regionals!"

Our group and others like it will wither and die, or at least not grow bigger than our pot allows.

I think even without the V-Sets you wouldn't be able to grow a little group. In fact, I'm quite certain that without the V-Sets little groups will automatically whither and die due to the eventual point of "I've played all I wanted to play, why continue with no support and nothing new?"

At this point in the game, we're lucky if we can keep afloat. Considering how much excitement has been going on over the V-Sets, I'd say we're doing a great job with it. As long as people request it, we will create it.

Author:  Weeks [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

jacko wrote:
I think you have proved my point.

you can't grow a little group with vsets.

"regionals! Oh I dream of the day when we might have regionals!"

Our group and others like it will wither and die, or at least not grow bigger than our pot allows.



If you dont try you cant. WHats stopping you from downloading and printing out the vset cards and handing them out to newbies? Whats stopping you from sharing your collection at weekly tourneys to get people interested? WOTC didnt advertise, we did. You just have to do a little more work. The atlanta group has doubled since WOTC dropped because they liked the game and kept recruiting. YOu can do the same if you like. OR you can just complain that we have no big company making our game anymore.

Its on you if your local group doesnt grow, not the vsets. You need to get that straight.

Also even if you have a small group people travel really well for this game. Tennesee doesnt have a huge group but they will probably have 20 or so people at their store on saturday for a regional. Have a guess why? cause they try.


"if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"

Author:  jacko [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

Guys get me right, I'm not pooing on the vsets.

it is probably all that is keeping our mob going, no vsets will probably kill us more quickly than otherwise.

but no new players will kill us too.

I suppose the question is larger than I explained it, how can future projects capture new players?

Author:  TheHutts [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

kezzamachine does a great job growing our New Zealand group. He only got into the game around 2008, and he now has more than 20 players, quite a few of whom have only really got seriously on board since Wizards stopped making the game.

I'm not normally that into collecting things, just competitive, so his system works for me. Some of what he does includes
- a cool ranking system (basically your last game against every other player in the group counts towards your rankings). It makes it fun, as it makes rankings more volatile.
- trophies
- tournaments (we had a 14 person 200-point tournament in March)
- regular e-mails

So it totally can be done. Since we're based in New Zealand, no one can really get to a official regional, but I think the quality of players has been improving, and the game is arguably stronger than ever here.

The v-set is helpful, in that it helps younger/newer players access to really good pieces without needing so much financial outlay. You can put together a strong Sith or Old Republic squad out of v-set pieces and a few key fringe pieces.

Author:  Weeks [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

jacko wrote:
Guys get me right, I'm not pooing on the vsets.

it is probably all that is keeping our mob going, no vsets will probably kill us more quickly than otherwise.

but no new players will kill us too.

I suppose the question is larger than I explained it, how can future projects capture new players?


Well, mainly figure out what characters people like. I like Darth Vader so when i started my frined showed me Starter pack Darth Vader. I really thought he was just awesome so i tryed to build around him and make good teams with him......and the addiction started.

DId the same thing getting my wife into it (canderous ordo) and so forth and so on. If they like Mara Jade then show them mara jade. Just setup at your shop with your minis and see if someone gets interested enough to ask what your playing. Post on this site and bloomilk looking for other players. Put up a flyer at your shop saying what you do and when you play.

People like star wars, people like games. Get the word out and you can grow pretty easy. seeing as this combines 2 things people like.

Author:  jedispyder [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

I don't think of either us think you're pooing on the V-Sets. It just sounds like your mentality right now is "no matter what we do, it's not going to work". I think what Weeks said about having spare copies of the V-Set available for new groups can work. Maybe ask with the manager of where you play if you can post an advertisement for the game to try and draw new players in. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do, it just matters that you do something.

Author:  Echo [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

You certainly have some good points, but I think the main counterpoint is just that things might not be great with just the vsets and no new minis, but it would be much worse if there was nothing at all.

Also keep in mind that we aren't the only game to do this, and what we are doing is a tried and true strategy. There is an Atlanta gaming group for both the Star Wars CCG and the Star Trek CCG, both of which gain new players (the Star Trek one in particular has had a bit of a growth spurt lately), and both games have been out of print for years and are currently only being kept alive by virtual sets, just like ours.

So while you're right that our situation isn't ideal for attracting new players, it is both workable (as other games have proven) and the best we've got.

Author:  jacko [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

Thanks guys,

I was trying to engage the community to try and find new players, but I suppose we are what we are.


all the best

Author:  jedispyder [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

We're offering you options on how to find new players. There's nothing more we can do on our part. Such as for Regionals, we created ads and had willing store manages post them for all to view to get up hype for the game. It's been a year since WotC killed the game, I think we're doing fine. Sure, new players would be awesome and we try.

What are your suggestions? So far you've only asked and it seems you don't like our suggestions. What have you done in your community to try to get new players?

Author:  jacko [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

There is no store, so there is no manager and there is no room to play in unless its someones dinning room.

Me and my mate went to "Supanova" last weekend. A good 3hour train trip to the best pretense of what might be something like Gencon.

There was no a single minature to be seen, cards a plenty but even the Wotc didn't have ANY minis.

thanks for all your help, I'm sorry I gave the impression that I was mucking about.

Author:  Weeks [ Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

you obviously have the internet. Ever heard of meetup.com? me and tacticsbroker started a D&D group a few years ago and that group is still going even though we arent there anymore. Try something like that.

Author:  jacko [ Tue Jun 21, 2011 12:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

I am not neccessarly trying to grow my group.

All i am saying is that any new project should try to consider new players.

As far as I know I am the only one of our playing group on here. The others are content for me to keep them up to date. the old fashion way, you know, we meet or talk on the phone.

I would like you to consider the possibillity that of the thousands of members on here a reasonable percentage represent other players that aren't actually members here. For the most part they would be casual players or scared off by the encyclopedic knowledge of those that really love,live and breath the game(I love these people, I wish I lived in a community where we could personally meet).

So sometimes the plant becomes potbound... and you find a bigger pot.

I would like to think that any future project would be approachable by new players.

I know when I first taught my daughter to play we used simple figures,then added stuff with SA, and then force stuff and CEs or whatever.

So I would like to think that some sort of new stuff would be approachable to a 12year old, or those with a 12year olds attention span, who has a mate in a remote location without to much understanding of the rules.

Its like..can you imagine being hacked on on a message board just becasuse you had hardly ever posted before? You would be unlikely to think of that as a friendly thing, and unlikely to want to go back.

Author:  jedispyder [ Tue Jun 21, 2011 1:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

I think I get you're talking about. What you think would work is a "beginner" set, right? A set that isn't too advance with simple special abilities. Similar to what Heroclix does from time to time, everything detailed out and simple to understand.

While I understand the interest in a set like that, it wouldn't be as possible in the way we currently have the V-Sets organized. I doubt many people would be interested to donate to get actual cards for a simplified set like that; most, if not all, of the people that play with the V-Sets want the "cutting edge" pieces that help propel the game further along with new abilities to help synergise if overshadow previous pieces.

And the way I think about it, the chances are very slim of really finding new players after there have been 5 years of sets that someone has missed and can't readily get a hold of.

Author:  jacko [ Tue Jun 21, 2011 2:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

not a begginers set, but close, I think, i'm don't really know. I don't pretend to have an answer.

I have already read on these boards about other groups(bigger than us by some way) that don't intend to use R+R. I know that our guys when asked to spend as a group more than $190 said, "F#* that!, It's all right for these guys who have complete collections, but we could get some serious plastic for that money, not just cardboard!". I have paraphrased what was actually said but in all cases the first word in the quotation marks is true and mearly censored.

I find it difficult to imagine that I would ever not have a toe in the water here, but if I don't know anyone else thats interested in playing and there isn't a game that is interested in promoting new players... it could be that I have a folder full of cards mearly because they were made, not because I actully need or use them.


Guys we are back to were I meant to start! Natural attrition says that players will fall away, we must at least replace these people to sustain the game, never mind growing it!

The difference between a piece of card and a 1cent plastic figure has never been so obvious.
Please don't shout at the weather man, it's really not his fault.

Instant replies don't count. HOW ARE WE GOING TO INTEREST NEW PLAYERS!

sorry, i don't mean to shout but everyone seems to be defendind the staus quo, and we won't survive that way.

Author:  jedispyder [ Tue Jun 21, 2011 3:12 am ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

The status is not quo, lol. The community seems to be struggling to just keep it all together with people getting into bickering fights from time to time over small things.

And I'm gonna be truthful, I don't fully understand what you're trying to get at. As in, how are you connecting "losing players" to "v-sets"?

Author:  obikenobi1 [ Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:20 am ]
Post subject:  Re: sometimes the plant can become potbound..

Echo wrote:


Also keep in mind that we aren't the only game to do this, and what we are doing is a tried and true strategy. There is an Atlanta gaming group for both the Star Wars CCG and the Star Trek CCG, both of which gain new players (the Star Trek one in particular has had a bit of a growth spurt lately), and both games have been out of print for years and are currently only being kept alive by virtual sets, just like ours.



:shock:

You wouldn't happen to know if there are any Star Trek and Star Wars CCG gamers in Minnesota would you? I thought I was of a dying breed.... :cry: But now you have given me hope! :D Thank you sir! I had no idea they were continuing to make Star Trek CCG virtual sets. Time to revamp my recruitment techniques. :)

As far as the V-sets go, I have a couple friends here in Morris,MN that play Star Wars minis, but pretty much stopped playing after Wizards ended production and went back to playing Heroclix. They thought the game was dead, but man were they suprised when I told them about the virtual sets being released. They are so excited now to see the new cards in R&R! They are now back to playing Star Wars Mini's again, so I can say that at least in my area, there is a bit of growth thanks to the new sets.

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