1208645:

Austin is not convenient to get to. For some reason though Magic, YGH and WoW all thought it was a good idea, so I can only assume the convention centre is cheap. But if this had been in New York or Vegas, there would have been a much higher attendence closer to Paris'.

I'm curious what your definition of "convenient" would be. Direct flights? Flight options? Cost?

Using one of the many travel aggregators such as Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, etc. Europe->Austin was less expensive than Las Vegas or San Diego from all the major European cities (London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris).

There are almost no direct flights, but at almost double the cost for most direct flights I believe that most people would not choose these options.

What are you looking for in an international destination?

---

--
Ben Drago
Marketing Manager, Organized Play

1108382:

1208645:

Austin is not convenient to get to. For some reason though Magic, YGH and WoW all thought it was a good idea, so I can only assume the convention centre is cheap. But if this had been in New York or Vegas, there would have been a much higher attendence closer to Paris'.

I'm curious what your definition of "convenient" would be. Direct flights? Flight options? Cost? Using one of the many travel aggregators such as Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, etc. Europe->Austin was less expensive than Las Vegas or San Diego from all the major European cities (London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris). There are almost no direct flights, but at almost double the cost for most direct flights I believe that most people would not choose these options. What are you looking for in an international destination?

Direct Flights are almost always better than cheaper flights - the possibilities of missed connections forcing you to miss events or have to spend hours of your life stuck in an airport is worth the higher cost of a direct flight.  If it takes an extra day on either end of the flight, missed work/vacation time spent will likely be as much as or more than the extra cost of the direct flight.

1108382:

What are you looking for in an international destination?

:)

Cheers.

---

Come play at C & Js in Newark, CA

1808830:

Ask yourself why its cheap for Ude in Austin ....cause Austin has nothing to offer ....close food isnt a very good argument for holding worlds there. I visited Austin 1 week .....very bad for shopping (i was at 3 malls ....all outside the city).... and bad place for sideseing cause no history there (very young city i guess)

Austin has been around for over 150 years and has been central in the history of Texas since before the US Civil War. While that cannot compete with the 1000+ year histories of some European cities, there is a wealth of museums, art galleries, and places to see. It is a cultural hub and the mixing of diverse ethnic and social cultures is unique. As far as I am concerned there is no other place in the US I'd rather live and work in. I wish you'd have let us know that you were interested in the area, we could have shown you around and given recommendations on where to go and what to do!

Public transportation is a problem, and it can be tough to get around but renting a car if you are going to stay for more than a few days is more than worth it as many of the best things to see around here require you to get out of the city center.

---

http://txtcgplayers.com

My knowledge might be incorrect, and if it is please correct me, but didn't the winner of the first World Champs live in France, and then the winner of the second World Champs live in Texas? I was thinking that the World Champs were held in the previous winners home state/country?

Just a theory of course...

1473012:

Direct Flights are almost always better than cheaper flights - the possibilities of missed connections forcing you to miss events or have to spend hours of your life stuck in an airport is worth the higher cost of a direct flight.  If it takes an extra day on either end of the flight, missed work/vacation time spent will likely be as much as or more than the extra cost of the direct flight.

For me, it depends on the magnitude of difference.  I took a connecting flight from Seattle->Paris because it was like $500+ cheaper.  I did go with the 7 hour layover to be safe, though.

---

My deckbox says "Other Matt"
Northwest WoW messageboards - Northwest WoW forums

For me, It is all about cost.

I took a 2 stop flight to both Nats and Worlds in order to save 100 bucks.  I also flew to philly before DMF Boston to save some money there too.

As long as it will save me 50 or more dollars, I dont mind having an extra connection.  Then again, I don't check any luggage.

---

Chris "Jedion" Reilkoff

1108382:

I'm curious what your definition of "convenient" would be. Direct flights? Flight options? Cost? Using one of the many travel aggregators such as Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, etc. Europe->Austin was less expensive than Las Vegas or San Diego from all the major European cities (London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris). There are almost no direct flights, but at almost double the cost for most direct flights I believe that most people would not choose these options. What are you looking for in an international destination?

Convenience has nothing to do with the cost of getting somewhere and was probably a poor choice of words on my part. But if you asked me (or most card players, let alone European ones) to choose a city to hold your flagship event in stateside, none of us will ever choose Austin. If you ignore Indianapolis, there's been Boston, Charlotte, San Francisco, Anaheim, New Jersey, Seattle and Orlando as DMF locations over the past couple of years.

 Now I'm pretty sure Charlotte was the worst attended US DMF ever (or certainly this year), and probably because people aren't huge fans of Ric Flair or the Hardyz, but all those other destinations have had reasonable turn-outs. I'd also wage quite a bit that Vegas has the highest US DMF turn-out this year outside of Indy (because it won't have a 400 player tournament to catch 304 players from). It's a big name city, but it's also exciting. It's somewhere people would like to go just to see it, and somewhere people know other people would be willing to go.

As soon as Worlds was announced to be in Austin about 20 people from UK changed their minds about going. That mean UK attendence goes from 15 (if you count one of the Australians who is living in the UK at the moment) to 35, and practically adds 20% to attendence. I mean Germany had virtually no players, when I've attended DMFs with over 100 German players. And let's be honest, qualifying is easy, and I'd happily state and perform the surveys required to prove that you'd have closer to 30 german players attending if the city was even vaguely name related, or close to somewhere people could go after the event had finished (as many players went to new york or orlando before and after Austin). And as soon as the UK and germany are up, so is France, and you'll then actually have Spanish players travelling as well.

What I'm basically saying is that players (and specifically international players that qualify through honor for these events, so your key customers) want to do something other than play cards, and Austin is not a stand-out location for these players. New York, Boston, Vegas, Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego and Orlando are all locations that would certainly net you close to 100 more TCG players in the World Championships. All I can do is compare to EU DMFs which are all in cities people want to visit with the exception of Milton Keynes (which was basically Darkmoon Faire London, but miles outside of London in a shopping centre). Now I'm sure that you got a good deal, that you looked into expedia etc, but at the end of the day chose a location that hadn't had an event in a while that you knew well, that had one of the new OP representatives based there, and has a local WoW TCG community. I would personally have held Worlds in Vegas and swapped the times around of the two events, or held it in Chicago (especially after the Obama-Wave).

---

Zapped Giants - UK Community Site, now with daily articles!

1108382:

1208645:

Austin is not convenient to get to. For some reason though Magic, YGH and WoW all thought it was a good idea, so I can only assume the convention centre is cheap. But if this had been in New York or Vegas, there would have been a much higher attendence closer to Paris'.

I'm curious what your definition of "convenient" would be. Direct flights? Flight options? Cost?

Using one of the many travel aggregators such as Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, etc. Europe->Austin was less expensive than Las Vegas or San Diego from all the major European cities (London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris).

There are almost no direct flights, but at almost double the cost for most direct flights I believe that most people would not choose these options.

What are you looking for in an international destination?

Personally I do not care where it is. Would even enjoy an Euro or maybe even unusual location (Asia??).

What NEEDS to happen is you guys have to get City, Date and Venue information out 4 months before the event.

Seriously.

Hotel room prices nearly doubled before you guys released official information for Austin. If you question this please call me, i got details for you. PM if you do not know how to get a hold of me.

Worlds in France was a complete joke in how information got released. If it was not for the fact I want to go to Europe I would be pushing HARD for them not be getting another worlds...serious think about giving it to asia. I want to go just about anywhere there too.

I really do not know what is up with you guys and releasing information to players and why you can book the venue months before you can tell us where the venue is.

I understand there are prize issues, format issues, qualification issues but all this has NOTHING to do with city, date and venue.

People tell me UDE makes money on side events. Well if this is true you would think releasing city, date and venue would be a top priority.

I can not stress enough how important this is.

Do you guys wait until the last minute on purpose?

I agree with felgie here. so +1 to him

Anyways my feedback is simply put a schedule out with dates and venues and formats.  It seems that all other games can do this why can't upper deck.  Magic (I said the unmentionable name) can do this...THIS IS YOUR COMPETITION UDE and this is what we are asking for as your customers.  This is expectations that we as customers have and you did it once in announcing worlds a year ahead but now you have standards that have completely faltered.  I'll admit I traveled a lot in this game but I haven't played a match since Nationals for the reason that nothing has been announced.  I started playing Magic because I KNOW the direction of where that game is going.  Here I have no idea its smoke and mirrors.

I think everything Jack says is dead on.

I'm a bit biased because I was probably sick with H1N1 the entire time (of course UDE said nothing to the players about proper sanitation even though they were asked repeatedly to do so) but I personally thought Austin was a terrible location.  Flights and hotels were inordinately expensive for such a small city and there was very little to do outside of the tournament in terms of night life.  I'm sure Austin is a great city and all, just not the best location for such a high profile event.  One person's opinion though.

I've said it many times, but it bears mentioning again; Boston was clearly the best location ever for an American DMF.  It baffles me why a DMF on the east coast at a major city doesn't make sense as a more 'central' location for both US and European players, especially for a tournament like the world championships.  It just illustrates the disconnect that exists between UDE and it's customers.  Again, just one person's opinion.

-Jeff-

---

WOW. TCG. SCRUB.
Go ahead, give it a try, everybody's doing it.

Toolbox of Terror; killing you softly every Tuesdays.

I also agree that Austin was a horrible location for the World Championships. I live in a nearby location (Oklahoma, a neighboring state), but its still 10 hours away from me driving distance so its practically the same cost wise for me as anywhere else in the United States to fly to. Its a okay DMF location but not iconic enough of a US city to host the World Championships IMO.

3016247:

its practically the same cost wise for me as anywhere else in the United States to fly to.

On that note, Austin to you would be the same as any other city. So you're indifferent.

If Austin is too inconvenient for you to fly to, then most other cities would probably be too inconvenient for you too unless it's in your backyard.

People have been raving about how convenient Las Vegas is, but I just booked my flight there and it's the first DMF where I have to fly overnight and take Monday off from work. The price of the flight is comparable to others I've booked, but I've booked cheaper flights.

1511318:

I've said it many times, but it bears mentioning again; Boston was clearly the best location ever for an American DMF. It baffles me why a DMF on the east coast at a major city doesn't make sense as a more 'central' location for both US and European players, especially for a tournament like the world championships. It just illustrates the disconnect that exists between UDE and it's customers. Again, just one person's opinion.

It's funny because there's a thread after DMF Boston that discussed why attendence did not meet expectations in this "best location ever." Many people also complained about how expensive Boston is. Is there a disconnect with UDE and its customers or do people just complain no matter what they do?

People won't be satisfied (including me) until the turnout for this game rivals Magic, and unfortunately it doesn't seem like it would ever happen. Part of the reason why has nothing to do with UDE. WotC's competitive moat is just too big.

---

My entire collection for sale.

1284658:

It's funny because there's a thread after DMF Boston that discussed why attendence did not meet expectations in this "best location ever." Many people also complained about how expensive Boston is. Is there a disconnect with UDE and its customers or do people just complain no matter what they do? People won't be satisfied (including me) until the turnout for this game rivals Magic, and unfortunately it doesn't seem like it would ever happen. Part of the reason why has nothing to do with UDE. WotC's competitive moat is just too big.

Austin was on par with Boston in terms of price (in my experience it was); however, it failed to have the same benefits as a larger city in terms of nightlife, being an airline hub, etc.  The disconnect in terms of worlds has nothing to do with complaining, but more because of the lack of common sense when scheduling an event like this, which was for the players.  (See: customers)  Jack pretty much summed up everything in his post.  It comes down to picking a central location that works for the entire player base along with being an attractive location.  I fail to understand how you can even make the argument that Austin is a superior location to something on the east coast, especially given the fact that the prices were similar and the turnout would be higher?

Also, why is it suddenly taboo to express any type of disappointment with UDE on these boards?

-Jeff-

---

WOW. TCG. SCRUB.
Go ahead, give it a try, everybody's doing it.

Toolbox of Terror; killing you softly every Tuesdays.

How about San Francisco since the California player base showed up in droves?

Worlds should always be in the USA.  Its a USA game.

---

Team Norcal has a new website!!!
http://norcalwow.webs.com Join if you live in Northern California