Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

US Nationals Moved...

Using Kayak.com, I just checked airfare for two people from San Francisco, CA to Columbus, OH and San Francisco, CA to St. Louis, MO flying out on June 25, 2009 and back on June 29, 2009.

If booked today, I would spend 2 x $280 for my son and me to fly roundtrip to Columbus, OH.

If booked today, I would spend 2 x $455 for my son and me to fly roundtrip to St. Louis, MO.

Columbus: $560 flights + $100 badges = $660 Nats.

St. Louis: $910 flights + $0 badges = $910 Nats.

Some might guess that because of the additional costs we would face, that I would like to see Nats continue to be held at Origins in Columbus. They would be wrong.

I applaud POP for moving Nats to St. Louis this year. I would love to see Nats move around the country to give different players a chance to attend Nats who might otherwise not be able to attend. Future cities to be considered: Denver ($226 RT), Chicago ($441 RT), Dallas ($372 RT), and any other major American city that serves as a major airline hub.

Thank you for making Pokemon Nationals a true Pokemon event, and eliminating the badge fee for the "free" event.

If anyone has info on cheaper flights from San Francisco to St. Louis, please post it. Charlie and I would love to attend Nats in St. Louis, MO.
 
Definitely wait, John. I waited until April and got a pretty decent price. I find that buying airline tickets this far in advance is always more expensive. There's no way that St. Louis is more expensive than Columbus. It's a main hub. Give it some time.
 
I agree. Right now it says it costs 400 bucks to go to Ohio for me, which it definitely doesn't normally cost.

Wait a little while, like Chad says.
 
Ardoptres said:
Just shows how much you care about going to nats IMO =/
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ok that's uncalled for. Some people have things in their personal lives that interfear with the game. Heck just cuz i don't have the money reserved to take time off work to play at nats does NOT mean i don't care about it.
 
This thread has generated a lot of hard feelings, but I suggest we all try to keep our emotions in check. Some will not particularly like the move, others will applaud it. Your opinion is important, but we need to beware of making it seem like our opinions are the only ones that matter, or that someone else's opinions are not relevant. Let's all remember that we're on the same side here. This is a friendly warning to everyone.
 
Articjedi said:
God, if it were in Denver next year, Wayne would go nuts.
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You are ABSOLutely correct there Matt. Myself, as well as the rest of the Colorado players would go nuts.

But, lets get through the STL Nats and see what happens from there.

I am sure anyone local, no matter where it was hed would go nuts, and sadly, others would be mad.
 
IMHO - I like this decision. My son and I went to Nationals last year (our first time). We drove from Virginia to Ohio (eight hours...thanks for asking). We had an okay time, but personally I would have liked to seen more Pokemon-themed events. Yes...I realize it was a larger gaming convention, but I'm being Poke-centirc (yes, I just made up that word). While the drive to St.Lo will be longer (fourteen hours according to MapQuest), I also saw that we can take the train (and what excellent bonding time that will be with my boy!). Plus St. Louis has the Cardinals, the National Bowling Hall of Fame, and Ted Druze - hand down the best frozen custard on the planet. Kudos to Pokemon for pulling the trigger!
 
Removed on reconsideration.

Sorry.

This Florida family supports this move and will be there NLT Thursday night.

My personal estimate is a slight drop in numbers this year as we lose the draw of the 'nearby' larger population base.

This will be somewhat compensated by the local and 'nearby' population.

Good advertising and a real membership blitz in the nearby states in the coming months would help.
 
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IMHO - I like this decision. My son and I went to Nationals last year (our first time). We drove from Virginia to Ohio (eight hours...thanks for asking). We had an okay time, but personally I would have liked to seen more Pokemon-themed events. Yes...I realize it was a larger gaming convention, but I'm being Poke-centirc (yes, I just made up that word). While the drive to St.Lo will be longer (fourteen hours according to MapQuest), I also saw that we can take the train (and what excellent bonding time that will be with my boy!). Plus St. Louis has the Cardinals, the National Bowling Hall of Fame, and Ted Druze - hand down the best frozen custard on the planet. Kudos to Pokemon for pulling the trigger![/QUOTE]


Let me help ya out here a little bit...
1)Bowling Hall of Fame has been closed due to moving it
2) Ted Drews is just 1 of MANY hands down places St. Louis has to offer!

Done forget yall to check out post #171 in this thread where I have posted just a small few websites for yall to check out as to what all there is to do here! Not to mention Ive posted a coupon website to help ya out when site seeing while here! I will aslo offer up any help I can for those traveling as I live here!

Cant wait to see yall here, in my home town!
 
Even though I won't be going, I totally understand this move and can't really disagree with the reasons.

Pokemon is a business. If that business fails, PUI fails. I believe that PUI will do whatever they feel is in the best interest in keeping this game healthy in terms of keeping current players interested and drawing new players.

I honestly believe that US Nationals will be a BETTER event than Worlds was this year and than Worlds will be in San Diego next year.

PUI will do whatever it takes to make this event an absolute success. It should be awesome for those attending.

One more thing. Ryan V. stated that "Origins is dying." There's no denying that the loss of major games like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic, Wizkids, ... is brutal. But "dying" is a bit dramatic. Last year there were over 4500 events at Origins. Pokemon had only a handful of those (11 or so - 4 modified tourneys, 4 sealed deck, Nationals, League Play, and Professor Cup). If Origins can find sponsors, it will be fine. If Origins can't find sponsors, that bodes poorly for the gaming industry as a whole. How many of us play at game stores? Not a great situation.
 
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dogma said:
@bulbasnore: Can't tell whether that's sarcasm or not - its like 8 in the morning now... but 'slating' has a particular connotation (at least in London), which I doubt is what you're going for...
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Not being sarcastic... I was enjoying the new words. I'll go look up slating now.

meganium45 said:
TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME...
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Let's go! WAR Pikachu throwing out the first pitch on Friday, just as Tank68 said. Or maybe catching it. Or, maybe just backing up the catcher. Or zapping the Cardinals mascot... in a friendly exchange, of course.

TarotXV said:
I also saw that we can take the train (and what excellent bonding time that will be with my boy!).
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Excellent choice, if you have the time. I love the train.

The Gorn said:
I believe that PUI will do whatever they feel is in the best interest in keeping this game healthy in terms of keeping current players interested and drawing new players.
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What he said! Reading the lead post, this move is a result of the success; reading into the lead post, this move is what they think will continue the success.
 
It's a dumb move on their part personally, I'm not whining or complaining. The only reason I went to nationals is because of Origins, it was nice having a lot of other stuff going and events for me to participate in, alsoif I didn't do well in nationals at least I'd have some cool stuff I bought to come home with. So nationals is going to be strictly pokemon how interesting, hopefully they'll be vendors for cards and what not. I do hear that St. Louis does have some pretty nice bars ;] Maybe I'll still go to origins. Overall bad idea, I'm sure people in that area are loving it though.
 
Nats could be at timbuctoo. But, for the past few years, Origins was the optimal location for "gamers" like me.

I suppose for those who only play Pokemon at Origins, this is no big deal. I know I'm in the minority. I seldom ran into fellow Pokemon players at other games at Origins.

I get enough boardgaming locally, so missing Origins won't cause me heartache. Nevertheless, I'm one of the few who truly felt it was best to hold Nats at Origins (or some big gaming Con). There's so much more to gaming than just Pokemon.
 
TLesky said:
Well I have read most of the comments on here and I figured I would give my opinion, liked or not.

For some background, I live in WI. Not the largest player base in the country but growing like everyone else's. We have traveled over 600 miles 1 way every year for the last 5 years to go to Origins. We also have to drive 200 miles to attend our states. In fact, its closer for us to go to bordering states than it is to attend our own. Until last year, we have had to drive more than 3 hours to attend a regionals. Heck, not counting the events I run, and if I want to play in an event, we have to travel almost 200 miles just to attend a Prerelease. And as far as Worlds goes, well its a 4 hour flight after a 3 hour drive to St. Paul ,MN just to get a reasonably priced flight to either coast. And I hear folks talking about other events like 10th anniv and GenCon. Well the closest anniv event we had was 170 miles and GenCon, well lets just say thats way out there too.

I bring all of these facts up from my side to point out:

1 no matter how far it is, if you really want to attend, you find a way.
2 paying for 4 people to attend each of these events, I understand all of your financial problems.
3 saving that badge cost at Origins isnt just a $50-70 thing. For me it will save over $200.
4 Given the growth of the game all over the World, I think trying a different location is a good idea. Lets face it, the northeast is the most popular per area, but is it the only growing area?
5 With things like the Pokemon Center in NY, Worlds being on the coasts nearly evry year, and look at the new events like the DS showdown. Just to qualify you had to go to NY or CA. Huge expenses for anyone in the middle of the country.

I know this is a long post and maybe my views are 1 sided, but it seems that many others had done the same, so I wanted to give a middle of the country point of view. I mean wouldnt it fit several aspects of people's opinions in this post for me to say"what about us up north? Why dont we get anything, EVER!"

Sorry if i sound harsh, but what the heck.
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Regardless of where the event is, just promise me one thing Troy. Promise me you'll
bring me some "pie" :thumb:
 
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A new beginning

The REAL opportunity here for pokemon now is to offer video game tourneys side by side to both Pokemon tcg and Pokemon minis to help expose our games to a whole new audience. I know that for many of your Orgins was a huge plus as it gave you the opportunity to play other gams at that show. Pokemon Nats isn't about other games it is about Pokemon. You can play board games or role play any weekend. If you can't move to my area and visit my store! We can help make that happen for you.

Now that Pokemon is on its own we have the opportunity to really present Pokemon to the rest of the US with the best possible face put on it. Control of the look, feel and presentation of the event is huge. One thing that Pokemon USA is really good at is presentation. Now they can present our game to the public. We can help create a Pokemon Experience that will help to create more players. Think about this: how many people do you know that play our game Pokemn tcg? Now how many people do you know that play pokemon on a video game system? The video game is so much larger.

We cannot know for sure what the factors for moving Nats were. Does it really matter? What does matter is how we can get ready for ONE BIG PARTY!!

Tom Shea
 
One thing I wish PUI HAD done was to make Nationals on the weekend BEFORE Origins.

That could have been turned into a week-long trip - Nats on Saturday/Sunday, Six Flags/Cedar Point on Monday or Tuesday, Origins on Wednesday through Sunday.

That would have been a GREAT week of gaming.
 
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