posted October 01, 2002 10:29 AM            

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Originally posted by CmonIWanaPLaYa:
I keep seeing the Battle Zone references and am wondering when we, the players, will be able to get information about it? The sad thing is that even the Wizards store I go to doesn't know anything about it. Our leader said that she had never heard or seen anything about it. She has been doing leagues for 2 years. This is where I think that WotC loses some of their faithful. It is from all of the Secrets being kept. I understand on upcoming releases and things of that nature, but when it affects the players in the leagues and the kids who show up for the first time, this is an issue. I keep seeing Pokemon is on its death bed everywhere, I greatly disagree, but for the 5% of me that agrees with this statment, I feel it is the illusion of fututre events and the lack of knowledge passed on to the leagues. For instance, 2 weeks ago a new kid showed up with her mom. She saw my wife and I sitting with our 4 year old daughter and our 8 year old son. She asked about the game and showed minimal interest in it. After 30 minutes of talking with her, a mother now has something to do with her daughter that she gets everyother week. Something that they can use as a bond and to get them discussing life, all thanks to pokemon. The tragedy comes in the fact that there is no information about where the next league or "Battle Zone" will start and thus we might lose new players. I think that the lack of direction and information hurts smaller leagues. We never know what is next until 3 weeks into it. Remember, I play at a WotC store. Simply Sad. .

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And for those that say become a professor, if you don't have a DCI number, how can you? This is an issue I brought up before which, ironically, no one had any information about. I have been playing since the onslaught. Never going to tournaments really, but just playing for the enjoyment of it.

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My family enjoys sitting down once or twice a week and coming up with new ideas, which I post sometimes and since I am not in the "In Crowd" or a recognized player, most get shunned. The sad truth is some of the decks I post are from my son who is 8. We check on the posts a couple of times and no comments. This is disheartening for him as a new deck builder, but also irritaing to me as an older player. They may not be a "Noted Hero of Pokemon", but why can't other's stop and think for a moment that some of the posts on here are younger kids that are trying to develop to concrete players? I know this started out as a BattleZone onslaught, but I just figured to air out my laundry so to speak. But I bet no one will reply and this will get locked as usual for the non-popular players.

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I'd like to make a couple of points here; please do not take them as criticism. First, as a board moderator, I take strong exception to the statement that "non-popular players" get their posts locked. That is far from the truth; posts get locked for breaking the board rules, here: http://boards.wizards.com/tcg-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=71;t=000072 . Sometimes posts are moved to the correct forum, when they are posted in the wrong forum and the original posting is locked. But to arbitrarily state that we lock posts if you aren't in a certain clique is untrue and unfair, IMHO.

Second, you comment that your deck posts are not replied to because you aren't in the "In Crowd" or a "noted hero of Pokémon". The message boards are supposed to be a community of sorts, and the way people get to know each other here is by posting. The more you post, the more people know you.

The Decks forum is one of the most active boards here on the 'Gym. I did a search on your posts, and found you had one deck posted, which, as you state, had no replies. But I also noticed that according to that same search, you have not commented on anyone else's decks. People will be more likely to comment on your decks if you've taken the time to comment on theirs; this is another way the community gets to "know" you. I also think that if the deck posting which was not replied to had a statement within the post saying that this was your 8 y/o son's first deck and he was looking for help, people might have been a little more helpful.

I hope this helps clear up some of your questions...

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Master Professor/Tournament Organizer/Pokémon League Gym Leader,
Adventure Games and Comics, Poway, CA

Nothing endures in this world. Everything changes according to karma. But, like the ocean, underneath the restless existance of the countless waves there is one boundless stillness that embraces and gives life to all the moving waves. Namuamidabutsu...

posted October 01, 2002 01:20 PM            

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Originally posted by DMTM:


5. There will be an oversized card of the current new promo to use as a prize or for advertisement purposes...or both.

DMTM

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posted October 01, 2002 04:13 PM            

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Originally posted by CmonIWanaPLaYa:
We missed Dallas this last time. I wish you all would come to Fort Worth on occassion or alternate to give some familys more of an opportunity. I know this is up to the company, but it would be nice if other Cities were targeted more often.

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DMTM could correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe it is up to the "local" TO that picks the places for the Gym Challenges. In this case that would be Ed Fox. There has been 1 event that I can remember that was held in Ft. Worth, while the others were in Dallas. I think there's about 30 miles between the cities. To me that's not far at all, (I've drove 1000 miles 1 way to go to a tournament) but for you that may be a problem. I can understand that.

Not to argue with you, but the statement -
I know this is up to the company, but it would be nice if other Cities were targeted more often.
I agree with wholeheartedly. During this last tournament season I drove 4500 miles in a 3 month period just going to non-local, (hometown), tournaments. I took my son & sometimes my wife, to Chicago, Omaha, Wichita, Dallas, Little Rock & Albuquerque. Luckily he won at the last one so I didn't have to drive to Seattle as well

How I wish there were a local tournament here sometime, (the budget sure gets wrecked going out of town). Where we play at, the store is big enough to hold a Gym Challenge, we have 3 Master Professors, 2 other Professors & a fairly decent league. There shouldn't be anything stopping us from be able to hold a GC except WotC seems reluctant to give other TO's a chance.

I've kind of went off track here some so I apologize.

I also have to agree with your earlier comment about things being "up in the air" & not knowing what's going to happen with battlezone & tournaments. I can understand this a lot more since the contract is due again but I look back at Nov/Dec of 2001 & Jan 2002 with this example.

League year 01 is winding down. We have 3 sessions a week & average about 35 players each session. We have tournaments all the time with anywhere from 12-30 people.
Now the lull between league years. But we keep on having the sessions & tournaments.
02 League starts but with a lot less players. I'd say maybe, maybe, maybe 1/2 returning players of what we had & tournaments start going down to at most 16.
Now up to date.
At league there are maybe 12 people, tournaments aren't even held because of to few players & I have to sit back and wonder.
Did the big (official) break between 01 & 02 cause the attendance to drop? Did having too many sessions a week cause burnout? Did having a Friday evening, a Saturday afternoon & a once a month tournament cause burnout? I think they did. Some place are lucky to have a tournament at all. We were having 9+ a month. Even during WotC tournament season another person ran the tournaments.
Of course as in other threads on this board, Yu-Gi-Oh has a hold of some Pokemon players right now, but I've seen a drop there already too. The first Y-G-O tournament the store had there were over 40 players, now this last week there were 16. If it's falling that fast then it won't last too much longer.

Sorry about the post being so long & rambling. Some of this I've wanted to say for a while but just never did, here anyway. If there's a GC around the Dallas area hopefully we can meet up.

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Certified Master Professor (some say I am certifiable) &

Dci tournament coordinator for the OKC area!

posted October 02, 2002 01:45 PM            

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If you go to the Team Compendium site, in BJJ's post above, and look at the chat log from last week...there was a phone number given out during the chat for stores to use, to get info on how to get Battlezone. Hope this helps...

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posted October 07, 2002 08:41 AM            

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Originally posted by Lacy:

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If you go to the Team Compendium site, in BJJ's post above, and look at the chat log from last week...there was a phone number given out during the chat for stores to use, to get info on how to get Battlezone. Hope this helps...

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I kept hearing BattleZone would be promoted by the Professors to stores. Is that still planned, or not? I hope nothing has changed, because I was really looking forward to trying to get stores to host BattleZone in this area.

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