With all due respect i dont consider myself a person that is either ignorant or not caring about players. I am by no means a rich man. I am a blue collar worker that has worked at least 2 jobs for over 20 years. Additionally, as a PTO, I care a great deal about the players. Lets face it, if it wasnt for the players, I wouldnt need to do what I do.
Now I do agree that there are some negative aspects to there being 3 opportunities for players to potentially go to Regionals. But I also think that if ou read my post earlier in the thread, I bring several points to the table from different views that are for it and make sense. Now each one may not be beneficial to everyone, and I agree. But I do think that the positives outweigh the negatives.
The fact that you come out and say that everyone who doesnt agree with you is either ignorant or doesnt care about the players is a bit of an insult, and thats fine. I accept. Fire more shots if you wish. I got big shoulders.
He didn't say you didn't care about players. He said about players
with little money and means of travel. That is a big difference here, although even then I'd say he is being a bit unfair.
Let me say this: I understand the appeal of 3 Regionals. With this system, there is a major premier event available to attend every month of the year, which is fantastic! HOWEVER, the simple fact is that not very many people can actually attend that 1 premier event every month with this system. In fact, MOST people will not attend 3 Regionals.
I don't know if you all have noticed, but the significant bulk of the player is made up of college students from the ages 19 - 23 or so. The simple fact is that the vast majority of college student don't have a lot of money. Most can't afford to work a full time job, or multiple part-time jobs, or else they would do poorly in school. Those who do work full-time (or work multiple part time jobs) and attend school probably don't have time to play Pokemon anyway, much less travel to events. Most college students struggle to afford food, books, housing, and tuition each semester. I know I'm in that boat (in fact, I'm no longer attending school due to financial difficulties, and needless to say, I'm also not playing Pokemon next year and likely not the next either, although that's not only due to finances). Now, yes, some students have scholarships, or have wealthy parents, but the vast majority don't. Also worth noting, that particular age group I mentioned has, BY FAR, the greatest unemployment rate in the USA, to my knowledge.
So, recognizing that most of your players are young college students, and understanding that they tend to not have much money, AND recognizing that Pokemon is an expensive hobby, you can see where even the slightest increase in cost is going to start causing problems for a lot of people. 2 Regionals already caused that problem for quite a lot of people last year; I knew a LOT of people that only attended 1 Regional who would have had far greater chances at a Worlds invite if they had that 2nd Regional to attend. A 3rd just makes it THAT much harder, since those with the means WILL attend all the Regionals and WILL have a greater statistical probability of getting a Worlds invite. That just how it works. Arguing that they do NOT have an advantage by attending 3 Regionals is a flat out lie, or an ignorant over-sight.
I will say that 3 Regionals is awesome
when Regionals are somewhat near by. 3 States works because most people don't have to drive more than 5-6 hours to attend a State Championship in an adjacent State, and it's very easy to make the trip over Fri-Sun, and it's easy to find carpools and such. However, when your nearest option for a 3rd Regional is 10+ hours, THEN you have a problem. For this new system to be fair, we need MORE Regionals, probably about 3 more.
Of course, this isn't a huge problem everywhere. For example, where I am at right now, the 3 Regs I'm looking at going to (if I was playing this year), would be St. Louis (2 hours from me), Indiana (6 hours from me), and Wisconsin (9-ish hours I think). Wisconsin is pretty far, but other than that, it's easy to attend those.
But I would argue that the vast majority of the country doesn't have that same luxury, ESPECIALLY the West. Where I usually play, Utah, Every Regional is 9+ hours away, except every other year when we hold Colorado Regs in Utah. But that still means that every year you need to attend 2 9+ hour drive tourneys that require at least 3 nights in a hotel, and every other year you need to attend THREE events that are 9 to 10 hours away and require 3 nights in a hotel. That is INSANE. Some places have it even worse.
Anyway, there goes another 15+ minutes of my life spent writing a huge post most people won't read
Ultimately, I guess my point is that yes, going to 3 Regionals is important to getting an invite, and yes, it is disadvantageous to not attend all 3 Regionals. There aren't enough Regionals to give people a reasonable drive to attend them all, and so the game begins to favor MORE HEAVILY those with money. Obviously, that will ALWAYS be the case in games, and that's fine. But there has to be a point where that advantage becomes too great, and you begin to push away your biggest player demographic (young adults) due to their hopelessness in ever accomplishing much in the game. 3 Regs without adding more gets us dangerously close to that alienating point.
