I think some of you need to have more faith in POP. Dave and crew have been doing an excellent job with this game since they took over 3 years ago and like Dave mentioned, most of his crew have many years of experience in handling these events. I also consider the statement "Worlds was a big waste of time" a very rude, harsh statement. When I first saw the subject line, it made me think that whoever posted that thought the event as a whole was a waste of time, but to me it just seems like you guys think that the grinder in general is a big waste of time. If that's the case, why have a grinder?
I'm thankful that they even have a grinder to begin with because they technically don't have to have a grinder because a world championship event is a big deal, and getting in would be an honor and would take a lot of skill and luck to get in as well. The event itself wouldn't be such a big deal if they just let in anyone who could attend that didn't get an invite. If that were the case, I'm sure people would be pouring in by the thousands and I'm sure that would be a nightmare to run, or let alone finding a big venue to run an event with thousands of people.
Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for us all to plan more strategies sooner rather than later, and try to compete in as many events as possible to earn an invite rather than taking your chances in the grinder. If there is a city, state, etc. in a state near you, compete in it and try to get that invite! It's highly unlikely that someone like me would get an invite on the first try, which is why traveling is better to increase your odds.
I think that POP may have more GC's this coming year. It's a plus that we even had 2 GC's this year in my state comparing to no GC the year before (unless there was just 1 and I forgot about it). Also, the game is growing and more leagues are forming. The more leagues and venues we as players can create (by advertising, starting up your own league), the more big events we can have. Think about it! Our state started out small but has been rapidly expanding and creating more leagues. We also need more new PTO's as well to split the main events up rather than having 1 or 2 key PTO's running 3 events in a single weekend. Giving new PTO's a chance to prove themselves by running an event such as cities would get them up to speed on how a premier event is operated. As long as our PTO's (veteran and new) are up for it, I'm sure that they'd be willing to run as many big events as they possibly can to give as many people as possible a shot at an invite.
Windjet said:
i think that the USA needs a real wake up call. I say worlds 07 should be somewhere other then the Americas like Japan or Switerland or somewhere other then here.
I myself wanted to bring that up at some point, and I'm sure PUI/POP has already considered this, and I'm sure they have also considered the costs and the amount of time it would take to make sure all the kids and people who go have passports, etc...
I'm sure that if we had worlds in Tokyo, Okinawa, Kyoto, or wherever else in the world, even though it would be cool, they'd have to figure out how they would pay for the trips for the people from the USA with invites. The cost of flying to Japan (or overseas in General) is around $800 alone. Hotel isn't really an issue, but knowing that POP chooses a nice quality hotel to run the event on, rooms would probably be around $300 a night if not more.
Now I'm not sure how many players from other parts of the world got an invite and actually used it to come here. However I can tell you that out of all the people who got invites around the world, around 60-70% of those invites were right here in the USA. (from what I heard, smack me if I'm wrong).
As an example: Just think about how much it would cost POP/PUI/Nintendo if they paid for us all to go over there if the USA had 75% of all the invites. It would be at least double if not triple the cost to transport us over there, house us, and then send us back home compared to just running an event here in the USA and only paying huge travel expenses for the other 25% of the invites from other parts of the world.
I realize those numbers are unrealistic because I'm sure more people from other parts of the world got invites, but I am sure that at least half of all the invites were from the USA this year (wishes to see raw data..).
The cost of transporting the people who got invites would be more than what they are handing out as prize money/scholarships! If they held World's '0? in a country on the other side of the USA, they'd probably be willing to have the players split these costs 50/50 if anything....
Like I said, I think that would be cool to have it in Japan or something, but you have to consider the amount of money it takes to travel to another country, let alone the 3-6 month period it takes to get a passport (It took about 4 months for me to get my passport). On top of that you have to look at it from a business standpoint too. It may even be possible to have the organizers in Japan help pay for a World's event if it were to ever be held in Japan so that the PUI side isn't taking the full hit of expenses.... Like I said, I'm sure they've considered all this, but we have to give them time to plan it out if they are to plan on having this event in another country to begin with....
