Monday, May 24, 2010

(The return of) The Monday Poll

A few days ago in the post, VFTD Needs You, I asked those of you who actually compete in the national events to drop me a line. To those who did: Thank you, it was (and still is) appreciated. Otherwise the response was less than stellar, which I should have expected given that y'all are world class slackers and all. So in order to perhaps get a better sense of what's happening on this particular topic I'ma try a Monday Poll. (Or, you know, you could belatedly drop me a line. Just a thought.)
I am limiting respondents to any player who has played a minimum of two national or international events anywhere in the last two years--but have not competed in a similar event this year. That includes Millennium, PALS World Cup and even CXBL as its draw is Canada-wide along with the NPPL & PSP. Let's also include any league that legitimately draws participants on a national scale even if they are smaller leagues.

Having played in past MLP events why haven't you played in one yet this year?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

losing many players combined with bad performances at PSP events made us go to regional events which more of our players can afford and we place better (I guess less skilled competition)

anonachris said...

So somehow the PSP needs to find a way to make people happy with losing. This is interesting, because that's what the NPPL did well. There were just as many losers at NPPL events, but you perhaps had some element of glory playing in the shadow of a stadium, being called an athlete, etc.

So my question is, what can a league do to create conditions so its customers will be happy losers?

Option 1: Smoke and mirrors surrounding the intense competition, but that loses its effect as we could see with the death of the NPPL after several years of it wears off.
Option 2: Provide some kind of service to participants so they get more out of the experience. (vague) Right now the only reward is "placing". What else can you get out of a tournament? I'm thinking league points. I don't follow WoW, and those online games, but each participant gets some kind of gold or points or something. For the PSP it could be as simple as "Frequent flyer miles" type program, or as complex as awarding points based on wins, or other stats. But you'd need to have some stats to do that...

Anonymous said...

I had a team which played every single event in 08. In 2009 the team opted to play locals only for a few reasons
1)we were 1/5 for ocho's.
2)it was super expensive to suck when it counted.
I am the only one who continued playing in 2009 and now in 2010. And only because I made a team that places. If it were throw togethers I wouldn't play national events.