As a courtesy to Patrick Sullivan, I’m not going to begin with a sentence that describes anything as "having come and gone." No fingers crossed.
This week, I am going to take a step back (I bet that one grates on the nerves too) from talking about the formats of Pro-level Magic. I’ve said all I have to say about Extended for a little while, and my sterling 2-4 PT Geneva draft record doesn’t exactly qualify me to opine about that format either. Instead I’m going to talk about one of the elements that has come to define many aspects of the Pro Tour experience, and indeed in many ways can make or break people’s general perception of how a Pro Tour is run. I’m talking, of course, about the Lounge.
Let me make some things clear at the start, though. I was around long before the idea of a "lounge" came to fruition, and believe me it’s been a milestone in terms of taking economic and social stresses off the players’ shoulders and allowing them to concentrate on gaming. The concept – as well as most elements of the execution – is stellar. There is nothing better than knowing exactly where to go to get a bite to eat, find your friends, and sit down for a minute or two to gather your thoughts after a round. Wizards has done an excellent job in both formulating and following through on the idea.
At the same time, though, there is plenty of room for improvement in the way the lounge is presently being implemented. I thought it would be useful to highlight some of these in a public forum both to get some of these concerns out there, and to hear from Wizards about what they do and do not know, what they can and cannot do, etc. Let me stress that the vast majority of what Wizards is currently doing is positive. I just want to help work out some of the kinks.
The best way to do this is probably to tackle each issue point-by-point, so I’m going to be listing off player-perceived problems in no particular order. Bear in mind that I’m going to be alluding to public opinion several times. My perception of what "public opinion" (in the sense of "what do all the players think") is going to be clouded necessarily by the individuals I’ve talked to. I may perceive that players absolutely love something just because two or three people enjoyed it and the two or three hundred people who hated it just didn’t say anything. If so, correct me in the forums! My goal here is mostly to raise awareness. If Wizards knows exactly what people do and do not like, then they can undertake efforts (within reason and within their means) to correct those problems. Feedback is important here.
With that, we’re off.
The first concern is obviously food. It’s both the most critical issue, and the most difficult one to resolve. It’s of utmost importance because Pro Players can conceivably save a good chunk of money eating at the lounge while the tournament is running, and also because without any sort of sustenance it’s hard to play a twelve-hour game of Magic. At the same time, it’s hard to do anything about because of the tremendous number of variables that must be taken into account. As a person who has planned many a large-scale event, if just one thing goes wrong then the entire operation basically crumbles. Wizards has to more or less guess how many people are going to show up, how much food those people will eat, what kind of catering options are available for a particular venue, when the serving staff will be prepared to serve the food, how all of that relates to the schedule of the event, etc. So when I recommend changes to the food options I do so knowing full well how difficult it may be to implement any of them.
Let’s start off with the good. Having the fresh fruit available in Geneva was an absolute blessing, both to the vegetarians in the audience and to the people who simply wan to be able to eat something decent just once in a trip. The fact that it was readily available without a giant line was also a huge plus, because between bananas and Yurchick’s backpack-o’-figs I was never hungry at any point during the day. Also, the staff was on top of drink operations this time around. I remember the little sticky notes in Japan prohibiting anybody from drinking a soft drink before 12:00, so it was nice to have basically unlimited amounts of everything all day. Furthermore, the bar-system was efficient in serving everyone in a more or less timely manner. Finally – and this has applied to every PT I’ve attended since Atlanta – breakfast never seems to be a big problem. For whatever reason it’s always easy to grab a bite before the tournament and keep reasonably well-energized up until midday. Then again, I love me some bread products.
That having been said, however, why have lunches and dinners taken so steep of a decline? Philadelphia’s buffets were the way to go, even if they could have used a bit more vegetables scattered about. Charleston’s, too, got the job done, but the problem there was that the meals were so awkwardly timed that just as the buffalo wings were unveiled in all their hot spicy glory, the pairings were going up!
Nevertheless, this situation was much preferable to the food situation in both Kobe and Geneva. Prague at least had sandwiches that you could get to – despite the ornery soda fountain that must have victimized at least twenty-five draft decks – but Kobe had trapezoidal fish bricks and French fries? Hollowed-out breadsticks with flavored paste inside? Sure, there was a KFC out front, but it cost a lot – and anyway, it’s nice to have some semblance of variety. Geneva, too, had cold-centered hamburgers with standardized toppings and no hope for any kind of selection. The worst part, though, was the fact that the awkward serving situation mandated that only one or two burgers could be served per minute. Some people had to stand in line for twenty minutes only to get a mostly-frozen mayonnaise-drenched meat patty in a bag.
Now, I understand that we’re not going to be dining at Chez Phillippe. Moreover, I know it’s difficult to satiate 400+ mouths. But seeing as how good results have been achieved in the past, let’s combine what works now with what worked then and see if we can make everybody happy.
Next on the docket is entertainment. As much as all of us enjoy Magic, it’s nice to be able to gather around and take our mind off the mana symbols with some good old-fashioned lounge games. There isn’t a person in the world who doesn’t like to play air hockey, and activities these also provide a valuable medium through which "Pros" can interact with "non-Pros" and not feel awkward. At every big event there are essentially two Pro Tours taking place – one featuring the "Ins" and one featuring the random people who just won PTQs – and it’s nice to be able to blur those lines a little bit.
So why are these being taken away?
I’ll use Charleston as a good example yet again. Atlanta set the pace with some pool and foosball, but I have never seen as big of a hit as that ping-pong table. You think money drafts foster camaraderie? You have obviously not seen the vicious doubles table tennis routine of World Champion Julien Nuijten and his Dutch compadres. Not only does it give the player a non-Magic way to occupy time, but it’s great for the spectators. It practically breeds stories. It’s basically perfect.
Yet it wasn’t there in Kobe. There was a pool table, but even it was beaten up. There was the drum game, which was great – but it occupied one or two people at a time, and at the end of the day it was a video game. Watching Sanchez battle at that thing is one of the highlights of my life, but the vast majority of the time people just sat around and watched the screen. Then there was the dartboard, which I saw get used maybe three or four times. To be fair, though, there were English present – and nobody battles an Englishman at darts. Nobody. [I dunno, there was one pretty talented Alaskan at the darts bar… – Craig, still smarting.]
All of that, however, was evaporated in Geneva. Those snowboarding games were a joke. I appreciate the thought behind them, as I could see it being very entertaining to watch Magic players awkwardly shift around on the board like bowlegged giraffes. The problem was that the games themselves were around two hundred million years old, and so it was hard to really get into them at all. Furthermore, again, it was a video game. Now there’s nothing wrong with a video game, per se, and I imagine the Winter Olympics one was probably pretty good. But when the majority of the day is spent sitting around at a table, it’s nice to get up and do something.
There are a few other things. Obviously everyone would like more computers, but there’s probably not a lot that can be done about that. The international-service phone in Kobe was a good touch, but again that might not be possible at all venues. The seating situation in Geneva was a bit precarious, but that ended up being remedied in short order.
It would be nice to have the lounge always secluded off from the main hall like it was in Prague, Philadelphia (with more room), and Geneva, but that is likely determined by the constraints of the venue more than anything else. The only other thing I would like to see would be some mechanism of broadcasting pairings outside of the main event hall. At least twice during the main event this last time did I have to rush to find my seat because there was no announcement whatsoever that pairings were being posted. Now, usually you can just follow the tide of players, but when everyone in the lounge is equally clueless there aren’t a lot of options there!
These are just a few of my thoughts on how Wizards could go about making our playing experience better than it already is. If anyone else has any suggestions – or indeed, if anyone disagrees with anything I’ve said – please let me know in the forums.
I’ve got Mock Trial this weekend again so I’ll be missing GP: Dallas, which is not that tight since I also had to miss the PTQ in St. Louis out of courtesy to a friend of mine who bought me a non-refundable Spamalot! ticket for Saturday. Whatever. Shotgun Q’ing regardless.
Good luck to everyone who is battling.
Zac