World Championships are going on now! The swiss rounds finish up today and then a cut to only the top 16 players out of over 200+ who will play the elimination rounds tomorrow.
So far one of my NY players is 7-1. There are 91 Near Earth Hub players, which is something like 40%. In the games that have streamed so far between strong players, corps have won every game. Tomorrow is going to be very interesting.
If you can't win in New York, but the players who beat you win regional and national tournaments, and seem to be rocking it at the world championships, doesn't that make you curious to see how far you could go yoursel?
If you can't win in New York, but the players who beat you win regional and national tournaments, and seem to be rocking it at the world championships, doesn't that make you curious to see how far you could go yoursel?
I think the problem that exists in these sorts of tournaments is simple. They don't select for the best, because there's no real economic or time investment support structure.
For bigger sports (even esports like LoL/Dota2), there is a real national scene that's big enough to ensure that anyone good enough to be properly competitive at a national level is definitely playing in all of the national tournaments. Money, pride, and other factors push anyone who's good to compete for real: very few good players aren't playing at least semi-professionally.
But here, the primary factors for winning national tournaments are:
1. Good enough 2. Willing to travel to relatively small tournaments
I suspect most of the best Netrunner players don't bother.
I think the problem that exists in these sorts of tournaments is simple. They don't select for the best, because there's no real economic or time investment support structure.
For bigger sports (even esports like LoL/Dota2), there is a real national scene that's big enough to ensure that anyone good enough to be properly competitive at a national level is definitely playing in all of the national tournaments. Money, pride, and other factors push anyone who's good to compete for real: very few good players aren't playing at least semi-professionally.
But here, the primary factors for winning national tournaments are:
1. Good enough 2. Willing to travel to relatively small tournaments
I suspect most of the best Netrunner players don't bother.
Actually, a lot of the best Netrunner players DO bother. All but one of the national champions is there as well as many regional champions.
I could see worlds moving in a couple years to a major city given the growth of the games.
The only thing that would get them to move it now is the fact that they were at fire code capacity of like 600 and had to rent out their old space to fit everything. SInce Netrunner had 230+ players and the biggest other game only had slightly over 100~ they are more likely to just move Netrunner to its own weekend. If they do move, it will most likely be to a space near Minneapolis. They SHOULD move it to Chicago.
Also keep in mind they have a HUGE presence at GenCon, and almost no presence at PAX. They should bring the same thing to every PAX that they bring to GenCon.
Actually, a lot of the best Netrunner players DO bother. All but one of the national champions is there as well as many regional champions.
How many people are super good in more local competitions (and possibly national-worthy) but just don't bother to travel any distance for a tournament?
Actually, a lot of the best Netrunner players DO bother. All but one of the national champions is there as well as many regional champions.
How many people are super good in more local competitions (and possibly national-worthy) but just don't bother to travel any distance for a tournament?
Not many. It's like the story of the Go master from the village going to the city. Lots of people who are champs locally go up to regionals and get crushed. You have to play a lot in the larger geographic player pool before you can compete in it. Just playing locally you won't have opposition strong enough to get enough XP.
So answer my question. Even if you won't fly to the world championship, judging by the field and the play you've seen streaming from the event, how well do you think you'd do if you turned up?
So answer my question. Even if you won't fly to the world championship, judging by the field and the play you've seen streaming from the event, how well do you think you'd do if you turned up?
I definitely wouldn't make the cut. In 7 rounds of Swiss, which is 14 games, I'd probably be 8-6. 9-5 on a good day. The field this year had 237 players, so I'd be somewhere in the top 25-40% depending on tiebreakers.
To make top 16 this year you had to be 11-3. National champions and those with strong opponents had superior tiebreakers and could get in at 10-4.
Cool. So it really would be a question of going all that way for just 7 rounds of Netrunner, which seems to be easily had in New York.
I saw a bit of X-Wing on the live stream yesterday. I've not seen anything about the game before, but seeing it played with live commentary made it really appealing.
Cool. So it really would be a question of going all that way for just 7 rounds of Netrunner, which seems to be easily had in New York.
I saw a bit of X-Wing on the live stream yesterday. I've not seen anything about the game before, but seeing it played with live commentary made it really appealing.
The Warhammer Conquest game actually seems the most appealing to me, besides Netrunner. I don't even care about Warhammer really, but that game itself looks good. A lot like Reiner Knizia's Battle Line.
There are 7 planets that get fought over in order. Each planet has 1-3 symbols on it of three colors, red, green blue. The first person to collect 3 of the same color wins, so 3 reds is a win. Even on planets that aren't the current planet you can still fight. If you do, you extract resources from those planets in the form of getting resource tokens or drawing cards. If you win the fight on the current planet, you collect that planet.
This game is only a month old, so it's much easier to start playing than the other LCG games. I'm going to see if I can test it out without buying it. If it's good, I might buy it as a two-player board game. I don't think there will be a competitive scene for it like Netrunner, though.
As for X-Wing that's very very expensive and late to get started in. It would be much better to wait and try to play Star Wars Armada instead. Capital ships are cooler than starfighters anyway.
They also announced this other Star Wars game. Imperial Assault. It seems like Descent, but with Star Wars. I can't imagine myself ever wanting to play this.
You misunderstand me. I have zero intention of spending any money on such a game. But, if someone had a set, I wouldn't mind giving it a spin. The idea of signing up to a game that requires monthly payments and the concept of "coming late to the game" being a disadvantage is a total deal breaker.
You misunderstand me. I have zero intention of spending any money on such a game. But, if someone had a set, I wouldn't mind giving it a spin. The idea of signing up to a game that requires monthly payments and the concept of "coming late to the game" being a disadvantage is a total deal breaker.
If you're not going to go to tournaments regularly and become a serious competitor, all of these games work perfectly well as stand-alone board games. They won't be any different than any other board game you have. You can buy one core set of any of these and you'll have a pretty good, if not great, two player game. Just pretend the expansions are only for tournament players and save your money.
Would it be viable for Netrunner to do a similar thing to magic, and start introducing PC versions of the games? Say what you will about Magic, but the Duals of the Planeswalkers is really a pretty good way to get into and learn about the game, and when I was discussing it with the wizards people, they noted that a lot of people coming by the booth had tried it out as their intro to the game.
Would it be viable for Netrunner to do a similar thing to magic, and start introducing PC versions of the games? Say what you will about Magic, but the Duals of the Planeswalkers is really a pretty good way to get into and learn about the game, and when I was discussing it with the wizards people, they noted that a lot of people coming by the booth had tried it out as their intro to the game.
Netrunner has a vastly more complex timing structure making digital versions that don't suck very hard to implement.
Netrunner has a vastly more complex timing structure making digital versions that don't suck very hard to implement.
Fair enough - I don't know much about Netrunner, but Magic is quite regimented in that way, only so much you can do per turn, barring cards that might alter that, but they don't come up so often.
Netrunner has a vastly more complex timing structure making digital versions that don't suck very hard to implement.
Fair enough - I don't know much about Netrunner, but Magic is quite regimented in that way, only so much you can do per turn, barring cards that might alter that, but they don't come up so often.
This is the the timing structure of a single run in Netrunner.
Every time you see a swirly green arrow or blue doily symbol it means both players have the opportunity to do, or not do, many things. There are also decisions to be made at each point. This is just during a run. Every single turn players get actions. In-between each action, both players have the opportunity to do things. To make a proper digital implementation it basically has to constantly, and annoyingly, pause between each and every single action by either player to give the other player a chance to do something.
When you are playing in person you can quickly skip over 95%+ of these action windows because it's obvious there is no action either player would take during the window.
So one thing I have a problem with watching Netrunner videos is the total lack of visible winning heuristic. The biggest spectator sports have simple ways to see who is ahead at any time. Like football. You have a score, and then at any time how far down the field the team with possession is, and how many downs they have.
With Netrunner, the game is so complex, there's no way for me to know if someone a long way behind has a "blue shell". The commentary team, and other players of the game joining in with the chatroom, know the possible cards. They know which cards might come out to help a player with 3 points leap ahead of a player with 4 points with the last play of the game.
With normal board games and card games, this isn't a big problem, as once a non-player viewer is up to speed with the rules and possibilities, they can just enjoy watching the match.
Poker, for example, is a really fun card game to watch on TV. You're able to see the player's cards, and their are often graphics on screen to show the odds on the flop and turn and river cards. We know there are exactly 52 cards. We know how powerful all those cards are. There aren't suddenly new card to surprise viewers.
But with a LCG, it keeps the game fresh for the players, but way worse for any non-expert watching. Imagine keeping up with NFL football, but every month there is a rule change. And not just a small change, but one where, in the final minute of the game, a coach can send a new player onto the field who is allowed to run out of bounds, around the defense, and score a touchdown by throwing the ball over the end zone and not actually carrying it there.
It's a bit like double points this year in F1, but that rule change has been known all season long. All the fans know it, and it'll be a big part of the news coverage from now until the last race. It'll be part of everyone's calculations on where Hamilton and Rosberg have to finish in the race to decide who is world champion this year.
Can Netrunner get past the "unknown hidden blue shell" problem for casual viewers? I'm not sure.
Ok, so figuring out who is winning a Netrunner game is actually not very hard. The positional heuristic is actually quite simple.
What you have to know is that there are cards called agendas.
They look like this:
There is a big number on the left side of the card near the hexagonal sticks. That is how many points the agenda is worth. The first player to get 7 points wins. When an agenda is scored, players will typically put that card off to the side of the board and line it up like the score on an air hockey table. One problem is if you come into a game in progress, it may not be clear which pile of agendas belongs to which player. Even in person I walk up to games in progress and have to ask which agenda pile belongs to which player.
There are two other win conditions in Netrunner. One is if the corporation is required to draw a card (they must draw one at the beginning of their turn) and there are no cards left in their deck. They lose immediately. This rarely happens, but not never. You can tell if this is happening if the corps deck is very small, and the runner is making them draw or discard cards from that deck.
The other win condition is if the runner takes a point of damage, can not prevent the damage, and has no cards left in their hand. Then they lose immediately via flatline. This happens somewhat regularly. Being able to tell if this is likely to happen soon requires knowing the game a bit.
It is true that even if a player has a lead in points at a given point in time, that they may actually be losing because their board position is weak. A lot of games we saw over championship weekend had the runner score as many as 4 points during the early game. But the corp was able to progress to the mid game and score 7 while the runner was shut out.
If you want to be able to tell things like that, you have to understand the game or rely on commentators.
Also, even though there are constantly new cards coming out, the game doesn't change that much. The runner decks that were on top this year were not significantly different from the ones on top last year. The corp decks were not using very many mechanics that are not in the core set.
In the end, they don't explain the rules of MOBAs or RTSs every time they broadcast them, and there are tons of spectators. The difference I think between this and pro sports is that the spectators are presumed, most often correctly, to also be players of the game in question. The same goes for Netrunner. The audience is assumed to be players. They only really explained the game earlier in the tournament when players of non-Netrunner games were watching in an attempt to try to sell them the game.
In the end, they don't explain the rules of MOBAs or RTSs every time they broadcast them, and there are tons of spectators. The difference I think between this and pro sports is that the spectators are presumed, most often correctly, to also be players of the game in question. The same goes for Netrunner. The audience is assumed to be players. They only really explained the game earlier in the tournament when players of non-Netrunner games were watching in an attempt to try to sell them the game.
Yeah, but I'm going just by my own experience of watching streams and videos of games.
One of my favourite things about seeing a new sport or game is discovering for myself what the rules of the game are as I go along. I'm not a fan of many sports in the long term, but I'll always give a new one a few chances, and that's often enough to understand the structure of the sport, the main ideas, and, most importantly, to get a hang of the drama. As in, plot throughout the game or match the "who is winning" graph.
When I saw the X-Wing game on the stream, it took me about a minute to work out the broad strokes of the game. Miniatures, but the bases of the figures are what counts, with moves and positioning determined by the long plastic guide thingies. Extra moves by the turning thingies, rules modified by the cards on the side. Shooting and damage by dice rolls. Maybe I'm not 100% there, of course.
With just that, I immediately was absorbed in the drama of the game, with a Millennium Falcon taking a risky route through an asteroid field and a squad of Tie Fighters splitting up to flank some X-Wings. Even without the Star Wars proper nouns it would be understandable.
I've now watched four or five Netrunner games, and... I've still got nothing. With a card list like this, Netrunner is pure Numberwang.
You realize the netrunner card pool is minuscule compared to Pretty much every other CCG. How many total cards are there, just few hundred? There are thousands of M:TG cards. It's true, though. If you don't know the game, you certainly aren't going to learn it by watching competitive players.
This is only fixed with high production values on the streams. Multiple commentators explaining what's in both hands and what the options are, infographics explaining potential interactions, motion graphics of the play-by-play during a run.
Without all of that, it's impossible to watch these streams unless you play Netrunner and know the rules/cards well.
Comments
https://twitter.com/CorpDraw
http://twitch.tv/ffglive
So far one of my NY players is 7-1. There are 91 Near Earth Hub players, which is something like 40%. In the games that have streamed so far between strong players, corps have won every game. Tomorrow is going to be very interesting.
For bigger sports (even esports like LoL/Dota2), there is a real national scene that's big enough to ensure that anyone good enough to be properly competitive at a national level is definitely playing in all of the national tournaments. Money, pride, and other factors push anyone who's good to compete for real: very few good players aren't playing at least semi-professionally.
But here, the primary factors for winning national tournaments are:
1. Good enough
2. Willing to travel to relatively small tournaments
I suspect most of the best Netrunner players don't bother.
Also keep in mind they have a HUGE presence at GenCon, and almost no presence at PAX. They should bring the same thing to every PAX that they bring to GenCon.
To make top 16 this year you had to be 11-3. National champions and those with strong opponents had superior tiebreakers and could get in at 10-4.
I saw a bit of X-Wing on the live stream yesterday. I've not seen anything about the game before, but seeing it played with live commentary made it really appealing.
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=261
There are 7 planets that get fought over in order. Each planet has 1-3 symbols on it of three colors, red, green blue. The first person to collect 3 of the same color wins, so 3 reds is a win. Even on planets that aren't the current planet you can still fight. If you do, you extract resources from those planets in the form of getting resource tokens or drawing cards. If you win the fight on the current planet, you collect that planet.
This game is only a month old, so it's much easier to start playing than the other LCG games. I'm going to see if I can test it out without buying it. If it's good, I might buy it as a two-player board game. I don't think there will be a competitive scene for it like Netrunner, though.
As for X-Wing that's very very expensive and late to get started in. It would be much better to wait and try to play Star Wars Armada instead. Capital ships are cooler than starfighters anyway.
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=270
They also announced this other Star Wars game. Imperial Assault. It seems like Descent, but with Star Wars. I can't imagine myself ever wanting to play this.
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=271
Every time you see a swirly green arrow or blue doily symbol it means both players have the opportunity to do, or not do, many things. There are also decisions to be made at each point. This is just during a run. Every single turn players get actions. In-between each action, both players have the opportunity to do things. To make a proper digital implementation it basically has to constantly, and annoyingly, pause between each and every single action by either player to give the other player a chance to do something.
When you are playing in person you can quickly skip over 95%+ of these action windows because it's obvious there is no action either player would take during the window.
With Netrunner, the game is so complex, there's no way for me to know if someone a long way behind has a "blue shell". The commentary team, and other players of the game joining in with the chatroom, know the possible cards. They know which cards might come out to help a player with 3 points leap ahead of a player with 4 points with the last play of the game.
With normal board games and card games, this isn't a big problem, as once a non-player viewer is up to speed with the rules and possibilities, they can just enjoy watching the match.
Poker, for example, is a really fun card game to watch on TV. You're able to see the player's cards, and their are often graphics on screen to show the odds on the flop and turn and river cards. We know there are exactly 52 cards. We know how powerful all those cards are. There aren't suddenly new card to surprise viewers.
But with a LCG, it keeps the game fresh for the players, but way worse for any non-expert watching. Imagine keeping up with NFL football, but every month there is a rule change. And not just a small change, but one where, in the final minute of the game, a coach can send a new player onto the field who is allowed to run out of bounds, around the defense, and score a touchdown by throwing the ball over the end zone and not actually carrying it there.
It's a bit like double points this year in F1, but that rule change has been known all season long. All the fans know it, and it'll be a big part of the news coverage from now until the last race. It'll be part of everyone's calculations on where Hamilton and Rosberg have to finish in the race to decide who is world champion this year.
Can Netrunner get past the "unknown hidden blue shell" problem for casual viewers? I'm not sure.
What you have to know is that there are cards called agendas.
They look like this:
There is a big number on the left side of the card near the hexagonal sticks. That is how many points the agenda is worth. The first player to get 7 points wins. When an agenda is scored, players will typically put that card off to the side of the board and line it up like the score on an air hockey table. One problem is if you come into a game in progress, it may not be clear which pile of agendas belongs to which player. Even in person I walk up to games in progress and have to ask which agenda pile belongs to which player.
There are two other win conditions in Netrunner. One is if the corporation is required to draw a card (they must draw one at the beginning of their turn) and there are no cards left in their deck. They lose immediately. This rarely happens, but not never. You can tell if this is happening if the corps deck is very small, and the runner is making them draw or discard cards from that deck.
The other win condition is if the runner takes a point of damage, can not prevent the damage, and has no cards left in their hand. Then they lose immediately via flatline. This happens somewhat regularly. Being able to tell if this is likely to happen soon requires knowing the game a bit.
It is true that even if a player has a lead in points at a given point in time, that they may actually be losing because their board position is weak. A lot of games we saw over championship weekend had the runner score as many as 4 points during the early game. But the corp was able to progress to the mid game and score 7 while the runner was shut out.
If you want to be able to tell things like that, you have to understand the game or rely on commentators.
Also, even though there are constantly new cards coming out, the game doesn't change that much. The runner decks that were on top this year were not significantly different from the ones on top last year. The corp decks were not using very many mechanics that are not in the core set.
In the end, they don't explain the rules of MOBAs or RTSs every time they broadcast them, and there are tons of spectators. The difference I think between this and pro sports is that the spectators are presumed, most often correctly, to also be players of the game in question. The same goes for Netrunner. The audience is assumed to be players. They only really explained the game earlier in the tournament when players of non-Netrunner games were watching in an attempt to try to sell them the game.
One of my favourite things about seeing a new sport or game is discovering for myself what the rules of the game are as I go along. I'm not a fan of many sports in the long term, but I'll always give a new one a few chances, and that's often enough to understand the structure of the sport, the main ideas, and, most importantly, to get a hang of the drama. As in, plot throughout the game or match the "who is winning" graph.
When I saw the X-Wing game on the stream, it took me about a minute to work out the broad strokes of the game. Miniatures, but the bases of the figures are what counts, with moves and positioning determined by the long plastic guide thingies. Extra moves by the turning thingies, rules modified by the cards on the side. Shooting and damage by dice rolls. Maybe I'm not 100% there, of course.
With just that, I immediately was absorbed in the drama of the game, with a Millennium Falcon taking a risky route through an asteroid field and a squad of Tie Fighters splitting up to flank some X-Wings. Even without the Star Wars proper nouns it would be understandable.
I've now watched four or five Netrunner games, and... I've still got nothing. With a card list like this, Netrunner is pure Numberwang.
Without all of that, it's impossible to watch these streams unless you play Netrunner and know the rules/cards well.