For any constructed tournaments outside of the championships, it's probably better to advertise that you don't need to bring your own pieces. Have enough pre-constructed squads available, first-come first-served. People can bring their own squads if they want, but otherwise they can just use what's available. Anything that says you need to bring your own minis will automatically scare away a certain percentage.

Great idea.

As a non-competitive player reading this thread i would like to say a couple things. First off, i am NOT a competitive player, i have never attended any tournaments for this game and i don't really now anything about GenCon. But as has been mentionend before, new players are needed for this game to stay alive or at least existing players need to be kept playing the game for it to live on. As most of you probably know, i don't use V-Sets and mostly play casual. Whenever i play with someone its only my collection of the 10 factions that is available and only my maps, because i don't know any "SWM-players", i just got a few people to play the game with me.

So IF there is a need for new players (and it seems that this is definately the case, it's a almost-dead game mind you), you HAVE to make it appealing not only for hardcore tournament players but also for the casual players. Star Wars is a movie series after all and most people start playing Star Wars games because they want to relive the epic moments of the movies with miniatures. If you give them a selection of over a thousand different miniatures they are completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices and options. It took a guy i recently got into the game already a lot of time to build a squad out of the 70 imperial figures i brought to our gaming-night.

I feel that the game in it's current status (with the V-Sets) is absolutely unaccessible for casual players and even hard for competive players to get into it. All the new cards mostly exist in digital form on a little hardly known website. (no offense here)

It's a point that i have been mentioning quite a few times now and that is, that the game as WOTC left it was just a bad game when it comes to strictly competitive play. A very bad game. I think we can all agree on that 30-40 "competitive" figures out of almost 1000 is not a good thing for game. IMO to create newer, better options is a way of fixing this problem that is only really helpful for players that already have a ton of experience with the game. Changing existing miniatures or rules would have altered "offical" and established material, but would have made the game much more accessible to new players. How is a new player supposed to know about which figures are considered good and which are bad without the experience of years of active play? How much fun is it to have to rely on other's experience or information to build you own squad because the amount of options is too high for you to handle?
As I see it, the community has chosen the solution WOTC established since the first sets, to just release new material to replace the old and only conduct errata when it's inevitable. That's the design of a collectibles game. Collectibles Games are made in such a way that you have to buy the new stuff in order to win games. But the game is dead. There's just a bunch of hardcore tournament players and VERY few casual players left on a little fan-created website. There is no need to continue it the way WOTC did, especially when there are already so many existing figures.
So to sum it up, my point it is that the game WOTC has left us with is just a really bad foundation to build upon with new sets. Pieces like General Rieekan or Whorm Loathesome need very complicated "fixes" so that they can't be abused with new figures and so on, you probably know what i'm talking about. With the solution of releasing new material to fix problems instead of directly fixing the figures that CAUSED the problems the game has lost its simplicitiy and thus makes for a much harder entry to the game. I can understand that this solution was easier for the existing players but it's also a lockout for any interested new players. That "V-Set-Solution" IS a solution but it does only keep the game alive for the already active players.

That's the problem with a community-managed game. FFG understood that most of the X-Wing players are casual player and do support this playstyle a lot, while this game is run and managed only by hardcore competitive players who limit themselfes to what is considered to be "meta". I don't see the point. 90 % of players don't play a star wars game because they want to win money or a price with it or because their ego wants to be the best player or whatever. I like to be challenged yes, but a fair game is more important for me than winning. If i would want to prove myself i would play a much more balanced and populuar game than SWM. As shmi15 said, bring the game back to it's basics, that's what the game is missing. Create a thread for casual play/scenario game reports. I always loved those. Try different approaches to fix problems instead of only the V-Sets approach. Create more different formats, for example just-one-unique or squads without specific figures like GOWK, Yobuck etc, ERA-play (!), lightside vs darkside, etc... Themed formats, that would be a great idea.

There are plenty of casual events at Gen Con. This thread is about raising awareness of our current situation and increasing attendance at all our events. Complaints about the Design Team, Balance Committee, or whatever other "group" someone thinks has "ruined the game"can easily devolve into unproductive sniping. I'd prefer this thread stay unlocked for at least a while.

But it is on topic.... The reason people are not going to Gencon has nothing to do with the prize support, the variety or lack of variety of games available.... People are not going because they either don't agree with the designs, or they don't like the way people treat them on these few websites that still carry the game.

I hate to be blunt, but if you can't see that attendance and community participation go hand in hand then you are part of the reason why GenCon attendance is down. You guys need to learn how to communicate with the casual player, instead of telling us every time that our concerns are invalid (which is going on right now) You guys asked the question "How do we get GenCon attendance up." The answer starts within the community, with simple things, asking what would it take to bring people back out. All these people who have been dormant but still read these forums, what would it take for those guys to get back into it.

I'm not bashing any designs, or taking shots at anyone, I'm just being real with the reality of what happens, and the repercussions of it all.

I do understand that. But you yourself said that you wouldn't travel to Gen Con to play games in minis events that weren't exactly the kind of events you want to play in. That's fine, but it means that you and your group probably aren't the audience for this thread. The competitive game as it stands now is not going to change to accommodate your preferences. That change might make "most people" you know happy, but it would leave out "most people" who post on Bloomilk, build squads, and play in competitive events. There will be tweaks, as there always are, but a wholesale overhaul of the type you seem to be advocating? Not going to happen. If any of the people who attended Gen Con, even those who attended Gen Con and didn't attend our events, were saying what you're saying, these posts might be on topic. As it is, they're potentially inviting the type of rancor and blaming I'd really rather avoid in this thread.

Shmi15,

Minis Madness is pre-constructed 50-point squads (using just WotC pieces) facing off against each other. Players are trying to win, of course, but by its nature it's a casual tournament. Unfortunately, it won't be back due to limited number of players. Second, Star Wars Surprise consists of people playing different scenarios each round. Hopefully it will be back next year. Is that something you would play if you were at GenCon?

What sort of events would you play?

As someone who missed Gencon for four straight years, my reasons not to go had nothing to do with my feelings about the community (which I've always really enjoyed, and have missed seeing) and more to do with a couple years when my finances didn't allow me to go and then a couple years when my work schedule didn't allow it. I would have loved to have been there any of those years.

What I'm driving at is that there's not one reason for attendance to drop. I ran into some of the Atlanta guys at one of the food trucks (who I gather did not play much if any SWM this year) and it sounded like their reason for declining interest is not that the games being run are too competitive, but that because of numbers of players falling off the game isn't competitive enough, and perhaps also just that their interest has drifted to other games. Please note here that I'm just paraphrasing my memory of what they said, and if I mischaracterized something, I apologize.

So look, it's going to be a challenge, when some people think the top level game is too competitive and others think it is not competitive enough. I do think one question worth considering: how many games that have been out of print for six years have championship tournaments with double-digit attendance at Gencon? I'm sure there are a few, but not a ton--that there is still interest in the game is a sign of success, even if it would be great for the overall numbers to be higher.

Agreed. It's a challenge, but we're doing great to still have the game going 6 years later. I also agree with Tim. I think the numbers will be up next year.