Wonderboy, what is the secret of your powers? Wonderbooooy won't you take my far away from the mucky muck now.

Sorry have that song stuck in my head now.

If a former judge is coming by asking for prizes who cares if he shows up anyway - he sounds like a dirtball so good riddens.

And the argument of are people going to show up if they have the prize already is pretty weak to me. Most people are going to show up regardless to play. It's been over a year since approved play, and I firmly believe people are going to show up for tourneys regardless of whether they have the piece or not. I also don't think venues are going to agree to sell entire kits to people that ask for them, and I don't think most venues will just sell their prize support. These are businesses that need customers to come in.

I mean this is all pointless arguing anyway, we will know in two months. Riga-goo-goo-riga-goo-goo.

Losing prize sharks does hurt attendance in many cases. Around here, there was a group of guys going to 3 different venues to try and pick up the prizes that they wanted. Most of them play for fun, but the prizes motivated them to go to multiple games each week. Now, they hit maybe a game every couple of weeks. And when I'm talking about my sales being hurt, I'm not just talking Heroclix. I have an entire store full of product that players can peruse when they come in. And to be honest, the guys who feel the need to have everything are more apt to a) have more $$ to spend in my store and b) are more likely to spend it on items other than heroclix. They're the ones with more disposable income who are willing to spend it on their hobbies. The "for fun only" players tend to buy less because they tend to have less.

A fun atmosphere and winning are not mutually exclusive. I play nothing but themes and they run the gambit from competitive (Bat-family) to the sublimely ridiculous (can you say monsters headed up by Mole Man and his Moloids?). I win some I lose some. I have a fair amount of LEs to prove it. But I've learned to deal with other people's competitive natures in order to overcome. It's part of the game. And to quote Worf, "If winning doesn't matter, then Commander, why keep score?"

I've seen it with Mechwarrior. I see it with Star Wars Minis. And what I can tell you is that my attendance improves dramatically when quality prizes are on the line.

It's already been shown that if you can fetch $1 per piece, it's worth it. If I were an internet-only retailer, I'd grab one AP pack for as many cases as I can. Even if I were only limited to 3 of them, if I can triple my money selling them in pieces, I'd do it. I won't do that, I'll order 2 AP packs regardless of how many cases I get and use them as prizes to get my players back, but I anticipate that the ebay effect will mean I'll still have lower attendance, if any at all because most of the guys will have easy access to the figs.

Because otherwise the game would remain static, Klingon!

I agree the arguing is pointless cause we can't really see the future, so we don't know for sure what is going to happen.

However, I think this is a good place to express concerns, and the concern is that not everyone is a "dirtball" just cause they want to purchase the prizes (from either their venue if they sell them or the ebay market). In fact it's quite predictable human nature that people will gravitate towards this option. The concern is with WK giving players the option in the first place to buy them all at a predictably low price, then how will that effect attendance? Based on past experience, the answer is attendance will drop. That's all we are trying to say.

I hear you, and agree. In your heart of hearts do you think they will really keep this as the AP structure? If you look at it with logic, it makes sense for them to do it this way if they didn't have enough time to get AP set up right away. And all signs point to the fact that they didn't have enough time to get the old structure, or possibly new one, set up right away.

Seems like they got the deal done, and are pushing to get this set into our hands ASAP. This seems like a quick way for them to get some sort of tourneys going right away. And to me it just wouldn't make sense for them to keep it this way for future sets, but it makes total sense for this specific circumstance.

In my heart of hearts, no I do not believe this to be the permanent structure for AP. I guess some could argue why do something at all if it is not going to work in the first place? But I agree with you, if time factors were the issue then I don't see how else they could really provide this benefit of having LE prizes available to the public.

So, once again we go back to the "wait and see" mode to find out what the long term plan is. But I think (and hope) we can all agree that having this structure as the permanent model for AP is a bad idea.

Ok, just got the official email from my NECA rep and placed my order. The OP kits are going to be strictly limited to one per store. This is a good thing, but unfortunately, the internet retailers will still be able to get one.

Also, according to my rep the street date will be 11/18, not 12/2. I assume that those who order through Diamond/Alliance will be getting theirs later since NECA will more than likely be shipping to Diamond and their direct retailers at the same time. Good news all around!

That's interesting because others have reported they get one kit per case ordered. We have some conflicting reports...hmmm.

In any case, if this is true, this make the prizes much more limited in their availability and thus the price will go way up. That changes things quite a bit on how people will get a hold of these things and thus more people will attend tournaments to win them for free rather than buy them on the secondary market.

Diamond may not stick to the 1 per store limit that NECA is holding to (If they are carrying the OP kits at all, my rep had no info on them). Even so, my cost through NECA is considerably cheaper than it is through Diamond, so honestly, I personally wouldn't consider buying through Diamond just to get extra OP kits.

My NECA rep also told that quantities will be VERY limited on the OP kits, first come, first served basis (and I had the first order they'd taken since they opened up for ordering this morning).

I was worried that the LE's would no longer be "limited editions" since the stores could purchase them. Until I spoke with a friend who runs a store. He placed an order for 10 cases so far. He is only eligable for one prize support package. Basically the amount of support you can order is relative to the number of cases you purchase. A retailer must purchase enough merchandise to actually use the amount of support he can receive. I like the idea of keeping LE's limited. If retailers could order as many support packages as they liked the LE's would be pretty common. I'm not sure how much needs to be ordered in order to qualify for extra support. I know 10 cases gets you one prize support pack but don't know how many you need to order to get 2 or more.

You can't. From the solicitation email I got this morning from NECA:

Unless Diamond/Alliance is not being held to that, that is.

Here, let me just copy/paste the whole thing, sans images:

Pff. I asked to buy my own prize kit with a slightly higher price for ordering and receiving from my B&M. Do I feel guilty? Heck no. I'll still go to all the events and play whenever I can. What do I need with triplicate or quadruplicate prizes? That falls under the same reasons as to why i need 2 bizarro worlds, 5 demolition experts, 2 henchman, and 2 crispus allens.

-Swag for newbs later
-trade bait
-multiples for play
-copies for friends
-bragging rghts for what i've won

So if and when I get my own full set of 10 maps and 3-d objects, am i going to pawn it off on ebay? Hizell Nizo. I'm going to hand them out to new players and interested onlookers to try and garner support and more fans. It's how things work in my area. Our two most prominent judges took their OWN stock and started using it as prize support to keep the game alive as much as possible.

I know someone said something about the COG events being lame. But that's actually what got me into it. In our whole area, the COG events brought in FOUR TIMES the average number of attending players at each venue for each event, while the starro events had only three times as much. Must mean they sucked hard in the long run. Maybe it was just our area.

To the extent of which it is being argued about people blaming prize support, bad judging, blah blah...I think one issue is clearly overlooked: The wizard's first rule: PEOPLE ARE STUPID. The stupid factor represents those people who would set up a false b&m envoy to get tons of free prizes and then wonder why no one in the area likes them. It represents game sharks who call in advance to see if no one showed up to this or that venue to prize snipe. It represents the anomalous decision making skills that saw single track decision making tank not 1, but almost 7 game lines in annual consecutive order. MK, MW, HC, AC, HorC, and Pirates all got mishandled. Mishandled by judges, venues, players, wizkids, and topps.

Like the moment in batman dark knight when the ballerina asks who gave batman the right to do what he does. Harvey Dent says, We did. By standing by and letting bad men take the streets.

My point is that wizkids was giving out a free lunch to all those who would abuse it. They tried to put it on the house by firing staff and raising prices. And it got put on the players by topps when wizkids was shut down. What have we learned? That in the weeks following the initial launch, attendance ALWAYS DIES DOWN. People get busy, the buzz fades, and sometimes a little recession hits. If nothing else, this time off has done nothing better than force out the fraudulent persons and stores into other games. It was like an enema. Every one coming back is coming back for the game first. And none of the prizes are going to be free now. Thank God, because it will mean long term viability of the companies who support it and wizkids. And the prize sharks won't wanna come out to play as much because their expenditures will be all that much more costly for not that great a payoff.

Finally, to thele: there were so many different factors not even considered in your complaint about attendance over prize support that I don't even know where to start. The game itself has had ups and downs as well as the economy, the prize support, the communication and shipping and handling with vendors, time of year. I could go on. The factors show real life and human influence. Not just poor dial design or poor format of delivery.

To say that an AP kit is going to hurt the attendance in the long run? You're like the guy who tells rwandan's not to smoke, cause it may kill them. We're barely surviving and finally have a break free to move on, what do we care if a few prize sharks come in, or a couple of turds sell rightly gotten(this time) supply online? Our attendance will be bolstered by our will to make things work right this time. And any wavering at this point can only be attributed to human issues.

I am the judge who he is referring to, and think he was misunderstanding the situation. We have spoken, and I think its smoothed out now. I had posted this earlier in one of the social groups:

Yeah, I've been trying to float this rec center idea for about a year and a half. Lots of space, vending machines, good lighting. I was happy to hear about the new prize structure, as its a chance to get off on a new foot with no entry buy-in, but still having the latest prizes. The new kits are so cheap its possible, so I hope to get one. I just haven't been able to find out for sure if its one kit per venue, or per a set number of cases bought or what. I hope they limit it to cases bought, so they aren't too available. Not sure why anyone would have a problem with that, but I still want to try. I actually like Scott's idea also, just hope you don't have to be TOO quiet! Sorry we haven't been able to play, but really hope to soon.

So yes, I was trying to get a kit (which everyone is going to have buy anyway), but not to sell. I hope to start a hassle free, relaxed, fun, game environment.

Since I was a Level 2 judge, and I am trying to get the prize support to hold HoT tournaments, I suppose I will have to be there.