TWD : French championship - 39 players

Well, Paris would be fair enough travel-wise since the TGV/ICE connection to Germany is actually a smoothe one, but, sadly, only players in the southwest of Germany can benefit from that AND you still have to invest more than one day because of the distance.
Maybe I can talk Hardy into sharing his thoughts about attractive circumstances for Bochum people attending a tournament in France

"Invading" a tournament in Germany, either in Bochum or maybe Freiburg/Breisgau sounds like a nice task, but I cannot promise that people will understand that they will have to do a "counter-invasion" afterwards.
At least, trying is surely better than not trying.

I think, for us (the Austrian playgroup) french is too far for a one day tournament.
From Vienna it´s more than 1000 km to, par exemple, Paris.
So it´s going by flight.
And then you have to get real good flight times to make it and it was not real cheap
And if you have to book a hotel if the flight back doesn´t work...price rises up.

That´s why, as far as I know.

Best regards

Richard
NC Austria

Ankha wrote:

However, I'm a little disappointed no foreigners showed up despite the early announcement. If you have any feedback about why and what we could do to improve this next year, speak up loud and clear!

Hello Vincent!

Hakuron wrote:

Maybe I can talk Hardy into sharing his thoughts about attractive circumstances for Bochum people attending a tournament in France

Well, Rudolf indeed could.

We had a discussion on this topic, on the German VEKN web forum, and specifically within the playgroup based in Bochum - the group which usually has some players visiting tournaments in the Netherlands or Belgium, as you know first-hand.

So, my remarks are obviously centered on the Bochum group, but the views seem to be shared by other German players (especially, I see Alf's post above in this thread, which basically summarizes what I am about to confirm).

The reasons are

Travel distance

The consensus amongst most of the players from Bochum is that the travel distance to an event should not be longer than 3, maybe 3,5 hours for a one-way trip, if we want to do that on a single day.

Anything longer than that would need one or even two overnight stays, increasing the expenses (and excluding events on Sundays), and complicating political negotiations at home (most of the players have families).

So, for example an event on a Saturday in Paris means traveling there on Friday (very possibly meaning players would need to take a day of leave from the job), spending two nights in Paris, and traveling back on Sundays.

This applies, it seems, to all possible location in France: Metz has been mentioned above in this thread, which indeed would be the closest town in France from the point of view of the Bochum group - but travel there would take approximately 4 hours by car (so, longer than the limit discussed above), where Brussels is only 3 hours away.

Language barrier

Here, I need to state very careful that I am not sure about the reality of this, as opposed to the perceived situation.

Several players are worried about a possible language problem when playing in France.
Please note that the same problem applies to Spain, which was also brought up in the discussion we had - but in this thread, let us stay focused on France.

Obviously, in a political multi-player game like VTES, the ability to speak a common language on a table is a key requirement.
And even if the localized versions of VTES cards make it easier to get local players interested in the game, the lingua franca for VTES remains English for international events.

A few players have played "Magic - The Gathering" in the past, and encountered severe issues in France, with French players not able - or, as one player stated, even not willing - to speak English.
I want to be very careful here, as in my perception, the Magic tournament scene is prone to all kinds of what I would call unsportsmanlike conduct.... but this is part of what builds perceptions.
One player confirmed that he had language problems when playing VTES with French players in the past.

So, this is indeed something where I would like to hear from the French community:
Is there indeed a language barrier?
Are all the players who join large events (National Championship, Grand Prix) in France able to speak English on a level that allows negotiations?

As this is the Internet:
Please let me re-emphasize that neither I nor any of the players want to insult anyone, or exclude anyone from playing VTES, based on their language!
But Vincent asked what the problems are, and so we need to address this one, and I hope that can happen in a constructive manner.

hardyrange wrote:

Ankha wrote:

However, I'm a little disappointed no foreigners showed up despite the early announcement. If you have any feedback about why and what we could do to improve this next year, speak up loud and clear!

Hello Vincent!

Hakuron wrote:

Maybe I can talk Hardy into sharing his thoughts about attractive circumstances for Bochum people attending a tournament in France

Well, Rudolf indeed could.

We had a discussion on this topic, on the German VEKN web forum, and specifically within the playgroup based in Bochum - the group which usually has some players visiting tournaments in the Netherlands or Belgium, as you know first-hand.

So, my remarks are obviously centered on the Bochum group, but the views seem to be shared by other German players (especially, I see Alf's post above in this thread, which basically summarizes what I am about to confirm).

The reasons are

Travel distance

The consensus amongst most of the players from Bochum is that the travel distance to an event should not be longer than 3, maybe 3,5 hours for a one-way trip, if we want to do that on a single day.

Anything longer than that would need one or even two overnight stays, increasing the expenses (and excluding events on Sundays), and complicating political negotiations at home (most of the players have families).

So, for example an event on a Saturday in Paris means traveling there on Friday (very possibly meaning players would need to take a day of leave from the job), spending two nights in Paris, and traveling back on Sundays.

This applies, it seems, to all possible location in France: Metz has been mentioned above in this thread, which indeed would be the closest town in France from the point of view of the Bochum group - but travel there would take approximately 4 hours by car (so, longer than the limit discussed above), where Brussels is only 3 hours away.

Language barrier

Here, I need to state very careful that I am not sure about the reality of this, as opposed to the perceived situation.

Several players are worried about a possible language problem when playing in France.
Please note that the same problem applies to Spain, which was also brought up in the discussion we had - but in this thread, let us stay focused on France.

Obviously, in a political multi-player game like VTES, the ability to speak a common language on a table is a key requirement.
And even if the localized versions of VTES cards make it easier to get local players interested in the game, the lingua franca for VTES remains English for international events.

A few players have played "Magic - The Gathering" in the past, and encountered severe issues in France, with French players not able - or, as one player stated, even not willing - to speak English.
I want to be very careful here, as in my perception, the Magic tournament scene is prone to all kinds of what I would call unsportsmanlike conduct.... but this is part of what builds perceptions.
One player confirmed that he had language problems when playing VTES with French players in the past.

So, this is indeed something where I would like to hear from the French community:
Is there indeed a language barrier?
Are all the players who join large events (National Championship, Grand Prix) in France able to speak English on a level that allows negotiations?

As this is the Internet:
Please let me re-emphasize that neither I nor any of the players want to insult anyone, or exclude anyone from playing VTES, based on their language!
But Vincent asked what the problems are, and so we need to address this one, and I hope that can happen in a constructive manner.

Let me answer on the language barrier :
You have many players with a correct level of English (to discuss, allow negotiations and so on), but you might encounter players that are not able to communicate in English. Anyway the chances that you are in tables where no one speaks decent English are close to zero (if not clearly zero).

So worst case scenario you can have someone on the table able to translate key interactions, which is not optimal, but it's generally enough.

In my opinion the travel distance & expenses are today more a barrier than the language.

Yes, you will face players who have difficulties to speak English. Probably more than in Germany (like you, this is a biaised perception based on my personal experience in germany) and certainly more than in the UK ^^.

But most of the players will be able to at least say the basics : "if you put me 1 dégât du kine, I will rush you !" Or the opposite "pliz don't rush me. I won't bleed you next turn"

Timo wrote:

But most of the players will be able to at least say the basics : "if you put me 1 dégât du kine, I will rush you !" Or the opposite "pliz don't rush me. I won't bleed you next turn"

Now I have voices in my head ...