Proxies and the VEKN

Is it possible to vote more than once in your polls?

Yes, and it is the same on this site. It is time for you to learn the ugly truth: Bakija, BeAst, Kushiel, Adonai, ... : those are all multiple accounts for the only person who has Villeins for sale Meanwhile, the admins have closed accounts of people agreeing with you. It may look like there are only 3 of you, but don't let it fool you: the silent majority is behind you! Go proxy!

Seriously, you are in denial. If you really think people care enough to hack the survey, just go back over this thread. Count the people who have expressed an opinion for or against proxies and you will find pretty much the same results as the poll. At the moment, you are in the minority. A vocal minority, maybe, but still a minority.

Non-existant user wrote:

Is it possible to vote more than once in your polls?

Seriously, you are in denial. If you really think people care enough to hack the survey, just go back over this thread. Count the people who have expressed an opinion for or against proxies and you will find pretty much the same results as the poll. At the moment, you are in the minority. A vocal minority, maybe, but still a minority.

I'm very vocal about it? Strange, and I thought BeAst, Elotar and other are *vocal* about the issue. YMMV.

And if it's easy enough to vote more than once, why do you think people wouldn't, if they think their opinion counts? (I guess this counts for both parties of a hotly debated topic.)

And *seriously* I'm not in denial. What is there to deny?

Amenophobis wrote:

Disregarding the fact that your blog looks good and I like it, the conclusion I can draw is: the question of the poll is inadequate at best.

Asking that question without any flanking parameters/information is bound to get that result. No?

I am not sure about that.

Amenophobis wrote:

If the question was something like
"Should the use of proxy cards, limited to certain by the VEKN determined cards, and hence only with to be issued official VEKN-proxies, and only for a limited time period, be allowed in VtES?"
I guess, the result would look somewhat different.

I tried to state the question as neutral as possible. If the original question is biased, so is your question. The length of the question in the blog poll is limited, so I cannot state the full background information (Pro/Con) in that poll.

Amenophobis wrote:

Is it possible to vote more than once in your polls?

Yes, switching to another computer/browser or resetting cookies allows to you vote twice.

Aside all that being said, I do think the majority of VtES players is against the use of proxies in tournament play. If a poll results is actually 80-20 or 70-30, I don't really care. In addition I have talked to players in my playgroups.

You are welcome to start a new poll (in this forum) with the question you would like to ask.

Amenophobis wrote:

I'm very vocal about it? Strange, and I thought BeAst, Elotar and other are *vocal* about the issue. YMMV.

I was not pointing at you personally If you look at the thread, you have about as many posts standing for each side, but with about twice less different posters for proxies. Less people + more posts per person on average = vocal mnority. There is nothing wrong with that as long as they do not claim to be a majority. Granted, you are far from being the loudest one

Thought I would chime in on this topic with my 2 cents.

The idea of proxies in itself stems from a very real shortage of cards. Certainly it is harder to get most older sets. Now it is extremely difficult to buy HttB and KoT. I am talking in reference to packs, starters, boxes, etc. I am sure you can still find many of the cards on ebay. It is sad many people are forced to ebay to pay exorbitant prices because the sets not being available anymore. I didn't think that the new sets would be sold out so quick or I would have bought more.

Further, everyone has always wanted more players than anything. That helps variety, competition, and of course that means the publisher makes more profit (in our case it may help a new one pick it up who sees the value). Well, now that everyone is trying to grow the community again in light of what happened, I think it would be an even harder task. If I weren't already a player for a little while now I would not have gotten into the game. The fact that so many older cards and sets are hard enough to get is already an obstacle for a new player. Given they cannot buy two of the latest sets in ease is yet another obstacle. I don't want to hear "we can just give cards away," or "go to places like ebay." That is a poor excuse. My pristine collection is also not something I like to give or lend either. So others are bound to feel that way as well. $50+ for an Enkil Cog is ridiculous. $20 for a Villein? Over $10 for Ashur Tablets? No offense, but these cards are staples in many tournament decks. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Not many potential players are going to look at VTES and what it takes to get the competitive cards and say "Count me in!" Sure, they can make some decks, but will be limited. Not to offend anybody, but there are quite a few people in this hobby who don't have an ebay account or the money to buy said cards.

Of course many of the above sentiments and facts are what drove us to the idea of proxies. There are still many VTES veterans who need some of the high price and hard to find cards let alone potential new players. So do I see this as an issue that will only get worse? Yes. Does it have be solved shortly in my opinion? No. There are still enough cards floating around to get us through to Origins. And this idea and the new player run community needs time to mature.

I say we wait until this sight is fully operational (calendar, rankings, etc.), Origins has passed, and then we see where we are at. Perhaps our numbers won't grow as VEKN would hope, perhaps we will have more leave the fold, or perhaps in the coming months most of us will have acquired the cards we need and feel mostly satisfied. Or maybe the overall consensus is the numbers have grown better than any could hope, maybe someone will pick up VTES, or maybe we will all switch to the Role Playing Game or Magic (j/k).

Either way we should not be hasty. Lets see where we land and what direction the game seems to be headed in.

And if we do decide to make proxies then we should limit it to some of the harder/higher priced cards (implementation, amount, price, and distribution is a different story).

Amenophobis wrote:

...snip... the question of the poll is inadequate at best.

Asking that question without any flanking parameters/information is bound to get that result. No?

If the question was something like
"Should the use of proxy cards, limited to certain by the VEKN determined cards, and hence only with to be issued official VEKN-proxies, and only for a limited time period, be allowed in VtES?"
I guess, the result would look somewhat different.

Sorry, 'Phobis, but your 'flanking parameters' are not that clear too. How the VEKN would determine which cards and how long the limited time period would be is not clear at all. That in mind I think it is allowed to ask the simple question "Proxies yes or no". Adding more unclear information would not help.

Granted, you can manipulate the poll. Nobody says the results are statistically valid. But bearing in mind that 'both sides' could manipulate the results it seems to make a clear statement. In addition I don't think that there are people out there who have nothing better to do than to reset their cookies multiple times to alter the pollresults. I would not. Do you?