The first ever Star Wars Unlimited Galactic Championship was awesome.  It was great to see so many players from all over the world in one place both competing at a high level and casually enjoying the game.  Check out our article about why we had such a great time.

However…

Not everything went as smoothly as hoped this year.  Lines were long, some systems clunky and at least one Porg got lost behind the prize wall.  We’ll come back for you next year, General Porgana.  In the meantime, we’ve hatched a few ideas that could make next year smoother and 100% porg-safe.

Disclaimer: These are our thoughts based on our experiences for discussion and reflection purposes and we have no insider knowledge at the time of writing this piece related to future improvements to large SWU events.

Digitalization

Every badge at the Galactic Championship had a QR code printed on it.  Each code was unique and tied to that specific badge and the individual wearing it.  For many things the code was used as a tracking mechanism.  They were scanned when entering panels to know how many people attended.  The Pin Passport also required scanning to limit the pins to one of each for any individual.

The QR codes and associated online persona accounts could be used for vastly more things to streamline many of the other aspects of a large event like this.

There could be an online portal for which people could have a credit card associated with their account.  Event tickets could then easily be managed online almost completely eliminating the need to have a side event ticket line, the massive size of which led to much angst among the attendees.

Another bonus would be that once eight people register for a specific pod type, the names from those QR codes and associated accounts could get randomly assigned onto a pod ladder sheet and printed out removing the need to hand write the names and figure out the seeding order as the signup is occurring.

Even more angst could be reduced by digitizing the prize wall tickets and moving them into a portal as well.  People could select the items that they want and be sent an email or text message when their order was ready for pickup.  Then just head over to a pickup area, get scanned and receive a package of the ordered items.  This would make pooling and sharing of tickets harder, but would reduce congestion at the prize wall and any associated line.

Incentivize Playing Over Grinding

As it was set up, players were incentivized to get through a pod as fast as possible to get their prize tickets and get back in line.  Players almost always wanted to split tickets amongst the players in each pod.  People could sit down, concede, get their prize tickets and then rinse and repeat to just accumulate more and more prize wall tickets while not actually even playing the game.  Not the most fun thing.

To improve the side events, the goal should be for players to play games and be rewarded for doing so.  If someone wants to grind for tickets at light speed, they may do so, but their rewards for each pod should be less efficient.

For example…

There were pods for premier, draft, sealed, twin suns, win a box, and ultimately there could be eternal format as well.  Six total pod types.  What if each pod was Swiss rounds, and then promo cards given at the end of each round?  You want a specific reward, you need to play through a full pod of that type of event.  There could be additional rewards for completing a specified number of different events or for completing a number from the same event type.  For example, playing in 3 premier pods gets you a reward.  Playing in 3 different types of pods gets you another reward.  

“Hey Porg Depot, that sounds great for people playing in pods, but what about people playing in the main event, the open event, and other larger competitive events?” – anonymous porg

No problem at all really.  If the pods are more casual and are offered more for people to try formats that they may not be used to playing, then there needs to be a more competitive track as well.  Players should also be incentivized to not only enter the larger events, but to play them and be rewarded for their time, regardless of record.  Each round that a player loses they could earn a reward, with a win being larger rewards.  It would be easy to set up larger events so that all players feel like their time was well spent and that they didn’t miss out on tickets, and potential rewards, for playing in these events.  

Prizing Limitations

Many players were left disappointed to find out that certain cards were completely bought out by a small number of attendees.  One reason people travelled to this event was because of the unique cards they could collect.  Every player that puts in time playing should have an opportunity to get a reward they wanted.  It would be extremely easy with the digital QR scanning and tracking to just cap the number of any promotional item to a set number.  One of a particular play mat, three of a specific card, one of a showcase, etc.

With limits for quantities in place and a known number of attendees due to preregistration numbers, it would be relatively easy to have enough prizing available for all people. Then quantities could be opened up near the very end of the event at a predetermined time so if a player wants a second play set, and the cards were still available, they would have the opportunity.  This would allow enough time for all players to receive the rewards they wanted initially and only then making extras a possibility.

Logistics and Room Layout

FFG and the staff onsite clearly got better with line management as the weekend went on.  By Sunday there was a clear line for premier pods vs. other side event types.  This could be taken a step further by taking a page right out of the Disney handbook with the concept of single rider lines.

Side event pods could be formed into two lines.  One for groups of two or more and another for single individuals.  It doesn’t need to be the responsibility of the players to fill out groups, and the employees don’t need to hunt for a single or smaller group.  Just grab the first group from the one line and fill it out with people from the single rider line. This would lead to filling out groups as quickly as possible.

Another way to ease congestion is to separate things more.  As it was set up, side event tickets, prize wall and all registration was concentrated in one location.  If they spread things out with the prize wall nowhere near event registration, the congestion in that area would be significantly less.

Lastly, for room layout.  The artists and dealers were in the same area as the photo area and streaming lounge area.  At a certain time, the middle wall was put in place so the dealers and artists could leave, but then the other areas were closed off.  Locking away the dealer inventory makes sense, but keeping player focused areas separate and accessible the entire day would have been nice.

Event Timing

Using scans for pod entry and also for the start of each pod round would prevent people from entering pods too quickly and gaming the system.  The scans could be time stamped relatively easily.  People getting seated in a pod could not just immediately say they were completed with the first round of that pod since there would be timing data associated with when the pod started.

Prize Wall Tickets

The idea of a prize wall and having players earn tickets to “purchase” rewards from the store is a great idea.  It worked well in past events and, for part of the weekend, was working well at Galactics also.  The items available at the prize wall were top notch, in our opinion.  Silver packs were fun to open, the promo cards look amazing, the play mats are beautiful. There were just a couple of issues and decisions that turned it into a cluster-porg by the end of the weekend.  As we spoke about above, not allowing players to grind tickets all day without playing would help maintain the prize wall rewards as a premium feature that players had to work for.  The main issue came late Saturday, after many people left for the day.  FFG made the decision to allow players to directly use side event tickets as 100 prize wall tickets.  This meant that anyone could buy 100 side event tickets and walk to the next table and trade them for 10,000 prize wall tickets.  This caused a huge rush on side event tickets, and the prize wall selling out of a lot of items over the course of the last day.  This was another decision that incentivized people not to play.  

This could perhaps be avoided with a lot of our thoughts above.  Digital event tickets would allow them to easily refund unused tickets after the event.  Also, initial limits on prize wall rewards would have stopped people from dropping thousands of dollars.  As it was set up, they didn’t want people getting stuck with unused tickets, but their fix to that problem caused more problems than it solved and left a lot of players frustrated.

Closing Out

The Galactic Championship was incredible.  Many people had a ton of fun, but many people also had frustrations with the length of lines, especially on the last day.  It was an unenjoyable way to close out an otherwise amazing weekend for those who were stuck in that line.

The issues, however, are fixable.  We saw FFG event staff react quickly throughout the event itself and there is no doubt they are already hard at work brainstorming ways to adjust for next year.  Event lines were made to be more streamlined, with more popular events being separated allowing those to fire off faster.  The prize wall was turned from a day one mob into a much more logical queuing system that had available staff calling for the next person in line and a front of line manager holding people back until a staffer became available.

However, even with the on the fly adjustments, the lines were still there and in many instances became bigger as the weekend progressed.  Moving much of the physical systems onto a digital platform could potentially alleviate much of the need for lines or at least assist in speeding up the process flow and making the lines move more quickly.

The other major take away should be that prioritizing playing the game while still receiving cool exclusives and giveaways, instead of grinding for prize tickets, would likely create a better and more enjoyable environment.

The team at Porg Depot is already excited for next year!  We hope to see everyone we met this year and meet all new people as well.  We’re already hard at work on series 2 of the porg tokens.  We’re coordinating day and night with the Porg Intelligence Agency to properly represent their spies!