Yeah, if NIESI people want to play Netrunner, they by all means should. There is no large cash prize or anything and they are not getting paid themselves, they are volunteers trying to make a fun game for everyone to enjoy. Let’s just all play a fun game together and be chill about such details.
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Exactly.
I think letting them play in whatever is the least the community could do. If it were not for the sacrifices the NISEI team are making then no one would be playing any of those tournaments.
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I think it might look bad if NISEI board members started consistently winning even the non cash prizes but if they play and pass the prizes down to the next players I’m pretty sure that fixes it.
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The question about what level of tournament to participate in as staff is not a settled one.
I personally believe that their role in NISEI should take priority over competitive tournament record. i.e., NISEI staff generally shouldn’t be trying to ‘grind’ tournaments or win worlds-equivalent tournaments.
I do acknowledge the fact that we don’t want to keep people from playing just because they’re on staff, but I truly think that our best staff members won’t be the best competitive players.
That said, I’m open to allowing All for NISEI staff as long as prizes are passed down to the next player until you hit a non-staff member.
In regards to formats, I would like to see official support for three constructed formats and a draft format. However, I think that right now, Standard should take priority. I’d like to see an Eternal format and a Newbie-friendly format (Modded, Cache Refresh) as well, and then we can see about a ‘fringe’ format like Highlander, 1.1.1.1, or other such things.
Draft will be difficult to support, so I don’t expect to see it soon, but I would still like to see it, because I think deckbuilding with a limited cardpool on the fly is some of the most skill-testing you can do in a card game like this.
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I think it’s fine if NISEI staff are still eligible for prizes without having to pass it down to the next player, but I can understand why people would disagree with that.
As for formats, I think it’s important to balance not splitting the community with too many formats and keeping the game interesting.
Ultimately, we need Standard. After that’s going fine, the next best thing will be a format to get newer people into the game. That should be either Draft/Sealed, or Modded/Cache Refresh. Once that’s doing fine, then we want something for the old guard, which would be Eternal, Highlander, 1.1.1.1 or something else.
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Would we have minded if Damon had played a tournament?
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Not at all. We would probably giggle with satisfaction, beating his Stronger Together deck… 
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FFG minded though, so I think NISEI will definitely have to consider that
i agree that a lot of players probably wouldn’t have minded, but some would have, and maybe even some potential players would probably be turned off by the news that the designer himself was winning tournaments. if we as a community start having tournaments again and want to encourage old players to return or even completely new players to start playing Netrunner, i think we’ll have to consider the perception if people from NISEI are designing new cards, making tournament rules, and also winning those tournaments
These evente are informal enough that at the beginning of the tourney someone could just loudly ask the small group of likely15 or so friendly people who mostly know each other if they mind if a guy who also organizes the event can play a friendly card game with the group. If someone is so try-hard they want to make an issue of it then, so be it. But these are unpaid volunteers doing mostly logistic work.
Ffg cared because their employees were paid. This is about friendly, passionate volunteers organizing fun for the group on a Saturday afternoon. Let’s not forget that.
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So should they make a two hour round trip just to be put to a vote at a Regionals?
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I have no problem with them playing, but it might be best if it was declared which members of the team were playing in advance. There might be an exception if it’s the lead designer playing at worlds, likewise it might be appropriate for any bye’s from regionals or nationals won by design team members to be passed down.
The alternative, which I would also appreciate, would be running side events instead.
Personallhy I think the best idea is to start very liberal about Nisei members playing, and then tighten up if there are issues.
I imagined the vote being a formality as I can’t imagine someone being a jerk enough to try to veto a nice volunteer who wants to play a fun card game. Much less being the only person to put there hand up when the volunteer is right there and everyone doesn’t.
Is this community really full of people who would actually moan about something so evidently benine? Hard to imagine but you guys probably know better than me.
So you’re saying we put it to a vote, but shame anyone who votes a specific way?
Seems kind of pointlessly aggressive.
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I could see an on-site vote, especially a public one, being a bit “loaded”. Do I feel it’s fair one of the lead designers is in the competition? Not really. Do I want to be “that guy” and be the one to kick them out? With a dozen other people looking at me?
Better to just make it a ruling.
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I don’t want this response to come off as aggessive but ‘I want to secretly ruin someone who put in work to try to create something for the community’s experience and not bear the social responsibility for ruining their experience’ is a pretty…intense perspective.
Or at the very least, the definition of passive aggressive.
If you want to stop someone from having fun in a no-stakes social tournament, you should at least look them in the eye.
Although I’d rather see it just ruled that it is okay than ever put to a vote, of course. My larger point was that the idea of banning the people who are putting love into it from having fun with the group when it’s a social game with extremely low-stakes juat seemed so cruel that no one who would really take that stance could honestly even want to admit it publically says a lot about the larger, moral elements of the question.
I didn’t expect 2 people to really chime in on the side of wanting to annomomously ban their fellow players. I’m a bit surprised more than anything, although everyone is entitles to their perspectives.
And, honestly, are we really having so many players coming to these unofficial events of a sort-of discontinued game that we want to be reducing the quality player field too?
I want to compete against the most skilled and the most dedicated players and elimminating those exact players from the field seems disservice to anyone who shares my attitude on that.
Let the kids play.
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They aren’t kids, they are adults who have an absolutely real and very large advantage over everyone else at the tournament.
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I completely agree with you that NISEI staff should be allowed to play, but I find the way you’re phrasing these questions about as non-neutral as possible and I suspect you’re annoying people more than you’re convincing anyone. It’s not “banning the people who are putting love into it from having fun with the group when it’s a social game with extremely low-stakes”, and if the survey wrote the question in such a way I’d think the results should be thrown out as much as if the question wrote it as “preventing the NISEI staff from being able to use their additional advantage in important tournaments and making non-NISEI staff feel unwelcome and disadvantaged.”
For what its worth, the competitive advantage from knowing the extra cards is way less of a deal than people think it is. It is completely offset by the difficulty of having to mentally keep 2 metas in your head at once, losing track of card updates as they happen and just generally having less time for current tournament legal netrunner. It’s definitely possible to shark the playtesting process and barely be involved while having access to the cards in advance, but its reasonably obvious when that happens and bad faith actors in such scenarios can be removed from the process.
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