Wardens of the East: New York City and Long Island

[LetsGoRed 0]

Meta for players typically gathering to play in New York City or Long Island.

[LetsGoRed 0]

Greyjoy Chris and I are planning to meet this evening (11/25) to play at Cranberry Cafe on 45th.  Join us if you can.

[Stag Lord 1]

I thought you weren't going to be aorund this week? I shoudl be able to get out one night next week. Keep me posted.

 

God these new boards suck.

[Greyjoy Chris 1]

jason, have you gotten the email about your cards being shipped and have you gotten them yet? I just want an idea of how long it takes them to come once they've been sent out... cause I really want to have my house Bolton deck ready for next week!! Hopefully I convinced my parents to buy some of the boxes for me for christmas, but we'll see next year...

[LetsGoRed 0]

Stag, any chance you are available this Wedn (12/10) for coming into the city? Anyone else?

GJ Chris, I got the cards on Friday, so hopefully you'll have yours before Wedn.

[LetsGoRed 0]

Stag, any chance you are available this Wedn (12/10) for coming into the city? Anyone else?

GJ Chris, I got the cards on Friday, so hopefully you'll have yours before Wedn.

[Stag Lord 1]

So - if you haven't heard yet, it sounds like Neutral Ground is closing its doors very soon.

I know it was a smelly, overcrowded place and being charged a fee to use their tables grated. But this is a very serious problem for us in NY. Yes - our playgroup is bigger now than it has been in years, but how do we pcik up and attract new palyers if we aren't around other gamers. The Cranberry Cafe is a great littel restaurant, and theya re very accomodating - but no one is going to know to look for us there.

i'm worried. any suggestions?

[Greyjoy Chris 1]

The only suggestion I have is to make either a posting in like Craigslist or MeetUp.com. I don't even think Complete Strategist carries GoT and they aren't very CCG friendly as I've heard. Not to mention they have less space even than NG. I would imagine our best bet is to go to the internet. MeetUp.com is a great site, I tried to make a GoT meetup before, but it cost money to start and maintain a group there. Since I have some free time, I'll also look into some of those free webpage sites, cause having a NYC GoT site to refer people to, with contact info and a schedule, would be good. And we could maybe get it put up on the mainpage as well under Tzumainn's site.

These are just some thoughts, unfortunately the economy is no good for such luxury items as ccg's, but maybe eventually another game store will open? Unless you guys want to come out to King's Games in Brooklyn, but I don't think its got what you want, since its populated by Yu-Gi-Oh and pokemon playing middle schoolers and cracked out WoW computer people

I'll check out some free sites, I know I used to have a personal webpage that was free and fairly easy to use.

[LetsGoRed 0]

Frankly, NG wasn't doing much to promote AGoT/bring in new players. They had dropped us from their calendar of events a few months ago.  They somewhat rightly dropped us, since we were almost never there and when we were not always on the scheduled night, but that was a product of their inability to give us space on the nights we were scheduled and their slow/lack of response to our requests for different dates.  Greyjoy Chris found us there by sheer luck, that's it for this year as far as their helping AGoT. The other new players (including me) found the game via other avenues and the three potential new players I'm aware of found us via the internet.

So, I agree with Greyjoy Chris that the internet is probably the best bet. I do what I can to answer questions/promote the game on BoardGameGeek.com. And I'm going to add to my signature block for this site links to the Google group and the email address so anyone looking here might see them and know where to go.

Meetup.com, as far as I can tell, has been successful for the NYC board game group on it --they get large turnouts and have oodles of members. (Their meetups are often at NG, I wonder what they'll do.) So meetup.com does seem to have merit, but as GJ Chris points out it's not free.  If we wanted a website that we could post basic, static info about the NYC group/meetups and useful links on that we'd steer people to (I don't think they'd find the website on their own), my internet provider gives me some space and I can do standard html. For what would be a low traffic site it could work.

[Twn2dn 1]

 Wow, that's too bad about NG! I hope that you guys still plan on running tournaments somewhat regularly, because I still plan on coming sometime in January/February.

[Greyjoy Chris 1]

If we absolutely have to, we can either try the Cranberry Cafe where we play regularly as they have a separate smaller room on their upstairs seating area or Brooklyn's King's Games has a large upper floor with tables for gaming.

 

Don't worry, it takes more than that to stop us.

[Stag Lord 1]

I think Cranberry Cafe will sevre fine for teh exisitng players. Again - I just worry about new gamers finding us. Maybe the InterNets are the way to go, like you guys suggest.

[finitesquarewell 0]

how common of an occurance was it for you to get new players through shop advertisement, anyway? every time i've built or expanded a player base when running regular play for any other game (a lot of which i did in milwaukee over the last 12 or so years), it was almost exclusively through the internet.

[LetsGoRed 0]

I think you need a shop owner, or key employees, to be fans of the game to the point they are willing to pitch the game actively to players because they enjoy the game themselves (and not simply to generate revenue, as I would suspect that there are bigger money makers with flatter learning curves than AGoT that they could pitch to a prospective purchaser who didn't have a game in mind). That is what is fortunately happening on Long Island in Mineola from what I've heard from Stag and others. It was *not* happening in NG.  I even tried to help NG on this front, by printing up business cards and giving them to NG (which they agreed to), along with a display stand to hold them, that invited would be interested AGoT players to contact the NY play group for info about events and casual play at NG. When I would go back in the store I would find the card holder relocated away from the AGoT cards and with NG's own store business cards crammed in front of the AGoT NY meta cards, even though they had their cards already in holders by the register. Oh well.

[Greyjoy Chris 1]

as a side note, are they like having a fire sale or something? There were still like 3-4 core sets there last time I went... and I wouldn't mind picking up some L5R cards for cheap.

I'm gonna try and make a website and send it to you Stag and LGR, and see what you think. I'm not a very good writer to I'll probably need help, but it can be a start until we get something nicer going.

[Greyjoy Chris 1]

Here's the link to the site I've been working on. Please check it out, sign up to be a member and leave feedback in the forums on the site. Hopefully this will be a good resource for people in the area and beyond, esp if we can get it put up on the FFG main site. Thanks guys!!

 

http://greyjoychris.webs.com/index.htm

[Zombiewski 0]

 The site couldn't have come at a better time; I'm a returning player looking to start playing regularly again.  And then NG had to go and close...  When do you guys normally meet?

[Greyjoy Chris 1]

generally during the week, around 6:30pm, day varies based on the schedules of people, we try to accomadate as many as possible. What is your schedule like?

[hklown 2]

Hey, just a heads up- I'm going to be back on the 18th for winter break (till around the 11th). I really want to head into the city and get some games in, but does anyone know where I can get a Core Set? I'm not sure if Game Table has them in...

[LetsGoRed 0]

Hey Eliot, good to see you posting and it would be great to get in some games if possible --maybe we can organize a meetup in the city b/w Xmas and New Years, as I'll be taking some of those days off and hopefully others are too. The Compleat Strategist in Manhattan may be getting more Core Sets in and NG may still have some on hand. I'm probably going to speak with someone at CS on Friday to find out how we'd be allowed to use their open gaming space for any upcoming events, I'll try to remember to ask them if they are indeed getting more of the Core Set. I may also swing by NG on Friday.

And an appreciative nod to Lars, who must be reading this thread and signed up as a member on the new site GJ Chris is constructing.

[Zombiewski 0]

 Sun-Thurs, 10-6.  I work in Battery Park City, so pretty much anywhere in the city is on the way home for me.  

[Greyjoy Chris 1]

That actually is a perfect schedule for us anyway. Once Christmas is over, I'll beback in the city on the 26th and maybe we can get a little group together that week. The people with children and families might not be able to make it out... but if there are enough of us, maybe it'll work!

[LetsGoRed 0]

We now have a easier to remember address for the NY Meta site that GJ Chris is constructing: www.agotny.net

[Stag Lord 1]

That new site is going to prove very helpful. I had trouble signing up last time, but I'm going to give it another shot.

Locally - I'd love to get a melee in on Christmas Eve afternoon at Game Table. we can discuss htis tomorrow when I stop in.

Zombiewski: what cards do you have access to? woudl you primarily be interested in LCG format - or do you have access to older cards as well?

 

[LetsGoRed 0]

Anyone available to play Tuesday, 1/13, ~6:45pm (at the Cranberry Cafe in midtown)? If so, please post, either here or over at www.AGoTNY.net where we're trying to pin down some dates for playing in the upcoming weeks.