[11-13 July] French Nationals

[Vince]

Hey everybody!

The 2015 French Nationals will be taking place this year in Bourgoin Jallieu, a town very near Lyon (about 30mins). They will take place from the 11th of July to the 13th of July (Saturday to Monday). The 14th being the National day and therefore a bakn holyday it was the most convenient for us this year.

I'll be going, leaving London the 10th in the morning and coming back on the 14th. Information about accomodation should follow shortly, but there should be the possibility to sleep in a place very near the venue with all the other players .

Location: Bourgoin-Jallieu : precisely "la Halle Grenette"

Program:
- Friday 10th of July: Dinner 17€ (Ravioles + Dessert)
- Saturday 11th of July: 4 melee rounds + top16
- Saturday 11th of July (evening): party time with dinner+concert 13€ (salad-lasagne-dessert)
- Sunday 12th of July: Melee finale + 7 swiss rounds of Joust
- Monday 13th of July: Joust top

Accomodation
The Cheap solution
The organisers found somewhere not too far from teh site for everyone to sleep in for a cheap price! 8€/night with breakfast at about 45min walk from the venue. They are looking for how to set up a shuttle system for the tournament from that place to the venue.
This solution will be available for booking through the registration process. This registration process will be live soon.
More info about the venue:
Address- CFA BTP Formation Isère, 21 Boulevard Pré-Pommier, 38300 Bourgoin-Jallieu
4 to 8 person room with individual showers

Other Solutions
This is a selection of hotels and youth hostels not too far from the venue

Hôtel première classe
10mn by car
the cheapest

Symp'Hotel,
5mn by car
Drivers hotel during the week, many availabilities for the weekend, interesting prices

Hôtel Mister Bed City,
1min by foot, just next to the venue
In the center of the town, very good Quality/price rate

Gite - Hôtel Gaïa Café,
5mn by car
Mostly interesting for a big group that would tajke the 6 rooms at once.

Gîte le clos de la ferme
10mn by car
Perfect for 4, Landlords are great and the situation is... quiet ^^

Chambres d'hôte Champfort
5mn by car

Hôtel Kyriad
5mn by car
Classic branded hotel

Le Ménestret
3mn by car
Little Family hotel, where one of the hosting players works

Hôtel des Dauphins
5mn by foot, proche de la gare
Beautiful place, ideal for players bringing their wife/husband with them and want to leave them by the pool at the hotel

How to get there
- Lyon's Airport is 20min drive away from Bourgoin. The organisers will set up a shuttle system to make they can get everyone from the airport to the venue
- If you come by train, you will have to take a short train from Lyon to Bourgoin, it's a 25min trip for 8,70€

Who comes ?

Edit: You can find below a planning of the weekend. I know it's in French, but the most important information should be Thronesniversal

[JCWamma]

Hey Vince, I'd love to make this if I can. One question - is the top prize travel/entry for Worlds? I'm hardly likely to win, but it would absolutely help give me the inclination to go, especially if, as it sounds, the UK Nationals might not have that prize.

[Vince]

Well, it is, but it reserved to French people and/or French residents. It wasn't the case before, but a few "turmoils" made it so since last year ^^.

[JCWamma]

That's a shame. If I may ask, what's the logic behind that? It's not as if French players haven't taken other countries' nationals prizes before, is it?

[Vince]

The main reason is that it is the publisher of the Game in France that provides this specific prize and it wants it to be awarded to someone that actually buys its product (which seems a fair reason to me). We could keep it for a wider audience for the first 2 years (that's how Pokedex got to go to Worlds), but it changed for last year.

Therefore the rule is something like, the Best ranked French player at the French Nationals gets the prize ^^. But we would love to have a winner from elsewhere, it may make things change again for the next Nationals .

[JCWamma]

To be frank, I think that's entirely silly. Perhaps most obviously, being French is no guarantee of actually buying the product - if a French player borrows a friend's cards for instance instead of buying their own, and wins, they'd still get the full prize. It also doesn't seem like it should matter either way to them - presumably they make a profit off the event as a whole, it's not being done from the kindness and generosity of their hearts. X number of players turn up, they make a small profit, a player goes to Worlds. Why should they care about that player's nationality?

Perhaps more importantly, gives off the impression of foreigners not being welcome, which I know from my experiences with French players (obviously yourself first and foremost) is entirely untrue. "By all means feel free to come, but you can't actually, y'know, win. Obviously I wouldn't expect to win anyway, but it's the impression that it gives off.

Overall it means that if due to work holiday and whatnot I can only make one out of this and Tourney for the Hand, I'd be much more likely to push for the latter. I don't know if I can only make one (or both, or neither), but that's the mindset that kind of decision gives me. Perhaps it might be worth passing that information on to the publishers?

(I'm aware I'm almost certainly overreacting, but it seems like a weird kind of nationalism that goes against the spirit we play this game with, both around the world and in France specifically)

[Vince]

Well, you need to remember that this prize is basically to take part in the World Championship, and that, as a World Championship, the more nationalities the better it is. I'm not sure we would all appreciate a "World Championship" with 100 americans and 4 or 5 Spanish players that managed to storm through the different Nationals in Europe.

The idea of this prize is that the French Meta gets to send his Champion to the worlds, as a representative. It's the French Nationals, a tournament to unveil the best player among the meta. Not a gigantic open like Battalla, BwB, Tourney for the Hand, MGTS or FbF. I mean it works exactly the same in Sports. Every nation gets to send its best athlete to the olympics, no matter if he arrived 2nd, 3rd or 8th in the finale of his National Championships. Or even if he reached the finale.

Now to jump back on your argument on why it doesn't make sense for the publisher to set this rule. Imagine, within our throne communities, would your National still be appealing to you if you knew that the best prize was out of your reach because foreign players win it every year? Likely not, and that's, I guess, what they want to avoid as well, newcomers and new players just not coming because they see out of reach foreign players they don't know about winning the grand prize :p.

I think you may also be misunderstanding a few things here. The publisher provides this prize, but the entire competition is organised by the players, from the venue to the buying of the different prizes, the preparation of the meals or everything else. The publisher only provide very few support, this prize, a bit of communication here and there, and that's it. This is a grand fest for Thrones in France, and we are really looking forward for our foreign friends to join the fun.

I understand not being in the run for this prize can be disappointing, but for what's worth you would still win all the other prizes of the Champion, including the pride of "conquering" France again .

I'm sorry if it made you feel that way, but having this amazing prize for the competition is a great thing for us. And as it is the French National to chose the French Champion and the representative of our meta to the World, this requirement did not antagonize us. Now if it had been for Stahleck it wouldn't have been the same obviously, and we certainly wouldn't have gone for it there.

[JCWamma]

That was well-argued Vince, I understand what you're saying. The problem comes when France is the only nation that does this (which I believe is the case?). If every nation sent the best player of that nation, and every nation actually had a nationals for that matter, it would be a very good system. But as it is, if there's a small handful of nationals that actually offer this prize up and then the main prize in those tournaments get limited only to one (admittedly a very large) subgroup of people interested in attending that tournament, it leaves a sour taste. As I say though, I do entirely understand. Doesn't make it less disappointing though!

[Vince]

Well I can say that Spain as the same prize at least. And I understand the disappointment it can create, nevertheless for it to become a wider system, it would have to be FFG to ask for it. For the moment, this is an initiative (even if we fought to get it ^^) from our publisher. Not from FFG. I'll make sure to let them know how you (and more widely, foreign players) can feel about it.

But I fear it would be more efficient if you were to ask for this directly to FFG, it's their Worlds after all ^^. Or maybe to the British (or any other nationalities) publisher? I mean if others do it, why couldn't they? ^^

I hope this won't stop you from getting to an amazing weekend of Thrones in France in Summer .

[markdrive]

Greece and Italy do the same I believe.

[markdrive]

PS - thinking about going - sounds super-cool and Lyon is very nice!

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