I don’t think we really need a venue though for a large-scale event at this point. I think we just need to find someplace like we had with DAvinos, a place where we can hold monthly small to mid-sized tourneys (30 or less people, 2 or 3 games at event).
I’m really hoping that USC will make their tourney series at least a quarterly event.
So what we end up with is monthly small-to-mid sized events just to keep everybody playing and to grow the scene and a larger event every 3 months or so which attracts lots of attention.
So we need to think smaller for venues I think.
About HDR. Yeah i was just mad when i posted that. I definately need to give it more than one day of play time and definately need to play against not-Akumas. Hell maybe I need to go back to my dual-character strategy with taht game (i used to play Balrog in HDR and Blanka, because Balrog is fun as hell in HDR). I’ll give it more time before Fall Brawl.
And Yes I’ll play against you in HDR. I definately need the practice. I’ll get back to where I’m at least respectable at it by Fall Brawl i hope.
seriously? All we need is someplace safe with room for 3 setups or so, parking and electricity?? Who would have thought that would be so hard???
I don’t mind getting beat up on as long as i feel like i’m learning something. I know that HDR is chock full of bad matchups. Playing other fighting games makes me appreciate the balance in SF4.
The thing is, without a lan center, or something of that nature, it’s going to be pretty difficult to get an event of 30 people and 3 setups. Ironically, the more people you have coming, the easier it is to find a venue, because then you have a house fee, and more venues will be interested because of advertising and personal business interests. 50 dudes at a restaurant in the back playin video games gonna get hungry, give em a small discount for being in the tournament to give them incentive to eat there and they immediately making bank, yadig?
Still, our best bet is a restaurant with like a party space in the back somewhere. They’re still going to be looking for money though.
Another thing to look in would be to contact Bestbuy or Gamestop and see if they’d be interested in helping out for obvious reasons. Pitch it to em like our scene in columbia is growing, could be a nice untapped market for some advertising and opportunities to do some business. Maybe they’d donate a couple giftcards for prizes and stuff.
Things to ponder. One thing’s for certain, no matter what tournaments we can put together, most likely gonna need a house fee.
I know it is in Greenville but Quantium X has a perfect setup and is open to doing any tournaments. and unless you are doing one game only, 3 setups will take forever. even with 30 people.
We know 3 setups take a while with 30 people. Not bad though. Nobody would show from the columbia scene. Also, since it’s in greenville, it’d be more of a greenville tournament instead of a columbia tournament (That’s what we looking for.)
Nobody here wants to be constantly travelling way the fuck all over the state every week for ranbats. Fuck that shit.
I’d love to use a place like Quantum X but we don’t have one here and Quantum X is too far away to do what we are looking for.
This is just my opinion, but what Columbia really needs is a place where we can get together every single month. These tourneys would be smaller (I said 30, but that’s more of a high number and when I said 3 setups I meant it as more of a minimum). We need someplace where we can all come together and play against each other regularly not every 3-6 months. I say once a month minimum.
Requirements I would be looking for:
Must be in Columbia or Columbia area.
Must be in a location that is safe.
Must have our minimum requirements (have room, electricity, be comfortable for players, etc).
Must be affordable. Since it’s a venue for a regular tourney/event/gathering, it is best to find a way to have no venue fee if possible. Worst case like $5 per person.
Goals:
Keep our Columbia core players playing. once a month is a minimum IMO.
Draw in new Columbia players. New players are more likely to show up to a smaller event like this for their first tourney than a larger one.
A goal of this regular type of event is to grow the community. Current players are more likely to play every month if they don’t have to travel. The new players we want at this event are Columbia area players, so it really has to be in Columbia.
The goal of these events wouldn’t be to draw players from other areas or states. Its primary purpose would be to grow and strengthen Columbia.
I think the USC event will really draw a lot of attention to Columbia. If we aren’t considered the capital of competitive fighting in SC already (numbers of players/events/etc) we should be after that. We need to keep up that momentum and build upon it.
**We cannot rest and just assume our scene will stay together if we don’t have regular events. **IMO it will start to fall apart and before you know it we’ll be wondering why we can’t get 20 people together for a tournament if we let it happen. We have something great going and we need to keep it or we’ll lose it.
GGs to ya also Duke. You gotta a good Rog on your hands as well as a nice Chun. Looking forward to getting some more players matches with ya soon. I would’ve played more yesterday but a buddy of mine came by to drop of my car that he was borrowing from me so I had to take care of that. Let me know when you wanna do some more player matches
Agreed. Here’s a few thoughts:
Jillians on Gervais St… They have a room when you first walk in on the right that’s spacious and good to use for parties and stuff.
Rooms on the Second floor of the Russell House at USC (I know some of you USC students can hook something up with reserving a room) Just say something like you wanna do some type of gaming party or something.
Does anyone stay in a apartment complex where they have a community room? For example: Before I got married, I use to say in Riverview off of Broad River Rd. and next to the pool there was a community room that you could rent out to have parties there for free. Anyone have anything like this?
Damon’s off of Gervais St… Same reason as Jillians.
Dorms @ USC aren’t there any community rooms that can be used? For example: When I went to USC, I stayed in the Towers where they had the dorms called Laborde, Douglas and Snowden. But there were a couple rooms that could be used for RA meetings and club meetings.
Anyway that’s all that I can think of for now. If anything else comes to mind I’ll post it. Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can check on the restaurant locations. Could anyone else check on the other locations?
Wish I was going. Y’all are gonna have a blast, and make sure you stop by Gameworks in Easton Mall to play some SF4 arcade! No doubt some of those top players will be there the night before the tourney!!
Rahjon (i have no clue how to spell your name sorry) has given the best advice so far IMO.
What’s wrong with combining with upstate or lowstate to look for venues? We have such a small community here compared to the other areas that hold monthly tournaments, it’d be naive to turn down the opportunity for more tournaments because they are 90 miles away. If you can’t make 90 miles or hitch a ride, then you’re busy or don’t care enough about tournaments on the level most of you idealize. There are lots of areas 90 miles outside of big cities like ATL NYC SoCal etc that just travel or host tournaments in these cities because it’s better for the community. It’s nice to have you’re own scene, which we have, but at Final Round I’d rather wave a giant Palmetto flag rather than USC flag when one of us wins, which will only happen if we collaborate with the surrounding areas.
I’m also a little confused on the crowd size we’re looking for. I hear talk of renting out rooms, when it shouldn’t even be necessary for such a small crowd. A region-wide tournament for our area is out of the question at the moment for reasons I’ll type out if anyone asks. I agree that it’s possible to pull 30 people for a tournament, but if you’re talking monthly you will see the average number dwindle to about 15 at most. Then again, we need to specify if we want monthly tournaments, or monthly gatherings, which in my mind are two different things. Gatherings can be down with coordination, people’s houses, and local help.
I don’t believe that at all, if it’s monthly then people have time to gather the funds to attend a tournament…[IMO]
If you were talking about Weeklies…now thats a whole different animal there – I don’t disagree with everything else you said…but I feel monthly or even twice a month is fine
I agree with you Tak, i have no problem driving to Colombia and you guys if you are serious shouldn’t have a problem coming to the upstate. I have more commitments than most anyone on this board having a job that i work over 60 hours at(85 last week) a wife, and family, a house to maintain, and client events that take time. but out of all of that i still find time to run quarterly tournaments and i am not saying that to brag but just to say if you want something you can do it or you can make excuses.
And on the thing about monthly’s or twice a month tournaments, the numbers will dwindle quick. I speak from experience the reason tournament draw good size crowds is that they dont happen that often so they mean something. If you have twice every month and you go and lose it doesnt mean as much because you know in two weeks you will have another chance. Less is more, stick with quarterlies.
The smaller tourneys I’m talking about would be more along the lines of doing maybe Ranbats or something. And I agree that if we had it 2 times a month it would be too much, but I think that having some sort of event once a month is the minimum. Call it a gathering if you want, call it a Ranbat (personally, I would like some way to measure my progress as a player), but the result must be the same: Columbia should have a consistent “thing” that keeps us playing and keeps us growing.
Now, I do not have any problem whatsoever working with Upstate! Actually, I think it would be the best possible situation to work together so that we have consistent events both in Columbia and in Upstate so that both can feed off one another and both can grow.
My wanting to look for a venue in columbia and my opinions on that matter are strictly limited to Columbia, but if we want to talk about the broader picture now, then I agree with you guys that Upstate and Columbia can both work together in a coordinated way to grow together. It’s a win-win that way.
In fact, a few months ago I asked filldoh in a PM if we can talk via AIM or ssomething about working together and that’s the kind of thing I was thinking of even back then.
But IMO we cannot use Quantum for monthly events for the purpose that I am hoping for: for significant growth of Columbia. 90 minutes is a hell of a drive for all but dedicated players. What I’m hoping for with Columbia, since we are so young, is to keep momentum going and to keep drawing in and surprising new players. We all know that for every 5 new guys that comes to a tourney, maybe one will turn into a tourney regular and 1 in 20 or worse will turn into a “traveling” tourney player.
Yes. filldoh and your crew, we should definately talk somehow to figure out how to work together for the good of both. If the USC-style tourneys were quarterly and so was the G-Vegas tourneys and we spaced them out correctly, we could have a mid-sized event every other month and maybe we wouldn’t need my idea for monthly events, but maybe every other month to fill in gaps.
Hope nobody thinks i’m trying to force opinions or anything. I’m just a brainstormer and throw a lot of my thoughts out there.
Wish I was going. Y’all are gonna have a blast, and make sure you stop by Gameworks in Easton Mall to play some SF4 arcade! No doubt some of those top players will be there the night before the tourney!!