Evo 2012 Feedback Thread

Evo Championship Series
21

As a old head and someone that goes to evo yearly.

Good thing

$1.50 Location- the middle of the strip and at Caesars
$.50 trying to provide some type of Water
$1 Setup/space The setup was real professional, and there was plenty of space.

Bad things.
$2 if you are just a spectator its almost better to stay at home rather than spend money to come out. No house mic or commentary was really weird.
$1 Evo is far to Hollywood now. This is the 1st evo were I didn’t play and felt like I would have done just as well to stay home, literally felt like I was at a half con have sporting event. I remember getting chills/hype hearing the old evo theme and watching special combo vid’s and documentaries, or just being able to feel the hype in the room added not only by the crowd but commentators. May in my old age (30) its just seems like a bunch of fan boy’s that are excited about things and don’t even know why or their history. And I feel like evo and srk has begin to feed into that mindset.

22

[LIST]
[]Most favorites
[LIST]
[]Quality monitors with headphones at every station, $1
[]Online brackets/Evo app, $1
[]Staging, $1
[/LIST]
[]Least favorites
[LIST]
[]Not enough BYOC stations, $2
[*]Affordable food, $1
[/LIST]
[/LIST]

23

Most favorites:
Headphones! so sick!!! - $1
smartphone app, super great! - $1
on-time pools - $1

Least favorite:
busted expensive food - $1
limited casual stations: only got 3 games of AE in the whole weekend, and waited 1/2 hour in line. - $1
lags on finals day - too many unnecessary breaks that took way to long, should be more streamlined w/ tighter transitions to keep it moving, and get ready to prep the next event while the current one is going on - $1

2 quick fixes to big problems:

taping off floor isles: would let people know where they can and can’t sit on finals day, to slow down on the breaks
dry erase boards for judges: would help people see who’s next, and save judges their voices!

24

I’ve been at Evo now every year since 2006. It’s been great to see the evolution of Evolution, lol. I am also a Las Vegas local, so my perspective might be a little different in regards to some aspects, such as the venue. That said, here is my list:

Most favorites:
Come and go, open environment for everyone on Friday & Saturday: $1. This has always been one of my favorite things about Evo. Very chill. Please, always keep it that way, and if the venue size limitation can be solved (least favorites, below), then go back to being open to everyone on finals day as well.
Betas and indie games: $1. Gives everyone an opportunity to play something. Particular props to Namco for having 16 stations for Tekken Tag. Very smart (I’m looking at you, Capcom).
Side screens showing player names and big score boards during finals: $1. I’ve watched the technical side of the event progress every year…

Least favorites:
Size of the event hall and Caesars itself: $1. I think the turnout was a surprise for the organizers, but this felt like the first year that the size of the venue limited the event. I know this is the biggest venue Caesars and Rio has, but it’s time to move up. Plus, Caesars is way overpriced for nearly everything, and it is not a good value for what you get (they have some very basic problems that piss me off, like the poorly designed, inadequate parking garage). The ballroom was 50,000 sq. feet (http://www.vegasmeansbusiness.com/listing/caesars-palace/30274/). Next year, consider MGM, Mandalay Bay, Orleans (that would save money on rooms and food for attendees) or any other resort with at least an 80,000+ sq. ft. venue.
Lack of commentary during finals: $1. I’d like to see the stream commentary pumped into the hall during finals…stream viewers should not be able to experience something that we miss by being there.
Dates of the event, just after 4th of July: $1. This did not affect me, but I know hotel rooms and plane tickets were higher because of the event’s proximity to 4th of July. Consider trying to book the event on just about any other weekend during the summer, to help keep prices as low as possible and increase the number of attendees.

Overall all though, thank you and congratulations to the organizers for another great event!

25

Good:
1 - Headphones for every player to drown out the outside noise and actually hear the game
1 - Guidebook App - was really useful for someone who hasn’t been to Evo before.
1 - Game demos - Super Time Force was GODLIKE, I am buying this game day 1.

Not so good:
3 - Marvel 3 on ps3. I know I know the game is on ps3 and we all know that, we all know the input delay is a little worse and we should all practice for it - but that’s not the problem. Input delay is consistent, give me 20 minutes and I can adjust to it (same for monitors). The problem is Marvel 3 on PS3 randomly slows down to a hilarious degree and you can not practice for random slowdown no matter how much you play on which console. Marvel 3 on ps3 is an objectively and provably terrible port. I was lucky enough that this didn’t affect me at all and I’m not blaming my losses on this, but it’s a big enough issue that I’m sure it caused others problems and I really don’t want to see it in the future.

(I already used my 3 but here’s some far lesser gripes that I would have mentioned if I weren’t willing to spend 10x my budget on PS3 Marvel 3):
-Could have used more stations for casuals/money matches
-Not enough chairs on Friday/Saturday even though there was room for more (lots of chairs on Sunday though which was nice)
-Hilariously over-priced food next door. $4 for a tiny bottle of pepsi that will last 2 sips? No thanks I’ll go downstairs to the gift shop and get a regular sized bottle for less than $2 (and I did, at least 3 times).

26

First Time at EVO :

Good :
On Floor Vendors - $1
Stage / Screen Configuration - $1
Tournament Location (Caesar’s) - $1

Dislikes :
Space - There wasn’t a point in the weekend where the tournament floor didn’t feel crammed - $2
Event Date - I know EVO has been held at various times over the summer. July 4th is a really off time, cost wise, to try and book. - $1

Even given this, the event was a blast, and I plan on being back next year.

27

First time @ Evo also:

Good:
Organization of the pools- $1
Guidebook- $1
Always something to do -$1

Bad:
Food - $2
BYOC area- $1

28

Most favorite:

  • stream quality (video, coverage, commentators, hell even pools was amazing to watch) 1$
  • schedule and information (well beforehand and clear like brackets, schedule image, tested streams, guidebook etc) 1$
  • high level attendance (the top-level players in all games) 1$

Least favorite:

  • delays on the finals day that hurt SF4 competition (KoF, MvC and VF5 pushed SF4 back way too far which hurt quality and hype) 2$
  • lack of updates in online brackets (the finals are still not in there rendering them incomplete) 1$
29

The good:

Organization for the main tournaments ($2) - Extremely well-made bracket/pool system, small and fast-running pools, clearly labeled stations, patches+DLC all in order, and so on. Compared to most other tournaments I’ve been to you guys definitely had the essentials done extremely well.

Letting Sega do their thing for VF5 ($1) - Really cool that you worked with them and let them set up their own area for this tournament. This was practically a 7th official game, and it was nice to get in some face time with others in a series that I’ve always played casually but never really had much competition to pick from at home.

The bad:

Availability of casuals, BYOC, etc. ($1) - In the past 2 years, I’ve been to two Seasons Beatings, two Final Rounds, one CEO, a few smaller Road to Evo events, and several regionals. I got more actual game time in at every single one of those tournaments than I did at Evo. The number of available BYOC stations for various games were sparse, and the venue was so spread out that actually finding a place to play could take forever. At other majors, everything is more tightly packed together in the venue and there’s a sense that we “own” the place since we don’t have to share space with other events, walk through what is basically an entire mall to get to our rooms, or have to go very far out of our way to find other players looking for games. For those of us who live in the middle of nowhere and come out to these events strictly to get time in with as many other players as we can (a luxury we don’t have at home), Vegas seems to provide a very diluted experience for a very inflated cost. Everyone always says that if you attend one tournament out of the year, then it should be Evo, but I can’t actually agree with that at all if playing fighting games is your number one priority.

Concerns about USB hub ($1) - posted here: Concerns about the headset+hub setups on tournament stations

Amount of time/resources spent on “sideshow” affairs ($1) - Most of the indie game booths, panels, etc. were cool and all, but when everything is competing for what seems to be a more and more crowded space, I think you have to reprioritize things. Probably no one would complain if you had replaced the room for industry panels with a 2nd BYOC room. And nobody wants to sit through Snoop Dogg to get to a top 8 that’s already behind schedule.

30

As a paying spectator:

The Good: Awesome stream set-up, very professional. Not much to complain about here.

The Bad: Delays on the final day.

The Ugly: The following AE matches in top 32 were not streamed, and the stream ended with an additional hour of potential play-time before midnight:

[LEFT]Dieminion vs. Shangtsung (Shangtsung the second player repping Australia in top 32, didn’t get to see him play on-stream even once)[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Kindevu vs. Gamerbee[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Mike Ross vs. Humanbomb[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Xiao Hai vs. MOV[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Momochi vs. Kyabetsu (Kyabetsu the top Viper in Japan, didn’t see him play on-stream even once)[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Ryan Hart vs. Zeus (Zeus a hometown hero for the USA, didn’t get to see him play in the top 32)[/LEFT]

[LEFT]XSK Samurai vs. Haitani (XSK Samurai another American top player we didn’t see on-stream once)[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Chris vs. CJ Truth[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Justin Wong vs. Kazunoko (double jeopardy match)[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Uryo vs. Mago[/LEFT]

[LEFT]John Choi vs. Combofiend (again, didn’t see Combofiend on-stream once)[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Kyabetsu vs. Hsien Chang[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Kindevu vs. Ryan Hart (I would not be happy about not being able to see Ryan Hart play in top 32 at all if I were a Brit)[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Haitani vs. Shangtsung [/LEFT]

[LEFT]Chris vs. iPeru[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Sako vs. Fuudo (lol, really?)[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Uryo vs. Mike Ross (this one just blows me away)[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Kyabetsu vs. Kindevu[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Haitani vs. iPeru (Haitani is so fun to watch, and we were barely able to see him play)[/LEFT]

[LEFT]That’s 19 matches. All of them were stream-worthy, none of them were streamed.[/LEFT]

31

I’m brazilian so please ignore my bad english. It was my first EVO, I loved it and for sure I’ll be coming back next year (even tho it’s a 14 hour flight lol)

[LIST]
[]Most favorites
[LIST]
[]Headphones, $2. Best idea ever! It’s a whole new experience being able to actually hear the game you are playing. But I think you guys spent too much money on this, next year, just make the phone slot available on every station and people should bring their own headphones.
[]Pools, $1. Awesome way to filter millions of people until top 64/32. Keep this up!
[/LIST]
[]Least favorites
[LIST]
[]Ballroom, $0.5 I think Caesar’s ballroom won’t be enough to accomodate EVO 2013. Maybe you guys will need a theather or something. For this year it was enough, but barely.
[]Date, $2.5 Please not July, and specially not the 4th July weekend. Everything was crowded. Airport, hotels, streets, etc…
[/LIST]
[/LIST]

32

Good:

$1 - Presentation: You can tell for the most that part things were properly planned out. The main hall had some fabulous views and the ballroom stage setup was superb. Finals day seating was excellent.

50 cents - Setups: PS3 headphones were great even though I didn’t use them.

$1.50 - Atmosphere: There was always something to do in the ballroom–I never felt bored and I got to meet some pretty chill people. Things stayed pretty hype for the most part.

Bad:

$1 - Spacing: Seriously, as big as the ballroom was things still felt overcrowed. People were sitting on the floors, BYOC was stacked, and there were not enough chairs to accommodate larger communites like marvel. So, guys were just standing around.

$1 - Hotel/Evo Prices: Some stuff just felt like highway robbery. Hotel internet access for $15-34 per day? The connections were poor, and it took 10 mins for my cpu to upload a page. Some of the food prices were LOL also–I understand that this is Vegas, but I just can’t see myself paying 6 dollars just for a bottle of water. Good thing I brought my own.

$1 - Safety: Evo was stopped at one point just to accommodate safety procedures, and we even had a fight that had to be broken up around BYOC. Stuff was tight and the staff were on job, but these things are pretty self aware for everybody attending the event. You should not be blocking the doorways and getting into fights at Evo. This is an event, not a trip to prison or something.

33

Good:
Pools ran smoothly $1
Indie games/booths $1
Caesars $1

Bad:
I didn’t like that I had to wake up at the crack of dawn for a pool that started at 8AM only to be greeted by a massive sea of people still waiting in the hallway to get into EVO. $1

BYOC area: I was expecting more televisions or at least some monitors available to use, but at least there was other things to do like check out the booths or play the indie games. 0.50

I didn’t like how pools were 2/3 all the way up to grand finals when Marvel got to be 3/5 from semis onward. I would have at least liked to have seen Winners/Losers/Grand finals 3/5 except for KOF which takes forever to run. 0.50

It would have been great if a feed for the secondary stream was in an overflow room like there was on Sunday for the finals so that I could watch something else besides SF and Marvel all day, and so there isn’t so many people standing behind the stream station trying to watch with no sound. Plus it would help give those games some added exposure and visibility because its tough to watch what’s going on with so many people and so many things going on. $1

34

Most favorites:
[LIST]
[]Allowing the ST event to gain main stage status and exposure $1
[]Playable betas, $1
[*]Secondary stream and good exposure for non-Capcom stuff, $1
[/LIST]

Least favorites
[LIST]
[]Not enough time. Needs to be 4 days instead of 3 days, $1
[]Need more attention and accommodation for other games and communities aside from only current gen moneymakers, $1
[*]BYOC space was too small and no BYOC on Sunday at all is really weak, $1
[/LIST]

Otherwise the event was great this year. Like all things, Evo could always use improvement so I hope you take this into consideration.

35

Good:
[LIST]
[]$2 - Tournament structure – every major event should be using Evo’s pool system and setup; it works way too well. Invest whatever is needed to keep this level of quality, even as you end up with a 2,500 person SSF4:AE tournament (and maybe actually get the doors open on-time :x ).
[]$1 - Presentation – is was very easy to watch the game on stage at all times (even if you couldn’t always tell who was playing), and actually having seating for finals was nice. Use this dollar to get the 2nd (and 3rd?) stream in the main hall – not being able to watch SC5/XIII/MK semis from outside the second stream area was wack. Commentary would be nice for finals, but there’s problems with that (do you want have soundproof booths and become even more e-sports? Ugh.)
[/LIST]
Bad:
[LIST]
[]$1 - Expenses (as a general catch-all); Caesar’s is expensive in general and isn’t a great value overall. If you had to focus on something specific, I would go with the food – overpriced rooms can be mitigated in several ways, whereas overpriced food is much harder to deal with. This was also magnified by the time of the year you chose (and the 4th being on a Wed. meant that people didn’t have the next weekend off naturally anyway!).
[]$2 - Not enough BYOC space. It was pretty obvious when the attendees addressed the issue directly (and I’m kind of surprised the hotel staff let them play in the side rooms). I mainly play fighting games that aren’t as popular (Melty Blood, Virtua Fighter, etc.) and Evolution is one of the few events I can go to and find more than a couple of people playing less common games. This really didn’t happen this year, as some people (myself included) had events planned in BYOC and were ready to go, and if you weren’t there very early you got assed out.
[/LIST]

36

Bring this stuff back:
Venue. CP was awesome.
Pool structure. It was pretty efficient in general.
Pre-release game demos. Lot of fun to get an early look.

Opportunities:
Disqualifications. We need a set time before a DQ. As a judge, I did as I was told and let people run a bit late until it got ridiculous. Problem is that pools ran really late in some cases. If it’s in the rules then people shouldn’t be as salty.
People sitting on the floor for finals. Seriously makes it hard to walk to and from your seat and people jumping up in front of us that are seated makes it so we can’t see. There are enough chairs. Make people sit in them.
There should be a huge screen that people can check to see their brackets. Lot of people milling about aimlessly and asking everyone they see if they know where the brackets are.

Those are mine! It was my first Evo and it was a phenomenal experience for me, start to finish. I will definitely be back next year.

37

Most favorite
-Lots of stuff to do before Sunday $1.5
-Event was open late $1.5

Least favorite:

  • Promos for unreleased games after each game ended on Sunday is bullshit. It’s obvious and blatant pandering to sponsors and feels disrespectful to everyone who took the time and money to come out to Evo. Nobody wants to listen to Snoop Dogg lie about how much he loves Tekken when they are waiting for Marvel to start. $1
    -Forcing everyone to sit and watch the finals on Sunday is also bullshit. Booths from sponsors are one thing, but I should be able to buy a shirt or play Divekick on Sunday. At the very least there should be casual stations available. $1
    -Overpriced, shitty cafe food is a real slap in the face. $1
38

Most favorite
-IT’S FRICKIN EVO $3

Least Favorite
-Overpriced, sub-par food $1
-Hotel. Rio hotel had better rooms for the same price and the ballroom was bigger. $2

39

EVO has always been better then the year before. If nothing changes it will still be great. keep it it up.

Changes
UMVC3 should be the final game $2
Entrances for individual top 8 players like Evo use to have $1

40

UMVC3 should not be final game, i say SSF4 AE should be the final game same as last time