Evolution X (2008): Decade of Domination!

Evo Championship Series
1

UPDATED: Post edited to adjust some thoughts.

OK, first of all, if you count B3, B4, B5, EVO 2K2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, then 2008 is technically EVO 10, or EVO X. I don’t really count B2 as it came after B3, was only for one game, and sorta just played off the name of the B3 (cause it was in Boston). So whatever, until further notice, I’m calling 2K8, EVO X!

With that out of the way…

I was originally writing this up as a reply to AfroCole’s post, located here. Instead, I decided to make my own post… since I’m sure it will spark a lot of discussion.

I personally recommend leaning the lineup to 6 games, giving each game 1/3 of a day to complete both pools and semis. This not only allows an exceptional amount of time for each game to have 2/3, it gives us additional time for running big events/moneymatches/whatever on the big screen.

3 OLD
MVC2 / 3S / ST HD (regular or remix mode)

2 NEW
SSBB / SC4

1 TBD
TK, VF, GG, DOA

It’s obvious that MVC2 and 3S should be included. They constantly get big numbers, and there are still tournaments throughout the year. The communities are pretty self sufficient, and they turn out in droves for Evolution.

ST HD is a new spin on an old classic. It’s almost guaranteed that the “original” mode of ST HD will not feel/play identically to original ST, so why not take the plunge and go with REMIX mode? The only real drawback is that people that have relied on their unbalanced stuff to net them easy victories may need to reconsider their play. I’m not saying this is an outright fact, but it’s definitely possible if the tweaks dramatically change the overall balance.

For the new games, Smash Brawl is the first obvious choice. Like MVC2 and 3S, the community is very organized and self sufficient. It also brings tons of players out to Evo, and the finals are very exciting (at least this year they were). I personally expect Smash entries to eclipse both MVC2 and 3S (not combined of course). Everyone is going to be playing Smash Brawl… everyone! The biggest concerns are time, and controller issues. Since wireless is a pain when you have so many different machines in the building, I recommend forcing GameCube controllers & “Classic” controllers. They are both wired. The concern is, some players will get used to playing on what comes with the wii (the wiimote) and or with the combo (wiimote+nunchaku) and we are forcing them to get used to another controller. On the flip side, most people use 3rd party controllers for evo anyway, so asking them to use an official Nintendo product shouldn’t be that big of a deal. As for the time problem, Smash would most likely need to be moved to 3 stock. With 2/3 and 3 stock, you still retain the ability to counter stage and counter character, but we lean down the time requirements considerably.

Now, onto Namco. Tekken 6 will be out in Japanese arcades, but not America. The question here is: Will DR still be played in the USA 1 year from now? To a small degree, I’m sure it will be, but will it be enough to hold a world championship for? Hard to say. My suggestion here is to move to SC4. Let’s assume, for argument sake, that SC4 is actually good. It should be out just in time for EVO qualifiers. As far as timing goes, it’s pretty good. We may even be able to get full Namco support and allow Evo to host the SC4 Nationals (or even World Championship). Anyway, just something to consider.

As for the final game. This is where it gets tricky. I wouldn’t mind seeing Remixed Puzzle Fighter at EVO. It’s completely rebalanced, it brings in a lot of different types of players (as well as those of the opposite sex, who have proven to be quite good!), and it’s a refreshing take on what currently have. However, it may simply not be exciting enough. We will have to wait and see.

Other options include TK, VF, GG, DOA, and anything else that may happen to come out and surprise us (SF4?!). It really depends on how each community is doing when it comes time to run EVO qualifiers. Some of these games are talked about below:

So after reading my suggestions, people will immediately say “where’s VF, GG, or CvS2?” and “what about DOA4?” Well, there are many pros and cons to all of these games.

Depending on the VF5 community after the XBL release, we may see an incredible surge of interest and overall talent. That would definitely make VF5 something to consider.

For GG, there are many problems. Will there be a new version out, only available on Japanese systems? If not, will there still be interest in AC a year from now? Is the GG community still running tournaments regularly… or are they letting Evo do all the work? GG is a great game (in my own personal opinion) and many people know how much I fight to keep it each year. Seeing it on my cutting block is probably surprising, but I feel (as well as a few other Evo staff that have helped to enlighten me) realize that the GG community needs to really step up their game over the next 6-8 months to be legitimately considered for Evo again.

CvS2 is a solid game. The level of the top USA players (which is about 4 or 5) is not that far off from the Japanese players that visit. However, there’s nothing bringing new life into the game, thus drawing in new blood, or giving us an exciting finals with something we haven’t seen the previous year. It takes forever to run, especially 2/3, and moving it down to 1 game somewhat makes it a waste to even play. No one likes 1 game… not in CvS2, not in 3S (well, maybe Makoto Mike). Out of all the games, this would be the hardest to legitimately cut, but, as with the other games… perhaps there are some alternatives.

For games like DR, GG, and CvS2, we could run special events (that are still paid). Maybe we use the qualifiers (Evo East/West/North/South) to determine finalists and alternates, and then use our newly aquired free time during Finals Day, to run paid ($$$) finals for those games. Perhaps a Tekken DR 5 on 5 on 5 (USA, JPN, KOREA) match… or EC vs WC vs JPN. Maybe we have a 5 on 5 for USA vs JPN in CvS2 (or even 3S… “the rematch”). GG could run their own qualifiers (or maybe these are also at the Evo quals) and we run their singles finals on the big screen.

Of course, these are all simply suggestions. It’s pretty safe to say that absolutely nothing I’ve written is finalized, except maybe MvC2 and 3S returning for EVO X (2008!)

As for additional events and side tourneys. It’s proven that side tourneys cause problems for our official tournaments, but I don’t think they should be outright banned. Keep in mind that Evolution is the biggest gathering of hardcore fighting game players in the USA. It’s pretty rough to simply say “you may not play side tournaments that we aren’t officially supporting… or else!”

This is another strong argument for a 6 game EVO. Why? With 2 less games, we clear up a lot of time between games (or after games) for people to run their side tourneys. And since the finals day isn’t so jam packed, we have time to run, say, top 4 of the side tourneys on the big screen. So what we do is: respectfully ask for no side tourneys to be run during official evo tournaments, but lean up our schedule overall so that these side tournaments have time to take place without infringing on our schedule. This works out great for everyone.

Many people have spoken out for big matches on the bigscreen (Hsien/Amir, Smooth/Cableguy, Fanatiq/Nelson) but hate that we are so jam packed that games need to be cut to 1-game matches. Think about it… you simply cannot have it all. We have to make cuts somewhere, and by thinning down our lineup, we can make sure each game gets the love it deserves, and we give players more time to participate in other tournaments, without pushing our schedule back.

With problems like this figured out, we can then legitimately start DQ’ing people that are not there on time. We have time to give everyone 15-30 mins pre-tournament to show up and make themselves known. We don’t have to worry about them playing in side tourneys. We also don’t have to worry about as many crossover problems since we won’t be running 4 games per day. If you aren’t there now, it’s your fault. DQ’ed the moment your name is called for the third time. GG.

Anyway…

I’d love to hear some constructive feedback for reasons why games should and shouldn’t be included. Remember, nothing is set in stone, so there’s no point getting worked up about what has been SUGGESTED here. Don’t waste your time insulting other posters or the communities that play each games. Let’s be positive here! Any non-relevant posts will be deleted! Do your best to come up with solid points and we can get the ball rolling much earlier this year.

  • trag
2

Joke answer:

Just make EVO a month long. All there is to it.

Really though, it is going to be extremely tough to run a tight ship and get the games people want next year. But I’ve got faith in what will happen.

3

no one will ever be happy with what they get. whatever you dont have is what you want. thats the bottom line. a simple fact that 1-game matches played for 3s quals wouldve been enough for me to not get mad or even bother coming to evo. if 1 game was announced, i would have 0 problems with the tourney that took place this year, and i wouldve been spending more time at the craps table. but as it be, time frames and what not did not allow this. i completely understand that every game has its specified time frame, but for the most popular SF game still out to be cut to this… just a loss for words. no one person is to blame, and there are tons of factors that led to this but if anything i feel that tragics idea to cut the games to 6 will help overall. i also feel that having evo east/west/north/etc… takes away from evo world and makes evo world less important. not too into this srk and sf scene after vegas this time, but these are my opinions. hopefully evo will continue to run as the best tourney ever and good luck. everyones hard work is appreciated and hope you all had fun this year.

pz

4

Seem like a good idea to give some game more time but I have a serious question

Do you really think the turnout for “SC4” and “Puzzle Fighter” would exceed Tekken Dr or CVS2?
Not to mention Tekken community is pretty big, I don’t think making it a side tournament would go well with the community.

Evo had SC in their lineup before but it didn’t go to well then switch to DOA which didn’t do any better.

A few suggestion from me

  1. NO more on the spot registration. You can only register Online which give you guys evo staff time to print out brackets ahead of time and when evo comes around hopefully pools and semi can run on time. (If there were bracket ahead of time it would help player know where they need to be help them be more punctual.)

  2. Make Evo a 4 day event. I notice that the tournament went past 12:00 on these days will polls and Semi. Giving a extra day not only give people who are playing in multiple games more time to rest but the staff as well. Since they are working all day and it get tedious.

I wasn’t at evo myself this year however I did watch the stream and it doesn’t look like it was run professionally. (Not saying it wasn’t but just from watching the live feed you kind of notice a few flaws.)

Things look very unorganized the big screen wasn’t being use much, in between matches were long period of down time like 10 minutes or more when no one was playing and the station wasn’t being used.

From reading other people thoughts/blogs about Evo they mention when 3s were best of 1 game they had extra TV at their station that was not being used.

5

umm yeah, 4 days will be a prob for lots of people. Some of us have jobs, schools, families etc. Cutting games seems like the best way to go. Or as an alternative just use a few majors throughout the year as qualifying tournies for the games that might be cut (cvs, GG, dr).

6

I think Arcana Heart will have a rather big pull through if it’s up on Evo line-up. And I don’t honestly constitute PF as a fighting game, although it’s a great game.

7

I really don’t like the idea of taking CVS2 out. SC4, Puzzle Fighter…ppppfffttt…

8

I posted a lot of my suggestions in Cole’s thread, but I wanted to add that it was very difficult to hear some of the bracket men at the pools from more than 15 feet away. People’s names were getting called, and they were there, but they simply could not hear the person calling. I suggest Megaphones. Fuckin’ Fugee had one. God damn Fugee!

9

We are doing marvel fest 2008 and locking all the marvel players in the room for 48 hours.

10

i was actually going to email evo staff the suggestions below, but i’ll post here just for kicks.

  1. have evo japan.
    there is 0% chance a foreigner will be at any of the evo regionals. that means the best players in the world (except for in mvc2) will be competing in the pools. this fact alone makes evo world POOLS harder than some evo regionals that guarentees a spot in the SEMI’s, and that just seems pretty wack.

this will allow a more accurate count of people attending, a better seeding of the semi’s brackets, a legitimate chance for people wanting to qualify for evo worlds, and maybe even a better incentive for people in japan (and even korea) to attend evo worlds.

  1. have a set gameplan before running each brackets during pools/semi’s.
    i totally understand that some things are out of control. people borrowing sticks, people leaving the area with explosive diarrhea, etc. however, each bracket for every game was run slightly differently. some people went straight top to bottom, waiting for whoever wasn’t there to show up. some people ran all of winner’s bracket, and DQ’ed whoever wasn’t there. some people ran first two rounds, ran all of loser’s, then some winners, DQ’ed some, waited for some, whatever. having a set gameplan would allow not only the players to be fully aware of what’s in store, it would make bracket running much more smooth as well as timely and efficient.

  2. have more consoles.
    we aren’t using arcade cabinets anymore, and acquiring consoles and games are a lot easier now. majority of matches, especially in the first 2 rounds of the bracket in winners and in losers, can be run at the same time. this will allow even slow ass games like cvs2 to be 2/3 and not have so many people wander off. they’ll know that as soon as their match ends, their next match will be coming up very shortly. a different side to this is that this will mean at near the end of the bracket, MANY machines will be free and not doing anything. however, the pros HUGELY out-weigh the cons, and the free machines can be used for casuals with permission from the bracket-running staff. i’m 100% sure that people who lose in the pools would love to play other people in the pool… i mean, most people went to evo to play other people and have fun right? winning is not an option for a lot of us who enter. a side-effect of this is that most players will need a stick on their own as most people would be playing at once and they can’t borrow sticks all the time. that’s a good thing.

  3. evo is traditionally a fighting game tournament.
    i don’t really see a place for puzzle fighter. sure it’ll definitely bring a different crowd, but i really don’t see any of the players on either side bleeding onto those games. having more unique ‘fighting games’ might have a bigger impact in expanding the community and worth watching during the finals. i personally would love to watch it cause i’m one of those guys that love top level play in anything (i’d even agree to having bemani games at evo), but if you were to place this game IN PLACE of a fighting game rather than IN ADDITION to the fighting games, i think you are hurting a lot of people even if side-tournaments were sanctioned.

  4. make pools and semi’s in two different days?
    or some other way that majority of people who enter multiple games can get some sort of a free time to do things in vegas other than play games. i love games. i love watching them, and i definitely love playing them. however, i’m in fucking vegas. i want to go to the strip, have some buffet, hit on some hoes and sex it up. having the ability to enter the tournament and also live up in vegas would be amazing. i totally understand this is usually out of the question, but maybe with online registration and some sort of an analysis, you can accomodate the few scrubs like me who fits the criteria. :):slight_smile:

  5. can there be some sort of a labling system for the big screen?
    i know it might be hard during pools or even semi’s to do real time, but even during special events, i heard ‘who’s that’ or ‘what’s the score’ like 270 times a minute. it seems that the big screen was pretty much wasted except for during special events and finals. maybe it can serve the community better somehow.

  6. subtitles for the interviews. :slight_smile:

  7. some games needed better commentary. who the hell let random james comment? hahahahahaha.

i think that was it for now. i am sure i had few more points, but i can’t remember at the moment.

i had extreme fun at evo, and i’m not saying it sucked. i actually can’t thank all the staff enough for having such an event, but i’m just providing constructive feedback so please don’t think that i don’t appreciate you guys.

keep up the great work and i hope next year is even better.

  • LB
11

There can only be one? Damn man, this sh just got real.

12

LB: I think even if an Evo Japan is held, we’ll probably get Japanese players who decide at the last minute to attend and mop up the pools. Not to mention there’s the possibility that dominant US players can only get off work for Worlds or whatever. I know what it’s like to draw top-level players in the pools and I sympathize, but when the whole point of the event is to compete I don’t know if it’s wise to take (probably expensive and logistically convoluted) measures to even out the competition.

I couldn’t justify Evo this year (health problems, my teams bailed on me, and Evo was the weekend after school started), but can you explain the “is the GG scene allowing Evolution to do all the work?” It’s kind of a leading question, and it’s really surprising to me since here in the Midwest at least there’s no lack of regular competition for this game. I heard the turnout was as low as 21 teams?

Sorry, I have some stuff I could say about GG at Evo but I’d like to be sure my opinion is at least reasonably informed first.

13

I need CvS2

14

Otome was at North and won VF5. I wouldnt say 0%. Maybe 2%?

15

  1. taking cvs2 and t5 out would not be a smart idea… these two game’s finals were HYPE.

  2. if 3s is 1 game again people will riot

  3. no puzzle fighter or any other game that really doesnt constitute attention over games a vast amount of people play and will show up for.

  4. more byoc tv’s… 2 3s, 10 marvel, 10 ssbm, 1 cvs2 and like 10 random snk games = sadness

  5. more big money matches on the big screen

  6. more than 2 tvs per pool

  7. get random james drunk so he can hype shit up for no reason more often

  8. let rocafella commentate for 3s

  9. not letting people register/pay for online registration when you were sorta just sitting around a bit on friday was kinda lame… especially when you let two people do it then made me sit there like a bafoon… was it because my name wasn’t Ray Ramos?

  10. lineup should be 3s/cvs2/mvc2/t5/ssbm (due to high turnout)/st

i’ll think of more later

16

Like I said, that’s something we will have to determine when it comes time to run qualifiers. I clearly ask: “will TK still be big a year from now”… more realistically, 6 or 8 months, when we start running brackets.

As for Puzzle Fighter, sure, that’s a dark horse. It could suck, it could be amazing. It’s always been incredibly popular with players of all ages and genders. To assume it wouldn’t have many entrants would be a mistake. That being said, to say it would be a great game for Evo is also just a guess. I was simply suggesting the idea of something new and refreshing. Like I said, none of it is really set in stone… this is just to generate feedback and other ideas. So far, the comments have been great.

If TK5:DR isn’t being played hardcore in 8 months, and SC4 comes out, and it’s good, then what’s the problem? Of course, if TK5:DR is still in full swing, and SC4 sucks, or no one is interested… then of course we would use DR.

Not a bad idea. However, when I ran an MVC2 bracket, I checked to see if everyone was there first (only one guy wasn’t) and told them not to leave. If they had to use the restroom or something, I went out of my way to run stuff around them, and I’d give them a rough estimate of when they need to be back. Perhaps I got lucky with entrants… but they all came back when I said they needed to come back. Realistically, once they check in, they really shouldn’t leave, unless it’s urgent. Megaphones may help, but simply checking in and staying really close is probably the best bet for the player.

17

If Evo staff worked this way in the past we very well might not have a 3S scene today, or at least we wouldn’t have a Moment #30-whateveritwas and it definitely wouldn’t be in the same place. I think it’s great that they experiment with these games each year personally, and not a single one of them has actually appealed to me :stuck_out_tongue:

18

Arcana Heart for Evo X!

19

Oh I agree there for sure. Attendance at pools is a must. Roping them off is a GREAT idea too. I’m still for making them smaller and having more of them, as well. I have a lot of experience running tournaments (did them for 6 years out of Ohio), and I was known for always running on time. I still trying to get DG’s side SNK tournaments in order for him, as he has even more time problems than you guys do lol.

Anyway, its all about writing the rules and sticking to them. Part of this is ‘training’ the evo staffers. Make ALL of the bracket-men do attendance like Trag, Sirlin, and Seth did. Make ALL of the bracket-men understand that its okay to pass a forfeit to a big name player and/or a friend. Part of winning is being there to win. I don’t think anyone will argue there.

EDIT: Here is a repost of my suggestions from Cole’s thread:

20

I did the commentary on TK5, I thought it was great. I’m not suggesting taking it out really (I reedited the top post to make it more clear), I’m simply pointing out that it may or may not be popular come Evo next year, with TK6 coming out, but only in Japan arcades, and no console version available. It very well may be super popular, and in that case, it should definitely remain.

It won’t be.

It’s fair to say, “no game that doesn’t constitute attention over games a vast amount of people play and will show up for” but we have no idea how many would show up and play PF. Again, it was simply a suggestion. We will see how the XBL version does. It may flop. It may not.

Maybe that’s an indicator of popularity right there? Maybe it isn’t.

100% agreed.

Also a good idea… or just have more time in general for pools. Cutting overall lineup down to 6 games (3 per day) would really help this cause.

That was the plan this year… but he went home. I went looking for him before 3S started, and Amir said he had left.

No clue on this one. But yes, everyone should be treated equally.

Also a good lineup. Everything said above was simply based on speculation and past Evos. I’m sure some things will change before next Evo (release of new games is the biggest factor) and we will have to adjust our plans accordingly.

Thanks for the feedback!