Evolution X (2008): Decade of Domination!

Evo Championship Series
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I think American Accent Core will really help the scene. Remember the following:

#reload - US release on Xbox, which was nowhere near as widespread as the PS2 (especially not for fighters).
Slash - No US release period.
Accent Core - Upcoming US release on the most popular consoles of the last generation (PS2) AND the current one (Wii).

At least in my experience, a good number of Smash players do tend to be Nintendo loyalists; some of them got into Naruto 4 for the Gamecube and helped build a decent tournament scene for that game. So I think at least a few could jump into Wii AC, especially being able to start out with the easy mode; the difficult technical execution of the game is often a problem for newcomers, and this could help them focus on learning the more important things first.

And with the availability on American PS2s, more people will be able to own a copy, and console gatherings & tournaments will become a LOT easier to organize.

We need to stay motivated, and I think our improved performance at Evo combined with these new releases will help us a lot in that regard. Remember, there was this whole big discussion on Dustloop about how it seemed like the US scene would always be second-rate, and last weekend just blew that notion out of the water.

As to why GGXX doesn’t catch on with the SRK crowd, I think it’s because people tend to prefer the games that reward their own familiar playing style, and a large portion of this community are old-school Capcom heads. These games tend to emphasize projectile zoning, footsies, selective aggression…Guilty Gear doesn’t have a whole lot of this (nor does Melty or Arcana), and VF & Calibur really don’t either. If you’ll notice, Tekken gets by far the best reception of the 3D games, and I think a big reason why is because it’s a 3D game that rewards old-school 2D skills; you need look no further than Arario’s performance in the final 8, which was all baiting & positioning & general solid play. Also note how Justin is very good at Tekken, but not at any other major 3D or GG…

-Josh

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You are speaking for too many people here, and out of grave ignorance too, and so you are misrepresenting scenes in a negative light. Stop being so bias unless you want the overall fighting game scene to shrink and segregate.

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And this was an amazingly good move by Evo. You saved GG at evo 2k7 with this decision. I can just imagine how horrible it would have been if Slash had stayed. HUGE props for listening to the community.

While this might help, it’s totally dependant on the players themselves. One thing that I think would spark more interest in GG from more top players, and in turn everyone, would be changing it to a singles tournament. There is currently a poll/thread up on Dustloop that is discussing this, hopefully it will have some sort of impact.

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Before evo finals wiz pretty much said GG will be singles next year, of course thats if GG is even at evo. Also assuming that AC is still the main game.

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I have no problem with the decision to switch Slash out for AC at EVO world. My beef is with the way it was handled. Talks and polls about which game was gonna be played started in Feb or March when we had a relatively solid release date, and at one point it was stated very clearly that EVO World would be Slash. Then 4 months later, with just over a month before the tourney, it’s switched to AC. I mean, I know there was a lot to consider before making a big decision like that, but c’mon. Part of the reason people wanted to stick with Slash in the first place was only having 2 months to get acquainted with AC before EVO World. Announcing AC as the game of choice in July cut that prep time in half.

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look lets face facts 3S, MVC2, ST, and CVS2 are the prime games for evo hands down we all know it and for the haters ST had well over 150+ entrys and at evo east was the hypest game their. Tekken should always be their cuz its the only real decent 3d fighter out their right now. givin that everything ran sluggish due to time of matches i dont think it was fair to make 3s just 1 n done like it was. if anything byoc section should of made room to start the other tournys faster have two tournys going at once and just make sure u guys get to ur matches ontime its a fair enough system if you think about it. ST HD will be their next year i hope and wat ever system it is gonna be played on should be hot. as for GG again a solid game and even though the scene is not as big as 3s it drawns loyal fans every year. btw smash is not a fighter its a childs toy so many people walked outta smash finals it was kinda sad. i felt bad but at the same time it has its own scene its big but smash players will only watch smash while a gg, marvel, 3s player will watch virtually any game out their i cant tell you how many people i saw pouring outta the area when smash finals came on. sorry mario till u come out with somethin worth playing take the fight somewhere else :slight_smile:

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As a 3S player, I have to say that I feel the pain of the GG community. Back before 3S was in EVO, it felt like the EVO staff is always trying to screw over the 3S players.

There are two things that the GG community should consider.

First, 3S was not included in EVO as an open tournament until the 3S community held their own weeklies, regionals, and nationals. In fact, the 3S community held a big enough national tournament to attract Japanese players (in Nebraska, no less) before it was added to the EVO roster. The simple fact is that the 3S community had to rise up and become a self sufficient community before it became one of the pillars of EVO. In fact, the 3S community is strong enough to keep going without EVO because of community support. Basically, EVO is a championship series that showcases the different communities, and if GG wants to earn a slot, the community needs to come together like the 3S community did and start weeklies, regionals and nationals that lead up to the big event at EVO. EVO isn’t there to support GG or any other game, rather, EVO is there to showcase the current state of the fighting game community.

Second, the 3S community and the Marvel community got to where they are by supporting all the other games. For example, during the first SBO qualifiers, the Marvel community held a tournament as a fundraiser for the other games. Knowing full well that Marvel was not at SBO, the Marvel players held a tournament to help pay for the costs of getting the 3S, ST and GG players over to japan to play. Say what you will about the Marvel community, but they are a pillar of the scene because they do things like that. Another thing that is common is to see side tourneys at 3S and Marvel tourneys. I’ve seen Project Justice, XvSF, Smash, VF, Tekken, Fighting Jam, JoJo and FoTNS side tourneys set up to run along side the main tourneys because it is about the fighting game community and not just about one game.

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Excellent points, Rei. That post is WIN.

Going back to the how-to-improve-EVO discussion, a couple of people have mentioned these things already and I just wanted to reiterate/highlight their points:

No one has to yell, there are no mistakes, and it even gets the rest of the crowd’s attention. That last bit is especially good, because it’ll help hype up good matches amongst the crowd, but if one or both of the players aren’t there, the whole crowd will then be on the lookout for them. Ideally, people shouldn’t freaking leave the area at all, but bathroom trips are unavoidable. People wouldn’t be leaving for food and shit if the tourney was run predictably and in a timely manner. If it’s possible, a monitor or screen with the brackets would be great too. I’m not talking just the big screen, I mean each pool/semi-finals area.

I realize, however, that such things get expensive.

Give the players their own designated places to sit. They’ll be more reluctant to stray.

And a new idea: Put TVs higher. This means people don’t have to climb all over each other to get a peek at how a match is going. This, coupled with dedicated seating for the area, means that less people will wander off because their frustrated that they can’t see anything.

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Quick stuff:

[LIST]
? ?Velvet Rope? the actual playing areas ?too much clutter, too messy, not enough room
? Add Viewing Monitors over each and every T.V. so players don?t have to crowd around the actual playing area
? Eliminate emergency/onsite registration
? STRICT ENFORCEMENT of disqualifying players ? NO MATTER WHO THEY ARE
? Side Tourneys are a MAJOR distraction
? BYOC in a separate room?
? Not enough spectator seating
[/LIST]

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We’ve had and are trying to start back up biweekly ranbats in socal. Japanese players flew out to Texas Showdown for GG. Haven’t we already accomplished these things? Are we not self-sufficient yet? There are lots of GG events around the country every year, and it’s only been growing.

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Well basically the solution for the lack of guilty gear in my eyes will be the USA release of AC, … and the Friday/Sat night ranbats/casuals at FFA. Also, Guilty Gear Finals should have been where CvS2 was.

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100% agreed with everything you said. You nailed it right on the head. Player initiative is where it is at. No one was trying to screw 3S back in the day, but we had no reason to keep running it. We gave both A3 and 3S the same shot on the big screen, and 3S took off… all thanks to the initiative by the 3S community. If the GG community can get that going, then it would be very hard to actually cut GG from next year.

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LOL… let the carnage and madness ensue…

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I dunno what all this talk is about shortening the EVO line-up. People actually want to have a smaller tournament?

It really doesn’t matter if games like Smash and guilty gear don’t add to the other communities. They have their own communities and thats just fine. Why should they get the cut for supporting their game?

If anything, you people should be asking for more games, making evo bigger, attracting more players and media attention. Which in turn will make the event better and have more prize money. Its like some of you want to take 2 steps back for 1 step forward.

Sure the event will run more smoothly if theres less games within the time limits, but consider this. If evo just cut the games down to 3s, mvc2, cvs2, st, gg and smash, with no next gen game, say goodbye toyota yaris and big prize money. It makes no sense to go back to a pre evo2006 like state.

Like it or not, EVO will eventually have to become 4 day event, possibly 5 day event someday, to accomodate all the players. Evo gets bigger every year, so its inevitable. Sorry if you don’t like it, but you get holiday days from work for a reason. Its not like Evo pops out of the blue at a random date. You know its gonna be at mid to late August every year so there should be no problems. 2 of the days of Evo are on the weekend too. So its not like you need to dip into loads of holiday days. Half a week max for most. If you don’t think Evo is worth your valuable Holiday time, then don’t go.

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Evolution will never become a 4 day event.

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Just my 2 cents:

3S - IN. Way too many entrants to cut. But please have it 2/3 next time, 30-second matches don’t really lend themselves to finding out who’s better.

MvC2 - In. Popular as hell. Less “thuggery” and physical altercations would be nice though, it’s a game, not a grudge match.

ST - Out. (Please correct me if I’m wrong, I want this game to stay so bad) I think this game is mostly there for sentimental value. It was fun, pretty balanced, and the finals were exciting, but what’s with the CCC2 issue? Why can’t the ST players just take what’s given to them? And what new players would pick ST over any of the other fighters? I think we should kick this one unless the pros can finally pick the version they want.

Smash - IN. Face facts people, this game has its own tournament circuit, and you .can’t blame EVO for wanting some of that action. Definition of fighting games aside, it’s a fun competitive game with fighter-like qualities, and with Brawl coming out, it’s only going to get bigger. Hell, maybe Melee and Brawl could BOTH be at EVO X (I pray not, though; The BYOC room would be flooded with Wiis)

GG - Not sure. I’m not too educated about this game, so I’ll reserve judgement here. One question: Why teams?

VF5 - Out. If what I’ve been reading is correct, the community is almost non-existent and/or sticks to xbox live, so the EVO turnout will be accordingly small. Not worth the $$ if that’s true.

T5:DR - In. It’s a solid game. Unless T6 comes out early (in which case, the Tekken community will get BIGGER), this game should manage a good turnout.

CvS2 - In. Similar to 3S and MvC2, it’s just too popular and well-established.

So that leaves EVO X as 3S / MvC2 / Brawl / T5:DR / CvS2 / maybe GG.

Plenty of room for SC4 if it turns out good.

I had fun at EVO this year, hope to be back next year.

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At this rate, it probably won’t run at all. Whats with all the negativity here. Plus why won’t it ever become a 4 day event. If Evo is gonna restrict itself to 3 days forever then its gonna reach a point eventually where it will never get any bigger, as it won’t be able to accomodate all the games and players.

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I don’t know the history of Evo getting the name “Evolution”, but if there’s any meaning behind it, then I think it stands to reason that the event should evolve as time goes on. That means not just bigger and better, but it means more variation, and trying new things. I’m all for Puzzle Fighter in this respect, but I can’t say I’d give a crap about it personally as an event.

If MvC2 and 3S didn’t draw such huge crowds (and weren’t so entertaining to watch), I’d say they should be cut based on that philosophy. I think it would apply the most to CvS2, which is a game that never evolves, and doesn’t have quite the support as MvC2 or 3S (<< relatively uninformed observation).

If “evolution” is what Evo is going for overall, then games that are continually coming out with new versions (and thereby continually evolving) deserve spots more than ones that don’t.

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CvS2 has evolved a whole lot over the years. You’re seeing a LOT more character variety these days. New players are on the come up. It’s still going strong.

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[/quote]

I’ll keep all my points here. Yeah, I disagreed with a mod. I must be a troll. I answered what was asked and agreed with the mod about GG. I must be a troll.

To all GG fans, I am pretty sure your game is the best thing that ever happened to our planet and way of living. Your probably right, GG is the best game by far and all the other games are a big joke.

That said, the GG community is small when compared to MvC2, 3rd Strike, CvS2 and Tekken. It never ever beat any of those games in attendance and now it lost pretty badly to Smash as well (although I’m against Smash because they usually play Smash only). Maybe GG can get number one in Chicago, so make your nationals there, becauser at Evo GG is smaller than most games.

So trag suggestted 6 games. ST HD is almost a sure test. MvC2, CvS2, 3rd Strike are all huge. That’s 4. How will you show that GG beats all other options is up to you. You don’t need to hate on me. I’ll just posting my opinions, asnwering what was asked.

Thanks.

Also, I was speaking about the choice of games only because 3 or 4 guys made much better suggestins that I could ever do about time management on the first 2 pages. trag almost ignored them, and kept talking about what games should be removed. Thankfully Ponder and Wiz addressed the time maangement issue later.

Maybe it’s politically incorrect at srk to talk about removing games, but it will probably happen. If you rather shut up and tell what you think only to your freidns and offline, that’s ok. I rather share any ideas with the community. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. I am just another random nobody with a single opinion.

I read until the middle of page 5. If anybody addressed me after that, I’ll read it and answer it a little later. Thanks to anybody that kept a little bit of education while disagreeing.