Honestly i love that MLG is giving more non capcom games exposure (ya i know they wanted capcom and couldn’t get them blah blah blah) but there sadly were a few issues that i hope Arturo will bring up to the production crew… First off were not esports we are a fight community and they need to understand that things move a little faster in our world. The way mlg runs it right now is that you run a lets say halo you run all five games then there is a good 5-10 min break if not more depending on how fast the pools are moving. Star craft is the same way this way they have time to get a drink bathroom what ever. with fgc as we know we like to keep things moving so momentum can stay right were it needs to and players can try to adapt.
On thing i did like was fubar and 9.95 or fubar and answer and all the other commentators took time to explain things to the audience i mean alot of the people that were watching this weekend were most likely halo and fps junikes and or sc2 whores lol so in order to try and help them we need to explain the things that are going on. I don’t know why people are saying this mlg stream is dangerous and what not i mean thats why they hired art… regardless on you opion of him i think he has the best knowledge on streaming second to spooky since he is always there helping out with that stream and has all his fighting background to help make this a good and honroable endevor.
On issues i do have regardless of free or not you shouldn’t have mass amounts of lag that was kinda killing it for me lol also commentators should be allowed to play answer is a damn good kof player and should be allowed to run his game as a combatant.
I think MLG has stuff to work on, just like FGC community events do. In many ways, one party has the strengths the other is striving for. FGC people don’t want to admit that because it’s cool to hate MLG or something.
Basically it’s OK to bash MLG for their mistakes, but it’s not OK to bash FGC events, is what it seems like. No, I don’t like seeing what MLG did with making players wait and all that stuff, but let’s see if they can refine that – they know if they DON’T get better people won’t support them. I really like all the pre-event hype, the WWF shit, that’s great for each scene, and it’s fun. If EVO and all the majors were a company/circuit we’d be doing that stuff too, but we aren’t, so for now let’s learn from what MLG has accomplished as a top-down organization and apply the best to the FGC.
The main thing I’m worried about the FGC is how FGC events are gonna become anime cons + a tournament, and MLG will be the NFL/NBA of the best and most professional competition. That’s prob a good direction to go in for the FGC honestly but it’s just not what I want to run personally, I got in this for the competition and now people aren’t really trying to be the best anymore.
I know. I had a looooooong conversation about this subject with skisonic on the ride home from MLG yesterday. I have loads of ideas, but I don’t run events anymore, and SRK doesn’t like me (since I’m kind of an asshole), so who knows if anything will come of it, or if anyone else will pick up the slack.
I still like you HAV, haha. We need that OG voice. You say a lot of things it’s not prudent for a TO to. My door is always open.
I feel where you’re coming from. Just like people in the fighting game community at large don’t like being told what they should or shouldn’t be doing, the MK scene doesn’t want to be told by Capcom players who shit on their game (some of whom were, ironically enough, arguing over twitter last night over whether UMvC3 or SFxT is a shittier game) what they should be doing. The people who were there and who dealt with all the goings-on should have more weight in the discussion.
That said, there are valid concerns that I think all parties should have, some of which i went over before.
By the way, people need to stop with the “____ just wants to make money” bullshit. Of course they want to make money. They’re a business. That in itself is not a bad thing, because they’re a business whether they run fighting games or not. the “just” in there is completely unjustified, and it contributes nothing to the discussion. People in there clearly want to draw a bigger audience and appreciation to fighting games because they like them. Monetizing things helps them to do that. Do I think they did a good job? No. Does the 1-2 minutes of ads during the 15-30 minutes of downtime between matches mean that they care too much about ads to care about what the players want? Come the hell on. You can make the point that the stream viewer experience was unacceptable, as I believe it to be, without suggesting that MLG had malicious intent. Also, people shouldn’t speak for the players who were there when they weren’t.
I don’t think it’s ‘over’ but in two years I hope everyone that’s banking all this esports nonsense to carry them somewhere realizes that it really won’t.
That being said I guess I’m not bothered by it since I never got into anything Capcom related past 2008.
Ah well~
Oh, trust me, I am a 100% equal opportunity critic. I think it’s inexcusable that only a handful of community tournaments run on time. the way to do it has been shown, and people are too stuck in their ways to do things differently. That gets players stuck in the cycle of stupid expectations. Nothing starts on time, so nobody shows on time, and since nobody shows on time, nothing starts on time. Somebody has to have the balls to put a stop to that shit. Everyone will be better off for it in the long run.
As for the scene losing its soul, I completely understand where HAV is coming from, but I don’t agree. He sees people more concerned with getting sticks to raffle on stream or acting up so they can be on stream more as the death of the scene’s soul. I see it as a problem, but I see it more as growing pains. There is definitely an issue with hunger. When people are just playing a game because more people play it, they will care about being the best, and their actions will reflect that. When people are playing because of the potential for money, well, there is a potential for a lot of the bullshit we see now. The thing that worries me is that throwing more money at those growing pains may exacerbate the problems. Of course, you can’t pretend that nothing has changed either, but I still believe that a reality check is possible and the scene can grow without venturing into implosionland.
that’s why we gotta put our weight behind what MLG is doing. The traditional FGC has got too much Stolkholm Syndrome or something with regards to Capcom, throws too much at em for no reason, and in doing so has tied their fate completely to a steady diet of new FGs from Cap. if Cap ditches the scene, the FGC starts to wither and die again, leading to another Dark age… which is stupid because there was no reason for there to be a first dark age. That lull where Capcom put out 3rd Strike, MvC2 and CvS2 and then nothing for 10 years saw the release of one of the definitive versions of KoF, the anime fighting game to end all anime fighting games (GGAC) and a bunch of great 3D fighters. But none of em injected life into the scene the way another Capcom game did.
You gotta start weaning people off Capcom’s tit to insulate ourselves against Capcom’s idiocy. We gotta use the traditional scene tournaments to show people things like “alright, this is King of Fighters XIII. I know you came here for MvC3, but do you see this shit!? Its so AWESOME!” You can’t be ending tournaments on a low note (see: NCR with SFxT) just because you gave a new, shitty game the feature spot for no reason other than Capcom’s logo on the box. You gotta have the confidence to get away from Capcom. Its a dream of mine to one day go to an Evo where the last game up is made by SNK or Arcsys instead of Cap.
That’ll never happen, though… which is why we gotta get into MLG more. Their game selection was pretty good this time around. Offering massive payouts for KoFXIII, MK9, SC5, payouts that absolutely dwarf 99% of traditional FGC tournies… so awesome. Having a bunch of white bread StarCraft and FPS players get exposure to fighting games not made by Capcom is great. We just gotta smooth over some of the rough edges about the presentation, but the way to do that isn’t to just rip off exactly what the FGC is already doing. You can strike a balance. I can’t be the only guy to watch a match on stream and then wish the commentators had a good minute to talk about the match, show instant replays, discuss the turning point and stuff like that. MLG looks like they are more into that than the FGC is. The technology is already there - WNF has had replays and stuff for awhile - but the tournaments aren’t run in a manner condusive to that kinda in depth braekdown. That, plus there are very few commentators who could actually pull it off.
In the end, we can have both. Right now I see the MLG and the traditional scene co-exist relatively peacefully, provided they can prevent scheduling snags like the one we had this past weekend. Ultimately in any head-to-head confrontation, MLG will crush the FGC anyway just because their pockets are much deeper, but even then since they don’t run SF4 and MvC3 we could keep the peace. Everybody is looking at this as a “one or the other” kind of thing - done right, we could easily have the best of both worlds.
Anyway I’m just kinda throwing things out there but the tl;dr
- FGC’s massive dependence on Capcom is very bad
- MLG’s willingness to throw huge money at games not made by Capcom is very good
- We can have both the MLG and traditional scene peacefully coexisting, for awhile anyway
- If MLG really decides to take over fighting games, they will sure as hell pull it off. you can’t say no to guaranteed $25k prize pots
- done right we could reap the best of both worlds. it doesn’t have to be us or them
this truth is heart breaking. if we are going to start selling out for drops in the bucket, then i guess the end result is apparent
saddening
Regarding queuing: It became apparent Friday during KoF that match queuing would be necessary - our original schedule called for a match every half hour, within two rounds we already began making changes to try to fit two in each half hour as well as have one standby match to launch immediately after the previous match was finished. By Sunday, we typically had it queued up two matches deep. Essentially by mid-day Saturday we began implementing exactly what you are talking about. Not having the system in place that we did by Sunday and late Saturday hurt things Friday during KoF, to be sure, but in the future we will build it in to allow for queuing. There were also some issues early on with information relay between myself running the floor and the video production, but this was also (mostly) ironed out by Saturday. Our stream has changed vastly since the last time MLG ran a fighting game (Tekken 2010) so this event we learned a lot and know where to improve even more so, don’t think I’m saying the adjustments that were made were enough, we can do better.
From what I’m gathering from what people are saying is that we (MLG) need to divorce the stream experience from the in-person tournament experience. The stream could therefor run faster (or potentially slower - be a round behind where the rest of the tournament field is or something) than the other 95% of the tournament. We made some changes that started to reach at this, but even more can be made. My floor matches I very much see as being necessary to run on 30-minute round by round scheduling, but we could have a different time for the stream and that is most likely what will be moved to in the future (along with better match queuing).
Regarding the open station issue: this is true, running round by round in 30-minute time slots means we do have open stations. I think we have talked before about the different philosophy between next-available-match vs round-by-round, but from having operated in both systems easily a dozen tournaments using each method, I can say with some confidence there are very strong advantages to the round-by-round system.
[LIST]
[]Players know where to be, and when to be there - it is more organized in this sense: you can step away from the venue for 10 or 20 minutes with confidence you will not be DQ’d, and you know when a bunch of names are being announced you should listen up as opposed to a few names being sprinkled every few minutes. Regarding your ‘mutually exclusive’ comment: players who attend FG tournaments know first hand that it is hit-or-miss regarding when your match is up, some tournaments do it better than others.
[]There are no bottlenecks - bottlenecks are the worst nightmare of the next-available system and any FG TO doesn’t need me to explain how frustrating it is when a single part of the bracket is 2 hours behind the rest.
[]I can confidently DQ players who are late for matches because there is a firm schedule along with multiple sources for competitors to view their matches. When you run ‘next available’ then sometimes you run faster than normal, sometimes you run slower, and the competitor is therefor left stuck in the venue the entire time les they risk getting DQd for not hearing their matches. Due to this problem, it is not uncommon for TOs in the next-available system to wait absurd time frames while [insert (usually top) player] comes back from getting food, etc. At MLG you are DQd typically 15 minutes after your match is called, sometimes we might float it an extra five as the tournament starts winding down, but there is still very strict DQ procedures. For the fighting games first go around and first round we sometimes waited upwards of 25 because we know the community is new to the system, but my point is their is a line drawn and one large complaint are player who do not show getting vast (sometimes hours) amounts of time before getting DQd in many systems. Keits, I’m also aware you have more of a spine than most and pull the DQ trigger quicker, but I’m certain you have heard and seen the horror stories I’m talking about.
[]You get breaks. Finish your match in 10 minutes and you know you can either play casuals or you can go get a quick bite, go to the bathroom, whatever.
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Run in a vacuum with players who are attentive, never leave, and TOs who will DQ and simply move the bracket along, then the next-available system does have the ability to be the quickest (is the quickest) possible way to run a bracket. I won’t disagree with this, but tournaments are not operated in a vacuum, and I think when competitors for MLG events get use to the round-by-round system even more so they will enjoy the advantages of knowing when they play next. I was told by many players how they were impressed with the system and how we finished on time, as opposed to some of their horror stories of finishing far later than planned. Part of it is the equipment, part is the staff, but part is also the system. I run my locals on a next-available system and I’ve done it dozens of times, but I’ve also seen larger tournaments fall apart at the seams using this system, with TOs running around trying to find players, threatening to DQ people left and right when they get behind, etc. With the proper equipment and staff either system would probably work (one example I’ve seen at a next-available style tournament actually had the competitors receive a text message when their round was up). I’d love to hear feedback from those at the event and hear what other comparisons they draw, both negative and positive.
I think people playing fighters because other people/their friends do – and not for money or pride-- leads to a minimum of hunger but lots of casual interest, which I think is where the FGC is post-SF4. Except we have 1/10 the casual interest of Halo/CoD/SC.
Good shit to alphazealot for coming in here and giving us the lowdown on MLG’s perspective. Sure beats flinging assumptions, although some will do that anyway. You completely missed the meaning and spirit of Keits’s post, however. All the things you cite as reasons for running round by round are things he has successfully without the sacrifices you’re suggesting; this is not “in a vacuum” theoretical speak. This has been applied at his tournaments, and at Evo, and recently this weekend at NCR. It works.
I remember back when winning was about repping your scene and being the best.
Which scene had the best players?
Who was the king of “insert FG title”?
Can USA hang with Japans’s scene?
Now it’s about the money and stream monsters…flavor of the month games and youtube/twitter followers.
I guess what I’m saying is that your list of benefits for running round-by-round is not exclusive to running round-by-round, whereas some of the detriments are.
Keits is in a better position to explain the setup in detail, but the primary gist is that segments of the brackets (pools) are run to completion over a set amount of time (typically 60-90 minutes is how long it takes) on a strict schedule. Players know exactly when they need to be there, they play their matches, and then they’re free to do whatever they want until they’re scheduled to play again. This not only makes things easy for the one individual tournament, but it also allows players to play in several tournaments concurrently if they choose without having to worry about trying to be in two places at once.
In any case, I’m encouraged that you seem to see separating the stream experience from the in-person experience as something to prioritize. There were a lot of great matches this weekend, and I just wish it hadn’t been such an enormous hassle to watch them. In fact, the primary reasons I stayed tuned in the entire weekend was because I had NCR to fall back on during downtime and also to make sure I had an educated critique to offer. Hearing that the halo stream also had extremely long periods of downtime was not encouraging, either. I hope you can find a way to make things better going forward.
I’ll yawn now.
"Koop your getting too deep… "
Its not fully yet but just give it a little big of time. I saw it coming the moment some drama jumped off in this community and shortly after a lovely schedule dropped overlapping some of the FGC events. My only gripe will be how do you make the best of it if it truly does occur. Also shout out to fubarduck an 995phil for making the stream enjoyable an sabin (arturo) for cracking me the hell up getting to see him in the cliche sport coat an tie LOL had his best Tony Korhnhieser PTI outfit on
Next MLG event clashes with ECT but on 2 different coast.
And I hear that Summer Jam and the 3rd MLG event are on or close to the same date?
Well,MLG runs a multitude of games in different genres and reserves venues way in advance, so there are going to be schedule conflicts. Hell, there are schedule conflicts among community events. Didn’t something just recently get scheduled opposite Shadowloo Showdown?
Welcome to the business aspect of the oh so shouted esports. people scream it an rep it this is part of it. As I continue stating to people our games/community are popular now. Money has to be made. So lets see how this plays out. Can we either come up with something to maintain the attention via means of other things or can we come together to make a power move where companies like MLG come to us to get blessings?
Dude, the FGC itself is ALREADY trying to become ESPN.
Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, but there is WAY more censorship going on now, than in the past. Fucking Alex Valle is a nice guy now! Alex Valle was just a COACH on a show. There was a time (not too long ago) when coaching from Valle would have been “step your shit up scrub”, or “go play on the other machine. You’re not built for this”.
If you don’t think we’ve already lost a ton of our identity, and people in position of influence aren’t DYING to get rid of more of it, you’re insane.
One of the MAJOR pillars of the scene was an every-man-for-themselves mantra, and an extremely abrasive stance on newcomers. New guys were cool, as long as they were willing to deal with the harsh nature of the scene. Nobody would help you, unless you showed impressive desire to help yourself first. No special treatment. No coddling. Jump in the ring with the pitbulls, or fuck off if you’re scared. That’s gone.
To me, that WAS the scene… well, along with racism and sexism that wasn’t necessary at all, but even that was kinda cool, in so much as it was REAL. The FGC used to be so organic. So honest. The incredible diversity, obviously gave way to uglier points, but that was seemingly offset by the simple purity of the meritocracy that was our scene. Yeah, you had people saying racist shit… but whether you liked Japanese players or not, when Bas came and beat our ass in Alpha 3, you had to respect it. You could hate Black people, but when Sanford’s Sentinel was stomping on your head, you couldn’t do shit but appreciate the fact that Black people dance better than you. Sexism was around, but if some girl came around and beat all of our asses, that would have given way to sheer respect as well. Not coming out in favor of bigotry… I AM coming out in favor of honesty though, and harmless fun. VERY few people are in this scene popping off with racist/sexist comments that they are REALLY serious about
But now everything has the cater to that most worthless generation of kids born in the 90’s, that had their mothers peel the crust off of their sandwiches until their 21st birthdays. The most sensitive, worthless fucks ever in life. ZERO appreciate for excellence, since they came up in the everyone-gets-a-trophy world, and they’ve been afforded respect and adulation they never had to earn. I miss the meritocracy. If you won, you earned respect. That still happens, but it used to be the ONLY way. Now, if you come up with a catch phrase, a dance… or you have some prop to use in a planned victory celebration, you’re the shit. If you look like Nick Cage, and make videos saying obvious shit (despite the fact that you don’t even compete), you’re the shit. Players come up with on-screen personalities… players have become ENTIRELY different people, because of the attention… shit is NOT the same, already. It just isn’t.
We sold out so much of ourselves, to make the scene more accessible for the most pussified generation of kids to ever walk the Earth. This is just a fact. We sold out, to attract pussies (that won’t turn to winners, ever), to get numbers up, so we could add $1K to the pot. We sold out to get “sponsors” that don’t actually give anybody any actual money. This is what we’ve ALREADY done. Trying to cling to what’s left now is silly. It’s already gone. Bring on MLG.
I didn’t even see your response at 1st but I deleted my post for other reasons. It’s all good.
and ya, like others have said HAV, your post is soul crushing.
The MLG stream just seemed way more boring and controlled whereas NCR was fun and awesome .