Not really, if you leave before the tourney is over, you’re leaving early. Whether that’s at 5pm or 9pm is irrelevant. Back in my day, arcade tourneys normally went well past 2-3 in the morning. From a customer service standpoint, I’d like to give refunds, but I would have spent at least an hour giving out refunds for this or that reason. No thanks. Not to mention the money wouldn’t be coming from my pocket, it comes out of the prize purses.
I split the tourney in half so I could start on time without dq ing people who were stuck in traffic getting to the tourney. In between those sf pools, there was a 100 person mvc3 tourney. The same strategy I used to accomodate out of town players ended up screwing them as the night got later. Why some people thought driving 6 hours round trip and being in a 100 person tourney was feasible without some addarall or somethin? I have no idea. 15 people crashed out on my floor both nights.
Tourneys can take a long time. Especially when they have about 100 people each. I had only 50~60 signed for each a couple of days ago.
When a tourney goes over capacity, long wait times and snafus can happen. I’m really sorry you got the worst of it. When one of the bracket runners went to play a match of mk9, some kid undid half a bracket with one “undo” click and walked away. there must have been 4 cases of people getting bypassed in the bracket and I went back and had the matches replayed. you were one of them I believe. Another was mike Clark, who won like 5 matches in a row.
Everything that went wrong is ultimately my fault, sure. I take full responsibility. I just want to state my case before my name gets burnt in effigy.
Whether you leave at 5pm or 9pm is irrelevant? First off we left at 10. If a game starts at 2pm and you leave at 5pm before you play your first match then maybe you have an argument for not giving their money back (still I say if you leave before you play you should get your entry fee back) but if you wait 8 hours before playing your first match - that is not normal and people have a right to say “Forget this, I’m out of here”.
Don’t act like the way your tournament was run is normal operating procedure at tournaments. You had 60 people pre register and you thought that meant you would just have 60 people there? Wow, why would you think that? You think every person was going to pre register, really?
And of course the money doesn’t come from your pocket, it comes from the prize purses comprised of entry fees. less entrants means smaller purses. If we don’t play why should our money be in the prize pot?** Sure you’ll just ignore this part of my post as well because thats what ignorant people like you do - ignore what you have no answer to.
We aren’t talking about the tournament running a long time, we are talking about our first match not starting until 10pm for the first scheduled game.
A simple “Hey guys, I was a jackass yesterday and I’m sorry I acted like that. My policy to dick people over is pretty gay, and I was way over my head with the size of that tourney. With this experience under my belt, I’ll know how to handle it better next time from running the tournament to how I treat the people that came” would suffice.
I’d like you read the following quote and then think about how your tournament went:
Yeah, there were slightly less than twice as many people at the tourney yesterday. They had 85 in tourneys. We had 147. That’s a big difference.
I’m sorry if I was a jackass to people. I’m normally not a jackass, but can be quite stubborn.
I learned from this event and won’t repeat mistakes.
The resources and venue were not sufficient for the number of people who showed.
I did the best I could given the circumstances and I’m sorry if that wasn’t quite good enough.
To be honest, you can shit on me and rail against me all day in this thread and it won’t even come to within a fraction to how I’ve judged myself. It may mean I’ll come back with a better game plan, it may mean I quit this shit entirely. I’ve run tournaments for nearly 11 years. If there’s one thing I understand, is the reason why no one else wants to do it.
@Renegade I wasnt trying to compare tournaments in fact as many as we can have the better. I agree 147 is a big difference from 85 and in the past as well i have had the tournaments get away from me and bitten off my than i could chew.
things i have learned running tournaments for 10+years as well: you can never have enough setups, very few people will help but the ones that do go beyond the call of duty, and being stubborn will kill you.
I too am what you would call a type A personality like yourself but you have to be able to bend sometimes, having hardline policies works when you have an unending supply of customers but fighting games will always be a niche market and we as tournament organizers need to keep them happy.
I have ran about 14 tournaments ranging from 20 people to over 100 and have had to give back money several times including last night. i have even gotten screwed by people that i know i gave money back to and they lied and said i didnt.(more times than i care to say.)
in the end i have realized tournament organizing is a thankless job and i for one would like to say thanks Renegade for organizing a big tournament and trying to improve the scene, you attracted some top players. but the whole thing about not giving money back if they havent played a match is just wrong, i can say it may be you policy now but it needs to be changed. I had to do it twice last night and it was a matter of taking $10 out of the safe and marking the person up as a loss on the bracket.
keep doing what you are doing man we need more TO’s but dont be afraid to bend once in a while, it will help you long term.
They finished all their majors before people had their first match in the first game scheduled for your tournament.
You and I spoke in person yesterday, you had nothing but BS to say and walked away from me in the middle of conversation. If I wanted to address this with you again I would have messaged you or posted about this in the tournament thread or your regional thread. I don’t look to change how you judge yourself, your in your 30’s - you are who you are. I posted what I did in this thread to hopefully save others in my state from wasting their time in the future by going to a tournament run by you in VA.
All of the tournament stuff is w/e, bad tournaments happen mistakes can be made etc. The main issue is why I’m upset is you coming in here defending your reasoning for, and standing behind not giving us our money back (which you avoided again). I can’t tell you how badly I wish that tournament was in boston where I’m from, and I was with my people - lets see you try to steal money then.
The only way to deal with people like you is to just not have any dealings with them, and thats what I plan to do. Online or off.
This for sure. Were you the guy running the MK brackets?
Strict adhesion to the rules when it goes against common sense and common decency has always bothered me. I don’t care that the tournament wasn’t that great, shit happens, but like Jos said it’s just how things were handled in response to the players complaints that struck a nerve with me. Maybe it’s thankless work but it’s probably thankless because you treat the attendees like they are obligated to you, when in fact it should be as with any business, we are there supporting you just as much as you were supporting us.
I appreciate the effort though… just don’t appreciate the lack of understanding for your attendees.
If it’s about the 10$, whatever. It’s money. I’ll give you 50$. But it’ll be my personal money and not the tournaments. But it’s not like that’ll make you happy about your experience all of a sudden.
But honestly, you didn’t get a refund because no one else got one. You were just the last one to ask. I’m sorry
I walked away bc we weren’t having a conversation. You asked for a refund, I said no. If my curtness implied rudeness, I apologize, but I obviously was in over my head with the tourney and I wasn’t going to stick around and belabor the point.
After I replace all the game copies that wandered off, the game that was scratched bc someone knocked an xbox over, after I tipped the waitstaff generously for serving and being there despite people bringing in outside food and drink… What’s 50$?
Thing is, I remember setting up your match in marvel that was bypassed. You got to play that right? I had to help a lot of people and set things right as much as I could.
I’ve stated my points and apologized profusely. Even with my defense of my actions, things not going smoothly is ultimately my fault and doesn’t bode excuses.
I’m going to see Harry potter now and stop thinking about this for a little bit.
I for one understand that you guys are angry or whatever but, robin is a great TO and yesterday he just had one that went over his head. Now I don’t know most if you NEW nc players and quite honestly I don’t need to know you guys. I know your teachers and mentors roski jibbo face Kevin etc. Ask them how well robin’s events are ran? Robin has a policy that he has stuck with for years. While it may seem stupid to you guys I’m sure the ogs wouldnt see it that way. So lay off him you players haven’t been in the scene long enough to make and opinion of him or his events.
I was just in nc last week and corner trap had his event. While there were some mistakes I personally told him I would be back with my friends. Not once did I try to blackball his events to players that i know that would listen to me. And not come to nc ever. What you guys are trying to do is discredit a great TO over what 20 bucks? Md/va/nc been going to each others events for years so I would watch what’s coming out of your mouths. You have a issue with the man take it to the pm about how it can get handled. Not on boards whining and other stupid shit like that when you know that he has even more to deal with since the event didn’t go as well as hoped.
Just because you haven’t seen us before doesn’t mean we’re new players. I’ve been playing since 2004, that was just the first VA tournament I’ve been to for non namco games, and that was definitely the worst one I’ve been to yet. The issue Jos and I had was not over 20 dollars, but how it was treated and handled. It’s 10 bucks honestly, I really don’t care if I see it again or not, but I would like to see stuff like that prevented in the future. I’m not trying to bring it up over and over again because Robin spoke his peace and I don’t think he’s a bad guy or anything. But I also don’t think having a “policy” for x amount of time is any justification for it, rules should be able to change and bend for the situation IMO.
As far as talking about it on here, people should know how it went. Most of our players felt the same way and they should know what MAY happen in the future, if the choose to go to VA. If this was better organized, and in a hotel, maybe I would go again next year. But if this is at the same venue then I’m damn well going to let people know what’s up. People need to vent, let them. Trying to discredit it because people like Jos aren’t “ogs” doesn’t change what happened.
Seriously this conversation should be handled through PM’s. During the last EZ event I ran I got some backlash because of how late MvC3 started. A lot of the Columbia, SC players were upset about this and ranted on the forums. When I tried to respond to them on the forums they replied with hostility. As soon as I PM’ed each one of them the conversations became way more civil cause it’s much easier to understand someone when it’s just a one on one conversation.
[FONT=arial][COLOR=#ff00ff]“You’re not OG, I don’t need to know you or your opinion.” Haha, gotta love “OG” SRKers retarded elitist mentality. Anyways…
:tup: GGs earlier today to [COLOR=#ff00ff]xS A M U R A Ix. Fun matches, we need to do it again whenever you’re down… dood![/COLOR][/COLOR][/FONT]
Yeah man GGs… my first time playing online in a while so those first couple of matches was just me trying to remember how to play pretty much. Jill is really hard to block online x_x. I’m on now dicking around in training mode if you want some more matches. Lazy sundays are the shit!
Wait why am I talking to you, you’re not OG, so this conversation is invalid :lol:
As stated multiple times the big gripe was not the tournament starting late. If you stole peoples money, then went in their regional thread and told them it was your policy to steal money - I wouldn’t blame them for being mad at you.
But I know you wouldn’t do that crap, and I don’t think you can compare your situation to his.
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And people wonder why the FGC community grows so slowly.
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Whats left to say about this? You’ve got people that think logically and know that what went down made for a bad experience, and that we have every right to be upset about it. And you’ve got those that want to act like this dude can do no wrong because he’s been involved with the community for a while, has a “policy” and running a tournament is hard work so we should just kiss his feat and have no negative feelings no matter how he treated us.
“Oh he did you wrong but don’t let other people know about it! Just talk about it in PMs, don’t let people know about how bad the tournament was and why!”
I have been to many different tournaments for many different genres of games from pokemon and yu-gi-oh cards to volleyball and basketball to spades to first person shooters and chess. Never have I witnesses these types of actions, nor other people backing it up for such meaningless reasons.
If this is normal fare in fighting game tournaments and I’ve just been lucky the last few I’ve been to - count me out.
I wasn’t at either EZ or CW yesterday, but I do know that tournaments can quickly get out of hand in regards to space/venue/setups/players/brackets/money whatever. It’s easy to bitch about time frames and staying late or no refunds when you’re playing in the tournament…but do you realize the massive amount of things that a TO could bitch about? His thankless job? The late players? The last minute entries and drops? Not having sticks? People whining about setups? I’m sure the tournament would have been quick as fuck had Robin not bothered to network.
Being a TO is almost wholly a thankless position to have and majorly done for the enjoyment of what you’re doing. Think about who and what you’re bitching about. That’s a lot of backlash to be given to a person who probably wasn’t paid for the time and effort he put into running the tournament, making the brackets, promoting, gathering out of state comp, gathering the setups, securing the venue, etc etc. Robin is a proven tournament organizer. MD/VA stayed late as fuck at Lucky’s before without bitching. We’ve stayed at c3’s past midnight multiple times without bitching. I’ve finished a 3rd Strike tournament at a major in a hotel room. I’ve finished a tiny Charlotte tournament at someone’s house. I’ve been to a SC tournament when the last 3 matches took about 2 hours. I’ve been to majors playing in top 8 well past midnight. It’s a tournament, with a lot of factors out of a lot of peoples control. There’s no real way to be prepared for everything, but the main goal is to have as many people as possible and have it run the best you can. Set aside the day. Play. Have fun. Learn something. Bitching about when it ends isn’t really necessary.
Javier…I can’t wait to get this 3rd Strike rivalry (with everyone…you me tom dp edmondantes jordan darrell) back in action! The real game hype will return!
Let me ask you, I’m very interested in your answer to this question.
For examples sake, lets say your running a tournament and for whatever reason things dont start on time and at 10pm some people still haven’t played a single match in the FIRST scheduled game.
Whatever, it happens, don’t complain - ok.
If a few people who have a very long drive home have to leave, and before playing a single match ask for the tournament entry fee back: Do you give them back their tournament entry fees seeing as how they are not entering the tournament due to whatever it is that was out of everyones control that made it start so late?
What happened to Josiah and Jon was really unfortunate. Hopefully, everyone will learn from this experience, and in the future maybe circumstances won’t turn out the same way.
[FONT=arial][COLOR=#ff00ff]“You’re not OG, I don’t need to know you or your opinion.”