Northwest Majors: June 28th at UW

Regional Matchmaking Northwest
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This is a thread to discuss Northwest Majors. I’d like to talk about having a large tournament, whether it be in Seattle or PDX. I think those are the best two candidate cities, at least. Vancouver is another option.

Having a major tournament would be a big draw and motivation for people to practice. Doing this would benefit everyone in PNW. We would all collectively raise our level of play, and all collectively do better at Evo. In fact, having a record of holding such tournaments could be a strong argument in favor of having our own Evo qualifier. Wouldn’t it be great to have a chance at making the semis right here instead of flying to vegas and hoping you don’t run into Oh-Nuki in your pool?

With that said, here’s some categories we should discuss:

Games
It’s already certain that the next evo will have 3s, ST, and MvC2. I think those are a great three to have. Three is a good number of games. They are diverse, have a good following across SEA/PDX, and guaranteed to be at Evo. I don’t think we should have more games, as it’s a lot of work to organize and run tournaments.

Location
This could be at someone’s house, at an arcade, at a convention center? It could be in Seattle, PDX, somewhere else? There’s also a ton of hotels around that rent ballrooms for events.

Medium
This could be on arcade or on console. I’m a fan of arcade (at least for ST), but I’m a realist and I understand the issues. There’s a lot to be said for console. That said, I would be happy to lend my cabinet for an arcade style tournament.

Payout
A tournament this size will have costs to run, whether it be renting a hotel ballroom or renting consoles. We should discuss registration fees and entry fees. Registration fees should really just cover the costs, and not be more. If there is any more it could go to prize money. Entry fees for a tournament could be whatever we want it to be. $20? $10? We should also pick a payout format. There is
Pay top 3?
Pay top 8?
Pay top 16?

Format
Do we want one big double elim tournament? Does top 8 stay as double elim, or does top 8 reset and play round robin, japanese style? (I like this format btw). We could even do swiss style if there are enough tvs and consoles (that’s how magic: the gathering tournaments are run… you get to play every round no matter what your record is). If we had 32 players sign up for a game, we would only need a dozen or so consoles to run a decent swiss bracket.

Discuss!

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Beasley.

I give you so much props!

I think it’s a wonderful idea. It will up us greatly.

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I’d be in favor of just doing a normal double elim tournament as that’s the standard in the US. I really loved the format at Evo but I think you need at least more than 128 to justify having pools. Virtua Fighter was a little fucked up at Evo because they didn’t have enough people to do pools right.

If we do have a normal double elim tournament, seeding will be very important. It has to be fair and useful. It’d suck if Zass and XTG had to play first or second round in ST, and location seeding obviously solves that, but it would also suck if one of them had to play RBX first or second round. We need a combination of location and results seeding. Hopefully the premier locations in the NW can have some tournaments leading up to this event to provide some data for seeding.

The list of games looks great. CvS2 is getting a lot of action in PDX right now, but with the chance of it not being at Evo next year, and the questionable scene in Seattle, I agree with not having it at this event.

As for prize payout, it’d be nice to give out money to the top 8 but the 1st place prize needs to be big enough to at least offset traveling costs. Hopefully we can find a nice balance. I’d vote for an entry fee refund for 4th-8th and split up the rest 70/20/10 for 1st-3rd.

I’ll have more ideas after I’ve thought about it some more.

-Sam ‘fatbear’ Y

P.S. Practice up, cause I can almost guarantee that Wong and others will come and try to take our money.

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I don’t really get having 3S instead of CvS2, why couldn’t we have both? The only valid reason to not have CvS2 is if CvS2 isn’t at Evo next year. People play CvS2 in Seattle. If it comes down to three games I elect MvC2, ST, CvS2.

And about the seeding thing, we’re having tourneys for MvC2/ST/CvS2 on the 7th of September for the beginning of season two. What would be better for seeding than the final results of a ranbat season?

I’m sure PDX can figure out something for their seeding system.

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I guess you havent heard that the scene in seattle is questionable, I heard it from a reliable source.

The 4 major capcom games seems like a good base really, 3s has always been lower on the totem in seattle anyways.

If Seattle threw a big shindig I would probably try to make it back home during that time:lovin:

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I just pray to god we can start ST earlier for season two, I am pretty sick of starting my fucking matches after midnight after I’ve already had a long ass work day, by that time I can barely execute/give a fuck…

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You should post that in the Season Two suggestions thread or the Season Two results thread yeayeayea. I’m kinda trying to figure out who’s running ST and when.

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You guys can’t forget the very strong 3rd strike scene in Vancouver, B.C. As for saying the seattle CvS2 scene is questionable, I’m basing this on my experience at Preppy’s when I have gone. There have always been people that mentioned the interest in playing, but it never actually happened. I’m glad to see that you had a good tournament for it, but I’ve got one honest question (I don’t know the seattle crew well enough to answer this myself): are people really into CvS2 again or is it just a fad that’s gonna die out soon?

If CvS2 has momentum in Seattle and the Vancouver cats want free money, I’m all for having it at the Major, but I don’t see how you can drop 3rd Strike.

With that said, if CvS2 is a must, we should just add it as a 4th game instead of fighting over what goes in and what stays out. We have a very tight community so I don’t think there will be any problem getting free manpower to help run things smoothly. I also don’t think PS2’s will be a problem. I’m sure people will be willing to lend out their PS2’s if it means we can have a great event like this.

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People are actually playing CvS2. Now 3S, from the Marvel group’s standpoint, was a fad. We were playing it for maybe two, three weeks. If it’s about getting the Canadians down then yeah, have 3S. But I know they play CvS2 as well. Who knows, maybe months from now when season two is done, we’ll see that having CvS2 was a big mistake, but for the time being people here are playing/practicing it. I’m actually surprised PDX is playing CvS2 considering the cabinet down there was apparently sent to Olympia, which is now residing in Federal Way.

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As long as Smash Brothers isnt in this, Im all for it!

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I don’t live in the Northwest, but what you all are trying to do with this is great. I’m also trying to do something similar with the Midwest; we both need to keep our heads up. We might have the smaller scenes compared to the other regions, but that doesn’t mean we can’t compete.

Here is the thread in question: http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=137475

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Glad to hear that CvS2 is getting some play up there. As for Portland, CvS2 DID die out for a while after we lost the cabinet but now we play it at Art’s and we have regular gatherings for just CvS2 at another guys house. It’s getting a lot of action down here.

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Yo have a good start. Keep it up!

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Regarding this CvS2 game you guys speak of…
I doubt it would have as many people enter as a 3S tournament, but I would greatly enjoy a CvS2 tournament, as would KabukiMono for sure.

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CvS2 takes for-fucking-ever, is boring to watch, and I don’t like the game, but I’m still down for having a tourney of it. Whenever people say no CvS2 then everyone’s like “well then no 3s!” and fuck that shit. I couldn’t care less about anything tourney-wise but 3s so please don’t cut 3s out of the picture. That or Guilty Gear but that’s not gonna happen.

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I am interested in this, but you guys didn’t mention Guilty Gear… Maybe I’ll get a little bit of hate for this, but the northwest has a decent scene for it, and I know there are people who are interested in learning it more, between Portland and Seattle we can at least get a 16 man bracket, probably more if out of towners come. I think it would be a miss to exclude certain people whose only game is Guilty Gear.

As for the other games, you need all 4 capcom classics for sure, there is no way around it you have to run all 4.

I vote for a console format even though arcade would be nice, but often times I think the headaches of console aren’t as bad as cabinets. Cabintes need transportation, cost more money to rent and have hardware issues. Consoles, need tvs, have one kinda glitchy port (COUGH CCC2 COUGH) but have almost no hardware issues and we get to play on our own sticks!

Double Elim would definetly be the way to go. And I agree with Fatbears sentiments on seeding. I like this! We should do it.

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Great feedback guys! Keep it up.

We should also discuss one more issue

Timeframe
When do we want this to happen? Fall? Winter? Later? Sooner?

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Some info about location -
At Portland State University, most of us (fatbear, kabuki, myself, etc…) are all club members for our gaming club. As a club, we can rent out any rooms / tv’s for free.

If we plan a month or two ahead of time, we can get a large ballroom, tables and possibly 4-8 TVs as well as what we personally can bring (I can commit 2). All of this for free. Normally seats 300-600+ people, and will have ample room for everything we want to have done. This will definitely help the "free refund for 4th-8th (which sounds sweet as long as we have large numbers…

If we do have a tournament, it will be console. If we are having it at Portland, I heavily suggest doing it at PSU (I live down the street so I’m more inclined to opt for that… but this also means people can crash at my place if need be)

I’d also mention considering SSBB tournament, if we have it after December. There is a rather large crowd for the game, and as long as Evo / Smash crew work together, it will be beneficial for the scene…

Edit :
Just checked up on availability and anywhere 1-2 months ahead is free. Winter break is currently unbooked.

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should we use custom color mvc2 for the finals? lol

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custom colors are probably a bad idea due to potential for abuse. I’d suggest making tournaments standard colors. Anything goes in casuals