POSTMORTEM: Everett Kumite Round II

Regional Matchmaking Northwest
1

I’m working on how to ensure the venue will allow us back and be happy to have us there. Here is the thread to talk about what we all can do better to make the next event happen and go smoothly.

Please post your thoughts on what went right and wrong with this event. Keep it civil as everyone involved will be reading this post.

WHAT WENT RIGHT:
Hella people showed up!
People behaved well and I dont think anything got stolen.
People brought some extra sticks and copies of the game to help get things moving.
SOME people spent good money at the venue which keeps them happy and wanting us to come back.
Staff support overall was very good. In fact some staff actually volunteer their time to help get things ready for the event and to keep things running. Special props to Ryan and Slash on doing the stream.

WHAT WENT WRONG:
Alleged drug use on the premises. This could of killed the event and the venue’s business license.
Too much for one man to handle. I need help.
Started late, people showed up late.
The event ran too late, we should of been able to finish the tournament at least 2 hours earlier than we did.
Not enough copies of the games and sticks for the all the players resulted in waiting that we should of had to do.
Owners and staff stressed out over us running late and some patrons and some staff may have been less profession than the should of.
Outside food and drinks were brought into the venue, even after it was made clear this is not allowed.
Passage ways were clogged with spectators blocking patrons and staff.
A cabinet door got broken, no one told me and I will probably have to pay for it and I dont make money off the event and I personally spent $50.00 while there.
Venue revenue for the event was low, yes some peeps spent good money, but alot of people drank water all night.

Here are some things I know I can do to make things better for next time:
1: Get some help setting up and running the tournament - Volunteers?
2: Setup both electronic and paper based brackets ready to go.
3: Secure more sticks and copies of whatever game in advance to keep things going quickly.
4: Be more strict on rules and getting your games done more quickly, expect people to get disqualified if your not ready to play.
5: Crack down on enforcing venue rules, Get kicked out if you break the venue’s rules.

2

People will hate me for this, but I highly suggest some sort of deal where you pay like a 3-5$ venue fee to support the place. Maybe even something where if you spend 10$ at the bar the venue fee is waived but I have no idea how you would track something like that.

As for running the tournament itself, I don’t think finding volunteers for that would be too difficult. There are plenty of us that have experience running tournaments on time and quickly.

Securing sticks/copies of the game isn’t a huge issue if you plan it out. And if you had a venue fee or something in place, someone who brings a game disc maybe gets that waived. (Though that in a way removes money from the venue)

People bringing outside food/drink should be booted (and I think we should enforce that), it presents health code issues and is rude as fuck to the people running the place. They aren’t just hosting these events for charity, there is a certain expectation that it is good for both us and the owners.

Cabinet door broken - who knows on that one. I sort of don’t like the idea that that is automatically pinned on us - there were TONS of people in that place that weren’t associated with us and unless someone saw someone doing it trying to pin it on us is a little disrespectful imo.

3

I like this. Tacoma supports stricter rules on being punctual. We get up really early and leave really early to be at events on time and we end up playing casuals for 3 hours while we wait for tournament regulars and heavy hitters. This has happened to us 4 times now. If we don’t start DQing people, this is never going to end. Hopefully people can take a warning seriously, but I imagine some players will be made an example of and saltiness will ensue. A good example of a similar principal is Dugg opting to take the round when Kevin pushed pause during the finals. It’s lame but you have to learn these things one way or another; and as Dugg wasn’t chastised for doing this, tournament organizers should not be chastised for DQing people for not being there when the tournament is planned to begin… no matter how expected your presence is.

This will solve a few of the listed issues as well, i.e. no scrambling, more organized, and ending on time.

While I don’t know 100% if people were smoking on the premises, I’m a bit embarrassed that’s even an issue. We’re all adults and should be respectful of venues. I grew up in a house supported by a mom in the restaurant business and on 2 separate occasions the Liquor Board closed her restaurant for 72 hours because minors were drinking on the premises. This meant 3 days of missed tips and wages meaning small meals and late bills for our household. If the alleged drug use true, I hope those who did it can set aside their views on it’s legality/societal acceptance and think about the 30 or so people you could have put out of work because of your actions.

We all have bills to pay, and we’d all be pissed if we lost money/our jobs because of other people’s actions.

I loved this venue and I hope we are welcome back sometime.

4

I can help at the next event as far as being a judge for the tournament.

Do you have Skype Will? I will tell you what we can improve on for the next tournament.

For all the other SSFIV players who plan on attending future AFK tournaments, disqualifications might be needed in order to run a smooth tournament next time. That means don’t bitch if you get knocked out for leaving w/o proper notification to your tournament director.

I’m a pro at this shit.

5

Yeah outside food should definitely be enforced to one strike your out.

“Leveling Up” the same, one strike your out. From what I understand, the owner is deathly allergic to leveling up. People need to understand that it isn’t someone’s house. We had the same problem with Best Western where they found the tools to level up in the hotel. It’s unacceptable period.

For people that aren’t supplying the venue. Again, it’s not someone’s house, this is a business that has opened it’s doors for us to use, but it’s a business. And as we have seen before, they can easily take it away from us (I’m going to be surprised if they let us back again to be honest). I think the mentality is people believe we are doing them the favor when it’s the exact opposite. It’s not hard to bring a couple bucks to get some food (which was fantastic btw). If you can’t afford to spend $10 on food, what are you doing spending $10 on a tournament?

Cabinet door broken. Unacceptable, and honestly whoever is the one that did (or whoever knows who did it) needs to step up and say something. I hope people realize what kind of impression this left with AFK.

Now that all that is out of the way, let’s look at the other side of things.

The venue. Fantastic. I really like the way things were set up, I think it might be better to not have all three setups in that isle used for matches, using two there (not the one in the middle), and then two setups over on the right hand side would help in spreading things apart.

The big Vizio TV that was in the middle was nice, except that at times there was very noticeable slow-down (not really joystick input lag, but the screen was suffering visible slow-down).

We’ll need to find a way to make sure that that isle is clear for patrons and workers. If the upper area will be used for streaming, I think that if we have a match on deck they should wait until the players from the previous match get off the stage prior to those on deck getting up there.

Bill’s gonna need help, having two tournaments at the same time and being in at least one of them is a huge plate. So if anyone wants to step up, then by all means lend him a hand.

I think in time this could be a great venue. But more importantly if we do get to go back for another round we as a whole will need to get our acts together. I know not everyone is in the wrong, but it might as well be. With all the things that have been said happened/didn’t happen.

6

Yeah, my only real gripe with the layout of the place is those three setups. Even just 1 or 2 people standing and watching at those will block it off.

7

One of my biggest gripes with that place is the internet issue.

Like while I was setting up I was told the internet it great, then when it started to suck I was told “oh…yeah, its capped.” WTF IS THAT! I mean for real. To me, if its capped, tell me straight up, don’t make it so that I start doing stuff and then am informed of stuff later on. Not to mention the internet just randomly stopping was a pretty big problem.

Also, on another salty note, props to the owners/tech manager for telling me they needed the area where the stream was set up so that some other people could play some extremely bad black ops. While I was told that they might need the rock band stage for later, I was under the impression that it would be to play rock band. So when I was told they would need it, I got my stuff packed up and put away. Then coming back to see it was BO…I just facepalmed, walked away and then was quite…salty that it was for 2 or 3 games of BO. Like…really? REALLY?! DOES NOT SIT WELL WITH SLASH! So should’ve told the people playing that they have to keep playing till I/we leave HAHAHAHA! I was telling people, they kicked off a shitty game for a shittier game (and yes, while I play SSF4 and support it, compared to a lot of other games, its pretty bad.)

I played on that Vizio and that thing is a POS. I was playing ScubaSteve on it and he does wall jump and it becomes extremely lag fest. I didn’t believe Jetay when he said you could see/feel the lag, but wow…

"Passage ways were clogged with spectators blocking patrons and staff."
Okay, real talk, to me, if you’re wanting to keep traffic out of main areas, then don’t put setups that can potentially block said areas. For real. To me, that’s just bullshit. The setups are there and when we all try to watch matches, we like to gather and make a cluster. It makes things more hype.

Outside Drink.
Thats my bad. I mainly brought it in because I was up for 36 hours (my bad) and didn’t want to crash randomly.

Venue and Food
A Venue can’t expect people to buy food or drink from them, I mean that’s just BS. real talk. People might get hungry, they might not. What are we supposed to do? Tell people to not eat before a tournament and stuff? You can’t do that. The tournament is, technically, during that off time when people might have already had food and are planning on going out with others afterwards. On the flip side, some people have a mentality of not eating during tournaments, to help keep them focused.

Was I hungry? sure, did I want to spend money to eat at the time? No. My focus was on other things. If I wasn’t dead tired, I probably would have been drinking water. I mean come on. If I went in there with some friends to just hang and chat and get some fries and a cup of water. Would they throw them out? I doubt it, if they would, then, pardon my language, but fuck them. I’m not going to go into a place and be expected to buy stuff.

And especially hearing what one of the people did to Ethan, that is most certainly unjustified and drops my opinion of AFK.

Venue and Possible Venue Fees
I have never had a problem with fees, as long as people know where the money is going, but on the flip side, IF we do pay such a thing, IMO the owners need to realize that people might not buy food and if we are there longer, they can’t get butt hurt about it.

Also, I don’t know if the venue has mentioned this, but I’m just putting it out there. They need to realize, that Seattle will be getting hype. ESPECIALLY If it is a portland/seattle event. Language will be thrown and everything like that, so that also needs to be realized.

As far as the issue of sound goes (regarding the game) I do think it’s pretty stupid people are saying “there are headphones” I mean I listen to my own stuff when I play, and I’m sure others do. But there are some that don’t and they use the sound from the game. If there is a way to resolve it, that would be nice. I mean, I for one, think that not having to bring a setup to a tournament is cool, but, at the same time, I have no problem with it, since it means we know what to expect.

Will I be back up there to an event? I honestly can’t say right now…maybe 50% yes 50% no Sure a lot of the things I have heard from my Portland brethren hasn’t been the highest of opinions or thoughts. And, while I’m not one to follow, at the same time I don’t want to be all “Imma drive up to this event” and then possibly get shut down.

Will I be there streaming another event? Right now I’m at 20% Yes, 80% No. The only reason I’m 20% yes, is because I knew there was a 50/50 of me being able to use the stage the whole time, because it was a ROCK BAND stage after all. The 80% comes from the internet and just a lot of the little things there. Even though the internet wasn’t garbage and after I watched the VOD’s from the tournament, not being able to monitor the chat or how the stream was actually looking was annoying as hell. And while I know that I won’t be able to do it at every venue or tournament, when I’m told that at a place that has good upload…just no. I mean for real, that place got free promotion on my time, and the time on the people who was commentating, especially Ethan and MacKinzie that were talking about the food. So to AFK, thanks for your free advertisement! --sarcastic thumbs up–

Also, to the chick who was telling people they can’t be sleeping on the couch or whatever… …|., That’s all I have to say. People are going to rest and they’ll probably sit and just crash. They weren’t disturbing anything, and no one was desiring to use the couch. I’d rather have my friends sleep on the couch than them driving back somewhere and wrecking.

What was good about the venue?
It is a venue, that’s definitely going to the top, and food and drink were easily accessible.
There was plenty of space at the venue, so that was definitely appealing…unfortunately, all the extra space was in areas that we weren’t using.

8

Slash is pretty passionate about this and I would typically have your back man…

But I second what Frank said. It’s up to us to represent ourselves with dignity and respect to a place of business that is nice enough to let us post up in their for a tourney. Not to complain about a venue itself for failing to expect us to be rowdy, foul mouthed, tired from traveling, and hours behind schedule.

We shouldn’t be those things if the venue asks otherwise. The venue will get business without us, but we will not have sick tournaments without them. So while the venue and the tourney attendees should share a mutual respect for each other, we are truly at the behest of the venue. We need them, they don’t need us. I hope we can all try to see it from a business standpoint.

9

So as a venue it was tight for maybe a casual thing or a place to chill. As a major NW tournament venue there were serious issues.

Slash has already laid out the problems with the streaming issues but a Big tournament in the NW (thanks to Slash) will have a stream so that is still an issue.

As a tournament venue there were alot of problems. Mainly a viewing area. The big TV for the stream set-up was nice and well done for commentating as well but the rest of the “playable” set-ups were very hard to spectate and they had some hype matches I.E. Dugg v Simon and Riki v Tanaka and people watching were constantly moved and had to squeeze together even though there were only 10ish watching. That to me is a big problem especially since those matches weren’t recorded.

Set-up problems. Having those 3 very nice basically lag free set-ups was cool but having all 3 xboxs underneath the middle set-up is a problem. People had to constantly have people wait mid tournament set because other people had to plug in. I know for certain people (not myself) that can be frustrating as it can kill momentum. Also it was just a plain hassle and contributed to alot of the delay. My biggest gripe is for the people who had to play on the glitchy fucked up Vizio by the bar. I saw one match on that set-up and knew instantly that I was never even going to subject myself to playing a casual on that fucked up TV.

Organizers. You did an okay job with running brackets but there are ways you can improve. Mainly always have people report wins/loses right after they play a match. Also you may want to allow someone else to be able to touch the laptop for running and reporting so someone can be on the floor of the tournament running the brackets too. I’d advise someone proficient in Tio with a good voice. There’s gotta be someone out there who could volunteer.

The stream gettin killed for top 6 really bothered me (mainly because it involved my glorious comeback through losers and my sweet revenge on a certain rog =P) Also Slash having to pack up thousands of dollars of equipment up in 10 mins disturbed me greatly.

Grand finals not happening not happening sucked but the reasons were actually understandable. At this point I don’t think any set me or Cole run are even indicative of this tournament and as such I don’t even care if I’m put as 1st or 2nd. IMO it should just be we tied for first unless Cole wants to press the issue then ya’ll can just put him as first. Any momentum either of us had is dead and that is kinda important (at least to me) in this game. Cole and I are splitting the money anyways and I already have communicated with him.

Overall I like the place as a casual/ MM location (say for the possible hat match between me and Riki) and a nice place to have some casuals / lunch or dinner but any tournament over 30/35 people is just not realistic at this point unless some changes are made.

DQ’s need to happen if people aren’t there for their first match (so if someone calls ahead and is down on the tournament list and if a homie covers their entry fee they have until their match starts to get there or they are sent to losers)

Oh and the bringing in of drink from outside is one thing and I followed the rule, but alot of gaming people like their monsters/ energy drink of choice so that’s another problem. I thought it was crazy you couldn’t even bring in water.

10

@Shred

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I totally understand that its a business, and with that being said, I still don’t agree with the way it was done. Tapping someone to wake them up then informing them they can’t sleep there, thats cool in my book. Kicking a couch saying “You guys can’t be sleeping here” does not.

Yes, the venue will get business without us, but on the flipside, they could potentially get A LOT more business with us there. Especially with a live stream, people get to see the venue, and find out how cool of an environment it was, but the way everything broke down, I’m left with a bad taste in my mouth. Like this is how I would see it, good tournament gets run there with a nice, chill environment, I’d be hella down to come back and kick it with casuals and do some dinner there. Having a nice, chill tournament with staff bitching at people, makes me not want to go back.

@Bokkin

I totally agree with a lot of stuff you were saying. It might work cool for a casual, kick-it location, but I don’t see it ever working, right now, as a possible Northwest Tournament Hotspot. I mean props to Kesh for finding the place but at the end of the day, when you look and see that 30 people gets the venue stressed, how are they going to react if say 50 people came out?

And I agree that playing the match now isn’t even worth it. The hype is gone. Like, playing the match just brings up more bad memories than something that deserves to be played. IMO split pot, and let it flow away.

Than and the Druncan hype isn’t even going to be there :frowning:

11

Oh damn, I didn’t know they were being total punks about it. I suppose that is a little different. I’m sure the staff was getting frustrated with having to squeeze by all of us… but that wouldn’t have been a problem if it was set up better.

What happened to Ethan??

12

When I was talking to the employees/owner guy after the fact (well after everyone busted out because me and Eric were just chilling at the bar) they didn’t seem nearly as stressed as this is making things sound. I think they had some gripes but they didn’t say we aren’t welcome back or anything.

They also said as long as we reserve the stage in advance that that’s not really an issue - it was reserved for a birthday party and really I don’t think we can blame them for wanting us to clear it off.

13

I think a few things should be remembered

-There will probably be way less people because there were 20 pdx’ers or so up there.
-There will probably be way less bistanders because there was a seahawks game (and not just any seahawks game.

Since it was initial run I think with a bit of logistical tweaks it could be a hella good venue. Rope off the aisle or something for example, if everyone stands back that would be a problem.

Eh im surprised they didnt make much off people though, I saw a great deal of drinking.
I really liked the venue overall though, I mean also imagine more setups in the tekken area or something, dont even have to use the aisle. I just see alot of room for tweaks where we wouldnt have to forsake the venue as a serious spot.

14

Really, the space that was setup as the Tekken area would b e a better place to have tourney setups. The ones in the aisle just really doesn’t work if anyone wants to watch at all and we’d be up and out of the way.

I think that we’d want to set it up like we had the Best Western setup (in the lounge) in a way. I don’t mind trying to help this venue be a solid monthly or so tourney event. It can definitely be run a lot cleaner than it was, the first time is always the ugliest.

15

So it is against the law (fucking wa liquor board) to let people sleep in a bar.

And what happened to ethan, I need clarity on the issues if I’m going to be able to address them.

16

In a bar, I can understand, but IMO a couch infront of a TV IS NOT part of the bar. To me, the Bar is the area that was behind the fence area.

But as far as Ethan, Based off what he told me, when he was heading to the bathroom, one of the employees at AFK came up to him and started talking to him about people not buying food and things like that.

If you’d like to talk to him, please pm PDX JIVE here on SRK. You can easily find him in one of the NW Best Bout threads.

17

All I know is that when I wanted to order food I had to talk to the same guy three times before he got someone else to take my order. As far as I could tell they were prepared to handle the amount of orders they were getting and then complain that we didn’t order enough.

IMO the venue is not setup for a tournament of any size considering that they can’t move those tables we were playing on to some corner of the room where we could observe the matches. No sound really screwed me up as I use that as a sign for when to link moves and the fact that the BO players had their sound all the way up. I’d rather pay a venue fee to some other place than go back to the AFK. Epic gaming was a great host to our tournament in Portland. One of the employees ran home to grab his monitor for us to use and they had two TE sticks at the shop for us to barrow. They allowed outside food and drink and they stayed after closing time for us to finish our tournament that started 3 hours late and they thanked us on the way out.

18

Oh noes I removed this.

19

just curious… when they say…

Patients are not allowed to smoke medical marijuana in any public place in which smoking of any kind is prohibited under the Washington Clean Indoor Air Act, Chapter 70.160 of the Revised Code of Washington.

i’m pretty sure this means smoking outside and coming inside after one has smoked is perfectly legal. right?

20

Well Hi there Kayla with a red K.

I prefer monster. The normal one, I’m not watching my weight while inbibing alot of terrible chemicals (Just in case you were wondering what other energy may be prefered =D)

Also. I understand you are a buisness. I understand you need to bring in money. All I did that day was buy a Mr. Pibb and tip the bar so I wasn’t much help. I just want it to be known that, while yes we understand a buisness needs to make money, the buisness probably is well aware that gamers are cheap in general. I loved the location because it was 5 miles north of me but I know that it was a hell of a drive for others (especially the Portland crew). I believe the reason we were happy to come here is because the venue WAS free and it also provided drinks which for some reason go hand in hand in this scene for tournaments. But it all came down to the venue being free while having drinks. Food was kind of a secondary thought if any for alot of the people there.

I plan on bringing up the water thing with the snohomish county health district because something seems off about that. The people sleeping makes sense and people doing illegal stuff does as well but something doesn’t sit right with me when it comes to the water aspect, or even bringing non-alcoholic drinks in general. That seems more like a buisness concern rather than a health one.

A slower day would probably be better. I hope this can turn into something good for the both of us.

I didn’t even know the net crashed. Thanks for informing me though…

Edit: Mackinzie, first off she is allergic…VERY allergic to the stuff so that just a courtesy thing. Also she stated follows both state and federal law. Federal law prohibits any type of use of marijuana at any time no matter what your state authorities have issued you. They don’t enforce out of time+money costs and the state rights vs federal sovereignty arguments it brings.