Agreed. I sat at the front the whole day to guarantee a great seat for the finals of MvC3 and AE (it was a dream come true to be there).
As a side note/rant for the snobby 3S elite who I encountered during the exhibition who kept referring to EVERYONE as “scrubs” because they “don’t play 3S and don’t realize how hard it is”. Boohoo, cry me a river.
Most of us have played 3S, we’ve seen great 3S matches, we are well aware that it’s a fantastic game.
But “news flash”, ALL games are difficult when you reach top 8 at EVO. There will always be someone out there better than you. SF4 has rejuvenated this community and allowed a few people to go pro; to actually make a living out of playing Street Fighter. Have a little more respect for the “scrubs”…
Anyway my point is that no matter how good 3S is I did not come to Evo to sit through nearly 2 hours of Round Robin 3S (was it even a tourney? did anyone win?).
I have nothing but respect for the game, the players who had the balls to go up on stage, and the Evo staff who work their butts off to bring us this tournament, but for me the timing and structure of this exhibition ultimately made it a failure.
It felt like the one thing keeping us from the Marvel/AE finals. And it went on forever… And, as far as I could tell, it was simply casuals so there wasn’t much of an incentive to watch.
Most importantly there was nothing new to see.
I would have been more interested in the new features. Granted we have also seen those before, but not as much as we have seen 3S played.****
IMO it would have worked better if they kept it short and sweet (longer doesn’t mean better - that’s what she said!) and focused on the selling points - uploads to youtube, ggpo, etc.**
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The reality is probably that this was part of the negotiations with Capcom in regards to their support and attendance, which is important. So at the end of the day it was what is was and probably made a few other things possible over the course of the weekend.
Could it have been more interesting? Absolutely. Capcom could have put $5k up for the winner and made it an invitational tournament, not exhibition. Then you would have seen players like Justin and Daigo, I suspect, rusty but playing to win. That would have been really fun to watch. I’d have love to have seen if Daigo can still do the full parry!
Again no disrespect to the players or organizers. You guys deserve utmost respect. I’m just sharing some feedback that can be considered for the future.
One last thing. My opinion is all based on the fact that I wanted to keep my seat at the front before anyone says “you didn’t have to watch it”. I did 