Not everyone has a bladder that can hold up for that long.
then use the restroom before the pools.
My pool was from 5pm to midnight, don’t you think you might get hungry or tired or anything during that amount of time? I sure did.
Thanks. That was me! I did all of SSF4 semis, as well as HDR, TK, and SSF4 finals. No commentary really, just intros and hype and stuff.+
I had a lot of compliments from people I didn’t know about how hype it was. I purposely chose not to talk too much during actual matches to let players concentrate (and not to sound biased either). However, between games, and especially before/after I did my best to rile up the crowd and make them get loud!
I think my favorite part was right before the finals went down, Seth and Sessler were on the house speaker for a second letting everyone know it was about to go down. Then I purposely asked everyone to quiet down… then riled them up again!
GET UP, GET UP, GET UP!!!
LOL, so fun!
I’ll bring even more hype next year!
Guys, if you had restroom needs or what not, either prepare in advance (bring food with you and / or use the bathroom before heading to pools) or let the pool judge know you’re leaving and that you will be back.
Give a name and make eye contact. Easy as pie.
This EVO was close to perfection. The only small complaint I have is the same as last years. I don’t want to sound like a prick or anything but honestly some of the judges were pretty bad. In my pool for example there were 2 judges. 1 who would literally whisper names out and the other who would shout them out but was also missing in action alot of the time. Some players were missing for literally maybe about 4-5 hours and were still not being DQ’d. Maybe I white board or something should be used or in the future 
It would prevent the massive crowd from hurdling around the players while they played imo.
Big props to you man. That hype was really fun and spot on the entire weekend.
Good shit on the hype Trag. The crowd was feeling it man.
I didn?t go to Evo this year, but I heard from a friend about how the pool play worked, how chaotic it got and the high DQ rate. The posts in this thread confirm that. I realize that the rules are made very clear from the beginning, and it?s important to enforce the rules very strictly to ensure that the tournament is run efficiently and that time is not wasted. However, I think there are ways to balance time-efficiency and flexibility for players to roam, cheer on their friends, watch their favorite players, or go pee. I imagine it must suck to travel from another country and get disqualified, even if it was your fault. I think it?s unreasonable to expect people to adhere to some of these rules.
Suggestion:
-Have pool play matches played IN ORDER, from the top of the list to the bottom of the list. Go in order of: First round, losers, winners, losers, losers, winners, etc?
-Number each match and encourage players to remember the number of their match. Use a cheap walmart whiteboard (or pre-made arts/crafts)* to display which matches are currently being played.
(Eg. If matches #48 and #49 are currently being played, matches #50 -#55 know they?re up very soon).
-If someone is late for their match, skip their match a maximum of three times until they are disqualified. (Eg. If you?re in match #51, and matches #52, 53, 54 completed before you got there, you?re DQ?ed).
This seems more restrictive, but the structured order allows players the ability to reasonably predict when their matches are to be played, and approximately how long of a wait they should expect.
If a player knew that there are 54 matches to be played before it?s his turn, he knows he can afford to go for a bite, and watch some of his friends? matches for at least 20-30 minutes before returning to check on his pool?s progress. If a player noticed that there were 4 matches to be played before it?s his turn, he knows he?d better fucking stay put. If matches were structured this way, players have no excuse for missing their match. Not as many people would get DQ?ed, and without sacrificing time efficiency.
(Adjustments to these rules can be made for matches to be featured on the stream.)
Double elimination brackets are not complicated, but when you got people waiting for 2 hours to find out they have a bye, and didn’t have to sit there the whole time…and then you got people getting DQ’ed left right and center. Expecting people to just not be stupid is kind of a narrow minded approach, and no improvements will be made. I’m sure even the most patient and prudent of entrants could appreciate being able to predict when their next matchup is.
How about capcom create a new boxart for SSF4… make thousands of prints and hand em out for attendees? Why? because the current boxart is ass
Other suggestions:
-A contest for best custom joystick design.
-Brief post-match interviews. For semi-finals and up. It would maybe add maybe a minute to every match, but do wonders for production value.
-Instant replay and brief analysis on the stream and/or big screen for featured matches.
bokchoy, I really like all of those suggestions, I’m not sure about the replay for people at the event, but it would be great to see for the stream. I really like the idea of contests, maybe we could add a cosplay contest? I saw some great ones, and if there was a contest, we’d see tons more.
Streaming issues
They need to make the stream way way way better. 80% of the first day was pretty much unwatchable due to the horrible stream. And then the stream even went out several times during the top 8 and the finals! Level up really needs to level up or EVO should find a new streaming partner.
Also I would recommend using ustream from the very beginning since it works much better than whatever level up was using before as ustream worked really well the previous year.
pools:
dry erase boards on a stick to write names of any players who need to come up to play soon, to be held above the crowd
because the names written on the brackets are impossible to read unless you push your way right in front of it
people need to be DQ’d quicker. If people love SSFIV so much then please show up for the fing match. I was in two games and was able to play all my matches, but seem to enjoy trailing off and not being around to hear their name be called. This gave the staff some trouble cuz they were told not to DQ people. All it did was slow shit down for everyone which is needlessly dumb.
It seems like if you got DQ’d then you deserved that shit from what I saw.
A cosplay contest would be hilarious because you know it’d raise the amount of cosplayers ten fold.
“Your call is important to us. Please remain on the line. Your estimated wait time is between 5 minutes and 3 hours.” <-- this shouldn’t ever have to happen at Evo.
People wouldn’t have to get DQ’d if they had a general idea as to when their match was. Not hard to do. Even with 100+ man brackets.
I have a few suggestions but as a tournament organizer I also have responses to some of your suggestions and complaints.
For those of you in Pool K, I was the one who helped out in the beginning when Jonathan (I think it’s you, Binkly?) was losing his voice. I left for a while because I wanted to grab something quick to eat, but I got lost trying to find a spot to get a candy bar. I wound up going to the only place I knew of which was all the way in the back of the mall near the Cheesecake Factory. Seriously, Caesar’s was fucking HUGE. I didn’t intend on leaving for so long, but I couldn’t find a damn convenience store until after Day 2. When I came back I ran the bracket until the end and I thought it went pretty smoothly. For those of you who think otherwise, I apologize.
On that note, I think a PA system of sorts is definitely in order. I’ll get a megaphone for next year if this isn’t possible and if I’m allowed to. For those of you complaining that some pool handlers kept telling you “hang on” when you asked a question, you need to try to understand that there were about 120 of you to each bracket and while you’re asking where you are in the bracket, they’re trying to line up the next match and make sure everything is running smoothly. Then they forget you asked and they forget your face because they’re concerned about the other 119 people. It’s NEVER personal and we NEVER mean to ignore you or disregard your question. Some of us are more patient and more experienced in running bigger tournaments than others, but all help should be appreciated.
I didn’t come down for much of AM pools because all of my friends played in the PM, so I can’t speak for much more on the pools aspect. Hell, I didn’t even plan on running a pool this weekend, I never even picked up a badge for the event. I did get the cool t-shirt though!
I thought the stage was fucking AWESOME. The presentation was much nicer and cleaner than last year. Can someone link a video showing what it looked like on the stream? I didn’t think it looked bad at all.
I suppose bringing more stick sacks would’ve been good, but then the exclusivity of the product would be diminished. I do believe Wizard posted that limited quantities would be made available during EVO, but the main sale has been made online for the past 2 years. The stick sack is a unique product that, for the present moment, only EVO can offer. It’s like a limited edition anything, it’s only available for a short time.
Those complaining about stream quality, I don’t think there is any website available that can support 100,000+ viewers FOR FREE. That’s why Quakecon and Blizzcon are always on DirecTV as well as a PREMIUM STREAM available, typically for $50 or so dollars for either solution. This is not the fault of Level Up. Maybe EVO will try to partner up like id software and Blizzard do with the major networks, but the attendees and viewers of Quakecon and Blizzcon dwarf EVO in size. Fewer attendees means less money and less leverage to go to a network with. EVO is growing year by year, give it some time and we’ll always see improvement as we have this year.
I didn’t get to hear any of Sessler’s commentary aside from the quick 2 minutes him and Seth were on stage just before the Grand Finals of SSFIV, so I definitely can’t comment on that. Sessler is not only the host of X-Play, but is also a content director for G4 as a whole. Whether or not his commentary was bad, or that the camera crews got in the way of the spectators, everything helps this community grow and be exposed to the mainstream. Maybe EVO can go to G4 next year and tell them who they want commentating for the weekend and give them their own schedule and staff. They could possibly have G4 cut each person a check for the weekend and make sure they’re taken care of. Everyone needs to remember that this is still a small but tight unit that’s running EVO behind the scenes. These dude’s have day jobs, families, and lives just like most of us, so they don’t have all the time in the world to do all of these things. I forsee EVO growing into an actual company very soon, and when that day comes, more people will be on the payroll specializing in marketing, public relations, and getting all of the aforementioned done for us. But until that day, we will continue to grow from the inside out as a community.
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Caesar’s was fucking awesome, cilo in the suites was godlike (shout outs to Neo for teaching me how to play, and Hevad for bodying us with those militant deuces), and networking with so many great people made coming to EVO and not entering a single tournament worthwhile. Thanks so much for the shoutout and I hope to see all of you at future tournaments as well as EVO 2011!
Agree with Head to Head Setup. i think pad players have an advantage(very very small) in side to side setup.
people who don’t know about the game wouldn’t do commentary.( you all know who)
Instant replay is good on down time.
In Pool play( day 1). They should put more big names vs big names on the stream. Not random scrub vs Alex Valle 4 times.
Each Judges should look at his/her pool for possible match up to go to stream.
I heard there was TV lag on the stream. i don’t know if this is true or not. If that’s true. test the TV for lag first before design on which TV to use.
I feel like the double elimination format get taxing when it gets up to 1200+ people.
Some people go 0-2. It’s a 3 day long tournament and you can be eliminated in the first hour, kinda sucks.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a practical solution off the top of my head but I do feel like something should be done.