TOS VENUE IS CLOSED INDEFINITELY.
Sorry about the sudden notice, I just found out a few hours ago myself.
Here’s links to my favourite places around here.
And Gamebreakers in Aurburn.
So yeah I try to call but nobody ever answers. Thinking about coming in but I don’t want to pay $25, can I pay $5 for one time?
I’ve seen the guy who works there give people a free night on there first visit. It’s a pretty loose atmosphere for the guys who are just in it for the fighting games. No bouncers to hustle you. Feel free to just show up and see if this is something you’ll be interested in. You’ll be able to get some games in.
A handful of us OlympiaFightclub people are making plans to check out TOS on Saturday. I am excited to check this place out. I hope this venue is Spot on because the lack of viable venues in Washington astound me.
Wow, I’m excited to meet you guys.
Your definitely right about the lack of viable venues. The scene I’ve been trying to grow here wouldn’t of made it this far if it wasn’t for one lucky break after another. For example, I work with the manager of TOS. When I was first hired at the PC store next door, I found out that he’s been trying to start a scene for years. I just happened to be a hard core fighting game fan who ran out of willing friends to fight and couldn’t find local regular organized meet ups. I laid out a business plan that day and he has been nothing short of amazing when it comes to giving into my demands. As long as I can prove that there are people out there who are willing to show up regularly and share my passion, he’s proven willing to cater to all our desires.
I have to thank SRK and the core group that has been with us since I started this back in October. Because of them, I’ve since been able to start a special membership deal just for fighting game fans that lowers the price and doubles the amount of days available to us. Not sure if that’s really mind blowing but it definitely makes me feel like a super serious negotiating important business man. As long as our regular player base grows, so will our resources and our general clout on how things work.
My dream is to one day make TOS the fighting game mecca of the region. Wether that happens or not isn’t really a huge deal. Either way, I’ll be here struggling with my Haggar team or trying to get people to stop laughing at my Makoto.
I hope the trip up from Olympia goes well for you guys.
It was a lot of fun heading up there from Oly. I really enjoyed the matches I had with the Zero player (Will?). Dark Felicia rises.
Yeah, his name was Will. His Zero is unsettling once he understands whats going on, haha.
I want to thank the guy who helped explained KoF13 to me. I forgot his name but, thanks to him, I picked the game up on Sunday.
I’m really glad you guys could make it out here. Hopefully on one of these Thursdays I’ll be able to leave work a bit early and catch a few battles down there.
Overall I was really impressed over the sheer amount of diversity of games you all play. A lot of representation going on, which I love a lot.
I gotta remind all of those who wish to come back that venue fees will apply next time. Also, for those who are planning on making Saturday night a habit, or even Wednesdays if you can swing it, it would be smart to pick up the monthly pass. Much much cheaper. For those who didn’t get a chance to check the place yet, you still have your free first night.
I do have a question for everybody. If you could change anything about TOS, what would it be? Did you find anything missing from the experience that you come to expect or anything you think that could be changed? If you guys have any suggestions, let me know. I’m about as new to all of this as as you can get.
Another thing I am interested in is setting up some sort of tournament time table down the line. Perhaps once a month or so where we could get together and rank ourselves. I want to know if there is any interest towards something like that.
I’m also interested in setting up some sort of team for regional tournaments and the like, at least to start with, and perhaps more assuming if things go well on that front. Let me know if you already have something like that or if you are all interested starting something.
All in all, it warms my heart to see fighting games on all the console monitors on Saturday night. I’ve been dreaming about that for a long time.
His name is Jordan aka Rising Church. There are usually two types of formats fighting game organizers use: Monthly tournaments and Ranking battles. At this moment in time we don’t hold any Ranking battles. Ryan aka Aburnflags usually organizes the tournaments at OCC but I’m sure there are some of us that would show up to TOS if there were tournaments there. If you want to talk about it more in detail. I might make another visit to TOS.
The amount of space dedicated to gaming was actually very impressive to me, a lot more than we are accustom to at the moment. There are some fighting gamers that despise input latency caused by HD Displays. So the Vizio TV’s could deter some competitive players but I’m sure it would be fine for casuals. The extra open areas would be great for people to bring there own set ups for side tournaments. So I would discourage the owners from buying anymore HD Displays unless they are proven to have low input latency values of 10ms or less.
The layout of TOS is not very spectator friendly so it would be hard to have any type of audience without moving some furniture around which would only be applicable if you had some type of high profile tournament.
Parking was actually pretty good, assuming people could park on the sides of the building if the attendance was high. I wonder what the capacity of TOS is? Location is pretty decent because its close to S. Tacoma Way., HW-512, and Lakewood Town Center.
Streaming would be the last thing I would suggest. If your trying to hold monthlies it would be good to stream or at least record tournament matches. That would provide free advertisement to TOS and could definitely help bring more new comers. You could also stream / hold Ranking battles. They are generally more complicated to hold and requires more time to setup and execute, however competitively they are more rewarding.
TOS could also hold online tournaments using Galaxy4Gamers, but that would be an endeavor worth looking into in the future. Point being that there are many avenues of approach to reach competitive fighting game players that TOS hasn’t used effectively. After living here for 3 years I have never heard of TOS til this month which is really unfortunate. There are definitely so many resources now that TOS needs to take advantage of them while they can.
Thank you for the input, I really appreciate your time. I hope I’m able to answer most of your questions.
People can definitely bring their own setups just as long as they understand that TOS isn’t responsible for their stuff.
All the furniture can be moved around without any issue. I’d like to have the interesting matches on the big TV in the corner, I feel that place can best accommodate spectators. The cubicles aren’t very friendly for onlookers and I’m not sure how realistically we can fix it. But, all the tables and couches can be tossed around as needed and the max occupancy is 50.
I know for sure you can park along the sides as well. Parking isn’t too bad here, especially after 6PM when ACC Tech shuts down.
I passed along the information regarding TV latency to Ash, the manager.
I’ve also spoke to Ash a few times on setting up a stream in the beginning. I haven’t yet to because of the lack of any serious reason to. It would be my pleasure to get one together once we have something organized.
On that note, I would definitely like to collaborate with you on the possibility of setting up events. I personally have zero experience so I’ll take all the help I can get. My goal is to have regular tournaments or ranking battles up and running soon. This is officially my next step. The hard parts has been gathering enough interested participants willing to show up on a particular day. I’m hoping that’s starting to change with the addition of the Saturday time slot, time will tell on that angle.
I know what you mean about how hidden TOS seems. I’ve lived in Lakewood for the better part of the last decade and I never heard of this place until I was offered a job next door back in October. I was pretty shocked as well but I took as a divine message.
Oh hey a location playing marvel regularly that isn’t three hours away! I’ll try to bring my friend out there too next Saturday, do you guys use a specific system or is it just whichever setups end up there?
We typically use PS3 because that’s what the core members have at home. However, if your into Xbox 360, you won’t be stuck out in the cold. TOS has at least 5 Xbox’s and 2 PS3’s all together along with 4 cubicle stations and 1 big screen couch set up that we like to use.
We also have some in house TE sticks that have more than likely never been touched in the few years they’ve been there. So if we get a decent Marvel game going on a 360, those with ps3 sticks and no converters are always welcome to use those.
The main drawback I can see for Xbox players is that we typically bring our own games and nobody I know owns any fighters for Xbox. The only exception is that TOS has a copy of SF4:AE but that’s it.
So if you plan on exclusively using an Xbox 360, bring your own games.
Today I purchased an HD-PVR. So streaming and match recording should be possible in the near future.
I’ll work on getting a dedicated computer set up within the next few days. I am thinking about using the counter with the TE sticks sitting on it as the recording/streaming station. See how all that pans out. Either way, it will interesting project.
I’m planning on learning how to use it on Friday night. I have plans to make a video showcasing a possible Akuma glitch I found. Hopefully, I should be an expert on the whole process by the time I finish it.
I suppose the next step is to figure out how to set up a you tube channel and do research on streaming services.
If anybody has any suggestions, go ahead and post them. I need all the help I can get.
u guys playin tonight? i wanna come check it out… im not that far. i got some friends that do streams on twitch.tv
Yeah. We’re playing tonight. Come on by.
so the first night is free? if i like it ill pay the member fee… im tryin to run some AE2012 matches
Hey, Alex… why don’t you ever come out to GBZ? It’s a great venue thats only like 20 minutes away and there is always good people there.
whens the next time u goin out there? next time u go ill follow u
ohh and GGs the other night at TOS.
Most definitely! Glad that you could make it.
Alright, you got two more for tonight. I have to work in the morning, so we won’t be able to stay the whole time, though.
edit: nevermind. 