The Trocadero will be under new management from the 20th of September 2005, I have been invited to a meeting in trocadero somtime next week possibly monday afternoon. They want me to run tournaments and advise them on how we can make the arcade scene like it once was( those exact words)
They said that they will allow me to do almost anything that I want in terms of buying new machines and new games, they have promised to maintain the machines(at night) and let us do whatever we want in terms of running tournaments and organising international events.
I have a very good idea of what it would take to get people to come back to the arcade and what needs to be done to make the arcades here as good as the arcades in japan, but I would like the input from everybody who has been to trocadero to give there opinion on what they would like to see.
Ok here is what I would like for all of you to do.
Make a list of 20 things that you don`t like about trocadero
Make a list of 10 things that you would like to see to improve trocadero.
Make a list of what it would take to make people come back to the arcade.
Thats excellent news. But I was under the impression Troc was closing down? Unless Ive missed out on something. ( Edit: Just re-read your post)
I havent been to Troc for ages, talking years and years.
I think in order to get more people coming in they will need a couple of cabs for each main fighter. 3S, CVS2, T5 and MVC2 + ST. Seeing some other games there such as Garou, 2002, reload and A3 would be nice. Hell I know I would attend with at least 7-8 people just for CVS and thats just me.
Cant really say too much on the matter since I havent been for so long. But as much fun as it is to watch other people play, having a good selection of games and possibly a free machine to take up is equally as good.
Best of luck at the meeting :karate:
Also, if Troc do host tournies, that will obviously get A LOT more people walking through their doors.
you needn’t limit this to just aksing uk people. i’m sure americans and people who have been in japan could give advice on whats good in an arcade and what’s not.
being rammed into a shitty corner like it is now isn’t great. i wouldn’t mind a bar or something to get drinks or refreshments while playing.
it’s take some serious incentives to get me to trek all the way up to london. perhaps if a token system was used there could be some sort of free credit for every 5 quid you change into tokens, or 2 free ones for a tenner.
perhaps some sort of freeplay on the least popular machine for one hour each night of the weekend. i always see empty machines like ggx. it’s a waste of space just sitting there, so 1 hr of freeplay would get people playing, get them better, drum up competition and get them paying for it possibly. hell, 30 mins of freeplay first thing in the morning, get people in early, get em hooked.
The place is dirty as hell. the carpets are nasty and it smells.
most of the floor space of the trocadero is taken up by shitty machines. i think they should get rid of half the arcade and establish a food ourt or shops or restaurents etc. If they had a shopping centre there it would bring in a whole load more people which is better than the current situation.
it’s a bit dark in there too.
basically scrap 3/4 of the arcade, double the size of the fighting game arcade, get cvs2 in there and thats better than now.
Sounds good chunkis, I cant be bothered to e-mail you, all you need to know is that the thing I hate about troc are the lazy/stupid technicians, blaytant. The thing I like… versus city cabs DOUBLE BLAYTANT.
Personally, I’d like some proper cabs with two sets of controls on the front. The Versus City style cabs are great for Japan since it’s much easier to challenge someone without any worries. We’re much less reserved on the whole in England though, so there are no worries with just walking up and sitting next to someone. You also get to dicuss the game, and you don’t have to keep jumping out of your seat between rounds to see who you’re playing!
Other than that, just sort the bloody controls out, and sort the knackered cabs out. I’ve been to the Troc three times this year, and two of those times Zero 3 has been out of action for some reason or another.
Also, they should start getting the new games in when they come out, since GGXX is probably the most recent game they’ve got. I’m not arsed about Neowave or Fighting Jam, but every arcade I went to in Japan had Neo Geo Battle Colosseum and Melty Blood Act Cadenza, both of which are still pretty recent. GGXX Slash and KOFXI surely need to be brought in when they come out!
I’d like a bar as The Mullah says, but I can’t see that happening! Even a goddamn vending machine selling cokes for a quid or something similarly extortionate would be much better than the current situation!
And for purely selfish reasons (and well into the realms of fantasy), a couple of recent shooters! I’ve heard they used to have Border Down in, god knows why they got rid of that. Ibara would be nice to have, although it’s had a pretty muted reception in Japan I really liked it.
Edit: Also a quid a play for Tekken 5 is really cutting down the audience I reckon.
So there us now a possiblilty that the Troc is gonna stay open and im running out of excuses not to go lol erm yea like willie said a coke machine would be nice as would another 3s machine :tup:
Also with talk of comps etc would the RB move there ??? or would that be too much of a pain ?
Phix
Nah. Unless the cab is the size of the big T5 cab (And big cabs = less games) then you get no benefit but chafed elbows, and also with the VS setup, the screen is direct infront of you, which I for one find better. Having a screen to yourself isn’t an antisocial thing, it’s a comfort thing.
Also, standing on the chair to look over the machine is great exercise
Thanks for doing your bit to improve the UK scene - much appreciated. Vague musings below:
Things that you don`t like about trocadero
Broken/dodgy controls would be top of my list. The staff should listen to the players and fix any problems with the sticks immediately
A few people have complained about the conditions in the Troc; that we’re stuck in a corner on grubby carpets, etc. I don’t see this as too much of a problem - we come for the games and the competition, not the furniture and fittings. Pimping up the surroundings wont make people turn up, IMHO.
Things that you would like to see to improve trocadero
Listen to the players when buying new games in
Be involved with organising tournaments. Make them more official, do what you can to help the people who run them
Provide equipment for tourneys. For example, maybe look at having a couple of cabs with the same game in; provide a projector and screen for the finals, etc.
For 2 years I’ve been telling them to turn up the volume on the 3rd strike machine and they haven’t done it. I can’t play without sound. Not only is the volume so low, but the volume on the other machines is so much higher.
Plus they need to sort out the shit joysticks. The bad attitude of the engineers gets on my tits.
Let’s have it like Namco Wonderpark, 14 tokens for 5. If I get any more bright ideas, I’ll post again. Forget emailing you because at least we get to see what other people say here.
Make sure the buttons/sticks on the cabinets are working properly. I’ve lost count of the amount of people who now refuse to make the long trek to Trocadero because there’s no guarantee the cab they want to play on will be in working condition. And on that same note…
Hire people who know how to, and will, fix the damn buttons/sticks when things go tits up. It’s all well and good them promising to fix things at night but what happens if one of the buttons breaks in the morning and you have someone come down from Newcastle to play, only for a technician to say “Sorry! Only fix things at night”? Then you’ve pretty much pissed off a customer for life.
Create more space. Being crammed into that small corner sucks.
Get some sort of ventilation system going, it’s like being in a fucking Turkish prison once everyone is crammed into that corner. Men don’t smell nice. Do something about it.
If you’re not going to rearrange machines to create more space, then at the very least take out the Virtua Tennis 1 cab and the shmup cab and put in two relevant fighting ones - ST, Garou, CvS2, whatever.
Get VF: Final Tuned in.
Blah.
Blah.
Blah
chunkis, you should ask them which parts of the arcade are making money and which aren’t. Funland is about double the size it needs to be and the layout is an absolute mess, I don’t see how it can possibly make money. Why not just split things up so you have a shmup section, fighting section, girls section for the DDR shit, etc etc.
And props to Phix for calling Willei ‘willie’ lol :tup:
I’ve got to disagree there. You don’t need a Tekken 5 machine to have enough space to play properly. The Versus City cabs have to sit in the middle of the room, and you could probably fit more cabs in having them round the outside of the room.
On the other hand, the machine that you have to play Super Turbo in is so small it’s pathetic - we don’t need more cabs like that. Since they’ve already got a load of VS cabs, it doesn’t make sense to throw them out so I can see them staying.
One more thing, move that football game out of the way. Not only does it not belong anywhere near the fighting games, I’ve also never seen a single person play it. Stick ST in that cab instead! :tup:
