Next Level LAN Presents: August Awesomeness

[[GB]Cecil]

Next Level Lan Presents: August Awesomeness!

Tournament Date:
Saturday August 20th 2011


Format:
Doubles, Singles for Brawl

Time:
Registration: 11:00 AM

Doubles Starts:
Noon

Singles Starts after Doubles but not earlier then 3pm

-Note For those that haven't been to a Gigabits or Next Level Tournament before this is an all day affair if participating in Doubles and Singles you will probably be here from around 11am to around 11pm or later (depending on how many people show).



DISCLAIMER: there will be NO Refunds given without extreme emergency on the day of the tournament! This will run till at least 9pm, if you can't stay that late don't enter! Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on our part.



Gamer Fees:

Doubles: $10 admission per player ($20 per team)
Singles: $15 admission per player



BRAWL RULES:
Rules= Stock
Stock = 3
Handicap = Off
Damage Ratio = 1.0
Friendly Fire = On
Self-destruct = -1
Items = Off


Both tournaments are Double Elimination as well as best two out of three with the semifinals and finals best 3 out of 5.

Neutral Stages:
-Battlefield
-Final Destination
-Smashville
-Yoshi's Island (Brawl)

Counterpick Stages:
-Lylat Cruise
-Delfino Plaza
-Castle Siege
-Frigate Orpheon
-Battleship Halberd
-Brinstar
-Pokemon Stadium 1



Prizes:

Singles

If below than 70 players:

1st Place 35% of Singles Admission
2nd Place 20%
3rd Place 10%
4th Place 5%

If above 70 players:
1st Place 35% of Singles Admission
2nd Place 15%
3rd Place 10%
4th Place 5 %
5th/6th 2.5%
5th/6th 2.5%

If there is a majority vote under 70 players to change the prize support to the > 70 bracket, we may change it to that. Otherwise the default is what it currently stands at.

Doubles

First Place team will receive 40% of doubles admission
Second Place team will receive 20% of doubles admission
Third Place team will receive 10% of doubles admission



Snacks and Food Available for Purchase at Next Level LAN (stock permitting)

- Pepsi Products (Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Teas, Juices, and more)
- Monster
- Vitamin Water
- Starbucks Frapachinos
- Chips (Lays Products)
- Candy (Lots of different Candy Bars, Airheads, etc etc)
- Moon pies, brownies, Etc.
- THERE IS A DRINKING FOUNTAIN!


Also located near our Plaza is:

Burger King
Pollo Tropical
Dunkin Doughnuts
Perkins
Taco Bell
McDonald's
Orlando Alehouse
Chinese food

Yes, you are allowed to bring outside food and drink into the store. Just dispose of it!

Location:
University Corporate Center
6947 Univeristy Blvd.
Winter Park, FL 32792
407-923-5883

NLL is in the middle of the chain of businesses with the big "X" on the banner of the store. Just check where a bunch of cars are. Parking allowed in rear (lol).

Directions: http://www.nextlevellan.com/contactus.html

Coming off 417 (toll road):

Get off at the exit for the University of Central Florida, University Blvd.
Go straight down university heading for Full Sail. NLL is in the plaza on the right side of the street at the intersection of University Blvd and Forsyth Trail.

Coming off 408 (toll road):

Get off at the exit for the University of Central Florida - You stay on 408 till it literally turns into Challenger Parkway. Stay on Challenger Parkway until you reach the intersection of Challenger and Alafaya Tr.

Hang a right on Alafaya Tr.

Contiune on Alafaya Tr. until you reach the intersection of University and Alafaya. Turn left here and go down University until you reach the same area described in the 408 directions.


See Next Level LAN website at www.NextLevelLAN.com


*NOTE*Next Level LAN will provide some TVs and WII systems but we will need more so we can hold friendlies and make the tournament go smoothly.

 

[[GB]Cecil]

Let me know if this is the right place to post it that will get the most traffic please~


FENGA PAPIT

 

[skaterbaj]

So much smash in orlando

 

[Exdeath]

I should be here.

 

[kirbydabest]

i shall be here HYPE

 

[SxK]

Hell yeah. Hopefully Gainesville can come and wreck lives.

 

[Kuro~]

Idk if i'll be able to come to nll this time . This is a day after i move into dorm at UCF =/

 

[GDX]

I should be here. A celebration tourney right before college starts

And I'd you've moved into your dorm as long as you have a dorm key you should be free to go anywhere

 

[ZHMT]

Imma be living 5 mins off ucf on the 19th, any chance I can get a ride to this? or help in some way

 

[Zoro]

RANT

What the heck is wrong with melee players that they refuse to show up to these NLL events?

The venue is nice..way more comfortable than Gigabits ever was.
Just because we share the place with brawl people doesn't mean we can't have a successful tourney. Everyone just try to bring a setup or a gcube or something so we can have more than 4 games going at a time. Severe lack of setups at the last few tournaments.

WATO series is over guys, we don't have too many options. ZP and NLL should be good enough venues for FL smash to keep going strong. If more melee peeps show up we can probably convince the organizers to run melee and brawl on separate days. The last time they tried that they got like 9 entrants for their melee only tournament, so it's up to us to change things around and fully utilize this opportunity. ZP and NLL should have monthlies for melee so that there can be a tournament once every two weeks. One in the south and one in center.

Let's do our best to keep interest for melee. We got a decent amount of committed attendees. I even see new players showing a lot of interest in the scene even though brawl is the new ish right now, which is awesome. Melee is a unique game it's not like Marvel, Blazblue or SF where they all share some elements of traditional fighting games. Melee is not all that similar to brawl either and if it was more brawlers would play melee and more melee players would play brawl. I don't think the scene will die anytime soon, because there isn't anything to replace Melee yet. While some players grow up and move on with life. Newer and younger players like Plup,Fearless, Kuya, 3, etc will take interest and take the time and effort to master the game and replace the older generation. There just has to be an established and accessible scene for these players to be rooted. It isn't something that is out of our hands. It just takes organized effort, the same effort that should be used to do PR's and other things that IMO spark attendance. We haven't been able to successfully do anything like that and I don't see any reason why we cant.

Melee only seems like it is dying when we don't place a high value on it ourselves. The pessimism is contagious. We convinced ourselves that brawl or newer games have destroyed the possibility of higher attendance and interest. If we don't hype up the game why would anyone want to be involved. I've done just little things like upload videos, commentate and regularly attend tournaments and try to be welcoming and helpful to new people. A few people have already told me that the videos of OUR tournaments that I uploaded are what encouraged them to get into OUR local scene. That's another thing stop thinking you are too cool or too good to talk to bad players. I see it all the time, in fact, good people wouldn't give me the time of day when I was starting out. I don't see that in the brawl community, you can be the most awkward nubiest nub in the world and people will still find something to relate with you. The elitism is intimidating and doesn't help the community in any way. I've been guilty of it myself even though i've always been bad. It's just something we have to consciously put an end to.

If you want to quit, then quit. Stop bad mouthing the game or it's scene. We have a dedicated community that can only grow. I don't think it is dying, it's the same as its been for many years. I just think that we aren't gathering new members as much as brawl has because we aren't doing enough for the community. I watch street fighter scene and even at the local level so much more effort is put into running the tournaments. Contribute, post in tournament threads actively to increase the hype. Bring setups, stay till the end, help people improve. Convince people that we are still here.

GO TO NLL

Rant End

 

[Rx-]

thoughtful reverse rant

the problem with NLL is that they dont have any setups of their own and the room they confine the melee players to a room isnt much bigger than a bedroom. on top of that, the people running it dont understand the community (the way cecil understood us), and based on past attendance, there's really no guarantee that any number of good players will show up. and after that there is the problem that most people dont want to spend so much to play in small melee tournaments. low-mid level players usually will pay 5 and many back out if it's 10, and very few enter when it's 15. it's a difficult choice, but i think i know what would make more people enter. we should do these tournaments with pools of 6-7 players, and that way people will feel more excited about coming/paying/entering.

i will tell you right now i am not paying $15 to go to NLL just to lose to two people in bracket and maybe have the chance at beating someone I already knew I could beat before getting knocked out.
pools give you 5+ tournament sets for your money, build hype, and just overall add value to the idea of attending and entering.

i want to help the melee community to last forever, but tournaments like NLL wont make or break the community. we need tournaments like CEO, but without a stupid billion dollar door fee, and we need to just have one tournament every two months, one that everyone prepares for, asks off work well in advance, and decides to go to. biweekly tournaments crush the community

i've wanted to host a tournament for a while, moreso now because i live with colin and we can guarantee the attendance of at least our crew.(the reason wato has always been more reliable than NLL) the benefit of hosting a tournament is that I can run it exactly the way I feel is fair (hbox asking $5 door fee was stupid and everyone knows it), and I would like to hold more events(no brawl, just melee variations) and reward people for bringing setups (another thing NLL needs to do). anyone who has been to a tournament that I've hosted would probably remember that I constantly force matches to be played so that the tournament goes as quickly as possible. so maybe we can take up where WATO left off, if NLL continues to fail in terms of attendance and quality

final thought- melee is the best and i will be the last person playing it, 60 years from now, but yall suckaz need to JAZPOP imo jk turrets

 

[bladeofapollo]

All in favor of Rx- hosting GBW-1 (guys, buy wards) say: aye.

I'll also try to be at NLL in a few weeks, though I agree we either need to change entrance fee or tournament organization.

 

[Zoro]

thoughtful reverse rant

the problem with NLL is that they dont have any setups of their own and the room they confine the melee players to a room isnt much bigger than a bedroom. on top of that, the people running it dont understand the community (the way cecil understood us), and based on past attendance, there's really no guarantee that any number of good players will show up. and after that there is the problem that most people dont want to spend so much to play in small melee tournaments. low-mid level players usually will pay 5 and many back out if it's 10, and very few enter when it's 15. it's a difficult choice, but i think i know what would make more people enter. we should do these tournaments with pools of 6-7 players, and that way people will feel more excited about coming/paying/entering.

i will tell you right now i am not paying $15 to go to NLL just to lose to two people in bracket and maybe have the chance at beating someone I already knew I could beat before getting knocked out.
pools give you 5+ tournament sets for your money, build hype, and just overall add value to the idea of attending and entering.

i want to help the melee community to last forever, but tournaments like NLL wont make or break the community. we need tournaments like CEO, but without a stupid billion dollar door fee, and we need to just have one tournament every two months, one that everyone prepares for, asks off work well in advance, and decides to go to. biweekly tournaments crush the community

i've wanted to host a tournament for a while, moreso now because i live with colin and we can guarantee the attendance of at least our crew.(the reason wato has always been more reliable than NLL) the benefit of hosting a tournament is that I can run it exactly the way I feel is fair (hbox asking $5 door fee was stupid and everyone knows it), and I would like to hold more events(no brawl, just melee variations) and reward people for bringing setups (another thing NLL needs to do). anyone who has been to a tournament that I've hosted would probably remember that I constantly force matches to be played so that the tournament goes as quickly as possible. so maybe we can take up where WATO left off, if NLL continues to fail in terms of attendance and quality

final thought- melee is the best and i will be the last person playing it, 60 years from now, but yall suckaz need to JAZPOP imo jk turrets

You have a lot of good points. I agree that we should do pools so that people feel they are getting their moneys worth. We need more setups for that and that means more contribution from the players. Would it be possible to charge amateurs less? 10 dollars for entree fee sounds good to me. Charging 5 to nubs seems like a good idea to me although I have no experience organizing tournaments. Explain to me why that system would not be functional.

I don't believe Bi weeklies kill communities. When ZP and Gigs were running at the same time I think florida smash was never better. I think that your shared mentality about tournaments is crushing the community Rx. People seem to look at the apparent negative aspects of a series before seeing the potential. Example: Wato is a house tournament that is hot, small and cramped. Yet it worked out pretty well for a house tournament, would have done a lot better if people looked past all that. I think it is indisputable that Gigabits was the most successful series Florida Smash has ever seen. It wasn't big, it wasn't spacious, it was hot, uncomfortable but we made it work.I'd choose Hard Knocks' venue over Gigs' any day but we all know how that turned out (HK sucks). Why was Gigabits so consistent in the first place? Hiroshi, me and one or two other players introduced the MLG ruleset and asked Mwarhead and the owner if we could change the tournament since it was originally FFA with items. Once they saw that smash had a devoted community they saw a mutually beneficial opportunity. They give us the liberty to run tournaments the way we want and we consistently show up when they hold events. They had an average of 30+ attendance for more than four years. I think that is a remarkable feat so yes I do talk about gigs a lot. Only because it is the best model we have for successful tournament series.

Whether it is I or Rx, we don't have the resources or time to run a series that will have a lasting impact on the community. Noob, Extreme Play, Florida Gaming, Fast, Lake Mary, Twilight Showdown, all these tournaments had great starts and potential but were not fully taken advantage of because players did not buy into them. People immediately bought into Gigabits and that is what made it work. WE MADE IT WORK. We can talk all day about saving the scene with one great tournament but we all know that won't work. We need a business like NLL to invest in us and we need to commit to them. The mentality that tournaments won't get high attendance so I won't go is what CAUSES low attendance. We are spreading that mindset like a Virus. Wato will always be at NLL because Wato members go to all the CFL tournaments. There is no difference between Juan's tournament and NLL. Most of us show up to both (if we don't work which means we wouldnt go to WATO either) so that part of your argument is irrelevant. You go to WATO (which is farther than NLL) because you know other people have bought into it.

Posting, giving insight opinions and recommendations are what we need. People who actually care need to get involved. When someone speaks out people automatically give a pessimistic reaction or don't get involved because it's easy to stand idly by and watch other people sort things out. I think everyone that attends these tournaments cares about the direction we are heading to pretend they don't is just stupid. We wouldn't travel for these things if we didn't care. Lets take that enthusiasm and direct it to making a lasting imprint on the community. Let's organize BETTER events, let's actually do some PR's, let's communicate what we like and dislike and what needs to change. Let's try new things. I know NLL is willing to work with us and give us our own tournaments. We just need to stop whining, organize better and show up. I'm not saying NLL will be our savior but we have to look at the big picture and think what will have the most lasting effect on the community. Gigabits wasn't the sustainer or savior of smash back in the day but it was a big part of it. I honestly believe Gigabits' spiritual successor IS NLL. I have no reason not to think so.

 

[GDX]

I'm going all wario in singles at this. No matter what. Even against the penguins

Hope attendance is good though. Weekend right before college starts so some may not be able to make it. Just makes more time for friendlies

 

[Frames]

any venue can be a great one the trick is to run tournaments properly with the venue, i've seen the biggest tournaments go in the ****tiest venues just because of the people behind it

i 100% agree with john on his post he makes a lot of valid points, nll don't interest a lot of people because the dates are frequent and the right people aren't behind it

price is definitely an issue, ceo i heard had like 300 for marvel? but like 30 for melee why? because nobody wants to pay 20 just to get in and then have to compete with other fighting games. other communities always look down on smash so as a consumer why am i gonna waste time and a lot of money for a tournament where i just get treated like a second rate gamer?

the trick is...well not a trick at all, just a cheap venue with setups and keep it cheap! don't mix other games besides smash, melee brawl or both, that's it, if anything marvel and those should be side events or friendlies

and i'm sick of the whole "tournaments will be small because you have the mindset that they will be small" argument. people need to be realistic you can't just fully commit to something that seems unreliable, that's something people won't do for anything, never mind a video game tournament. you gotta have a good plan to bring in good numbers

look at fast1. why did it work? because i had a TON of help from other people who wanted a great tournament. there's NO way i could've done that on my own it would've been a crappy turnout and nobody would've shown up? did people know who i was? hell no even people in fl were like "who da **** is frames??" but i wanted a great tournament and i got the people to back me on the setup, that's the trick. you can't have one guy just host a thing and expect huge numbers you need people behind you, a staff. not just numbers, but people willing to make the tournament succeed, THATS what makes a great tournament. nobody knew who i was but we got m2k and shiz and all these top players to come out. the venue was decent but we could've done better, and there was expectation going into it that it wouldnt be successful. regardless of the xbox fiasco, purely from a tournament standpoint (brackets, pools, etc) most people generally had a good time, and that's how you really build a community. you don't need thousands of dollars, just get a place and get some people to help you run it who understand what it takes to really host a good event.

quality setup = quality tournament

 

[hungrybox]

FAST1 was the ****

 

[Zoro]

and i'm sick of the whole "tournaments will be small because you have the mindset that they will be small" argument. people need to be realistic you can't just fully commit to something that seems unreliable, that's something people won't do for anything, never mind a video game tournament. you gotta have a good plan to bring in good numbers

It makes no sense that people WON'T get behind it because of FREQUENT dates. Who do you mean when you say the right people aren't behind it? The people that currently run the tournaments do more than adequate.Sure we can do better but that's why we are discussing it. The owners are opening their doors to us, why wouldn't we take advantage? Nobody has explicitly stated the problem with the people that run NLL. They've been nothing but great hosts in my opinion. PM me about it if you don't wanna say it here.

Frames, you ran what two national level tournaments? I know you have way more experience in this area than I do. I'm just saying we aren't trying to bring in 60 people or 100 people we are looking for the same 20 to 30 that go to WATO or that went to Florida Gaming to show up to NLL. If more come great but the mission is to stabilize the local scene right now. Without WATO, what other options does CFL have? Do we all really want to wait a month or months just for locals? NLL is a venue that will not move any time soon hopefully, they are a business, we are their customers. That relationship benefits us because it gives us a stable location to host events. Instead of flip flopping venues people can automatically assume that every 2nd saturday of the month for example, there will be melee and they know exactly where it will be.

I don't think we should have to provide more incentive for people to come to NLL when they already attend other tournaments. I've never seen such a nice venue so underutilized. They are making a conscious decision to reject it and I'm trying to get to the bottom of why that is.

I want to change the status quo I think there needs to be reform in the way we execute these tournaments as well as the local community's mindset. This is for the people that come to every single event and get irritated because things aren't ideal. If you want things to improve then be a part of it. Attendance is not improving because of these planned months in advance tournaments. If it hasn't worked in the past then why should we value your opinion? Gigs went to sleep when brawl came out but came right back after the hype for that game died down. Frequent tournaments are the only things that will keep a scene active. I know I attended every single gigabits because it was frequent.

Also it's not like bi weeklies eliminate the need for large scale tournaments. We need to bring the OOS back here but we gotta take care of ourselves first. Rx's effort would be better served in producing another FAST2 than any local event.

New things like contests or raffles to entice new players. Lets develop strategies for ensuring we have adequate setups. Streams, videos, Good commentary to gain publicity for the local scene. Simple advertising and marketing on facebook. Actually talking with business owners to set up more comfortable venues. Two TVs on the same cube for a more arcade feel. Just a few things I though up on the spot. Things that are already integral parts of other communities but every smasher in the world apparently doesn't want to be a part of.

It's crazy to me that people want the scene to slowly die. They want to do things the old way. All it takes is initiative and people to get behind it like Frames said. I'm willing to do what I can but I can't do anything on my own.

PS the first thing i'm going to do is buy 10 cheap TVs at a pawn shop. Vericz apparently bought like 20 for less than 200 bucks or something when he ran florida gaming.

 

[kirbydabest]

zoro i dont play melee but completely agree with u it would be sad to see your scene die i mean nll alrdy can attract 20-30 even 40 ppl for brawl the same could be done for melee with the right advertisement and cooperation with the owners of nll

i try and go to nll every month for the reasons u stated because its reliable and its not a bad distance from where i live the venue at next level is amazing imo and should be utilized to its fullest for both melee and brawl for it could easily save the melee scene and keep it stable for the next couple of years

 

[VSC.D-Torr]

I'm pretty sure there are Smash-only events that have $20-30 door fees as well.

Jebailey was right when he said that Smashers only want to go to Smash-only events. I feel like I wasted my time taking over TO responsibilities of Smash at CEO now. It is what it is though.

BTW, EVO's door fee was $70 this year and each tourney was double-elimination (even in pools). If you lost twice, you were done for the whole weekend for that entire game. However, I'd bet you that 98% of the players would do it all over again.

There lies the difference between the two communities.

 

[GDX]

I'm pretty sure there are Smash-only events that have $20-30 door fees as well.

Jebailey was right when he said that Smashers only want to go to Smash-only events. I feel like I wasted my time taking over TO responsibilities of Smash at CEO now. It is what it is though.

BTW, EVO's door fee was $70 this year and each tourney was double-elimination (even in pools). If you lost twice, you were done for the whole weekend for that entire game. However, I'd bet you that 98% of the players would do it all over again.

There lies the difference between the two communities.

this is so true

in fact, im so hyped right now to go to EVO next year, in which theres a good chance ill get 0-2 in one of the games i'll get eliminated

our community is definitely fun, more fun to hang out with than SRK, but due to the younger age we are overall much cheaper, which makes it harder to host a larger scale tourney without the TO putting thousands of their own dollars with no hope of getting it back (before anyone goes there, what plank did was not right, so dont try to twist my post by me saying he was).

I mean, CEO was amazing right? that venue cost at least 6000, and thats WITH a hotel booking requirement similar to what plank had to lower venue pricing. The difference is that the SRK community puts the money down to attend their events, which helps cover OOS attendance/hotel room, which makes something like that possible. Its already been proven that, put in the same situation, the smash community falters in that aspect (pound V). For example, everyone in the SRK community basically scoffs at the idea of anymore than 4-5 in a hotel room, while we wont have any less than 7-8.

It sucks because since we as a community cant really put the money down, we cant really host a large scale legit tourney that often. And since we cant consistently host a tourney of that nature, it makes it pretty much impossible to get sponsors in order to make more large tourneys...its a snowball effect that cant really ever be fixed due to the overall age group of our community. Its just a bad that comes with the good

but back on topic, I hope you melee guys get everything sorted out. What i've been doing lately for CFL to try to build up brawl numbers:
-less tourneys. Trying to limit to 2-3 total per month in the state
-more weekly free smashfests for people to actually practice and get in the community

 

[VSC.D-Torr]

Expanding on Keith's post, weeklies are not a bad thing, just as long as you treat them as just things to improve the community rather than competing for top billings. There are numerous MvC3/SSFIV weeklies and ranbats just for the sake of making their respective scenes more competitive, through the means of gaining more players and gaining more experience. Great examples of this are Wednesday Night Fights in California, Option-Select's Mixup Mondays and Throwdown Thursdays in Miami, Guard Crush in New York, and 8-Way Run's 8 on the Break weeklies in New Jersey.

 

[Frames]

all i'm trying to say is that the principle is the same for big and small tournaments, the same things that make a great regional or national tournament can easily make a local.

what are some good things about big tournaments?

big venue
lots of setups
payouts to more places (i think this is very important especially)

bad things

high cost to organizer (which translates to higher cost for the individual)
requires lengthy time commitment (several days usually)

now what we need to do in cfl is change the way our tournaments are to keep more of the good things and the way to do that is to just make a few changes that i think would make local tournaments more attractive


this isnt just for next this is just stuff in general, next does a bunch of this stuff already but they could do more and would benefit i think


1. keep the costs low to the players

keep door fees small, or nonexistent. psychologically there is a huge difference between 5 and 10 dollars, and something that totals 25 is much more appealing than something that is 30. people see small numbers and they're happier. keep event costs small too, a 9 person tournament where everyone pays 15 to enter isn't going to be as much fun as a 30 person tournament where everyone pays 10, even if the winners get less

in short: keep all fees to a minimum when possible


2. payout more places

this i think is a big thing lets say we payed out to 5th place all the time, not just for big tournaments, 15 people show up, suddenly 1/3rd of them are in the money, that is appealing, even if you only get like 3 dollars, hey that's three dollars more than you had before. more people are going to look and say "wow those tournaments have nice payouts we should go" since more people realize that with more payouts they have a better shot of getting some money. when you look around at a tournament, most people can usually pick out the top 3 in some order, and there are maybe like 4 or 5 people who could realistically get those spots, maybe not even. top 5? maybe like 10 or more people in that case.

in short: pay out to more places to get more people


3. make all players feel welcome for coming to your event

this is just like a nice thing, if people show up at your event be happy they came, make them feel like they are wanted and valued at your venue. if it's a low turnout then great, talk to the players and get to know them, we're people too and if there are low setups and things then there aren't always going to be times when you play, you might just be chillin a lot so lets talk and stuff

in short: make friends, its cool


4. make the experience worth it

this kind of ties back to the previous point but you should remember that people are paying money to come to your event, so why not make it really worth it for them? things like side tournaments, amateur buy-ins, these things are fun and can be good for players who get knocked out early, if a new player comes and gets knocked out in like one round and just leaves is he going to come back? probably not. take the time and do fun things to make sure everyone, from the top pro to the lowly scrub, has a great time

in short: do fun things for everyone - it keeps them coming back


5. hype

people overlook this but proper hype can really make a tournament. what people fail to understand though it how to effectively use hype.

question: what is hype?

hype is marketing. it is advertising. just saying "OMG this tournament is da bess everyone needs to come hypppppeeeeee" is not going to cut it. you need more than that because there are different players of different skill and they typically look for different things when deciding to go to a tournament or not. properly hyping your tournament can make a huge difference in drawing in big numbers

all players look for this:
big venue
cheap fees
lots of setups
lots of people
convenient time and date
hanging with friends
good times

specifically however players of differing skill look for this

top top players:
good numbers/good money (these go hand in hand typically) - they want to win and they know they can or at least get top 3, these are the m2ks, mangos etc, they're out to make bank

bottom players
HAVE FUN - they want to have fun period. they are going to get dead last and that is extremely demoralizing. however if they feel good about it they will come back and get dead last every time because it was fun and a good experience. this is why people pay money to go to genesis and other huge tournaments knowing they will lose, because the experience is there. they may even start to get better over time

middle players
the people in the middle they tend to get overlooked as just "well these are the decent people, they dont suck but they're not great" but you have to think about them too, this is where things like full results, brackets, things like that are very important. players at this level WANT TO SEE IMPROVEMENT! they like looking and saying "hey i got 7th this time, last time i got 9th yay". this is why if you have a tournament series you need to track player progression, it is a HUGE factor in getting repeat attendance

gigs was great about this because they had seed points, you could literally look on a huge list and see where you ranked among every player in the state, and when you got better, you moved up and that made you feel great! power rankings are a community run thing, the players decide that. seed point rankings, that's a community effort.

other things that build hype: attendance lists, setup lists, basically any kind of expanding list that people can track and say "hey so and so is coming!? i'm there"

in short: when hyping a tournament different players look for different things. so try and appeal to that

5.1 side note

don't cater to top players. it's a mistake we all do but it shouldn't happen. top players are important because they bring in people who are interested in seeing them play or want to play them (fans). but remember that if you have a 100 man tournament, 10 of those people are top, but the other 90? middle and bottom and that's where your money is. if you just focus on the 10 people at the top, then guess what those 10 people are gonna have a great time and everyone else is gonna be bored.


6. pools

pools should be done, it is really more appealing to someone that pays 15 bucks to do 6-8 matches instead of 2. yes it takes time but if you've got all day for a tournament and only 20 people show up, why not. regardless of whether or not you hate pools they should pretty much always be done if you have the resources. its a luxury yes, but it pays off. don't do them obviously if it means the tournament wont finish on time, but thats just a given

in short: do pools.


7. don't do brawl and melee at the same venue if you can't support both games fully

no this isn't a "i like x game over x so host x" post, it just means that if you can't do the games without making it look like one game is a side event then you shouldn't, both games have similar and yet seperate communities and they deserve to be treated equally. even at tournaments with huge turnouts for brawl (genesis 1 for instance) brawl can still feel like a side event depending on the focus of the hosts and people. hosting both if you can is usually good for attendance, but if you cant do it right, dont do it at all.

in short: regardless about which game you like better, don't host a multi-game tournament if they can't get equal support. you're just making things worse for both games.




i dunno why i wrote all this lol i guess this is just stuff i was thinking about.

 

[GDX]

i think what it is...because we are much cheaper/overall no or bad paying jobs due to age, a very large % of players are playing for what little money there is, and not to compete/get better overall

the SRK community plays overall as a hobby, with an actual job to fuel it. Because of this, not only are they able to attend more tourneys, but they arent all about the money rather than getting good.

Take me for example. You guys know how much I go to tourneys, both OOS and in-state. Its no coincidence that I play for the competition/getting better and not just the money, because i have other means for my actual oney. Just imagine an entire community that travels as much and spends as much money as I do, and you have the secret to SRK community attendance.

I love you guys though, all bromo. Im just breaking it down

 

[Pengie]

I'm pretty sure there are Smash-only events that have $20-30 door fees as well.

Jebailey was right when he said that Smashers only want to go to Smash-only events. I feel like I wasted my time taking over TO responsibilities of Smash at CEO now. It is what it is though.

Be honest; what did CEO have to offer SMASH players that warranted the inflated door fee? A nice hotel venue? Smashers really don't give a rat's *** about what venue they're in as long as there are set ups to have play on. Just look at Gigabits; it wasn't anywhere near an amazing venue in terms of space or anything like that, yet it was still the most successful tournament series Florida had for a time; after that it was the WATO series which was a house tournament that everyone knew would be cramped for space but people still went and enjoyed it because we were able to play. What else did CEO have? The King of Chinatown premiere? Do you honestly believe that anyone in the smash community save for a few specific players would give a **** about a movie about Justin Wong playing Vanilla SFIV? Not to mention that the amazingly hype, super-dee-duper trailer that everyone on SRK masturbated to had no mention of Smash whatsoever? Not to mention that from the look of something that I saw on SRK Jebailey went on to bad mouth the Smash community after CEO (post 36, Necrophile, hell just ctrl+F Jebailey's name). I can't help but taste the irony that someone coming from a community that calls Smashers immature would do something so utterly classless. So unless I'm missing something that was offered that would make it worthwhile to the majority of smashers in exchange for the overpriced venue fee, I'm not surprised that Smash at CEO wasn't as big as Jebailey wanted it to be, but then again it really just wan't worth it for Smash to most people.

And before you bring up the fact that I wasn't there; I was definitely one of the people that wanted it to be as big as possible and was intent on showing up before some real life stuff popped up that took precedence over a tournament that looked like it wasn't going to be worth it in the first place.

 

[GDX]

the fact that you call CEO overpriced and SRK doesnt is the entirety of dtorr's point though

 

[VSC.D-Torr]

Before I reply to any posts, I would just like to repost something I found in the G6 thread.

Hmmm well at least you could all carpool to come here if for whatever reason it wouldn't be worth it to go to FL stuff based on numbers....also NC's mad fun dude. =)

Come again?

for whatever reason it wouldn't be worth it to go to FL stuff based on numbers

Great impression guys. FL Melee scene is killing themselves.

 

[Pengie]

the fact that you call CEO overpriced and SRK doesnt is the entirety of dtorr's point though

I'm aware; I was just trying to point out WHY it is that people were calling it overpriced.

As far as the Melee scene killing themselves here; I've been saying that for this past year or so >___>

 

[Zoro]

Frames that was a really good and helpful post

I was talking to hbox about this earlier

[8:30:05 PM] Zoro: btw couldnt we charge less for nubs like 5 for nubs 10 for everyone else?
[8:40:09 PM] juan.dedbiema: meh
[8:40:14 PM] juan.dedbiema: it would discourage the bigger players
[8:42:27 PM] Zoro: first timers five dollars, i dont htink it would have a drastic impact on the pot
[8:42:35 PM] Zoro: maybe 10 dollars difference
[8:42:55 PM] Zoro: id rather have 5 more nubs than a (top player) at the tournament
[8:43:21 PM] Zoro: cuz while (top player) goes to one every 4 months these guys could come every single time
[8:43:28 PM] Zoro: perfect case study
[8:43:30 PM] Zoro: Sword Dancer
[8:44:04 PM] Zoro: the guy comes to every freakin event with a setup and stays the entire duration. Never wins but comes because he enjoys the game.
[8:44:15 PM] Zoro: If we had 30 sword dancers we'd be set for life
[8:44:59 PM] Zoro: (top player) and (top player 2) dont make tournaments successful, the dark sonics, pengies and sword dancers do.
[8:45:10 PM] juan.dedbiema: yeah\
[8:45:17 PM] Zoro: So regardless of how much it costs the people that care about the community will come
[8:45:25 PM] Zoro: we just have to introduce those people into it

I don't know if its possible but i'd really like to give newer players a break and make it cheaper for them. Instead of $15 pay 10 or instead of 10 pay 5. People below a certain amount of seeding points should be eligible for the discount. We should probably start the seeding from scratch. Basing the eligibility right now on reputation.Just an idea but I can see how that would be a disincentive for people looking for good payouts.
I really do think we should do pools at the next event. If everyone is for it let's make it official.

 

[Zoro]

but back on topic, I hope you melee guys get everything sorted out. What i've been doing lately for CFL to try to build up brawl numbers:
-less tourneys. Trying to limit to 2-3 total per month in the state
-more weekly free smashfests for people to actually practice and get in the community

I don't think the number of tournaments are a problem for us lol

Weekly smashfests don't sound like a bad idea. I wonder if NLL would be willing to host small melee fests on mondays or something. Mostly for the guys on this side of town like UCF and near Valencia East. A little more comfortable than let's say fearless' 2 am fests.
Monday Night Melee doesn't sound all that bad does it?

 

[Frames]

i don't really like the idea of a sliding payment just because while it may make new players feel more welcome you don't want to make other players feel like they're being punished just for being good or for coming to tournaments a lot, hungry is right in that it would affect the bigger players attendance

 

[Zoro]

i don't really like the idea of a sliding payment just because while it may make new players feel more welcome you don't want to make other players feel like their being punished just for being good or for coming to tournaments a lot, hungry is right in that it would affect the bigger players attendance

Yeah it is kind of a radical strategy but like I said the number of new people are so small it wouldn't make a drastic change to the pot. Its not a punishment if people see it as a way to generate interest. More people means more money for them in the end. When I say new people I mean like their first or second tournament ever. The group of people in that category would be incredibly small. I think for some kids the prices are just to steep to participate if they aren't that good. My theory is once they do participate they'll see that it is worth it to pay full price just for the experience. I call it the introductory rate.

I wouldnt force the idea on anyone but if we could come to a consensus I think we could make it work

 

[#HBC | Dancer]

Making tourny's cheaper in general sounds like a good strategy. I almost never enter a $15 tourney, but a $5 and sometimes a $10 tourney is something I'm more comfortable with.

I actually wouldn't mind paying a doorfee, as long as the entry fee is cheap. That way, at least the place hosting gets some guaranteed income. Not sure how others feel, but this is just my two cents on the situation.

In any case, I'll be at this.

Also thanks Zoro.

 

[Zoro]

I would love to do streams/videos like this:
Skip to 20:00 and check out the setup that they have
http://www.twitch.tv/arcadeboxtv/b/284856628?id=284856628&channel=arcadeboxtv

The guys in Puerto Rico use the double tv orientation for their matches. Two TVs, same cube, I heard this was also used at Genesis 2. The TVs are looking away from each other and works very well for doubles since nobody has a bad angle or has to stand up because of a lack of space. If I can get my hand on enough TVs, I'll try to get the equipment to do something like this as well.

I think this would be a fresh and interesting addition to our tournaments. It'll also make us look a little more serious I think. It's a project for the future but let's see what happens.

 

[-DR3W-]

Might try to go if attendance is decent.

 

[Pi]

def will be attempting to switch shifts for this one
see you all there

 

[pesticide]

Frames has sum legit suggestions imo

I'll probably be here

 

[kirbydabest]

if there could setups like the ones in that video then that would be to legit and pesticide wanna do a ten cent mm at this cus im broke as hell lol

 

[GDX]

I'm pretty hyped for this. Last tourney before college so lot of people gonna be mad busy after this one

I'm going all wario in singles though. Time to accelerate his learning

Also taking some mms at this AND I'm bringing AE

hype

 

[BairJew]

anyone from Wato gonna be at this?

 

[Van.]

^sup mike

ask your dad if he can drive us, my mom don't feel like doin work that day