Just so it's clear,
I'm not going to lift a finger as far as organizing anything until I get Lunar 2 back.
To be honest, I'm kind of tired of running tournaments. ToS4 I only really decided to run because it was almost the end of Melee, and there were a lot of newer people at the time to Melee (ie: SCRAers, Mason, Phil, a couple of others) who didn't really have many chances to play at tournaments. I figured I should at least give them a shot to try out what they'd been learning for the past year. Also, personally I didn't find ToS1-3 too much of a hassle to run, so I organized ToS4. ToS4 happened, and it went fine as far as tourneys go.
However, as an organizer, I was very frustrated with ToS4 due to a couple of things. I should have said what I'm about to say in the results thread, but I didn't because I was seriously considering quitting the scene soon anyway, so I wanted to leave it on a high note. However, I'm still around, and since there may be another ToS I'm going to say this stuff now.
The biggest problem I had was the ridiculous amounts of complaining about pools. Before, during, and after the tourney people complained like crazy. Some people had rational comments which I did take into account, but there seemed to be a lot more useless whining. It was much, much worse than at previous tourneys, and I admit it bothered me because I felt like I put a lot of effort into making pools balanced. I know it wasn't really Ottawa doing the complaining, but this still annoyed me the most.
Another big problem was garbage and general cleanup. There was about half a big garbage can's worth of trash just laying around the room, including a disturbing amount of half-eaten food. I don't know why, but there was a lot more to clean up than any other time prior to this.
Also, a lot of people just stood around talking at the end instead of helping to put things away. At previous ToSes, I remember only having to spend a few minutes at the end of the tourney to put away tables and chairs, and only having to clean up a bit of garbage, because people were actually helping out. At ToS4, there only seemed to be 2 or 3 people actually helping move stuff back, and I remember cleaning up/moving things for almost an hour after everything was done.
I've heard similar complaints from other organizers, so I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. In my opinion, people are starting to take tourneys for granted, and they forget that the organizers are just people from the community who are doing a favour for the community.
If ToS5 happens (meaning, I get Lunar 2 back), it will be a Brawl-only tourney with singles and doubles. I think most active smashers are interested mainly in Brawl, and I doubt that a Melee tournament in Ottawa would get very many people. If ToS5 has the same amount of problems as ToS4, it will be the last one I run. If you want to see more tourneys from me, please help out with the little things I mentioned above as you can.
As for why I'm choosing Brawl over Melee, we need Brawl tourneys to develop the scene (ie: figuring out playstyles, good characters, advanced techniques, etc). We can't really judge Brawl as a competitive game until we've played in tournaments for it. For those who are still not sure whether they prefer competitive Melee or Brawl, this could be a good opportunity to figure out which game is more fun/interesting/whatever to them.
sry I couldn't make smashfest tonight guys... I'm swamped with studying for exams and then I'm heading home for the summer. Hopefully I'll get to play with some of you next year. Thx for the good games this year tho... I definately learned alot
Good games Phil, you're a cool guy to hang out with! Hope to play you next school year!
haha later Phil=(!
) audience than a Brawl tournament, but a Brawl tournament would attract a bigger home crowd. I don't think people are quite ready to travel to a Brawl tournament quite yet.
