How we run tournaments

FutureGuy

Here are my thoughts...

1) Local events should cater for the local players
I know it might sound obvious but I think this is the main reason we stopped running events in Limerick. Even though the weekends are easily the worst time for many of our own playgroup, we still ran events just in case someone from outside our playgroup wanted to attend. We felt that, as a group, we had to try. If a Tuesday evening is the best time to run a tournament for a playgroup, they should run it at that time. If the first Saturday of the month suits the Galway players, don't run it on another day because it clashes with Inferno.

We need to nurture the local play groups. We can run bigger events during the year where we can all get together as a major community.

2) Inferno and national tournament structure
For whatever reason, Infernos are clearly not the tournament they used to be. I think that they have lost their sheen over the last 18 months and attendances have been poor as of late.

I think we can definitely increase the attendance of these events, but I feel we need to stop looking at Inferno as the monthly Irish tournament. Instead, it should be branded as the monthly Dublin local tournament in the same way as Tempest is the local Cork tournament.

I also feel that Inferno should not be used as a way to seed players for the Evo Qualifier. People outside of Dublin cannot afford to spend 70-80 euro per month to attend these events. There are excellent players in Cork and it is unfair that they are at an immediate disadvantage when it comes to Evo.

I think we have the players and communities to have a great national tournament structure centered around the Evo Qualifier each year.

Each month, there should be a tournament in each of the local groups if possible (Dublin, Belfast, Galway, Cork, Limerick, and any other community that would like to run one). As in point 1, these tournaments should cater for that specific community even if it does not suit neighbouring communities.

In Autumn, Winter and Spring (three per year), there should be a big event which replaces Inferno as our national tournament series. These events would be used for seeding of the Evo qualifier, but would also be great stand-alone events in their own right. As someone that has to pay about 70-100 each time I wanted to attend an inferno, I'd be far more inclined to attend a major event every 3 months.

In Summer, we run our flagship event...the Evo Qualifier. The Wrestlemania of our community. Last year's event was the first tournament where I went "wow-this really feels like I'm at a major event" and kudos should go to all involved.

3) More advertising for tournaments
When we first started with Infernos, we knew weeks in advance when they were on. Now, there are doubts regarding whether they will even go ahead days before they are due to do so. How can people attend an event that they cannot plan for?

4) Randomselect.ie
I think we are all thankful of the effort that people have put into the website, but I do not feel it serves the community as well as it could. The most prominent link on the front page of the website should be for new players. When I say new players, I mean in terms of community interaction rather than skill level. There should be an entire section dedicated to explaining what we do in the community, what we run and when we run it. We could have a map where players can place a pin where they live so a new person can see who is close by. Which leads me onto...

5) Casuals
I think casuals are just as important to our community as tournaments, and I would even say that, in terms of growing our community, they are even more important. In addition to the impromptu casuals that crop up, there should be at least one casual session per month that is heavily advertised with the focus on having fun and attracting new people to the community. There should be at least one "community representative" at these events who can spot a new player and welcome them (community rep would be someone that would be a good spokesperson for the community, someone who would be easily identifiable, someone who would sit and have a few games with the new person, have a chat and get them bedded into the community). I have stated previously that when I first started attending casuals in Dublin, I found the atmosphere to be quite intimidating towards newer players. No one takes notice, no one cares and no one offers games. I *almost* turned around and went home.

6) Make a bigger deal of the little guys
I cannot stress this enough. I am saying this because I have heard the same thing from many people who have attended tournaments in Dublin. I keep hearing this but no one ever says it so I'm going to say it now.

For every player like Hound, Ladnopoka, Bush and Cobelcog (and other top players), we have 5 like me who aren't great but will travel to a tournament because we enjoy the challenge.

Clearly the focus of the events should be on the double elimination rounds but I feel we could do more for the players who don't get out of groups. Why not record the odd group match between two lesser known players? Why not post the group final standings so we can see exactly where we finished?

I have heard the following phrase from 3 different TOs. "Get groups out of the way". I get the feeling far too often that groups are a nuisance to TOs and they really don't care about them so long as they get completed asap.

For the top players who are seeded, groups are a formality. But for the lesser players at major events, groups "are" our tournament. It means alot to many members of the community who will never win a big tournament. If we get to the eliminations rounds, then brilliant but if it doesn't happen, then we've still had an enjoyable day.

It's the difference between 15 at a tournament and 30 at a tournament. The last time I felt this was at the first Evo qualifier.

7) Run Fundraising Tournaments
There are some players that will not attend a tournament unless there is a prize. However, I do feel that they make up a tiny fraction of the community. It's clear that we are in dire need of better equipment and we need to have tournaments that act as fundraisers. All profits go towards funds for the equipment and advertising we need to make our events better.

8) Community Survey
Get onto surveymonkey and get ask the questions that people can answer anonymously. I keep hearing people complaining about things that I never see posted on threads such as these.

AND FINALLY - THIS ONE IS GOING OUT TO EVERYONE.

9) Personal accountability
I'm not going to call out anyone here, but I think this probably the worst thing about our community. The organisers of our big events spend alot of time, effort and money organising these events for the rest of us. They sacrifice alot to make sure we have tournamets to play in. They spend money so that we can have the matches broadcast to other communities, either via streaming or on youtube. They sometimes choose not to play in events so they can run the best event possible.

The very least that we can do is turn up if we said we are turning up.

Posting the day after the tournament saying you were too hungover or you slept it out is not on. If you say you are going to turn up, set your alarm and make the effort. You are letting the community down.

The amount of people who said they would turn up to the last Evo qualifier but who didn't was very dissapointing. I know some people had genuine reasons for not attending (which is fine or course!) but they were in a minority. The organisers of that event deserved a better turnout. It was a brilliant day.

That's it!

Doctor DooM

So here's what I've taken from this so far.

1) Tournaments need to be advertised better. There should probably be a person or people who take time to look out for this, be more fluid with Inferno's timing but more organised in advance. There should be a pool of TOs. We should adopt longer finals. Perhaps we should leave longer between tournaments to make them more "special". We should go to multi game tournaments to keep all the scenes going. Perhaps the best way of doing this is to have a bi monthly SF headlined tournament and a bi monthly marvel, or whatever else proves to be popular.

2)The committee should have more power, be more active, and be more formalised. We should revote on it, and we need to find a way to better fund (perhaps a cut from every tournament, and the odd charity event). As part of this, there should be a fund for prizes at an annual big tournament or two. there should perhaps be a voluntary membership fee of the community.

3)Equipment needs to be bought. Xboxes and monitors. And maybe cushions Casuals are valuable and if possible we should allow for a couple of machines at tournaments. Don't forget the little guys.

4)Something needs to be done with randomselect.

5) Stevo should have to play at 25% health.

Seeing as I am on the current committee, are most people agreed that this is a good set of goals for us to start working towards?

Everyone has given good suggestion in this thread but at this point I think we need people to start offering to help. This is all too much for a couple of people to do.

chopperbyrne

On the announcements for Inferno side of things, I'm often waiting for confirmation from Exchange that the date is booked, which delays me starting a thread.

Other times recently, I've told everyone months in advance that certain dates are booked and then a week before the tournament people start asking can the date be changed, so I've tried to accomodate them, but this again delays the announcement of the tournament.

I personally will likely no longer be able to run (and rarely attend) Inferno, so somebody needs to step up and take over.

I have €465 of the community fund (which I never wanted to look after in the first place) which can be given to whoever is going to look after it.

We should hopefully have the Exchange booked for the 7th of July and the 4th of August, just awaiting confirmation.

ayjayirl

Doctor DooM wrote: »

So here's what I've taken from this so far.

1) Tournaments need to be advertised better. There should probably be a person or people who take time to look out for this, be more fluid with Inferno's timing but more organised in advance. There should be a pool of TOs. We should adopt longer finals. Perhaps we should leave longer between tournaments to make them more "special". We should go to multi game tournaments to keep all the scenes going. Perhaps the best way of doing this is to have a bi monthly SF headlined tournament and a bi monthly marvel, or whatever else proves to be popular.

2)The committee should have more power, be more active, and be more formalised. We should revote on it, and we need to find a way to better fund (perhaps a cut from every tournament, and the odd charity event). As part of this, there should be a fund for prizes at an annual big tournament or two. there should perhaps be a voluntary membership fee of the community.

3)Equipment needs to be bought. Xboxes and monitors. And maybe cushions Casuals are valuable and if possible we should allow for a couple of machines at tournaments. Don't forget the little guys.

4)Something needs to be done with randomselect.

5) Stevo should have to play at 25% health. - He'd still probably win the as...

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Seeing as I am on the current committee, are most people agreed that this is a good set of goals for us to start working towards?

Everyone has given good suggestion in this thread but at this point I think we need people to start offering to help. This is all too much for a couple of people to do.

I'll be a TO and I really like the idea of 1 or 2 major tourneys with alternating inferDoc structure to regular tourneys. Either way I'll help whomever is on the commitee and run tourneys where I can.

FutureGuy

FutureGuy wrote: »

5) Casuals...
6) Make a bigger deal of the little guys...

Well said! All of the points you made under these two headings were excellent. I love streetfighter, but I'm not at the top level of many of the great players i saw at the last couple of events i went to, and am never likely to be. Getting whooped by great players and learning stuff from it is all very valuable, but playing against players who are of my own skill level or thereabouts in at casuals or in a structured way as part of a community would be a huge, huge draw for me and (i'm sure) lots like me.

At the risk of repeating myself, i really think that new blood coming into any organization regularly (and sticking around) is vital to it's survival, and no group of any kind can afford to have the appearance of being elitist or intimidating if it wants to survive and grow over the long term. If changes are being made to the community, then i think structuring things in ways similar to the excellent ideas you pointed out (community reps, welcome matches, etc, etc) so that new blood can walk in and be as comfortable as possible from day 1 is very important.

Misty Chaos

What I think needs to be done is that dates for tournaments are set in stone. No ifs, no buts. Frankly, catering the whims of members the community is asking for trouble. The simple fact is you're never going to get a date that will please everyone so just go with the date you have.

Having a casual set ups is a good idea though. I remember the last Inferno I was at last year I spent most of my time there standing around as all the set ups were being used for the tournament - not exactly something I envisioned considering I would be travelling for about 10 hours altogether in one day to attend an Inferno!

I can't think of anything else really right now.

K.O.Kiki

BTW, I would like to suggest to the committee to put the money into a post office / credit union account, to help track money in-out.

Kirby

I think Azza's post was an excellent one. I agree with most of it. However less Inferno's is bad. We need to gain momentum again and to do that once a month is needed in my eyes.

I stopped coming a while back for two reasons. And I'll be honest about it. Firstly, not knowing how big a turnout it will get. I know that might seem selfish and by not coming i'm contributing to it but its the truth. Why bother to show up if it's less than a dozen people half of whom I don't even know?

Secondly, it's the casuals. I've brought this up before and been beaten down for it but I still think it's important. It's grand for the elite 5 or 6 who always go deep but most of us don't.

I usually get out of groups no problem and then get smashed in the first or second knockout round. Then you are completely done for the day as all the setups are being used with mainly only 1 or 2 machines for casuals and they have a massive queue.

Frankly I think most people feel this way and didn't think they were getting value and just stay home. Most people love the tournament feel and will go but they want to be able to play casuals when they lose. The XGC was brilliant for this. You arrived at 12 and played untill 6pm. You got brilliant value. As good as the exchange is, most people get in about an hours worth of play. That's not great. It has been mentioned that the majority of people just....stand around not playing. Sure it's great to watch the semi's, finals and grand finals......but the rest of the time the matches are just as scrubby as your own so I think people would prefer to play rather than watch.

So the option is either to get more machines or go back to the laggy XGC. I think perhaps having a reduced prize pool for the next inferno would be a good idea. Use the money to buy an extra setup.

ayjayirl

UberPrinny_Baal

ayjayirl wrote: »

tumbleweed-gif.gif

A little bit eh?

I'm gonna echo Kirby's sentiment that less Infernos is bad. I don't want to miss one, and suddenly have a three month drought of tournament attendance.

Azza wrote:

I'd personally be willing to invest in say 2 set ups straight away and have them for the next Inferno if there was some agreement that I would be payed back within a few months from the community pot. Once I got payed back I could do the same for the other 2 set ups.

I'm surprised this didn't get more attention. It's the kind of pro-activity that I think was the point of this topic. Thanks Azza.

I'd be absolutely in favour of this. So much so I'd be 100% cool with forfeiting my rights on any prize pool and putting as much of my entry fee as possible straight in Azza's pocket until he's paid back.

You might say I'm religiously in favour of having more set-ups :pac:

FutureGuy

OK the tumbleweed gif didn't load here in work.

If I could suggest that we take a single issue that was raised here and discuss it in a new thread?

Mods, if it's ok, I'm going to post a new thread so we can have all these great ideas flushed out to their fullest? If not, please just merge. The problem with debating all these issues here is that they are hard to follow and therefore difficult to fully realise.

Doctor DooM

By all means go ahead futureguy.

Here's the thing: Talk is one thing, action is another.

I'd really like it if people could think about if they can practically help and how as part of this, not that I want people to also not just voice their thoughts and concerns.

FutureGuy

Doctor DooM wrote: »

By all means go ahead futureguy.

Here's the thing: Talk is one thing, action is another.

I'd really like it if people could think about if they can practically help and how as part of this, not that I want people to also not just voice their thoughts and concerns.

Absolutely Doom, ideas on paper are useless without implementation.

Goody2shoes15

FutureGuy wrote: »

Absolutely Doom, ideas on paper are useless without implementation.

I think a meeting should be called by the current committee to vote for a new committee, and form a plan of action. This is actually something someone on the current committee should implement though.

Sabre0001

Interesting article re: MLG & CEO

IPlayWinner wrote:

As I watched Mago fight Romance, listening to open microphones pick up the roar of the crowd, I found myself dwelling on Major League Gaming’s King of Fighters conundrum. Since introducing the title at Columbus, KoF13’s performance as a tournament attraction has remained consistently underwhelming. After Columbus, the conventional wisdom dictated that the disappointment of the first outing was the result of several factors, such as location and short notice, and that Anaheim would prove to be a much more successful showcase for the game.

It made sense : Anaheim is in KoF country, and the tournament had been on the community calendar for months. However, as the event drew near, organizers and observers were alarmed by the relatively low number of pre-registered attendees. Attendance remained low, even after many claimed that the fighting game community was just being their normal, procrastinating selves.

Even before Anaheim had finished, many wondered if this would be the last time we would see King of Fighters at MLG. Some seemed certain, including event staff. Frustration was evident everywhere. How did things come to this point? What was wrong with the King of Fighters community? There was a lot of money up for grabs at both Columbus and Anaheim. Why weren’t the tournaments attracting players or viewers? In the week leading up to Anaheim, even I took to the issue, imploring KoF players to sign up, to represent their game. We all missed the point.


The setting for most sudden moments of striking clarity, I realized I’d gotten it wrong while sitting on the toilet, this morning, humming a jaunty tune. This weekend, we had a fighting game tournament outshine anything that the major productions have put on this year, fighting games or otherwise. Why? What does Alex Jebailey slip into the Kool-Aid in Orlando that allows him to attract such a stacked roster of talent and make CEO the most watched fighting game stream of the year thus far?




On paper, CEO 2012 isn’t remarkably different from most fighting game majors. It’s a bunch of guys packed into a ballroom playing fighting games. However, the event’s name sums the issue up nicely.

When contrasting event performance between tournaments like Anaheim and CEO with a game like KoF, one striking difference rushes to the foreground. CEO attracted top KoF players. In fact, I was not alone in stating that, outside of Evolution, CEO featured a talent roster for its games deeper than any other tournament you’ll see this year. Arcade Edition’s competition was so fierce that Mago, arguably one of the five best Street Fighter players to ever live, did not crack the top eight of the event’s tournament. All of this without the allure of five figure pots and with an event production budget sizably smaller than the six or seven figures it takes to produce an MLG or IPL tournament weekend.

Money and players? Are they symbiotic? Does one draw the other? No. CEO is not an anomaly, though it did serve to illuminate a possible cause for MLG’s fighter troubles.

A trip to Orlando is not a cheap thing. Though there is a strong scene in the south, the holy land is still the holy land; Mecca in Southern California, Medina in Northern California, Bethlehem in New York, Jerusalem in Japan. A lot of the players had to travel out of pocket, just as they did for Adam "Keits" Heart’s Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament last month. It’s something some of the attendees have done for five, ten, or twenty years. Many of these old road dogs have never, will never win a major prize pot. They’d be the first to tell you that. Yet, still they come, attracting like-minded souls like moths drawn to a neon sign.

Simply put, a fighting game event is a thing to experience, a thing that once experienced causes you to realize this is where you belong. Thousands of guys and girls will attend events this year for the experience of being there. This is something that men like Jebailey, Keits, the Cannons, Joey Cuellar, and Team LevelUp understand intimately. The trick to driving loyal participation isn’t money, or flashy production, or any other sort of spectacle. It is community. It is creating an event that screams, “You want to be a part of this.”


This simple element is what the major productions seem to be missing. It is something that is lost in the translation in events produced by outfits more familiar with FPS and RTS games and the cultures of those games.


MLG has created something that is a sight to behold. It is, certainly, a thing one would enjoy attending. In ways, that is the purpose for these events, to become a thing that begs attendance. However, there is a marked difference between creating a thing that would be great to attend and creating a thing to which to belong. In the latter, attendance is replaced by experience. To borrow from the monsters : “great tournament, great experience”.

High prize pots, light shows, those things make interesting spectacle. They don’t, however, engage. There were quality matches at MLG Columbus, and Tokido electrified MLG Anaheim, but they didn’t receive a tenth of the attention of Mago and Romance playing in a venue with a much smaller spotlight. Or The Answer’s tattoo, for that matter.

A wrestling ring, player entrance themes, the right vendors, the right people deployed to the right roles. It’s the little things that go into creating an event for the community, to creating something that instead of being something you gotta’ see is somewhere you gotta’ be. It truly is a community effort. That community effort, those little details, are what make the difference between your event knocking it out of the park and discussing whether you have to drop a game after two tournaments.

See y’all at the next one.

Ixayek_usurper

Interesting article Sabbre.

We definitely need to make a community that you feel you belong to.

Personally speaking, the 2 casuals that i attended i felt very welcomed and when TTT2 is released, i'll be attending them again.



In terms of offering help, if you guys want a dedicated guy to cover the tekken stuff for the randomselect website, i'd gladly do it.

And, even though i dont play SF or Marvel, i'd like to learn and see how Tournaments are run. So if someone wants a lacky for a day when they're TO just give me a hallor!

Konata

Re: Committee Voting

How about using something like SurveyMonkey? It's easy to set up polls, it's anonymous and it doesn't require log ins etc. I made a sample one here just for an example: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GTX5FGH

Regarding "anyone" answering the survey - how about we just PM the link to all active members of the community? That way no randomers get access to the poll. Everyone who is involved in the community uses boards.ie so I think PMing would be a good way to distribute the poll. You could set it as 1 week to answer the survey or whatever before it's closed.

You could do the same kind of system for nominations but with comment boxes instead of multiple choice for the answers. Then the person fills in their nominees for each position, and the top maybe 3 or 4 or whatever go forward to the vote. Either that or just create a thread here with nominations. Whatever way it works out, I think the nominees should each be asked if their willing to do whatever jobs they're nominated for before going forward to the vote - no point voting in someone who doesn't want to do it.

In the event that someone gets voted into 2 positions, you could ask them which position they prefer and then the 2nd candidate for the position they turned down is chosen.

Something like that anyway :P

Doctor DooM

Konata wrote: »

Re: Committee Voting

How about using something like SurveyMonkey? It's easy to set up polls, it's anonymous and it doesn't require log ins etc. I made a sample one here just for an example: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GTX5FGH

Regarding "anyone" answering the survey - how about we just PM the link to all active members of the community? That way no randomers get access to the poll. Everyone who is involved in the community uses boards.ie so I think PMing would be a good way to distribute the poll. You could set it as 1 week to answer the survey or whatever before it's closed.

You could do the same kind of system for nominations but with comment boxes instead of multiple choice for the answers. Then the person fills in their nominees for each position, and the top maybe 3 or 4 or whatever go forward to the vote. Either that or just create a thread here with nominations. Whatever way it works out, I think the nominees should each be asked if their willing to do whatever jobs they're nominated for before going forward to the vote - no point voting in someone who doesn't want to do it.

In the event that someone gets voted into 2 positions, you could ask them which position they prefer and then the 2nd candidate for the position they turned down is chosen.

Something like that anyway :P

Sounds doable, we could use the positions from Aileen's post earlier (with some exceptions- the way boards works, no one is going to be able to tell azza or myself what to do here, like it or not, save for our "bosses" on boards, like it or not )

ayjayirl

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Sounds doable, we could use the positions from Aileen's post earlier (with some exceptions- the way boards works, no one is going to be able to tell azza or myself what to do here, like it or not, save for our "bosses" on boards, like it or not )

As always, you will do as instructed suggested :cool:

bush

Has anything been decided about inferno? Is it on the first sat of next month?

chopperbyrne

The venue is booked for the fourth of August which I told everyone about weeks ago.

I've also said I can't run tournaments anymore.

So someone will have to step up and run this or email Exchange to cancel the booking.

Goody2shoes15

chopperbyrne wrote: »

The venue is booked for the fourth of August which I told everyone about weeks ago.

I've also said I can't run tournaments anymore.

So someone will have to step up and run this or email Exchange to cancel the booking.

Bah! I would run this but i'm gonna be in London for the Olympics. Any other weekend i am more than happy to

Dreddybajs

Can't do it either.

ayjayirl

chopperbyrne wrote: »

The venue is booked for the fourth of August which I told everyone about weeks ago.

Goody2shoes15 wrote: »

Bah! I would run this but i'm gonna be in London for the Olympics. Any other weekend i am more than happy to

Dreddybajs wrote: »

Can't do it either.

neither can I. Bank holiday weekends are a mistake for tourney's imho.

UberPrinny_Baal

ayjayirl wrote: »

neither can I. Bank holiday weekends are a mistake for tourney's imho.

Yeah August Bank holiday weekend in particular is one of the worst.

I'm very likely to be away that weekend, so not only can I probably not attend, I would need to give the two monitors to someone else if the tourney was going to go ahead anyway.

Any storage volunteers?

Doctor DooM

Ok, Time to "take ownership of the issue" *Blergh*


Roogle is talking about an SF tournament in Belfast in the North on the 4th anyway.

Unless anyone either mans up to run the tournament or has another reason why we shouldn't I'll contact the Exchange tomorrow and tell them we need to postpone.

Could you forward me their email chopper, or is it just the one on their site?

chopperbyrne

It's just the one from the site.

ayjayirl

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Unless anyone either mans up to run the tournament

not really the issue here. Its hardly a man up scenario. its the august bank holiday w/e. Having a tournament is just not viable. Simplz.

Doctor DooM

ayjayirl wrote: »

not really the issue here. Its hardly a man up scenario. its the august bank holiday w/e. Having a tournament is just not viable. Simplz.

That in no way stops people who aren't doing anything running one if they want to...

No skin off mine anyways, I'll head up to Rooglefest

Doctor DooM

Match up knowledge is not the end all and be all of being a good commentator.

If you're not good on a mike you can sound terrible even if you know everything.

Maybe I should start another thread on it.

Nascimento

Is this the commentators from the AE final Doom posted?

From a nobody's perspective, I thought they were grand. Just a couple of lads having a laugh watching Street Fighter.

chopperbyrne

No, it's the Third Strike and Marvel commentary that was a bit ropey.

deathrider

chopperbyrne wrote: »

No, it's the Third Strike and Marvel commentary that was a bit ropey.

What exactly was ropey about it? I haven't seen the videos, and I don't plat either game, so even if I did see them, I may not notice.

Doctor DooM

I'm not sure what much more we can do to promote Tekken Chunkis. We've tried running multiple tournaments to which people have only started showing up recently, and every time a I put up a video I have to take it back down again because they copyright claim it like muppets.

So Namco kind of need to help us before we can help them.

UberPrinny_Baal

Cool info Chunkis, makes me want to get into Tekken (for the next week)

Just a couple of points I want to chime in on.

chunkis wrote: »

Also in future our scene needs to be exposed a bit more, because really this gamestop tournament should have been organised by us

I don't think this was ever going to happen. Ever. This tournament isn't a fan driven "We love our game and want to know who's the best" kind of thing like Inferno; this is a business to business marketing venture where Namco have cash on the line.

chunkis wrote: »

the fact that namco didn`t even know about us to ask us to run it is a bad thing

Do Namco know about us? Who is "us"? Is us the Tekken lads? Because I don't think we have any media online that proves a tekken scene actually exists here.

All we know that they know is that someone called Brianvondoom is violating their IP by posting match videos and they want him to stop. The next natural step from that in my mind is not "Hey lads, can you run a tournament for us?"

chunkis wrote: »

i actually got contacted the other day about organising and promoting this

I am super curious about this one point: Who contacted you, and what exactly did they actually ask you to do?

chunkis wrote: »

so i think a strategy plan for our community needs to be set in motion to give our scene more exposure so that when things happen in ireland we are in the middle of it

If you want to formulate an actionable strategy plan, and I promise I will review it with my business glasses on.

Even if we have the best one ever though, that still won't guarantee that we get put in the loop for private promotional Business ventures in the future.

Doctor DooM

UberPrinny_Baal wrote: »

If you want to formulate an actionable strategy plan, and I promise I will review it with my business glasses on.

Even if we have the best one ever though, that still won't guarantee that we get put in the loop for private promotional Business ventures in the future.

On that point, if people want to come up with better and more ideas for promotion and the running of tournaments, I'm all ears. I am not the man for that job though. Last time I ran a tournament there were 3 losers finals.

chunkis

I don't think this was ever going to happen. Ever. This tournament isn't a fan driven "We love our game and want to know who's the best" kind of thing like Inferno; this is a business to business marketing venture where Namco have cash on the line.

Your a bit off the mark, because Namco got in touch with all the fighting game communities around the UK and asked them to run the qualifiers for them. If they knew about us, they would have contacted us to run the qualifier, because i just got off the phone with one of people who works for namco who runs tournaments in the uk and he told me that the only reason they contacted gamestop is because they didn`t know anybody else in ireland who could run it.

I sometimes feel that our scene is so alienated to the rest of europe because its like there is no communication between us or anybody else, mostly because irish players don`t travel that much and its because of this that the irish players don`t get recognised nearly as much as they should, in regards to myself, i am still considered a UK player by most people, and thats a bit sad because i am probably the most internationally well known player we have in ireland and i retired. The Irish players and our scene need to be integrated into the rest of europe, we need to be included in what goes on around europe, if there are european qualifiers for any event no matter what it is, we need to be involved.

I am sick to death of us getting the raw deal, like why do i see UK players all sponsored and not one irish player apart from me being sponsored? Thats ridiculous. Our top players in ireland are equal to or better than the top players in the UK, yet none of them are sponsored, what is going on???

I am super curious about this one point: Who contacted you, and what exactly did they actually ask you to do?

It was one of my friends who contacted me he is closely connected with namco and the tekken force guys.

If you want to formulate an actionable strategy plan, and I promise I will review it with my business glasses on.

we need to restructure the entire scene here in ireland there is too much divide between north and south and too much politics, we need to re do the website, change the name and focus on sending our top players to international tournaments so they can get the recognition they deserve and get sponsored, this will then give our scene the exposure it needs to make it grow.

Doctor DooM

chunkis wrote: »

we need to restructure the entire scene here in ireland there is too much divide between north and south and too much politics, we need to re do the website, change the name and focus on sending our top players to international tournaments so they can get the recognition they deserve and get sponsored, this will then give our scene the exposure it needs to make it grow.

This is about the fifth time you've said this in the last couple of years, but I've yet to hear any practical ideas on how to do it exactly (not directly aiming this at criticism at you, it's just easy to say, not to do).

Also, once again, doesn't change the fact namco are actually handicapping our ability to make ourselves moe known right now.

chunkis

For every major tournament that takes place in europe we should have irish players in attendence, we should organise a qualifying tournament so that we can send our best players to compete and give ireland a presence at every tournament in europe. The more players we send abroad the more exposure our scene will get.

We need to network between other scenes and see what they do better than us, copy it and make it better.

Our site is a joke, nobody uses it. Its a waste of time and needs to be redesigned and reworked into something people will actually use.

We should have a national tournament that will be recognised around the world as being a major tournament on the european scene, we want to create events that people will travel for, if we do things right we have the chance to create one of the best tournaments europe has ever seen.

UberPrinny_Baal

Bless you Chunkis, you mean well!

chunkis wrote: »

Your a bit off the mark, because Namco got in touch with all the fighting game communities around the UK and asked them to run the qualifiers for them. If they knew about us, they would have contacted us to run the qualifier, because i just got off the phone with one of people who works for namco who runs tournaments in the uk and he told me that the only reason they contacted gamestop is because they didn`t know anybody else in ireland who could run it.

Sorry if I'm off the mark. This is a good lead though. A person who directly works for Namco? As in a salaried Namco employee? Score!

chunkis wrote: »

I sometimes feel that our scene is so alienated to the rest of europe because its like there is no communication between us or anybody else, mostly because irish players don`t travel that much and its because of this that the irish players don`t get recognised nearly as much as they should, in regards to myself, i am still considered a UK player by most people, and thats a bit sad because i am probably the most internationally well known player we have in ireland and i retired. The Irish players and our scene need to be integrated into the rest of europe, we need to be included in what goes on around europe, if there are european qualifiers for any event no matter what it is, we need to be involved.

I am sick to death of us getting the raw deal, like why do i see UK players all sponsored and not one irish player apart from me being sponsored? Thats ridiculous. Our top players in ireland are equal to or better than the top players in the UK, yet none of them are sponsored, what is going on

I agree with you, and I think it sucks. Only thing I can think of is that we were screwed by Geography. We have a low population density spread out over a relatively large piece of land that has substandard public transportation. We have a few very small scenes with a minimum 2 hour travel time between them, and that sucks.

UK has more people living in it, so has more players, so has more players sponsored.

There are more people living in London than in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland combined. That's a really raw deal for us.

chunkis wrote: »

It was one of my friends who contacted me he is closely connected with namco and the tekken force guys.

Is this a second contact? Does closely connected mean employed?

Gonna break down these next points individually because they're all different talking points

chunkis wrote: »

we need to restructure the entire scene here in ireland

You can restructure companies or organisations. I don't see any way you can restructure a scene? We only half about 6 people willing to do the work of organising tournaments, I don't see how you can restructure that.

chunkis wrote: »

there is too much divide between north and south

I've gone with decently sized groups to Northern tournaments, and I see Northern guys at a lot of Southern tournaments. I think the only thing separating North and South is the aforementioned geography.

chunkis wrote: »

too much politics

I dunno is there actually any politics? I've never heard about any. I think our scene would need to be more active before we have politics to hold us back.

chunkis wrote: »

we need to re do the website

Our site is a joke, nobody uses it. Its a waste of time and needs to be redesigned and reworked into something people will actually use.

We don't have anyone to redo it, or anyone to staff it after it's redone. PCC kindly hosts the website, good on him. But the site doesn't have staff and doesn't have volunteers for posting constant updates. The two most constant updaters: Owmykneecap and Sairus have gone on to other things.

Realistically there's only three kinds of website updates we can do:

(1) Our tournament news, which is few and far between
(2) Original content (e.g. Doom Remy tutorial), of which some might be in the works, but takes a lot of effort, is more of a one time thing
(3) Copy all the news from Eventhubs, which is a full time job nobody is willing to do

chunkis wrote: »

change the name

Achieves nothing.

chunkis wrote: »

focus on sending our top players to international tournaments so they can get the recognition they deserve and get sponsored, this will then give our scene the exposure it needs to make it grow.

We do do this. AJ has organised at least two (three?) tournaments with this very specific goal in mind.

chunkis wrote: »

We need to network between other scenes and see what they do better than us, copy it and make it better.

That's perfectly reasonable. We'll all have to do this individually when we travel, or just be very accommodating to foreign players who visit (which I think we are).

chunkis wrote: »

We should have a national tournament that will be recognised around the world as being a major tournament on the european scene

This is way too ambitious for the current state of our scene. There are barely the numbers to support the monthly tournaments we'd like to have. I know you want Ireland to be like the UK, but unless you can somehow create greater population density, we won't be able to achieve that any time soon.

You've heard me say a lot that you need a strategy, or valid action points to make stuff like this happen, so I'm gonna give you a freebie and get this ball rolling

---

Action point 1: Get Irish players sponsored

Requires: Players willing to be sponsored, companies willing to sponsor them

Who finds willing players: I've started the ball rolling here on the player names.

Who finds willing companies to sponsor them: This has to be you Chunkis. You're the only person in this scene who's been sponsored, and you already have a good social network with other scenes and game companies. Once some lads say they want to be sponsored, you have to put your feelers out and promote them to companies. Call Capcom, Call Namco. Call whoever you think is a good in. Promote the scene!

---

Action point 2: Get Namco to back off from Doom (to keep this thing on topic)

Requires: Some form of written guarantee to not make any more claims or pull any content from the Brianvondoom youtube channel; or the express written permission for the Brianvondoom channel to post videos with Namco game footage

Best way to get such a guarantee (or an official rejection of the request) is from Namco themselves.

Who contacts Namco: Chunkis again, you luckily said in this very topic that you know a guy who trusts you enough to ask to run a qualifying tournament. Get his name, e-mail address and phone number and give them to Doom. Let Doom explain the story.

It's important we try this, because at least if we fail we know that we tried, and that Namco games will always be second fiddle at tournaments and never recorded or commentated.

---

Action point 3: Send players abroad for tournaments

Requires: AJ

Good man AJ! All hail Zeus!

Junsuina Chikara

chunkis wrote: »

For every major tournament that takes place in europe we should have irish players in attendence, we should organise a qualifying tournament so that we can send our best players to compete and give ireland a presence at every tournament in europe. The more players we send abroad the more exposure our scene will get.

We need to network between other scenes and see what they do better than us, copy it and make it better.

Our site is a joke, nobody uses it. Its a waste of time and needs to be redesigned and reworked into something people will actually use.

We should have a national tournament that will be recognised around the world as being a major tournament on the european scene, we want to create events that people will travel for, if we do things right we have the chance to create one of the best tournaments europe has ever seen.

A bit harsh on the Irish scene there chunkis. I think the TOs have done a good job on organising Inferno and other tournaments and the supporting members running the website, streaming etc.. I think it's very understandable that Namco contacted Gamestop rather than us. There isn't a Tekken scene in Ireland, at least on boards. There are only a handful of Tekken players. That is why Tekken is always a side tournament and never a main tournament. The most popular FG in Ireland is Tekken, that is certain but there aren't anywhere near enough serious Tekken players as there is SF players, even if SF is a smaller demographic compared to Tekken, there are more serious Irish SF players than there appears to be Tekken. For SF, the Irish FG scene have been offered seeded places to three SF games in the Capcom 25th Anniversary tournament. If we weren't recognised, we wouldn't have gotten those seeded places to an official Capcom tournament.

Instead of blabbering on about what the situation is like currently, I can offer some insight into how the scene can be improved. Quite simply, I think the TOs need to post on different game forums. At least, that way, you're aiming at a larger audience and possibly can boost the Irish scene itself since there can be more Irish players lurking around other forums rather than boards.ie. For example, I found an Irish MK9 player on MKO who also had a group of 7 or 8 friends who play MK9 in Tipperary but I've never seen him on boards but right there, you could possibly add +8 to an MK9 tournament if they knew about these tournaments.

I, for one, am a forum member of VFDC, Tekken Zaibatsu, MKO so I've covered three different gaming scenes already. Granted, I don't post about Irish tournaments on those forums because I'm quite disconnected from the Irish scene and have only ran 1 tournament so I can't post about something I don't know much about. If the word was spread around by the TOs on those forums, more Irish players may be able to attend and may also bring over talent from overseas as well.

At the end of all this chunkis, if you're passionate about getting an Irish scene going, then by all means, contribute. If you know people at Namco, Capcom etc. get them to know us and exchange contact details. That way, we can at least be on the map with the game companies themselves. I don't think its that hard because, back in the days of SFIV, XGC had no problem getting promo copies from Capcom when they were running their SFIV tournaments.

Doctor DooM

OK, I've moved posts on the discussion on commentary and the Tekken thing here. Both are worthy of discussion I feel.

I may chime in later on both topics. Without the bold!