IFGC Presents - The Irish Open

Doctor DooM

Deskmenu wrote: »

Great tournament dudes, had a good time despite getting ridiculously salty over losing my very first game. Gonna have to step my game up, can never seem to preform at tournaments like I do in casuals. The tournament was great and the international players made it feel like a huge event too, it really was a lot of fun.

Regarding the venue, I thought it was fine apart from the space. Playing on the set-ups was a battle in and of itself sometimes, with monitors being knocked over, people asking you to move in the middle of a match and constant jostling from people moving around. Besides that I thought the venue was grand, and it was handy having the Rugby on too haha.

I hope this becomes a yearly event, because I know I'll definitely come every year.

Yarp, that's definitely something no one was happy about. Glad you had a good one though

RasTa

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Thank you for your feedback.

As a lifelong resident of Dublin, I considered the fact they were willing to give us a room free with wired internet for a stream and 50 chairs for the entire day asking nothing of the people attending except for the one, single fact of accepting they are a pub and require people to pay for the food and drink consumed on the venue (people were still free to go outside and drink/ eat where ever they liked within the city) to be an extremely reasonable compromise. This meant that the prizes for the top players were larger and more money went back to the community.


If you can find a venue for the future that can provide a better offer for a group of 100 people I am sure that the tournament organiser would be extremely thankful for your help in finding one, as it is a difficult task in Dublin, where space is at a premium and he did so on his own.

Well you didn't try hard enough, off the top of my head Bison/Workmans would have given you their music room for free for the time it started at. The same for Twister Pepper. This isn't my job to find out, it's the organisers.

I hope you don't get to defensive over the feedback, but it was a shambles. Players consistently being shouted at to get out of the way etc.

ayjayirl

RasTa wrote: »

Well you didn't try hard enough, off the top of my head Bison/Workmans would have given you their music room for free for the time it started at. The same for Twister Pepper. This isn't my job to find out, it's the organisers.

I hope you don't get to defensive over the feedback, but it was a shambles. Players consistently being shouted at to get out of the way etc.

Off the top of head planning is always the best! It is after all how things get done! Oh, and feedback is generally something that is best received when constructive. If you can confirm a venue/contact that you think might be suitable, please feel free to pass on that information. Mentioning pubs that might suit and for which you have no real information, will probably only result in offending those that put their free time into making something like this happen. It's just an opinion, but one I think you'll agree with if you think about it. There were a good few alternatives for the venue that we considered and for varying reasons that would have affected the event in an unsatisfactory manner, we chose the one that best suited our needs. These are concerns that become clear when planning actually happens as apposed to off the cuff comment.

The venue itself was not perfect, it was never going to be perfect in a pub, but the on-the-day failure of the projector presented a bottleneck problem that was unsolvable on the day so we accommodated as best we could with the TV's. I was our intention to have most of the non playing area available to watch the games but this was not to be.

Players were asked to leave the consoles free and vacate the playing arena. This is fairly normal for a tournament, especially given the spacing we had to work with. When our announcers were ignored, the volume level was increased to hammer home the point. I would like to thank Jmmy, Chopper and all concerned for their patience and help throughout the day. It was much appreciated.

As a first attempt at an Irish international, I think it was a success. We learned more for the next time, as we did last time. It may not have been as perfect as ones other people run but I have every confidence that our next one will be better again.

D4RK ONION

RasTa wrote: »

I hope you don't get to defensive over the feedback, but it was a shambles.

I would suggest if you don't want people to get defensive over your feedback, that you not present it in such an aggressive manner.

RasTa

ayjayirl wrote: »

Off the top of head planning is always the best! It is after all how things get done! Oh, and feedback is generally something that is best received when constructive. If you can confirm a venue/contact that you think might be suitable, please feel free to pass on that information. Mentioning pubs that might suit and for which you have no real information, will probably only result in offending those that put their free time into making something like this happen. It's just an opinion, but one I think you'll agree with if you think about it. There were a good few alternatives for the venue that we considered and for varying reasons that would have affected the event in an unsatisfactory manner, we chose the one that best suited our needs. These are concerns that become clear when planning actually happens as apposed to off the cuff comment.

I don't understand how it was best suited to our needs bar being free? Would you recommend people go their on a night out or for a drink? Not sure how that results in the correct place to hold a Fighting Games tourney.

As I said, anyone living in Dublin would have known this.

Nutrient

RasTa wrote: »

I don't understand how it was best suited to our needs bar being free? Would you recommend people go their on a night out or for a drink? Not sure how that results in the correct place to hold a Fighting Games tourney.

As I said, anyone living in Dublin would have known this.

I acknowledge the issues you had were prevelant, however, given the intial bottleneck and the 1st time nature of the event i believe it turned out well

There were many problems had by participants aside from space such as brackets, understand that organizing an event with a attendence above our expectation only increased the difficulty with former concerns.

This will be taken into account and noted for next year as more issues tend to be resolved with every iteration of an event.

Your continued 'constructive' feedback will be appreciated.as the event is experienced by the attendee best.

Scavenger XIII

Disorganised mass of feedback incoming:

I found the size of the venue and the playing area an absolute nightmare TBH, but as the guy who wasted plenty of time and money failing to get a northern tournament off the ground earlier this year I can appreciate how bloody impossible it is to get a decent space for less than the cost of a small Caribbean island.

Having the projector working would have been a big difference as it was basically impossible to spectate anything, heading outside and tuning into the stream was a much better viewing experience.

I do think there were way too many games to be manageable. It's understandably awkward because the south seems to have several small fragmented scenes for different games as opposed to the half dozen SF4 players and bugger all else that we have up here. I was however surprised to see Marvel as a main game (which I'm pretty sure already faded away?) and UNiB (which about 3 people have even played, surely?)

If you were to use the place again I think it would work out fine for 2-3 games and have the stream up on projector. Maybe have that nook one of the smash setups was in as the commentary booth and have an extra setup out in the open.

What happened that big lecture theater you guys had for the evo qualifier 2012? I assume it was prohibitively expensive? That place was brilliant.

Doctor DooM

Scavenger XIII wrote: »

What happened that big lecture theater you guys had for the evo qualifier 2012? I assume it was prohibitively expensive? That place was brilliant.

Murphys Law. When we got the expensive big hall, not enough people showed up and it cost money. When we got the smaller, cheaper place, everyone showed up

The projector wouldn't work for me. I spent maybe an hour working on it. It just wouldn't accept a VGA input and I had no way to convert HDMI to coax as I don't live in 1993

Personally not being able to provide a better viewing experience was a bummer for me, I usually pride myself on providing a good viewing experience, sometimes out of sticky back plastic and toilet roll tubes. Perhaps it is time for me to look into my own cheap HDMI projector for bigger events so I can ensure a better option.

Zoomyzoom

Hi guys,

Sorry for the late mail (work, studies & a hangover) poor brain is wrecked but what a day & can’t wait to help out at the next tournament! I have the brackets for all the tournaments expect for SF (Voa has that and I’m sure he’ll post the details soon) & will post all others up when I get home. I have over 200 photos of the event, some blurred & some extremely detailed... will go through them when I get home & upload asap.

I think that given all that happened coming up to the day & on the day itself (especially with projector not working as that would have solved a lot of the viewing issues) that it was a success... even if certain individuals think otherwise! Tbh, I don’t think anyone really minds constructive criticism & helpful feedback - a lot of people have given their opinions in very respectful & constructive ways - but to say that peoples’ efforts “weren't good enough” & that “it was a shambles” is so unhelpful, particularly harsh, totally undeserving & extremely discourteous to all those who actually helped organize the tournament! I don’t think you have the right to belittle the fantastic efforts of others if you are not willing to put any time & effort in yourself - a bit of a scrubby-move tbh! I really look forward to attending one of your tournaments, where I'm sure everything will run smoothly and where I will critically evaluating your efforts & abilities! So when exactly will that be?

All in all, I observed that most people left the tournament happy - even those who were a little salty Yes there were some hiccups throughout the day & the venue did feel a bit cramped at times but we can apply all that we've learned from this experience & apply it to the next event! I want to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone involved & for playing a stormer on the day – all those who organized the event, those who helped promote it, those who streamed & recorded it, those who commentated on the games at hand & called for players, those who ran the individual tournaments, those who ran the brackets, those who brought equipment & helped set-up (those IKEA tables were a bitch), to all those who came in from the North, South, West, East and the UK (travelling to tournaments is never easy but is definitely appreciated by all those organizing the event) and finally to competitors & spectators, especially those who helped out in whatever way they could – couldn't have done it without all the support & hype that you all brought! The extra time, effort & resources put in by some people in particularly was greatly appreciated... thank you guys! I think it should be noted that compared to other fighting games communities around the world, this Irish one is particularly small & is often lacking in terms of funding, sponsorship, visibility & voice compared to the others... because of this, the IFGC has to rely heavily on the cooperation, participation, support & efforts of all those involved in keeping the casuals & tournaments going! It is not expected but it is always appreciated when people do donate whatever time, resources & efforts they can in building the hype & in making each event happen.

Zoomyzoom

To all those who are new to the community & wondering why I was sitting in the various corners writing... my name is Rachel Phillips (Zoomyzoom is in reference to Zeus my dog) & I am a Ph.D. researcher with Maynooth University (Aj’s other half and house-mate to Doom). I am currently conducting research with a large proportion of IFGC members. All participation is completely voluntary (that’s why I say some members & not the entire community as some have already asked not to be included, which is perfectly fine to do so) & if you are interested in getting involved or would like to be included, please see below for a breakdown of what I'm researching.

Title - Live Talk & Computer Mediated Activity: The Anthropological Exploration of a Fighting Games Community in Ireland.

Details - My Ph.D. endeavour hopes to create an anthropological account of the linguistic & cultural significance of digital-gaming in Ireland via an ethnographic lens that highlights a specific digital gaming community in Ireland known as the Irish Fighting Games Community (IFGC) and their novel gaming register known and Fighting Games Talk (FGT). Ultimately (and in the widest sense) my project aims to unpack how the ever changing digital-landscape of contemporary Ireland is helping to shift traditional understandings of community, communication, personhood and even the places we congregate & socialize in.

It will do this by investigating the formation, structure(s), connectedness & sociality (which is just a fancy word for the actions & social nature of a community or grouping of individuals) of the IFGC in relation to how digital communication & digital gaming technologies assist in structuring, coordinating & managing the community’s online & offline existence, and not just their collective gaming needs. It will also investigate the impact that specific communicative and digital gaming technologies have in shaping a unique set of linguistic ideologies and communicative practices (FGT - specialized gaming talk that enables a type of sports-like-performance of commentary on the specific variety of competitive games – fighting games) via a semiotic-indexical framework aimed at unpacking the syntactic (structure, rules, form, etc.), lexical (denotative and connotative meanings) and grammatical properties dimensions this gaming register known as Fighting Games Talk, or FCT.

It will also explore how the IFGC utilize particular digital technologies (technologies that specifically promote digital gaming and digital communication) in an effort to promote not just a novel set of linguistic practices, ideologies and communicative opportunities that are linked to digital gaming (those that help to socially enhance their digital gaming activities and experience) but also in exploring how certain digital technologies, combined with the novel communicative activities, help in forming, maintaining, structuring, coordinating and managing the community’s online and offline existence. In other words, anthropologically unpacking their novel communicative gaming activities and how they feed into their sense of identity as well as the formation and maintenance of the individual members and community as a whole.

All participation is completely voluntary and there are no inherent risks to the individuals involved – the aim of this ethnographic endeavour is to better understand value and how a cohort / group of individuals find and make meaning, and this is being done through the collegial and cooperative ethnographic method of participant-observation – where I participate and observer the daily activities of the members of this community. I hope to accomplish by trying to integrate myself into the IFGC and to explore what could be considered by some to be the mundane aspect of their existence – your likes and dislikes, your linguistic register FGT and the rules surrounding it, the organizational structure, the roles within the community, etc.

If you are interested in participating, would like to be included (interviewed, photographically documented, followed around, hanging out with, etc.) or is looking for further information, then please do not hesitate in contacting me on - tried to put in my nuim details but boards won't let me as I haven't posted to enough posts, lol

trole

Hio,

Just going to say this before I continue, I've run tournies and events for my societies in college and help run the smash bros events on the day which get about 25-50 ppl. (so please don't **** on me by saying "if you knew what it was like to run these" circle jerk.)

I thought I'd give a little fedback! I did like the venue and such, it was a real blow to not have the projector working to be honest. I think it would have made the overall venue 10x more suited to our needs (or even trying to get the games streamed onto the tv's if at all possible) but that's not very constructive and couldn't be helped overall.

The one thing I would say is that some thought should have been put into the number of sign ups for each game. When I looked at the event page before it began I had seen that smash bros had more sign ups than any of the other games (bar SF ofcourse) and I was surprised to see that there had been barely any room/priority made for the game. I'm not saying that smash as a game deserves more room or anything, but based on the number of participants and such it surely would have made sense to place us in a space that was more convenient (we were sort of overflowing into the main pathway). Myself and another guy helping running it had to ask for another setup just so we could get the tournament done on time which seemed like something that an event organizer would have had to do (bare in mind we were not on the staff). I'm saying this because I think it would have helped congestion a little bit that's all.

I think if there was that bit more thought put into the positioning of the setups and taking spectators into account (wasnt it 10 euro in just to watch?) it would have been far more enjoyable.

Overall I really enjoyed the event, the staff were nice and you could see everyone was working very hard. Thanks very much for running it and I really hope we see another one of these in the future because I think it will be much better if some feedback was taken into account.

A-Trak

I have some questions...

Who knocked Terry out?

Sorry, that's my only question.

chopperbyrne

RasTa wrote: »

Well you didn't try hard enough, off the top of my head Bison/Workmans would have given you their music room for free for the time it started at. The same for Twister Pepper. This isn't my job to find out, it's the organisers.

I hope you don't get to defensive over the feedback, but it was a shambles. Players consistently being shouted at to get out of the way etc.

The venue wasn't perfect and a few other issues on the day made it worse.

Would the workman's club and Twisted Pepper have provided all the chairs we used for free too?

Would they have had a seperate closed off area with a wired Internet connection so that we could stream it properly?

Shouting at people to get out of the way was an unfortunate necessity on the day. Anyone I was particularly rude too, I've known for years and can assure you they weren't offended.

The Smash area was small because of the amount of full setups promised.

Same with Tekken, who actually had more setups that they couldn't use due to a socket that kept shorting.

I also have no idea why UNIB was ran and if those setups weren't there it would have felt a lot less cramped.

Overall the event ran pretty well and we did manage to get through all the tournaments on time.

Next year will hopefully see more sponsorship and a better venue, so hopefully you'll give us another chance.

animaX

A-Trak wrote: »

I have some questions...

Who knocked Terry out?

Sorry, that's my only question.

I gracefully knocked myself out. Like an old established wrestler letting younger talent get "over", I reflected long and hard and decided it was time to let some young blood come through, rather than me hogging the limelight in the latter stages of the bracket - so I "dropped" some combos at crucial moments and "whiffed" some ultras that would certainly have put my opponents away. It was very subtle and my opponents were none the wiser, but it gave them some much-needed boosts.

If my sacrifice helped the greater good then I'm glad i made the decision to lose.

Peace out

Brickterium

Hey guys, chiming in a bit late but had to say I had a great time. First tournament I've actually attended ( not counting the one I went to like 4 years ago when I didn't understand SF ) and it was a big one. It was awesome meeting so many new people and seeing some people I rarely get to see.

Any feedback I have over the venue and stuff has already been addressed but it would be just the general small venue comments.

GGs to all the guys I played, luckily I was spared from salty defeats as I got bodied by Problem X and lost to a friend!

P.S. Shout-outs to the Smash guys, if only Project M existed in Cork!

tigernorm

Hi all,
Just wanted to say thanks to brian ajay and team. I think criticism of the event is a bit harsh it was very good and the standard of play was excellent. A little cramped and I was worried one or two of the setup chairs was going to give out under my hulking frame which obviously resulted in me not reaching the grand finals;). Thanks to everyone I played and see you all next time .

ryanakabyitz

This was my third tournament to go to. I had great craic. Four of my mates went as well and it was their first tournament and they all had a laugh. Thanks to all of the staff who organised it and ran brackets. I can imagine it being very stressful. Hopefully another event like this can happen again, having international players over to play against or to watch play the top Irish players was really cool. Its a shame I did not get to stay to watch the rest of the tournament because of bus times but I am sure the videos will be up soon! Again thanks to everyone who made it possible.

-Scumbag Wilson

chopperbyrne

ryanakabyitz wrote: »

Its a shame I did not get to stay to watch the rest of the tournament because of bus times but I am sure the videos will be up soon!

The Twitch archive is on twitch.tv/brianvondoom

There's an 8 hour video call Mahvel Baybay Part 2 Irish Open or something like that.

Street Fighter starts about an hour and a half in.

Doctor DooM

So I may have just accidentally ordered myself a HDMI projector and a small screen.

So that's one bit of feedback sorted

raah!

GGs everyone. Very fun tournament, had some really nice stuff. I particularly liked the being in a bar for post-loss pints. This has me hype to play more sf now, will get a set up and xbox for my house.

Jun_DP101

I think we could make more use off pre-registering for the tournaments online like in Cannes. Gives us a more accurate indication of numbers and more time to prepare or change venue if needs be. Maybe offer a discount for pre reg or charge more for on the day sign ups. Just throwing ideas out there.

ayjayirl

Jun_DP101 wrote: »

I think we could make more use off pre-registering for the tournaments online like in Cannes. Gives us a more accurate indication of numbers and more time to prepare or change venue if needs be. Maybe offer a discount for pre reg or charge more for on the day sign ups. Just throwing ideas out there.

A change of venue is hardly possible 1/2 way through but I do want an paid for online reg. Thing is that it costs to do. I'll look at it for next time. Maybe a wordpress with paypal will work well.

Jun_DP101

ayjayirl wrote: »

A change of venue is hardly possible 1/2 way through but I do want an paid for online reg. Thing is that it costs to do. I'll look at it for next time. Maybe a wordpress with paypal will work well.

If people pre-registered a month or two before hand and we had known there was gonna be 70+ ppl could we have not looked at alternative venues? Dunno what you mean by the 1/2 way through comment.

ayjayirl

If If If. Of course IF conditions where we can, THEN sort. Hindsight is 20 20 and we did not have commitment from various sources until about 6 - 8 weeks out and a few weeks before xmas is not a time you can pick and choose venue's. It has also been alluded to in previous posts that venue requirements are largely what dictates viability. In this case, the projector fail really hurt us. With it in place, nearly 1/2 the venue could have seen the matches from the side with space - as was intended.

That being said, a couple of points:
1) Last time we spent on a bigger venue and went all out we got less than 1/2 of those reg'd. People just didn't bother their arses to come out. I can't make em and although we got what facebook said we would, for me, that'd be a first.

2) I believe getting people to pay online will help tremendously for planning. It will be looked at for the next one but it has a cost factor.

3) Suggests from people are welcome, despite some being formed as more of a point of annoyance. It is however, always funny listening to the musings of those who have yet to arrange even a small event. It is NEVER as simple as suggested afterwards.

4) I'd want a website exclusively for the event. The irish open. This should be in place for next year. It would take care of a few issues. SM is fine, but not solely on its own.

I'm sure more will come to me later and I'll add more for the post mortem
Aj

K.O.Kiki

Please get some A3/A2 posters with double elimination brackets printed.

And assign matches to stations.

This could help competitors and TOs more easily see who has to play, and where; and might alleviate time stress and "dead time" (I saw a lot of empty stations while I was waiting on my matches).

A-Trak

Promotion after the event, shortly after the time of the event would be great!
Make the people who missed it regret it. (I do.)

I still have no idea who won what and how hype the event was. ZoomyZoom posted some brilliant photos on the closed FB group. If I hadn't of seen those I'd of thought the event was a busted flush.

Doom, Ajay and team - it seems like a massive success. Take half the time to promote that after the event as you did in advance.

RasTa

I don't think the next one should be held in Dublin. How many watched the stream if that was so important?

Should look to the West of Ireland imo

Doctor DooM

RasTa wrote: »

I don't think the next one should be held in Dublin. How many watched the stream if that was so important?

Should look to the West of Ireland imo

Over 5,000 people watched the stream.

And hosting a tournament in which we're trying to attract international participation so far away from our international airport would be a terrible idea.

GorySnake

A-Trak wrote: »

Promotion after the event, shortly after the time of the event would be great!
Make the people who missed it regret it. (I do.)

I still have no idea who won what and how hype the event was.

Best I can remember off the top of my head:

Street Fighter:

1st Problem X
2nd Cobelcog
3rd Pro Fluke
4th Azza

After that Im not too sure on Top 8, I know Justin Xavier came 5th and Silver Steez and Apollo_Steed came either 5th or 7th.

Marvel:

1st Nutrient
2nd Lythero
3rd Counter aka FrozenFlame7 aka m4g3r54 aka Tom

Tekken:
1st Fergus The Gus McGee
2nd Kuro Tao

Nutrient won Injustice as well, and I have no idea about UNIB or Smash results

Naphiel

Luke (Firebreather/Irish Mantys) was second in IJ.

UNIB was me first, Voa second and Makofueled 3rd.

No idea about Smash either.