Interested in helping melee grow?

[trahhSTEEZY]

So I just thought of something that I know can really help bring in fresh new melee'rs..

the answer is youtube! Every day, people post new melee videos. not people within our scene..complete randoms. just go on youtube, type in 'Super Smash Bros. Melee' and sort it by 'Upload Date'.

most of the time they just do the minigames or the story or play with items on, probably because they don't know better.

so i figure THESE are the best people to try and bring into our scene, people that are playing melee UN-COMPETITIVELY after 10 years..who knows how long they've been playing, but if they're choosing to play their gamecube, that should mean something.

so the concept is simple, just tell'em their video is cool or whatever, and let them know about smashboards. maybe even let them know about a cool match so they can see the potential/excitement of the game.

Someone on REDDIT posted a .gif of a kid spinning around the character select screen, i posted saying melee is still awesome and growing, and linked dashiz vs m2k..my post got alot of attention, and random *** kids that don't even know melee got excited.

"oh man on that last life i literally hopped out of my chair watching that"

other people were interested to know that there was an actual tournament scene..


People are just unaware. make them aware!



TLDR: SEARCH BRAND NEW YOUTUBE VIDEOS AND COMMENT ON THEM TELLING THEM ABOUT THE SMASH SCENE

 

[Brookman]

...or play with items on, probably because they don't know better...

This is how religious wars get started. One group of people believing their imaginary, arbitrary rules are better and should be imposed on to others.

I love playing with items on. **** is the realest, ever.

 

[Sinji]

.

so the concept is simple, just tell'em their video is cool or whatever, and let them know about smashboards. maybe even let them know about a cool match so they can see the potential/excitement of the game.

I tried that. And they ignored me.

 

[Dimitris]

Putting a smashboards link in the description if you upload tournament matches would help too (or maybe help more). Not a lot of people do that...

 

[Nine]

It does make sense but i doubt some would be interested its worth a try though.. sadly smash melee is low on players in my city theres only like 5 people which are my friends....

 

[Glöwworm]

Do it enough and they'll start to ignore you. Do it enough and you'll be known as that tourneyfag who preaches on people's videos.

I think it's worth a shot. Though, I think somebody should make a video about competitive Melee and then just link them to the video on their channel/PM. I think it would be considered spam if you did it on their videos.

edit: something in the lines of "hey, I noticed you play Melee. Did you know there's tons of people all over the world that play Melee too? Check out this video and go here *smashboards link* to see if there's people near you that play"

 

[Dark Hart]

Not a bad idea, but then people will call you tourney *** or something and not pay any attention

But still, not a bad idea

 

[Nine]

its true i hate how the brawl community is so ignorant :/ oh well

 

[The Star King]

This is how religious wars get started. One group of people believing their imaginary, arbitrary rules are better and should be imposed on to others.

This. You're assuming the way you have fun is the way everybody has fun.

Of course, I'm sure that many people are simply unaware and would love to get into competitive Smash once they found out about it. But I'm sure there's also plenty of people who are aware of its existence and simply aren't interested.

 

[Sinji]

the majority of players want to have fun. I highly doubt it will work. Melee is considered to be the hardcore game in smash. Brawl on the other hand is more relaxing to the majority of people. girls often times enter brawl tourneys because they wanna have fun.

I hope we find a solution to attract melee to other people. But what matters to the majority is having fun.

If we can find a way how to make melee fun again in a competitive style, we should succeed.

 

[HT F8]

Well, there's a lot of people that still love to play Melee with their friends, surprisingly. They're competitive with each other, but might not have any knowledge of the competitive community, or advanced techniques. And even some that do just brush it off as, "too hard", "impossible", etc.

For example, I got my friend into Melee maybee 6 months ago? Him and his friends still played Melee casually instead of Brawl all the time because Brawl is "gay/slow/etc". I played some matches with them and really surprised them lol. My friend (a Sheik player) who usually whooped everyone else every match was really interested in how I was winning so much. I started to bring him to our Smashfests and teach him. He kinda knew about professional play back then, just never really got into it, though. Aaand nowadays, he's starting to do pretty good against me. It's scary haha.

Some naturally competitive people might be willing to get into it, they just need a catalyst or something. Sharing a video with them might be just what they need.

 

[Sinji]

I remember 6 months ago when I went to a local game shop. I was the only one playing melee and about 40 people were watching me play. the saw the wavdashing e.t.c. They asked me how i got so good. I said join smashboards. Up till this day, no one from that game shop joined smashboards.


The point im trying to make is, if you have a passion for the game, the community will grow as a whole.

 

[Nine]

One main reason i see why people don't play it is..
Cause its an old game and people who don't know about who great melee is think brawl is better just cause its "newer" and has better "graphics".
I find it hard sometimes but i've gotten a few friends to get interested in it and are still learning about how great Melee is
I've been trying to make this small community for my town so we could grow but i've been struggling getting more people. Any suggestions guys?

 

[trahhSTEEZY]

This is how religious wars get started. One group of people believing their imaginary, arbitrary rules are better and should be imposed on to others.

I love playing with items on. **** is the realest, ever.

i never said anything about my way of things being better, i said they don't know better, as in they probably don't realize that turning off items can increase the balance/fairness of it.

and to everyone noting the 'tourny *****'/spamming thing..

my intention was to personalize your comment towards their vid. you don't just go around pasting a comment saying like "LIKE SMASH? CHECK OUT TOURNAMENTS AT SMASHBOARDS.COM" no. i'm talking "hey, cool falco! if you're actually interested in the game/becoming better at it, check out these matches, or smashboards" or whatever.

Also melee may have worse (arguably) graphics, but just watching 10 seconds of both games side by side can really provide alot of differences to the player watching.

 

[tarheeljks]

This. You're assuming the way you have fun is the way everybody has fun.

Of course, I'm sure that many people are simply unaware and would love to get into competitive Smash once they found out about it. But I'm sure there's also plenty of people who are aware of its existence and simply aren't interested.

no, not this imo. i don't think the op has advocated forcing the game down anyone's throat-- indicate that people still play melee, and let people who watch videos know that if they want they can easily join the community.

as someone who discovered smashboards fairly late i'd guess (late in '06 after playing on noob status with friends for years), stopped playing, and then rediscovered it in the summer of 2010 after not playing for nearly three years, i see no downside to doing this, provided that it simply is an invitation. if they say no, then ok. not a big deal.

 

[Deleted member]

my goal is to get good at league of legends, stream on own3d.tv, get at least 500 viewers, then go stream melee tournaments

im pretty sure this will help melee grow

sadly im not quite good enough at league yet

 

[Allin]

Funny thing is we actually had a shot at youtube before. Machinma one of the leading youtube channels for video games had offered someone on the boards(I forget who) a spot as a director. Under certain contracts they would be allowed to post Smash videos. This would have been a huge bonus to the community. The only issue was that there was money behind it and other junk that made it more of a hassle then it was worth.

If the melee community wants to grow they really just need to get MLG to pick the game back up again.

 

[Nine]

The Evo son!
MLG is a piece of **** -.-

 

[Sinji]

yea evo needs to endorse melee again.

 

[onionchowder]

As an amateur ex-Brawl player joining melee, one of the biggest issues I've found is the skill gap between old-timers and new blood like myself (It's even worse for people who've never played any fighting game competitively before). I think more tournaments, especially mid-sized local tournaments, should structure their tournaments to be more accessible to new players; amateur brackets, extra set-ups for friendlies, and a more welcoming attitude go a long way.

I went to my first two melee tournaments this month (near Chicago, hosted by Sveet), and I had a great experience. For the second tournament, I posted asking for a lift. In the process, I found out a friend of a friend I had met 5 years ago was going to this tournament (Juggleguy), and another smasher in my area asked if I wanted to play and came over for some friendlies (snex). Ultimately, Tink and Kels offered us a ride. I found it incredible; the two best Smashers in the midwest, players who I had watched videos of on Youtube, went out of their way to pick up essentially a random stranger who wasn't even part of the smash community yet. At the tournament itself, the story was still the same -- Atma let me borrow his spare controller, the R brothers gave me a ride to go get food, etc. etc.

It's this kind of stuff that really brings in new players -- I certainly want to stay involved. Midwest is awesome.

 

[Deadandlivin]

One main reason i see why people don't play it is..
Cause its an old game and people who don't know about who great melee is think brawl is better just cause its "newer" and has better "graphics".
I find it hard sometimes but i've gotten a few friends to get interested in it and are still learning about how great Melee is
I've been trying to make this small community for my town so we could grow but i've been struggling getting more people. Any suggestions guys?

If you do find someone who's intressed in trying it out, borrow him the game or something in case he deson't have it so he can up his techskill. Give him an easy character to start with. I always tell my friends who've never played or just played brawl to play marth. His ground game is good and if it's something that defines noob it's how they don't like to be in the air.
Also don't beat them to hard, play a bad character yourself like bowser or something and don't dominate them. If they get 4 stocked every match they won't be wanting to play much longer.

 

[Rockenos]

I'm a highschooler. This is important. I also don't look like a stereotypical nerd... AT ALL. I'm not gonna be a douche an brag about it, but I'm the biggest. ****ING. Nerd. Been a nerd my whole life, always will be. Now basically, I tell everybody I meet about Melee. ****ING EVERYBODY. There are a few of them who say "I'm not as good as you and I can't be sfter 5 minutes of trying so I quit." but the VERY VAST majority of them will play against me EVERY TIME I ASK. I feel like I try to create a really casual environment for them and that they appreciate that. Women come over to my house to play me in Melee (Sometimes it's just flirting, but the important part is sometimes it isn't). One girl came over and told me I couldn't use my right arm while playing. I said "alright" and thrashed her with one hand (Don't make sex jokes lol). She then said "What's your worst character?" and I proceeded to thrash her as Yoshi with one hand. Finally, she told me I could use my other hand if she won. So I made it look real close, (I was only slightly more skilled than her as a one handed Yoshi anyway) and let her win. And she enjoyed it so much. She bragged to all her friends about how she beat me, and they went to our Gaming Club to play Melee. (Only game we ever play, we're secretly Melee club)

Tl:dr, my highschool has its own casual melee community, and every week another one of them makes an account on Smashboards and comes back next week wavedashing.

 

[sirlaser]

I'm a highschooler. This is important. I also don't look like a stereotypical nerd... AT ALL. I'm not gonna be a douche an brag about it, but I'm the biggest. ****ING. Nerd. Been a nerd my whole life, always will be. Now basically, I tell everybody I meet about Melee. ****ING EVERYBODY. There are a few of them who say "I'm not as good as you and I can't be sfter 5 minutes of trying so I quit." but the VERY VAST majority of them will play against me EVERY TIME I ASK. I feel like I try to create a really casual environment for them and that they appreciate that. Women come over to my house to play me in Melee (Sometimes it's just flirting, but the important part is sometimes it isn't). One girl came over and told me I couldn't use my right arm while playing. I said "alright" and thrashed her with one hand (Don't make sex jokes lol). She then said "What's your worst character?" and I proceeded to thrash her as Yoshi with one hand. Finally, she told me I could use my other hand if she won. So I made it look real close, (I was only slightly more skilled than her as a one handed Yoshi anyway) and let her win. And she enjoyed it so much. She bragged to all her friends about how she beat me, and they went to our Gaming Club to play Melee. (Only game we ever play, we're secretly Melee club)

Tl:dr, my highschool has its own casual melee community, and every week another one of them makes an account on Smashboards and comes back next week wavedashing.

Then I guess people from your high school's a bit more open minded about things (or less busy with other stuff) than people from mine. Even though I was from a 4,000 people high school only about 10 played melee

 

[HomeStylePie]

My high school had a decent number of smash players up to my senior year, but that was right when Brawl came out. A few of them would bring it to school and we'd play it in the AP classes where we were done with the tests- I just remember getting ***** by Dedede's chaingrab and feeling like the game was broken.

Colleges are probably one of the best places to reach out and try to build communities. Students have the time to build up the technical skill, and their easy to reach via mailing lists (just send out smashfest invites on the engineering/physics mailer lol). College-age nerds will be nostalgic for the game, and would probably be happy to find out it's still played. Melees with several players are easier for beginners to be successful in, especially if the better players focus on each other and don't go for the easy kills. Just keep smashing socially and pretty soon you've got a community, and the better ones will be up for heading out to tournaments.

 

[sirlaser]

Took the words outta my mouth.
Your teachers let you play Smash after APs? WTF? We had additional projects to complete

 

[ZetTroxX]

That idea is really good Just wrote about 10 comments - hope I´ll get some answers.