TheTantalus
Smash Hero
Hey all,
I've been talking with a lot of people about our region. As you know, we didn't do so hot at pound. It was our home national tournament, and only 2 MD/VA made it out of melee pools (Chu and Plank) and only 10 players (Neo, Chu, Sanoscy, June, Omni, Boss, Candy, Takeover, Logic, HAT) got out of brawl pools.
This is really embarrassing for a region that used to be undisputed best in smash. I wasn't around for the glory days, but I'd like to create my own glory days.
I've never really proved myself as a player, so I'm focusing today on something I know I do well- Tournament Directing and Organization. This region has GOT TO change the way tournaments go around here. Everything is inconsistent and disorganized, and we always take forever running events. Our top 2 ALWAYS split, and no one seems to take the game super seriously. Everyone is late, takes breaks randomly, goes out for 1 hour dinners in mid tournament, and no one does anything. So before I go into where I'd like to go with this- lets start by acknowledging the people who ARE doing a good job and have done well this year. I want to give all these people a major thank you publicly and I want them all to know that we can't go forward without their support, so I ask you guys to continue moving in the right direction.
K-9- Thanks for opening up the woodbridge venue for events. We've done a lot of good things in that place- lets keep it up.
ChuDat- Thanks for keeping melee alive in your basement, your summer melee biweekly on friday night was one of the best tournaments in my life.
G-reg- thanks for continuing to make C3 efficient, whether we like the venue or not.
metalmonstar- The hagerstown venue is one of the best in our region. We will continue to use it for events!
Bolt- The gamehaven venue, although far for me, has seen a good start to 2010. Let's continue that momentum.
Plank- thanks for bringing the largest tournament in the history of the world in melee to frederick, MD. I'm sure you've got plenty of plans up your sleeve for the upcoming year.
HAT- you've been a consistent part of tournament organization the past year even though we haven't had an event at your store. Keep it up.
Sassy- keep the smashfests/mini tourneys coming! FNB HQ is too fun.
GIMR/Aposl- VGbootcamp will be a much needed tool to bring back high level play in our region.
Now with that done, we need to look at what is to come. There need to be a lot of changes for our tournaments. This is coming straight from Alpha Zealot, as this is a guy who took a community that had 20 man tourneys once a month and turned it into 40 man weeklys. How did he do this? I'll propose some changes that might help.
1. Time Constraints- guys, WE HAVE TIME CONSTRAINTS at our events. This means you can't show up at 2:00pm and expect to be in winners bracket. People need to go home at a reasonable hour, and we want to hang out after the tourney. If we hold the event for you an hour, it is really unfortunate to everyone else. Also, if a tournament is starting at 12:00pm, you need to post in the thread that it's starting at 11:00am or 10:30, because it takes time to get everyone organized. Being efficient will make people more likely to play finals at the end, instead of everyone just wanting to go home.
2. 10/10/5 theory- As a standard, we should really adopt the 10/10/5 theory of tournaments. Meaning, 10 for singles, 10 for teams, and 5 for venue. This means Game Haven, C3, and Ultimate Gaming Zone would have to settle for less. Venue owners might scoff at that, but the realization is that more people will come the more affordable it is. Lowering the price will slowly attract more customers where raising the price may be good at first, but the customers will leave.
So far, I have Plank and K9 on board with this program. Plank is trying to get UMBC tournaments like this, and K9's venue will have tournaments with this standard. I also will be using this standard for the hagerstown venue with metalmonstar. Hopefully we can get Chu on board for his new tournaments in Oxon Hill.
3. Payouts- This is probably my biggest gripe here. We pay out the top 6 players in teams, we should also be paying out the top 6 players in singles. This just makes sense. For teams, the standard is fine, but our current standard for singles is 60/30/10, but i'd like to change it to the following:
55/25/10/5/2.5/2.5
C3 already pays out top 4 which is a start, but we really need to change it. And i'm in support of this standard whether we have 20 people or 60 people. We need to adapt it, and fast. This will definitely keep people coming back for more. Imagine, for instance, getting 7th and 9th at tournaments. I've gotten 7th and 9th before several times. Under this format, thats only 1-2 games away from money. That's really a nice accomplishment to know you're getting something or were close to getting something. 2.5% might not be much, but it gives everyone a sign of "they can do better, keep it up". The more that enter, the bigger that 2.5 is. Now the people who win every week may gripe and complain and bicker but honestly I don't really care about your financial needs right now. 5% less for 1st isn't gonna kill you. Working a part time, 30 hour a week job at McDonalds pays better than getting 1st at every tourney all year. So if you're using smash to pay for stuff, you should really reconsider it right now.
The goal is to take our tournaments from 20 people where 16 of them go home empty handed and 1 of them feels like they had a shot, to 6 of them go home with something and 12 of them feel like they had a shot. THIS WILL GROW THE ATTENDANCE. It will. If a lot of people feel like they have a shot at something, they'll all come back regularly.
Perfect Example: Look at ultimate gaming zone. We had 60 people for the first event there, and now we barely get 30. That's 20-25 new comers that aren't coming back because they feel like they had no chance. Which leads me into my next point...
4. Smashfests- although not directly related to tournaments, we NEED to have smashfests ASAP. Not just sassy fests. And these smash fests SHOULD NOT BE TOURNAMENTS. People should get together to improve. At the last sassy fest, I met some players who hang out with FNB who don't really play in tournaments. This is a perfect opportunity to bring them to an event and have a good time. We really need to make this start happening.
5. Side Events- This is the other best way to bring newcomers to smash- by having side events. We've done this before- but usually people are late and our time constraints cause us to cancel side events. I'll be having a side event with Yu-Gi-Oh! at our march 20th event in hagerstown. People should really take a great multiplayer game with a great community and add it as a side event or their Brawl/Melee tournaments. When people look and see us having fun at Brawl, they may become interested and start attending smashfests and tournaments.
Suggestions for side events:
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum/Heart Gold/Soul Silver (the DS game)
Yugioh Trading Card game
Super Street Fighter IV
Tatsunoko VS Capcom Ultimate All Stars
Mario Kart Wii
Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Mario Strikers Charged
Marvel VS Capcom 2
DDR/ITG/ dance games etc.
Donkey Konga (i have 4 pairs of bongos! Get at me!)
Mario Kart 64
Which leads me into my final suggestion:
6. Melee/Brawl MUST BE SEPARATE- As time goes on, I see more and more that this needs to happen. Not just because of time, or because of space. First off, there are players that play both games, which really hurts us timewise. But bigger than that, the problem we see is that the communities just don't get along that well. We really need to focus on one game or the other, as the communities are just really different. They will always be different. Shinku and Plank will never like Brawl better, and Takeover and Coney will never play melee over brawl. It's just gonna be like that.
I truly believe by adapting these strategies into our tournaments it will help our community 1. Grow 2. Improve Competition 3. Attract Out of Staters.
All of these things need to happen first though, and I'll be the one who takes the first step to do these things at my tournaments. Other TO's and Hosts, I urge you to do the same.
Thanks,
Scott
P.S. This thread would've never happened without Takeover and Alpha Zealot, so I'd like to thank them as well.
I've been talking with a lot of people about our region. As you know, we didn't do so hot at pound. It was our home national tournament, and only 2 MD/VA made it out of melee pools (Chu and Plank) and only 10 players (Neo, Chu, Sanoscy, June, Omni, Boss, Candy, Takeover, Logic, HAT) got out of brawl pools.
This is really embarrassing for a region that used to be undisputed best in smash. I wasn't around for the glory days, but I'd like to create my own glory days.
I've never really proved myself as a player, so I'm focusing today on something I know I do well- Tournament Directing and Organization. This region has GOT TO change the way tournaments go around here. Everything is inconsistent and disorganized, and we always take forever running events. Our top 2 ALWAYS split, and no one seems to take the game super seriously. Everyone is late, takes breaks randomly, goes out for 1 hour dinners in mid tournament, and no one does anything. So before I go into where I'd like to go with this- lets start by acknowledging the people who ARE doing a good job and have done well this year. I want to give all these people a major thank you publicly and I want them all to know that we can't go forward without their support, so I ask you guys to continue moving in the right direction.
K-9- Thanks for opening up the woodbridge venue for events. We've done a lot of good things in that place- lets keep it up.
ChuDat- Thanks for keeping melee alive in your basement, your summer melee biweekly on friday night was one of the best tournaments in my life.
G-reg- thanks for continuing to make C3 efficient, whether we like the venue or not.
metalmonstar- The hagerstown venue is one of the best in our region. We will continue to use it for events!
Bolt- The gamehaven venue, although far for me, has seen a good start to 2010. Let's continue that momentum.
Plank- thanks for bringing the largest tournament in the history of the world in melee to frederick, MD. I'm sure you've got plenty of plans up your sleeve for the upcoming year.
HAT- you've been a consistent part of tournament organization the past year even though we haven't had an event at your store. Keep it up.
Sassy- keep the smashfests/mini tourneys coming! FNB HQ is too fun.
GIMR/Aposl- VGbootcamp will be a much needed tool to bring back high level play in our region.
Now with that done, we need to look at what is to come. There need to be a lot of changes for our tournaments. This is coming straight from Alpha Zealot, as this is a guy who took a community that had 20 man tourneys once a month and turned it into 40 man weeklys. How did he do this? I'll propose some changes that might help.
1. Time Constraints- guys, WE HAVE TIME CONSTRAINTS at our events. This means you can't show up at 2:00pm and expect to be in winners bracket. People need to go home at a reasonable hour, and we want to hang out after the tourney. If we hold the event for you an hour, it is really unfortunate to everyone else. Also, if a tournament is starting at 12:00pm, you need to post in the thread that it's starting at 11:00am or 10:30, because it takes time to get everyone organized. Being efficient will make people more likely to play finals at the end, instead of everyone just wanting to go home.
2. 10/10/5 theory- As a standard, we should really adopt the 10/10/5 theory of tournaments. Meaning, 10 for singles, 10 for teams, and 5 for venue. This means Game Haven, C3, and Ultimate Gaming Zone would have to settle for less. Venue owners might scoff at that, but the realization is that more people will come the more affordable it is. Lowering the price will slowly attract more customers where raising the price may be good at first, but the customers will leave.
So far, I have Plank and K9 on board with this program. Plank is trying to get UMBC tournaments like this, and K9's venue will have tournaments with this standard. I also will be using this standard for the hagerstown venue with metalmonstar. Hopefully we can get Chu on board for his new tournaments in Oxon Hill.
3. Payouts- This is probably my biggest gripe here. We pay out the top 6 players in teams, we should also be paying out the top 6 players in singles. This just makes sense. For teams, the standard is fine, but our current standard for singles is 60/30/10, but i'd like to change it to the following:
55/25/10/5/2.5/2.5
C3 already pays out top 4 which is a start, but we really need to change it. And i'm in support of this standard whether we have 20 people or 60 people. We need to adapt it, and fast. This will definitely keep people coming back for more. Imagine, for instance, getting 7th and 9th at tournaments. I've gotten 7th and 9th before several times. Under this format, thats only 1-2 games away from money. That's really a nice accomplishment to know you're getting something or were close to getting something. 2.5% might not be much, but it gives everyone a sign of "they can do better, keep it up". The more that enter, the bigger that 2.5 is. Now the people who win every week may gripe and complain and bicker but honestly I don't really care about your financial needs right now. 5% less for 1st isn't gonna kill you. Working a part time, 30 hour a week job at McDonalds pays better than getting 1st at every tourney all year. So if you're using smash to pay for stuff, you should really reconsider it right now.
The goal is to take our tournaments from 20 people where 16 of them go home empty handed and 1 of them feels like they had a shot, to 6 of them go home with something and 12 of them feel like they had a shot. THIS WILL GROW THE ATTENDANCE. It will. If a lot of people feel like they have a shot at something, they'll all come back regularly.
Perfect Example: Look at ultimate gaming zone. We had 60 people for the first event there, and now we barely get 30. That's 20-25 new comers that aren't coming back because they feel like they had no chance. Which leads me into my next point...
4. Smashfests- although not directly related to tournaments, we NEED to have smashfests ASAP. Not just sassy fests. And these smash fests SHOULD NOT BE TOURNAMENTS. People should get together to improve. At the last sassy fest, I met some players who hang out with FNB who don't really play in tournaments. This is a perfect opportunity to bring them to an event and have a good time. We really need to make this start happening.
5. Side Events- This is the other best way to bring newcomers to smash- by having side events. We've done this before- but usually people are late and our time constraints cause us to cancel side events. I'll be having a side event with Yu-Gi-Oh! at our march 20th event in hagerstown. People should really take a great multiplayer game with a great community and add it as a side event or their Brawl/Melee tournaments. When people look and see us having fun at Brawl, they may become interested and start attending smashfests and tournaments.
Suggestions for side events:
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum/Heart Gold/Soul Silver (the DS game)
Yugioh Trading Card game
Super Street Fighter IV
Tatsunoko VS Capcom Ultimate All Stars
Mario Kart Wii
Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Mario Strikers Charged
Marvel VS Capcom 2
DDR/ITG/ dance games etc.
Donkey Konga (i have 4 pairs of bongos! Get at me!)
Mario Kart 64
Which leads me into my final suggestion:
6. Melee/Brawl MUST BE SEPARATE- As time goes on, I see more and more that this needs to happen. Not just because of time, or because of space. First off, there are players that play both games, which really hurts us timewise. But bigger than that, the problem we see is that the communities just don't get along that well. We really need to focus on one game or the other, as the communities are just really different. They will always be different. Shinku and Plank will never like Brawl better, and Takeover and Coney will never play melee over brawl. It's just gonna be like that.
I truly believe by adapting these strategies into our tournaments it will help our community 1. Grow 2. Improve Competition 3. Attract Out of Staters.
All of these things need to happen first though, and I'll be the one who takes the first step to do these things at my tournaments. Other TO's and Hosts, I urge you to do the same.
Thanks,
Scott
P.S. This thread would've never happened without Takeover and Alpha Zealot, so I'd like to thank them as well.
