Alabama Thread! (10/26/2016 update)

[Keet]

Saying that the Alabama scene needs more talent, an easier way to access content, or more frequent tournaments are all good suggestion but they are all oversimplifying the situation. We need a combination of these things in order to be truly successful. A product can be amazing but without marketing it wont become popular, and even if a product is marketed well if it's a **** product then it will never catch on.

The important thing is that we all obviously want to grow the scene otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. We need to do our best to avoid pointless arguments about the semantics and try to work together to improve the scene we have and go from there. For example I think the first steps we should take should involve getting more tournaments to stream so that Smash can become a more regular thing for Bama.

@ Sweaters what are the pitfalls of streaming Birmingham Brawl live? I know you currently record the PM and melee streams to upload to Youtube later, do you not stream due to lack of sufficient internet at the venue?

 

[Child Star]

I probably should've clarified that the ASL being a hub for AL-related smash stuff IS the goal, but having the twitch stream gather viewership from other scenes is definitely something to consider and strive for

the stuff you mention is also very important but they're not things that can be as easily addressed as the couple of ideas that I'm looking to try and carry out

I think those things deal more with player to player interaction/support as opposed to a big overarching goal

Well youve got Tuscaloosa, Auburn, Mobile, maybe birmingham, and something could happen with HASL.

If you get started with that and something good comes from it, more people will surely get involved.

 

[Sweaters]

Saying that the Alabama scene needs more talent, an easier way to access content, or more frequent tournaments are all good suggestion but they are all oversimplifying the situation. We need a combination of these things in order to be truly successful. A product can be amazing but without marketing it wont become popular, and even if a product is marketed well if it's a **** product then it will never catch on.

The important thing is that we all obviously want to grow the scene otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. We need to do our best to avoid pointless arguments about the semantics and try to work together to improve the scene we have and go from there. For example I think the first steps we should take should involve getting more tournaments to stream so that Smash can become a more regular thing for Bama.

@ Sweaters what are the pitfalls of streaming Birmingham Brawl live? I know you currently record the PM and melee streams to upload to Youtube later, do you not stream due to lack of sufficient internet at the venue?

No internet is the main issue, I am working on getting internet at the venue, another issue that I haven't had an opportunity to test which I might do later today is I don't think my computer can handle streaming as it is a 4 year old dying laptop.

 

[Sweaters]

I'm already working on going through the vod of the last Birmingham Brawl to get highlights cause I'm home sick and have nothing else to do.

 

[Saki-]

Feel better chief.

Though this may have gotten into a spat of sorts. Anyone else feeling really good about the direction smash is going in the state right now? It's just at a talking phase but if we just do it I'd imagine we'd be in store for an amazing season or two.

 

[Mahgnittoc]

I think it's moving good. Everyone wants to be good even if it's at an in state level. As long as we push each other some people will want to take down bigger targets and we'll start traveling and really getting good. And that's great cause I'm tired of hearing ourselves say we have no chance vs GA and FL. We might not win but I like to be able to say we're not far off

 

[Zoma]

When you can show me anything that has players that have great viewership, but a distinct lack of top level players I'd be surprised. If anyone wants to grow a viewship you have to ask yourself why watch X over Y? Theres a lot of tournements out there competing for a limited viewership and we dont have a compelling service to grab a lot of people. If you did get top 8 in a regional and people wanted to watch you play theyd be able to if people marketed the tournement with you being there. Then if someone like ninkend0 beat you (and the match was good) theyd say "wow this Ninkend0 guy is really good". Then if ninkend0 went out and placed well it would further confirm hes really good. If we play a lot of tournements that already have viewerships and do well. It will make our scene more attractive. It will take more than 1 top 8, but just giving people tons of videos to watch wont bolster our streams or scene if we dont already give the viewer something to compare our skill levels to. Do what you will, but historically people care more about content than how its presented.

THAT BEING SAID: if it will help getting people our to their locals, then you could make the argument that it might help the scene get better skill wise.

To further explain the neccesity of talent in successful smash streams, because of its competitive nature, you cant really advertise your stream as the "fun" stream like a lot of twitch streamers do, we are primarily in a talent dominated market (casters are also important obviously), but it's very hard to invision me watching a smash tourney with good commentary, but lack of talent (in my care it should be read "Notable players").

Your argument can be summed up as "why even bother." I'd challenge you to give a good reason as to why unifying would be an actively bad thing, because I've yet to see one.

Getting better at Smash is a gradual thing. It would be much better to build the infrastructure while we're all improving, because the alternate possibilities from this point are that we stay bad and never figure this out, or we get good and then have to deal with the same problem a year or two down the line.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm planning on getting good, and I'd prefer not to deal with this while I'm busy winning regionals.

 

[Mahgnittoc]

Getting better at Smash is a gradual thing.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm planning on getting good, and I'd prefer not to deal with this while I'm busy winning regionals.

This so much. When we all get good we'll have a scene where we can showcase our talents

 

[theONEjanitor]

we definitely need better and consistent commentators imo, like knowledgeable charismatic people. Smash 4 players don't need to be commentating melee, for example. I think good commentary is a huge part of what makes streams/vods interesting. in all honesty I've turned off/muted HASL VODs because the commentary was distracting or bad.
i don't think skill is a huge problem, and I think the skill of our top players is being understated right now tbh. but people will continue getting good as long as we all have a drive to continue playing.

 

[Sweaters]

we definitely need better and consistent commentators imo, like knowledgeable charismatic people. Smash 4 players don't need to be commentating melee, for example. I think good commentary is a huge part of what makes streams/vods interesting. in all honesty I've turned off/muted HASL VODs because the commentary was distracting or bad.
i don't think skill is a huge problem, and I think the skill of our top players is being understated right now tbh. but people will continue getting good as long as we all have a drive to continue playing.

I think one of the problems when it comes to commentary is some really good commentators are also some of the better players so you might have some bad commentators until later on in bracket.

 

[Anime]

I think one of the problems when it comes to commentary is some really good commentators are also some of the better players so you might have some bad commentators until later on in bracket.

The age old problem. I like commentating, but I'm not good at it (I feel like this is a lot of people). You have to practice it and critique yourself, but it's difficult to take that much time away from playing at tournies like that.

 

[Child Star]

Your argument can be summed up as "why even bother." I'd challenge you to give a good reason as to why unifying would be an actively bad thing, because I've yet to see one.

Getting better at Smash is a gradual thing. It would be much better to build the infrastructure while we're all improving, because the alternate possibilities from this point are that we stay bad and never figure this out, or we get good and then have to deal with the same problem a year or two down the line.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm planning on getting good, and I'd prefer not to deal with this while I'm busy winning regionals.

Its time, effort, and opportunity to unify. You should also ask the question, "should the entirety of Alabama unify?" The huntsville bham auburn and ttown scenes do a lot to actively support each others scenes and show up to a lot of the same events. Its harder for southern alabama to do that, but they can show up to their own and the pensicola events much easier. I personally think that us turning into an ASL conglomerate helps northern Alabama more than south. We also have the issue that a lot of our members are college students that might leave the state, it will be tough to pass responsibilities off. Im not promoting a case of no action, but rather take time to plan and have it built up right. Its only as usefull as the scene is good, so we have a lot of time assuming the people running it stay in state or pass it off to people that do.

 

[powergamer]

As others have said, I think building the infrastructure is important but I also think that talent is more important. Much of this has already been brought up but raw talent from well known players certainly seems to draw in viewers regardless of how big or small, well or dismanaged a stream may be - within reason of course.

S@X is popular because its a weekly, not to mention its held on weekdays when it doesn't have to compete with major weekend tournaments. With that said, I having something up from the ASL at least once a week would be a good thing, it doesn't have to be from the same group - meaning that giving the info to other TOs is fine. But I do think that since S@X was always consistently done weekly it eventually draws in people. MDVA doesn't have top tier talent pool but its good enough and coupled with it being a weekly really pushed it well enough, otherwise if it were a monthly I'm not sure if it would see as much success as it does excluding the fact that GIMR and VGBC is involved in every major tournament of the year which obviously ASL does not have that backing.

You need good players and you need frequent and consistent streaming times that don't try to always compete with bigger events. You'll get a few viewers but you won't win unless you get to be the size of your competitors which probably needs to happen at an independent time of when they go on. Not sure if people are wanting ASL streams to reach that level but I digress.

With all of this said, I do wonder if Alabama has a talent pool strong enough to provide "higher level players" consistently at most events. Because really I do think talent/well known > well run/looks nice. The ladder does wonders to propel the former forward but talent can stand more on its own whereas if you don't have anyone good playing on a nice looking stream it doesn't really mean much imo. But talent does breed further talent and Alabama is certainly talented in some capacity. I think it is possible, just we will need to travel and increase our level of stream quality up which does include things like commentators and overlay management (ie information actively being updated in a timely manner).

I'm sure most people in Auburn are willing to pitch is as well, I myself am willing to help with anything I can do. Wish I was better at commentating.

 

[theONEjanitor]

the only reason MD/VA players are "well known" is BECAUSE S@X is a weekly, and anyone following VGBC sees the same names over and over again every week. their best players aren't that much better than our best players imo, they just have more 'best players' quantity wise. The players who make top 32 in west coast tournaments would probably scrape AL players, but nobody knows who they are because they're never on stream. Commentators and presentation can make a stream with not so good players still interesting. So I don't necessarily agree with the above post. Back when Pierce used to commentate Brawl I would watch any match he was commentating because he always provided so much knowledge and insight, same with Wife in melee. and some commentators are just entertaining and fun like tk and ee

 

[Santi0306]

East Orlando New guy trying to compete in tournaments. Any info.can help where do I start to sign up?

 

[Sweaters]

East Orlando New guy trying to compete in tournaments. Any info.can help where do I start to sign up?

Do you live in Orlando? Cause if you do I don't think you're in the right thread bud, but if you live in Alabama and you moved from Orlando welcome! Smashboards does give you some information, but for the most info on most of the events in bama your best bet would be facebook and the Alabama smash league page can be found here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/alabamasmashleague/
This is where people will post many events happening in much of the south east in relation to Alabama. I hope this helped.

 

[Saki-]

Labor day weekend...soooo sooooon

 

[MasterIcarus7 (SHADE)]

Labor day weekend...soooo sooooon

I'm really feeling it

 

[Anime]

So apparently I have to come into work Monday morning. Which is going to make coming back from bio late suuuuuuck.

 

[Shenanigan]

So apparently I have to come into work Monday morning. Which is going to make coming back from bio late suuuuuuck.

Where do you work that you have to come in on Labor Day?

 

[Anime]

I lift boxes for auburn university. Apparently the dinning halls are still open, so I have to stock them.

 

[Child Star]

I lift boxes for auburn university. Apparently the dinning halls are still open, so I have to stock them.

**** Auburn my dude.

 

[Mahgnittoc]

Smash is a children's party game. It's pretty cool.

 

[Keet]

Smash is a children's party game. It's pretty cool.

You playing smash anywhere this weekend? I'll be in Huntsville so...

 

[Mahgnittoc]

We can get some people together. I'll ask around

 

[Mahgnittoc]

When do you perform and when do we play smash @ Keet

 

[Saki-]

Smash while performing. Bring the beers

 

[Keet]

When do you perform and when do we play smash @ Keet

I play tonight around 8:00-10:00 or so at the Vape shop. I'm down to play after that whenever.

PM me your number

Edit: I may not be hang out though just because I'm not taking my own car and I kinda have to leave whenever my ride wants to. I'll keep you posted though.

Smash while performing. Bring the beers

Dude if they allow you to bring setups I totally will.

 

[Mahgnittoc]

They do. They host tournies there

 

[MasterIcarus7 (SHADE)]

Anybody want some rocket league online friendlies

 

[Keet]

They do. They host tournies there

I didn't bring my Wii u, so if you want to I'm totally down to play!

 

[Sorzan]

Ayy! I'm kind of new to the smash scene and I have been wanting to go to some tournaments recently. Does anyone know of some tournaments around the Opelika/Auburn area that i could attend somewhat soon? Thanks guys, I hope you have a great day!

 

[Flame Blade 2]

Ayy! I'm kind of new to the smash scene and I have been wanting to go to some tournaments recently. Does anyone know of some tournaments around the Opelika/Auburn area that i could attend somewhat soon? Thanks guys, I hope you have a great day!

Sup, you should hit up https://www.facebook.com/groups/auburnsmash/

 

[Anime]

Ayy! I'm kind of new to the smash scene and I have been wanting to go to some tournaments recently. Does anyone know of some tournaments around the Opelika/Auburn area that i could attend somewhat soon? Thanks guys, I hope you have a great day!

We have weekly meet ups at the University that you're more than welcome to. We have two tournaments a year that are pretty big. There's also a monthly in town that I think is happening today, but tends to be pretty small.

 

[Anime]

Bio was a really good tournament. The number of setups was sick.

 

[Zylo]

Bio was a really good tournament. The number of setups was sick.

16 Melee setups for a 43 person tournament kreygasm

 

[Mahgnittoc]

Bio goes great
The g0at returns
The king is back

Now I'm on my road to Big House 5. Let's hope I can take some wins along the way

 

[Saki-]

I'm just trying to get a top 5 at one of these OOS events this month. ;-; my Lucina needs so much work

 

[Keet]

Tasya, you wanna carpool to DGR3? I think I'm gonna make it my first regional.

 

[Saki-]

Tasya, you wanna carpool to DGR3? I think I'm gonna make it my first regional.

Sure thing man, I've already set my schedule to make sure I'm 100% confirmed.