TL;DR I'm willing to head TO a side tourney at Apex and plan it ahead of time so it's good. But I seriously need help, because this is going to be a 100% grassroots effort. Who's interested? Who can bring set ups? Who wants to set up the set ups? Who wants to figure out where we can play? Who wants to help me organize it and run it?
PM players. This is a call to you. Our entire community. To anyone who wants to get a real competition going at Apex. Forget about your Nintendo salt. Forget about the Apex salt.
This tournament only happens once a year. If there is one tournament that smashers mark on their calendar to attend, it's this one. We have to make something happen.
We could just try and organize a side tourney on the day of. Or maybe the day before. And we actually could get one going. But would it be good? Would it take proper advantage of the sheer variety of talent that shows up to Apex? Would it generate real hype worthy of such a massive event? Would it provide the salt necessary for the poor peasants in the 20XX apocalypse to preserve their food?
No way. We need to start discussing details NOW so we can make this happen. I know in light of PM's exclusion at Apex, many in the PM community want to have a separate national as essentially our "Apex." I agree, but this exclusion was given on such short notice and committments to Apex have been made. Let's come through for those people.
For people who are well versed in running/organizing tournaments, you know what to do to help. For the rest of you who want to contribute but don't know where to start, read the spoiler below to get yourself up to speed.
[collapse= This is the majority (if not all) of what it takes:]
These are essentially all logistics. With my own TO experience, visiting big tournaments, and recent discussion with others, here are the biggest factors I've seen/dealt with
A. TO (Tournament Organizer) power. We need people who can organize and lead.
B. Set ups. Gotta have video games to actually play.
C. Venue. We need a place to play.
D. Scheduling. There are PM players who play other smash too. It would be perfect if we could schedule the side tournament so players don't have time conflicts with other games. It's impossible to determine this right now because the schedule for Apex isn't out yet, and the schedule won't be taking into account a PM side tourney.
The next set of factors aren't necessarily important for just getting a side tournament going, but they are quite necessary if we want to make it amazing.
E. Seeding. Organizing who will play who. This is the biggest smash event - people of all skills from so many regions will be in attendance. Many, if not all, are here to see how good they are compared to people from other regions. Obviously we want to make a fair tournament, where the best players don't have to play each other until the end. But we should also strive to ensure competitors play as many different people from different regions as possible. Great seeding that accomplishes this isn't possible without this next factor however.
F. Planning. Having the tournament already organized and set to go before the day of. Time at apex is valuable and there really isn't a lot of it. With great planning, the day(s) of the tournament can be so simple: competitors show up to the room and play their matches as directed until the tournament ends. Pre-regisration is a huge part of the planning stage and we absolutely should strive to have this. We want as much work done before tournament day as possible.
G. Number of entrants. This works in conjunction with all the above in figuring out ultimately if we can run things on time. The earlier we can know this, the better.
H. Tournament Format. Are we just going to do singles? Will we do singles and doubles? Are we gonna go straight double elim bracket, or maybe throw some round robins in there? If we do a straight bracket, and it's a huge bracket, will we break it up into waves so its easier to run? It's funny and kinda ironic that even though this is a tournament, the optimal way to pit the competitors against each other is the last thing you determine.[/collapse]
So how can you contribute? It's simple. You give your ideas/thoughts on how to get this thing going. And not just how to get it going, but how it can attain that premium quality.
What're really going to make or break this though are contributions. People who will organize. People who will bring set ups. People who will find places to play.
This is how grassroots we are: If four TOs post in this thread they're hungry for some real organization, and if 32 smashers post they can bring set ups, we're well on our way to something real. That's all it takes! Assuming they deliver of course.
While I don't want to think about it, there is a real possibility that given all the crazy activity at Apex (I volunteered there last year and got just a taste of it myself), we might not be able to host the amazing side tourney we want and have to deal with some horrible constraints. We may not have ideal space. We may not be able to avoid scheduling conflicts. Stay as grounded and as real as you can.
Now I am offering myself to head TO this whole thing. That doesn't mean I'm eager to run the whole thing myself (altho I would be quite comfortable doing so with up to ~100 entrants). Extra TO power goes such a long way. I'm a good candidate because of my overall experience this year. I lead TO a weekly that has had over 100 entrants during peak activity. I've participated in tournaments ranging from master level organization (Big House 4) to TOing nightmare (SKTAR 3) and the lessons of each are still fresh in my mind. Also I'm more devoted to PM than the other smash games, and we seriously need more TOs who'd prioritize PM over other smash games. But really, what matters more than skill and experience for this is the genuine desire to run it, which I have, and hopefully others as well.
For now, I would like to see how strong of an effort the community is willing to put in before I (and hopefully any other interested TOs) take the next steps to making this actually happen. If nobody can confirm or even express interest bringing set ups, then there's really no point in trying to plan this tournament ahead of time.
Direct anybody interested in a PM side tournament at Apex to this thread. Our discussion is scattered amongst so much social media and we need a unified place to share ideas. If people can't post on smashboards, speak on behalf of them, maybe even link to posts if they're public. I'll make a reddit/r/ssbpm post trying to get people here. My facebook isn't active at the moment, so if other people could go on facebook and direct people here that'd be amazing.
We must work as independently of the Apex staff as possible. Not because we hate them, nor to unleash pent up anger. They have made their decision to not be connected with PM. It might be a good idea to respect that.
We grassroots now, have been, and always will be. Let's embrace it and make something happen.
PM players. This is a call to you. Our entire community. To anyone who wants to get a real competition going at Apex. Forget about your Nintendo salt. Forget about the Apex salt.
This tournament only happens once a year. If there is one tournament that smashers mark on their calendar to attend, it's this one. We have to make something happen.
We could just try and organize a side tourney on the day of. Or maybe the day before. And we actually could get one going. But would it be good? Would it take proper advantage of the sheer variety of talent that shows up to Apex? Would it generate real hype worthy of such a massive event? Would it provide the salt necessary for the poor peasants in the 20XX apocalypse to preserve their food?
No way. We need to start discussing details NOW so we can make this happen. I know in light of PM's exclusion at Apex, many in the PM community want to have a separate national as essentially our "Apex." I agree, but this exclusion was given on such short notice and committments to Apex have been made. Let's come through for those people.
For people who are well versed in running/organizing tournaments, you know what to do to help. For the rest of you who want to contribute but don't know where to start, read the spoiler below to get yourself up to speed.
[collapse= This is the majority (if not all) of what it takes:]
These are essentially all logistics. With my own TO experience, visiting big tournaments, and recent discussion with others, here are the biggest factors I've seen/dealt with
A. TO (Tournament Organizer) power. We need people who can organize and lead.
B. Set ups. Gotta have video games to actually play.
C. Venue. We need a place to play.
D. Scheduling. There are PM players who play other smash too. It would be perfect if we could schedule the side tournament so players don't have time conflicts with other games. It's impossible to determine this right now because the schedule for Apex isn't out yet, and the schedule won't be taking into account a PM side tourney.
The next set of factors aren't necessarily important for just getting a side tournament going, but they are quite necessary if we want to make it amazing.
E. Seeding. Organizing who will play who. This is the biggest smash event - people of all skills from so many regions will be in attendance. Many, if not all, are here to see how good they are compared to people from other regions. Obviously we want to make a fair tournament, where the best players don't have to play each other until the end. But we should also strive to ensure competitors play as many different people from different regions as possible. Great seeding that accomplishes this isn't possible without this next factor however.
F. Planning. Having the tournament already organized and set to go before the day of. Time at apex is valuable and there really isn't a lot of it. With great planning, the day(s) of the tournament can be so simple: competitors show up to the room and play their matches as directed until the tournament ends. Pre-regisration is a huge part of the planning stage and we absolutely should strive to have this. We want as much work done before tournament day as possible.
G. Number of entrants. This works in conjunction with all the above in figuring out ultimately if we can run things on time. The earlier we can know this, the better.
H. Tournament Format. Are we just going to do singles? Will we do singles and doubles? Are we gonna go straight double elim bracket, or maybe throw some round robins in there? If we do a straight bracket, and it's a huge bracket, will we break it up into waves so its easier to run? It's funny and kinda ironic that even though this is a tournament, the optimal way to pit the competitors against each other is the last thing you determine.[/collapse]
So how can you contribute? It's simple. You give your ideas/thoughts on how to get this thing going. And not just how to get it going, but how it can attain that premium quality.
What're really going to make or break this though are contributions. People who will organize. People who will bring set ups. People who will find places to play.
This is how grassroots we are: If four TOs post in this thread they're hungry for some real organization, and if 32 smashers post they can bring set ups, we're well on our way to something real. That's all it takes! Assuming they deliver of course.
While I don't want to think about it, there is a real possibility that given all the crazy activity at Apex (I volunteered there last year and got just a taste of it myself), we might not be able to host the amazing side tourney we want and have to deal with some horrible constraints. We may not have ideal space. We may not be able to avoid scheduling conflicts. Stay as grounded and as real as you can.
Now I am offering myself to head TO this whole thing. That doesn't mean I'm eager to run the whole thing myself (altho I would be quite comfortable doing so with up to ~100 entrants). Extra TO power goes such a long way. I'm a good candidate because of my overall experience this year. I lead TO a weekly that has had over 100 entrants during peak activity. I've participated in tournaments ranging from master level organization (Big House 4) to TOing nightmare (SKTAR 3) and the lessons of each are still fresh in my mind. Also I'm more devoted to PM than the other smash games, and we seriously need more TOs who'd prioritize PM over other smash games. But really, what matters more than skill and experience for this is the genuine desire to run it, which I have, and hopefully others as well.
For now, I would like to see how strong of an effort the community is willing to put in before I (and hopefully any other interested TOs) take the next steps to making this actually happen. If nobody can confirm or even express interest bringing set ups, then there's really no point in trying to plan this tournament ahead of time.
Direct anybody interested in a PM side tournament at Apex to this thread. Our discussion is scattered amongst so much social media and we need a unified place to share ideas. If people can't post on smashboards, speak on behalf of them, maybe even link to posts if they're public. I'll make a reddit/r/ssbpm post trying to get people here. My facebook isn't active at the moment, so if other people could go on facebook and direct people here that'd be amazing.
We must work as independently of the Apex staff as possible. Not because we hate them, nor to unleash pent up anger. They have made their decision to not be connected with PM. It might be a good idea to respect that.
We grassroots now, have been, and always will be. Let's embrace it and make something happen.
