If Brawl Doesnt get Competitive

[Incronaut]

If the creator of smash (his name is drawing a blank.. my bad) successfully makes brawl a non-competition driven game... then do you think all the smashers that are hungry for blood will come back to melee and start festering on that game? or do you think it's time to move on and just accept brawl, even with its differences?

 

[TheManaLord]

People will come back.

 

[Wind Owl]

I really hope people come back. I missed the Melee scene and am really wishing I hadn't right now. I hate Brawl and recognize how awesome Melee was, and I hope I'll be able to go to tournaments ;_;

 

[maXXXpower]

As much as I hate to admit it, because Melee is the better game, Brawl has taken over. There are simply too many people playing Brawl.

 

[TheManaLord]

Taken what over? The melee tournament in georgia is a huge deal/topic.

Melee isn't dead in the slightest, it's just comparatively. Soon enough casual hype will wear off and people will realize what they are wasting their time on.

 

[orintemple]

Melee near me seems to be just a silly fun thing now. I played it the other day and I was amazed at how much better it really was. I used to never believe it but after playing Brawl for a long time and going back to Melee you really appreciate how great it is.

Sadly I feel like in most places Brawl is taking over, and it also has a larger fanbase, which means more people to support it. Some old pros have moved to Brawl too. It doesn't even matter what is better at this point, its just what the people want to play. I would love to see Melee remade identically for Wii, with improved graphics, but that wouldn't happen.

Also, 1000th post, sweet.

 

[JFox]

Melee will die, its only a question of how long it will take. Think about it...

If brawl competitively goes sour, most people that have been playing brawl(people like Chu, Chillin, Cort, Hugs) aren't coming back. They have just been around for so long that if brawl doesn't hold their interest, they most likely won't regain interest in a game they left. The reason many of them left was they felt they hit a ceiling on their game, and brawl is not yet limited.

If brawl fails, they aren't coming back. But that isn't the real problem at all. The problem is on the other side of the spectrum. Brawl makes it virtually impossible to get new people to start playing melee. Without newbs, tournaments have fewer players to build the pot. Without a decent pot size, high level players are unmotivated to travel. Less travel means even fewer players for tournaments. Without tournaments, players don't play competitively, and the game does not progress.

You get the point. Eventually, melee will burn itself out, regardless of how good this game is. Its inevitable. The question is how long do we really have. I figure melee has a year left, 2 at best.

Time to face the music.

 

[maXXXpower]

Taken what over? The melee tournament in georgia is a huge deal/topic.

Melee isn't dead in the slightest, it's just comparatively. Soon enough casual hype will wear off and people will realize what they are wasting their time on.

Georgia sucks at Melee, comparatively.

On a more serious note, people will not stop playing Brawl over Melee just because Melee is a better game. (Which, it is, totally) Don't get me wrong, I hope I am terribly mistaken because if Brawl is ever dropped for Melee, I will be the first one to dust off my Melee disc; melee>>>>>>>>brawl.

But let's not be naive; people are in love with Brawl. Unjustifiably? Yes. Brawl, I hypothesize, is here to stay.

 

[SS Ben]

What exactly do people class here as Melee "dying out"? I'm sure some people (myself included) will always still play Melee, just as they do with Smash 64. Is Smash 64 classed as "dead", yet?

 

[orintemple]

What exactly do people class here as Melee "dying out"? I'm sure some people (myself included) will always still play Melee, just as they do with Smash 64. Is Smash 64 classed as "dead", yet?

When we say "dying out" we mean it will not be the competitive standard any longer and therefore played significantly less by the majority.

 

[SS Ben]

When we say "dying out" we mean it will not be the competitive standard any longer and therefore played significantly less by the majority.

If that's the definition we're going off, then unfortunately Melee seems to be dead already. I've seen hardly any tournaments that don't include Brawl, and not all Brawl tournaments have seperate section for Melee. I'll still continue to train in Melee though, even if it is just for a few local tournaments or amongst friends.

 

[Mic_128]

Melee will die, its only a question of how long it will take. Think about it...

If brawl competitively goes sour, most people that have been playing brawl(people like Chu, Chillin, Cort, Hugs) aren't coming back. They have just been around for so long that if brawl doesn't hold their interest, they most likely won't regain interest in a game they left. The reason many of them left was they felt they hit a ceiling on their game, and brawl is not yet limited.

If brawl fails, they aren't coming back. But that isn't the real problem at all. The problem is on the other side of the spectrum. Brawl makes it virtually impossible to get new people to start playing melee. Without newbs, tournaments have fewer players to build the pot. Without a decent pot size, high level players are unmotivated to travel. Less travel means even fewer players for tournaments. Without tournaments, players don't play competitively, and the game does not progress.

You get the point. Eventually, melee will burn itself out, regardless of how good this game is. Its inevitable. The question is how long do we really have. I figure melee has a year left, 2 at best.

Time to face the music.

This is the best post I have ever seen on the subject. It hits the nail on the head so many times it's gone through the wood. Read, understand and accept it.

 

[Hizkit]

Melee will die, its only a question of how long it will take. Think about it...

If brawl competitively goes sour, most people that have been playing brawl(people like Chu, Chillin, Cort, Hugs) aren't coming back. They have just been around for so long that if brawl doesn't hold their interest, they most likely won't regain interest in a game they left. The reason many of them left was they felt they hit a ceiling on their game, and brawl is not yet limited.

If brawl fails, they aren't coming back. But that isn't the real problem at all. The problem is on the other side of the spectrum. Brawl makes it virtually impossible to get new people to start playing melee. Without newbs, tournaments have fewer players to build the pot. Without a decent pot size, high level players are unmotivated to travel. Less travel means even fewer players for tournaments. Without tournaments, players don't play competitively, and the game does not progress.

You get the point. Eventually, melee will burn itself out, regardless of how good this game is. Its inevitable. The question is how long do we really have. I figure melee has a year left, 2 at best.

Time to face the music.

Amen. Although there'll always be veterans playing it, I doubt it'll maintain a scene for very much longer.

 

[ThreeX]

To be honest, it's sad... and this is the reason I hate brawl. My opinion, the game is horrible... and if this does happen to melee, I'll probably end up burning my brawl disk While people are quitting if brawl fails... Now, if melee does die... I'm done, I'm not going to switch to brawl, or force myself to play it.


4 words:

I hate you sakurai.

(well, only for making brawl, ty for making the melee :] )

 

[$hYne]

To be honest, it's sad... and this is the reason I hate brawl. My opinion, the game is horrible... and if this does happen to melee, I'll probably end up burning my brawl disk While people are quitting if brawl fails... Now, if melee does die... I'm done, I'm not going to switch to brawl, or force myself to play it.

I totally agree to this one ...

 

[Eggm]

I really hope people come back. I missed the Melee scene and am really wishing I hadn't right now. I hate Brawl and recognize how awesome Melee was, and I hope I'll be able to go to tournaments ;_;

Theres still melee tournaments in philly. Checkout the next SPOC ( check atlantic north )

 

[Jx31]

Georgia sucks at Melee, comparatively.

On a more serious note, people will not stop playing Brawl over Melee just because Melee is a better game. (Which, it is, totally) Don't get me wrong, I hope I am terribly mistaken because if Brawl is ever dropped for Melee, I will be the first one to dust off my Melee disc; melee>>>>>>>>brawl.

But let's not be naive; people are in love with Brawl. Unjustifiably? Yes. Brawl, I hypothesize, is here to stay.

Ouch......

 

[Falcinho]

At least Georgia still organizes big melee tournies.
Georgia roxx

 

[Dylan_Tnga]

I saw this coming when the brawl trailer came out. But no one f***in listened to me.

Meh, I hope melee goes online, that is all.

 

[Fireblaster]

I saw this coming when the brawl trailer came out. But no one f***in listened to me.

Meh, I hope melee goes online, that is all.

Hey Tnga, how you doing ? lol

Anyways, I didn't see it that early, but when I started seeing the game begin to get newb friendly I had a really bad feeling about brawl (The automatic jab combos on the dojo, automatic sweespot aka the death of the edgeguard, infinite airdodges, etc.)

 

[Metal_Dave]

Get over it already... Brawl will not be put down. -.-

 

[Cort]

I play whatever everyone else is playing, I could easily go back to Melee

 

[The Alpha Gundam]

Get over it already... Brawl will not be put down. -.-

ORLY o_O
*waits for Brawl to flop @ Evo*

 

[The Alpha Gundam]

Georgia sucks at Melee, comparatively.

Your just mad cause GA is actually hosting a Melee tourney XD

 

[NoVaLombardia]

Let's form an angry mob and begin a genocide on all the brawl copies in every game store across america. Who's with me? It'll be a million nerd march

 

[SpaceFalcon]

There are two types of brawl players.

1] People who ***** at meele and play Brawl to clean out cash from the swarm of new players.

2] Noobs who finally think they have a chance of being a someone in the smash scene... lol >_>

 

[leafgreen386]

To be quite honest, I think JFox, while right about several things, is a little off. Melee won't die, not as long as there are still people who resent brawl. And with every day, more and more melee vets are realizing that brawl sucks. The brawl scene is dominated by complete nobodies right now (by "dominated" I mean in terms of the ratio of good players to nubs). The entire brawl scene is being fueled by nubs right now, players who never were competitive in melee in the first place.

The only reason the pros are gravitating toward brawl is to make some easy cash, as has already been said. Now, melee will die if we let it. However, if melee tournies continue existing, there's still a reason for pros to continue playing melee, which gives the other players reason to continue trying to get better and beat them. It's a cycle that feeds upon itself. This cycle has stagnated with brawl's release, however, if we continue feeding into it, it will restart. I know few if any people who enjoyed melee before that enjoy brawl more now. These people, those who enjoy melee more, are the people who will continue to support melee's community. Players will continue to improve, and new faces will indeed start showing up in the top placements at tournies. Although some players will not return, and although they will be missed, the only way melee can die is if we let it.

Eventually, what will happen will be that brawl levels out to a much lower level of participation than its current hype. The hardcore brawlers will likely continue having tournies, while all the nubs eventually quit. The fact that brawl and melee are two very different games that draw in two very different types of people is what will allow both to coexist. Players who enjoyed melee more will naturally gravitate toward the melee tournaments. Players who like brawl more will stick with it. It depends entirely upon what style of game they prefer. But in few situations do the two groups overlap (at least as far as taking the game far enough to be competitive, anyway). This is how melee tournies can still prosper. This is how the game can continue existing long after brawl's release.

We can do it. We can keep melee alive. But we need to actually try. Just giving in to the majority and playing brawl because everyone else is won't do a thing. I urge everyone to try to at least get their local tourney hotspots to host both melee and brawl tournies, if they aren't already. Talk to smashers you know who used to play melee about getting back into the game. Remember, the brawl community is only as large as it is because of the huge surge of new players. All the melee vets are still around. Some have moved on, but with little encouragement, I think most would be more than willing and happy to participate in melee tournies, or a melee smashfest. At least that's been the pattern in the people I've talked to.

Keep the community alive. Keep melee alive.

 

[JFox]

Leafgreen, you are thinking about the immediate future. If vets come back, how long can we expect them to continue playing competitively.

Most of our vet melee players are in college. When you graduate college, and you get a job, you think you'll have time to keep going to tourneys? You think when you get married, you're gonna have time to go to tourneys? What about when you have kids?

No matter how you cut it, without new players you cannot sustain a community. Even the big names when I entered the scene, 3 years ago, left long before the release of brawl. Many of the nothing players that started with me are now big names. You NEED new players.

Like I said, its a matter of time.

 

[pockyD]

it pains me to say it, but jasonfox is right

i'll keep playing brawl as long as others are playing it though; it's more about the community than about the game (obviously it's about the game a little bit, but brawl is fun enough for me to keep playing, even if it doesn't measure up to melee)

 

[SunriseW12]

I would, by all means, go back to melee. It is in every aspect a better competitive fighter. But my (and many others') problem with that is the fact that no one in my area plays the game. I dont want to play by myself against cpus for months at a time and then go to a small tournament with limited prizes. It would be ********.

 

[BlackPanther]

Melee will die, its only a question of how long it will take. Think about it...

If brawl competitively goes sour, most people that have been playing brawl(people like Chu, Chillin, Cort, Hugs) aren't coming back. They have just been around for so long that if brawl doesn't hold their interest, they most likely won't regain interest in a game they left. The reason many of them left was they felt they hit a ceiling on their game, and brawl is not yet limited.

If brawl fails, they aren't coming back. But that isn't the real problem at all. The problem is on the other side of the spectrum. Brawl makes it virtually impossible to get new people to start playing melee. Without newbs, tournaments have fewer players to build the pot. Without a decent pot size, high level players are unmotivated to travel. Less travel means even fewer players for tournaments. Without tournaments, players don't play competitively, and the game does not progress.

You get the point. Eventually, melee will burn itself out, regardless of how good this game is. Its inevitable. The question is how long do we really have. I figure melee has a year left, 2 at best.

Time to face the music.

I think that's really silly to say and really silly for people to agree with it. You make it seem like that EVERY n00b is gonna jump on Brawl's **** like everyone else does. It doesn't happen that way, sure there won't be as many gettin into the Melee as there is with Brawl but to say that everyone will just go to Brawl is dumb . And people not goin back to Melee because Brawl fails? That's a laugh too because a lot of people have already said they could still play this game for 5 more years. The game is still too good and we still have yet to fully understand this game.

 

[orintemple]

I think that's really silly to say and really silly for people to agree with it. You make it seem like that EVERY n00b is gonna jump on Brawl's **** like everyone else does. It doesn't happen that way, sure there won't be as many gettin into the Melee as there is with Brawl but to say that everyone will just go to Brawl is dumb . And people not goin back to Melee because Brawl fails? That's a laugh too because a lot of people have already said they could still play this game for 5 more years. The game is still too good and we still have yet to fully understand this game.

The majority is going to do what the majority does. If Brawl is deemed unplayable for competition and the community goes back to Melee, the majority of people will follow. That is why Brawl is popular, because the community went to it. It is much harder to go back to an old version then it is to go forward to the new, due to the "trying it out" phase. We tried it out, and because people liked it at all, and were so desperate for something new, even if they didn't admit it, we moved on to Brawl.

By "we" in that statement I mean, the community as a whole, not any individual person.

 

[JFox]

I've been thinking about it, and I think that if brawl doesn't become competitive, it might be even WORSE for melee in the long run. I mean, sure vets might come back. But the only reason the SSB community has lived on (if you can call that living) is because bored melee players decided thought "hey, if this is fun, i wonder if i could actually enjoy competitive SSB too."

If it doesn't become competitive brawl players will never get used to using AT's, never get into evolving a meta game on a forum, etc. New players would be more likely to make the switch if brawl does get competitive than not.

Thats just the long run though. For the short run (the next 2-3 years) it would be better if brawl was a flop.

 

[lordXblade]

I guess you guys have never heard of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. This is a game that's been around for, what, 16 years? It's still played competitively, and there are still tournaments for it. Melee will most certainly live on if we keep it going, mainly because it's sequel isn't that great competitively. ST has a viable sequel to play in SF3: Third Strike, and yet there are still people who travel for it and work to get better. There are new heroes that come into the ranks, and old school players continue to dominate. Melee will be no different, in fact, it will be better off. It has no tournament viable sequel, and once people realize that, they'll coming running back.

 

[orintemple]

I guess you guys have never heard of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. This is a game that's been around for, what, 16 years? It's still played competitively, and there are still tournaments for it. Melee will most certainly live on if we keep it going, mainly because it's sequel isn't that great competitively. ST has a viable sequel to play in SF3: Third Strike, and yet there are still people who travel for it and work to get better. There are new heroes that come into the ranks, and old school players continue to dominate. Melee will be no different, in fact, it will be better off. It has no tournament viable sequel, and once people realize that, they'll coming running back.

Well that is what we need to see. While that is true, the Smash community as the SF community are 2 entirely different entities playing 2 entirely different games. If Melee returns to be the competitive standard it will only be because the majority decides that they don't like Brawl enough to keep it as the standard.

We still have time though. I am not sure how long SF2:T's sequel was played before they gave up on it(whatever the one that isn't Thrid Strike), but Brawl is still young. Brawl will be played until the last ounce of hope the community has is lost, and then we will turn back to Melee, but only once we are all ABSOLUTELY certain that Brawl is not the game we want to play.

Either way I go where the people go, I play Smash for fun, competition and friendship. Those can only be found within a community of players.

 

[XERAMPELINAE]

If Brawl doesn't get competitive? It's been competitive since day 1 with all these tournaments, etc. Melee's competitive value is getting weaker. Way too many people have moved on with Brawl and many more have just joined the tournament scene.

As much as I love Melee and praise it as a real classic, it seems stupid to still try to prove ourselves in a game that has been out for 7 years and let the majority prove themselves and compete in Brawl. And, no, this is not jumping into the bandwagon-- it is simply being part of the Smash competition.

 

[lordXblade]

Well that is what we need to see. While that is true, the Smash community as the SF community are 2 entirely different entities playing 2 entirely different games. If Melee returns to be the competitive standard it will only be because the majority decides that they don't like Brawl enough to keep it as the standard.

We still have time though. I am not sure how long SF2:T's sequel was played before they gave up on it(whatever the one that isn't Thrid Strike), but Brawl is still young. Brawl will be played until the last ounce of hope the community has is lost, and then we will turn back to Melee, but only once we are all ABSOLUTELY certain that Brawl is not the game we want to play.

The two communities are different entities, and play different games, but share the same qualities. Both love the games they play to death, and want to develop them to the highest level possible, and both would hate to see their games die. The SF community is just as competitive, hardcore, and serious about SF as this community is about smash. Strangely enough, we are now in the exact same situation they were once in.

Third Strike came out as a fresh new game, and the community was split over which game they liked more, 3S or ST. It was the communities ability to accept both games as competitively viable that allowed them to coincide. Many players, such as Justin Wong and Alex Valle, are insanely good in both games.

With Brawl, we have a different case. There are many arguments, and good ones at that, saying why Brawl is not competitively viable. I agree with most of these arguments when it comes to the game's current state, but I also agree with the people that say Brawl needs more time to develop before we can really make that determination.

If Brawl becomes a deep, highly competitive game, or if it doesnt, neither game has to die out, because Melee and Brawl are different enough that they can coincide.

 

[KosukeKGA]

There is nothing that technical about Brawl. We've had two months. Brawl may have competition but it isn't competitive.

Go back to Melee.

 

[Fletch]

Melee will die, its only a question of how long it will take. Think about it...

If brawl competitively goes sour, most people that have been playing brawl(people like Chu, Chillin, Cort, Hugs) aren't coming back. They have just been around for so long that if brawl doesn't hold their interest, they most likely won't regain interest in a game they left. The reason many of them left was they felt they hit a ceiling on their game, and brawl is not yet limited.

If brawl fails, they aren't coming back. But that isn't the real problem at all. The problem is on the other side of the spectrum. Brawl makes it virtually impossible to get new people to start playing melee. Without newbs, tournaments have fewer players to build the pot. Without a decent pot size, high level players are unmotivated to travel. Less travel means even fewer players for tournaments. Without tournaments, players don't play competitively, and the game does not progress.

You get the point. Eventually, melee will burn itself out, regardless of how good this game is. Its inevitable. The question is how long do we really have. I figure melee has a year left, 2 at best.

Time to face the music.

I hate to accept this, but this is the truth. Great post, and here's to hoping Melee still has a few years left.

 

[KosukeKGA]

I hate to accept this, but this is the truth. Great post, and here's to hoping Melee still has a few years left.

Do not fall for his lulz. Play Melee and tell your friends to as well. Don't give in to the darkness.

Some of these guys who want Brawl alive just want a shot at fame.