Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!
You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!
It appears that you are using ad block :'(
Hey, we get it. However this website is run by and for the community... and it needs ads in order to keep running.
Please disable your adblock on Smashboards, or go premium to hide all advertisements and this notice. Alternatively, this ad may have just failed to load. Woops!
The drive to get better and play better people? I think Smash players have more self-drive than any other community. We don't need a ****king cookie to keep playing Smash.
If we had self-drive, our tournament play shouldn't (in most cases) be so stagnant.
I don't post on SWF that often, but recently I made a topic about Shield Dropping including a video that I spent a fair amount of time on. What's my reward? A little recognition at tournaments maybe? My real is my own satisfaction in having found a new OOS option on platforms. I don't need an outside reward to continue research in this game.
I want to stop here and say, don't think so strongly about the rewards that i noted in my previous message. Instead the entire message as a whole. The awards were just icing on the cake of a strongly knit community of people who have drive. While you don't need a rewards to do research because obviously it'll be better for you, having support to continue research allows said techniques to come faster.
By the way, i'm curious, did you post that tech everywhere or just in atl south?
The Smash community is special because it is entirely community based. We have tournaments nation wide that people attend with the single drive of just getting to play good players and get better. And bent on not working together? What does this even mean? Do we not help each other get better? Do people not post on SWF to give character specific advice?
As far as I know, shoryuken is also a community based website ran by dr. wizzard.
Why would we get Nintendo to be a sponsor? They've already shown their disinterest. If we're looking for a sponsor, we should search elsewhere. We've gotten VGBC as a sponsor, right?
Yes, but would you consider them notable? We need to progressively have more sponsors, VGBC is infact a good start, however there are more out there.
And about tournament organizers coming together for one big tournament. uh APEX? We have huge tournaments every year where almost every Smasher who can afford it comes. I think one main reason tournament directors don't collaborate more often is because they have lives outside of Smash. School and Jobs that they can't just take off to have a 3 or 4 day monster tournament. Do you expect them to fly out to a central location every year like it's their job?
To my knowledge, a three to four day tournament once a year, would require a lot of work and dedication, but people manage to pull it out. Larry has been doing Final Round for thirteen years now, are you saying that he doesn't have a life outside of street fighter?
One of the main reason's Smash is different is because it can be seen on two levels: A competitive one and a party game. As Elliot said, real fighting games have the game creators support and a linear competitive path, while Smash is left to organize on its own trying to get casual player who are unaware of competitive play to join their side. And as seen in history, casual players are often resistant and even hostile to this change. We're fighting to get people to play the same game play our version of the same game.
I agree with this, however this is being discussed constantly, anyone who's reading this thread in it's entirety already noted this as a viable point.
Smash is about free will and SF is just a linear progression. Starting from bad competitive player to good competitive player, not from nonexistent competitive player to bad competitive player and then to good competitive player.
@exarch - absolutely excellent post, and you are definitely right, Georgia of all areas would be the best tournament hub IF any for the southeast region. The saddest thing about the whole ordeal is that we have a regional tournament (final round) that still to this day barely gets entrants.
Exarch, darkpappy, and bears posted some things that really got the gears turning. This thread has motivated me to start TOing. For real. I am not sure if that was the point, but I want to improve the community. This thread should be posted elsewhere.
All I was saying about the big tournaments was that the giant tournaments that Roxy had in mind are a work in progress. This community still has a lot of room to grow, and it's small contributions from everyone individually that make for a much bigger and more successful community as a whole.
I was originally going to post this on UB, however for whatever reason it was invalidated. and you're definitely right Teran, I seemed to make my views sound immediate.
I wouldn't say our tournament play is stagnant. I went to a big tournament in Indiana not to long ago and am now planning on going to another big tournament in Alabama next week and then APEX a couple weeks after that. Have you seen the thread showing the tournament attendance numbers since Melee's inception?
Maybe the scene is in decline but it's picking back up. I think the decline is mainly a fault of the division of Brawl and Melee.
The only way we can have bigger tournaments is if we have more Smashers. So I guess we should make more effort to recruit.
And also there's trend where years where we have MLG and EVO, there are more participants. Should we start another nationwide circuit? Can we get another big sponsor to add us to their major tournaments?
Also, I'd have to say it's easier to get people to come to Final Round because the amount and variety of games played there are enormous. What do we have? Brawl, Melee and Smash 64? Even then we're divided among those because they are almost entirely different games.
The fighting game community is much larger because most people who play fighting games play or keep up with most other fighting games, while most Smash players only play 1 of the 3 Smash games. How can one game keep up with the community of an entire genre?
Ideally, instead of isolating Brawl from the traditional fighting game community, both communities could finally make true amends with eachother and try to get Brawl back at Evo next year.
There are a few problems, though:
1. People don't like Brawl. Even Brawl players dislike Brawl.
2. Lots of members of the traditional fighting game community don't even acknowledge Brawl as a fighter.
Or, we could make our own line-up of games and have them played competitive at our own tournament that after a decade of practice becomes up to evo's standards.
Or, we could make our own line-up of games and have them played competitive at our own tournament that after a decade of practice becomes up to evo's standards.
Melty Blood seemed to have gotten approval at Evo through hard hype and dedication from its small community. Melty even had more entrants than MvC2 and Super Turbo combined iirc.
Melty Blood seemed to have gotten approval at Evo through hard hype and dedication from its small community. Melty even had more entrants than MvC2 and Super Turbo combined iirc.
Do you honestly think MLG will let Brawl on for another year when it can't sell their DVDs/stream their events/anything of the sort that provides them with profit? Nintendo's lack of support will kill it. Besides, MLG is a trash company anyway. There's a reason the Tekken community didn't show up to MLG in full force.
Eh, this is just another reason why the FPS and RTS community will always be better and stronger than the fighting game community ^^
The community is not even united, so how can you expect to get anything? Having many players bicker constantly over which game is better doesn't look good at all....
I'm honestly not certain on the subject, however I would think it has something to do with the large influx of passes, merchandise, sponsoring from other business (hot pockets, dr.pepper, etc.)
Do you honestly think MLG will let Brawl on for another year when it can't sell their DVDs/stream their events/anything of the sort that provides them with profit? Nintendo's lack of support will kill it. Besides, MLG is a trash company anyway. There's a reason the Tekken community didn't show up to MLG in full force.
probably, both events have either sold out or came very close. I'm sure Raleigh and Dallas will sell out, not to mention the finals. More numbers means more money for MLG. so yeah you can probably expect brawl up there next year.
In my experience, the smash community has been one of the kindest and friendliest gaming communities I've ever been involved in. After about a 5 month hiatus from smash, I came to a tourney to reenter the smash scene once again. Those of SWF that know me are aware that I'm not a diehard active member of the boards. I attend tournaments/smashfests sporadically and with big absences in between. I'm not a recognized player by any means whatsoever. Yet even after being gone, nearly everyone welcomed me back and made me feel as if I been playing with them every week. I had laughs, everyone helped me get my game better, and so on. This, at least to me, is why the smash community is more than any other gaming community. Everyone is friends almost instantly and everybody gives each other a fair amount (and even sometimes more) of trust and kindness. I know this sounds all sappy, but this is exactly what sets us apart from everyone else and we like it and wouldn't have it any other way.
I don't know what you mean by this, but if you mean the Brawl and Melee community, it's kind of a simple answer. Brawl is a game that either smashers play or don't play (to my knowledge). I don't see a reason why they would need to work together, but they coexist at tournaments frequently, even at huge ones such as Genesis.
I think we're doing a more than fine enough job with huge tournaments. The smash community for being JUST the smash community has pulled off gigantic tourneys with huge turnouts from OOS and even out of the country. I'm extremely proud of the determination of smashers and their willingness to thrive when even the game's creator ignores us. Of course, better quality matches and bigger tourneys would be splendid, but I'm extremely impressed with what this community has churned out.
Some other thoughts I've been going over is "How will the smash scene continued to thrive?" No one is supporting us other than ourselves, so our responsibility (if we care about it) is to keep new smashers coming in and staying in order for us to prosper and keep being as big as we are now. Melee and Brawl were not meant to be competitive as everyone knows and Nintendo doesn't care for us, so are we just to continue with our current activity to keep the scene alive and if so, is that enough? If it isn't, what more can we do to keep our game, the way we want to play it, active and inviting?
lol The Smash community sucks and the only reason it's so big is because stupid kids love Nintendo characters and this kids game is so easy/pick up and play.
Why learn how to play a hard fighting game when you can pick up and play Brawl?
For the SouthEast, the optimal city is Atlanta. For regional tournaments, this is YOUR responsibility. And that includes the proper preparation and infrequency of tournaments to make sure you get a huge turnout. You are the place in the SE that can harness all of the states together for one tournament. If I lived closer to ATL, you can bet I would have had several national tournaments at this point.
Atlanta is it. You have the busiest airport in the WORLD. Atlanta, you are the place for the largest international smash brothers tournaments. But the proper preparation needs to happen first (i.e. talk to experience.)
OK, a little background: My avvy is posted to show that I am a Committee Member for A-Phi-O nationals in 2010 (google it if you wanna know more.)
Among one of the points that was hammered into our getting the bid two years ago was this:
80% of America can drive or fly to Hartsfield-Jackson within a two hour span.
That's right: Around 250 million people can get to the ATL without even burning through their afternoons.
When I first hosted my first tourney, I always had this idea in my head that it is possible for people to come down to the Southeast for the tourney to end all tourneys.
Depending on job placement and time, I would love to be a part of making this happen.
I'll just need a couple months to get things together after graduation.
probably, both events have either sold out or came very close. I'm sure Raleigh and Dallas will sell out, not to mention the finals. More numbers means more money for MLG. so yeah you can probably expect brawl up there next year.
That's not where they make their money. That's a small amount of their profits. There is not much to make off of players. Its the spectators who draw in the big bucks, and that's where MLG is limited for legal reasons with Nintendo.
disclaimer : This is in no way has the theme of bashing the smash community, however it is meant to discuss truthful unbiased facts that the Shoryuken community has high quality things that the Smash community does not. If anything this can be considered a 'how to make the smash community better'. To exarch and Mike G my intention is not to bring hate to the smash community however ask questions.
I find that often times we discuss our community's power over other communities and games; very often we're battling against ourselves (melee vs brawl being the most prominent argument). I myself loved the smash community because of the fact that the game I play competitive is part of the smash community base, no where else. However after recently watching Evo 2k10, I've come upon the realization that...
... The Fighting Game community is leagues better than the smash community.
Now you can use many excuses as to 'why' this is (and in many of those cases, I agree). However does that change the base fact that the Fighting Game Community is better?
While watching the stream, I saw events and planned out videos that I never would've seen at smash tournaments. While I will take a step back and say that much of the qualities are funds-related, the ideas behind them have rarely been duplicated into our community.
- Awards for community members : We have a large, and expansive community and with that, many unsung heroes. The researchers who look in every nook and cranny to find information about certain characters and give them to the public. What is the award for these members here? The brawl/melee backroom?
( o____o )...
What type of award is that? In the end, aren't we dividing ourselves even more while creating the idea of "you want to be with the best; the few", instead of having the idea of bringing up your community as a whole by standing out amongst all of them? Even then all it is is a purple name with some secret threads about smash brothers (that can generally speaking, be talked about anywhere else). What gives members the drive to continue outside of that? No public recognition, no award, no sign that your effort is clearly working.
Another thing I noticed is the ridiculous amount of sponsors, while I know we have our own from MLG events, what about the most important sponsor you would think to have; Nintendo? Isn't it kind of odd that all of these other games are being recognized with open arms (capcom, namco, and others representatives actually go out and attend these fighting game tournaments), while our tournament can't even be streamed with high quality? We have to use cameras to record our mlg matches.. What the hell is that? Have we even decided as a community to write a petition for getting our events streamed? We as a smash have given Nintendo a lot of money with just those three games alone (n64, GCN, Wii, and then Virtual Console for SSB64 AGAIN). Wtf is this?
I have more to say on the matter, however time doesn't permit it right now.
We as a community have been going on for a little bit under 11 years (this is when smash came out at least).
For the time being though, I will ask.
"Why are we so set on thinking the smash community is something special?"
"Why do we seem to be bent on not working together?"
"Why do we not have nintendo of all people as a legitimate sponsor of our community after 11 years of competitive gaming."
"Why are all of these tournament organizers not able to come together for one huge tournament set up."
1. There wouldn't be anything special about this community except for one thing. People in the scene tend to be very friendly. I've seen both scenes and although I still received open arms in SF, Tekken, BlazBlue & KOF, Smash seems alot more open and friendly by alot. There's things smashers would do for you that other people in the community probably wouldn't (Yes, I did my research by looking into other communities).
2. I guess this came from the Brawl Vs. Melee debates. I honestly don't know.
3. Some people say that Nintendo doesn't care for competitive play. However, this could be a bit wrong. After all, there were tournaments before it came out (Remember the Gamestop and Best Buy tourney, something similar happened to SF too in terms of gamestop). Also, why would they have Sirlin of all people do a tutorial of the game (It was a little bit in depth for it to be just for casuals). Also, Sakurai was in a tourney earlier on in Japan (I'm sure everyone remembers that) although it wasn't a SWF one. The way we run the game is simply in conflict with Nintendo's vision. Look at those tourneys and you'll notice the pattern. All those tourneys mentioned had items and no bans, while we have at least 15/41 stages deemed playable. So if Nintendo was to give support, they would listen to something that will appeal to the casuals way of playing (Which would be at least all items and stages).
4. This can happen. But as you know, each region folllows different customs. There would be alot of heated debates about the ruleset of the tournament, which will most likely end in said TO to not support the tourney. For instance, EC is the most restrictive out of all the regions when it comes to stages. Some others like Midwest is a bit more liberal. Look at some of the threads in the MLG and stage section. You'll see that some people aren't willing to compromise. I doubt this will happen at all, but hey you never know.
I don't have a cite, no, but consider how much of your entry fee makes up the Pot. Clearly that's not enough to provide their business with what its brought them. They have to have other means to make money.
lol The Smash community sucks and the only reason it's so big is because stupid kids love Nintendo characters and this kids game is so easy/pick up and play.
Why learn how to play a hard fighting game when you can pick up and play Brawl?
lol The Smash community sucks and the only reason it's so big is because stupid kids love Nintendo characters and this kids game is so easy/pick up and play.
Why learn how to play a hard fighting game when you can pick up and play Brawl?
There would probably be a lot less butthurt responses if you changed the title from "smash community sux lolol" to something like "improving our community." Just a suggestion. Might help provide more positive and critically thought out responses.
This has also got my wheels turning. It’s been a while since I’ve intentionally tried to improve the smash community; I think it’s about time to start that up again. It’s time to get practical.
There seems to be two big groups here, those interested in actively improving the smash community, and those that just don’t give a ****. I’m more interested in the former, although the latter is cool with me too.
Those who are interested in improving our community themselves, personally, include:
Me, Pappy, BBQ, Aglow, Kazoo, Bears?, Moses, BBQTV, azianraven, hbox, Zio, Eikelmann/Mooney, DarkSonic, Xdeath, Harriettheguy, others.
--If you are interested in helping please post so we know who we can talk to regarding ideas and actions. It will go miles if we just know who wants to help. We by no means have a handle on this, so please say you want to help if you do. Or maybe better, just start helping!
We should also keep track of ideas for improving the community.
Local Semi-Regular Smashfests/Tourneys: If they are not already happening in your community, this should be the first priority. Also maybe 2-4 times a year, putting banners up around the community to advertise the upcoming local tourney would probably be a good idea to keep drawing in new people.
More (tournament) videos: this requires individuals to have two things: a laptop, and video recording equipment. Most people already have laptops, so all you’d have to do buy recording equipment. We should keep an index of recommended recorders for different levels. (Cheap to High End.)
Improved intros to videos: Another easy one. Just need someone who is artistic to at the very minimum, make an intro for the Atlantic South. The opportunity for growth is huge, becoming as specific as intros for individual tournaments.
A reliable commentator: This person should be someone very knowledgeable about the game (on many levels including history and character matchups,) who can augment a match rather than steal the show. The person also must be at most tournaments. We probably will need ~1/state. Dogy is great, but I always think of the teams match he commented on with Merck where he stole the show. Even more ideally, there should be 2 people, probably one to specialize on each game, but who work as a team.
Awards/Trophies: Maybe based less on performance than role in the community.
In Gainesville circa 2006, Solitas hosted tournaments in which he gave out trophies to top players, as well as the “Biggest ***” award. Those who remember him remember him as one of the best TO’s ever.
Sponsors: Going up the list in difficulty, first we need to identify whose target market we are. Then we should go to those companies and have them compete for us.
Cooperation: I’m not entirely sure what Pappy originally meant by this, because the melee community has always worked to aid themselves. How it works in the Brawl community I’m not sure of, and between the two communities there seems to be toleration but certainly not synergy yet. I’m not sure how to start going about this, but I think if we start working for improvement, we’ve gotten somewhere.
A HUGE tournament (in Atlanta): This will probably be the most difficult, and will require some cooperation before it can happen (which is why it’s last on the list.) There’s still a lonnng way to go here. First thing that needs to happen is building up the ATL community with (advertised) regular local tournaments at a consistently location. I have many more ideas for how to approach this but will leave them off for now.
None of what I said is an absolute truth. Other suggestions are welcome. If I missed an idea for improvement that we’ve discussed or that you have, please suggest it.
We can do this, one thing at a time.
If we can get our ideas organized and tight, we should write up an “Improving your smash community” post.
Awards/Trophies: Maybe based less on performance than role in the community. In Gainesville circa 2006, Solitas hosted tournaments in which he gave out trophies to top players, as well as the “Biggest ***” award. Those who remember him remember him as one of the best TO’s ever.
RockCrock qould definitely get the "Biggest ***" award. Also the "I'm A Huuuge *****" award.
I'm down to help. I'm planning on using the Club house at my apartment complex next year for some events. I haven't really spoken to the people there but hopefully they wouldn't mind monetary exchanges and what not.
This. We may be able to attract hundreds of new players, but what does it matter if only 10 stay? If you give it some thought, can you blame them for not staying?
Smash is about free will and SF is just a linear progression. Starting from bad competitive player to good competitive player, not from nonexistent competitive player to bad competitive player and then to good competitive player.
This is probably one of the main reasons. Some kid who got on smashboards, who was never exposed to any competitive play of any game, practices his tech skill in his room and is amazed at how he can wavedash, SHFFL, edgehog, ledgehop, waveshine, and so on. Then a few months later, he looks up for a tournament in his area to try and win and is all pumped up and excited. He comes in, gets his *** kicked, shock instills, and he goes home with his head down. In SF like dan said, players understand they are going to suck **** as they pick up the game because they are extremely aware of the competitive scene fighting games such as SF, MvC, BB are placed. Most new smashers have never been exposed to comprehensive, competitive play and come in thinking they can wreck hard, contrary to the reality.
I don't think the community needs to explain the competitiveness of the game, but encourage and entice new players to keep coming back. Ways of doing this could be experienced players giving advice to new players and playing some friendlies with them or just anybody to play with them and help them out. Alot of newcomers are nervous (at least I was) and it's hard to assimilate to an environment that you've never been exposed to and everyone else seems perfectly comfortable in it. I guess what I'm really saying is we, as the bulk of the smash community, need to place the initiative for new players rather than wait for them to come forward. I know smashers that do this and I think it should be done more if it isn't already.
2. I don't mean to be bashing the community at all, but I think it would be nice if we made our tournaments just a bit more professional. What I mean is not putting all the pot money into a dill pickle jar or in the TO's pocket for safe keeping and not having the TO go up to people asking them if they are going to enter the tourney. I know not all tournaments are run this way and probably not the majority, but if I was a new smasher and I saw a tournament being run like it's some sort of sketchy act, I'm not sure if I would come back. All I'm saying is why not have a small registration desk all the time, a safe box to secure the pot money, and TOs marking the TV's with numbers to help the players get to their matches sooner. Again, the smash community has and continues to run very smooth tournaments, but we should have a standard that appears at every tournament no matter how small or big it is so that we at least look legit (not that we already aren't).
Just my 2 cents, I guess. I'm all about helping this movement(?) to improve the community from start to finish.
![Эикельманн [РУС]](/data/avatars/l/153/153661.jpg?1415225120){kind=avatar}
