Link to original post: [drupal=968]Melee[/drupal]
Like a lot of the old fogies around here (By which I mean people who joined before 2007), I grew up on Melee. Melee is an incredible thing. I grew up watching the likes of SephirothKen and Bombsoldier battling it out at JGT6, I grew up trying to argue to newbies on other forums that Marth is superior to Roy.
It was like a spectator sport, or is. Even across an ocean, I felt like I was one of many many smashers watching, following the ups and downs of the greatest players of Melee's time.
Brawl changed everything, but I'm not really going to talk about it much. Only, that it's taken the spotlight away. No longer does the Melee subforums of smashboards represent the central hub of activity it once held.
Yesterday I went to a Melee smash meet. The first time in a long time. It was in a quaint little town called Nundah. Nundah is a suburb of Brisbane, a while away from the inner city. Pretty typical of your east coast suburbs here. A mix of new houses built up by house renovators and old, dilapidated houses, their paint peeling away everywhere, and barely look like they can support their own weight (A lot of houses are built off the ground to help insulate them during the hot season (which is during the American winter).
My good friend Josh, known on smashboards as "King Kong" lives in a share house with several other uni students, renting out one of the aforementioned sun worn, creaky houses. Says the owners are parents of a friend, and let them rent it for $50 a week. Though given the state of the house, that's about all anybody could ask for it.
Josh is a good guy. He played against Ken once. His DK against Ken's Marth. Josh managed to 0-death Ken on the first stock, but the proceeded to be 3-stocked. His DK is amazing. Really.
The place was about as tidy as a uni student den could be, not that it mattered since we weren't going to be playing Melee inside the house.
Aparently, there was a room underneath the house. It's not so much a room as it was a slab of concrete with (widely) spaced planks of wood making up the 'walls'. But when we got there, it was good to see Josh and another familiar smasher, Scrubs, there too.
So we all took up seating amongst the random objects in the room. A locker and two cinder blocks serving as the only support for the breaking toilet floor above us.
But even then, in a 'room' consisting of half concrete and half dirt, we played Melee. As more people arrived, and the afternoon wore on, it didn't seem so bad. More than that, my Fox seemed to get better as I warmed up as well.
Sitting on a couch between a drum kit and a washing machine, Josh and I played out virtually every top tier match up we could come up with. My Falco against his Sheik were the toughest. We were playing 3-stock matches (We're so Japanese lololol) and even then a match on Pokemon stadium lasted 6 minutes. Laser Vs Needle camping. It doesn't get much more intense than that.
Amazingly, I started pulling off stuff like Shine-Bair combo's with Falco. Not that it's particularly hard to do, but I'd never implemented it into my game before. I even taught myself how to double shine back in the day, but never the Shine-Bair combo. I was pretty happy with my progress by the end of the evening, and I wanted to practice some more.
This year, in Australia at least, Melee is returning to form. In both Queensland and Victoria, there are events catering for Melee where they weren't last year.
Melee can and will make a resurgence if we really want it to. But in a way, I'm kind of disapointed in quite a few members of the smashboards Melee community.
You can't force your ideals on to people. You can't simply state that Melee is superior, nor can you write out a 1000 word essay on why Melee is better (than Brawl that is).
When I look at the situation, I look at it from the point of view of a Tournament Organiser trying to ensure the long term existence of a tournament scene for Melee.
If I want Melee to exist. I have to accept that Brawl is there too. I have to accept that people like Brawl. That in no way means that those same people can't like Melee. Making people feel bad for liking Brawl, and then telling them to play Melee will only incite a negative response.
In the end, if that kind of attitude towards Brawl continues in the Melee scene, it will die. Smash for me, for everyone, is a community thing. People go see movies on the weekend. Others go to smash tournaments. If people are going to be hostile about it, going to be hostile at the first mention of Brawl, then I wouldn't want to try the game out either, not because of the game, but because of the people around it.
I'm just saying be nice, be respectful I guess. I try to be that way when I'm dealing with individuals. I try to do as much as I can to cater for every kind of smasher with my yearly tournament schedule.
It's too much to expect that to happen though. It's rather selfish of me really. Maybe I take the internet way too seriously.
For the Brawlers that are reading this, I just want to say it's okay to like Brawl over Melee. I believe there are qualities in Brawl that Melee lacks, but that mindset is very opinionated. I think everybody who has never played Melee should try it out. Play it for a day and try to get advanced techniques down. Watch some matches on Youtube. Don't worry about anything else.
I don't know what I'm trying to say with all this. I mostly wanted to recount that evening, under a house an hour's drive from my place.
No more discontent. Nothing can change from it.
I'm going to play Melee & Brawl.
Like a lot of the old fogies around here (By which I mean people who joined before 2007), I grew up on Melee. Melee is an incredible thing. I grew up watching the likes of SephirothKen and Bombsoldier battling it out at JGT6, I grew up trying to argue to newbies on other forums that Marth is superior to Roy.
It was like a spectator sport, or is. Even across an ocean, I felt like I was one of many many smashers watching, following the ups and downs of the greatest players of Melee's time.
Brawl changed everything, but I'm not really going to talk about it much. Only, that it's taken the spotlight away. No longer does the Melee subforums of smashboards represent the central hub of activity it once held.
Yesterday I went to a Melee smash meet. The first time in a long time. It was in a quaint little town called Nundah. Nundah is a suburb of Brisbane, a while away from the inner city. Pretty typical of your east coast suburbs here. A mix of new houses built up by house renovators and old, dilapidated houses, their paint peeling away everywhere, and barely look like they can support their own weight (A lot of houses are built off the ground to help insulate them during the hot season (which is during the American winter).
My good friend Josh, known on smashboards as "King Kong" lives in a share house with several other uni students, renting out one of the aforementioned sun worn, creaky houses. Says the owners are parents of a friend, and let them rent it for $50 a week. Though given the state of the house, that's about all anybody could ask for it.
Josh is a good guy. He played against Ken once. His DK against Ken's Marth. Josh managed to 0-death Ken on the first stock, but the proceeded to be 3-stocked. His DK is amazing. Really.
The place was about as tidy as a uni student den could be, not that it mattered since we weren't going to be playing Melee inside the house.
Aparently, there was a room underneath the house. It's not so much a room as it was a slab of concrete with (widely) spaced planks of wood making up the 'walls'. But when we got there, it was good to see Josh and another familiar smasher, Scrubs, there too.
So we all took up seating amongst the random objects in the room. A locker and two cinder blocks serving as the only support for the breaking toilet floor above us.
But even then, in a 'room' consisting of half concrete and half dirt, we played Melee. As more people arrived, and the afternoon wore on, it didn't seem so bad. More than that, my Fox seemed to get better as I warmed up as well.
Sitting on a couch between a drum kit and a washing machine, Josh and I played out virtually every top tier match up we could come up with. My Falco against his Sheik were the toughest. We were playing 3-stock matches (We're so Japanese lololol) and even then a match on Pokemon stadium lasted 6 minutes. Laser Vs Needle camping. It doesn't get much more intense than that.
Amazingly, I started pulling off stuff like Shine-Bair combo's with Falco. Not that it's particularly hard to do, but I'd never implemented it into my game before. I even taught myself how to double shine back in the day, but never the Shine-Bair combo. I was pretty happy with my progress by the end of the evening, and I wanted to practice some more.
This year, in Australia at least, Melee is returning to form. In both Queensland and Victoria, there are events catering for Melee where they weren't last year.
Melee can and will make a resurgence if we really want it to. But in a way, I'm kind of disapointed in quite a few members of the smashboards Melee community.
You can't force your ideals on to people. You can't simply state that Melee is superior, nor can you write out a 1000 word essay on why Melee is better (than Brawl that is).
When I look at the situation, I look at it from the point of view of a Tournament Organiser trying to ensure the long term existence of a tournament scene for Melee.
If I want Melee to exist. I have to accept that Brawl is there too. I have to accept that people like Brawl. That in no way means that those same people can't like Melee. Making people feel bad for liking Brawl, and then telling them to play Melee will only incite a negative response.
In the end, if that kind of attitude towards Brawl continues in the Melee scene, it will die. Smash for me, for everyone, is a community thing. People go see movies on the weekend. Others go to smash tournaments. If people are going to be hostile about it, going to be hostile at the first mention of Brawl, then I wouldn't want to try the game out either, not because of the game, but because of the people around it.
I'm just saying be nice, be respectful I guess. I try to be that way when I'm dealing with individuals. I try to do as much as I can to cater for every kind of smasher with my yearly tournament schedule.
It's too much to expect that to happen though. It's rather selfish of me really. Maybe I take the internet way too seriously.
For the Brawlers that are reading this, I just want to say it's okay to like Brawl over Melee. I believe there are qualities in Brawl that Melee lacks, but that mindset is very opinionated. I think everybody who has never played Melee should try it out. Play it for a day and try to get advanced techniques down. Watch some matches on Youtube. Don't worry about anything else.
I don't know what I'm trying to say with all this. I mostly wanted to recount that evening, under a house an hour's drive from my place.
No more discontent. Nothing can change from it.
I'm going to play Melee & Brawl.
