My views on the history of Brawl

[Pierce7d]

Link to original post: [drupal=2846]My views on the history of Brawl[/drupal]



I basically view the history of Brawl like this:

The Birth of Brawl - Many people started playing Smash for the first time. Smashboards blew up, and Smash became one of the most popular fighting games of all time.

The Golden Ages - Melee old veterans started debugging the game and developing a solid metagame, and brilliant newcomers studied hard to catch up and have a chance in the new game.

The Flame Wars - Melee players got tired of Brawl and it's slower mechanics, and decided to go back to Melee. Brawl vs. Melee wars were rampant, and flames were everywhere.

MLG Domination - A subset of the Flame Wars, MLG buys Brawl. This helps the stability of Smashboards, although caused major uproar when MLG didn't pick up Brawl on the 2009 circuit.

The Rebirth - The flame wars died down partially, and Brawl continued to increase in popularity, as more and more people discover the competative scene. The metagame begins to rapidly develop again.

The Calm - Growth stagnates, and many players grow bored. Tournaments stop growing, and while Smash still lives strong, it seems to be in it's adulthood, and not really benefiting from any types of growth. Furthermore, the search for growth dies down, and average player improvement radically drops.

 

[DanGR]

The Calm - Growth stagnates, and many players grow bored. Tournaments stop growing, and while Smash still lives strong, it seems to be in it's adulthood, and not really benefiting from any types of growth. Furthermore, the search for growth dies down, and average player improvement radically drops.

I suppose you believe this is the "phase" we're in right now?

 

[Melomaniacal]

So, what do you think about Brawl's future? Melee's future? Smash in general?

 

[CRASHiC]

Post SNES has been a rather inactive period, and sadly many attempts at advancing the metagame have been flamed off before even attempted simply because it was not necessary in today's metagame.

Also, if I remember correctly, the size of tournaments has actually increased this year. I'm going to hope he name searches because he's the one with all the facts on this, AlphaZealot.

Another reason things are stalling from what I see, people are gaining a lot of area pride. If I recall correctly, Melee had this phase too from what I hear from veteran players, where people stopped posting their hidden tactics on Smashboards and would only tell it to their local players to help their area raise up on national tournaments. An example, it took a Metaknight to tell the Snake boards about a tactic they could use against tornados that his local players do
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=257913

As for one more reason, the finals when ADHD won, that was huge. Everyone was expecting there to be huge changes after that. The only change that happened was that Ally learned the matchup. This disappointed a lot of people, and this symbol for change sort of fell off people's minds.

 

[The_Altrox]

I wouldn't call that the golden age tbh
The golden age would more or less be the early tournament days. Sure, we knew that Snake was good and CF was bad, but there was a lot of variety. You'd see a lot of Ness, Lucas, Samus, Link, in tournies because it was all too fresh for tiers.

 

[¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯]

Well, the shift of power with the top players has changed a bit. M2K was the undisputed best player last year, but other people are at/approaching his level now. By next year I think there will be 3-5 players who are all around the same skill level and can compete against each other.

 

[finalark]

And then Super Smash Bros. clash rumble moshpit 4 will come out and it will start all over again...

Anyway, CRASHiC is right, Tournaments have gone up by a lot this year. Almost everywhere I go, game stores, libraries, ect. have a Brawl tournament going on.

That, and the whole "Area Pride" thing is pretty acurate too.

 

[P.C. Jona]

you forgot to add the part where lik 75% of the melee players that left brawl went back to melee

i dont think brawl is calm, i think its dying

less people are playing brawl and more and more are going on to modified versions of it

 

[CRASHiC]

Is that based on actual numbers or just your hopes and wishes? In the month of October (and off month being during school time and the start of the holiday season), the average Brawl tournament had a turnout of an average of 40, several reaching into the 70s plus. This isn't based off of every tournament, only those collected in the tournament ranking chart by Ankoku. Hacked brawl tournaments almost never turn out that much.

 

[P.C. Jona]

my hopes and wishes? lol i dont care about that game

it just seems like brawl is definitely dying now, compared to melee

what was the biggest tournament all about this year? MELEE

europe vs america man come on

no one even cared about brawl finals lol

to me, brawl noobs are going to move on to melee and brawl's just gonna die out

 

[CRASHiC]

Again, any thing to back up these claims? Any true numbers to show that Brawl is dying down? Nope. No numbers like this exist. People have been saying what you are saying for a long time now, and it hasn't changed anything. Until Brawl tournaments start dying down (they haven't) no claim of there being 'more hype' or anything of the sort will change that the Brawl tournament scene is healthy.

 

[Sucumbio]

The Calm, eh? Before the storm, perhaps?

"And there will be
Sorrow
and there will be
Sorrow
and there wil be
SORROW NO MORE!!!!"

but yeah:

The Calm - Growth stagnates, and many players grow bored. Tournaments stop growing, and while Smash still lives strong, it seems to be in it's adulthood, and not really benefiting from any types of growth. Furthermore, the search for growth dies down, and average player improvement radically drops.

The real question is... why? Each of your preceding periods have an ingrained truth to them, and a reason. But this... the current period... it's perhaps an astute observation, but what's the reason, I wonder.

 

[Atlus8]

If there is any sign of Brawl dying out, it would be the current number of entrants for pound!

53 Brawl
132 Melee

Of course, smash players procrastinate the f**k out of everything so the # will most likely go up! Also, big names here in SoCal haven't been really active at all like Fiction and DSF!

 

[P.C. Jona]

i heard fiction quit brawl for melee

QUIT LIFE

he mains doc now supposedly

 

[CRASHiC]

I heard Mew2King quit Melee for Brawl.

I heard AlphaZealot quit Melee for Brawl

A single player quitting or switching games, regardless of what level they are at, is not a sign of a game falling out of favor or dying down. Only the average attendance of tournaments is.

 

[-Ran]

I actually see Brawl entering the era where the people that cared about becoming better who lacked Smash experience from prior games are finally breaking out in skill. A lot of people are starting to 'click.'

 

[Sephiroths Masamune]

I think your right about the smash scene dieing down.
Unless a huge event happens with the next year were not going to see the competitive scene grow any larger.

 

[cutter]

Hey Pierce, you forgot the part when the 08'ers were relentlessly persecuted from the incessant hatred of non-08'ers .

 

[-Ran]

I think your right about the smash scene dieing down.
Unless a huge event happens with the next year were not going to see the competitive scene grow any larger.

Winterfest?
Pound?
Genesis?
World Hobo?
GAAME?

There are large events, some of them with even guaranteed pots.

I believe what really 'hurt' the scene was how long it took to decide what was going to happen with Meta Knight. Besides, of course Brawl is going to slow down during this time of the year. From school to finals to family events and retail black outs for employees, it's incredibly hard for someone to get a full weekend off to go to a tournament.

 

[finalark]

you forgot to add the part where lik 75% of the melee players that left brawl went back to melee

Did you know that 70% of statistics are made up on the spot?

Anyway, you even said that you don't care about the game. So of course it would seem like it's loosing popularity to you because you don't pay attention to it. And it seems that Melee is suddenly becoming super popular because of the fact that you mostly pay attention to melee-revivalists.

Anyway, I think that Brawl is relatively calm at the moment, although more and more players seem to be interested in Smash because of Nintendo's "Endless Ocean" marketing strategy. But who knows? For me, I personally think that in the future Melee is going to become a cult classic among Smashers and that Brawl is what most events are going to be centered around (it's kind of like that already).

 

[Melomaniacal]

I'm, like... half-pessimistic about the future of Smash.

Part of me thinks that eventually almost everyone will move back to Melee. I think this because it already happens a lot. I wouldn't mind this, personally. I love both games, and I just started getting back into Melee again.

The other part of me thinks that eventually, Brawl will die out, but no one will move back to Melee, thus the community will be near-dead. When I say near-dead, I mean it will be very small.

So, I'm pessimistic about the future of Brawl. I don't see it lasting that long, to be honest. Definitely not as long as Melee.

 

[-Mars-]

Here's the thing. No new players are going to look at the ****ty graphics of melee and be like oh **** I should play that game. Any growth is going to occur in Brawl.....simple as that.

It's end of the semester and high school for a lot of the younger people. There's stuff like HS sports going on right now. During the spring and through the summer there will be a lot of smash.

 

[Melomaniacal]

Here's the thing. No new players are going to look at the ****ty graphics of melee and be like oh **** I should play that game. Any growth is going to occur in Brawl.....simple as that.

It's end of the semester and high school for a lot of the younger people. There's stuff like HS sports going on right now. During the spring and through the summer there will be a lot of smash.

How are Melee's graphics ****ty? Melee's graphics are easy on the eyes, and attractive. Absolutely nothing wrong with them.

Brawl is not that much better, graphically.

 

[-Mars-]

Go back and look at BF and FD compared to Brawl's BF and FD.

 

[bobson]

I think Melee players are really hurting themselves by officially banning almost all of the counterpick stages. Restricting the game even more is really not the best way to get a new audience interested.

 

[Melomaniacal]

Go back and look at BF and FD compared to Brawl's BF and FD.

They are darker. Your point?
I actually like Melee FD a lot more. BF can go either way.

 

[thegreatkazoo]

Here's the thing. No new players are going to look at the ****ty graphics of melee and be like oh **** I should play that game. Any growth is going to occur in Brawl.....simple as that.

It's end of the semester and high school for a lot of the younger people. There's stuff like HS sports going on right now. During the spring and through the summer there will be a lot of smash.

*facepalms*

If you play a game just because the graphics are pretty, you need to quit life.

If you think the growth of a game like Melee is going to depend on its graphical looks, you really need to quit life.

If you use high school as a john to justify people not playing any form of Smash...please stop. I decided to play Smash entering the sixth year of my time here @ Tech. I am not about to hear how high school is getting in the way of anyone's Smash career.

 

[Albert.]

i heard fiction quit brawl for melee

QUIT LIFE

he mains doc now supposedly

Go away LOL

That is one of the dumbest posts I've ever seen lol

Edit:
to the general people in this thread:

There is absolutely NO indication that brawl is dying down. Actually its the opposite. How do people take tourney attendance going UP as a sign that Brawl is dying?

 

[Saaru]

I wouldn't call that the golden age tbh
The golden age would more or less be the early tournament days. Sure, we knew that Snake was good and CF was bad, but there was a lot of variety. You'd see a lot of Ness, Lucas, Samus, Link, in tournies because it was all too fresh for tiers.

Well im not sure what you mean, but down below is the true defintion of the good ol golden days

The Golden Ages - Melee old veterans started debugging the game and developing a solid metagame, and brilliant newcomers studied hard to catch up and have a chance in the new game

 

[L__]

I wish I was around during the supposed "Golden Age" of Melee.

@_@

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

Crap mango is the best ever sorry ken. But yeah the huge genesis and everything rom should change it's name in truth really I know a lot of people who I could easily get hooked on to melee crap I,ve seen a 20ish year old pick up brawl then play melee and didn't even know the techs and prefer melee. At low levels of gameplay people prefer melee at high levels people prefer melee just many haven played melee

 

[john!]

I wouldn't say Brawl is dying, but I really do hope that Melee keeps going. I think Brawl was good for Melee actually, it was a massive selling game and brought a lot of people here that otherwise wouldn't have come... many of whom are switching to Melee. I think the biggest fear is the "elitism" and difficulty of Melee, but really, if you've already got competitive experience playing Brawl, that's a huge advantage. Now you just need fast fingers and you're good.

But yeah, if SF2 can keep an active community all these years, then Melee sure as hell can. My hope is that Melee gets big enough so that MLG decides to pick it up again, then we can have a Melee renaissance and everyone wins. It's like 10 bucks guys, buy it! </salespitch>

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

You know what we should make melee high again like everyone plays it like go to random places and get people to go like woah melee I want that like in school talk about melee on your first day and "say" It's better than brawl noobs will start screaming no it's not and brawl is just as hard as melee and they just took the bait all you have to do is reel them in

 

[L__]

Uhm.

@ICG: Ken's career...


2003
1st - Tournament Go 4 (TG4) ($900)
1st - SoCal Inland Empire SSB:M
1st - Tournament Go 5 (TG5) ($1000)
2004
1st - Game Over ($650)
1st - The 0-C (Zero Challenge) ($650)
1st - MELEE-FC ($500)
9th - Tournament Go 6 (TG6)
1st - Major League Gaming (MLG) 2004 Season Finals New York ($2000)
1st - MLG 2004 Season points
2005
2nd - MOAST 3 ($400)
1st - MLG 2005 (Season OpenerTournament) DC ($1000)
1st - MLG 2005 (Season Tournament) San Francisco ($500)
2nd - MLG 2005 (West Coast Regionals) Los Angeles ($1000)
1st - MLG 2005 (East Coast Regionals) Atlanta ($2000)
1st - MLG 2005 (Central Regionals) Chicago ($2000)
1st - MLG 2005 Season Finals New York ($5000)
1st - MLG 2005 Season points leader
1st - Jack Garden Tournament (JGT) (Japan)
1st - Getting Schooled 2 ($800)
1st - MELEE-FC3 ($800)
2006
1st - Champ Combo: NorCal Edition ($400)
1st - Champ Combo: Yayuhzzz Edition ($400)
1st - 0-C2 (Zero Challenge 2) ($1200)
2nd - MLG 2006 (Season Tournament) New York ($1200)
1st - MLG 2006 (Season Tournament) Dallas ($2000)
1st - MLG 2006 (Season Tournament) Anaheim ($2000)
1st - MLG 2006 (Season Tournament) Chicago ($2000)
5th - MLG 2006 (Season Tournament) Orlando ($300)
7th - MLG 2006 (Season Playoffs) New York ($375)
1st - NCT2: The Big One ($1080)
3rd - MLG 2006 (National Championships Singles) Las Vegas ($3000)
1st - MLG 2006 (National Championships Doubles) Las Vegas ($5000) per team member
1st - MLG 2006 Season points leader ($4000)
2007
4th - 0C3 (Zero Challenge 3)
1st - Evo World 2007 ($5000)
1st - Sushiman's Westminster Tournament
7th - Super Champ Combo
1st - Super Smash Royale III
2008
2nd - Evo 2008



I wonder how long both Melee and Brawl will last.

 

[-Mars-]

They are darker. Your point?
I actually like Melee FD a lot more. BF can go either way.

Melee fanboys won't even admit that Brawl's graphics are superior lmao.

*facepalms*

If you play a game just because the graphics are pretty, you need to quit life.

If you think the growth of a game like Melee is going to depend on its graphical looks, you really need to quit life.

If you use high school as a john to justify people not playing any form of Smash...please stop. I decided to play Smash entering the sixth year of my time here @ Tech. I am not about to hear how high school is getting in the way of anyone's Smash career.

Some times I lose faith in the human race.

If you think I need to quit life because of a video game......then you need to get one.

I didn't say anything about me playing brawl because the graphics are better......I said" NEW players won't be attracted to it because it's graphics are bad".

People at SWF need to learn to either: A. comprehend words or B. don't post

 

[Melomaniacal]

Melee fanboys won't even admit that Brawl's graphics are superior lmao.

How am I a Melee fanboy?

Anyway...
Remember that time I said this (speaking of learning to comprehend words):

Brawl is not that much better, graphically.

?

This implies that I am aware that Brawl's graphics are superior. While they are superior, there is not such a significant difference where it matters that much to the average person. In fact, 99% of the time I play/watch Melee around friends who don't play, they comment on it as if it's Brawl. Brawl didn't make that much of a graphics jump.

But that's okay, ignore logic, continue trolling.

 

[P.C. Jona]

Go away LOL

That is one of the dumbest posts I've ever seen lol

Edit:
to the general people in this thread:

There is absolutely NO indication that brawl is dying down. Actually its the opposite. How do people take tourney attendance going UP as a sign that Brawl is dying?

yeah tourney attendance...lol mostly random noobs that play online and think they **** lmao

there are barely any melee noobs that go to tourney's, and thats why the attendance isnt as close. but for national tourney's, melee is bigger. and im pretty sure there were more national tourney's for melee this year then brawl.

i think brawl is dying down because the quality of players are not even as close to the melee ones.

who cares if brawl has 5000 people if theres only 10 good ones.

 

[L__]

blah nvm..

 

[ndayday]

The Calm - Growth stagnates, and many players grow bored. Tournaments stop growing, and while Smash still lives strong, it seems to be in it's adulthood, and not really benefiting from any types of growth. Furthermore, the search for growth dies down, and average player improvement radically drops.

This blog IMO isn't about Brawl dying or not, it's about how Brawl players should strive for Brawl's growth and step up their game.

Make it out to mean what you want it to though, right?

 

[-Mars-]

How am I a Melee fanboy?

Anyway...
Remember that time I said this (speaking of learning to comprehend words):
?

This implies that I am aware that Brawl's graphics are superior. While they are superior, there is not such a significant difference where it matters that much to the average person. In fact, 99% of the time I play/watch Melee around friends who don't play, they comment on it as if it's Brawl. Brawl didn't make that much of a graphics jump.

But that's okay, ignore logic, continue trolling.

The transition from Melee>Brawl was far greater than the transition from 64>Melee