I would like to say that I am at this point severely, SEVERELY disappointed. It is not directed immediately at Ronald, but at the smash community as a whole. I am in agreement that what Ronald did was clearly uncalled for. It was not needed and to some it may have been unsettling. But you know what, things happen. Plain and simple. This is not me trying to downplay the situation. This is me saying that I am disappointed that so many in the community chose to fan the flames of this incident with NEGATIVE opinions and thoughts, as opposed to purely positive items.
Everyone is really quick to say that the way to help Ronald is to send him jail. So tell me, if a family member was engaged in such an incident, and there were multiple positive ways to help them, would you really pick jail, a quite negative choice, as the place to send them to? How absurd is that? Yes, if it gets to the point where there is no OTHER alternative, then it is what it is. To jump into sending a family member to jail is just ludicrous and deplorable and is in poor taste by many of you. It is also something that I am sure many to all of you would not even consider doing. To tell us to do that is despicable.
To take things even further back, how is it that so many people can post on what you have only seen and not been involved in? Yes, you witnessed a human display intense emotions, and out of those emotions actions/words came out that were not needed. This entire situation is being handled internally, as it should be. For individuals in the community to speculate, pour gas, light fires, destroy any progress that we are making is something within yourselves that you should detest. Within DA/EA, we know this is something that we can and are handling the right way for us. The events that transpired are done and over with. Property was destroyed and yes, you are all correct in saying that he should be held accountable for his actions. However, that is an obvious statement, and does nothing to add to the positive aspects of this situation. In plain English, no one outside of the DA/EA family is knowledgeable of the internal workings of the family, so you cannot and should not post on matters as such.
For individuals saying that we should cancel Gauntlet, saying its a smart move for us to make, telling us that we have no choice but to cancel the event, who are you to say as such? To tell other people not to go to our event and other smash related events for fear of their safety is THE MOST DESPICABLE thing you can. That is in essence telling people that they cannot live their lives as they choose. And it is the most damaging thing that you can do to the situation. And yet so many people do it with reckless abandon. I will guarantee that if this was your family member, you would choose to deal with this with more tact and discreetness. I am thoroughly displeased with the actions of many of you and I will let you know that THAT is serious coming from me as it takes an extraordinary amount of BS to make me this displeased.
I never call people out. I never do. I am breaking this rule because I have zero alternative and because the soon to be mentioned individuals have made it a point to pour excessive amounts of gas on the situation.
Alex Strife & The Members of Killa Fleet who have posted negatively:
- I am 100% disgusted, shocked, and just disheartened that you were all so swift to escalate this situation. What your posts have done is essentially spark and promote paranoia and frustration. To tell people that a tournament that you are not even running is cancelled, did you even think about the repercutions of that? Regardless of where you got that information, and regardless of it validity, did you really think it was YOUR place to make a mention of such things? Did you really think that comments like those would HELP the situation? Did you think that it would make people feel MORE secure? If you did, then I have no idea what was coursing through your heads. Not only were many of your comments that were not FACT actually fabricated and sensationalized, they were just NOT NECESSARY. It is not your place at ALL to comment on anything that happens internally to us. Even commenting on facts/incidents in a manner which is not positive is just wrong. If at any point we felt that attending our tournament was an unsafe move for members of the community, we would have cancelled the tournament. Yes, you are free to conjure up your own thoughts and opinions on the matter, but if they are not positive and constructive and just feed into the paranoia, why would you make them?
Alex, the manner in which you are presenting your arguments/comments is absolutely full of shame. You are fueling fires, and quite frankly, making yourself out to be a person larger than you are. A father protecting his "kids" so to speak would choose to contain the situation and keep the circulation of such comments and information down to a minimum to prevent backlash which may endanger your kids in other ways. I honestly cannot stake any faith in a word you say. It is one thing to speak on the subjects at hand with key people involved, and then work things out with them internally, while letting those less knowledgeable know only what they really NEED to know and keeping your thoughts and opinions neutral. That is one thing. The other is something else altogether which bleeds of many other motives not beneficial to the community.
To all of you claiming that this tournament is only going on for the sake of publicity and because EA/DA are looking for media exposure, I am going to have a hard time looking at any of you the same way again. It's as simple as that. It was unbeknownst to us that media was even going to be covering the event, that was an "after the fact". One of the main reasons we wanted to keep the tournament going was because humans such as yourselves invested extraordinary amounts of their time into this event. The reason there is the phrase "The show must go on" is because people hate seeing their time and dedication go to waste. Many of you are feeding into negative hype and drama, and convinced yourselves that for your safety, it wasn't within your best interests to go. That is not to say that there aren't any people who were at Web2Zone and were genuinely freaked out by the events that went on there and because of those, decided to skip Gauntlet. That is understandable as you are human, and perhaps need more time to think, reflect, and internally comprehend the situation than others. To spread and impose your views on others is where you go from innocent to just as guilty as the bloodthirsty masses. It is THAT quality that you are displaying which is probably the most detrimental to the well being of all in the community. If people were really interested in supporting the community and about playing and having a good time, you would have chosen to go to our tournament, and told others to do so as well, in essence saying that regardless of what happens to us, we do what we do, and thats play Smash. What the reality is, is that many people are saying is "I am choosing to look out for my well being, as opposed to entering a tournament to win money." And that is the plain and honest truth. There are people who were in mid transit from 6 hours upstate who still decided to come and play because they wanted the experience that a Gauntlet provides. They wanted to support the community and have a great time, and that is what they are doing. The media coverage that everyone is blaring on about is 100% secondary, and clearly isn't at all what everyone is thinking it is. They wanted to see people like yourselves having a great time and enjoying what you do, which is take a game called Super Smash Brothers Melee and have the best time in the world playing it. They wanted to see players of all types playing games of all types and just being gamers of all types. It's all about people having fun playing games with other people, which many of your are not doing at this moment because you chose to feed into negativity. And that's that.
Honestly, I have not much else to say. I am sure a huge number will blah blah blah all over this post, claiming to know all sorts of things that they just don't know to be fact. Once you take anything out of context, anything can mean anything, and that's just the way things are. When you don't know the current state of a situation, all you can do is speculate. That just snowballs and leads to the situation we have at hand. A lot of people knowing nothing, spouting out anything and everything, and ruining a great and unique community from the inside out. I usually tell people to get a hold of me if they want to speak on the matter, but really, I have seen what many of you have to say, and I don't want to read anymore of it, much less hear it come from your mouths.
Play the game. Have your fun. Forget the rest.
