Reviving Melee

[chaddd]

Serious question.


Genesis 1 Results 290 Melee Entrants; 292 Brawl Entrants

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=241080

Genesis 2 Results 228 Melee Entrants; 197 Brawl Entrants

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=307610



MLG dropped Brawl from it's Pro Circuit for 2011 citing a number of issues, primarily unreliable turnouts for tournaments and lack of developer support. However, they did run Melee in their circuit under relatively the same circumstances for a number of years. While I consider these some of the best years in Smash, it's become painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that they were definitely not the most successful years for Smash, especially Melee.


I believe that due to Nintendo's choice to change the game so drastically from 64 to Melee and Melee to Brawl, that regardless of future Smash releases Melee, Melee will remain in steady competition for as many years as the community will support it. Much like the commonplace Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo tournaments in place annually worldwide. It's a game that is almost 20 years old but still remains the foundation for a competitive community that's been built around the many releases since it's conception.


I have never been a fan of the Call of Duty and Madden style of essentially retiring an older version of a game because a new one came out, and this is a concept that is rarely applied to fighting games when the entire engine for the game has received an overhaul. Regardless of what new Smash Brothers game is in development at this moment, I think it is safe to say that no game will ever be run on the Melee engine. This fact alone holds the power to make this game timeless, not to mention the amount of hours the community has put into it as a whole.


It's clearly up to us as a community to attain the sort of influence our neighboring competitive communities have for their own games.


That's why we as a community need to do something to expand. What do other smashers think about trying to get MLG's attention again? What about the idea of starting a completely new circuit?


Truly I'm looking for ideas here, because I believe that the influence and longevity of Melee and similar games is based solely on our sense of community, and what we're willing to do to preserve and further our tournament scene.


I remember going to Final Round 3 when I was around 12 and it was small tournament being held in the basement of an anime shop. With 12 years of persistence it became the biggest tournament series in the country. Look at EVO. A community of players has proven that with enough organization they can become a force that can influence it's own future.


Discuss.

 

[Pi]

you post this in the Atlantic south general discussion forum?

it's not like attempts haven't been made to get sponsors (mlg) attention
granted most of them have probably been like, an e-mail, or something so there is room to improve there
the main thing w/ sponsors is that i don't really see melee attracting new faces, which is what sponsors like to see, growth, monetary incentive
i could be wrong and i can think of countless aspects of the game that SHOULD attract new people
but idk

i'm down for whatever, though i think this would be better posted in the melee general section

it's really going to take 1 person to actually get **** under way, saying look this is what we need to do to expand our game, here is what i need from yall, and this is how it's going to work

cause making threads asking for ideas is great and all, but nobody ever acts on them to the scale that it calls for.

also keep in mind that we do have some sponsors, not like melee specific sponsors, but some of our tournaments have been sponsored

 

[-Ran]

In terms of gaming, it's -amazing- that Melee still has competitive viability. Take a moment and look at all the competitive games that have come and gone since it was released. It's a staggering number. What Melee needs to focus on is reaching out to new players [Brawl or competitive novices] and teach them the game gently. Create free novice events, and so forth to create attention for the game. I just converted my two scrub co-workers to playing Melee competitively today. =d

Viagra should sponsor Melee, cause ya'll are getting old. Lolol.

 

[chaddd]

you post this in the Atlantic south general discussion forum?

it's not like attempts haven't been made to get sponsors (mlg) attention
granted most of them have probably been like, an e-mail, or something so there is room to improve there
the main thing w/ sponsors is that i don't really see melee attracting new faces, which is what sponsors like to see, growth, monetary incentive
i could be wrong and i can think of countless aspects of the game that SHOULD attract new people
but idk

i'm down for whatever, though i think this would be better posted in the melee general section

it's really going to take 1 person to actually get **** under way, saying look this is what we need to do to expand our game, here is what i need from yall, and this is how it's going to work

cause making threads asking for ideas is great and all, but nobody ever acts on them to the scale that it calls for.

also keep in mind that we do have some sponsors, not like melee specific sponsors, but some of our tournaments have been sponsored

In terms of gaming, it's -amazing- that Melee still has competitive viability. Take a moment and look at all the competitive games that have come and gone since it was released. It's a staggering number. What Melee needs to focus on is reaching out to new players [Brawl or competitive novices] and teach them the game gently. Create free novice events, and so forth to create attention for the game. I just converted my two scrub co-workers to playing Melee competitively today. =d

Viagra should sponsor Melee, cause ya'll are getting old. Lolol.

This is more to see what my local community thinks of this topic.

And the community in my state alone has almost doubled in size in the last few years. It's pretty amazing honestly. It all really depends on the devotion of the community. Apparently Tetris still has world championships.

 

[exarch]

Chad, how did y'all go about doubling the size of the Melee community in (i assume you're still in) GA?

I know what I did in Madison to revitalize the Wisconsin community in the 8 months I was there, but I'm curious to learn what other strategies have been successful in increasing the community. If we can combine multiple functioning strategies, we'll be able to develop an even better plan of attack.

Spoiler

In WI, I held weekly smashfests from my apartment which was conveniently very close to the university. This paired up with a couple of smashers from milwaukee moving in together and beginning to hold smashfests in that city.

Eventually, the college students at Univesity of WI Madison began to hold fests on campus, and finally got a university organization solely dedicated to smash started. (I can elaborate more on this later but I've gotta go pretty soon.)

At the last report:
"...madison peeps just hang out and are going to host monthly tourneys, . we got like 10 more peeps dedicated with smash now,OMG. anyways wisconsin misses ya."
In 1.5 years, we managed to more or less double the size of the community and went from almost no tournaments to monthlies. (Admittedly I'm sure this could be better.)

 

[chaddd]

Chad, how did y'all go about doubling the size of the Melee community in (i assume you're still in) GA?

I know what I did in Madison to revitalize the Wisconsin community in the 8 months I was there, but I'm curious to learn what other strategies have been successful in increasing the community. If we can combine multiple functioning strategies, we'll be able to develop an even better plan of attack.

Spoiler

In WI, I held weekly smashfests from my apartment which was conveniently very close to the university. This paired up with a couple of smashers from milwaukee moving in together and beginning to hold smashfests in that city.

Eventually, the college students at Univesity of WI Madison began to hold fests on campus, and finally got a university organization solely dedicated to smash started. (I can elaborate more on this later but I've gotta go pretty soon.)

At the last report:
"...madison peeps just hang out and are going to host monthly tourneys, . we got like 10 more peeps dedicated with smash now,OMG. anyways wisconsin misses ya."
In 1.5 years, we managed to more or less double the size of the community and went from almost no tournaments to monthlies. (Admittedly I'm sure this could be better.)

Honestly it's a phenomenon. There's a college about an hour away from me, and a large group of people have banded together over there and expressed their desire to learn and even travel OOS. It's crazy. All I know is there is a much larger group of Smashers than ever. At this point it's really about encouraging the new smashers to join the community as a whole, as opposed to remaining an isolated group of players that feel they have no chance at beating people on a regional or national level. Such is the fate of many isolated groups of smashers, I'm afraid.


I made this thread primarily to see what people in my region feel we can do to form consistent annual/bi-annual/monthly events to maintain a solid functioning tournament community. All we really need is long distance communication. Along the same lines as the organization involved in creating the Road to Apex tournaments.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

ASL will work with you, but the deal we're offering for Brawl Singles just won't support Melee. Do you think that, in the future, you can get enough Melee players willing to drop enough money to support fixed cash prizes at ASL tourneys? I know free Melee side tourneys get 25-30 people whereas Melee for prizes gets the same 8-10. NOBODY is willing to drop money on doubles.

I mean, I love the game. I went to a local tourney in Pensacola last weekend to place third behind Rag and Rice. I enjoy myself playing it, ESPECIALLY against players who aren't Rag. However, I don't like the idea of paying ten bucks to beat a random guy and then lose to you and Moogle or something. I love playing the game, but that doesn't stop me from still getting four stocked by Ragnarok a year and a half later. That multiple year head start results in a stupid intimidating gap. How do you suggest bridging it to the point where people will pay to play?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Melee has been brought up to MLG before and they just won't do older games(saw a response from an official on the boards actually). It would definitely be up to the community to get things done. A circuit sounds great but I'm not sure how we could organize that or anything. It seems like a great way to get people hyped and traveling again though, as a lot of places(like NC) are losing interest lately since a lot of money aka hype is being taken out of the game.

I think a good place to start with this is streams. Having more professional commentary(or at least hyped commentary that is occasionally useful) is great because people that don't play Melee could somewhat understand the complexity of what's happening in matches, and giving a good impression of our community from such commentary is a good choice. Streams are massive and mandatory for other games like Starcraft 2 and such so it makes sense that we'd need to step up our stream game to keep with the times and pull in more numbers.

I think I had more ideas on this but I forgot. At any rate I'm down to help work on any project to help expand the community/get the game going stronger again. I feel like we should use the boards more again since most people seem to have left them but maybe that problem would resolve itself if we had more hype(meaning more reason for them to use the boards more often)?

 

[MarsFool!]

Can someone link me to the issue regarding the legality of streams? I saw somewhere that they were supposed to be making laws to prevent it?

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Any sort of advertisement on a stream for any sort of business (Hint hint, MLG) that could stand to profit from it is illegal without acquiring prior permission.

I THINK I'm right on that.

Basically, if Nintendo is all like, "Dudes, I don't want this streamed." You're gonna have to be all like, "Ooooooooh kaaaaaaay," but they're not gonna care even on at a high level unless you're MLG.

 

[exarch]

The streams idea is great. I'm pretty sure at the weekly NLL fests in Orlando there's a stream up (happening tonight, link to thread here. It'll be a bunch of people who have little experience commenting tonight, but we're looking for consistent FL commentators, so your opinion would be appreciated.

As far as banding the national/SE community more, the large tournament in Atlanta would still be the single best way to host a national tournament. (ATL is the largest airport in the world in terms of volume.) Long-reaching and cheap access to Atlanta is unparalleled by any other city in the world. This doesn't address the issue of local community, but would definitely be a great way to help maintain collective enthusiasm.

A SE circuit would be nice, but Ryker brings up a point that has been bugging me recently. A multi-year gap notwithstanding, there are perennial winners and losers in melee. A circuit would probably only consist of the top few players from each area traveling to all tournaments, while the rest who know they're not as good as Hungrybox or PP stay at home as they have been doing for the past 3 years. I think restoring hopes of improvement at rates faster than others would be far more effective at returning hype to melee.

These are my thoughts, but I'm sure they echo many many players in the community at this point:

If a circuit was happening, I would not be much more likely to travel OOS than I have been for years. The thrill of playing new great players is lacking, I have played most of the good people from the SE. The hope of improvement is lost, I don't think I've improved significantly in 4 years. If I attended all the tournaments, I would expect to end up where I have for years: right below anything worth noticing. So why would I dish out the money?

I realize this attitude is the disease killing the community at this point, but I only write it explicitly so we can discuss and attempt to bring back the enthusiasm which many of us used to hold regarding our favorite game.

How do we make tournament melee exciting again?

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

New players gravitate to the new game. Converts gravitate to their favorite character. I've stuck it out for over a year with Doc and I'm good enough to beat almost everyone in my local area. However, the guy who's been playing Melee since I was in middle school still four stocks me with his choice of Marth, Falco, or Fox. I improve, and I can see that when I play others, but until a couple months ago, I couldn't tell a difference because no matter what I did, the results were the same. How do you convince players to stick to a game through the terrible beatings they will suffer if they feel they aren't improving. How do you get them to local tournaments, much less convince them that flying or driving over ten hours is an expense worth paying.

 

[ragnarock]

1. I think the plan you should start locally first. Get some cities/state together and have a group of responsible concerned people in that city/state who wants to make the melee scene better in there city/state and region that group needs a leader, president whatever you want to call it. Each city gets together on facebook, skype or whatever way you want to communicate so you can organize and make things better. WE HAVE TO WORK TOGETHER.

2. Since you start locally and your trying to get the community better and your having you local tourneys and stuff. If your the best in your area( example dr.pee pee) you shouldn't be coming in trying to destroy in the bracket and taking the locals money. Play a low teir or don't enter maybe its not about winning all the time.

3. Stop giving attention to the top players so much and at every tourney. I know Mcdonalds serves a trillion costumers a year, but we don't have to keep talking about when we go to a different burger joint. Everybody deserve the moment in spotlight. I'll give my example, when the circuit happens cause it will. The 1st tourney you have has 60 entries, Ryker places 59th. At the next tourney you have 60 entries Ryker places 20th, thats a pretty big improvement and he deserves attention for that. Interview him about what he did to improve and what advice he can give to players to come up like he did and congrad him and make sure you put it up so people can see on youtube or whatever. Give him his 15 mins. Show people you don't have to be top 10 at the game to get your name out there and you can get noticed with effort without winning.

4.Give tips and don't shy away from noobs, you used to be one so sit down play with them and show them what and what not to do. Be patient and friendly

I can't think of anything else rite now.

 

[bossa nova ♪]

I think a good place to start with this is streams. Having more professional commentary(or at least hyped commentary that is occasionally useful) is great because people that don't play Melee could somewhat understand the complexity of what's happening in matches, and giving a good impression of our community from such commentary is a good choice.

this. but more specifically, getting hype **** out on the internet. YouTube is an incredible device. I think that website alone can be a primary source for reviving this game.

 

[Deleted member]

If you're all curious about how GA managed to hugely expand its player base for smash so quickly its mostly because SleepyK created a Facebook group for GA smash.

Its basically taken the place for smashboards for our GA players.

It is much more accessible, broad, and visible to people than smashboards.

People who join get their friends to play the game and join the group. Its been wildly successful.

 

[Pi]

^we did that here in CFL too
already have many new members lol

 

[BBQ°]

If you're all curious about how GA managed to hugely expand its player base for smash so quickly its mostly because SleepyK created a Facebook group for GA smash.

Its basically taken the place for smashboards for our GA players.

It is much more accessible, broad, and visible to people than smashboards.

People who join get their friends to play the game and join the group. Its been wildly successful.

and we also just really love smash bros

 

[Deleted member]

We should get the entire south using facebook groups to make the best region better

 

[Dorsey]

there's a better chance of mango getting laid than melee being revived.

 

[Dr Peepee]

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=309978

I think this is relevant here.

 

[Mike G]

there's a better chance of mango getting laid than melee being revived.

Dorsey, you are so awesome.

..and probably accurate. lol

 

[Pi]

^mike g sounding mad old and pessimistic lol

idk what you think we mean by revival, but it's not too far fetched to think we can get melee having the kind of tournament sizes we had in it's prime, we're not too far off now.

 

[Bl@ckChris]

i went to a melee tournament that was advertised on facebook. it got about 15-20 people in goose creek south carolina that hadn't really been into real hardcore smash (aka, smashboards) but since i went to that tournament, a suburb now has a legit crew of inspired players who have since come to a tournament in NC and plan to go to GA soon as well.

I sincerely think advertising any tournament that one hosts on facebook is an odd but rather successful way of really getting the scene going again.

another thing that i've been meaning to do but haven't done yet, is finding a good shirt that shows the competitive aspect of melee. the best shirt i have right now is an airbrush of ganon's head that has "bl@ckchris" at the bottom, but i really want something that deals directly with competitive melee so that people will ask me about it and then be able to bring them in to play. Any ideas?

 

[AL_bubba]

heyyall

Heytheis is your boy AL_bubba. best way for yall to getpeople to playisto come over to2alabama and just get completly recked. Dudnt even really madder tho cuz if you aint got the tusk, you aint got ****, kent state gonna get dat *** whooped you ****ies, yall aint nothin but turd mongerin sacks of spare sweaty ***** weiners

roll damn tide, ROLL TIDE ROLL

 

[chaddd]

Heytheis is your boy AL_bubba. best way for yall to getpeople to playisto come over to2alabama and just get completly recked. Dudnt even really madder tho cuz if you aint got the tusk, you aint got ****, kent state gonna get dat *** whooped you ****ies, yall aint nothin but turd mongerin sacks of spare sweaty ***** weiners

roll damn tide, ROLL TIDE ROLL

This HAS to be Wes.

 

[Deleted member]

Yeah thats what I was thinking too lol

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

Why does he have to be from Alabama? Why are they always from Alabama?

 

[Dark Sonic]

Yo, do what Zoro's been doing and offer "Veteran's Discounts," where players who have been out of the scene for a long time pay half price at a tournament.

The "newcomers" discount helps too.

We had like 40 entrants at Advent 1 and I think it has something to do with the hype of "returning veterans."