Heh I know my john is weak, but I put it out there as one of the many possibilities on an overall list. I mean, let's think of a couple of other players that disappear without real reason for a long time.
Remember Blake? I have no idea what the hell happened to him after.... Devotion?
Ares has made one or two random appearances the past year, but isn't seen for his own reasons.
Where's Chewie?
Alpha has quit like... 3 times LOL.
Not that any of them/us/me have/don't have valid excuses or not, the point I want across in the thread is that people DO come up with reasons not to play, and it's the community's job to incite motivation and excitement as reasons to continue playing and to introduce new players to the scenes.
To address Perv's reply about tournies as a whole:
Overall tournament "improvement" would keep the tournaments alive and have people more willing to return. Part of that is maximizing all your resources. People like tournaments that run smooth and have more to offer. You brought up Live Stream, and you're right, a Live Stream would definitely attract attention for viewers, and thus potential new participants. Other little "perks" could be a large venue, housing, multiple day tournaments, high cash output for prizes, etc etc.
I always see entry fees at like... 5$ and then the first place ends up being only 40$. That player won their gas money back, congrats.
Definitely bigger money is something to consider. When people host bi-weeklies, I used to think "cool, they'll take a cut from the pot, and put it toward something that rocks later down the line like the Innsomnia series." Maybe I just havn't read enough of the boards, but I don't see much of that going on. If it IS going on, then someone needs to hold their bigass tourny with a large pot lol.
Offer OOS incentive. Some tournaments like to offer some sort of OOS pot or something. Most of GA's past Melee tournaments were supported by OOS for a good while. If they are to keep supporting GA tournies, then there has to be a reason to actually show up.
Part of what made my tournaments successful in both Halo and Melee (successful being 50 people at the least every time for Melee, roughly 20 or so for my weekly Halo tournies) was that my venue was large, had good T.V.s, had space to move around, bathrooms (though not the greatest LOL, and I think Marty would remember this due to his Worst Bathroom Ever video), and hell, my venue had a cafe. We stocked all sorts of snacks and foods and drinks, and there were several good places to eat within a 1 minute walking distance. Even my final tournament I held at my college, I gave the thread a map and a list of everything going down. It was very effective
Good advertising also drags people out. Hype can only go so far. If you're going to hype a tournament, it needs to live up to that hype, otherwise it will flop. If you advertise a tourny to have 20+ T.V.s for play, MAKE SURE THEY ARE THERE lol. If you say you'll have drinks and food on hand for sale, make sure it's there. Reflex's Melee tournament in AL said he would have pizza, hotdogs, and sodas/water throughout the day. He provided, and tons of people loved it and showed up to it.
Location of tournaments is important. In fact, DIVERSE locations is important. One thing I noticed with you Brawlers, MOST of your stuff focuses around Waba. Waba is cool and all, but without large tournaments spreading out, you will eventually discourage the weaker players from traveling so far every time for one tournament. Melee was partially successful because we had tournies running throughout the Atlanta area, Columbus, and Conyers. I also remeber some in Peachtree City too.
As I get more food for thought, I'll post more on my opinions. I hope this gives insight to potential problems (and I don't think I addressed everything or even the right things, but there you have it.)
And in no way was I bashing anyone in this post.
. the idea of having stacking pots would be a great idea actually. So i'm going to try that for the halloween bash.