RagingCherry
Suuuuup!
About a little over a year ago, I had no clue that the Smash community existed. I ran a gaming club at my school, and at our first event we hosted three games- Melee, Marvel 3 and Halo 3. We had 124 people show up with 84 of those coming JUST for Smash! I kept thinking "I played this game when I was 14, how the hell are people still interested in this ****." By the way, when I started the gaming club, I was a Call of Duty elitist who didn't really care for anything else, especially fighting games. Little did I know where this would lead to..
Then we had a large event (250+ people) about a month later, which had around 10 games played, two of which were Melee and Brawl. I didn't know the difference in the two (as I did not play it much when I was younger), so a friend suggested I sign up for Brawl. I had an ok time but it wasn't anything special to me. Around November, someone brought Project M to a tournament and I instantly loved the game! The Orlando Smash community continuously showed up (Smash is the only game we've always repeated at events). I was helping run tournaments so I saw who the consistent good players were and decided to reach out to them for help.
Two of my friends came over and taught me Project M (since I didn't own Melee or played it), and which I learned wavedashing, tethering, l-cancelling, etc. So I just played around with roommates for fun, nothing too serious yet. I would play a lot but never took it serious. In April of this year, we went to an event in Gainesville where I saw a pretty good Melee crowd there, and noticed all my friends were playing it over Brawl/Project M.
So recently (about two months ago) I have been hosting private events at my place, just inviting the best players in Orlando over so I could watch, play and learn how to get better. I'm not good compared to the average Smasher, but I have definitely seen results show as these events progressed. I have been hosting large events (40 people last time, 60 people yesterday at my house) just to expand the community and have more people to play with.
From what I've noticed (in past experiences), the Smash community definitely are more humble/grateful than the FPS community that I am used to. I broke my ankle about a week ago, and people helped me out with setting up/breaking down, going to get food, tables and chairs to house this event at my house. I can't describe how thankful I am for the community as a whole, and how much everyone has helped me out for being a noob lol. Our event yesterday had a lot of great players (Colbol, Renth, Harriet, EikelmannRUS, AceDudeYea, RockCrock, Plup, Gahtzu, Darksonic, Kuya), about 15 TVs, tables and chairs purchased, as well as being live streamed. Since I've hosted large-scale gaming events for about a year now, yesterday seemed like it was nothing. I was told that this sort of thing (like the Smash event I hosted yesterday) was a pretty big deal, although I wasn't sure how big they meant. I had many people I did not know show up to my house, help setup/clean up, or with anything I needed since I was on crutches lol. I even housed a few people I've never met before.
Now I've made a completely different group of friends in the smash community itself. Learned a lot and now making plans on helping out the community as much as I can. Loving the game and the community I thought so bad about over a year ago. Sorry for doubting you guys, but definitely have a whole new outlook on the game now. I plan on going to a few big events (Tipped Off, CEO, EVO) to watch and compete. Looking forward to seeing where things are in another year! Thanks for everything guys!
Link to results:
http://smashboards.com/threads/orlando-homegrown-november-smash-tournament.342318/
Link to stream:
http://www.twitch.tv/taerknet/
Then we had a large event (250+ people) about a month later, which had around 10 games played, two of which were Melee and Brawl. I didn't know the difference in the two (as I did not play it much when I was younger), so a friend suggested I sign up for Brawl. I had an ok time but it wasn't anything special to me. Around November, someone brought Project M to a tournament and I instantly loved the game! The Orlando Smash community continuously showed up (Smash is the only game we've always repeated at events). I was helping run tournaments so I saw who the consistent good players were and decided to reach out to them for help.
Two of my friends came over and taught me Project M (since I didn't own Melee or played it), and which I learned wavedashing, tethering, l-cancelling, etc. So I just played around with roommates for fun, nothing too serious yet. I would play a lot but never took it serious. In April of this year, we went to an event in Gainesville where I saw a pretty good Melee crowd there, and noticed all my friends were playing it over Brawl/Project M.
So recently (about two months ago) I have been hosting private events at my place, just inviting the best players in Orlando over so I could watch, play and learn how to get better. I'm not good compared to the average Smasher, but I have definitely seen results show as these events progressed. I have been hosting large events (40 people last time, 60 people yesterday at my house) just to expand the community and have more people to play with.
From what I've noticed (in past experiences), the Smash community definitely are more humble/grateful than the FPS community that I am used to. I broke my ankle about a week ago, and people helped me out with setting up/breaking down, going to get food, tables and chairs to house this event at my house. I can't describe how thankful I am for the community as a whole, and how much everyone has helped me out for being a noob lol. Our event yesterday had a lot of great players (Colbol, Renth, Harriet, EikelmannRUS, AceDudeYea, RockCrock, Plup, Gahtzu, Darksonic, Kuya), about 15 TVs, tables and chairs purchased, as well as being live streamed. Since I've hosted large-scale gaming events for about a year now, yesterday seemed like it was nothing. I was told that this sort of thing (like the Smash event I hosted yesterday) was a pretty big deal, although I wasn't sure how big they meant. I had many people I did not know show up to my house, help setup/clean up, or with anything I needed since I was on crutches lol. I even housed a few people I've never met before.
Now I've made a completely different group of friends in the smash community itself. Learned a lot and now making plans on helping out the community as much as I can. Loving the game and the community I thought so bad about over a year ago. Sorry for doubting you guys, but definitely have a whole new outlook on the game now. I plan on going to a few big events (Tipped Off, CEO, EVO) to watch and compete. Looking forward to seeing where things are in another year! Thanks for everything guys!
Link to results:
http://smashboards.com/threads/orlando-homegrown-november-smash-tournament.342318/
Link to stream:
http://www.twitch.tv/taerknet/