Event - MLG Anaheim 2014 Your experience at MLG?

[AlphaZealot]

Let's hear it!

I'm mainly interested in just your experience if you went to MLG, what were the positives, what were negatives that you noticed.

Last event I heard a few
-No sound on feature stations for the audience
-Lag on TVS
-Not enough friendlies
-No enough referees with Smash experience.

MLG went and got speakers for the feature stations. They also gave me another referee which was awesome and allowed the tournament to run quicker. And MLG also hired three referees straight from the Smash community (Dazwa, Solid Jake, and Pierce).

For friendlies I tried to open the stations a bit sooner on Saturday then I did in Orlando. I opened each section the moment there were no more tournament matches within that section. I also opened one of the sections when we only needed 1-2 of the tvs in that section.

For doubles we managed to work in 16 TVs for use instead of 12 which is what we had working in Orlando.

The lag on the TV unfortunately can't really be addressed (beyond what MLG has already done which is buy the necessary cable and such to reduce the lag to only 1-2 frames). We had put out an open call to anyone before Orlando and before Columbus about a sure-thing-no-lag setup with an LCD tv but unfortunately no one had a concrete solution that they had witnessed with 100% assurance there was no lag (we got a lot of "this SHOULD work" but no "this DOES work". FYI for anyone who doesn't know, the main issue is that the wii broadcasts in 480i/p, whereas LCD TVs accept 1080i/p. So the problem is that there has to be a converter to scale the image up to 1080, and no matter what happens unless that converter is lightning fast there will be a little lag (cause its more or less like a computer program doing a calculation).

So yea, give the positives, negatives, describe your experience. If you look at the results topic Mav gave a summary of how he did in the tournament and what his experience was, I really enjoyed reading it and would like to see others (like how your matches went, who you lost to, what stages you played on, how you think you lost, how many friendlies you played, how was the hotel, etc etc).

Finally rate your experience on a 1-10 scale (1 being bad, 10 being amazing).

 

[#HBC | Mac]

*he ar*

 

[Player-1]

*Let's*


.

 

[AlphaZealot]

*fixed*

10charizards

 

[MetalMusicMan]

This was such a fun tournament! I had no problem with the friendlies / lack of them. It seemed fine to me. The tournament was run very smoothly and I had a great experience with the Refs. Really well done overall, amazing job! More chairs would have been nice, though.








Regarding the TV lag, personally I don't think there's a problem with using the existing Components on LCD. It plays just fine and doesn't affect gameplay-- I mean, there will be a very small amount of lag but most people didn't even notice / care so it's really not a factor in the competition. However...





It's understandable to want to get the "least lag possible", and if we are striving for that, we should talk about VGA input instead of Component. I would assume that the LCD TV's being used @ MLG have VGA input as most do-- although we would definitely want to check to be sure.


Not sure if anyone has talked about VGA for the TV's, so I'll bring it up here.

If we want to remove all lag, we should be using a VDIGI adapter and using VGA instead of Component-- I use one on my Samsung PC monitor and it has very noticeably less lag than my 42" LCD on component cables.

As many people already know, the problem is that a lot of TV's use image enhancement on many of their signals; this is what causes the lag to begin with. VGA connections do not have image enhancement and therefore have "zero lag". On VGA, it won't feel *exactly* like a CRT monitor because of how they refresh differently compared to LCDs, but it will not lag.

The reason a VGA connection is better is also explained right on the MLG website, among other places:

If your HDTV doesn't have a Game Mode, the next best bet is the VGA input option. Many HDTVs have a VGA input so as to function easily as computer monitors. Because PCs usually output non-native resolutions, many HDTV manufactures do not apply image enhancement to signals coming in through the VGA input, which can be a boon to gamers.

You can get a VDIGI Wii VGA adapter for $39.99 here: http://www.vdigi.com/index.php?page...product_id=18&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=53


Again I use the VDIGI Wii VGA adapter at home on my setup and I can vouch that it works extremely well and is definitely noticeably better than Component.

The only stipulation is that the Wii needs to be set to 480p on another input before you plug the VGA in, as VGA can only output 480p and cannot do 480i at all (which is a part of why it's better than component). The adapter itself has a composite video connection attached for just this purpose though, so no extra cables are necessary. Furthermore, the process only needs to be done once, and once it is, the Wii will "remember it" and startup every time it's plugged back into VGA, even if you plug it into Composite cables afterward.



Of course, this is all worthless if the MLG TV's don't have VGA... but I would think that they do, since most LCD TV's do.

This will not magically fix a "bad" LCD TV, but most decent ones should be fine.

 

[Xyless]

This isn't directly MLG's problem, but I would've loved to have a setup (or be able to bring in a setup) for mods. I was going to bring in a setup the second day (just my laptop and Wii), but when I asked one of the event people, they told me I wasn't allowed to, so I didn't.

 

[Toneh]

MetalMusicMan, found those on ebay for US $18.95 free shipping on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/Wii-and-PS3-VGA...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e5be09d0d

Just search for Wii VGA cable. I also only searched for "U.S only/buy it now"

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?LH_BIN=..._sc=1&_sop=15&_sticky=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m283

 

[Dark 3nergy]

This was my first tournament and I would definitely like to say 4 things that bothered me most.


Firstly; I had a tournament match start without realizing we had no timer. The person who is in charge of set up for all the stations needs to double check his work. And then either the TO or another ref needs to re check his work. Its really not far to both players to have the match reset.

Secondly; Now, this is my personal opinion but the photographer used flash when he/she was taking photos of smashers while they're in matches. This bothered me alot because the flash can not only be distracting, but can also cause temporary blindness if a player accidentally looked into it. To correct this problem, the photographer needs to adjust the cameras exposure settings, turn off flash and maybe position himself in such a way that he 1. gets more light into the lens for a good shot 2. DOESNT BOTHER the players while they play. I do understand the lighting in our section was not that awesome. However the lights at station 1,2,3,4 should have been bright enough. Thats where most of the pictures where taken anyway.


Thirdly; This ones already been mentioned but it bothered me and other players that we couldnt friendly. I find this to be a very important part of the tourney experience. Because people where hogging the stations even during normal warm up hours. I couldnt get to play many people in friendlies. Throughout the tournament, there should be 4-6 stations DEDICATED ONLY TO FRIENDLIES AND NOT TOURNAMENT PLAY. Warm up hours all stations should be for friendlies obvi. But keeping a separate section for just friendlies will make sooooooooooooo many people happy. Especially the ones that get kicked out early. It gives them a chance to replay some of the same people they lost too and fix the problems they might of run into in the set. I cannot stress how important it is for me and other people to get these offline friendlies in. Its a once in a life time opportunity to fight REALLY good players and get better. We need every chance we can get and this'll help players sooo much.


Fourthy; Not enough chairs or things to sit on. My legs hurt me sooo much during this event because i had to stand up so much. I dont know what could bee done to solve this. Because people were walking around all the stations so it'd be a high traffic area.


Ok so now my rant is done. Things that i did like.


-Tournament was well ran overall in terms of; Organization, Keeping a tight time table, etc.
-Refs were very responsive when called on for help and knowledgeable of the game, and rulest being used if a problem came up.
-Venue was nice and huge, free stuff was nice and the security and other people related to the event where very nice.
- I actually reeally enjoyed spectating all the other events, while also doing brawl. I loved the Tekken grand finals. Got to watch those matches alot, and I also looked at the Halo competition too.


Rate 9/10. Would attend again.

 

[Overswarm]

http://www.mlgpro.com/content/page/307385/Columbus-Smash-Event-Recap

 

[da K.I.D.]

I had a fantastic Experience at MLG Columbus, but it was not perfect.

As someone said in the results thread, this event had some of the strongest competition ever but with the extremely limited free play time, it took a lot away from that. whats the point of having all these people in one place at the same time, if we cant really play each other. I think these events benefit greatly from just a few setups devoted entirely to friendlies all day, just like over in a corner or on a wall or something. it dissapes the crowds, and it gives people like me something to do besides risking being DQd by messing with the refs all day.

Set ups. this was a 250 man tourney, and we had 20 set ups. Alex strife is planning for apex to be a 500+ man tourney and hes guaranteeing 60-70 setups (just for brawl)
I really felt that there was an exceedingly small amount of set ups for such a high number of people. i do understand the politics and red tape behind this, but I talked to a few of the tekken players and it seemed like there were about 150 players there for their tourney, and they had the same exact number of setups as us. No wonder the tekken setups looked so much less crowded. I was even able to get a bunch of friendlies in with a few of the tekken tourney players.

im not going to get into the big screen tekken stuff, since that really didnt bother me much. and neither did the random seeding. It actually allowed me to play ally, which I probably wouldnt have ever done otherwise.

The set up of the setups.
this is a very small change that I think would have made a world of difference for everything. The way the smash stations were set up, there was a big square that made up the stage. and than 2 smaller width-wise but longer rectangles made of 2 tables apiece which made up the rest of the smash setups. since the two tables were together, it meant that all the smashers were on the one side of each table, which made it super cramped, and impossible to do with doubles, which resulted in having to shut down 4 setups to have the man space to effectively do doubles. seeing the massive space in the room that MLG had, i saw no reason for such a cramping of the players. what could have been done, especially for doubles, would be to seperate the 2 rectangle tables. and turn 2 of the 4 tvs on each table inward so that instead of 2 sides of the tables, there would be two sides of the table, with an aisle in the middle. that would allow for more space for the players in singles and possibly more setups for doubles. and once again, with the absurd amount of space we had, doing this, even with 10-15 more setups shouldnt have been a problem at all.

I did however love the event for the hotel rooms they secured for us, one of them was a 300$/night hotel that gave us free breakfast, free happy hour liquor, and some of the nicest beds ive ever slept in, for less than half of the normal price.

Once you learned how to navigate the convention center, the distance between the hotels and the event room was also not bad at all.

Ummm... Im not gonna lie tho, asking smashers to hype another game just because were so good at hyping smash seemed like a really dumb request. I mean just because one of the hypest events the ENTIRE WEEKEND was Hunger! vs Malcolm, Round 1, doesnt mean that you can just transfer our hype to another game. That match was more hype than anything any other game not named halo had that entire weekend, and I still had tekken players on sunday telling me, they didnt understand how so many people can show up for a competitive contest in a game where hammers spawn randomly and can kill people. It was so ignorant that I couldnt even respond...

When you dont know when you next tournament match is going to be announced, it is really convinient to have cute girls handing out free hot pockets, beef jerky, Dr. pepper and doritos. Its not real food, but personally I would have died playing all my matches saturday with out it. So definitely good stuff on that one.

the customisable shirts were baller too.

The tvs i thought were fine. I played one friendly, and 1 tournament match trying to get adjusted to the lag, but after that I didnt have any issues with lag messing up any of my movements or powershields or stuff all weekend. I think they went through a lot of trouble to make sure that we had high quality tvs that lagged as little as possible.

might have more to add later, but this was definitely a 9 out of 10 on my tourney rating scale, Im sorry if my post comes off more negative than positive but I just want to make sure the next event is even better.

 

[GimR]

I was able to chain grab with Ice climbers so I don't find the lag bad at all

 

[Zankoku]

I'm going to get all the complaints out of the way so I can spend the rest of the post talking about how cool Dazwa is.

Regarding lag on the TVs, I'm not sure how many people would notice it. Seemed to be around 2-3 frames, which is acceptable, really, especially compared to the 4-5 frame delay on the TV I played on back at the hotel when not at the MLG venue.

This "you have to start over if I didn't write down every single part of your first game" thing is kind of dumb. I understand that the refs want to record everything about each match, but asking for a restart a minute into a game can do any number of things - kill momentum, remove any element of surprise, etc. Is writing down the obvious selections (character choice, first stage) and then waiting until before game 2 to get the rest of the info too much to ask for?

Oh my god the random seeding. MLG is a circuit of tournaments that take place around the country. You can't expect to have even half of the players packing circuit points for seeding, considering how much of the attendance is going to be local competition that likely isn't willing to travel to other, farther events. I understand that regions will have to play each other (Midwest vs Midwest is bound to happen when two thirds of the bracket is made of Midwest), but same-state first round matches were really stupid. Four of the eleven players from Michigan got paired against each other first round. I saw first round Blue Rogue vs Smash64, and Judo vs Krystedez, as well. The least you could do when seeding players that have no points on your circuit is use some sort of criteria besides "random." The SWF Brawl Rankings might give better accuracy in seed power, or for more simplicity while still avoiding many first-round problems you could simply separate by state. Considering you could probably get one friendly every three hours at this event, I imagine most people came to this tournament hoping to play new people.

Being in the last heat of one round, then the first heat of the very next kinda sucks when I want to find time for lunch/dinner, but I guess since the venue closes at very set times you can't really afford to add breaks. : \

Pros aren't the only ones who want to get in a bunch of friendlies. D: Please consider providing more setups in the future.


Alright, now that that's all out of the way. The venue itself was gigantic. There was enough floor space for everyone present during singles finals to sit down and watch. And this was just the corner reserved for Smash. With players from all sorts of games, ranging from Smash to Halo to World of Warcraft, the area never felt cramped. Though I'm not used to having super-caffeinated drinks as the only refreshment, I really can't turn down an endless supply of free Dr. Pepper. And Doritos. And a lot of Hot Pockets too.

Another cool thing was the fact that there were four hotels in walking distance of the venue. Housing was pretty much no problem in that regard.

Four big screens to watch hype matches was amazing. Big speakers for the finals matches was amazing. Pierce referring to Mew2King KOing Ally off the top with a Mach Tornado as a never-before seen technique was amazing (lol). But seriously, commentary for finals was good. Despite a relatively rocky start on Friday, things went incredibly smoothly on Saturday. Keep that up.

Hey, that gigantic screen being used for Tekken 6 was pretty cool. Can we jack it for the next event? :D


Now that that's all out of the way, I have to comment on a few people.

Overswarm, how many photos of me did you need?

Good stuff running everything, JV and AZ.

DAZWA !!!!!!

 

[Overswarm]

This "you have to start over if I didn't write down every single part of your first game" thing is kind of dumb. I understand that the refs want to record everything about each match, but asking for a restart a minute into a game can do any number of things - kill momentum, remove any element of surprise, etc. Is writing down the obvious selections (character choice, first stage) and then waiting until before game 2 to get the rest of the info too much to ask for?

I'm all for this, actually. It should be a reminder that Smashers need to follow the rules and not have them bent for them. Soooooo many smashers just do silly, silly things.

Overswarm, how many photos of me did you need?

My memory card says "memory card error" now.

All gone. :'(

I had an awesome picture of Dazwa punching me too :\





As for my thoughts on friendlies, more setups, etc., etc....


MLG is not a grassroots event. It's all about playing your very best and beating EVERYONE there. You WILL play your friends if lady luck says you will. Yeah, it sucks. Beat them and play more matches. That's all there is to it! This is the pinnacle of competition. Every other event you can get in your friendlies and big matches, but MLG? You're playing for first place and beating everyone, even the people you've played before.

 

[MetalMusicMan]

MLG is not a grassroots event. It's all about playing your very best and beating EVERYONE there. You WILL play your friends if lady luck says you will. Yeah, it sucks. Beat them and play more matches. That's all there is to it! This is the pinnacle of competition. Every other event you can get in your friendlies and big matches, but MLG? You're playing for first place and beating everyone, even the people you've played before.

I agree. This is why when the people who I drove complained about not getting enough friendlies, I said it wasn't the same kind of tournament as all the rest where you just play friendlies all the time.

It seems like some people don't understand that.

 

[Xyless]

Let's be honest: if we designated even one of the TVs used in the tournament to be strictly friendlies, we wouldn't have finished the tournament so perfectly on time. I can understand wanting to play other people, but come on, they have major time constraints to deal with.

 

[da K.I.D.]

i feel like that could have been dealt with with more setups to begin with. Seriously most tourneys big or small have somewhere between a 4/5/6-1 smasher to setup ratio.

and now i realise that its a big tourney with multiple events but 13-1 smasher to tv ratio is really too much... With the size and grandeur of everything that was going on, it really doesnt seem like asking for 5-10 more setups is too much to ask.

 

[CR4SH]

Oh my god the random seeding. [/size]

QFT.

The way the random seeding went, some people really just got screwed. Y.b.M.'s bracket would have made me cry, and some poor sap had to play seibrik in winner's then malcolm in loser's.

But that really wasn't the worst part. No chairs anywhere outside of playing stations and a HARD concrete floor made it incredibly uncomfortable all day. Walking around for three days on a floor with absolutely no elasticity is murder on your joints. My spine is still recovering and my knees will hurt all week.

Somehow, the atmosphere of the place made up for it all. I had a blast and I couldn't really tell you why.

 

[Xyless]

I'm glad I got random seeded to fight Nick first round. I've been dying to play a PRO ZSS since I made her my secondary, so I got lots of inspiration and some advice from him.

 

[CT Chia]

MLG was quite the interesting trip, might as well recap about it.

The original plans were simple - we had secured a van with Keitaro, myself, Vex, Xzax, Seph, Xionix, Nasty, and Malcom. Vex, Xzax, and myself from Philly, PA, Nasty from Allentown, PA, and the other four from NJ.

Plan #1: Nasty picks up the Philly players early Thursday morning and takes us to his place in Allentown where Keitaro and the others pick us up at like 11am and we drive straight to Columbus.
Plan #2: Nasty's friend in State College, PA offered to house us to make the trip easier for us which we thought was about halfway. So now Keitaro was going to pick us up later on Wednesday @ Nasty's, around 5pm, then stay at State College and finish the ride in the morning.
Plan #3: Nasty's car broke down on Tuesday so now we had no way of getting to his place for Keitaro to get us. We finally found a big detour to get us there which involved about another $15 of paying gas money with Smurf taking me and Vexzax to Fury's place Wednesday at like 5pm, staying there overnight, then Fury taking us to Nasty's place Thursday afternoon and Keitaro getting us there.

Staying at State College was pretty cool. The guy that housed was really nice, and offering a shower/place to stay and stuff was great. The State College area was really nice, made me kind of jealous being at Drexel. We did some calculations to see how far we were from Columbus, and to our surprise it was over 5 hours. We had to plan to leave earlier than expected, and since Keitaro wouldn't be able to drive that early with that little sleep (since we smashed at State College for roughly 6 hours), I had to step up and drive in the morning with 3-4 hours of sleep, because I wanted to get there on time lol.

After leaving Friday morning we had about 45 minutes of delays because of Keitaro's GPS being absolutely awful and straight up not knowing that an important highway we needed existed and resulted in lots of u-turns, wondering where we go, checking like 3 different GPS' and map directions, etc.



Eventually we arrive in Columbus at about 3:15pm, less than two hours before singles starts. We rush into the venue to meet up with Smurf/Fury to get our room key and then back to the Crowne Plaza Hotel to drop our stuff off. Vex and I got our FYC shirts from the front desk and we head off to the venue ready for round one starting in a mere hour.

We all got a couple of friendlies in, and my first one was against Florida's Shaky - the best Ness. I'm surprised that this Ness takes down so many opponents, and I've always felt that ROB does very well vs Ness, especially when they are off stage. First stock I take a good lead, walling him and keeping him off stage and only taking about 65%. Now it's possible that he could have been doing what I planned to do vs him, because I immediately toned my play down hard core after that. Getting hit with like PK Thunder 10 times in a row on PS1's Rock Transformation lol, I wanted to seem to be susceptible to various techniques so if we meet in tournament Shaky would try to use such tactics against me. The match ended with Shaky winning with one stock left, but it was a great match and definitely a better Ness than I've ever experienced.

I believe that was my only friendly before the bracket started. We checked our seeds for the event and I was seeded at a respectable 29th seed thanks to winning the online ladder while Xzax was seeded second to last at 248 lol. Sure everyone is going to be mixed around with random seeding, but it really was a lot worse than I thought. Xzax (a strong PA ranked player) getting almost absolute bottom seed resulted in him having to play Atomsk first round. Not only was it a high seed pro he had to fight, but probably the one that we all get to play the most. Atomsk comes to just about every single event I host in Philadelphia and we show up to pretty much every NJ tournament where Atomsk is at of course. Xzax played great and even was within arm's reach of winning game 2 but missed a crucial DI from Atomsk's dsmash on Delfino. Both matches were MK dittos (surprised?). Vex had to fight Choice, a match that Keitaro really wanted to watch. Keitaro warned us that Choice was a midwest Falco as good as he was, which was more than enough to keep us worried seeing Vex as a DDD main, who gets hard countered by Falco. Vex unfortunately lost the set and was sent to losers bracket round 1 and was done for the day. My first match was announced to be against Thinkaman, a Jigglypuff main. After getting trash talked by everyone in PA for getting the easiest first round match, I won the set easily 2-0. Also a side note to Fury's first round match against MVD from Florida, a player who eventually placed quite well was amazing. Fury was ranked in PA at number 8 just two weeks ago, and since then has trained to a point where he can easily break top 5 now and took down MVD.


Round 2 was soon announced, though unfortunately I was in one of the last heats in round 2, compared to second heat for round 1. It was hours between my first and second set, and I hate waiting that long between sets. My set was against Mothuzad, who turned out to be a Peach main. PA again trash talked me for having an easy bracket lol, as I won the set even more convincingly than the first.

Round 3 was clearly where things got intense. I don't think any "scrub" player made it to round 3, and every player at least knew somewhat what they were doing. We got to laugh at matchups like Keitaro vs ESAM, and I had Fizzle - who just took out Seph the prior round. Seph told me he was a MK main (since he went all MK vs Seph) and that I should be able to take him down with no problem. We sit down at the TV and no one picked a character. I figured I knew he was a MK so w/e I picked ROB. Big mistake as he went straight to DDD as soon as I picked ROB, ROB's #1 worst matchup in my opinion. I should have called a double blind pick, but it's ok - I still stayed optimistic with my knowledge on the matchup. Game 1 was on Smashville and I played as campy as ever chipping damage on with projectiles from the ledge. I had to land on the stage as little as possible and avoid getting grabbed as a single CG to bthrow from DDD can put us at even percent again, which really is still a disadvantage for ROB seeing that DDD kills ROB at about 90-120% when on average ROB won't be killing a DDD until 160+. The game went on and on and I was faaar past MLG's 35 ledge grabs because I had no choice so I could play safe. The timer was ticking down with less than a minute to go and Fizzle was still in the lead but we were close. I had to try and kill him because I couldn't let the match go to time. The match resulted in a time out with Fizzle leading in percent (I was at about 180% where Fizzle was at about 170%) and I had over 35 ledge grabs anyway.

Game 2 I knew I needed a different approach. I went for counterpicking Brinstar giving Fizzle two options - suffering a bad stage for DDD against ROB or forcing him to switch to Meta Knight. He chose the later option in my relief because of just how well I knew the matchup as ROB. Unfortunately Fizzle was just as campy of a player as myself, if not moreso. I had a fair lead especially throughout the first stock but it started to get worse on the second stock as Fizzle then started to prove how MLG's LGL didn't effect MK one bit since he was able to scrooge under the stage. Fizzle utilized all of MK's mid-air jumps under the stage outside of my reach and recovered safely with MK's recovery. I was able to tack on damage here and there, but it wasn't enough as he started to take the percent lead on stock 3. I was taking on damage being at about 150% to his 100%, a situation I'm generally not scared of at all, but it was impossible to hit him with a kill move and him being under the stage the whole time. The match went to time and Fizzle ended up not going over the 35 ledge grabs and winning by percent, sending me to the losers bracket.



Part 2 coming soon.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Tekken had 76 entrants. Sony sponsors them which is why they get all the cool stuff. If Nintendo ever comes around we may get similar things (at least a live stream).

Per friendlies: I've never seen a national other then MLG finish on time. And the reason is people playing friendlies when there are tournament matches to be played. It is sorta a pick-your-poison: finish on time, or allow friendlies. Since MLG is a professional event, we aim to finish on time. However, there are 2 hours of freeplay on Saturday and Sunday morning, 3.5 hours of freeplay on Friday (1:30-5PM - the only excuse you can have for not being warmed up in the first round is really not getting to the venue early. We then had 8 stations from 6:00PM-10:30 on Saturday, and 16 stations from about 8:30PM-10:30PM. On Sunday there were 8 stations from about 12:30PM-5:00PM and 16 stations from about 3:00PM-5:00PM.

However next event I may see if I can work something out, probably on Saturday since Friday we need every station at all times. I don't see us getting more setups. My idea would be to see if I can get one of the production guys to separate off 4 stations since we won't need them past the first 2 rounds of losers. That would make 4 friendly stations available on Saturday starting at around 2PM instead of 5-6PM (when we had 8 friendly stations open up).

Regarding seeding: the seeding is done by the MLG commissioner and the entire purpose is to completely remove any possible bias from the equation. We pushed to integrate the Smashboards rankings into the process, and we were able to use those rankings to get 16 people seeded in Orlando, but now that people have points from 2 events that will be the only criteria used (plus online points). Please note that there are online competitions to give you seed points. This is a system that will unfortunately not be changed. I sympathize with you guys in terms of seeding at least by location for a round or two but it is outside my control.

Per Tekken hype: okay next time we will not ask (it was a request from the Tekken Tournament Director to me and I obliged), I didn't realize the response would be negative. I do request though that, even if they are not courteous to us, that we at least be courteous to their game/them during the event. We need to be the bigger men (community).

The issue with separating the tables/tvs out is a logistical one. More or less we need to have enough of the ropes (of all things, and there aren't to many extra rope thing's lying around) to go around all the equiptment and we need bodies to keep an eye on equiptment. If just one Smash disk gets stolen you can basically kiss friendly time goodbye for the rest of the season, so the setup used is meant to minimize the ability of people to steal (and also to maximize the ability of the refs to monitor matches and stations).

 

[Zankoku]

I'm all for this, actually. It should be a reminder that Smashers need to follow the rules and not have them bent for them. Soooooo many smashers just do silly, silly things.

To be fair, these are not old rules that everybody has already experienced in every tournament. Normal tournaments do not have refs watching all the time. Normal tournaments do not need you to tell someone else exactly what's about to go down. I'm sure Smashers will know what's up the next time they go to an MLG (if they do), but that totally isn't cool. You want to prevent false starts? Just don't allow the players to go through the motions AT ALL until the ref's watching. It'll eliminate any potential confusion.

As for my thoughts on friendlies, more setups, etc., etc....


MLG is not a grassroots event. It's all about playing your very best and beating EVERYONE there. You WILL play your friends if lady luck says you will. Yeah, it sucks. Beat them and play more matches. That's all there is to it! This is the pinnacle of competition. Every other event you can get in your friendlies and big matches, but MLG? You're playing for first place and beating everyone, even the people you've played before.

Being the pinnacle of competition is exactly why everyone wants friendlies. How often do you get to meet M2K, NickRiddle, and Lee Martin, all at one tournament? It's only natural that you'd want to have the chance to play them, too.

Why should MLG only have accuracy to first and second place? Yeah, people want first place, but when even 8th place gets $200 (easily equaling and even surpassing some first place prizes at locals), I believe at least some proper seeding for all the players outside of known points from prior events is in order.

 

[Nicole]

I didn't mind there not being a ton of friendlies during the tournament. However, I don't understand why, if the brawl tournament finishes before the tekken, halo, wow, etc tournaments, and the venue is still open, and all of the brawl setups are still in place...

Why couldn't brawl players stay and play friendlies until the venue closed?

That is really my one complaint, I thought the tournament was very well run and very enjoyable. I had alot of fun playing against Shakey in bracket, and I got to play several good people in the time allotted for friendlies. Plus I got to see some great singles and doubles matches, which I usually don't take the time to watch because I'd usually be playing friendlies. I guess another small complaint was the cramped space between setups, but that was very minor and was just a small annoyance, really.

I hope to attend another MLG event, and hopefully MLG will do a few things differently, although they've already done a really great job.

 

[CR4SH]

Finishing a 250 man bracket on time when you only have 20 setups, is pretty unbelievable.

I would have preferred to have been able to play friendlies, but I can't deny that it's a seriously impressive thing to have done. Good job AZ and mlg.

 

[wWw Dazwa]

My memory card says "memory card error" now.

All gone. :'(

I had an awesome picture of Dazwa punching me too :\

...



I've got a CRAZY story from my travels this weekend, which included traveling with fellow referees from DC to Columbus by plane. Except instead of "Fellow referees," it was "Rugby referees," instead of "DC to Columbus" it was "Dayton, Ohio to Columbus," and instead of "plane," it was "rental car." Once I have that all typed out, I'll be sure to share

 

[Kaila]

There are always hotel rooms to set up for Friendlies, not everything has to happen in the venue. Most Halo kids plan to go to events the Wednesday or Thursday before so they can LAN other teams, Smasher are welcome to do the same.

This is a professional league, it isn't up to the coordinator to supply non-tournament stations for leisure play. Events like APEX are still grassroots run, which means they can have competitors bring in their own set ups, use homebrews, and stream without Nintendo's consent.

 

[Nicole]

There are always hotel rooms to set up for Friendlies, not everything has to happen in the venue. Most Halo kids plan to go to events the Wednesday or Thursday before so they can LAN other teams, Smasher are welcome to do the same.

This is a professional league, it isn't up to the coordinator to supply non-tournament stations for leisure play. Events like APEX are still grassroots run, which means they can have competitors bring in their own set ups, use homebrews, and stream without Nintendo's consent.

that's true about the hotel rooms. except that there's only going to be one setup. who is going to have room in their car to bring an extra setup, unless only a couple people are driving in a single car...and how often is that going to happen?

 

[MetalMusicMan]

The point, which OS made very well, is that it's a national event-- you drive there to compete in the national event, not to play friendlies. Whatever friendlies there are is just gravy, even if there were no friendlies it shouldn't really matter because it's about the big competition. There are plenty of "regular" tournaments throughout the year that have open setups for friendlies.

 

[Xyless]

Just to clarify for next time (if I go to another MLG), would you guys have been fine if I brought my laptop and had people play Brawl Minus? I wanted to ask, but for some reason, didn't.

 

[Zankoku]

Yeah, the fact that there's not actually any incentive to bring your own Wii or TV besides playing outside of the venue doesn't help matters much.

 

[Krystedez]

I have mainly one issue with the professionalism of the tournament operators and the referees alike. I was in the wrong for leaving the scene for even 10 minutes, I will admit that, but I had no intention of setting the tournament back at all. In fact, I was all for being there ON TIME.

However, this is the first MLG tournament I been to, the first time so many things had been properly planned and discussed, and, get this, the first time I've been expected to read minds.

Yes, I said read minds. AZ, I know what you said, I know you said you had repeatedly said the schedule was tentative. But guess what. I did not hear it. If I was in there anywhere near the corner, I was doing one of two things:

1.) Playing matches. Totally focused. Not paying attention to anything but the referee's instructions or my opponent, and the of course, the match.

2.) Visiting the info desk, where YOU told us to go to first for match inquiries AND times. CLEAR ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE VENUE. out of earshot.

When those two things were not being done, I was outside the venue, getting a drink, going to the bathroom, or talking to friends around the venue.

I would ONLY do those things above besides 1 and 2 if I had confirmed my time and person I had to play. In the case of my disqualification, it was no different how I waited for it in round 3 then I did for round 2 and round 1.

Now here is where the stuff happens. On Friday night at 10:40 or so, I checked both the info desk and the bracket desks where AZ and the reffs met at by the monitor. I made sure who I was to face, and what time.

Me: "Is Round 3 ready yet?"

"No, Round 3 will not start until 11:30".

Me: "Alright." *goes to Info desk where the girl was receiving the same updates supposedly.*

Me: "Can I see my match for round 3?" *gives name*
"Yeah, you face SkyeHazookie at 11:30 PM."
Me: "Okay, thanks."

Then I left for the hotel upstairs at the Hyatt, which is CONNECTED to the venue, and went to get some coffee, afterall, it was getting late.

11:04, I get a call from Daysia (Today). She says I'm about to be disqualified!! I am on the 10th floor of Hyatt, with my dad making coffee. I double taked at him and the hallway, and dashed down the floor, went down the elevator, made my way down to see Clowsui, who corrected my path (hadnt been up and down the convention center that many times so I almost went the wrong way) and headed me the right way. I ran this whole way, almost running out of breath, practically fainting in and out. I was suprised my asthma hadn't caught up to me, but since I'd been getting out of it for a while now it didn't suck nearly as bad.

When I got there, all was confusion and hell. My opponent wasn't anywhere, all I had in front of me was AZ and the other guys there near the computer, and about half a dozen or more people nearby who had been looking for me. We argued, discussed, figured out a "solution", which wasn't a solution but merely a ruse to waste more time, and I got DQ'd both games.

I was NOT late according to the schedule I was given and the instructions I had taken. I was NOT trying to waste time. I was going to be back like in 5 minutes, but I got down in TWO, thanks to Day, and I was there on their supposed fifteenth allowed minute, which WOULD have allowed me to play the second game out.

But no.

They give the decision over to Skye, saying he could play me with however he wanted, even though that's not how it works. You guys are of professional character; you can make decisions on your own, correct?

But no.

More frustration and anger came over the lot of us, and the only defense that you guys had was that it was a TENTATIVE schedule, that you had repeated the information SEVERAL times.

But you could not see the circumstances you had put me, and perhaps SEVERAL OTHER PLAYERS in! In fact, I know of one, LEGAN! And another! Someone Skye knew! It was BS.

So here is the last part of my rant; the worst part of this... OHhhhh, you think I was mad that I got trolled hard and put into losers from a BS reason? The worst of THAT was that I was there on the fifteenth minute, but was declared I had been late TWENTY minutes (according to Pierce, who said he checked his phone)...Yet again another discrepancy with this "tentative" schedule. See, AZ and the other guys at the desk said they had called the match at 10:51. I was there at 11:06. I was there before Skye had gotten back from the bathroom for God's sake! But no, Pierce said my match was called at 10:46. WHICH. IS IT? Is all I was thinking. Seriously. And besides that, would you seriously tell me you called a match 6 minutes AFTER you told me round 3 wasn't until 11:30?!

Noo no no. None of this the worst. THE WORST IS THE BACKLASH I GOT. The bull**** whispered into my ear. VERY unprofessional attitude from the opponent AND the reff. I don't care how nice you were, Pierce, but you could have said something earlier.

Skye: I didn't have any control over the situation. Even if I wanted to play you, they wouldn't have let me. (lies. because they just sat there and said you could decide).

Reff: I'm sorry I DQ'd you, but the truth is your opponent was pushing for you to be DQ'd. You were late 15 minutes, and you got here late, but we were even willing to give you 5 more minutes because we had FULL STATIONS AT THE TIME. Even so, your opponent didn't want us to give you any more time than we would anyone else, so right when you got here you were DQ'd. (lies. because you would not DQ a person based on what someone else says to do. You didn't listen to me. Why would you listen to him?)

As for AZ, he was just doing his job, but in all honesty, you could have handled this a little better had you really HEARD was I telling you. It wouldn't even be that big of a situation because we were finishing on time no matter what we did. But no. You guys stamped it all out and said "It's a dead deal, so we can't do anything about it now. You're DQ'd, it's over."

So in a TL;DR version: I got DQ'd for a relatively bull **** reason because of miscommunication between announcer and player. Announcer says go to info desk. Info desk has everything they have. Right? Wrong. That's what happened as far as my end goes.

EDIT: Not that this is in anyway to cover *** or whatever, but about this TL;DR statement; I in no way meant to offend the girl I talked to at the desk. She was doing her job just like AZ was. I in no way place any blame on her for this matter, she even apologized when she hadn't needed to, because I didn't go over there the next evening to place blame on her or anything, I just told her what happened. I in no way blame her for the situation because she was just doing her job.

That little recent edit is just in regards to the text I received from you, miss. I don't think I got your name, but I'm sorry if you took it as an insult or blame game on you or your part. It's nothing like that. If you read this, go ahead and respond back in a text, or at least let me know what's wrong, because I didn't mean to make any enemies here, especially with you, since you helped me out so well in brackets.

As for the rest of the BS, I really wanted to put it behind me, but I can't say I had an enjoyable time getting put into losers against Big Lou and then waiting 4 hours to play it because I was scared ****less I was going to be DQ'd again.

Also, I had fun with my WHOLE THREE MATCHES I PLAYED after traveling 3+ HOURS from Indy, paid over 300 dollars for the Hyatt, my dad could not sleep both nights (one for a nasty mattress and noise, the other for a MORE NOISE), and then getting DQ'd, put into losers, faced off against Big Lou, and got Fsmashed at 73 percent for me to john more about how awesome Luigi is.

Yes. LOTS OF FUN...

Oh btw, yea, thanks for the whole tentative schedule clear up on Saturday. Really helpful, after, you know, 2 or 3 DQ's later. (I feel like being a smart *** right now because I can't really put it in any words without flaming and cursing up the hole). Seriously, if it was tentative to begin with, why did we even have a schedule (to AZ)

And yes, I will understand your defense is that you wanted to finish on time. You would have, believe me. You guys were running a 250 person tournament like champs, and it wasn't because you were scheduling matches early; it's because the smashers were playing their matches. Hell, it went more smoothly than VG boot camp's tourney in Indy, which had to be finished in a hotel somewhere after 12.

 

[MJG]

Wow...thats some Bull Krys...

If everything that you said really happened, then I would be extremely pissed.


Thats some bull

 

[Mike2]

I'm sorry to hear that, brother

 

[TheKiest]

This being my first MLG ever, I was overwhelmed by all the extra stuff you don't get to see at non-sponsored tournaments. (Free food, drinks, prizes, OTHER FREE GAME TOURNAMENTS.. wasn't expecting to see Starcraft 2 being played).
I competed in the Tekken Tournament myself (due to not being able to use the Classic Controller at MLG), so my thoughts will be that of a spectator (Unless you want my Tekken feedback) and that of a T.O.... in no particular order.

While I understand that Sony supports Tekken, thus they get better treatment (live stream, Prizes, etc) MLG should be aware of the numbers behind each event and set it up accordingly.

Things Tekken AND WoW had that MLG supplied (nothing to do with sponsors):
Bleachers
More Room to view the Matches. (Matches on Stations 3 and 4 were VERY cramped trying to fit 100+ people there with us against the wall.)
A stage/Main display designated for the important matches as well as Introduce players (like Tekken did, I haven't met many of these players before, and knowing who they are before games start would have been very useful even it was just the top 16.)

Luckily there is a really easy solution to the first two things....
Switch the Tekken Stations with the Smash Stations, then put some bleachers over by where the "Halo dome/Winner Circle Area" to view the Displays Screens (the plasmas over the main 4 stations).

As for the 3rd, I'm not sure how much MLG has to hold back due to the lack of Nintendo's word, but they could maybe arrange the stations so that one area isn't as cramped for the players AND has much more room for sitting/standing spectators.

But as Cr4sh said, there wasn't anywhere for us to sit at to watch Brawl matches (except the Tekken Main Stations not being used.)
I almost brought my own Air Mattresses/folding chairs just so we could have a place to sit (did bring my big pillow... heh).
Even just a place to sit and talk with players/friends would be great. (Outside the convention room does not count, because we should be able to see the matches we came here to see. Plus the whole DQ thing...)
This isn't as big of a deal at other "local" (using MLG's definition, not mine ) since there might not be enough room for more chairs/viewing areas (Nope's Monthly is in a house where the numbers reach to the 70s. Delta Upsilon is in a basement with numbers up to the 30s), but this is MLG they should know that not everyone will be playing AND most want to watch other people play in a comfortable manner.

I won't complain about the temperature, because that is something MLG cannot really control. It takes a ton of time to change the temps in a room that huge and you can't know how many people will be there. (Especially if some players didn't have to arrive until noonish-2 or they leave when they get eliminated.) I brought a blanket for players to use in between matches. I guess the lesson here is, come prepared to have to sit through any temperature when going to MLG (or any tournament for that matter).

I think there should have been more stations. Again referring to Nope's Monthly... we have had 15+ setups at a HOUSE tournament compared to MLG's, a PROFESSIONAL tournament, 20 setups. MLG might have a budget for each game, but going back to what I said before, they need to be aware of the numbers and plan accordingly. Wii Sports got 2 setups and was barely used (though I like the idea of having some random stuff for people to play who are spectating)

I'm not saying have more stations for friendlies during the tournament, but more stations means faster tournament which leads to more friendlies near the end.

I understand MLG's reasoning behind the seeding, but at least don't let the same city fight each other early! (King/KingYoshi Vs King Beef were both from Cleveland fighting in Round 1)

Finally, my biggest complaint, was how hard it was to find out who you are playing next/what place you got (Might not have been like this for smash... I didn't have to go through this since I wasn't in Smash). This is what happened with me:
1. I lose my first fight.
2. I go to the tekken desk to ask who I get to play tomorrow.
3. They say to go to the information desk.
4. Information Desk is packed with Halo players/WoW players, so I decide to just forget it and go watch Brawl.
5. I come back the next day and do some friendlies. Tekken gets an extra hour of free play so I decide to use it to see who I am up against. Back to the Info Desk.
6. There is a line of 12, about a fifth from last time. I waited a good 15 minutes (quicker than I thought, the line did move pretty quickly.)
7. I get to the front and the girl has to search through an excel speadsheet that has match schedules. Since I had a bye in losers (cause I had a bye in Winners), she pretty much had to search through the schedules to figure out what heat I was going to be in and etc. (She was even complaining about how annoying it was to look up players.)
8. I win my next fight, but decide my time would be better spent watching Brawl/doing friendlies instead of repeating 5-8.
9. I lose my next fight. Wondering what place I got, I ask the tekken desk again and got the same answer in #3.

All of this could have been avoided with a BRACKET IMAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!! being displayed.
Instead schedules of what station I would be playing at were displayed OR the PS3/Tekken 6 logo/ads were displayed on the TVs by the bleachers.
I really don't understand this... during MLG Orlando, I could pull up a bracket image at anytime from the internet. Why can't I do this AT THE TOURNAMENT? Why did my friend find about about his matches/placement faster by calling HIS BROTHER AT HOME TO TELL HIM?!?!?! Is knowing the bracket suppose to be some gaming secret?


Now that I have the negatives out of the way.... this is the best tournament I have been to. It ran very smoothly, food/drink was supplied (not a meal, but something to hold you over until you were done playing for the day.), plenty of room to move around, had a VERY professional environment I would like to see at more nationals, and all for a great price. (35 bucks for 3 days, 2 events: singles and teams, and free stuff is REALLY great.)
I had a blast. Having food served by the Hot Pocket Girls during finals was clutch (Can't see any of my tournaments having that, lolz)
And this makes me want to travel to the next 2 of them.

9 out of 10.

 

[dj asakura]

My biggest gripe is the whole "tentative" schedule.

I understand that times aren't 100%, that's perfectly understandable, but when you tell us to go get our match times from the information desk, you should probably be a little more lenient.

One of my friends (Phoenix2005 on the bracket) was told he would not play his WBR2 match until 11:00pm on Friday night so we went to go watch one of our friends play Halo 3. At 9:30 he got a call from another of our friends who works on the Tekken 6 stream saying his name was called and he had already DQ'd his first game.

Tentative is one thing, an hour and a half early is another. All weekend officials would say "arrive early for your matches", but for no reason whatsoever should you have to arrive an hour and a half early for a match.

There needs to be some wiggle room with things like that when you're off your own schedule by that much. You pride yourself on finishing on time, but if you've allowed for each game to take the full 8 minutes then there absolutely should be wiggle room for people who got told they needed to be there at a certain time and then show up late because you start way early.

 

[Krystedez]

Awesome post by awesome person

10thankyouforputtingitbetterthanicouldhaves.

 

[da K.I.D.]

1. Tekken had 76 entrants. Sony sponsors them which is why they get all the cool stuff. If Nintendo ever comes around we may get similar things (at least a live stream).

2. Per friendlies: I've never seen a national other then MLG finish on time. And the reason is people playing friendlies when there are tournament matches to be played. It is sorta a pick-your-poison: finish on time, or allow friendlies. Since MLG is a professional event, we aim to finish on time.

3. Per Tekken hype: okay next time we will not ask (it was a request from the Tekken Tournament Director to me and I obliged), I didn't realize the response would be negative. I do request though that, even if they are not courteous to us, that we at least be courteous to their game/them during the event. We need to be the bigger men (community).

4. The issue with separating the tables/tvs out is a logistical one. More or less we need to have enough of the ropes (of all things, and there aren't to many extra rope thing's lying around) to go around all the equiptment and we need bodies to keep an eye on equiptment. If just one Smash disk gets stolen you can basically kiss friendly time goodbye for the rest of the season, so the setup used is meant to minimize the ability of people to steal (and also to maximize the ability of the refs to monitor matches and stations).

1. Wait, 76? are you kidding? so your saying that we could have taken half of the tekken setups, turned them into brawl set ups, and the ratio of players to game setups for each game would still have only been even? wow. and that also means 3 dudes traveled across the planet, from korea, for a 76 man tourney? wow, thats kinda sad for them. whenever europe comes here to smash its always a 200 + man event.
i understand tekken gets more just because sony is giving you guys money like i said, the stage and big screen i didnt care about because a lot of the tekken music, I like better than smash music. but it seems like at some point you would have to make the distinction that the game with more than triple the entrants, should probably get a few more set ups...

2. True True, finishing on time should be the highest priority, but other things should have some priority too but i understand you guys have to make the tough decisions sometimes.

3. the guy who was the spokesman for the entire thing kind of indirectly seemed like he was asking the smash players to give halo more hype too, so it wasnt (to me) jjust that one tekken incident. but yes, we should be the more respectful ones because its just one more thing to show how great of a game/community we are.

4. security is a prime factor. and you would want to make sure everything happens the way its supposed to and by the book and all, but really? we cant have more space because we dont have enough rope to secure everything? thats the most easily rectifiable problem Ive ever seen. I dont think any smashers would mind paying 40$ instead of 35$ if they knew that was the benefit of it. 5 dollars per person for 250 people, equals 1200$+ that you could use to buy more security rope, and thus giving us more usuable space, thus resulting in a far more pleasurable experience. and thats just the first thing that came to my head...

if theres anything that Im missing or not taking into account, let me know.

 

[TheKiest]

1. Wait, 76? are you kidding? so your saying that we could have taken half of the tekken setups, turned them into brawl set ups, and the ratio of players to game setups for each game would still have only been even? wow. and that also means 3 dudes traveled across the planet, from korea, for a 76 man tourney? wow, thats kinda sad for them. whenever europe comes here to smash its always a 200 + man event.
i understand tekken gets more just because sony is giving you guys money like i said, the stage and big screen i didnt care about because a lot of the tekken music, I like better than smash music. but it seems like at some point you would have to make the distinction that the game with more than triple the entrants, should probably get a few more set ups...

You wouldn't have wanted the Tekken setups, they were computer monitors with no sound (something that is VERY much needed in Brawl). I didn't mind them cause there was very minimal lag and you don't need too much sound in Tekken.

EDIT: As for point four, I think most of the entry fees goes into paying for the convention center rooms. They are crazy expensive. Plus paying the staff (MLG and the convention center staff, I think the other people were paid by their respected companies). I'm not 100 percent, but those were my thoughts on it.

You also have to remember that the Koreans get more money at the end of the circuit ONTOP of the winnings at each event. Luckily for them, the winnings is the same no matter how many enter.

Other points you made, I address in my post (which I was writing when you posted yours)

 

[Mike2]

My biggest gripe is the whole "tentative" schedule.

I understand that times aren't 100%, that's perfectly understandable, but when you tell us to go get our match times from the information desk, you should probably be a little more lenient.

One of my friends (Phoenix2005 on the bracket) was told he would not play his WBR2 match until 11:00pm on Friday night so we went to go watch one of our friends play Halo 3. At 9:30 he got a call from another of our friends who works on the Tekken 6 stream saying his name was called and he had already DQ'd his first game.

Tentative is one thing, an hour and a half early is another. All weekend officials would say "arrive early for your matches", but for no reason whatsoever should you have to arrive an hour and a half early for a match.

There needs to be some wiggle room with things like that when you're off your own schedule by that much. You pride yourself on finishing on time, but if you've allowed for each game to take the full 8 minutes then there absolutely should be wiggle room for people who got told they needed to be there at a certain time and then show up late because you start way early.

qft


qftchars

 

[Blacknight99923]

I didn't attend but I would be rather upset If I flew from Socal to Cbus and got DQ'd because I wasn't an HOUR AND A HALF early for my match.

 

[slikvik]

Really long post in which I got royally screwed over

If this happened to me, there definitely would have been a n!gga moment and/or followed by some n!gga synthesis

@MLG. everybody i know who attended MLg complains about lack of TVs for friendlies/casuals or chairs to rest in the venue. I probably won't make the attempt to attend one unless this changes. It just doesn't seem worth the money when I can have all that at large grassroots events like apex or pound for less money spent