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Evo and You / SG / the Community / etc

IsaVulpes

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Ms. Fortune Filia Double
Hi!

Preface: I haven't been and most likely never will be to a US major tournament yada yada and am thus merely an outside onlooker.
Perhaps everything I'm going to say is entirely preposterous, or maybe it makes some sense but is still garbage etc..
I personally am not concerned by it, so these are idle thoughts moreso than "pushing for change".

Okay, now on to the (entirely blasphemous) topic:
I don't believe that "the biggest SG tournament" should be at EVO.

To explain..
SG won't become an EVO main game anytime soon. I think we can all agree on that much.
What this means is: No prereg on the actual page (people have to dig around on Skullheart to find where to go), no streamtime on mainstream + looming threat of no streamtime at all (or disasters such as the EVO14 stream), players stuck in some offplace BYOC area, no accommodation for their schedule in other games (players can't request to play SF4 on a later timeslot when it clashes with their SG grand final match), tbc

Generally when you're "not wanted" in a place, you go somewhere else.

The most prominent example here would probably be the Smash community, who, shunned by Evo, went ahead and created their own Major - Apex.

However, that approach carries two issues on its own:
1) It completely cuts you off from the rest of the FGC. It took quite a while from me being into FGs until me learning that Smash is played competitively, as it had no exposure at the common tournaments and their scene strictly stuck to themselves.
2) You need a LARGE community for this to work. Apex can host tournaments for 64, Melee and Brawl + all of these sold more than SG. Skullgirls simply couldn't carry "its own major".

HOWEVER, there is another solution: Move the nominal "largest SG event of the year" from EVO to a different major.
- There are some events which are a LOT nicer than EVO - as the most basic example I'll list Frosty Faustings, an upcoming tournament that has SG on the "main games" list.

Instead of "crawling in the dirt" in front of the Evolution tournament, hoping that we get our Top 2 streamed with just 4 rather than 6 hours delay, we could be on main stream.
Instead of giving TOs who put us ~on the list~ 30 entrants while Evo gets 150 for nothing, we could "thank them properly" by bringing numbers.
Who knows, someone might even stumble upon Skullgirls, as it's shown on stream (and for longer than 5 minutes)..

Maybe all of this is stupid. Maybe it's not THAT stupid, but the SGC wants "the evo experience" anyhow.
Maybe people considered this before, but concluded that as long as there's a side tourney at EVO (and there would still be one) it would be "seen" as the biggest tourney, even if it nominally wasn't and everyone said "If you can only make 1 tourney per year, go to Faustings".
Maybe half the reason for SGs good numbers at EVO are onsite registrations by random people, something that wouldn't happen elsewhere..
.. Maybe all of this becomes obsolete rather soon, as SG dies within the next year?

As said, I am just an outsider without a serious voice; merely wanted to post some.. Food for thought.

Happy discussing (hopefully)!

E: To make it clear, Faustings is just an example. I'm pretty sure that most majors would work - even ones which currently don't have SG on their main games list could likely get reasoned with if one promised 150 entrants.

E2: Bonus Contra-evo arguments:
1) It is really full and big on other games, which makes many people who play Sg sorta on the side not want to enter due to time/stress constraints; eg jwong and chrisg have entered various sg tourneys, but keep clear of the evo one
2) The effect of our entrants count is greatly diminished by how large evo is; 150 entrants just isnt that much at a tourney where sf4 gets 1000+. The same count at a tourney with 50 usf4 entrants looks rather imposing.
 
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Sorry that I'm only going to post a short reply for now, but it is 3:30 am and I am tired. I agree with what you're talking about, and I can see why EVO shouldn't be the main focus. UFGT was a better main focus, and this year it essentially was our EVO in terms of streams and support. We got all of top 16 streamed for christ's sake!

Frosty Faustings is giving SG some love, BUT it seems as though that Combo Breaker 2015 is the new UFGT. I've been looking to go to a single one of the Chicago majors this year, and so far I have been told by multiple people to choose Combo Breaker over Frosty Faustings due to the predicted turn out and support for SG.

Over here on the East Coast we've been getting some love too, as NEC was streamed and very well supported. This is an event run by Big E, who has not supported SG since release (due to turn out numbers.) There are 4(?) Big E tournaments each year though, and I am hoping that SG continues to get some support. I unfortunately did not go to NEC, but this year I do plan on going to the next Big E tournaments, Combo Breaker, and despite me agreeing that it's not the focus, EVO.
 
Oh right, Combo Breaker.

UFGT and how disgustingly good it was actually sparked this post originally, but then UFGT died so I didn't want to use it as an example.
Forgot that it is going to continue under a different name; if it is as solid still without Keits, it would definitely be my prime pick as well.
 
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I mostly agree. I think EVO is good due to the time frame: Summer, school is out, work is slow and you have paid time off to use, Vegas.

But if wanted an event where we dont get overshadowed so much, I think ECT or Combo Breaker would be nice. Large amounts of SG players are in these 2 areas.
 
Preface: I haven't been and most likely never will be to a US major tournament yada yada and am thus merely an outside onlooker.
Perhaps everything I'm going to say is entirely preposterous, or maybe it makes some sense but is still garbage etc..
As a person who goes to 10+ major tournaments per year, I agree with everything you're saying.

For people who can only go to 1-2 tournaments in a year, if the only game you care about is Skullgirls, I don't think Evo is the one tournament you should go to. As a disclaimer, if you care about any of the Evo main games like Street Fighter 6, Hyper Capcom vs Hanna Barbara 4, etc, Evo is actually kind of nuts and you should probably go. But strictly in terms of Skullgirls tournaments I think there are a lot of better ones:

-SCR, which stands for SoCal Regionals (Skullgirls prereg + Skullgirls stream + meet your hero Mike Z and maybe play him at Skullgirls (he will make fun of you as he beats you it's gr8))
-GUTS, which is a backronym so it doesn't really matter what it stands for (I'm biased but I assure you this tournament rules. Skullgirls has been on the prereg list every year GUTS has existed and had streams for the last 2)
-Combo Breaker (UFGT has always been super great to Skullgirls, I would assume this tournament will also be dope since it's run by the same people minus Keits)
-NEC (I have never been the hugest fan of this one but I still think it's better than Evo)
 
Well I think the main issue here is that a lot of people go to Evo for the event itself and also the other games at the event.

Even if the SGC tried to organize 'everybody show up to UFGT so we can get top billing' type of movement, it still probably wouldn't be the biggest SG tournament of the year. EVO could win out anyway because its simply the biggest collection of FG players in the world.
 
Before I post anymore questions

Would anyone know the best way to organize a little tournament I believe micro tourneys could help as well plus I live in South Jersey and even going to North Jersey can be hard. I want to be actively and physically in the SG communities and alot of tourneys are out of range for me financially, and physically (work, distance, ect)

Edit: I like playing on line when I can but hate throwing a fishing pole in waiting for a bite , I can't wait for lobbies
 
I don't have a response yet, but I think another example of a community not relying on EVO is Tekken I think? I've heard sometimes (not gonna lie, partly from Ultrachen, for how much people trust them) that they get most of their scene to travel and attend Final Round to be their "big" tournament rather than EVO. IIRC, last years EVO initially didn't have Tekken on the roster and it was Markman's lobbying that got it placed back.

Before I post anymore questions

Would anyone know the best way to organize a little tournament I believe micro tourneys could help as well plus I live in South Jersey and even going to North Jersey can be hard. I want to be actively and physically in the SG communities and alot of tourneys are out of range for me financially, and physically (work, distance, ect)

Edit: I like playing on line when I can but hate throwing a fishing pole in waiting for a bite , I can't wait for lobbies

Little tournaments basically need you to have a small community of players who already play the game and coordinating with them about a time&place. If you, say, went to a local FGC meet every week where a bunch of people played different fighting games, but you had your own group of like 8 who wanted to play SG regularly, that'd be a starting place to try and organize a mini-tournament where you guys are. Our best examples would be Salty that we all know and the MA scene here.
 
I don't have a response yet, but I think another example of a community not relying on EVO is Tekken I think? I've heard sometimes (not gonna lie, partly from Ultrachen, for how much people trust them) that they get most of their scene to travel and attend Final Round to be their "big" tournament rather than EVO. IIRC, last years EVO initially didn't have Tekken on the roster and it was Markman's lobbying that got it placed back.
I entered TTT2 at Final Round a year ago (two years ago? idk) and I can confirm Tekken there is nuts. Players from Korea flew out for it, I think one guy from Japan was there too if I'm remembering this correctly. I also remember there being a bunch of exhibition matches. It's the most attention I've seen given to Tekken at a tournament I've personally attended, that's for sure.
 
I mostly agree. I think EVO is good due to the time frame: Summer, school is out, work is slow and you have paid time off to use, Vegas.
This is pretty much one of my two main reasons why I can't go to tournaments besides CEO and EVO. CEO, it's 4 hours away from me. EVO, it's in Vegas, I have a family whom lives in Vegas, so I can easily not pay for their hotels (although that might change for this year).

The second and most largest reason, is that I'm a broke collage student. I depend on my parents to pay for my trips, and because they are under this guardian ship with me, they (or at least someone they know) has to supervise me. Which is pretty limiting since my Dad is only allowed to take like 2 vacations every year. (Unless it's on a weekend, hence CEO)

So, I can't go to any events besides those two, which means I can't help with this idea. I wish all of you the best of luck. I am planning however, to grow my scene over here, so that CEO doesn't get like 20 people, I got two ideas and I hope at least one of them works.
 
.. Maybe all of this becomes obsolete rather soon, as SG dies within the next year?
SG is going to die within the next year? I feel like we've been here before.

Man if EVO isn't the biggest SG tournament of the year that'd be fine by me because **** EVO. Outside of the competition that tournament is so boring ~_~
 
speaking of majors every one should go to CEO, Im pretty sure SG last year was maybe the biggest unofficial tourney. yah every one should consider going and now CEO probably is going to be working with popeyes apparently sooo yah shameless plug
 
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speaking of majors every one should go to CEO, Im pretty sure SG last year was maybe the biggest unofficial tourney. yah every one should consider going and now CEO probably is going to be working with popeyes apparently sooo yah shameless plug

Where is CEO and how far away (date wise)
 
Mate if you think that was a prediction, you didn't understand that paragraph at all

lol then what were you trying to say
 
SG is going to die within the next year? I feel like we've been here before.

Man if EVO isn't the biggest SG tournament of the year that'd be fine by me because **** EVO. Outside of the competition that tournament is so boring ~_~
Also costs $600 to $1000 to do what I can do at home or at an east coast major. A Chicago major makes more sense for most players due to where it is located as well
 
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What about hosting large tournaments at non-FGC centric events such as conventions or something? Someplace where the SG community won't have to necessarily compete with other parts of the FGC, but also a place where there is an already established gathering of some sort. I think that having a large number of non-contestants is a good thing for a number of reasons.

It could even be something official that's run by the developers if they're willing to commit to something like that. They gather a decent amount of interest with their panels and their talks, I imagine they could get a decent event going if the community pulled together to make it work.

There are also problems with things such as these, but I think it's worth considering.
 
lol then what were you trying to say
That entire paragraph is "possible counter-arguments one could have against this", ie someone might enter the thread and go "thought isn't that bad, but sg is dead soon anyway, so too much of a bother"
I mean, the paragraph starts out with "maybe all of this is stupid"; that doesn't mean that *I* think it is.

E: '"THE" major should be close to where the biggest part of the community is at, rather than in no-mans-land' is another thought to have which I didn't add to the op, yeah.
 
What about hosting large tournaments at non-FGC centric events such as conventions or something?

It could even be something official that's run by the developers if they're willing to commit to something like that. They gather a decent amount of interest with their panels and their talks, I imagine they could get a decent event going if the community pulled together to make it work.
The biggest sg major being hosted at some anime convention and getting overrun by people with valentine dakimuras is definitely the last thing I would want to see happening
 
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NEC is the huge tourney for air dash fighters. The EC scene is biggest for this subgenre of fighters.

Frosty Faustings is Guilty Gear but I guess it might just be ASW.

FR is the tourney if you are into Tekken or SNK titles.

Apex is Smash series if anyone forgot.

KiT is for MK and NRS titles.

VF has the NYG tourney series.
 
What about hosting large tournaments at non-FGC centric events such as conventions or something?

There's first the issue of infrastructure. At any given FGC event where SG is a main game, we have setups, space, allotted time, and usually a stream with a big name streamer, or at least the draw of a big name tournament.

I also have issue with the thought of "competing" with the FGC. We are a part of it. Plenty of SG players play other games, and can even benefit from that crossover. People like people they've heard of.

Lastly, we'd be starting from square one when there's already events all across the country that SG players show up to. We should build those relationships and not try to make our own thing happen.
 
What about hosting large tournaments at non-FGC centric events such as conventions or something? Someplace where the SG community won't have to necessarily compete with other parts of the FGC, but also a place where there is an already established gathering of some sort. I think that having a large number of non-contestants is a good thing for a number of reasons.

It could even be something official that's run by the developers if they're willing to commit to something like that. They gather a decent amount of interest with their panels and their talks, I imagine they could get a decent event going if the community pulled together to make it work.

There are also problems with things such as these, but I think it's worth considering.

Historically, this doesnt work. Its like mixing oil and water.
 
E: '"THE" major should be close to where the biggest part of the community is at, rather than in no-mans-land' is another thought to have which I didn't add to the op, yeah.
I think the biggest scene for this game is in SoCal, so that would be SCR.
 
The biggest sg major being hosted at some anime convention and getting overrun by people with valentine dakimuras is definitely the last thing I would want to happen
I was going to comment how that wouldn't work due to the FGC's raging otaku antagonism, but Isa has nicely illustrated my point.
 
would Eliza dakimura be acceptable?

Just sayin', I saw a mockup for it a while ago
 
I was going to comment how that wouldn't work due to the FGC's raging otaku antagonism, but Isa has nicely illustrated my point.
The very IDEA of this possible change is to give SG more exposure / acceptance in the FGC and make things more fun for players and spectators alike;
Rather than eternally being forced into side tourney status and falling under the radar.

Suggesting that we SPLIT from the FGC and force players to sit around at some anime convention where they can look at naruto cosplay and discuss the lore at some awkward panel, while having a stream no FG player ever is going to accidentally stumble upon and reinforcing the public opinion that this is a game for muhwaifu is DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSING everything this thread stands for.

If you are hyped for anime, good for you! But this is about PLAYING A FIGHTING GAME, and I'm sure you're able to understand that a fighting game tournament is a better place for that than an anime convention..
I LOVE chess, but I would still not even get the idea to hold the SG major in the halls of the USCF during the US rapid chess championships.. Because it doesn't make sense.
 
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I guess you missed the part of my one-sentence replay where I said it wouldn't work.
 
I entered TTT2 at Final Round a year ago (two years ago? idk) and I can confirm Tekken there is nuts. Players from Korea flew out for it, I think one guy from Japan was there too if I'm remembering this correctly. I also remember there being a bunch of exhibition matches. It's the most attention I've seen given to Tekken at a tournament I've personally attended, that's for sure.

I don't think Tekken has ever had a problem throwing together their own majors. None of the old Tekken tournaments had much to do with 2D games and were pretty much organized specifically for Tekken as the main game (E, TiT, Electric Cancel, etc.) so I don't think they were as devastated when Evo support trickled off.

Now that there's more emphasis on sharing a venue with other games, it wouldn't suprise me if they're pretty quick/efficient about mobilizing at one particular major.
 
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Yeah I know, I also personally think that trying to host a tournament at a convention is a bad idea. There are a number of reasons it probably wouldn't work out very well, but you guys already know those reasons. I just thought it might be worth thinking about all of the various things we could do, even if they're bad ideas. Sometimes a bad idea helps spark a good idea from someone else, ya know?

I also wasn't trying to specifically suggest conventions, they were just an easy go-to example. The idea is really to think about whether or not there's something we could do outside of the standard tournament scene. I honestly don't think that there is, but perhaps someone else might have some thoughts.
 
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What are the approximate numbers for SG scenes around the US, if people can give some insight? Either 'how many for the last major SG tourney pulled in' or like normal regular players of the game at smaller events.

It's a bit hard to put a number on it in Chicago, though maybe @konkrete can. We have players but we play SG pretty inconsistently, especially in recent months with a lot of new fighting games coming out in succession. I'd wanna say ~10 people I can think of for Chicago that I see playing, but I'm a bit unsure if that number goes up for proper tourneys.

Though with Combo Breaker as a consideration it seems reasonable to include the some of the other Midwest (Kansas City and St. Louis, I think) scenes to those numbers, they seem to support the game and come up for the bigger Chicago tourneys. By the same reasoning, it makes sense to me to look at SoCal players + travelling NorCal players when considering SCR, or whoever comes out the different EC majors as well.
 
SG is a wild card in the midwest. Last year at FF we had 30-32 and that was mostly Illinois/Wisconsin/Indiana/Michigan. I don't remember if ST Louis or KC made it out but I don't think so. Chicago is a nice spot regardless because of how central it is and we have these two events that are really growing for SG. I'm biased of course since I don't really travel as much these days but it's something to consider. WC would be the better option since I would think EC is pretty spread out, or not, I don't really know.
 
Like it or not, tournaments are fighting game conventions. There have already been Skullgirls tournaments at anime cons. Why not also have street fighter, guilty gear, vampire, persona, tekken, etc.? Why aren't cons already a big tournament destination?
force players to sit around at some anime convention where they can look at naruto cosplay and discuss the lore at some awkward panel
reinforcing the public opinion that this is a game for muhwaifu
And yeah, I'm saying that THIS is a big reason why the separation exists. The FGC wants tournaments to be about only fighting games, and they don't like regular cons. That's literally what I'm saying.
 
SG is a wild card in the midwest. Last year at FF we had 30-32 and that was mostly Illinois/Wisconsin/Indiana/Michigan. I don't remember if ST Louis or KC made it out but I don't think so. Chicago is a nice spot regardless because of how central it is and we have these two events that are really growing for SG. I'm biased of course since I don't really travel as much these days but it's something to consider. WC would be the better option since I would think EC is pretty spread out, or not, I don't really know.
STL and KC both showed up to the last FF, and I believe both are doing so again this year.

I like Combo Breaker for hypest, most best, most yes SG tournament. UFGT was damned good to the game last year, and I'd think that would continue this year with the, "new," UFGT. Where else do we get officially streamed top 16?
 
I LOVE chess, but I would still not even get the idea to hold the SG major in the halls of the USCF during the US rapid chess championships.

I now want to unleash FGC style trash talk onto a chess tournament.

Bitch thinks his Sicilian is hot shit? I got Smith-Morra in my corner!
 
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...and I'm sure you're able to understand that a fighting game tournament is a better place for that than an anime convention...

I think most of us would agree with this, though I'd still like to entertain the idea of talking about aspects of tournament play that go beyond the "where" and "when" of these larger scenes. For example, does developer presence make any sort of difference for the success of an event/tournament? What could we as individuals do to foster better tournament presence besides simply showing up? Are there better ways in which we can promote a tournament and encourage players to show up to specifically help build a major annual SG scene? Is picking an event and saying "that's the one we should all go to" enough, or is there more we can do as a collective?

UFGT was in fact pretty great, so I have fairly high hopes for Combo Breaker. I think the location is good and it has decent potential for a nice turnout. Getting good stream time is also important. If we were to pick a tournament to be the go-to place for SG, then we should also consider what we can do to increase interest in the idea other than simply agreeing to show up.