USA Skullgirls Community Tour? (Discussion)

[Kazmer]

I'm just here to get on stage and yell at people.

 

[Broken Loose]

I like the way the original graphic lead up to Combo Breaker and still don't think it should be based off calendar year.

In other communities, all events lead up to EVO, which is in the middle of the calendar year. This proposed tour does the same thing.

uh

http://capcomprotour.com/schedule/

Do literally any research.

Evo only has an exclusion on the CPT calendar because winning it guaranteed a spot in the invitational. All calendars, for every year running since 2013, have listed events (including premier events like Evo) in order over a calendar year, not in the least because the Capcom Cup is an invitational-only event held at the end of the year.

Seeing as how nobody has even decided what the SG Cup is going to be in the first place, it's a little premature to suggest that a particular event be considered as or transformed into it.

If you're actually serious about having a similar sort of thing, a ranking-based special event using a year's worth of tournament results to determine eligibility and/or placement, then start with laying out the foundation for what that event is, how it's going to work, and how it will relate to the current major schedule before we go blowing up about its potential timing and essentially downplaying literally every event before that point in hastily-assembled promos.

 

[Broken Loose]

I don't think we need an SG Cup or similar event to get people to compete, or even to get the masses to get drawn up into the narrative of our scene and tournament arcs. I think the potential for an upcoming patch does plenty for that already, and the direction LabZero takes often steers the narrative of how people view the greater game of Skullgirls.

That stated, if you want to do this, this is what we (yes, we, because this is more than just you or me) need to do:

• Establish the goal of the SG Cup in a narrative sense. We're functionally pitching a reality show right now. That's what Capcom Pro Tour is-- it's a reality game show with a clear prize and a clear set of steps to achieve that prize with episodes along the way leading up to it. Sage and Sonic win majors all the time. Majors are majors. To the untrained eye, Combo Breaker, CEOtaku, GUTS, NWM, and Frosty are just majors. The SG Cup-- or Belt, or Teacup, or Barrel, or Skull, or Heart-- has to have a clear prize and a clear final stage independent of those already being set for us. An invitational tournament taking place after hours at Combo Breaker is just gonna wash over people, and having the invitational be before Top 16 like the 10v10 is going to immediately reduce the blow of the next day's finals.
• Establish how we are going to market progress. Note that I didn't say "track" progress. One of the biggest hits of the CPT is the following, the ESPN coverage, the Red Bull coverage, LI Joe's story, Infiltration's reign of terror, the lore behind the Japanese Gods, and so on. Are we going to do a streamed show like UltraChen? Are we going to do just a weekly youtube clip and recap? Are we going to just announce tournament results after every major on SRK for 90% of the fgc to ignore? Whose channel will this happen on, what sites will feature this, and why will people want to watch it?
• The Invitational event must be unique. This is asking a lot. It's a huge risk to everybody involved, but it would ultimately be the most rewarding. How would this work? Would we do something like Muñozfest or Medicfest and get 20 players to spend a weekend at somebody's house? Are we going to use the venue of another event as it is happening at the risk of overshadowing the event? Do we want to just have our best 32 do something at Evo, since we don't have anything else going on that weekend? Do we want to throw the first SG-central major? I feel the risk is lessened by the fact that such an event would be invitation-only in which to compete, and therefore we aren't asking for 100+ players to all blindly pitch in for a brand new event.

Hell, I wouldn't mind an excuse to fly to New York, Los Angeles, or, yes, even Las Vegas to take part in a livestreamed invitational event for my game, no matter how small, even if it means I make it to one fewer "true" major a year as a result. We don't even need a ballroom-- just an arcade, a good stream setup, a good stage, good lighting, and good production values. Full Sail is a mile from my house and has tons of television production stages that would be perfect. NYC, LA, Vancouver, Atlanta, et al are likely teeming with Hollywood workshops.

The events aren't what's important. The finals aren't even what's important. What's important about the CPT and about the SG Tour is giving people a reason to follow the game. It's making a good show, with compelling characters and stories, that the greater public can consume and enjoy. After all, we can already play the game for money and prizes anytime we want, and we're doing it right now.

 

[dapurplesharpie]

uh
Do literally any research.

lmao, yeah. Take that tone and tell me again how you're not taking this personal at all, please.

Tell you what, I will actively take back everything I have literally said in this thread if you can beat me in a FT10.
No bitching this time if you lose again.

>capcom pro tour qualifier's dates

Spoiler

Really fail to see how these are set up in any order even pretending to relate to calendar dates, unless the calendar suddenly moves from May to August to September and then back to May again.

 

[Zidiane]

I don't think we need an SG Cup or similar event to get people to compete, or even to get the masses to get drawn up into the narrative of our scene and tournament arcs. I think the potential for an upcoming patch does plenty for that already, and the direction LabZero takes often steers the narrative of how people view the greater game of Skullgirls.

If an upcoming patch was all we needed, the Robo Fortune patch would have done that for us, or any of the other patches. The game needs things that are happening in the community to be public, which they currently are on news sites now more than before. A lot of people who have heard about this Tour have already been really interested in checking out SG again/for the first time. You have to think about how the modern FGC player thinks in today's esports age. People don't give a fuck about a balanced game, they care about which characters are in it. People don't care about a hype tournament, they care about a big tournament. They don't care about a well run bracket, they care about a pot bonus. In today's age of FGC, something like a "Tour" is more aligned with public interests than anything else we've done as a community. I don't think "We shouldn't do this scene building thing because we already have scene building things" is really the way to go on this.

On the topic of order: The only reason order would be important was if we were going to have points or an invitational, but I would rather not have either. I'm fine with just the logo being added to event pages and this public list and the open letter being known to everyone. I don't think we need points or ranking. We are focusing on these specific events because we like them and they treat us well, and WE WANT TO GO to them. All the list is doing is letting other people know where the events are, and let other TO's know what we're doing. Adding points is weird, goes against what I feel like this Tour was supposed to be, and I don't like it.

 

[Cattfish]

Another Vermonter is here to give an opinion that isn't really wanted, but I'm just saying this because I actively followed and played Vanilla and SDE, dropped off after Squigly/the new changes were released, and then came back late last year.

I think for all of these years, the SGC has tried almost everything to influence more players into getting involved. This community is a very vocal community, for better or worse. But regardless, I highly believe that you cannot manufacture "hype". Saying something is "hype" does not make it hype. Moments that make watchers go "ooOOOOH" aren't commentators that are trying really hard (ex: Kai, who make most people in this community feel like its hype), its how the game is being played. Consumers aren't dumb, guys. They know if they're enjoying a game. A lot of people have seen skullgirls before, and have set reasons why they aren't playing. You cannot convince these people. This is an important reminder that we are the community, and we decide if Skullgirls keeps going, not new faces. We are as big as we can be here as a collective unit.


Considering we unofficially announced a "Tour" without, actually having any clue about how its going to be handled is a really poor design. Considering we're almost literally saying "hey this is a ripoff of CPT" but not bringing anything to the table to show why this is going to be (as) good only makes us look bad. Saying "the points mean nothing but we're going to fool our audience into thinking its real" is such a disgrace to any watcher. This is a forum where we are discussing how this is being made. People can come into this thread and see what we had in mind. I think there's not enough events to warrant points. I don't know of a solution that gets people to come out to every tournament other than this is a videogame that we play together because its fun and to challenge each other, and that's why tournaments were made in the first place.

I think that the concern of "two players keep winning all of the big tournaments because they're able to focus on those tournaments" is very real. That can't necessarily be helped, though.

I think Brazil is a big community, EU is a big community, and Japan/Asia is growing into a big community. Anyone looking at these events and not seeing anyone from their home countries because its too expensive to get people to come over (fundraiser for yaya/zeknife/159man/etc) is a let down. We have to include people outside of the US to use a big strength that the CPT has. Latin America having their own district is very important to that community.

That was a lot of talking in circles but I didn't have much time to put this all down. Take of it what you will.

 

[Pickles]

Hell, I wouldn't mind an excuse to fly to New York, Los Angeles, or, yes, even Las Vegas to take part in a livestreamed invitational event for my game, no matter how small, even if it means I make it to one fewer "true" major a year as a result.

I'll be honest, I'd expect you to be in the minority on this point. This is the reason I didn't suggest in my earlier post having the "Skullgirils Cup" or whatever as its own event later in the year even though that would be the parallel to the CPT; our community isn't really big enough to have people travel out to watch a 16-man invitational tournament, and most players I would expect would certainly not choose that over going to a proper major.

Really fail to see how these are set up in any order even pretending to relate to calendar dates, unless the calendar suddenly moves from May to August to September and then back to May again.

Seeing as everything besides ECT *is* in calendar order, and the schedule on the site is in calendar order, I'd be willing to bet that ECT's placement in the CPT graphic is a mistake on the part of the designers.

I agree with a lot of what Zid is saying; pretty much everyone in the FGC who is going to play skullgirls already is, and if people change their mind it'll be more likely from Sonicfox convincing yipes or some mkx player or whoever to pick up the game than from us announcing that we have some sort of tour going. Kai put it well in the OP:

Why not give people something really concrete, to help them easily understand the SGC's chosen focus, and where we plan to go? Just take the 5-6 events we've said are the ones we're doing, and make them SGCT events. What if, say, we could convince our TO's to include, "Official SGCT Event," on their flyers?

The point is to further cement the fact that the events on this list are the ones to hit. My vote would be for having a graphic like the one zid drew up that doesn't imply some events to be more important than others (besides maybe combo breaker), MAYBE have some points w/ some side event at CB, and leave it at that. This doesn't have to be (and probably can't be without failing in spectacular fashion) some super esports-style event; we've never been that sort of community.

 

[RexLeRouge]

On another note: I think we should add another stop on the tour. This is from the SRK article:
"I'm in the european SG community, so I'm pretty aware about [Revolution 2016]. I thought that unofficial tour idea could also make the spotlight on us, as well. The EUFGC rarely has it, except when our best players wins US majors, like Ryan Hart or Luffy."

@Mr Peck comes out to a lot of our events, too. I think the EU community could use some love and consideration, even if we can't all make their events as easily as anything else on the calendar. Revolution 2016 could stand to be added to the calendar, I think, though to be fair I don't know what other events are happening in EU that their community may want a spotlight on.

To clarify a bit the situation in EU, Revolution2016 will be the first Skullgirls event/major in EU since 2012, where Stunfest made a spot for it (mainly because it was new and hype. As far as I know, nobody in the FR community who played it at that time still does. Same exact thing happened for P4A and JojoASB, iirc)
Just to say that we don't have much of a "which event to attend" problem.

Honestly, I'm really waiting to see Revolution2016's turnout before poking elsewhere. Frostybolty told me signups for SG are pretty satisfying for now, so hopefully we can make a good turnout. Then, I think we could poke other events for support.

https://twitter.com/AmericanDFGC also told us they are planning to add SG to their next event in France Feb 2017. They are a serious and dedicated team that already does good work for MK, KI and other fighters, so that definitely could be a success.

All that to say, it seems like things are getting better for SG in EU, but it has yet to be confirmed by our community showing up to the few chances we get. So I wonder if adding those events to the tour is a good idea...

 

[Zidiane]

Considering we unofficially announced a "Tour" without, actually having any clue about how its going to be handled is a really poor design.

The "announcement" wasn't directed at anyone but TO's. It was made because TO's were seeing CB's success and trying to replicate it without listening to us. It was announced publicly for people who want to know our intentions as a community, who might want to watch or follow our growth, to let them know we're still here if they want to play with us, but nothing more than that. The Tour isn't for points or prestige. It's for us, and it's for TO's so they can get a more accurate sampling of what they're getting into if they think about adding SG to the roster. It shouldn't have been any more than that, imo. A logo is neat, a image with the events is neat, but I think pushing the boundaries of what we're doing is unnecessary. Let's enjoy a year, just one year, without striving to be bigger. Let's just enjoy our game with each other.

/unpopular opinion

I don't know of a solution that gets people to come out to every tournament other than this is a videogame that we play together because its fun and to challenge each other, and that's why tournaments were made in the first place.

This is the solution. This is our solution. We already fixed the problem of what to do about events, we've already largely come to this conclusion in the focusing turnout thread. I don't really know why we need to keep trying to fix the problem.

 

[Kai]

but CPT

If you're putting forth reasons why this isn't CPT, or needs to be brought into line with CPT's standards, then this entire thing has gone over your head, past your face, between your legs, whatever. You've completely missed the point. If you think there's, "been an announcement," you've not been paying attention. If you have good ideas or relevant grievances, please speak up and contribute, but if all you wanted to come here and say was that you just can't comprehend why it's important to present a strong, easy-to-understand public face, then you should simply abstain.

"The chart makes things look less/more important," is a relevant concern. "This points system seems less important than CPT's," is not a relevant concern.

For anyone not aware of our community focus, a points system ties the events together in way that's instantly understandable. It is concise, and requires no additional knowledge of SGC decision making. That is important. It does create opportunities for growth. It is true that the SGC may never again go through a period of major growth, but to keep us alive, we have to communicate with the new players who are just picking up this game (and yes, that is still happening every day). It's those new players that will allow us to survive natural attrition.

I am doing this. I will be working as closely as I can with LZ, TO's, players, and maybe even some outside sponsors. You can either be a help, or a hindrance, but I will be moving forward regardless, because this can help our community.

 

[ninja-nutria]

Would something like this work? I set it as a tour cycle so no tournament looked more important than other, though i do see Combo breaker as the biggest skullgirls tourney.

 

[Kai]

Would something like this work? I set it as a tour cycle so no tournament looked more important than other, though i do see Combo breaker as the biggest skullgirls tourney.

I had considered this as an option, but I like Zid's concept. It preserved the basic idea of a beginning and end to, "the tour," and I think that's a valuable narrative to communicate. A start and and end speaks to one year, while a circle almost implies this is what we've chosen indefinitely. I want to say, "this is our tour for THIS YEAR," which has immediacy, and also means it could change next year (because the community's focus could).

 

[keninblack]

In terms of the invitational "finale" here are my thoughts as to what I would personally want to make it work..

-It has to be its own thing honestly, doing it at CB (biggest tournament of all time) is going to be tiresome for the players in both top 8's, simple as that. Or we need to really figure it out I guess.

-I totally feel like the community is capable of doing at LEAST a top 16 bracket based off of points. If you we really think thats too much keeping it at 8 is fine, but I feel like 8 is like something we would do back in the SDE days. We HAVE OODLES of top players now that are dedicated. I feel like a top 16 bracket would be more exciting and potentially diverse.

-Does WINNING an event guarantee you a spot? If so, what happens if say Mr Potato Head wins CEOtaku AND GUTS. Does he just steal the free entry like this years CPT? Or does it trickle down to whoever gets 2nd like last years CPT? I think its okay either way.

 

[Kai]

I do not think an end of your tourney is going to happen. The feasibility of players flying in to a special event is based on their earning potential, which this tour does not have. I am actually looking into that, but for now, it's not a factor.

This is a tool to drive maximum attendance at the five events we chose. That is its purpose. I already have positive responses from the organizers of 3/5 of the events. The other two have not contacted yet ;)

 

[keninblack]

Ooo so its not happening anymore just the five events?

Alright bet tis lit we out here i'm not flaccid etc

 

[Kai]

Ooo so its not happening anymore just the five events?

Alright bet tis lit we out here i'm not flaccid etc

The end of tour tourney was just a loose idea, that was revealed to be unfeasible. The SGCT is very much happening, though, so yes, it is lit. We're turgid.

 

[Zidiane]

What if every top 8 placement gets a skullgirls tokens of some sort, and if you have enough tokens at the end of the tour you can exchange them for prizes or something. Like, if you have 5 you get a Skullheart trophy, 4 you get a medal, 3 you get a plaque, etc.

 

[Ninja]

I hate ask this but...

@Kai is the Logo for the SGCT Final? Might want to take a crack at it this week if it's possible.

 

[Nine]

I don't really have anything to contribute; just wanted to say that I DEFINITELY support the effort to get this rolling. Even if we had something setup at any capacity to what Kai originally intended, I think it would be great for getting newer players into the game, IMO.

 

[Kai]

I hate ask this but...

@Kai is the Logo for the SGCT Final? Might want to take a crack at it this week if it's possible.

The logo is not final. Feel free to present your effort, and I'll fully consider it. I would advise you to start sooner than later, though, because I'm seeking to finalize a logo this week.

What if every top 8 placement gets a skullgirls tokens of some sort, and if you have enough tokens at the end of the tour you can exchange them for prizes or something. Like, if you have 5 you get a Skullheart trophy, 4 you get a medal, 3 you get a plaque, etc.

Maaan, I'm not trying to run a store on top of all this lol

 

[Mocktopus]

We don't need this, our community isn't big enough. It just seems like a big waste of time.

 

[Magma442]

Waste of who's time? People still go to these tourneys, and besides its 5 events not something like 12.

I really like this idea of a tour and starting out small is the right step to take.

 

[Kazmer]

Here is my full take on all of this:

It's dumb.

I think this has blown itself a little too much out of proportion and everyone has different ideas of where this is supposed to be heading. I think we need to take a step back and be completely honest with ourselves. The community is not big enough to sustain this. We are not Street Fighter/Capcom. We do not have thousands of people playing this game across the country. The highest numbers we've EVER had was a little over 200 at EVO, and that was like 4 years ago. Most of the active community is already aware of who travels to tournaments and what the good tournaments to travel to are.

This is what I think this "tour" should be: A list of tournaments the community has agreed are the most worthy to travel to for this game. Frosty is nice. CEOtaku does a good job. Combo Breaker for obvious reason. Make the list of these events public and say "these are the ones that have proven are good to the community and most of us will be attending." For any event not on the list, make it easy for organizers to come forward and directly work with us to figure out what they can change and improve on to make it worth coming to.

At SCR last year, SG had 9 total entrants thanks to a history of getting shafted (among other things). I had a direct, one-on-one conversation with Valle about this on why no one came and how he could improve. Regardless of the fact that SG still got massively fucked over later that same day, the important thing is Valle was unaware of why people decided not to show and needed information on how to communicate with us better about it.

This should be our focus. People travel to CPT events because the championship prize is half a million dollars. No one is going to be convinced to travel to an event specifically for some SG tour if they weren't already going to go anyway, especially not someone on the fence about the game and isn't already an active tournament player. This is possibly the least effective way to get more people involved in the scene.


TLDR: Make a list of tournaments we know are worth travelling to. Make it easy for events not on that list to work with the community and make their event worth travelling to. Anything more is a waste of time and effort.

 

[Kai]

TLDR: Make a list of tournaments we know are worth travelling to.

This is exactly what SGCT is.

 

[Zidiane]

This is what I think this "tour" should be: A list of tournaments the community has agreed are the most worthy to travel to for this game. Frosty is nice. CEOtaku does a good job. Combo Breaker for obvious reason. Make the list of these events public and say "these are the ones that have proven are good to the community and most of us will be attending." For any event not on the list, make it easy for organizers to come forward and directly work with us to figure out what they can change and improve on to make it worth coming to.

This is word for word what we were doing up until this thread. I do like the thought of a logo and an easy graphic for people not 100% in the know to get an idea, but most of the other stuff feels like too much.

 

[Mocktopus]

This is word for word what we were doing up until this thread. I do like the thought of a logo and an easy graphic for people not 100% in the know to get an idea, but most of the other stuff feels like too much.

Exactly. We had a plan to do this anyway. Adding points to it just takes the fun away from it as the same people will get most of the points. Just let us have our meetups and fuck this pseudo capcom pro tour system that wont even benefit the growth of the community.

 

[GrunkleBarlowe]

Exactly. We had a plan to do this anyway. Adding points to it just takes the fun away from it as the same people will get most of the points. Just let us have our meetups and fuck this pseudo capcom pro tour system that wont even benefit the growth of the community.

Thank you.

 

[Kai]

Fair enough. If you do not want to be involved in this, you do not need to be. As always, you are free to continue doing nothing.

That's pretty much the word on this, I think. If you are too cool for this, or it does not match your vision for how you would do it, that's fine. People felt happy to shit on the 86'd streams, SG@CB, and #Send___ToCB while they were developing, so I guess I'll just keep on like with those things.

Thank you all for your input.

 

[Mocktopus]

Well by your logic if I go to any of these tournaments (which I will be), I will be involved anyway and won't be doing "nothing".

 

[Deer]

hey what if we put a pizza party at the end of the tour and then we could have a nice get together without video games and all have some pizza just some cool chill people hanging out soda pop :)

 

[Kai]

Well by your logic if I go to any of these tournaments (which I will be), I will be involved anyway and won't be doing "nothing".

Absolutely. You won't be having to change your plans in any way, so you feel very comfortable being a Cool Guy Who Gives No Fucks™. No need to stop you. Do you, son.

 

[Zidiane]

Fair enough. If you do not want to be involved in this, you do not need to be. As always, you are free to continue doing nothing.

... really? You're telling community members that have been working hard for a long time to support their game that they're doing nothing because they don't like the thing you're doing? Is that actually how you see people in the community?

hey what if we put a pizza party at the end of the tour and then we could have a nice get together without video games and all have some pizza just some cool chill people hanging out soda pop :)

THIS IS A FANTASTIC IDEA. I love this. I love you.

 

[Kai]

... really? You're telling community members that have been working hard for a long time to support their game that they're doing nothing because they don't like the thing you're doing? Is that actually how you see people in the community?

Don't be disingenuous by taking my response to him like it was for you. Mock said lol i don't give a fuck this is dumb so I said cool, be yourself, it's all good.

 

[Chip Blaster]

hey what if we put a pizza party at the end of the tour and then we could have a nice get together without video games and all have some pizza just some cool chill people hanging out soda pop :)

We should go get some Chicago Deep Dish like the day after Combo Breaker or something like that

 

[Magma442]

We should go get some Chicago Deep Dish like the day after Combo Breaker or something like that

That's not real pizza though.

 

[Kazmer]

Boi how bout a 50 stop tour where I beat your ass in every state

 

[Kai]

We should go get some Chicago Deep Dish like the day after Combo Breaker or something like that

That's not real pizza though.

Boi how bout a 50 stop tour where I beat your ass in every state

Alright, alright, take it to the Pineapple thread.

 

[Mocktopus]

Don't be disingenuous by taking my response to him like it was for you. Mock said lol i don't give a fuck this is dumb so I said cool, be yourself, it's all good.

I didn't say it was dumb. I absolutely know I'm speaking for other people as well when I say this does not benefit the community in any way. There are better things we should be putting our resources into. By generalizing my comment you're undermining a lot of other people's opinions.

 

[Zidiane]

Don't be disingenuous by taking my response to him like it was for you. Mock said lol i don't give a fuck this is dumb so I said cool, be yourself, it's all good.

That's not what he said. He said "Adding points to it just takes the fun away", and that it wouldn't add any real value to the community (which other people are agreeing with, looking at the likes on comments like his and Kazmer's). I'm not taking offense for me, I'm taking it for him. That was really rude of you to say; he (and our other members who work hard keeping our community up *without* a point system) deserve better than that.

 

[Kai]

I'm not taking offense for me, I'm taking it for him.

He's a big boy, John. He's perfectly able to be offended on his own.

I'm speaking for other people
There are better things we should be putting our resources into

Ok, I'm willing to hear this. With regards to helping build a combined national identity among TOs across the country, what are you and the people you're speaking for putting your resources into? If it is legitimately better than this, and I'm impeding it, I will scuttle this entire idea.