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KombatNetwork deserves an apology

Shock

Administrator
Premium Supporter
for the 100th time, KN works hard they try, we know. That is not the issue, the problem was issues like the internet keep coming back at every tournament. People would be glad to attend KN tournaments if they work on these problems a lot of people have come with constructive criticism and have even suggested KN should do donations for the streams. It just seems like they can't take any criticism at all. You expect people to keep quite when something goes wrong?
The internet issue only happened a few times in extremely ridiculous scenarios. It has been solved as I have my own 4G card (not to mention I've already wasted money on it through expired unused bandwidth exactly as I had wished not to happen). Otherwise, most of the problems come from the bigger picture and we have to sit there with our hands tied and wait for a solution. It's a fragile relationship and making the wrong move or stepping on someone's toes can cost you. You don't know how times I've made decisions in the past that were fine by players and a TO has said "No no no you can't do that" but when people are specifically put in charge of certain things and I'm told not to mess with it, I have to do just that.

My problem with "criticism" is that often it's directed at us, when it's not KN that caused the problem. I always bring what I need for an event except in the past I didn't always bring 4G because we were promised and provided land lines. Due to hotel bandwidth sucking, and more and more streams being added to events, that has come down to the point where most side and even major stream bring their own. We were among the FIRST people to start doing this. In fact, we had a free 4G option available to us at least half a dozen times and a few times it was promised and not delivered. There were so many reasons for internet fails that were unpredictable (not talking about house internet) that it's kind of ridiculous to say "KN fails again" when we've pioneered so much, including high quality 4G internet usage for streaming.

The system failures at FR, all my setups were patched/hotfixed before I left for the event, and the user errors caused the problems. We fixed that.

Players who complain about brackets, again, I have always said that I prefer to complete them with seeding the morning of at the door reg, and the more TOs prevent us from doing that, the more errors there are that cannot be fixed. I'm more than happy to fix problems but when a TO says NO I can't change it. Get it?

When someone is unhappy about the players in their pool, that's their problem, win.
 
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jamessmk

I am your god
What should be learned from all this is simple Fuck ups happen, no matter how big or small event is. But the egos and bashing needs to stop. Not for esports or chimp change money, to to maintain real friendships and not BS social gaming friendships
 

Shock

Administrator
Premium Supporter
Just to reiterate, the absurd and completely unwarranted backlash from a mere handful of malcontents spawned into a hatestorm supported by their once again, small percentage of supporters in the community and sadly overshadows the incidents where some players did experience REAL problems and had REAL complaints that have gone unresolved.
 

StevoSuprem0

I'm gonna make this skill gap... disappear.
The point, children, is that bad tournaments happen regardless. Rather than sitting here arguing over who deserves to be blown up, you guys should be talking about what needs improvement and passing that along to the people that need to here it.
Or just keep creating bullshit internet drama and looking like a bunch of tarts.
Whatever floats your ever-sinking boat.
 

Shock

Administrator
Premium Supporter
Also, something I forgot and it was just pointed out to me, players get upset when players are DQ'ed, and unDQ'ed, or when rematches happen. Apparently in the last hour, this has happened at MLG. Sounds like user error again at least in some part.
 

gdf

Noob
@Shock I have a question, how would you suggest MLG and Grassroots get these concerns of players and spectators addressed?

In tournament, TO's are busy, out of tournament the point seems moot. It seems like everyone's concerns are valid, but the way they are worded is what causes the issue.

At this point, there seems to be so much blood in the water that I am willing to bet that just because people announced their issues publicly, they are now considered rogue elements, rather than disappointed customers.

Honestly, the same delays that happened at Final Round, happened at MLG. And that we resort to bashing, rather than talking things out, in both scenarios, is ridiculous. As if bashing is called for.
 
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Shock

Administrator
Premium Supporter
@Shock I have a question, how would you suggest MLG and Grassroots get these concerns of players and spectators addressed?

In tournament, TO's are busy, out of tournament the point seems moot. It seems like everyone's concerns are valid, but the way they are worded is what causes the issue.
I would suggest more staff with more specific jobs, but a lot of times adding more staff adds more people sitting around, doing nothing, and apparently playing casuals for hours DARTH ARMA! I was under the impression MLG was loaded tot he gills with refs for stations and that is what makes them run so smoothly, but this was not the case. Having a TON of stations to check and update can be a problem and you can't depend on your clientèle to do this, although they are generally capable and willing to help. The main TOs are busy but we can usually get a hold of them,. I have had experiences at tournaments though where TOs yell at me for shit they are responsible for and then it takes them hours to get it done and they realize things are hectic and a lot of us are stuck where we are.

You typically need 1 pool runner for every 32 people (two 16 player pools) and preferably 2, then you need at least one person for any game to locate players they are waiting for who might be playing other games. Then there's at the door security and then there's tech stuff like system errors and swaps, game swaps, just someone who can make that stuff happen fast, it all winds up coming down to a 1000 player tournament needs something like 40 staff members to really run efficiently and we probably run on less than that. I have to research it.

Establish community wide rules and have tournaments apply to be part of this system so their results can be recognized and made into a better ranking system. It takes a lot of work and I know people are already trying to do this.

Find a real sponsor. Not people who are already involved in teh FGC, find someone serious. It sounds crazy, but just ONE million dollar investor could send us through the roof, but the problem is figuring out who is going to handle that opportunity for us if it ever arrives. Sponsors simply don't know who to go to. Evo right now is the pinnacle of FGC achievement I'd say. We can probably do even better.


Edit: @gdf
Spectators are sort of enter at their own risk. It's really hard to please them but they are paying. There could be a special spectator room with free food and stuff, maybe a sports game on TV, consoles with more popular games. It's VERY hard to lock down the true way to please friends of gamers who aren't there specifically to watch and play casuals.

Having projectors so everyone can see at least one major match for any game that is going on is something we've been working on and have basically gotten there, but for everyone to be able to crowd around the pool stations and watch their friends play, it can get difficult to maintain. At FGC events, we just let it happen and if the venue tells us we gotta clear people out, we do.
 
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My point still stands. If you people have an issue with how KN runs the tourneys. Start you fucking own. Spend the time, the money and the hard work that it takes to run not only just NRS but Every thing else that needs to be done at a tournament. We make mistakes, We try to fix it. Can't do much more then try.
 
Problems are solved man. Stop listening to the BS.
We are talking about what actually happened before. I never said the problems still exist.

edit: also people have said their piece about these so called problems in the past and we'll just have to see how tournaments in the future go. The thing is, nobody brought this issue up again while complaining, insuperable brought this up.
 
@Shock It seems like there needs to be some kind of player meeting or something on day one like they used to do with race car drivers to hammer out the switching profiles issue with regards to game updates. It's now been several tournaments, including MLG, where people switching the profile is causing all kinds of downtime and then people erroneously think (and I've been one of them) that it was due to lack of prep as opposed to user error. It's either that or someone needs to be watching all the set ups like hawk which would require more staff which has already been pointed out as problematic.
 

Mikemetroid

Who hired this guy, WTF?
@Shock It seems like there needs to be some kind of player meeting or something on day one like they used to do with race car drivers to hammer out the switching profiles issue with regards to game updates. It's now been several tournaments, including MLG, where people switching the profile is causing all kinds of downtime and then people erroneously think (and I've been one of them) that it was due to lack of prep as opposed to user error. It's either that or someone needs to be watching all the set ups like hawk which would require more staff which has already been pointed out as problematic.
We normally sign in the systems to the VS screen so that players don't change profiles.

We also tell people at our tournaments (now anyway) to not change profiles. A good example of this was at ECT.
 

Shock

Administrator
Premium Supporter
@Shock It seems like there needs to be some kind of player meeting or something on day one like they used to do with race car drivers to hammer out the switching profiles issue with regards to game updates. It's now been several tournaments, including MLG, where people switching the profile is causing all kinds of downtime and then people erroneously think (and I've been one of them) that it was due to lack of prep as opposed to user error. It's either that or someone needs to be watching all the set ups like hawk which would require more staff which has already been pointed out as problematic.
Apparently, it can even happen if player 2 (not using a profile) doesn't choose the right option when signing in. What we've been doing at the last several KN events is setting up all the systems and logging into each one all the way through to a two player vs game so that no one has to log on. If they turn off the system, we don't know it and relogin, cause the hotfix issue, we can't help that. All systems are set to autologin with the profile necessary. It hasn't been a problem at the last 5 or 6 events we've done, but all TOs need to adopt a system for it that works for them. Some people run multiple games per system, might have multiple logins, or maybe they use their own system as an extra and use an additional profile.
 

Shock

Administrator
Premium Supporter
We are talking about what actually happened before. I never said the problems still exist.

edit: also people have said their piece about these so called problems in the past and we'll just have to see how tournaments in the future go. The thing is, nobody brought this issue up again while complaining, insuperable brought this up.
Thus far, our events have been fine since the hotfix issue, that was the biggest legit problem at FR, and thus far has been fine since even if it does happen, we know exactly how to fix it. This is a good thing. Internet was an issue due to multiple factors. I mean, there was a tournament where I was sitting 20 feet from an active internet connection, and I just couldn't use it. I've also stated that numerous times my 4G back up has failed because either the supplier couldn't get us a good enough one, the person who needed to pick it up (Free unlimited 4G supplier is over an hour and $50 away from my house) failed to do so, and then one time I had 2 unlimited 4G backups that had to leave due to family emergency, one was the driver of the other. There was another internet issue that no one even knew about that spooky and I resolved because there was time, and order.

Insuperable brought this up because he's been to a great many events run by KN and knows that the issues we face are not always our fault or unfairly and unrealistically blown up because people want to break things down and cause trouble with those they don't like. To be a part of something that is so good for the community and see people shit on it probably sucks.

@ThirdStrikeYun Edit: another event I ran with RG we had house internet in the room that didn't work, they venue couldn't turn it on so they refunded us, the 4G card I had and Jaxel's cell phone couldn't get signal in the room we were in. The Mifi Kruty had only got signal in the lobby and it was too far to get a connection from. So again, as one can see, these internet issues are deeper than just being unprepared. This is the kind of thing we get shit on for, but clearly not our fault. It's about the assumption, which has always been unfounded. A deliberate attempt to cause trouble.
 
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rev0lver

Come On Die Young
This is what makes me mad about the situation -

Most of us have had great experiences at KN tournaments. I have been to about 8 or so KN-run majors in the past few years. The only bad experience I've had at one was NEC 2012, based around people who are no longer on that staff and players delaying the tournament. Shock and co had no fault there. Everything after that has been great, and any issues that have happened have been either outside their control or by higher-up TO staff, yet they got the blame pinned on them. And these issues have NEVER been nearly as bad as MLG was yesterday.

A couple bad things happened at a couple KN events, that were at least mostly out of KN's control. Things that they can make sure doesn't happen again. But they get a bad rep, and MLG is just "well it was one time". I'm not saying you have to praise KN if you don't like them, but they've shown loads more support and provided much better tournament experiences than what happened yesterday.
 

jamessmk

I am your god
The point, children, is that bad tournaments happen regardless. Rather than sitting here arguing over who deserves to be blown up, you guys should be talking about what needs improvement and passing that along to the people that need to here it.
Or just keep creating bullshit internet drama and looking like a bunch of tarts.
Whatever floats your ever-sinking boat.
I agree, for starters people need to undo damage done by boycotting east coast events. Encourage people to attend all events, before damage is permanent and no east coast event carries NRS games to avoid the drama
 

JHCRANE 14

GO VOLS!!!
This is what makes me mad about the situation -

Most of us have had great experiences at KN tournaments. I have been to about 8 or so KN-run majors in the past few years. The only bad experience I've had at one was NEC 2012, based around people who are no longer on that staff and players delaying the tournament. Shock and co had no fault there. Everything after that has been great, and any issues that have happened have been either outside their control or by higher-up TO staff, yet they got the blame pinned on them. And these issues have NEVER been nearly as bad as MLG was yesterday.

A couple bad things happened at a couple KN events, that were at least mostly out of KN's control. Things that they can make sure doesn't happen again. But they get a bad rep, and MLG is just "well it was one time". I'm not saying you have to praise KN if you don't like them, but they've shown loads more support and provided much better tournament experiences than what happened yesterday.
And today!!!
 

7L

Heads up!
@Shock It's nice to have loyal defenders, but don't let them be stupid and speak for your crew. It makes things worse
Please hold back from making insults to @Shock. He doesn't have to run anything for us. He takes the time from his day to run a stream and tournament for this community. So please, for the sake of us having something good, shut up.