AK Pig Of The Hut I'll go through your questions one by one.
Community Stream: So it's looking like UFGT10 will have 3 official streams running during the event. However, it has been our policy not to allow any "non-official" streams, which includes any and all community streams, regardless of community (Tekken, KoF, Injustice, Guilty Gear, any of them). This isn't personal, it's just our policy. We want to ensure that all our streams are of the highest quality--in terms of visuals, content, and commentary--and we feel that most community streams at tournaments such as NEC don't measure up to what we're trying to deliver. One thing I didn't mention before is that we feel that having more streams results in more self-competition, which is something we want to avoid.
As I said in my post, we do allow communities to record matches. Tekken semifinals and the Guilty Gear side tournament were both recorded at UFGT9, and I believe Medina recorded many MK matches at UFGT8. (I'm sure Medina would have been there at UFGT9 to record again had he not been busy with school.) Obviously recording is not as ideal as live streaming, but it's better than nothing.
Now, if we were to change our minds and allow communities to stream using 4G, we would ask that all volunteer community streamers be in close contact with us so they can use our overlays, and all commentators on community streams would need to sign a contract detailing what they can and cannot say while on stream before we would permit them to do commentary. We don't want a situation like what happened on the anime stream at NEC (see my earlier post).
System: I can 100% say we are switching to XBox360 for NRS games. We used PS3 last year because we thought that was what people preferred, as a significant number of players used PS pads. As the community now prefers 360 for NRS games, that is what we will get.
Seed Points: This is the first I am aware of this happening. I personally had no contact with the Evo organizers at all prior to brackets being unveiled. I know that we weren't able to give out seed point cards at the venue at UFGT9 as they had gotten lost in the chaos of setting up on Thursday. But that applied to all Evo games last year, not just MK9. And either way, not having the cards shouldn't have had any affect on receiving seed points for Evo. (I know this because the Persona 4 placers all received their Evo points.) I would like to know more about the specifics of what happened. Send me a DM with more specifics.
Stream Time Slots: Something I didn't touch on in my earlier post was that when we were making the schedule, we felt that a game's Top 8 being on the main stream on Sunday was preferable to it being on the side stream on Sunday, regardless of time. Obviously, we were mistaken. I'd be lying if I said that personal preference didn't play a role in determining parts of the schedule (hence why SFxT Top 8 was at 9 am on the side stream on Sunday), but I mean it when I say neither of us had it in for Injustice or MK when we made the final schedule. We thought it was fine, but we were very clearly wrong.
I will say that now that we know which time slots are actually preferred (and we're not living in a dream land where 9:30am is okay regardless of which stream its on), we will do our best to be fairer about our decisions when making the schedule. I can't say that number of entrants will be the only factor in determining the schedule (sponsors may also play a role) but we will be more transparent about our decision-making process.
Tekken: Tekken actually had 74 entrants at UFGT9. Tekken was only on stream once all weekend, which was the Top 8 on Saturday afternoon. (It wasn't streamed more due to its entrants because it had a significant number of emergency registrants.) It ran long because they wanted to run it 3 out of 5 for Top 8 and since I was desperate at that point for a game community to NOT hate me, I said okay. That was a poor decision on my part.
4G & Hotel Internet: This isn't my area of expertise. Keits is the one that handles the deal with the venue. I believe (though I'm not 100% sure) that the internet comes with the package for renting out the ballroom at the hotel. I'm also pretty sure that Keits specifies what he needs from the internet the hotel provides in the contract. I don't think it's as expensive or as unreliable as you say. As far as the relative cost & benefits of 4G cards vs. hotel internet, I would have to defer to somebody else on this topic.
CrimsonShadow As for your concerns:
Commentary: Yes, Delriach and Medina always do a great job on commentary. But if you're streaming all day, they're not always going to be there to do commentary. They may be playing in a match, they may be getting food, they may just be taking a break. Other people will be on commentary too. If Delriach, Medina, Steve, and Tom Brady work out some sort of rotation so that two of them are always on commentary throughout the day, then maybe, but in the chaos of tournaments, I don't know how likely that is. And don't forget, we would also require somebody running the stream at all times. LevelUp has two guys that trade off running the entire operation every few hours for as long as the stream is live (i.e. most of the weekend). If HAN and somebody else are willing to ensure that the NRS community stream is manned all of Friday and Saturday, then I suppose we can at least discuss it.
Mystery Game: The way Mystery Game Top 8 has worked at UFGTs 7, 8, and 9 is that rounds interwoven between the Top 8's for the other tournaments on Sunday. The first two rounds of Mystery Game top 8 (winners semis and losers top 8) were actually run at 9am on Sunday, before Injustice. Then the next two rounds (losers quarters and losers semis) were run between Injustice and SF4, the next rounds (winners finals and losers finals) were between SF4 and DK, and then grand finals was held between DK and MvC3. We do this because the Mystery Game tournament involves a lot of setup, and it would take longer to run it all in one block than it does to run rounds between the other games.
Let me know if you want me to answer anything else.
