Why do we let EVO treat us like this?

[Konqrr]

I agree on all points.

At least we had headsets this year...

 

[WATCHD0G]

It sounds like they put all of their efforts trying to ruin the 5k SFV tournament, and left everything else in the dust. Definitely not a good look and they'll need to change if they want other communities to keep coming back.

*Run* I'm sorry it was staring right at me

 

[Red Reaper]

For the people saying ESL is (or should be) our EVO.. It's not... This isn't just because it primarily revolves around online. This is because ESL is not the kind of tournament that anybody kan show up to, on the day of, and then kompete.

@A F0xy Grampa
I agree that maybe we should start prioritizing other tournaments but EVO is big and NRS putting its money into EVO makes sense. Maybe we kan bring this up to NRS as a kommunity so that they kan speak up for us and not sponsor the event if they don't maintain it to a standard?

I don't see many other solutions, especially since people go to EVO for other games too and EVO attracts international kompetition for those games.

 

[sinosleep]

CEO is awesome and it's nearby so I certainly hope it becomes the hub of NRS games.

 

[Vandy]

If you want change, let your voices be heard.

I can't imagine even trying to organize an event this size. Overall, Evo looked great and having Sunday be at a stadium is a huge step forward for the FGC overall.

But that said, I think there were a couple egregious things related to MKX (I was not there for reference).
1. Ending Saturday at 11:30 PM and then starting at 8 AM at a different venue. This after the top 8 was moved from 9 to 8. At that point is the prestige of playing Top 8 at Mandalay Bay worth it?
2. Not having a large screen for viewing where the matches were being played.

Those two points are large scale items that should not fall through the cracks and indicate a lack of commitment to a game. NRS supported Evo and I really hope this has not soured them on the competitive scene. The fact that nothing was announced by NRS at Evo was alarming to me. In order for all events and every scene to be strong we need our biggest event to be the best it can be.

I would really like to see tournament organizers embrace criticism as a vehicle of progress.

 

[WATCHD0G]

I heard pig spends about 1k to fly to EVO and he is from US, now imagine us who spends far more just to get out of africa, based o my calculations, african players would have to save for nearly 3 years to have a 5k money just to be at EVO, if this is what we should expect experiencing i think we can give better use to the money at home.

where you from man

 

[Gooberking]

I'll never be at one of these things, but I've spent the last few months spending a lot of time watching the NRS community and getting to know all of the names and faces. There was a good chunk of that where I literally couldn't afford to do anything but sit around and watch Twitch streams all day for free, and the community was all I really had to keep me entertained. This is the first time since I started watching that EVO came around so I wasn't sure what to expect.

From a production value standpoint the event streams seemed to preform well enough. A lot of the smaller events have things like wrinkled backdrops and people hopping on commentary only to find out 5 seconds in they have to go play or whatever. A lot of those little things like that didn't seem to be an issue, but I did feel like I spent a lot of time staring at the EVO graphic. More than usual.

The streaming rigs not all having stuff unlocked seemed lazy or something. I don't know. It's an MKX consideration perhaps more so than other games, but still. You would think that NRS could provide unlock all krypt items for the rigs or something.

I was disappointed I couldn't toss my Toxin emotes into the chat when he was up, but I kind of get it. If people will pay, why not? That and when you are counting viewers in the tens of thousands then you have a reality to deal with you don't when the stream has 500. It probably also weeds out a lot of dregs of humanity posting we see in chat for other events. $12 for one weekend still seems a little steep for all of that.

The top 8 commentary thing was a bit weird. I do like UD and Aris on commentary, but more in a supportive role. When you talk K&M into not playing to commentate, they are there all the way from the far far away land, but you still opt to go with the guy that keeps calling Hell Sparks "Up Skulls" and keeps talking about Sonya's "rainbow drops" then I'm wondering what is going on. That's not what you expect. KI had Max on top 8 which is something you might expect. To his credit Aris didn't say "butt-hurt" once that I can remember, so professionalism++. I'd be curious to know if they just didn't want K&M on point even though they had them, or if there was some reason they couldn't/wouldn't take on top 8.

To everyone that was there and all of the people and personalities that build the MK/NRS community, thank you all for going, standing for hours on end, waking up early, flying across the world, walking to some other venue, and feeling like second class attendees, all so rando's like me could sit around for the weekend watching people pretend to beat the crap out of one another in a video game.

 

[Dieoxin]

Hey foxy, for a really good pro player you really take it to another level in regards to tournament standards. Usually it's just a personal rant but you have nailed it down to the big picture to the point where it's embarrassing if I were a tournament organiser at Evo. Normally I don't read walls of text but I enjoyed how you detailed it all and how you explained their lack of tournament standard. You won't know me as I'm nowhere near a great player as you are but you've opened my eyes a little into what a pro looks for in a tournament from commentary teams to also taking into consideration mkx and other communities. Respect earned mate! Keep it up and thank you, I watch a lot of tournaments and you're in most of the really great ones!

 

[EMPR_BloodyFetus]

You're my bitch

You stfu. If your ass made top eight (or wo) you woudnt've made this garbage thread

 

[TheGoldenJew]

Also pools started at 8.. Venue doors opened at 750am and pools immediately started with no time to warm up

 

[Colest]

I know he lurks about and keeps up to date, but he is an SF guy at heart, K&M understand SFV, but do you think the SFV community would be happy for them to commentate their top 8?

It just seems to be a slap in the face to those who really have put in the hard work for our community.

David is just a better commentator than K&M. Same with Aris. Commentators are simultaneous hype men for matches while explaining what's occurring in terms that even someone with limited knowledge of high level MKX could understand. David, especially, does that extremely well. Shouting at a conversion isn't good commentary. If I had a nickel for every time K&M said "(they didn't) respect the plus frames" in their various stints as commentators then I could've funded a better run tournament than EVO.

 

[mastermalone]

@Foxy

Nice meeting you for the first time by the way. I was the person who mentioned that we Americans are the ones with the accent. . I agree with all the points that you made.

The seating was horrendous.

The event focused on games that are either not as interesting or as polished as MKXL.

There was as obvious lack of respect for all other games except for Pokken Tournament, SFV, and Smash Bros Mele

Disorganization was the theme of the event and it really showed.

I had fun meeting all of you top players at the event and playing some casuals but it was ruined by the disorganization and the lack of respect for other games.



Peace.

 

[BillStickers]

NRS Community, support the tournaments that support you

Regardless of who beats the ever loving fuck out of you, come out. Regardless of commentators, come out. Regardless of what variation you play, come out. Regardless of how salty you are losing to trepound, come out. Regardless of how much dude you have to smell, come out. Regardless of the turnout, come out. Regardless of the payout, come out. Regardless of sponsorship, come out. Regardless of ranking points, come out. Regardless of placings, come out. Regardless of the amount of twitch viewers, come out. Regardless of the way other scenes see us, come out. Regardless of the amount of furries that wildly appear, come out. Regardless of how many times cossner flirts with you, come out. Regardless of what exactly Big E puts in the chun li tea, come out. Regardless of if you end up on FGC:Bodied, come out. Regardless of if you make it on the stream camera, come out. Regardless of your history, come out. Regardless of whatever is going on in your life, the community will make you feel loved, come out. Regardless of what happens next, COME THE FUCK OUT.

We will not be given the respect, until we pay the iron price for it.

What is dead may never die

One thing you left out that was probably intentional but deserves noting: I can put ALL that shit you mentioned aside *if* I love the game. In fact, I think most people can.

The fact that MKX had 700 entrants is not due to ten thousand lazy MKX diehards that were too busy eating Doritos to register for Evo. It's simply that the game's not good enough to draw entrants even a year after its release.

 

[Asodimazze]

One thing you left out that was probably intentional but deserves noting: I can put ALL that shit you mentioned aside *if* I love the game. In fact, I think most people can.

The fact that MKX had 700 entrants is not due to ten thousand lazy MKX diehards that were too busy eating Doritos to register for Evo. It's simply that the game's not good enough to draw entrants even a year after its release.

Because 700 entrants somehow suck...ffs

 

[BillStickers]

Because 700 entrants somehow suck...ffs

You must not know the counts for the other games.

 

[Asodimazze]

You must not know the counts for the other games.

It's not a race, who cares about SFV 5k or Smash 2k? 700 people attending = huge tournament

 

[Jynks]

- No chairs
- Did they expect to get 707 of us around a single monitor?
- Seperate venues for pools and top 8, why would you do this?

These are legitimate concerns but you have to take into account the size of EVO, was it perfect? No, but comparing it to other events have have less attendees than the pools of a single evo game is a little much, yeah? I get where you are coming from and yes this needs to be addressed. EVO will probably have to eventually move into a stadium or multiple halls or something, but the important thing is that EVO actually happens at all. Think of the hall like a Tetris grid, the have to jam everything in and sacrifices have to be made. As a player and a spectator is it perfect, no .. but is it understandable, I think so.

- <snip> you'd think it wouldnt take until around 11pm at night to whittle down to top 8, the only other event i've seen run this far behind is NEC 2015, but at least that event had seating. <snip> if you have people from florida saying its too late due to jetlag, anybody from any other country is going to have this as a serious issue, and it doesnt just apply to competitors, it applies to commentary too.

- Time the top 8 was set, to the time the top 8 had to actually play, there was roughly a 9 hour difference, so that mustve given the top 8 players around 6 hour rest period

- People werent showing up, and not getting DQ'd in time

Again, not cool, but understandable. The size of this event can not be underestimated, and while MKx had a 700ish event games like SFV had like 6K or something. You an not have a judge at every table, policing constantly. Especially in what many consider (unjustly) as a side event.

This is not so much a fault with EVO but a fault with the FGC open door policy. Many smaller events get tournament veterans, but EVO has a huge amount of first timers and online warriors. There is going to be delays, and I think it is unreasonable to think EVO can have a judge at every station. It was OUR community that was causing the delays by turning up to the stations late, not EVO themselves. EVO is in a rock and a hard place here. If they are to strict you would have threads all over the place saying I travelled form Paris France and spent 1000s of Euros and got DQ'd for being late. WTF!

Is this a fixable problem? I think so. The casino model itself might work. Casio's use a tier system for supiviing all the tables. Dealers, Floormanagers, pit bosses etc etc. A kind of pyramid that allows close supervision of a section of large individual tables. A method that has been developed over the years and seams to work well. I dunno, this just seams like a problem other organisers much have solved at some point.

I'm not an organiser, but it seams to me that this a problem that should and can be addressed, but at the same time as much as it sucks, dealys are not actually in the control of the event are they? DQ'n should be strict, but the stricter you are with that kind of stuff the more "management" weight EVO has to carry and for a event this large this is not as easy as I think you are implying.

- first to 2, nobody wants it, nobody likes it, but we dont get any say in it

Yeah, this was bullshit. As a player there was no way I would travel from Australia to EVO for a FT2... that is some weak level shit.

Doesn't Tekken traditionally have FT2 but FT3 sets? As in you set the individual matches to best of 5? I'm not sure how this is different. Games are separate entities and have different requirements, FT2 might be fine for SFV and others but it is just not how our game functions. Maybe we should take the Tekken thing and go for FT5 Sets in a FT3 Match. That way there is some time shaved in restrting and counter picking and stuff?

That being said with all the delays, well it totally proved the EVO guys right about FT2 being important for the event to function. I mean you are complaining now? Imagine if it was FT3 like you wanted. 11pm ending? Day 1 would have gone into am.

- OK this one is quite an obvious one. No hate towards Aris, and Ultradavid, because theyre sick commentators, but they're not OUR commentators, we have ALL of the NRS scene commentators at EVO, and not A SINGLE ONE of them were offered the chance to commentate top 8, why?

UltraDavid especially and Aris "are" our commentators. They are just old school ones. I have no real issue with them commentating, though I would have loved to have KP or K&M. I think there is a lot of truth in what you are saying here about "community members" commentating.

The thing is, and this is just a guess... isn't EVO trying to break into television broadcast arena? Commentators are being selected and used for their pure entertainment value. I think there is some thinking in the commentator picks that is based on the future of eSports as a whole for the larger broadcast events.

UltraDavid and Aris are a proven team that appeals to people that do not even play the game. It is not a surprise they are picked. My personal pick would be KP and Mustard.

Why do we accept this to be our 'biggest tournament of the year'? (with the exception of ESL, who are actually the NRS scene elder gods).

Combo Breaker, Community Effort Orlando, Kumite in Tennessee are the real NRS events.. no doubt. Still you can not deny the size of EVO. It dosn't matter if NRS gets shafted if they get more entrants than anywhere else. The community can make "another major" as the big one for NRS games, but EVO will ALWAYS be the "the one". That will never change, the ball is rolling now unless the company collapse and gets replaced, it will be the one that is on TV. It will be the one that is in the stadiums. Evo is the future, do not kid yourself.

ESL is the real deal imo but it will all depend on how ESL supports MKx after Injustice. If ESL drops the game, then what are we as a community expecting? Why would EVO take us seriously when the game can not even last 2 years. We love the game, we play the game but even the very top players are already checking out not even 2 years after release. How is any event supposed to build on that?

I'm not saying there is not a lot of work to be done at EVO, or that your points are invalid, but there are many sides to issue of a event so complex and like it or not NRS games are a small community for now.

ESL is, imo, where NRS and WB should be putting their eggs and EVO needs to add at least 1 more day to the schedule. Evo needs to go bigger and until it can support that there will be growing pains.

 

[usedcarsalesmang]

Didn't most of the other games get more entrants?
What did you expect?

 

[DangerousBacon]

I'm not trying to be bias and I watch all the FG streams on the main day, but is it me or this Guilty Gear stream is boring. I literally want to go take a shower until Melee starts.

The commentators are putting me to sleep, I don't hear the crowd, audio is low and nothing interesting seems to be happening from my perspective.

MKX should have had this slot even with less entrants, people seemed more into it.

Dafuk? GG was hype as hell and Omitto played his ass off. The crowd just kept getting muted early on but they were loud as hell toward the end. It's cool if you don't like the game, but geez.

 

[Skylight1]

Why do people complain about not being able to talk in a twitch chat? First of all, it goes so fast when it's public, that you can't even start a conversation. Also, every single person in the chat is usually a fucking moron.

I have some great quotes from the EVO subs like "wow great combo from sonya thought", and "whoa sonicfox is black!?". As Aris would say, the chat is just a bunch of stoners.

There's somethign called an ignore button if they irritate you THAT much. But restricting what is normally a FREE chatroom, to a $12.00 "subscribers only" fest, is just downright greedy. There's no other way around it except the people who were watching over the stream chats, were looking to cash in on some quick money.

 

[Skylight1]

Will reserve my full thoughts until after Melee and SFV are finished.



To be completely fair, I don't think this is just an Aris thing, this WAS a largely MK community wide notion until after KiT (which wasn't even a long time ago in the grand scheme of things) and then the goalpost moving hipsters, in classic hipster fashion of course, suddenly decided "she's not hype to watch" when they realized it wasn't a 'hipster variation' anymore.

What the hell are you talking about?

 

[Second Saint]

Oh yeah. Akon has Raves as well. Live concerts, three bars(one located rightnext to the Waterpark), and our Gaming room is 24hrs. It literally opens on Fridays and closes on Sunday. You can walk in andout and run as many matches as you want. We use a 6000 dollar projecter you hang from the roof.

We have panels, and anime reveals, cosplay content sts, artist alleys and a Two room wide Dealers room(stupid big, itslike tha size of a small home depo), we have battlepods which are mech sims, and EVERY FIGHTING GAME! I run sides tornaments of Skullgirls, Injustice, fucking J-Star Victory Vs amd shit. Trust me its great guys. Research and hit me up. Christopher Thomas on facebook, keyword south oak cliff.

Damn, you really know how to talk up a con. Makes me wonder why I go to San Japan and not Akon, beyond Dallas being a couple hours farther away :/

 

[Son ov Timett]

Best duo this wknd was KP and Chef. KP would do a quip and Chef would let out a jolly bellow. Fun while being knowledgeable at the same time. I dont need to hear "whats for breakfast?, shamalamadingdong, or Erron Black's spare change" from two cats who havent touched the game in ages. That's actually fine, but if ye know youre going to be possibly commentating EVO, which this duo has time and time again, atleast follow the scene. Not too big of an investment there. The comment on Sonya being fair was legit cringe.

With that being said, beer me.

 

[EMPEROR_OF_OUTWORLD]

I JUST GOT WORD THAT EVO TREATED MK NRS COMMUNITY LIKE TOOTHLESS WORMS... EVEN THO I DON'T LIKE YOU WITTLESS MORTALS THE ONLY PPL THAT CAN TREAT YOU ALL LIKE SCUM FROM WASTELAND IS EMPERORS.. I WILL NOT NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN!!!!

 

[GAV]

Foxy did look jet-lagged by the end. Sad to say it was from poor conditions. Hopefully, enough will stand behind him that his words carry clout.

Its no secret that I firmly believe that MKX is the greatest fighting game on the planet. All other fighters pale in comparison. SFV is in its class, but doesn't compare in terms of depth. Other fighters like KI and Smash aren't even real fighting games by comparison.