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Why do we let EVO treat us like this?

A F0xy Grampa

Problem X Promotions
Right, I think I speak for alot of people here when I say EVO was a pretty low tier tournament in quite a few aspects for NRS games (and the Smash community as well apparently). Besides the top 8 (which, even so we got shafted in points I'll mention later) nearly everything about the tournament was sub par, other events treat our community so much better.

I suppose this can be a vent thread for people who attended because I know I'm not the only player who feels this way. But I honestly believe this is an issue that, perhaps we could change, depending on our options, as well as the communities willingness to collaborate to make certain things happen.

I'll start off with the issues of EVO 2016:

Quality of life:

- No chairs, for a 707 man major, you'd expect some seating area near the stream station so people can actually watch the matches that are being broadcasted out. This year EVO was held in what is basically a giant warehouse, on one side of the warehouse we had a stream station, on the otherside of the warehouse we had a projection of that stream, so pretty much it was back to front, they could have swapped the smash and MK streams to fit both our communties near each other. AND THEN give us some chairs. Nobody wants to be standing up for 15 hours straight, which leads me to my next point:

Tournament organisation:

- Considering we started MK pools at 8am on the saturday, 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. For an event that is supposed to be 'world championships', running so late is a bad idea when considering international competition, hell 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.

- From the 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 realistically assuming you didnt stay at the mandalay bay, which was pretty far from the convention centre.

- People werent showing up, and not getting DQ'd in time, if this had been CEO or CB, that shit wouldnt fly. There was too much waiting in between certain parts of the bracket for certain players when it wasnt even neccessary, I'm pretty sure that happened to DJT, waiting for a looooooooooong ass time in losers top 32.

- We had enough set ups to run the tournament, but once it got down to top 32, how were we supposed to watch the matches going on, if it was all being played on one stream station, and the stream was on the other side of the hall? Did they expect to get 707 of us around a single monitor?

- Again, chairs, we were getting chairs stolen from our tournament stations, this should NEVER happen, epecially considering that tournament > live spectatorship at these events.

- Seperate venues for pools and top 8, why would you do this? The crowd was DRASTICALLY larger for MKX last year at EVO, for 2 main reasons, firstly the venue was the same for both pools and top 8, and secondly because we werent at stupid 8am in the morning.

Tournament format:

- first to 2, nobody wants it, nobody likes it, but we dont get any say in it, however, when we bring up these topics to TOs like Vandy and Jebailey, they respect the fact that we know OUR game better than anybody else and that we can enforce our own rules, i.e. first to 3. If the tournament is going to be run so late as it is, it really wouldnt hurt to have had first to 3.

Commentary:

- 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? If you go check the commentators for every other game, they have the known commentators of their community commentating their top 8s, again as I said, UD & Aris are good in their own rights, but they just dont know our community story lines and the intricacies of the game to the same level as KP, or K&M.


Ok, all of these issues made me think, 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). Is it because its held in Vegas so people just attend in masses for the novelty of a holiday there? Or is it because we are just set in our ways?

The MK community has TOs and organisations that really care about our community. To think we are ESLs pride and joy (ESL is massive if you didnt know, check what they do for other games) is amazing, whats stopping us (and WB) from supporting them further than something like EVO, for all the support we gave evo this year, we couldve made ANY other event that supports us bigger.

Our community may be younger and smaller than others but that doesnt mean we should get second rate treatment at what is supposed to be the most prestigious tournament on the planet.We could redirect our efforts to another tournament and be better off really. Do you honestly think we'dve had a sunday slot if we didnt have a 50k pot bonus that help bring in more money for the evo staff?

Any of you that know me, know that normally I'm pretty cool with whatever happens at an event, just so long as its fair, or justified. But this EVO has left a bad taste, I honestly could've just stayed home and had a better viewing experience.

Overall, this EVO sucked. I wanna hear opinions of those in attendence. Every year I hear the same thing about how EVO hates NRS, and every year we do the same thing and do/say nothing about it.

@Pig Of The Hut @Tom Brady @YOMI DJT @YOMI MITYEAP @STB Shujinkydink @Kitana Prime @PND_Ketchup @PND_Mustard
 
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WATCHD0G

Noob
Hit the nail right on the head....
even though it might not be as important as your other points, i especially agree with the commentary issue
Like you said no offence to David but i was fully expecting the twins to take top 8...you know since they gave up the entire tourney to do just that. still waiting for an explanation on that
 
Trekker Master

Cutting away from the match at inopportune times.

Unannounced & Sudden Commercial breaks

"Introducing Player X. Shows Player Y on camera because X was called in off camera. "

Again I'd have to ask. A 50k pot bonus wasn't enough to buy a later time slot? Inconsequential I suppose.

2/3 already been discussed.

Pretty sure I saw CR Dragon at one point

Just things that I noticed while watching the event.
 

Indecisive

We'll burn you all—that is your fate!
From a viewer stand point the mains issues where how long everything took. Although we where only about 30 minutes late on steam that wasn't too bad. But the stream ending at 2:30am is horrible. I can't even imagine how little sleep top 8 competition got. The top 8 commentary was okay but not great. We really need our community members to commentate. You could tell Dave and Aris didn't care that much about the game cause they have no attachment to the game or the community. Imagine how hype K and M or KP would of gotten when Tekken master Reset. Or how sad K and M would of got when He lost. Its a shame cause i really wanted one of those 3 doing top 8. We get told to sign up for commentary to support our scene then don't even get to commentate top 8 wtf.
Also i get tired hearing dave on commentary for so many games. I like him but hearing him on MK, KI, SF5, Pokken gets old really fast.

I would like add even chef doing some matches was nice. He seemed very happy to be doing the matches he did. His excitement was very nice.
 

ArybaStacks

Cassandra Cage
Lets be honest,

The commentary was very poor, nothing against UD and Aris, today felt soo bad, i could not believe it.


2/3 is not possible for MKXL now. We can all agree on that.
 

Darth-Nero

Come Thunder! Come Lightning!
Evo's apathy towards MKX was showing even on the stream, despite the top 8 hype, This was truly depressing.
 
Although I will give Aris credit for the line of the night when he said and I'm paraphrasing:

"I never hear any complants about Demo. No one complains about it. She's the honest hard working Sonya."

Now all that aside having attended CEO and the UFGT series I wouldn't be against shifting community focus towards another tournament for our Major to avoid things like this in the future.
 

big j gleez

Mains: Not Sure Right Now ...
Dude the chairs.... I was standing all damn weekend. My back and knees are killing me. I literally woke up and felt like I used to feel after a day of football camp in college. That part was awful.

I also had to wait over an hour for someone to show in my pool. It took them that long to dq them and they never showed up.

I agree the set up was poor. The MKX stations were on one end and then the stream all the way on the other end.

I think all of your other points are pretty spot on as well.
 

Dankster Morgan

It is better this way
Although I will give Aris credit for the line of the night when he said and I'm paraphrasing:

"I never hear any complants about Demo. No one complains about it. She's the honest hard working Sonya."

Now all that aside having attended CEO and the UFGT series I wouldn't be against shifting community focus towards another tournament for our Major to avoid things like this in the future.
Yeah demo is fucked. Also when he was talking about how Michealangelo isn't really used to being on the big stage, and how he isn't making a lot of top 8s. Lol.