ElvenShadow

Of course I agree that it is important to send a team that will represent the US in a way that doesnt make americans look bad (both in the game and as far as manners and behavior are concerned). Basically the criteria for being able to go should be, as long as the team that wins the tournament is polite and respectful and wont do anything illegal or violent while in Japan, the winning team should be the one that goes, simple as that. I only originally asked this question because on the post you made on the other thread you linked to it says.. "Players will also be evauated by their skill level in part. (in case of strong players having weaker teammates). The winning team is not the sole contestant for the spot. Finishing high up in the tournament is not a must but recommended. The second will be from an interview with Planet Zero representatives in order to determine which players will be adequately able to fully represent us both in skill and presentation while in Japan." I just dont quite understand this sentence in bold. Of course finishing high in the tounament should be a must. This should be the main criteria for going to Japan and the interview should simply be used to evaluate whether or not the players arnt going to behave inaproprietly while in Japan. Of course you want to send a team that is going to gain posative attention for both your arcade and, more so, the US as a whole. With that said, of course this will be achieved more so by the US team actually beating a Japanese team and playing well in the tournament rather than something trivial like, say for example, whether the players have atractive faces and look nice in the SBO book, have up to date pop culture knowledge, or if they are dressed in the latest fashion. I mean, lets face it, the top Japanese players arnt famous because they look pretty or have an image of being stylish. Ogawa isnt the kind of guy you would see walking down the street if you didnt know who he was and cause your head to turn, but he is extremely polite and a pleasure to talk to. As long as the interview process is simply a means of making sure the players are not going to do anything stupid while in Japan then there shouldnt be a problem. And this interview IS on the same weekend as Showdown, correct? So just to confirm, the GGAC team tournament at Texas Showdown will be the deciding tournament for the SBO spot just like the one at planet zero was last year? Does this mean the tournament will be single elim just like SBO format? Will it span 2 days and have pre qualifiers like last time? Im just curious since its a tad unclear and I want to make sure everyone can prepare well so that many players can go and that Texas Showdown and the qualifier can be a huge and successfull event. Texas Showdown is only one month away... and is also the weekend after Final Round. This may be a bad time to have a qualifier for SBO, espesially with SBO being so far away. Final Round being the bigger tournament, many players are going to be going there, and it may be hard for them to go to both due to work schedules and vacation day limitations. If we truely want to have a big qualifier it would be best to have it at a later time. I dont know how set in stone this qualifer is at Showdown but it hasnt even been mentioned at all on SRK on the Showdown thread so I doubt many people even know about it. I dont think many non Texas players regularly check the masharder.com forums so it might be a good idea to post this on SRK.

so what I gathered from reading the thread is that the qualifier for SBO this year will take place at Texas Showdown? Does that mean there will be a seperate tournament or that the official Texas Showdown GGAC tournament will count as the qualifier? Also, you mentioned an interview. Does this mean, say for example, that if a team wins the tournament but another team gets a better result from he interview that theres a chance that the team that won might lose out to the other team? Basically im just wondering how much actual weight the interview holds in relation to the tournament results. I know you are simply concerned that the team going will behave becuase I am aware of unfortunate events that have happened in the past. I just hope its a matter of simply choosing players that will behave respectfully and isnt more of a popularity contest (not making accusations, simply asking questions). also... SBO and EVO on the same weekend? That would be a very bad idea. If that happens I really doubt many Japanese players if any at all will want to go to EVO. No point in having the biggest tournament of the year for both countries competing with eachother. Of course neither you or I have any say in this so its a moot point. I just hope that both EVO and Tougeki staff take this into consideration is all.

Hi John, so SBO quals will be basically the same as last year, held at planet zero and everything? Do you know when the dates are for the US SBO qual (I know some of the Chicago guys are interested in playing in the qualifier again) and do you know when the date for the SBO finals main event is? I want to try to go to both SBO and Evo but it all depends on the dates for the events. Hopefully I can find a good team here in Japan and qualify.

blog updated http://elvenshadowmike.blogspot.com/ AOU impressions G3 results

ok ive narrowed it down a bit between the following South Korea pros+ low cost in general while in the country lots of beautiful places to see there is a guilty gear scene good food cons- weather may still be cold kind of similar to Japan in many ways so it may not seem as "new" (?) Hong Kong pros+ warmer weather than Japan has a Guilty Gear scene and I know a couple of the players many people speak english nice sight seeing good food cons- everything is pretty expensive in general, a long trip might cost me too much Thailand pros+ very inexpensive in general people can speak english nice sightseeing good food warm weather cons- no guilty gear scene... I think ill have an urge to play over 9 days... Kansai region of Japan (Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Nara) pros+ ive wanted to go to kansai for a long time + guilty gear comp is top notch and there are tons of famous arcades and top players + would be the least expensive to travel to and I can sleep in manga kisa a lot of the time to reduce lodging cost + one of my best friend's exes lives there and could probly show me around and maybe let me crash at her place on the couch or something sometimes + Chip from current is from osaka and can tell me all the good places to go + Kyoto is full of beatiful historic sightseeing areas + some amazing food (best okonomiyaki in Japan) cons - If I go to Kansai I give up the chance to travel to another country since during golden week, airfare is way too expensve... the opportunity cost is higher than the other places so what should I do?

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I guess at this point it seems like a toss up between Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia/Singapore, and Hong Kong. Europe would be awsome but airfare is double the cost and I dont want to spend too much... so Asia only... Basically I will be there for a good 9 days or so... so I would like something that has a good balance of the following. Good bars good sight seeing a bit of gaming (preferably some sort of arcade that has somewhat of a GG scene, doesnt need to be huge since its not the focus of this trip) good deals and low cost for lodging food and transportation. tasty food (which all of those places have) a place where they can speak an ok ammount of English since I dont know any languages besides English and Japanese a place where they wont treat me like crap (or pick a fight) for being a white american im pretty sure none of those countrys have legal drugs and I know some of them have rather harsh censequences for getting caught (doesnt singapore execute you for pot?) in any case i wont even mess with that stuff anyway so... given those conditions which one is best? They all sound good..

yea i dont think ill be going to russia... or ukraine for that matter... so what are the reasons I should go to Thailand?

So... spring break is coming soon for me (March 28th-April 6th) and I am planning on traveling somewhere. I would like to get some suggestions from people since I am having a hard time deciding where I want to go. I am thinking anywhere in East Asia would be fine since I can fly somewhere for pretty reasonable prices. Some ideas I had are... South Korea Thailand China Hong Kong Taiwan Philippines I could also go anywhere in Japan. I havn't been to Kansai (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, etc) yet and I want to go there. However, I was thinking that I could do that during golden week which is a 4 day weekend during the first weekend of May which would be more than enough time to enjoy that area. So... what are some suggestions from people who might have been to some of these places? Ive never been anywhere outside the US, Canada, or the Kanto region of Japan (+Niigata) so any suggestions would be appreciated. I need to make reservations soon so please help me out. I will be more than happy to blog about my trip. Thanks!

cool thanks, Ill check out the site. The ABA I played against was using a red color. There was a purple ABA there too though but I didnt play him cuz he was on the same side of the cabs as me. He was also good and was beating good people so he might have been DIO. Ill ask next time. I agree that Slayer does tons of damage. I think with ABA though that ussually by the time you eat one of her combos youve been blocking shit for a long time so your guard meter is ussually fairly high. ABA is just one of those characters that you often will just HAVE to block for a rediculously long amount of time. Also, Isa and Nemo still pick Eddie and Testament in tournament play the whole time but I did see Isa play Sol against Ogawa's Eddie at Akihabara in casuals and I also saw Nemo pick Faust one time against Isa's Eddie in casuals at Shinjuku club sega. EDIT: yea it looks like theres one team for the 5 on 5 that hasnt been decided yet. Its not clear to me whether or not I can still qualify but I guess ill just go anyway and play casuals and watch at least. If I can try to qualify for the last team then that would fuckin rock

Blog updated, lots of tournament action this weekend. http://elvenshadowmike.blogspot.com/ Yea so as far as ABA players, there were a few ABAs this weekend, broken as ever. I dont know what DIO looks like but one of the ABAs I played might have been him. I know that I havnt seen DIE-chan in a long time, he used to be around a lot but lately he hasnt been. As far as the G3 GameChariot tournys next weekend... on Saturday im going to AOU and the Iron Maiden show and while I would really like to see the 23 on 23, I already bought the Maiden ticket and it was expensive so I wanna go to the concert. Im pretty sure I would only be able to watch anyway since im pretty posative the teams were pre determined as a result of the G3 ranbats that have been going on. As far as the 5 on 5 goes next Sunday, I dont know the details about it but if anyone can enter and its not for pre qualified teams only, I will go to that for sure most likely. If anyone has more information on the G3 5 on 5 please let me know (does G3 have a website? ive just found out about the tournaments through postings on the wall at the arcades so I dont know any details, any info would be appreciated)

yea next weekend should be pretty sweet though as far as SBO goes, I have lots of time so I should be ok probly

blog updated http://elvenshadowmike.blogspot.com/

Domi is still good. Im not an Anji player so I dont really like study him or anything, but he was doing fairly well against Ogawa when I watched him for the little bit that I did. I havnt played against him in a long time but hes still probably the best Anji in Tokyo at least

I would say Akihabara Club Sega is pretty famous so I dont know what you mean by couldnt find any famous places. Unless you are refering to something other than arcades. Ogawa is always at Club Sega. Yea his Eddie is beastly, I dont know how I managed to beat him. If you study abraod im sure we will have lots of opportunitys to play. No worries, I will be here for a while

Blog has been updated again with another wacky adventure http://elvenshadowmike.blogspot.com/

oh man, I dont think I ever did more drinking within a 2 week period than I did over winter break. Since im not there now you have to make up for my absence and drink all the beers I would have had if I were there :bad: thats right, chi-town is still #1. As for summer, a lot depends on when SBO and Evo dates will be and also when a friend of mine is getting married, combined with airline prices. The sooner I know these dates the easier it will be to plan for. I really hope they have Evo BEFORE SBO this year, otherwise its going to be a problem. Evo was also too close to the start of classes for the schools I teach at, if they schedule it the weekend before classes start I probly cant go. Theres no way they will let me take a day off the first day of lessons

Its a solid album, not their best but I certainly like it. Yes, still using Eddie

http://elvenshadowmike.blogspot.com/ new update posted today on the blog. tckof, funny you should mention that... too bad this time it was his HOS but I guess its still something? Too bad ive never played him or beat him in a tournament when it counts, as far as I know I may never have that chance if he stays retired from tournies.

I updated the pictures gallery on my blog. I didnt have time to write a new entree for last weekend today but I should have it up sometime tomorrow. Ill make another post when its up. Weget, I actually tried to go but tickets were sold out, bummer...

after a long break my blog has once again been updated http://elvenshadowmike.blogspot.com/ new pics will also be up soon

well if you want to get a hold of me and meet up for some games somewhere my cellphone email is elvenshadow(at)ezweb . ne . jp i havnt picked up the latest arcadia yet so i dont know the tournament schedule at the moment but ill get it sometime this week, im sure theres something going on btw... im not sure if weve ever met, where are you from etc?

well im back in Japan, and im rather shocked i didnt die from alchohal poisening given how much I drank in chicago. This weekend Ill be heading to Tokyo for a 5 day weekend including a Dream Theater concert. Expect another update sometime late next week.

I updated a few new pictures on my blog photo page

im pretty much busy from now until when I leave, I have work today, tomorrow, and friday and then I leave saturday morning, have fun in Japan though. If you are still in Japan after january 6th maybe we can hang out, thats when i get back

I doubt it, I dont think they were taping but im not sure