St1ckBuG

TBH, if there was no big fighting game related event planned for that spring/summer I would consider trying to plan it close to Comiket or the farthest away from EVO that I can get. The only really big drawback to this is: summers in Japan are brutal, and some would consider that an understatement.

I don't see why this couldn't be a thing. At this point in time I'm not sure where it would be best to have an Arcana tournament (whether it be at the main event or an arcade), but I don't see why we can't branch out to other games as well such as Arcana and MB. Everything is still up in the air at this point. Who knows what games will be out and which games people will still be playing. Who knows which games we'll have access to. If there's one thing you should start doing for sure it's letting people know about this. Running a tournament in Japan for 5 traveling foreigners isn't really worth it IMO. We're going to need some numbers across the board for all the games we end up choosing. I won't lie, I think it would be pretty neat if we could get ATLUS, Arcsys, and EXAMU involved. But as I said, first thing's first: numbers. Once again, everything is still up in the air. Getting a few arcades involved would be cool. Going to a new arcade each night for a tournament would be pretty sick. I'll keep everyone in mind that says they'd want to help, but just realize that in order for anyone to take this seriously outside the players we would need numbers first.

TBH, I don't need a lot people to go to say this is worth it or successful. I'd say 15-20 is a good place to start, and I don't think that would be hard to achieve at all.

Spring/Summer 2015 Tournament Interest Check Alright people, I've had this idea for a while and I thought I might as well make a thread to see what kind of interest I could get for it. I want to have a fighting game event in Japan aimed at the most popular (air-dasher/anime) games at the time. Since I'm planning so far in advance (over a year and a half from now), it's hard to determine exactly what games the event would have or exactly when it would be, but there's a pretty good chance it would include some form of GG, BB, and Persona. This isn't some huge event like a major: think of it like a large local, but you're in Tokyo with the best of the best. Why am I trying to do this? I want to do something different. Too often we expect the amazing players to travel to come play us (for EVO), but rarely do we ever go over there to play them. Also, I know a lot of people I've met over the years who play fighting games want to visit Japan at some point to play in the arcades and see the country. I think this would be a good opportunity for people to plan a trip with their friends. The tournament would only be one day, but while you're over there you can do whatever you want! See what you want to see, buy what you want to buy, play where you want to play, but now you'll have an event to look forward to over there as well. Take it from me: going to watch large events is fun (such as ArcRevo and SBO), but that can't even compare to actually playing and hanging out with the players. The TSB qualifier in Japan for NEC last year went off without a hitch, and I'd expect that this could be done well too. Rent out a small venue, fill it with players (and possibly a cosplayer or two) and we could have a total blast. Every event I watch over there looks fun as hell. Why not try something like that for once? So what do you think? Good idea? Bad idea? I know this might be too far off for you to actually know if you'd be able to go or not because of school/work/money, but damn if you think you'd go, please say so. If this ended up being close to EVO, would that sway you away from possibly attending this? I know the big thing for a lot of people will be money, so tell me if you're interested but you'd need more time to save the cash. Let me know what you think. Vote and leave some feedback. Thanks people! Some things to consider: 1). Flights to Japan cost ~1000 USD +300/-200 depending where you're coming from, the time of year, and how many layovers you have. Direct non-stop flights tend to be more expensive than flights with a layover (or two). 2). Lodging can be anywhere from really cheap to expensive as hell. If you stay in an American styled hotel you're going to be paying close to (or over) $1000/week. If you stay in a hostel it'll run you under 1/2 of that. 3). Be prepared to bring money to travel inside the country as well. Depending on how long you stay, and where you plan on going, traveling from place to place can rack up a hefty bill pretty quick. 4). Eating is not expensive, and convenience stores are everywhere. Food would be the cheapest part of this trip and will run you under 30USD a day. 5). If you plan to play in arcades and buy stuff plan to bring some spending money. Most arcades are ~1USD per play. Depending on your skill, you'll either be paying a lot to play or very little. Also, some stores will destroy your wallet without you realizing it. 6). If you're thinking about going, start brushing up on your Japanese now. The sooner the better. It's fun to play, but it's even more fun and rewarding to be able to communicate. 7). This wouldn't be planned near Golden Week, but it could possibly be planned near an Arcsys event (if there is one) or even Comiket. Spring May/June would be ideal, but I would hold off it it meant more people could go. 8). If possible, I'd also try to get in contact with specific arcades to possibly have events for other games outside of the main event. If we got enough heads, I'd even try to contact ArcSys themselves to get involved. Overall Cost Weekend (3-4 Days) = Under 2000USD 1 Week (7 Days) = ~2500 USD 2 Weeks (14 Days) = 3000+ USD These are ballpark estimates and depend greatly on how much spending money you want to bring, and how much money you need to bring in order to travel inside the country. It also depends greatly on your base ticket price and how you feel like living one you're over there. A week trip can be done for under 2000 USD if you plan well enough. My estimates are on the high end, because I expect people to want to get out of Tokyo for a bit and buy some things along the way. Ultimately, YOU have to do the planning yourself. Useful Posts Komidol lays out different tiered travel plans. (These estimates are a tad high though IMO) ============================================================== UPDATE #1 It's been a while since the initial poll (5 months) so I wanted to see what people still thought about having this. About a year from now is when plans would be finalized. You'd have dates for booking plan tickets, a place (or places) to stay, and a rail pass if you so choose. Plane tickets seem to be the best prices around the late May time frame this year ($900-$1250), so that's probably when I would try to plan it next year since I know money is the limiting factor for a lot of people. The prices seem to spike for most of the Summer all the way through August. Relevant games are still a big question since Xrd could be updated in arcades by then (and we'll still be on the vanilla version). Our versions of Persona might overlap but that's wishful thinking. BB was released on console, so we might be getting updates on a new arcade version later this year, so I'm not going to hold my breath. The Arcana guys seems to be really interested in this so that's another possibility. Would late May be an okay time for a lot of people? I will start talking to people in Japan to try and get some details ironed out, but I don't want to put tons of effort into a lost cause.

There's a good chance finals will be on Sunday for GG and BB. We in there.

GGAC+R RULE-SET REGARDING MACROS First and foremost: The winner between two players is determined by who wins the match. A match is the best 2 out of 3 games. A game is best 2 out of 3 rounds. 1). Macros are banned by default. 2). Both players pick their characters. (Note: you will be character locked for this game from this point on.) 3). While on stage and music select, each player states whether they want to allow macros. Both players must agree to allow macros for them to be allowed for that game. 4). If buttons need to be changed (or checked), enter the game, change buttons, and then return to character select. Both players are required to pick the same characters as they did in step 2. 5). Repeat these steps at the beginning of each game. 6). If someone somehow manages to sneak using macros by you after they've determined to not be allowed: that is your fault and not mine. Note: You are still allowed to switch characters if you lose, but after you choose your characters in the next game and determine if macros are banned: you are locked into playing those characters for that game. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>OR<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< You can all just not abuse anything ridiculous? But I know that won't happen. My reasoning: -I don't want to ban them completely if both players don't care. -I know people will do that Justice shit just to be cute. It only takes one of you assholes to ruin it for everyone. -Some people have this pozerwolf mentality that this will somehow change the whole way that GG is played, give everyone cancer, and then implode the Sun... which it won't. The same players will keep winning and all the whiners will stay mediocre. -This is easier than me policing specific uses of the "glitch" that I consider outrageous and DQing people because of it. -I don't want to risk sacrificing this first major to the wolves, especially when finals will be on Team Sp00ky's stream. We're trying to get more people interested in the game, not laugh at it. Originally I wanted to let it rock just to see if it really did change anything (since seeing some stupid secret tech would be godlike). But, there was another part of me that also wanted to ban it completely. In the end I know that a lot of people won't care about this glitch unless they're playing against Justice, so I assumed that most people will just allow them (hence the rule-set that I came up with). It's also pretty evident that inside your local communities there won't need to be a rule regarding macros and that this is just a major-only thing. What most pad players need to take away from this is that anyone could potentially ban macros that you use, even though you're using them the way they were intended. There's also a pretty good chance that other majors outside of NEC will ban them completely, so you might want to start getting used to a new config. I personally won't be the one to force a new config on you. I wouldn't want you to force a new config on me either. The rules I choose won't be discussed in this thread, and any comments will be deleted. If you have something to say, message me on Skype, Twitter, AIM, or send me a PM/visitor message. See you all at NEC. Book your rooms damnit.

I'll bring a setup.

Book your rooms. Don't be those guys.

:st1ckbug:

BlazBlue will be 3v3. Double elimination. You can have multiple of the same character on a team. You can even have same character teams. Persona and Guilty Gear will be singles. The usual tournament format. I have not decided on the use of macros yet for the GG tournament, and it will NOT be a topic for discussion in this thread. Friday night we won't be running any tournaments at the Copabanana, but we will have drink specials and some setups for people to play on. Look for ward to it. It was a lot of fun last year with the JP there, and I'm sure it'll be awesome again this year.

Sup loserfaces?

Round 2. I'm re-making this poll for two reasons: 1). The original poll was done wrong: there should be 5 options with the ability to vote twice (once for each game), with the last option being that you don't care what the other game's format is. I realized later that this could potentially have a huge effect on what the outcome is, since I'm always forcing you to pick two things at once (even if you don't care about the other game at all). I'm sorry for not noticing this sooner. I'm an idiot. 2). To reiterate why you're choosing in the first place since a lot of people didn't see my post later in the thread. So, let me tell you why this poll is important and why I'm not just making the main tournament format singles just like every other year. Almost every tournament I help run (NEC/WB/SJ/ECT), I always get asked if I'm going to run teams for 'X' game. I always say the same two things: "no, it's impossible" or "sure, I'll run teams only if we fill an 8-team bracket. I make the sign-up sheet if I have the time and space to run it and put it at the front desk. Usually the way it works is this: singles on Saturday and teams on Sunday. Guess what happens almost 100% of the time? No one shows up Sunday for teams. All those people asking about teams on Saturday don't care enough to actually get a tournament started on Sunday. They're too busy sleeping. I can't find them. They're out eating. I've got 2 cars of 4 people each leaving in a couple hours who signed up but we can't start because no one else is around yet. I always have to take the walk of shame back to the front desk, ask for the envelope, and then give the people their money back followed by a "sorry, maybe next time". TLDR; ya'll are lazy. What I've learned since then is the only way you're really getting both singles and teams done is if you have teams on Saturday and Singles on Sunday (thanks MeltyBlood). We've had a couple exceptions to this, but that's mainly because we had the space and time to do teams on Sunday and people actually showed. This was back when there were one, or maybe two main games. Things are different now. Now we have three "main anime games" this year at NEC: Persona, Guilty Gear, and BlazBlue. Persona has been around for over a year now. It will always get good numbers because it's popular, but BBCP is coming out in October and +R is already out (giving the GG scene a small second wind). Every game will get a decent (or great) amount of entrants. Running singles and teams for both games would be impossible. I'm telling you that right now because I know. I've been running these games for over 5 years and I know what kind of time/resources are needed to get both done. P4 has held the spotlight easily for the past year so I think it's time to let the other two games shine a bit. This is an executive decision by me. You can hate me for it. I don't care. Persona will be singles, and singles only. If someone wants to run P4 teams and you can get the setups and space for it: go for it. Don't let me stop you, but I'll have nothing to do with it and you won't be running it during singles (Eric won't let you). Also, this year at NEC Eric plans to have our games on the main stream for finals on Sunday. This means, on Saturday, we will have the main event for every game and play it out to top-whatever. The only exception to this is P4: Persona will be singles and we will finish it completely on Saturday unless I'm told different. With this being said, getting both side events in on Sunday would be next to impossible with finals going on, so I'd rather let the community decide what format the main event formats are because there might not be enough time/resources to run any side events. Like usual. Also, if we do end up having side events, there is a very strong possibility that they will be single elimination due to time constraints. Do you understand now? Does this make sense? You're choosing what you want the main event formats to be for BB and GG because the possibility of having side events on Sunday is very slim. I'm trying to plan ahead. When given the decision would people rather do teams or singles as the main event, given the strong possibility of no side events? So once again I ask you to vote. Vote once for each game. This is a chance to try something new or stick to what we've done in the past. It's up to you guys. If you have any questions please post them here. I'll do my best to answer them.

Agreed. $1 is what we do at TSB, but some people don't even enter tournaments at majors if there's no payout since it's pretty much just wasting their time. It's a trade-off you never see until you get the sign-up sheet.

You're not doing anything serious at the Copa. Not enough space. We're also not allowed to use the ballroom(s) at all on Friday due to Curleh. This I know for a fact. Single elimination is fine, and I actually prefer it as a side tournament format, but some people won't even pay $5/person to enter. Beginners do not like single elimination.

If you haven't been to every NEC since '08 then you have no clue how hard it is to get people to actually do something on the second day (even FINALS). Believe me, I know. People are too tired to get up on Sunday morning because they've been too busy having fun all night to get down to the room at a decent time to finish before we have to pack up or a ton of people have to leave. You all can't go to sleep by 8 AM and expect me to wake you all up individually like your goddamn mother, put a paper and pen in front of your face, and then tell you to sign up. Cause guess what? That's what it takes. This doesn't mean you can sleep in then go out to breakfast for two hours Sunday morning and expect me to hold up brackets for you and the 10 other people you decided to invade Denny's with. Sleep and food have always gotten the better of Sunday tournaments. You all can't commit as a community to anything, not even set an alarm on your cellphone for 10AM and plan ahead for food. I always say that I will run X side event if Y people/teams sign up. I can't remember the last time this happening. 2009? 2010? You're a community full of slackers. Ask LK, New England, and New York when the last time we had a team event was. It's laughable to think that anyone here actually thinks teams would happen on the second day if we did all of singles on Saturday. Friday will be a shit show. People will show up late. The venue will be hard to walk around in once it's packed (if we learned anything from last year). Friday at the Copa is more of a time for us to all to get together, drink, eat, talk shit, money match, and mash. Not singles nor teams will be done on Friday for any game. That's a fact. Also, Eric wants to have Finals streamed by Spooky on Sunday. You know what this means? What if finals were anywhere from Noon till 7PM on Sunday? Guess what's not happening? The side event. I'm not holding up a tournament for two+ hours because we're all too busy running/playing/watching top 4/6/8 of finals for 2-3 games. This is why you all have to choose. You're not getting the best of both worlds. This isn't some fairy tail. Your only hope to get both is this: 1). You all get up at a decent time Sunday. A decent time is way before finals are supposed to start, or we specifically ask Eric to get finals done with ASAP Sunday so we can get the side events started. We won't be running both at the same time. The middle of the day for finals will not work. 2). You all don't mind the side tournament possibly being single elimination due to time and space constraints. So once again. I tell you to choose. No one will hate you because you like singles over teams. That's fine, voice your opinion: it's the only way we get to hear how you feel. BUT DON'T, and I mean DON'T expect to get both singles and teams for multiple games unless you as a community make some sort of sacrifice to make it happen. I'm not holding your hands on this.

Teams will be Pokemon (winner stays on) format. The tournament will still be double elimination, but will be a single match between teams. Finals might be 2/3 but there is a good chance that won't happen due to time (finals will be on Team Spooky's stream on Sunday). Yes you can have multiple of the same character on a team, even an entire team of the same character. Yes, you can enter by yourself, but there is only one of "you" on the team, not three: you lose once, you lose the match.

If you want BB teams and GG singles: vote for option 2 and just state which one you'd prefer singles.

Alright people, here's the deal: This year's NEC will be epic with the release of BBCP and the resurgence of GG thanks to +R. I'm not taking Persona out of the equation because it will still get a lot of entrants, but it's pretty obvious that BB and GG will be the more anticipated events because we tend to hype up what is new. I talked with Eric and asked if we could do teams as the main format for BB and GG and he said he would agree to whatever the community wants. Tournament information can be found here: http://www.dustloop.com/forums/showthread.php?16961-NORTHEAST-CHAMPIONSHIP-XIV-%28NEC%29-Dec-6th-7th-and-8th-in-Essington-pa-%28right-outside-of-Philly%29 Your options are simple. You're voting on whether BB and GG will be teams (3v3) or singles. Yes, you're voting on both at the same time. Persona does not have a choice: it will be singles. Having three team tournaments in the same day is a terrible idea, so it's off the table as an option. Whatever the side events ends up being (teams or singles), they will probably be on Sunday or possibly even Friday night at the Copa depending on scheduling. There's also the possibility that side events won't happen at all due to lack of interest. Your choices: 1). BB Singles and GG Singles 2). BB Singles and GG Teams (3v3) 3). BB Teams (3v3) and GG Teams (3v3) Happy voting. Edit: If you want BB teams and GG singles: vote for option 2 and just state which one you'd prefer singles.

If things go as planned it would be cool to have something at the Copa again. We'll see what happens.

NEC has never been 3 fulls days, which is why I'm making sure the dates are correct. He also doesn't have any events listed for Friday.

Eric, is this a three day or two day tournament?

I'd be down to play sometime next week.

See you there Eric.

Yo E, when is NEC? Chances are I won't be able to make SJ.

I'm not sure what to say to put some order to this post... so I'm just going to rant instead. First off: I love you guys. And you could probably say that is an understatement. Lately I've felt a little stressed out with events, and UMAD was like a breath of fresh air. Running brackets has gotten tiring and so has streaming, so being able to come to an event and not have to worry about the schedule, stream, late signups, lack of setups, and random venue problems... it was awesome. I'll say it once and I'll say it again: you guys are spoiled. You have a great group of guys that just want to play and probably the best venue on the planet. Please support Foonzo and make sure she doesn't go anywhere. Other regions would kill for a place like that. The players will keep coming as long as you stay the way you are: friendly and hospitable. Please never change. To everyone I played: thanks for the games. My trip to Japan re-kindled my desire to improve once again and it was nice to come back to a tournament the following weekend. Losing to Rhamnmah and Deadliest were some wake-up calls that I need to adapt faster, not get frustrated, and keep sharpening my execution. In my head I shouldn't have lost to either of you, but don't take that the wrong way: the results speak louder than my personal feelings (I fucking lost). This is the healthy kind of salt where I need to reflect on how I play and how I can improve. Next time we meet I'm coming for both of you. Also, DigitalWatches, you're on my hit-list too even though we didn't play in tournament. Your gimmicky-yet-solid Axl was hard to adapt to. I'm sure we'll meet again and I will be far improved. Pedro, you improved the event from last year, but there's not much you can do to make it better the next time around. The venue and your scene are a killer combo. Anytime you want to ask me a question about anything don't hesitate to ask. I'll be sure to give you my best objective and un-biased advice. Kaeru, thanks for always being such a bro. You're the father figure of you scene, and a damn good one. Thanks for the games. Apply that air-throw tactic well. Brice, never change. Keep the hype. Kirbster, GJ in BB. Re-watch your matches with LK and pick them apart. Stay godlike, and thanks for the beer. DerQ, even though it seems like you just started showing up to events I almost feel like you've already taken on the reigns of responsibility. Only good things will come with you helping out and traveling. Thanks for the delicious beer! SHTKN/Circuitous/Amadeous/DW Good shit invading with the US this year. Maybe next time we can get more people to come! MonsterKing It was a pleasure teaming with you in Gundam. I've only played the game a few times but we managed to pull out a win! To the whole Montreal/Toronto scene: What you guys have is special. Keep playing and push each other to improve. It's fun watching a lot of you play. To Foonzo: You're the best venue on the planet. 'Nuff said. Stay godlike. Thanks again to everyone I had the pleasure of meeting, chilling, and playing with. Much love. See you next year.