Ok, to NVGA-
You keep posting about keeping negativity out, without addressing any of the issues generating it. (need to tell parts of the story though)
Dhalsim, Chingaook, Dezzz, I recognize your names from being mentioned to me by DFG, but do you even remember who I am? (I'm not being sarcastic)
Yea, I'm the guy who got SC4 nats planned, laid the ground work, rules and started all the information/hype for it. I was the guy running it, until some unfortunate forum related drama that removed me from the (at one time) main calibur fourms, which impeded my ability to effectively organize and plan nats (since this website did not exist yet). At first NVGA was involved to help with equipment and match recording for finals, in TULSA, OK. After more issues that splintered planning further, I offered NVGA the chance to run it, as DFG seemed anxious to get nationals under NVGA's banner. At the time, I thought this could do no harm. He made promises of keeping the plans I had intact and also promised he had many sponsors lined up to help promote and fund the event, as well as NVGA's vast resources he claimed to have to make the event outstanding. Looking back, none of this took place.
Why did I ask if you remembered me? Because I don't recall any of you being involved to any extent in the planning emails that took place between me and DFG, where he supposedly included key NVGA members for input (via CC emails) (maybe chingagook occasionally?). Rarely did anyone provide input aside from "sounds great, go for it!" on whatever was being discussed. Up until the plan to move Nats finals to supercon (which killed it all for me), I was heavily involved in the plan making discussion, though there were already a lot of changes made that I didn't like. NVGA promised a high amount of hype for each regional, and it produced none. Communication was pretty abysmal with most of the regional coordinators as well. Over time, I saw this go from a valid community effort, to an NVGA agenda that served their needs, not ours.
It seems like the NVGA'ers posting are only here for some sort of damage control, with no real idea of why people have issues or what went wrong.
So again, siding with your pleas of 'solutions' rather than mass negativity... I will not post every single plan or idea that was changed for the worse and why, because the list would be long and negative. However, regardless of DFG not being the 'founder' of NVGA, he still made a lot of questionable changes to favor NVGA and profitability, under your banner and none of you questioned it, and assumed it was status quo (from our perspective). So there is some shared accountability for your whole organization. If you would like me to list them publicly in order and detail, I can... but would rather not.
So on to solutions for next years Nationals.
-- I would like to go back to organizing this year's nationals and bring it back, under the original structure it was planned for (only a few month span for regionals, with nats itself a month later). Why is this a solution? I, like many others here am qualified to run a large event and can with ease. No hassles, no mess. I would also like for NVGA's regional directors to be involved in running regionals, just under our rules and guidelines. This time I also don't have to worry about being removed from forums due to drama ect ect, this time. I would be working with CLOSELY community organizers and LEADERS such as Jaxel, Nori (ie. people willing to communicate and get shit done) and whoever else will really take charge of running a serious national/international tournament and salvage this community along with it.
--The money issues (from this year's nationals) need to be answered and accounted for. Not only do the numbers that Jaxel has provided need to be accounted for, but also NVGA's promise of sponsor money and a $4k pot (which was ALWAYS set as the standard pot since this began). There are too many questions and not enough answers, every day this goes unanswered creates more negativity. It's not something that should take time, NVGA should be making answers, not excuses about investigating it. But then again, it reflects your communication with each other.
--Make nationals an EXCLUSIVE Soulcalibur event. If the community wants to make it 'internationals', so be it, we will make the right decision based on informed opinions from all corners of the community. But the one thing that has to stay constant, is that this event is for SOULCALIBUR only. No sidegames on the day of the tourney, no distractions the day of nationals that take away from the prestige of the event. Its a tourney for the top players made possible by the top players. If they wanna play other games, we can run stuff on another day or after the event has wrapped. Team tournies and anything else are more than welcome to happen for SC, but after the main event.
--Also the whole debacle of LETTING RANDOM PEOPLE who showed up, into the NATIONALS bracket. Totally unacceptable, it has been explained 100 times as to why. A total insult to suggest ever letting this occur again. The difference between a major and nationals, is that nationals spots are earned and a major anyone can just walk into. Nationals is supposed to be all the best players, battling it out to see who's best, not a super large tourney where you invite as much cannon fodder as you can to fill a large bracket.
--Figure out the best way possible to set up a prize structure for regionals, that 1) keeps the placers interested in attending nats 2) Helps them get to Nats 3) Doesn't favor players who just want the 1st place money and do not plan to attend nats. The way it was originally designed, it was supposed to set up incentives to attend the final tournament, the plane tickets were supposed to be handled swiftly with the left over money being folded into the pot or used to assist another plane ticket for a farther away player's ticket from a regional with unfortunately low attendance (if needed). They hype was never generated to make this effective based on attendance. So we need to figure out a better way.
--Figure out a way to raise a $4K pot and make nationals worth bothering to qualify for. I think a combination of factors will make this possible. We can run a paypal community donation fund to raise some funds directly for the pot. Run a few charity style tournaments at majors where half the pot is donated to the nats fund, half to the winners. Plus we can look into real sponsors who may actually benefit the running of the event. Combined with the pot money we will get from hopefully largely attended regionals, this will work. I am just brianstorming though, I am open to any and all fundraising ideas.
--Constant community updates. Keep honest and inform the community about what is going on, what changes have been made and collect input from the people INTERESTED in making nats work and interested in attending it. There will always be naysayers, haters and troublemakers looking to pick apart your policies, but as an LEADER, you have to learn to deal with it, address important issues, and differentiate people who nitpick to nitpick from people validly trying to help the overall quality of the event.
There will be a lot of effort needed on ALL our parts to keep this community going. Let's not pretend that this community isn't shrinking by the day. We all hope SC: BD will re-spark some interest, and also pray T6:BR doesn't kill interest from what 3D fans we have left here. We may have to deal with the reality there will not be another patch, and this game will be what it already is. The question is do we have what it takes to hype, build community and keep a GREAT GAME afloat for another year? I hope so. We will need all the motivated players we can find to keep going out and showing the FG world that our game isn't weak, our game is beautiful on high levels and that we just don't roll over when hot new fad fighters drop on our casual fan base.
IMO no one person is going to have all the solutions. But we obviously don't like having committees with decisions being made by a small group of players calling the shots and ignoring others. We just have to look to the player-organizers who still have strong communities, player bases and INTEREST in the game, to help keep this going. We simply will have to rely on people like Jaxel, Nori, myself- who can get things like free venues that are good enough to host majors, can pool resources with others and has access to all the proper equipment to run such an event. Why do I only suggest Jax and Nori at this time? Because to me they are the only ones bringing up real ideas and solutions, also the only ones giving a shit enough to say "HEY THIS COMMUNITY DESERVES BETTER".
So this is the camp I sit firmly in, and look forward to comment.
NVGA- try to run majors, regain respect from our community. But your organization dropped the ball (whether it was your direct involvement, or the fact that you guys didn't keep tabs on how it was going and where it was headed), and turned our biggest tournament, into a side attraction at a convention, that was your chance. Now it should go back to the community leaders, and will.
cha cha
