There was a lot that I did to prepare for my first tournament. Made a list and packed my bags. Spent weeks training against Fallen. We brought a GPS with us, programmed in the address to the venue (along with Sean Connery voice) and headed off. On our trip there, we avoided toll roads, making the trip about 9.5 hours. There are some strange spots if you don’t take the turnpike. One truck stop was so foreboding that as I was using the bathroom I got such a terrible feeling that when I got back into the car I put all of my money in my shoe. There were cardboard signs that pointed to the bathrooms and when I got in there, the urinals were badly rusted over and when I washed my hands they wreaked of something awful. The place was enveloped in fog and was straight out of Silent Hill.
We thought this was a joke.
As we approached Philadelphia, the sign came zooming by over head and Mike says to me, “have you ever seen a more beautiful sign than that.” “No I haven’t.” And it was a lot like approaching the pearly gates, the hotel buildings up high. ..
There were a few things that caught me off guard at NEC so here’s a heads up to anyone that is interested in showing up next time:
- Fourpoints is the discounted cheapy hotels that you stay at. The venue is actually located at the Sheraton Suites.
- When you arrive at Sheraton Suites to play, you can’t just walk into your venue. You’ll need a wrist band which you can find on the lower level (everything takes place on the lower level) and you can find it at the two long tables that are set up all the way in the back.
I woke up early (The stream said that it started at 9AM so I got up at 8:30AM and went over to scout.) I couldn’t find the room for Soul Calibur, asked the woman at the front desk who gave me very cold “answers” which translated to “I don’t care about this stuff, find the room yourself.” After roaming around a bit longer I immediately recognized Bibulus who was kind enough to point out the spot. Just the mere connection of someone who I seen on stream and am now seeing them in real life was an amazing experience.
After poking in and out of the hotel, finally the doors were open and I seen 3 guys waiting at the door, and beyond them was Soul Calibur V being played on the monitors. After asking them how long they’ve been waiting there for, some guy came to the door and closed it on us, which was another cold move. Fallen and I leave to get breakfast and come back, and now there a door man demanding wrist bands and pointed me in the direction of a massive line.
The line could have been worse, like this one.
There were two lines: one for people who planned ahead and preregistered online, and the other for nonpreregistered (cash only). The cash-only line had no one in it, while the people who preplanned were stuck in a very long line. This sent a mixed message to us. I probably waited about 20 minutes or so because there were problems with the check list. Some people signed up using their real name, while others signed up using their gamer names which for some reason created a lot of confusion and took forever to sign up. (Once I got my wrist band I threw away my online ticket which was a big mistake. Because even though we jotted our gamer names down, signing up for the tournament required
another signup so I was out of luck there and had to pay another $10.) None of this meant anything to me because the event started and I was there.
I think the first thing that I thought when I stepped into the room was how small it was. Probably thinking something like “Oh this must be where just the SC5 play testing will happen and we will eventually move to a bigger room.” That didn’t happen. And people kept pouring into the room (a sign said max occupancy 49 or something) there was easily over a hundred people at any given moment. At some point I heard someone yell, “I don’t have anything to set up!” and I thought something along the lines of “wow sucks to be those gamers” without knowing that he was talking about Soul Calibur. There were three CRT/TVs set up running SC4, so I offered to bring in my console for the fourth TV and Malice was kind enough to unlock the stuff and chastise me when I left my pads at the console. It was clear evidence of how naïve I was going into this, in fact I didn’t even know how to sync my controllers since I only did that once when I bought the PS3. So thank you Malice for not letting me look too stupid in front of everyone :)
1) Always hold on to your Controller/Stick
2) Carry a spare Sync cable with you because they are like gold
3) If you have a wireless controller turn it off after you are finished playing, and I advise not to keep it in your pocket because it can come on.
Anyway, so there were four CRTs and I got a few games in. Someone stepped in and asked to play next so by all means I let them. There weren’t many people engaging in SC4 since the SCV demo was up and running. But then something happened. Focus shifted to SC4 and people were on those consoles nonstop. I waited to play. .. Looking around I waited to play still. I think I waited a few good hours—constantly getting pushed back into the crowd—not really taking much of a hint as to what I should be doing. Probably about 8 hours of roaming around like an idiot pass by. The sound of people yelling announcements (blood curdling screams I tell you), megaphones blasting, rumbling from the Tekken Tag 2 machines in the distance, and people bumping into me.(If I hear "excuse me" any time soon, im gonna shoot someone.) The only time I’ve experience a crowd this packed was an All Shall Perish concert. Sweat beads at my forehead, my brain like mush.. then something in my head clicks.
This tournament was a scenario, just like certain matchups must be played differently. There were only four CRTs and to get any game experience in, I had to be aggressive. Positioning was key, and when anyone stopped watching and walked away that was my cue to move forward to get closer to the TVs. That still wasn’t enough, though. Some people would keep playing. Some people had like 20 matches between each other and my scrubby side took this personally. I remembered then, when someone complained in the 8WR chat about how no one would let them play. Then I said, “did you ask them to let you play?” and he said no. So I realized then that it was not some game at some dudes place, but a tournament with a limited amount of CRTs. Brushing up and getting games in was worth pure gold.
Remember these three words, "I got next." (another ty to idle for this)
This makes me a feel a bit conflicted, and I’ll come at you guys from two different perspectives: the competitive player and the scrubby newbie. Coming from the competitive player, do or die, play to win point of view, I can understand that. So hogging a machine for 20 matches makes sense if no one even asks to play. Why should I assume that some punk has been standing behind me for an hour waiting to play? If he wants to play so bad then let him ask to get some games in. This mentality makes sense.
Coming from the Scrubby vacationer’s view point, it was very frustrating. The point of going was not to win the tournament and show how great I was, it was to get games in with people on equal or greater skill levels. Having only four CRTs running with an event so big as the FINAL tournament for soul calibur 4 came across more like SC4 and T6 were just afterthoughts—like no one would be interested in playing those old ass games. New is better and the consumer knows it. That was the most disappointing thing about the whole experience. An eight+ hour trip to only get in a about ten games at best. Then one of the guys on the megaphones shouts that this is terrible tournament. I think that’s when I decided not to take it personally, but that this was probably just a bad first impression.
But like I said. I can see it from both perspectives and can relate to both of them. I can also see why the fighting genre has such a small scene because coming from the scrubby vacationist pov there was so little accessibility that there were probably much better things to do—like watch the stream from home for free :P which was much better directed than the actual event.
About accessibility: I was about to do a video about a month ago about how Special Versus mode shouldn’t exist. The game should only have one game mode—the real game mode. I understand now that the reason for these fun/stupid/random game modes is just to get people in the door. And as long as there are sign post that direct them and encourage them to play the real game then it doesn’t really matter. I think this is where Namco dropped the ball in the past. Even famous commentators like Day9 once only played money maps and fought the computer with cheat codes in Starcraft. So from a first-timer’s scrubby experience that’s how I feel. A bit cheated, a lot of time lost, and a frustrating grueling experience.
It wasn’t accessible. From the fighter’s play to win perspective,
I am reflecting on all the lost opportunities that I will be able to maximize next time. I must learn how to adapt to the tournament itself before considering playing the game.
Even though I was knocked out of the tournament fairly early, it was a real honor meeting Partisan, IdleMind, OmegaXCN, lolo, Thuggish, Pantocrator, Bibulus, Keev, Jaxel, Sporko. You guys made the trip worth it and more. The whole experience was so surreal and I’m humbled and glad to be a part of this crew.
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