I wish they could think like us. It's sad for me to predict that T6 as 'the next big thing for Sony' will totally result in no more or very minimal SF events once T6 comes out. Having a good feel from my participation in all their sponsored-tourneys... they really don't care and they are only doing what's right in the corporate world. Enough has been ranted and written to share this feedback to them.

It's always an uphill battle for independent communities like Outpost & ourselves to have larger-scale tourneys without sponsorship - there's always this ceiling getting in the way. Well, just like playing SF, we really need to do more and work harder to be better at the game!

I too, hope that this is not the case. Truth be told, Sony has no obligation to risk doing more for fans, especially when it comes to non-exclusive PS3 titles. As a marketing tool they will tap on it till the next best thing that generates publicity. There's no blame to that, every company wants to make money using the least resources. T6 is more playable on a Sony DualShock 3, as compared to SF4. This answers the arcade stick supply/cost/non-Sony-proprietary bottleneck, in relation to SF4.

When a title has an established fan base (also, when it hits a certain sales target), this means lesser people buying the game itself. Plus they may lose out, say, 60-70% of the marketshare to potential 360/PC users. What goes well with the game? Sticks. Does Sony make them? So, aside from the still-in-planning big year end tournament (hopefully will materialize), I don't expect anything beyond the Weekend Shopping Mall SF Challenge In Conjunction With The Sony Warehouse Clearance Carnival (as usual, with pads) type of thing.

With this in mind, I hope no one labels me a prophet of gloom and doom, because that's just silly. There's some things that I'd like to mention but cannot be posted here, as I hope to not jeapordize any existing relations. Anyway, I don't think it's such a big deal if things don't work out that way.

Ok, now for the good part. Good points to consider - we're a growing community, so the lack of sponsorship from Sony will not be a primary hurdle. Continuing from yesterday, more to discuss with Alan in person on how we can have better organized tournaments for ourselves and among ourselves (SF fans). Each will need to play a role.

The best part about SF is, it's now on PC. Even Sagat-faced Chun type of weird/tasteful mods played a good role to give this game some exposure, in the sense that it showed a very light and funny side of SF4.

I'm not sure if the WCG voting system still works, but it's a nice hope too:
http://www.wcg.com/6th/poll/poll_PTT.asp

It'll be definitely a big win for all countries, if SF is listed:
http://my.wcg.com/article/read/wcg-2009-ma...ia-championship :/

Rain or shine, there's always ourselves to count on.

I am not a marketing expert, but I try, really really try, to put whatever business sense together. I really don't want to say some things here; but I always believe in alternatives. It's really hard to stop the evolution of a 22 year old franchise.

This post has been edited by rawfish: Aug 3 2009, 04:33 PM

Yeah, I think what I said's not too clear. I answered the question already in the above post, with an "I-don't-know" type of statement, or refuse to share certain opinion in a public forum. Alan will have a better idea, definitely.

Sometimes it's better to not feed ideas to people...

This post has been edited by rawfish: Aug 3 2009, 05:11 PM

I doubt Alpha Oriental (Capcom) sees legit arcade games as worthy investments now. The SW 2nd Floor arcade is now a restaurant business. Lucky I won my last 3S match against Hatred there. No chance to ever ever get his revenge back like we always tell each other.. LOL!

Alan, your post makes me all warm and fuzzy deep inside. Stop that!!! TristanX remains, 6-finger guy and co. are all Guile (family men), the others... ended up with WOW, Tekken, and some of them simply having no time or interest to continue gaming as a passion. Off and on I still see them with some being my best buddies.

Though they are no longer in the scene, their names are always remembered in our local history, and their gaming spirit lives on within the people I play SF with - at Outpost, in LYN, and so forth.

I heard his PS3 fried after the software update. He could be among one of the PC players now.

Street Fighter IV Tournament @ 1 Utama Shopping Centre, 15th August 2009

Background:
Sony Malaysia will be organizing a Street Fighter IV tournament at 1 Utama Shopping Centre this coming weekend. Exciting prizes awaits you!

Details:

Date:

15th August 2009
• 12:00pm to 2:00pm: Walk-in registration begins (more info on online registration to be added later)
• 2:00pm to 5:00pm: Qualifying rounds (Round Robin)
• 6:00pm to 8:00pm: Knock-off stages and Finals

Entry fee: FREE

How do I get to 1 Utama?
Kindly refer here for further directions. [Google Maps]

Where will the exact venue be?
Sony Centre (Best Denki) @ One Utama, Ground Floor, Old Wing

How do I register?
On the day of the event itself, before play-offs (12:00pm to 2:00pm)

For online sign-ups, email alan@toypicasso.com before 12:00am Saturday 15th August, with:

FULL NAME:
LOWYAT NICNAME:
ID NUMBER:
CONTACT NUMBER:
EMAIL ADDRESS:
FULL HOME ADDRESS:
PREFER CHARACTER:
PAD / STICK:

Tournament format:
Stage 1 – Round-Robin: Depending on the number of registrants, the qualifying rounds will see players divided into groups and each contestant will need to play against each group-mate. Each game will be played ‘best-of-three’ rounds (99 secs), and each win will result in a point. The top 2 to 4 players (depending on size of group) from each group to earn the highest points will progress to the next round. Rules are subject to change and be optimized accordingly to the corresponding number of participants.

Stage 2 – Knock-Outs: The loser of each match will immediately be eliminated. Matches will be played 'best-of-five' rounds (99 secs).

Rules and Regulations: (More will be added as they are finalized)

• Players will need to use the same character throughout the entire duration of the tournament. No handicap settings are allowed.

• No swearing or abusive language/gestures are tolerated. This leads to instant disqualification.

• Games will be spread over 3 available Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles. The games will be played default on DualShock 3 game pads (you may bring your own if preferred, if not comfortable with the provided pads) and contestants who wish to bring their PS3-compatible arcade sticks may do so but at their own risk and responsibility.

• Configuration of the 6 attack buttons, including PPP and KKK are permitted. Any other shortcuts are not allowed. Arcade stick users must set the config to Arcade style, with no shortcut buttons for PPP and KKK. Anyone found breaking these rules will be disqualified.

• Arcade stick owners are solely responsible for the safety and security of their belongings. When plugging in the controls (especially to those with PS2-to-USB convertors), kindly ensure you know your preferred button configuration so as to allow the smooth progress of the match.

• Accidental presses of the PAUSE or HOME button will result in a warning. If the offence is repeated in a match, the win will be forfeited.

• Contestants are not allowed to designate others to play their matches. In the event of no-show when your NAME/NUMBER is called THREE times, the win will be forfeited. You are required to wear your contestant tag at all times.

• In the event of a draw or power failure, the match will need to be replayed.

• Winners and results are final. The organizers reserve the RIGHTS to make changes to the rules and regulations at their sole discretion, and without communication to the contestants. Contestant shall follow every instructions given by the organizer and we reserved the rights to disqualify and contestant without giving any reason.


Stay tuned for more info!

Tigeruppercut-fadc-f.hk.ultra-ly yours,
Desmond aka rawfish.

This post has been edited by rawfish: Aug 13 2009, 02:42 AM

The pools will have each player fight all opponents in the group, for us to determine the 2 top players. They will all then face each other in knock-out rounds. Optimally I'd like a loser's bracket, so it can be played through to Evo style but you know lah how time can really stretch. We also need to see how to do the separation of pad and stick players. This is all in the name of ensuring no time is wasted switching in and switching out between pads and sticks, and with all the button configurin'.

Everyone's welcome - I'll still need to confirm the registration details btw.

Signature guy cannot play. If can play... also no fight man.. to you guys

I'm not sure if I can have my US account on the machine, and the Asian SF4 read the data. I think it's possible, since gamedata is also shared. So if anyone can loan their Asian account with costumes that day we can try get all machines setup the same. But high possibility we will want to keep things simple and scrap that idea.

I'm thinking one-character fights all the way. IMHO, from the targetted audience's point of view they can connect better to the same characters being played, rather than the human players. This in turn create some sort of attention 'loyalty'. Gives the show a better quality too. In other words, we're hoping to build an engagement with the audience, let them see how simple yet deep SF can get, and don't be surprised if people actually refer you as the 'Balrog guy' there.

Since this is a Sony event, I think we owe them a good audience.


Ok, it's changed to:

j.hk, d.hp, db b.hp, mash, df+mash, df+mash, qcb, ub+mp, qcf qcf, ppp-ly yours,

Desmond and rawfish

1. I think the standard would be a warning on first offence, then forfeiture the 2nd time - within the same match.

2. Yes, I'll ensure all are playable by the time the event begins. Even if it means lariat-ing my way to do so. I think the reason why Seth is not available in all previous tournaments is not because he's banned, but because it's so tedious to unlock him, from a fresh game save (completion with ALL chars). Plus, I don't think there's many such players who use him, and PERSONALLY many people just use him to spam teleport and jump back HP FTW. So if there's anyone who MAINS Seth, and DOES NOT play jump back HP all day, we might change this decision by request.

3. See my post above. I think many people will agree that sticking to character is best.

Updated information from this post:
http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...&#entry27872107

This post has been edited by rawfish: Aug 11 2009, 11:58 PM

Fixed and finalized. Players will be divided to groups, and I guess these will be controller-type specific i.e. Group A/B/C/D/E/F.. = Stick only, Group G/H/I/... = Pad only, etc. So players will dish out against the same players WITH the same controller-types. Do your best among them, to qualify top 2 position. I think there's a good balance between fairness and time optimization here. I'm sure you will also want to fight your peers fair and square. So the best of both groups of controller-types will eventually meet each another. You may be able to switch the controllers easily, but to do it for potentially every single match is madness for the marshalls. Seriously, appreciate your input.

I won't be participating, of course - but I think I'll spend some catch-up time on Sunday IF an exhibition session is done. It draws the crowd in. We get to play on decent setups. Win.

Great input there. I know this is the standard for biggies like Evo and such, but being a public event there's bound to be the casual players - so if they're mashers it's likely there will be accidental pauses. All the better if you get them, as it's usually a win for you. But if you have a know-what's-going-on player interrupting your FADC cancel Ultra type of combos or string of attacks, this rule won't be restricted to the same match itself. We'll keep an eye on these guys.

If you can come for (now) both days, Sat & Sun it'll be great. Thanks for confirming over the phone just now.

In the end, it's up to the player too I suppose. Just as long it's not causing distress and unfairness to the other party, we won't bring out the rule book.

Saturday and Sunday. We really do not want anything longer than a 6 to 7-hour tournament but stretching the knock-off rounds (top 2 for each group) to the next day was not our call. So Alan and I agreed that perhaps we can have casual matches even after the tournament is over, so as to not waste anybody's effort to make it to 1U again. No one likes to go to 1U two days in a row - but that's how it is.

Hey HD cam, this will be sweet.

Well, I am sure in the marketing world there's other things to excite the buyers Hey I'm not from Sony, man - I have a day job.

Details for registration will be posted shortly. Alan will be filling in on the details.

Care to share why you feel that way? I also feel that there's plenty of room for improvement. I did expressed my thoughts here: http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopic=1102397

So now the event is going to be organized by Alan, from Outpost Cafe (http://www.outpost.com.my/), with me and a friend.

---

Added on August 12, 2009, 12:05 amUpdate, more news tomorrow... more importantly on tourney SCHEDULE, FORMAT, DATES (1 or 2 days), REGISTRATION, etc. Need to attend to Maya now...

This post has been edited by rawfish: Aug 12 2009, 12:05 AM

Hey, thanks for your interest and unfortunately it needs to happen this week. I guess most people here are ok with fitting Saturday's event into their schedules and furthermore, the following week will be the start of Ramadhan, the Muslim fasting month. All I can say now is, this will definitely not be the last SF event and perhaps we look forward to your participation for future ones?

Truth be told, I did not know why that happened but rest assured Alan and crew will not allow this to happen on their watch!

More updated and finalized itinerary and rules
http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...post&p=27872107

Next steps: work on the registration bit, but most of it should come from Sony's end.

Yes, it's 1 day now as we try to look after the best interest of the contestants and fans, vs corporate decisions - no one wishes to go to 1U for 2 days in a row, on a weekend. And it'll be too tiring for the contestant.

As for the 'pads vs sticks' concerns, please allow me to at least try explain this.

Players will be assigned to individual groups where they face off each other in a Round Robin format. This will be fair as even if they lose, they can try to do better in the next match to gain points. These groups will be controller-type specific. Meaning Group A, B, C, D... (depending on number of PAD signups) will be PAD-only, while the rest E, F, G, H.. will be STICK-only (as example). At this point I hope I'm being clear.

This may seem like an unpopular decision, but is a needed one - because we are trying to weigh in the best possible fair scenario VS the required resources to coordinate the Qualifyers smoothly (time, manpower, etc). We have leveraged from past tournaments (the first Cineleisure one especially comes to mind) where time were needlessly wasted getting the pairing of pads/sticks done. This may seem like a simple step, but it involves the constant plugging in/out of users' own equipment after each match, then going back to the title screen or accessories number assignment to ensure accurate pairing. There's also the risk of pressing the HOME button on the wireless pads and interrupting the neighboring match, which is definitely an unwanted unprofessional scenario.

Having the choice to use sticks is already half the battle won. If you'd like to read my experience sharing of The Mines' tournament as a participant, do spend time here:
http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopic=1102397

Me and Alan are both gamers with SF experience going back to the early arcade days. Rest assured we are driven by passion to bring this event together, for the fans. Alan has vast experience doing many major events (movie, toy-line, game-themed ones among many others), while my past experiences were with the Street Fighter III ones back when I was with Capcom (Alpha Oriental).

There are pros in both the PAD and STICK camp and if you think you fare better at either side, by all means choose wisely when registering. It's fair game for all, because eventually the ones with enough points will face each other in the knock-out rounds i.e. a pad player will face a stick one.

As far as I know, in the Evo qualifying pools, contestants were allowed the free choice of pads and sticks but do remember it's a very tightly-organized event run by a big crew, over a number of days, and with plenty of sponsorship. We are inclined to have the rules for this weekend's tournament localized, because that would just seem like the right thing to do, business-wise - and in the interest of having the continued opportunities to do future events with Sony.

I really hope these do address these concerns, and hope you can all turn up for this event. Do continue to share your much appreciated input.


Hey you must be Quist's friend. She's a very good SF4 ambassador and truly a gem from the Pearl

Nice meeting you here and will look forward for your participation. I think you may want to know more about the registration - this is handled by Sony (on that day), but once Alan (the organizer and event coordinator) advise further, I guess I/we can take in online sign-ups.

Appreciate your time coming down here for this event - you WILL certainly enjoy it!

My post is also updated to reflect on the alignment with Alan. Do check out my sig, as the rules and regulations should be the same.

I think Thrust pretty much summed up the whole idea for Street Fighter. It's all about the glory, not gain. But as a Sony-sponsored event I am sure there'll be great prizes and goodies - to be announced once details are in.

As for the digital photo frame pricing issue, I do not have any comment but I am sure Sony had no intention of causing your friend to feel cheated nor mislead the public in any way. Retail goods do experience downshifts to their recommended retail pricing over a certain period hence I believe that they themselves did not keep track of the item's true retail value at that time. Again, congratulations to your friend for doing well in the previous tournament and looking at its admission fee, I believe your friend didn't lose much at all.

As I'm not sure if you will still be going to the GACC event in Malacca, I do hope that you and your friends at Codemasters will be able to attend this event. Alan has made the registration easy, so do check the details a few posts up.

Thank you for the suggestion. If you were to go back a few pages in this thread, you will notice Outpost Cafe does have monthly mini-tournaments for SF4. It's usually on a Sunday, beginning from 1pm till late evening. Everyone is welcome, and in return you just need to spend a minimum of RM10 for F&B there. Do watch out for Alan's periodical updates for the next event.

As for the frequency of these gatherings, I'm sure if there is a need something can be arranged - but you will need to take charge to get the response from others to let Alan know in advance to book the place.

Aside from pure passion, I do not see the competitive value of having an event involving other flavours of SF. How many people is actually interested enough to invest time to seriously play these past games? What outcome can we truly gain from this? I'm not trying to kill your points dead-on, but I hope to set your expectations straight here. I find myself having very little interest in these games already.

While variety is the spice of life, it is not, in this case. There's still so much to learn in SFIV and in the interest of moving forward, playing anything else just throws off my gameplay. As an alternative, you can organize something on your own among friends, or drop a casual invite here and monitor the response. I'm sure other like-minded people will appreciate this too. If I have time, I'm all in for these type of friendlies!


ANNOUNCEMENT (on behalf of Alan): if anyone's interested to train for Saturday's tournament at Outpost Cafe, do state your interest here. Alan needs to book the area. Time: anytime till 11pm (close).

This post has been edited by rawfish: Aug 13 2009, 02:13 PM

Shiozawa Cup results!

And you think God's Garden was the icing on the cake, now the Japs have this! This is the 5-on-5 tourney and it's a day before SBO!

The SRK discussion thread:
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=203842

Some of our Singaporean brothers went to Japan for SBO and participated. Good for them!
http://forums.round1.sg/index.php?topic=319.105

Taken directly from one of them (beware of spoilers!):


Japanese BBS:
http://www.toaru.org/~cab/street/shio-en-03.html

Chinese forum:
http://forum.gamer.com.tw/C.php?bsn=00173&snA=3470&tnum=13

And here in KL, we're having our own tournament the same time as SBO! There can never be better timing than this!

Thanks to everyone for the great feedback. A special mention to Alan for again putting things together, my marshall mates Quist and LT5, cameramen (MasterAlvin, Kileak and Senzr), the Sony 1U guys who are so accommodating, and both sides of the pad & stick contestants group.

I'm glad you liked the format where we pool each other in pad/stick-only groups, proceeded with the knock-off rounds where there's an equal balance between each side of the camp. This means you need to wait less time for each match to be played, and a chance for you to get more points if you lost your first few rounds.

As for the venue, it's not hard to find if you were to refer to the floor directory as we did mention that it's at the Sony Centre Old Wing, Ground Floor. Anyhow, I myself was a first-timer to that area and found it really took some time to find the place so maybe next time we need to give more precise advice on the location like landmarks, etc.

As for the flyers/ads, Alan was given last minute notification of the event in less than a week so I guess that ruled out the possibility of preparing for these ad channels. I really have no advertising background, but I think flyers/ads are to communicate to a really mass audience while this is a tournament where we're expecting 50 + or - people, to fit in our intended format. It would be also a bad green initiative when these days e-media is preferred. We figured that we'd rope in more quality people (aka the real fans) by going to the source itself (i.e. LYN). Sony also did send out an invite via its PlayStation @ Friends Facebook channel.

We also did not expect the Sony 1U area to be smaller than expected as the 1U management restricted any setups of equipment outside Sony's premises.

It's very good to see many returning and new faces. Wished I had more time to socialize. And yes, I agree that each time there's a new tournament we see improvements in skill. Keep it up! The champion aka Chucky trains very hard in his spare time. With her it's very important to have equal execution skills and also know your match-ups. Quality of your training also matters - do spend at least 1 hour per day to train on easy, hard-hitting and practical combos. Nothing fancy, just something you can easily react to e.g. whiffed LP dragon punch, and those you can do mid-screen, in a corner, when opp in a corner. Situational. Also know what works best against other players, e.g. moves that punishes a blocked Blanka ball, save zones where you can jump on reaction to avoid Honda's Sumo headbutt, etc. Then put it to the test with a real-life thinking opponent and see if that helps in your gameplay. Over to the SF experts here to give more training advice

Overall, a big thank you to everyone who brought this event to a success - especially the participants for your support to the SF scene.

Actually kileak, you played an interesting Rose, but I guess not patient enough against the Ryu, Ken and Honda in your pool. You actually knew what do do with the character but didn't know the match-up well. So, good work playing this seldom-used character in a tournament.

12pm-2pm, registration and setup. 2pm-5:30pm, pad and stick pools. 6:30pm till around 9pm knockout rounds and finals.

MasterAlvin's the one who's been loading the videos to Youtube. Kileak was nice enough to bring his HD cam too - can't wait to copy the DVD.

The notices were posted in the SFIV threads (PS3, XBOX360, PC and this Tournament one). Much talk were on this tourney for the entire week. Sony even sent out an invite to subscribers of the PlayStation Friend @ Facebook.

can subscribe to these threads next time?

Alan, I don't think it's safe for you to play SF anymore now... LOL!

As more tournaments are in the works, just would like to share something I've discovered, and wanted to write about but decided there's no further need to do so myself:

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=203420

QUOTE

It was two weeks ago. I had to take a day off from work to attend. It took me about 2 hours to get there. I had to take 3 trains and a bus. So I get there and notice just about EVERY big east coast player is here. Now I'm nervous. I spent 20$ to lose. So they finally call my name and I'm on a PS3 against a Fuerte. Not only did he beat me he demoralized me. I was missing combos and generally choking in a big way. I wasn't using my stick which didn't help since mine was for xbox360. My body must've realized how bad I was sucking cause after the 1st round of the 2nd fight I was about to unplug the controller until someone reminded me that it wasn't over. People started encouraging me which just made it worse since people rarely encourage winners. So after losing I went to dunkin donuts hurt. Wasting time until losers bracket started. I went back and I was called for losers against a blanka. I was trying to psyche myself up but it just wasn't working. I just messed up everything. I missed a HP -> Super something that I've literally NEVER missed since I started playing abel. Missed COD -> C.HP -> Ultra plenty of times and got hit by random blanka balls.  So I was eliminated and left. I woulda stayed just to watch but it was too crowded to really see. And I had 2hrs of buses and trains to get home.

QUOTE

It is really crazy how your surroundings can really dictate how well you play. You might get execution down 100% at home, but at tournaments, the atmosphere can substantially have an impact on your
performance, especially if you enter one by yourself.  In tournaments where at least one friend entered along with me, I felt much better mentally. Even after we both lose our matches and waiting for losers, just being able to sit against a wall and talk about the competition, last minute strategies, whatever, it really helps to relieve the tension. So try to get your friends to enter with you; it's a great learning experience everytime you go. And if you don't have friends that are into the scene, make new ones. Tournaments are a great place to network with people around your area.

QUOTE

Almost everyone's first tourneys are like that.  Think about me. When I went to my first tourney, there was no Street Fighter IV. This game is pretty recent. Everyone has only had so much time to learn the game. My first tourney was a 3s tourney and people easily could have been playing for years and years. I had no idea wtf was going on.  Of course, major east coast peeps have been playing for about a year now. Its okay though. My advice is, keep going to the tourneys, try to get rid of the jitters as soon as possible (Unless it's EVO, it's just some local tourney. There will be dozens more). If you get owned 0-2, DO NOT LEAVE. Stick around, watch people play, try to talk to people. Play casuals. Ask people what you did wrong. Learn the game.

QUOTE

Who cares about winning or losing when you just start out? Going to a tournament is a real experience, and even though I've never done all that hot (best finish over the past few months in SF4 is 30th or so out of 75) it's still fun as hell to show up and watch really good players.  Just show up a lot, and get to know people. I've only been on the scene for a little while, but I recognize a lot of people on SRK as people that I've met at meetups and tournaments around the area (HAV, a few posts up, knocked me out of the last tournament I was in!). You'll never get good playing scrubs online, or friends who just play to have fun. If you want to get good (and not everyone does), get to know the people who are winning tournaments in your area.  Don't let it get you down, just aim for a little improvement every time. Next time try to not go two and out, then start making your way through winners and eventually you'll be on top

QUOTE

My first tourney was a few months ago at a Play 'N' Trade in NYC. Since then I think I've been to 5-6 more all in NYC and so far haven't really come close to placing in Top 3, but I do feel I'm getting better.  I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm playing and in the zone, I don't even realize people are watching me. Nerves and all that just goes away the more you go. I was nervous the first few but now I'm fine and when I lose I just get outplayed rather then me f***ing up my execution due to my nerves being shot.  The best advice I have seen is even if you go down 0-2, don't just leave. Watch the better players move on and see how they play, ask your opponent later on what you think you can improve on, just ask questions and make connections. I noticed I always see the same people go to these things so trade Gamertags and play player matches with them at home. Much better then random Ranked or Championship battles.