FGC News & Discussions #1 Week 19th-25th November
EDIT: Oh, boy. This got way longer than I expected. Also this is the first time I’m doing this so please don’t tear me apart for my bad writing. Thanks for stopping by and I’ll try to improve over the coming weeks
Hello,
I’ll try to do weekly recaps of Fighting Games topics. Those topics will include Tournaments/Community Events, interesting discussion topics that I see during the week and other (random) things.
I’m only a single person and therefore I’ll miss news / interesting articles etc. If you want to bring something to my attention, don’t hesitate to contact me via twitter
As an exception I’ll mention Tournaments that happened “last week”, in this case the Redbull Events and Heaven or Hell.
The current state of the Capcom Pro Tour by DaFeetLee
DaFeetLee wrote an amazing article on shoryuken.com about the current problems with the Capcom Pro Tour. He argues that there currently are too many Premiere events (sometimes two on the same day) and that the point distribution for Ranking events is lackluster at best. Furthermore the article goes over issues with the viewer side of things, like long breaks and high profile offstream matches. While at the same time bringing up good suggestions to fix these issues. Definitely give the article a read, it’s worth it.
In my opinion Capcom has figured out a great format for the tour. Players and viewers alike know what to expect out of a CPT Event. After the disatrous launch of SFV, Capcom has almost perfected the management of constumer expectations withing the Capcom Pro Tour. Viewers can expect the first premier event to be Final Round, after that they will sprinkle a trailer or an announcement here and there. Until EVO where viewers know they are going to get a new character trailer (that might release on the day after). All this ends in an announcement for the next season during the Capcom Cup Finals in December.
Players and viewers that are interested in the game know exactly when the next bit of info is going to drop and are looking forward to those “milestone events” even more.
That being said, DaFeetLee is absolutely correct in the points he brings up. He mentions that Capcom events should be more standardized and I completely agree. I think that they should force every participating tournament to use the same sign-up method (and maybe partner with smash.gg here).
RedBull Conquest
Most eyes were on Redbull Conquest as it was the culmination of a whole series of tournaments for which the participants had to qualify during the year.
When RedBull Conquest was announce the Guilty Gear community took an increased interest in it, as it basically was the first “pro tour” style tournament series the community has seen (we don’t talk about Burst League on this blog). As a result, most of the top players qualified and the bracket was stacked.
The unique team format made for a great viewing experience with stakes greater than “who is winning the tournament”, as the accumulation of points and the grand prize of a free trip to EVO Japan 2019 was always on everyone’s mind.
A must watch event that hopefully retuns in 2019!
CPT North American Regional Finals
Street Fighter tournaments are usually entertaining to watch, but oh boy this time around the added stakes of qualifying for the CPT Finals in Dezember brought out the best in everyone.
Getting to watch the best players North America has to offer was a treat for every fan of the franchise. A lot of players that usually don’t get to travel as much got their shine in this tournament.
Heaven or Hell
Brazil’s biggest anime and 3rd Strike focussed Fighting Game tournament was held on the same weekend as RB Conquest and the NA Regional Finals.
Smaller and up-and-coming tournaments always struggle with exposure. The unfortuante overlap with RB Conquest and NA Regional Finals drowned out the little talk there was about Heaven or Hell.
Being a anime Fighting Game focussed tournament, all the big games (DBFZ, BBTag, GGXrd, BBCF and Melty) as well as 3rd Strike were main games.
Sadly even I missed that the event happened (HiagoXYZ brought it to my attention after the weekend).
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The discussion sparked a very important question: How do smaller tournaments get more exposure. Especially if they’re not from a region with a big scene (London, NYC, LA, SF, etc). As even US events like FADC are lacking the exposure that they deserve.
I don’t think there is a clear cut answer to this issue and getting the word of mouth going is extremely hard and requires a lot of work.
The only suggestion I came up with was having a tournament write-up by someone attending the tournament after the tournament is done. Give a backstory to the winners, describe storylines (maybe he overcame a rival or the guy that got 2nd failed to defeat his “demon” once again).
Getting the word out and finding traction in the community will remain one of the toughest challenges for smaller tournaments.
ArcRevo Japan 2018
Before the ArcRevo World Tour, this tournaments was in a way the “Pro Tour” finals of previous years. As with this year’s tournament, players would be able to qualify for ArcRevo Japan by winning (or being the highest eligible player) at RevoUK in London and EVO in Las Vegas.
This year’s qualifying process sparked a controversy in the BlazBlue community as the highest placing american player in the BBCF side tournament at EVO 2018 got invited. At the time of EVO 2018 this information was unknown and therefore a lot of players focussed on participating in one of the main titles at the event.
The ArcSystemWorks’ hosted event happens in the middle of the night for europeans and therefore I was unable to watch a lot of the action. I did get to watch most of the Guilty Gear Xrd portion of the event though and the level of play displayed is always very impressive.
As this event is hosted by ArcSystemWorks itself, a portion of the community was hoping for announcements for their respective game and while there were a couple of announcements (among one rather important one) there was no word of a new character or game this time around.
The biggest announcement was that both Guilty Gear Xrd and BlazBlue Centralfiction will be part of EVO Japan 2019. Furthermore two Kill la Kill characters and a switch release were announced. The event concluded with an announcement for another event “ArcSystemWorks Festival 2019” in mid August.
DragonBall Saga Event #6
On the same weekend as ArcRevo, the 6th Saga Event took place in Tokyo. All the heavy hitters from Fighting Tuesday were in attendance. With GO1 out of the way (due to him being a commentator for the japanese broadcast) the #1 target for everyone was Kazunoko, who tries to collect as many DragonBalls as possible.
I don’t want to spoil the results but this was one of the most interesting DBFZ tournaments in a while. The character variety in Top8 was amazing and with international talent attending (Shanks and Aixy from europe, Apologyman from the US and KoreanWrestlingMan from Korea) it was definitely interesting to watch this tournament unfold.
The Game Awards (and other awards)
Let’s be real, they’re all bullshit. At least they have actual Fighting Games in their “Best Fighting Game” category this time around :P
I look forward to all the announcements during the show though (I’ve read some rumor that said MK11 is going to be revealed during The Game Awards in December).
That’s it from me for this week.
Thank you very much for reading this huge wall of text. If you want to leave feedback, try commenting below or @-me on twitter.
See you next week.
