Hi, I'm Kitch and I'm a guy at London's Heart of Gaming Arcade in the North Acton area and I organizes monthly DOA tourneys.
This has been a topic that I thought necessary to address here as I don't have other platforms and this is crucial to the UK community's offline survival as a whole because most of us are either very scattered, lazy or just don't think that spending so much money to come to tournaments with small turnouts is really worth it.
Keep in mind that this is going to be a very long write-up, but I would very much appreciate it if you read through, especially if your are a player in UK, Ireland and even neighboring countries or other parts of Europe.
I'm also coming from the point-of-view of a tournament organizer and a player, so I'm accustomed to hearing what people have to say both positive and negative. It's not something which I accepted because I wanted to do it, but something which the community and the high-level players told me to do, because there wasn't anyone else willing to do this or know about the game). If a tournament fails or there is a low turnout, then it's my fault for not trying hard enough like, for example, not being able to properly promote it and getting in touch with people.
People are always going to have small problems and issues that would prevent them from not making it to a tourney and won't blame them, it's their choice. If a tourney succeeds, I will fully praise them because they deserve all the credit for trying and getting together because they deserve all of it. I'm like the guy on the street handing out leaflets anyway and I'm not even good at the game right now.
I understand that you can't expect turnouts to be the same or higher all the time. I know that you can't suddenly have a whole lot of new people out of nowhere and I also know it's a very slow process where you need to make connections and keep in contact.
I believe that there are some issues that you could help me with to build this community. Blow are a few points I want to make. Keep in mind I'm simply pouring everything I have in my mind to give a better picture and I'm not a fantastic writer.
Not enough people playing DOA
This game is not hard to play and it certainly does not have a difficult execution barrier like Tekken, it's not mentally taxing like Virtua Fighter or it doesn't have hard links or combos like SFIV or KOFXIII. Hell, there are really no Just-Frames outside of inescapable combo grabs. Granted, those are completely different games with their own mechanics, but what confuses me is that not enough people are playing these games. Hell, there are more people playing BlazBlue, AC3 and even Chaos Code than DOA.
So, why is that? I sure as hell don't know. I just see that as a result of people either dropping DOA completely after DOA4 (many many people did, according to old school players), people being lazy or just not wanting to show up to weekly sessions or people out there just not knowing where to go and how to get into contact with offline players and enter tournaments.
Keep in mind that if you play online, then I won't have any way of communicating with you or knowing you simply because I don't like DOA online. For example, the only UK DOA player I know from online is stevo_uk, so that's pretty much it.
The Reputation
DOA has a rough reputation in UK. We all know that. I don't think I can do anything about it unless people show up and show their support for the games (that is if they don't dress up as Furry McYiff Pony or something equally stupid). I mean, so what if you're labeled a 'wasteman'? It shouldn't bother you. London heads should know what I'm talking about. It's very common to hear passersby and other people just talk trash the game. DOA players shouldn't care, that is if they're having fun with the game.
We have fantastic players. Really great people who know the game extremely well and have been playing for years. It would be a huge shame if they don't get to show off their skills.
Problems with FSD
This is not me having problems with FSD. The UK community simply don't seem to be roaming FSD much. This is not Mr. Wah or Admins' fault. It's simply because they feel "there are too many idiots". Now, every FG forum is bound to have their fair share of people who you might not like, but this is something that they're really vocal about when on FSD. I won't name any names, but they are regular members on this site, but they tend to keep out of things like general game discussion and character sub-forums. Some characters which they play are really underrepresented as well or not at all documented or containing the wrong information.
In general people feel both unwelcome and offended by a lot of people. We some very good players in UK and we're not a bunch of snobs who drink tea all day and wipe our arseholes with golden tissues.
People Scattered
This problem is complemented by the one above and because of this, it becomes a bit more difficult finding new players.
The Current Competitive Attitude and its Problems
With the rise of E-sports and streams, I feel that some members of the community are too focused on getting their names out there rather than coming over for weeklies and playing the game against people. This isn't a thing right now in the community as far as I know, but it can worry me because we got a small community and if a local player decides to simply turn up for tournaments and not participate in casuals, then that won't be very good as no one beside that player would be leveling up and the scene would start declining.
I think I've poured out enough on the table for now. Please discuss.
This has been a topic that I thought necessary to address here as I don't have other platforms and this is crucial to the UK community's offline survival as a whole because most of us are either very scattered, lazy or just don't think that spending so much money to come to tournaments with small turnouts is really worth it.
Keep in mind that this is going to be a very long write-up, but I would very much appreciate it if you read through, especially if your are a player in UK, Ireland and even neighboring countries or other parts of Europe.
I'm also coming from the point-of-view of a tournament organizer and a player, so I'm accustomed to hearing what people have to say both positive and negative. It's not something which I accepted because I wanted to do it, but something which the community and the high-level players told me to do, because there wasn't anyone else willing to do this or know about the game). If a tournament fails or there is a low turnout, then it's my fault for not trying hard enough like, for example, not being able to properly promote it and getting in touch with people.
People are always going to have small problems and issues that would prevent them from not making it to a tourney and won't blame them, it's their choice. If a tourney succeeds, I will fully praise them because they deserve all the credit for trying and getting together because they deserve all of it. I'm like the guy on the street handing out leaflets anyway and I'm not even good at the game right now.
I understand that you can't expect turnouts to be the same or higher all the time. I know that you can't suddenly have a whole lot of new people out of nowhere and I also know it's a very slow process where you need to make connections and keep in contact.
I believe that there are some issues that you could help me with to build this community. Blow are a few points I want to make. Keep in mind I'm simply pouring everything I have in my mind to give a better picture and I'm not a fantastic writer.
Not enough people playing DOA
This game is not hard to play and it certainly does not have a difficult execution barrier like Tekken, it's not mentally taxing like Virtua Fighter or it doesn't have hard links or combos like SFIV or KOFXIII. Hell, there are really no Just-Frames outside of inescapable combo grabs. Granted, those are completely different games with their own mechanics, but what confuses me is that not enough people are playing these games. Hell, there are more people playing BlazBlue, AC3 and even Chaos Code than DOA.
So, why is that? I sure as hell don't know. I just see that as a result of people either dropping DOA completely after DOA4 (many many people did, according to old school players), people being lazy or just not wanting to show up to weekly sessions or people out there just not knowing where to go and how to get into contact with offline players and enter tournaments.
Keep in mind that if you play online, then I won't have any way of communicating with you or knowing you simply because I don't like DOA online. For example, the only UK DOA player I know from online is stevo_uk, so that's pretty much it.
The Reputation
DOA has a rough reputation in UK. We all know that. I don't think I can do anything about it unless people show up and show their support for the games (that is if they don't dress up as Furry McYiff Pony or something equally stupid). I mean, so what if you're labeled a 'wasteman'? It shouldn't bother you. London heads should know what I'm talking about. It's very common to hear passersby and other people just talk trash the game. DOA players shouldn't care, that is if they're having fun with the game.
We have fantastic players. Really great people who know the game extremely well and have been playing for years. It would be a huge shame if they don't get to show off their skills.
Problems with FSD
This is not me having problems with FSD. The UK community simply don't seem to be roaming FSD much. This is not Mr. Wah or Admins' fault. It's simply because they feel "there are too many idiots". Now, every FG forum is bound to have their fair share of people who you might not like, but this is something that they're really vocal about when on FSD. I won't name any names, but they are regular members on this site, but they tend to keep out of things like general game discussion and character sub-forums. Some characters which they play are really underrepresented as well or not at all documented or containing the wrong information.
In general people feel both unwelcome and offended by a lot of people. We some very good players in UK and we're not a bunch of snobs who drink tea all day and wipe our arseholes with golden tissues.
People Scattered
This problem is complemented by the one above and because of this, it becomes a bit more difficult finding new players.
The Current Competitive Attitude and its Problems
With the rise of E-sports and streams, I feel that some members of the community are too focused on getting their names out there rather than coming over for weeklies and playing the game against people. This isn't a thing right now in the community as far as I know, but it can worry me because we got a small community and if a local player decides to simply turn up for tournaments and not participate in casuals, then that won't be very good as no one beside that player would be leveling up and the scene would start declining.
I think I've poured out enough on the table for now. Please discuss.
