Australian Fighting Game Community

As their tournament grows the organisers will find themselves in need of more people to help run the event. At the local level this is achieved by finding a few enthusiastic, reliable people and bringing them into a group maintained by the organiser. Australian examples of such groups include LanSmash (QLD), Couchwarriors (VIC), Shadowloo (VIC) and of course OzHadou (NSW, WA). However for major tournaments the event can become too large for a group’s “standing staff” to run it on their own, introducing the need for short-term staff increases.

This week I’ll continue my discussion of tournament teams by looking at volunteers. I’ll define two levels of volunteers – organisers and tournament staff – along with some examples. I’ll then cover the call-out process, assignment of tasks and finally how best to reward volunteers for their contribution to your tournament.
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The vast majority of successful tournament organisers can trace their beginnings back to their local community. An organiser often starts out running small, local tournaments, and as their experience and confidence builds they become interested in trying their hand at something larger. At first they’ll establish a major tournament using local resources, but there comes a point where it’s impossible to grow the event any further without seeking external assistance. Unlike financial resources, which scale relative to total attendance, the people required to run a larger event are difficult to cultivate.

This week I’ll discuss the subject of community alliances with a focus on running large scale events. I’ll provide an overview of what alliances are, how they typically work in practice, and run through the benefits and constraints involved. I’ll conclude with some examples of successful alliances taken from major tournaments in Australia and abroad.
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Two weeks ago I released version 6 of the Bracket Seed Generator (BSG) Excel spreadsheet and kicked-off a 3-part article outlining the updates that have been made. In part 1 I reviewed changes made to the BSG’s rank seeding functionality and the way seeds were displayed within pools. In part 2 I provided an overview of revisions to the BSG’s regional seeding algorithm.

This week I’ll conclude this series by listing a number of bug fixes added to version 6 of the BSG. These include additional error trapping for a number of problems and a relaxation of the constraints for the “Minimum Pools” setting.
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Just a quick reminder that the ‘Soul Impact’ tournament is being played tonight in the UK. This is the promotional Soul Calibur V tournament that Australia’s ‘FaYd’ qualified for earlier in the year that saw him receive an all expenses paid invitation to participate in the European/Australasian grand finals.

FaYd is one of the organisers for the OHN tournament here in Australia who also hails as one of Sydney’s well known Tekken players. If SC is something you are interested in, or you’re just plain keen to support him at the tournament, be sure to check out the stream which is linked below.

More details on the event are available here.

A live stream of the event begins soon which you can catch here:

Best of luck to FaYd!

CouchWarriors, the long standing events group and heart of the Melbourne Fighting Game Community – announces its return for 2012 with a something different for its series of special monthly events.

The first of the new CouchWarriors Fighting Festivals will be on March 31st from 12pm to 12am. Tournaments will wrap by 9pm, with after-party till late.

Going beyond the scope of a regular tournament, this will be a gamer’s party with a bigger emphasis on the social experience, in a large bar and lounge venue with food and drink available on site.

This means not just social games and tournaments, but special events, training, giveaways, fun sideshow activities and more.

WHEN
Saturday March 31, 12pm-9pm (Afterparty 9pm till late)

WHERE:
Solei Bar and Lounge
694 Mt Alexander Rd, Moonee Ponds, VIC, 3039
(Close to Tram, Train, and Parking)
Cost: $10 Entry + Tournaments
Facebook invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/246364382121289/

Games include Street Fighter X Tekken, SSF4AE, UMVC3, Soul Calibur 5, KOF13, Virtua Fighter 5, Dead or Alive 5 (Demo), BlazBlue, SMASH Bros Brawl/Melee and more.
Full tournament schedule, food menu and more will be available on www.CouchWarriors.org

SPECIAL EVENT – SOUL SYMPHONY AT VIDEO GAMES UNPLUGGED
In conjunction with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Bandai Namco CouchWarriors be running a Soul Calibur 5 qualifier. The Top 4 will gain entry to play on stage as the orchestra plays the music of Soul Calibur 5 to a live concert audience and stand to win glory and unique prizes including signed copies of the game by the producer and composer of the game.

LIVESTREAM AND WEBSITE:
Visit www.twitch.tv/couchwarriors
Full tournament schedule, food menu and more will be available on www.CouchWarriors.org

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/couchwarriors
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/couchwarriors

Following OHNX I updated the Bracket Seed Generator (BSG) Excel spreadsheet to improve its functionality, efficiency and reliability. Last week I demonstrated that version 6 of the BSG now allows the user to apply the same rank seed to multiple players. I also showed that BSG version 6 allocates bracket slots in pools such that they match each player’s rank seed relative to the other players in their pool.

This week I’ll discuss updates to the BSG’s regional seeding algorithm, detailing the changes and outlining why these are for the better. I’ll also demonstrate these improvements using an example based on registration data from OHNX.
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