NORCAL INSTALL! [Main Information and Ranbat Update Thread]

[Solex]

ggs to everyone sorry i was so salty/mopey i swear im not normally like that lol.

shout outs to everyone new i met, im sad i didn't end up hanging out with you guys as much as i would've liked outside of casuals. but its hard to do so when you all go to the bars, damn alcoholics.

shout outs to serervin for showing me how lambda should be played lol great finally meeting you.

shout outs to notkbf for being all like "i fucking hate command grabs" then in our skull girls match you never tried to jump out of my tickgrab mixup clever pre-game trick. bastard

shout outs to brkrdv with that damn get out of jail free card.

shout outs to tier whore joe, cvs2, and making me come up with anti mokoto tech...im curious why arc system works hates squirrels so much

shout outs to dusty for being a bro and giving me good advice

shout outs to sg, stay godlike and loud. also fuck yo big tittied bitch but i will learn the ultimate pick up line to defeat her.

shout outs to huey for exposing the fuck out of me and mashing out of frame traps.... and pretty boy combos....

shout outs to cor for the mu bomb projectile guard, sick shit and for failing at exposing vineeth in sfxt

shout outs to the biter for hating valk because he takes to much work to play lol

shout outs to shyn for destiny! but learning that it wasn't time quite yet

shout outs to dsmoove for missing his flight so we could fuck around in the airport

shout outs to don for getting overly hype (with nos) at roshambo lol

shout outs to xie for boding me plain and simple i don't even think i took a round lol

shout outs to stayfree good shit getting top 8 bro i was impressed

shout outs to jay for teaching me some good spacing stuff in sfxt

shout outs to the people that live in norcal but don't come very often sorry i didn't get to meet all of you but hopefully you will come to more nci's in the future

shout outs to everyone else from Norcal you know i love you guys

shout outs to me mashing in skullgirls that game is silly but it does seem like an improvement from marvel in my mind

and shout outs to San Francisco on saint patricks night

great weekend

[Herbal Grey]

shoutouts to dacidbro for housing me, stayfree, neozero, donavan, ds (BOBBEH), AND gammagear outa nowhere lol, for the whole tournament, including an extra day cuz i was so tired.

really cool person...i'm a long time admirer. cool to actually meet you.

shoutouts to all i played casuals/tourney games against. lol solex so true...shhh

[Tone]

the most important shoutout is to the angry drunk lady spinning around in the street and flipping everyone off while screaming a block away from gamecenter on Saturday night

more to come later

[dsmoove12]

Had a really fun time this weekend. Anyone i forget in my shoutouts i'm sorry

Shoutouts to:

BlkMage for picking me up and being super chill

Dacidbro for housing us and for the great games

BESERKER DAVE for winning SNCI with Rachel. Stay gdlk dood

Donavan for doing a 360 on the floor after winning RPS

DarkTalon and Pain. Nice seeing you guys again

Vineeth. I GOT REVENGE FOR LAST YEAR! See you at NWM man. Looking forward to fighting you again

Huey for making me super scared of bang and getting bodied by Alcohol (:3)

Severin and Brandi for being super awesome

StayFree for being a jerk

NiggaJoe,sG,and Dusty for making me laugh so hard that I lost my voice

AND SHOUTOUTS TO ANYONE ELSE I MISSED! See you all in the future Norcal and PNW

[Abowlofpetunias]

(This is Brandy for anyone who doesn't know.)

Thanks everyone for making this the most fun tournament I've been to yet, lets keep it up Socal, i'm so proud of you guys!

Also shoutouts to Dabbit for getting drunk mid-finals, I wish I had that kinda matzee. Shoutouts to all of PNW, you guys are amazing.

Also big thanks to everyone in Norcal for organizing this, we owe you one! Basically, yey everybody.

[StayFree( ' 3')]

That was some weekend. My head's still spinning from all the fushu shenanigans that was going on...

Shoutouts to:

Dacidbrah for letting us crash at his pad. We had fun spying on you, learning your dacid ways...tea and a hit of acid before every tourney you say??

SoCal Crew Carpool(brkrdrv, Don, neozero, DS, and muah). Shoutouts to Grandpa Dave for driving us and us driving him crazy.

Orion for keeping the tourney together. I still owe you a galvatron.

Myung, I've never seen arcade restrooms that clean...it scares me.

Solex rep'n that 2a. StayFreeSober.

NiggaJoe, fuck you, your busted character, and your broken gamegenie shades. You racist ass jive turkey.

PantyRaider, it was great to finally meet you dude. see ya at evo!

GGJ....( -_.-)

dusty for going all matrix on that Cave shooter, then finally being defeated by that last boss...shoutin nigga.

Brandy and Severin, always a pleasure seeing fellow classy SoCal folk.

Donavan with dem chopstick skills and that dacid love. Future bang main.

Bobby for not killing Don and getting that free dacid money. Most likely to blow it on Dream C Club Zero.

brkrdrv for being an all around kewl dood. showing us how free NorCal is to netplay rachels, taking everyone's pride...along with Xie's harddrive.

StayFree for being sexy and not a jerk.

C0R.....( lll_.lll)

Nos energy drinks. One moment I'm at the arcade drinking the poison, the next moment I wake up lying on the ground of a small dark room at 2am next to four guys.

Huey. His troll face is the stuff of legends, but yeah, no more wine coolers for you brah.

SoCal taking over top 8.

random dude wiping his ass on dacid's lawn.

All the NorCal/PNW heads I got to meet/play for the first time (Talon, Pain, SG, and Paco).

Dacidcows...I don't even...

tofurr, where the hell were you??

my gdlk tager, he thirsts for noel blood...eat your heart out Coopa.

Chun...you fuckin weaboo.

lvl.2 shoutout to the kid at the gas station doin that hyper super championship edition swaga walk. Future Chuck Norris.

shoutouts to my shoutouts beating solex's number of shoutouts...SoCal #1 at everything!

If I didn't give you a shoutout I most likely hate you and/or sadly forgot to mention you.

[Spartan257B]

the most important shoutout is to the angry drunk lady spinning around in the street and flipping everyone off while screaming a block away from gamecenter on Saturday night

I remember this, this was like the most gdlk thing that happened Saturday night lmao

[STenSatsu]

Btw, did any of non-top4 GG get recorded? I know Fred had 2 of the setups hooked to computers for that big screen display but wasn't sure if footage was actually recorded.

[C0R]

Shoutouts to getting wicked drunk before playing on stream and acting/playing like a douchebag

Shoutouts to DarkTalon for being the swaggest epitome of the gaming elite

Shoutouts to DDC for making everything good in my life possible

Shoutouts to Stayfree for mythic execution, being a total broheim and repping tager in tournament

Shoutouts to BurgerMcNasty for his excellent performance under the corporation's gaze

Shoutouts to Popstar for having nigga hands

Shoutouts to Scott for coming into the fold

Shoutouts to Jared for puncturing crowded bars as hard as my guard primers

Shoutouts to David for having to get off skullgirls after winning for too long

Shoutouts to the forging of the DDC Secret Weapon at the hotel room

Shoutouts to BreakerDave for taking it all

Shoutouts to Huey for green bursting in real life

Shoutouts to Shyn/Jay for coming all the way down from the motherland for his first big meet

Shoutouts to optimal combos

Shoutouts to Chun for finishing BB before 11pm on both days

Shoutouts to Myung for being the coolest guy .

Shoutouts to Nos for being the true final boss

Shoutouts to those guys playing elysium mirrors

Shoutouts to dirty california air, real true final boss

Shoutouts to Solex/Vineeth/Orion, as always, a pleasure, make sure to come up for NWM

Shoutouts to GGJ for dodging me

Entering my next tournament as 7kBnB.

Peace.

[Nakkiel]

I should do this too! Shoutouts to:

Xie and Dacid: REAL DODGING

Stayfree: Stay salty broski. For real though you're a cool dude, and you get to laugh at me for inputting MUGEN the wrong way 100 times.

Jared: Your character is dumb, you're an alcoholic and I love you

SWISS CHEESE DAVE: Awesome job winning the tournament, can't get away from being a known player now! I'll be practicing up for real next time

Burger McNasty and the Dollar Menu Mixups: You better make it up here little nigga, we didn't play any games either

Popstar: I GOT NIGGA HANDS

Solex: Come see me when your character is as beautiful as mine.

Severin for being a true bro and staying prettier than Dacidbro. Power in numbers.

SCOTTY: WELCOME TO THE MACHINE.

Chun, Myung, Orion and others who helped run/organize the tournament: You guys did an awesome job and it was a pleasure as always. Bracket matchup vs. me and Huey is 10-0, first match in Top 8 too godlike.

Super secret special shoutouts: The corrupted brotherhood that was created in the DDC hotel room. DDC and Tae for even making it possible to attend NCI, ily guys no homo. Denny's.

Fuck NOS.

[totoroslayer]

Sorry it took so long to write this, but I wanted to thank everyone who came for the best Super NCI I’ve ever had (this being the second ;P). I met so many people last weekend, I don’t know where to begin

Shoutouts to Chun, for running the three ring circus as always

Shoutouts to NOS Energy heart-attack-in-a-can

Shoutouts to the Bucket of NOS

Shoutouts to COR for being such a chill guy and being willing to host some of our guys. I hope you got to meet and hang with them anyway.

Shoutouts to CopperDabbit and his drunken master style Arakune

Apologies to Vineeth. We’ll be watching you on stream tonight!

Shoutouts to Dacidbro for proving that he wasn’t carried. And then carrying Huey.

Shoutouts to Huey. NO NORCAL IN TOP 8! errr… TOP 4! uhhh… GRAND FINALS! …… fuck. Also for being corner pressured by the drinks at the bar and being forced to burst in the car. :D

Shoutouts to BRKRDave for taking it all

Shoutouts to Severin for the Dacidbro mirror matches.

Shoutouts to MikeZ for bringing SkullGirls and for showing that old GG tricks never die.

Shoutouts to everyone else who helped make Super NCI the amazing success that it was.

For those of you who haven’t already, please take some time and “like” our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/gamecenterarcade ). All of our news and cool things get posted there first. I’ll see you all again in a few months!

-Myung

[PhaethonH]

First of the vids uploaded. This is one from honnous's TV ("station 2") on day 2, the one in front of that one flatscreen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqD3dS3CheQ

PMs or posts title & time segments for reuploads in HQ.

As videos get uploaded, they'll be added to this playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDC0B6193CB8661D9

[Chun]

I would like some opinions on holding an April NCI, which would be the 7th of next month.

Leave your comments below, the date will be confirmed on the website later.

[ShelledMenace]

...I don't really know what to say, but I'd go. lol

[Dakanya]

I've been thinking for some time that we should cut Soul Calibur from NCI, seeing as how their turnouts are much lower than the ones they host themselves.

EDIT: April 7 is kind of soon, how about April 14 and May 5th?

[Tone]

I don't really see an issue with the 7th.

Waiting until May might be a bit long, since the stream wont be available until the second week. (FKO is streaming a Sacramento tournament on the 5th and 6th)

[ehuangsan]

FWIW, I assumed it was going to be the 7th, even though I cannot make that date.

If it's the 14th, then I might be able to show.

[Spirit Juice]

First of all, I'd like to say I enjoyed myself at the event. GGs to everyone I played, and it was great seeing SoCal and PNW again... even meeting some new people! Thanks to Chun for organizing the event and Myung for hosting us there. Big shoutouts to Raikanami and MoogleParade for helping stream. Also, thanks to Jared for the drinks on Sunday.

That said, I felt like the overall event was a success but feel like it could still improve. I'll try to keep it concise and not make huge walls of text (there is a TL;DR version below, but I encourage everyone to read the entirety of this post since it'll make the TL;DR make sense). I'd also like to point out that there are several (maybe majority of people, I don't know for sure) people that feel similar to me. Some even had a negative experience as whole. Why they don't post how they felt about the event is beyond me. Maybe they're waiting for me to bring it up first. Maybe they're not or just don't care enough to post how they really felt. SoCal has, more or less, said they won't be coming back unless things change.

First things first: two day NCI. I, for one, never enjoyed the idea of a two day NCI. FKO did not want to be there for two days. From the people that I talked to, many didn't want to have to be there for two days as well. In fact, some people just showed up one day, couldn't make both days, or couldn't make one of the two days until late in the day. While having SNCI as a two day event did make things less stressful in terms of logistics and time, overall it seemed to leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth. The two day event made everything more expensive as well, since people had to eat out for two days in a row and stay at a hotel for some.

So what was the point of a two day NCI? Well, I guess you could say that by splitting it into two days, brackets day one and finals day two, it helped the tournament run smoother. Or least that was intended. Instead, we had some things happen that did not make sense to me. KOF and SCV were supposed to finish their finals on Sunday, although the games had 16 people and 15 people enter them, respectively. The SC crew complained that they didn't want to have finals on Sunday since the tournament numbers were low, so they got their wish and the entire bracket was run through. Why wasn't this done for KOF when it had similar numbers? It seemed odd that KOF did not get similar treatment (finishing up everything on Saturday) when the game takes even longer to finish than SC. KOF finals on Sunday seemed like a waste of time with what happened with SCV, which brings me to my next point...

Time. Time is always the enemy in any tournament. Tournaments usually start late. It's inevitable. Time is one of the reasons why SNCI was changed to a two day format. NCI has always had time issues, and while this one seemed to not have any on the surface since we started late and relatively finished on time (on Saturday), I think this SNCI had more time issues than any SNCI before it.

Registration started extremely late. Horribly late with no reason at all. The reasoning for starting registration late was that Chun was waiting for us, FKO, to show up. And while I do recognize that we had shown up much later than we wanted to, there was zero reason for registration to wait for us. Had registration started and ended on time, all the tournament was holding up on was for FKO to get there and set up. In that time, brackets and seeding could have been done completely before FKO arrived, meaning that the tournament would have been started ASAP once FKO was set up, rather delaying everything further by waiting for us. Again, there was no benefitting the tournament to start registration when FKO got there.

Furthermore, there was an issue with the BB brackets mid tournament. While I do appreciate OrionXElite (James) for running the BB brackets, shame on him for letting SoCal and some other people leaving to go eat dinner. Shame on them for leaving as well. There was a reason why there wasn't any stupid dinner break scheduled for SNCI, because it held up the tournament! So what happens? People leave to go eat anyways. Yes, they asked James if it was okay. Yes, James, the TO, said it was okay if they were able to come back within the hour? But what happened? They ended up delaying their matches for an hour and a half or two hours. Had I been running the brackets, I would've laughed and told them to go eat after the tournament like everyone else does. At the very least, go get a burger from the burger joint across the street; at least it's fast. It's not like we were waiting for SCV/KOF to finish up on the stream to continue the brackets either!

There were also issues of how Sunday was going to be streamed. BB should've been streamed last since it was the main event; it represents NCI no matter how many people want to deny it. It does. However, there were concerns that some people needed to leave early on Sunday because they had to work on Monday. Are you kidding me? What is the point of having SNCI as a two day event when people have to rush home to make work on Monday? I don't see a point at all.

More on time for Saturday. Catherine. Catherine Catherine Catherine. If there was anything that sucked up time more than anything else at NCI, it's this game (well, maybe Gundam as well). Seriously, this game feasts on NCI's precious time like a bloated tick. I realize that the whole point of having Catherine at this point was to try to nab an Atlus sponsorship, but what is the point of that when we have KOF in the roster? KOF is definitely more popular right now while Catherine's popularity has come and gone. Fortunately, during dinner on Sat. night it seems like it was unofficially agreed upon that there will be no more Catherine at NCI. Hopefully this turns into an official decision soon.

Catherine brings me to my next point: the current roster of games. NCI has too much bloat that takes up time. Everyone knows it. Catherine was the biggest one, but that doesn't seem to be a concern anymore at this point. Gundam vs Gundam also sucks up huge amount of time, space, and set ups. Fortunately, it was pretty much reduced to side tournament status. As much as I like the game, it needs to stay that way for the future of NCI or maybe not even have it at SNCI at all. The space that Gundam takes up can easily be used for four set ups (although they'd have to be BYOC monitors since those mounted flat screens lag) for other games. Soul Calibur doesn't need to be at NCI. While Soul Calibur isn't really a "mainstream Capcom game", the community does absolutely fine on its own and doesn't need NCI. Their own community run events pull more numbers than NCI, so I don't see the point of having it at NCI when the community can go elsewhere. Guilty Gear absolutely needs to be reduced to side tournament status for the next SNCI. No ifs ands ors or buts about it. If SNCI wants to increase its roster by two games (P4U and SG), GG needs to go as a main game. You could argue "but it had 23 people enter!", but lets be real here: there were a lot of pot monsters and out of towners that entered (myself included). Hell, the game was pretty much a side tournament on Sunday anyways, so not making it a main game won't really change anything.

So what is the point of bringing up all these things? SNCI needs to return to a one day format. Trim the fat, have enough set ups, and you can run everything in one day, even if you freeze brackets for top4/8. I guarentee it. How do I know?

Let's look at Tight or Fight V that happened the weekend before SNCI. One day event. Similar size venue. Started late. THREE FOURTY-MAN+ BRACKETS. Yes, ToF V had UMvC3, SFIV, and SFxT tournaments with 40+ people and still finished on time. KOF and SCV had small numbers but finished up quickly. Let's not forget that SFIV and SFxT are slower than BB and take longer for matches to finish. Here is how many set ups each game had: SFxT = 5 , KOF = 1, UMVC3 = 3, SSFIV = 4, SCV = 3. Pretty much anyone that entered also entered the other games, meaning everyone that entered SFIV probably entered UMVC3 and SFXT as well.

We have more than enough set ups and time to run everything in one day. We just can't have dumb stuff like "SoCal and crew is leaving to go eat for two hours" happen. My only concern is...

The cabinet set ups. This is kind of the first time I heard a lot of complaints about the cabinets, but it seems like it needs to be addressed this time. They lag, apparently. PNW said it. SoCal said it too. Maybe NorCal is used to them them or something, but an issue is an issue if people come from out of time and complain about laggy set ups. If they lag and SNCI considers itself a major, those set ups needs to be replaced as tournament set ups. They could be used as casual set ups if they are going to be used at all. My only concern is that without those set ups, we may not have enough set ups brought in by volunteers to run everything smoothly.

Sorry for the huge, long post, but I feel like all of this needed to be brought up. TL;DR version below.

TL;DR:

What needs to happen at the next SNCI

• One day format again
  
• Start registration on time regardless, only going late if absolutely necessary
  
• No one gets a god damn dinner break regardless if you ask the TO if it's okay
  
• Catherine removed from the roster
  
• Guilty Gear reduced to side tournament status, gets some stream time if time permits
  
• Gundam reduced to side tournament status (no stream time regardless) or removed entirely
  
• Soul Calibur V removed from the roster
  
• Skull Girls and Persona 4 Ultimate replace the removed games, making the total roster: BlazBlue, KOF13, Skull Girls, and Persona 4 Ultimate
  
• Replace cab set ups with PS3/ASUS set ups if possible
  

[Tari]

• One day format again
  
• Start registration on time regardless, only going late if absolutely necessary
  
• No one gets a god damn dinner break regardless if you ask the TO if it's okay
  
• Catherine removed from the roster

Yes, please.

And if you must go for dinner, finish all your matches, first.

I think we need to just start DQ-ing people, personally, but I can understand why no one wants to do that. If you ask about leaving, are given a set amount of time, and fail to meet it, though... you can't really complain if you get DQ'd, right?

• Gundam reduced to side tournament status (no stream time regardless) or removed entirely

I don't think any of the GvG folks would mind if we didn't get stream time. If we do get any streaming, it'd probably be on our own, unless Myung's internet can't support having multiple streams going.

There was some confusion this time around about whether it'd be on stream or not, but as long as it's clearly stated that it will not be streamed by NCI, it should be fine. Not sure about having to remove it entirely, but that's something you guys'll have to figure out.

[*]Replace cab set ups with PS3/ASUS set ups if possible

The purported lag on the cab setups has been mentioned many times, and there's been no real conclusion on it.

Myung's run a bunch of tests with CRTs and whatnot (and I think some other folks did, too?) and they've all come back as virtually lagless. About as good as you can get from a non-CRT monitor, anyway.

[Dakanya]

Thanks for taking the time to write this out Scott. I'd also like to mention that Southtown was having its usual KOF ranbat on Sunday which conflicted with our own KOF tourny.

[Spirit Juice]

I don't think any of the GvG folks would mind if we didn't get stream time. If we do get any streaming, it'd probably be on our own, unless Myung's internet can't support having multiple streams going.

There was some confusion this time around about whether it'd be on stream or not, but as long as it's clearly stated that it will not be streamed by NCI, it should be fine. Not sure about having to remove it entirely, but that's something you guys'll have to figure out.

There isn't enough bandwidth to go around, unfortunately. Our set up was using something like 600-800 kbps bitrate, and at one point Fred was streaming at 300 kbps bitrate on the wireless connection. Fred streaming pretty much sapped the rest of the connection's bandwidth, making the main stream lag horribly. Depending on how popular SG and P4U are going to be, I'm not sure if there will be room for any kind of Gundam tournament at the next SNCI; we may need the space. Gundam may still possibly run as a regular side tournament at regular NCIs.

[Chris]

Honestly you can fit all this fun stuff and bandwidth into one day.

All you have to do is run the goddamn tournaments on time.

The organizers are good people for sticking their necks out, of course. But they need to take their job seriously if they are going to have these positions. Keyword here job.

Can't we have fun and be professional about time simultaneously?

by the way gundam is fun, don't get rid of it.

[Tari]

There isn't enough bandwidth to go around, unfortunately. Our set up was using something like 600-800 kbps bitrate, and at one point Fred was streaming at 300 kbps bitrate on the wireless connection. Fred streaming pretty much sapped the rest of the connection's bandwidth, making the main stream lag horribly. Depending on how popular SG and P4U are going to be, I'm not sure if there will be room for any kind of Gundam tournament at the next SNCI; we may need the space. Gundam may still possibly run as a regular side tournament at regular NCIs.

Ah. I thought GameCenter's net was better than that, nowadays.

As far as needing to remove GvG to make space for the other games goes, we'll just have to see, I suppose. If it has to happen, it has to happen.

[Tone]

Thanks for taking the time to write this out Scott. I'd also like to mention that Southtown was having its usual KOF ranbat on Sunday which conflicted with our own KOF tourny.

Not like it mattered anyway. STA regulars dont show up to NCI, and the NCI regulars dont really go to STA either. The only person I can really imagine being conflicted is probably BBZ.

I didnt really find space an issue. Just people getting things done an issue.

KOF being pushed to the second day seemed pretty silly and pointless, but nobody seemed to have an issue with it. Or at least, if they did, they didnt say anything.

[[TRM]tenkai-45i[xTF]]

<Philip Chan> I apologize I don't have every single community member's information on my phone, and that updates to the website and thread aren't clear enough.

I started an entire Facebook thread for discussing a new form of scheduling for the 2-day tournament. You were even talking in it. I and a few others reposted and requoted in this very thread about problems people had with your scheduling format. Don't tell me that you just happened to not see any of it.