Warning: Epic warstory incoming!
I woke up at like 5AM EST, about half an hour before my alarm was set to go off. Went and took a shower and whatnot, got my stuff ready, and left the house by about 6AM. Arrived at the convention center just after 7AM.
Stood around for a while, eventually pointing out to a swarm of rabid 13~ year olds that Marriland was Marriland, which created quite the ruckus! Said hi, shook hands with him at one point, and went to continue loitering a bit. I met Mosquitox in line. He asked me if I was from Smogon, and at that point I recognized the image on his shirt from his post the night before. While in line waiting for registration to start some writer from "The Examiner" handed me his card after seeing my JAA medal and asked me for an interview after the senior division was over.
Eventually they opened registration, I got #19, Ratatta. A few minutes after I was registered, I heard from ExpertEvan that he had arrived, and went to find him in line. Chatted him and his son up for a while, then met HnH and chatted with him for a bit.
I was on my way back to my car to grab a drink, since $2 for a can of coke is bullshit, and Carl called me. I grabbed my drink and found him in line. Evan, his son, and HnH found us shortly after, and we talked for a bit.
Eventually all of us were registered. We hung around bullshitting for a while, with BlueCookies joining our little group after he got registered. About 20-30 minutes before they put up the list of who got to play, the group of us headed back to the main room. This cocky little like 13 year old kid tried to sneak a peek at my DS, which resulted in me giving him a firm elbow to the chest. We spent the rest of the time waiting for the announcement making fun of random people and trying not to pass out from the large amount of fat nerd farts that were floating around the room. As one girl proclaimed, "Oh my god, it's worse than the Otakon game room!"
Finally they posted the list of numbers. Took a while to really see everything, since a bunch of tall people with big heads were crowded around the screens, which honestly should've been about 10' higher in the air so everyone could see them. Eventually, the big headed giants moved, and we were able to see....
NOBODY from the group of Smogoners that had gathered got in. 560+ people were signed up for the seniors event. I was #19. The first two numbers called were 10 and 22 =\ We grumbled for a minute, the crowd started thinning out, and we sorta just hung around unsure of what to do. I spotted Chuckie aka Shaka Khan, who made it to the NYC finals of JAA after winning the JAA Cincinnati stop. He didn't make the cut either, nor did his friend. Shaka left immediately, while most of us hung around and battled each other/randoms for about half an hour. Jonathan(that's his forum name) found our group after his R1 match, which he lost.. to DRAGON RUSH GARCHOMP. I battled him twice, and if my memory is correct it was one win for each of us. Eventually though, we started getting bored, and Carl and I left during the semifinals.
Props: The cool people I met. Oh, and Carl, I guess.
Slops: Nintendo, for fucking this up, HARD. Turning away 80-90% of the people wanting to play in your tournament PROBABLY means that you should figure out a way to let more people play. At the very least, having some sort of filter to weed out the people who have no clue what they're doing would be helpful. People with pokemon below level 50(not accounting for FEAR), etc.
The VGC's main faults for the most part fall under these two things:
1) The sign-up system -- The JAA preregistration system had some issues, sure. People signed up and didn't show, or signed up multiple times. It was still better than pulling names out of a hat, though. People knew ahead of time whether they had a guaranteed spot.
2) Location, location, location -- More specifically, not enough of them. Philadelphia ended up drawing pretty much all of New England, all of the East Coast above Virginia, as well as states from as far west as Wisconsin. There were even a few people from Toronto. As a result, barely anyone good got in, and people with things like Bubblebeam Empoleon and Flash Bronzong made it for 3 or 4 rounds.
So uh, yeah.. Nintendo, if you're reading this.. more locations, preregistration, and (I'm really going out on a limb here) better ventilation. Lots of gassy nerds are no fun for ANYBODY.
I woke up at like 5AM EST, about half an hour before my alarm was set to go off. Went and took a shower and whatnot, got my stuff ready, and left the house by about 6AM. Arrived at the convention center just after 7AM.
Stood around for a while, eventually pointing out to a swarm of rabid 13~ year olds that Marriland was Marriland, which created quite the ruckus! Said hi, shook hands with him at one point, and went to continue loitering a bit. I met Mosquitox in line. He asked me if I was from Smogon, and at that point I recognized the image on his shirt from his post the night before. While in line waiting for registration to start some writer from "The Examiner" handed me his card after seeing my JAA medal and asked me for an interview after the senior division was over.
Eventually they opened registration, I got #19, Ratatta. A few minutes after I was registered, I heard from ExpertEvan that he had arrived, and went to find him in line. Chatted him and his son up for a while, then met HnH and chatted with him for a bit.
I was on my way back to my car to grab a drink, since $2 for a can of coke is bullshit, and Carl called me. I grabbed my drink and found him in line. Evan, his son, and HnH found us shortly after, and we talked for a bit.
Eventually all of us were registered. We hung around bullshitting for a while, with BlueCookies joining our little group after he got registered. About 20-30 minutes before they put up the list of who got to play, the group of us headed back to the main room. This cocky little like 13 year old kid tried to sneak a peek at my DS, which resulted in me giving him a firm elbow to the chest. We spent the rest of the time waiting for the announcement making fun of random people and trying not to pass out from the large amount of fat nerd farts that were floating around the room. As one girl proclaimed, "Oh my god, it's worse than the Otakon game room!"
Finally they posted the list of numbers. Took a while to really see everything, since a bunch of tall people with big heads were crowded around the screens, which honestly should've been about 10' higher in the air so everyone could see them. Eventually, the big headed giants moved, and we were able to see....
NOBODY from the group of Smogoners that had gathered got in. 560+ people were signed up for the seniors event. I was #19. The first two numbers called were 10 and 22 =\ We grumbled for a minute, the crowd started thinning out, and we sorta just hung around unsure of what to do. I spotted Chuckie aka Shaka Khan, who made it to the NYC finals of JAA after winning the JAA Cincinnati stop. He didn't make the cut either, nor did his friend. Shaka left immediately, while most of us hung around and battled each other/randoms for about half an hour. Jonathan(that's his forum name) found our group after his R1 match, which he lost.. to DRAGON RUSH GARCHOMP. I battled him twice, and if my memory is correct it was one win for each of us. Eventually though, we started getting bored, and Carl and I left during the semifinals.
Props: The cool people I met. Oh, and Carl, I guess.
Slops: Nintendo, for fucking this up, HARD. Turning away 80-90% of the people wanting to play in your tournament PROBABLY means that you should figure out a way to let more people play. At the very least, having some sort of filter to weed out the people who have no clue what they're doing would be helpful. People with pokemon below level 50(not accounting for FEAR), etc.
The VGC's main faults for the most part fall under these two things:
1) The sign-up system -- The JAA preregistration system had some issues, sure. People signed up and didn't show, or signed up multiple times. It was still better than pulling names out of a hat, though. People knew ahead of time whether they had a guaranteed spot.
2) Location, location, location -- More specifically, not enough of them. Philadelphia ended up drawing pretty much all of New England, all of the East Coast above Virginia, as well as states from as far west as Wisconsin. There were even a few people from Toronto. As a result, barely anyone good got in, and people with things like Bubblebeam Empoleon and Flash Bronzong made it for 3 or 4 rounds.
So uh, yeah.. Nintendo, if you're reading this.. more locations, preregistration, and (I'm really going out on a limb here) better ventilation. Lots of gassy nerds are no fun for ANYBODY.
