Battle Royal The Success of Evolution 2015

Shortly after @Gehaktbal won his qualifier to the Dead or Alive Festival, @Mr.Kwiggle came out the Dead or Alive 5 Last Round champion at Evolution 2015 in Las Vegas, NV. Many of the Dead or Alive players in attendance are reporting the great atmosphere of Evolution and great times they had with the community and their friends at the event:

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EVO 2015 - DOA5: Last Round - Top 4 Grand Finals

Reginald "Electrified Mann | MC Static" Wysinger, who placed 4th overall, had this to say:

Welp I made 4th THIS time AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHEIRICVTGSJCIFBEJD!!!!!! LMAO but had a very interesting and fun weekend here at Evo. Had a good time and got to explore this sleepless city. Was proud to still put up a variety of my character's on stream too. GG's and congrats to my buddy Kristian Mclean for the W as well as Steady Gibbs for putting up that hell of a fight. Always a pleasure to get to personally speak with and hang with Tom, Eric Small, and Shin Blanka you guy's work very hard to make these events happen and I really appreciated it. Now it's time to head back to Houston to heal and recover and I'll see you guy's again at Summer Jam with some even crazier tricks. wink emoticon (Also very hyped to see this DOA Festival in a few weeks)

Steady "CrazySteady" Gibbs, who placed 2nd overall, said the following:

Had an amazing time at EVO! Great games to my buddies Kristian & Reginald! Congrats to that cheap Christie for winning I guess lol. And of course I had to fight Hajin AGAIN! Lol that guy is just, awesome lol. Great matches as always! xD Shout outs to everyone that made it out to the event! Huge shout outs to Eric & Shin for putting it together. Special thanks to Tom as well! Without these guys, I don't know where our community will be at now! I had an awesome time! The Bryants will be back soon! It is always great to go to tournaments because you get to meet awesome people like Darryl! It was a lot of fun. See you guys soon!

Kristian "MC Kwiggle" Mclean, taking the event, reported:

Just wanted to give some shoutouts to Tom Lee, Eric SmallShin Blanka and the madcatz guys for putting together the event. Always a great time seeing you guys and got to enjoy hanging out and talking about various things. Also shout outs to the all the players that made it out to EVO like hajin, return of the shadow, and many more who helped the tournament scene. Was cool meeting you Darryl Surijpaul you need to hit up players like Sly Bass and Dan McMahon since you live right in New York, glad you enjoyed your first tournament. Lastly of course shout outs to my friendsSteady Gibbs and Reginald Wysinger. Steady for that awesome grand final. Gave the people quite a show and had people getting mad hype lol coming for blood resetting the bracket and taking it all the way to last game. Beat the crap out my bro too lol and to emann for just overall fantastic play and doing what he does best when he plays, showing why he's a top player with all those reads and counters against me and steady. Will be uploading the other top 8 matches that didn't get streamed so you guys have more hype matches to see. Can't wait to go make the USA proud at this DOA Festival In a couple weeks

It wasn't just the players sending in good reports, but the tournament organizers as well. Eric "Big E" Smalls and Tom Lee of Team NINJA reported good times with players and the camraderie between the players made for a great weekend. Larry "Shin Blanka" Dixon made an excellent plea to the community in how we are coming from a solid showing and with Summer Jam, The Fall Classic, Absolute Battle, and the Battle Royal finals Northeast Championships showing good numbers we can represent Dead or Alive as one of the best 3D fighters in the FGC:

On the behalf of FINAL ROUND LLC, BIG E GAMING, and TEAM NINJA I would like to thank EVERYONE that attended this event at EVOLUTION 2015. Also everyone needs to thank the EVOLUTION staff for allowing this to happen. I was very pleased with the turnout since this was a side tournament at EVO. This is a stepping stone moment imo and we as a community need to take advantage of this if you guys ever want a true chance to be on the EVOLUTION main stage. Of course we would need more people to attend offline events at our traditional doa majors to show our scene is growing. If KI can get on EVOLUTION main game list why can't doa? If we can get at least 128 at summer jam and at tfc, 64 at paradise, and 200 plus at nec I think that would be a huge statement as a growing scene. I know times are rough to travel to that many events for those that are super active in the offline tournament scene but we have sooooooo many players in this group in so many parts of the country and world that it shouldn't be a hard task if everyone in this community wants doa officially at evo. We have to show growth guys plain and simple. I know team ninja Tom Lee will continue to support the doa community and it helps him when he can show the corporation in the meetings that his efforts are not wasted. We cannot do this without you guys. Let's make the second half of the battle Royale season something nobody will forget of deny!

I normally don't do this but I have to say something. Big unshoutout to all those former fake doa players that was at evo and didn't enter the event. Those that look me and Eric in the face and didn't even come over to the booth where we were set up. WHEN doa grows and is on the main stage of evo next year we don't want your kind back. I'm not saying any names and don't pm me about this because I have zero to say to any of you!

There were also reports of various Fighting Game sub-communities tuning in to the Evolution festivities and watching the DOA5LR side streams along with the Evo main streams.

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Dead or Alive was given an opportunity thanks to the Tournament Organization of Big E Gaming, and it honestly didn't disappoint by having over fifty (50) entrants in the side tournament, higher than most if not all of the other side tournaments at Evolution. Time will tell if we will ever make it into the main roster at Evolution, but the biggest deciding factor on that is you and the members of the Dead or Alive community. Keep up the good work, promote your game and your friends, and help the community by trying to attend the Battle Royal Finale at North East Championships in Philadelphia, PA on the first weekend of December (December 4-5, 2015). We have grown the scene so much since the days of Dead or Alive 3 and Dead or Alive 4, together we can keep the train moving.

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• The Quest of Finding a Community Within the FGC

 

Wait. Shin Blanka mentioned that there were DOA players there that didn't even enter the event. Did that really happen, @Mr. Wah?

Yes.

 

Yes.

Shameful

 

Shameful

It probably was old school players who have moved on to more profitable games, but the side tournament had a $1K pot + entry fees, so there was still money to be made.

 

You can't force people to enter tournaments that do not want to play. No reason to hold grudges.

 

I believe it was just older players who lost interest in the game. Even though my entire practice regime consisted of 4 ranked games on PC, I still entered. I think it may be a case of some people having too much pride to show up and get their asses handed to them, but who knows. I can also see a certain amount of disappointment in some, that they supported it for a long time but didn't feel any return from it whatsoever, but that seems just as arrogant. It could have also been conflicting time schedules, since MK was running at about the same time.

Of course, this is all just an opinion/speculation and I am by no means a good source into their situations. I just feel it is a shame to see people I competed with before not show any support to the game. The real problem was the suffocating amount of smash players taking up every station for casuals resulting in me getting next to no casual games in the main halls. Bastards.

 

Glad you had a great time! It looked like an awesome tournament. To be fair, the reason why DOA doesn't get on to the main roster of games is because the EVO organizers fucking hate the game or have beef with it going back to the abysmal DOA4 at EVO. I.e., they don't care to support it. However I was still pleased with how the side tournament went (considering that SC & VF got fuck all) and am excited to see how DOA5LR does next year whether as another side-game or finally being added as a "main" game.

Kudos to all that helped DOA5LR be a part of EVO2015!

Yeah, I've heard about that before when I was in Eventhubs. Even what happen back then, things might become better with more people to give DOA the support it needs. When I wanted to go to EVO, DOA5LR tournament was the main reason why I wanted to enter plus being able to try out Tekken 7 (even was part of the tournament, despite Tekken 7 didn't have US release for Arcades). By the time DOA5LR was done, I just went back to My room to let My feet recover (since standing around was killing My feet) and did some gambling. It would be amazing for DOA5LR is part of the main roster.

You can't force people to enter tournaments that do not want to play. No reason to hold grudges.

While people have right to choose whether they want to enter the tournament or not is up to them (or if they can afford going to Vegas) which is not a problem. But when these people that were at EVO, sign their name, gave their $15 which they may not get their money back once the tournament began, and wound up disqualified because they didn't come or they were even here once the tournament began which they may end up complaining to the hosts on facebook about them being disqualified. That's when these people get the unshout for not showing up.

The ones that didn't enter in the first place or come to EVO, the only downside if they enjoy DOA or wants it to be part of EVO is that the chances of main titles may never happen, depending on how many players enter the tournament.

 

I feel it is a little early to "cast out" those "fake DoA players". I think those fakes are easier to recruit than lets say those of us that are geographically challenged. It's like how a winning sports team gets more fans, it's just the natural. Once DoA grows, they'll come knocking, but they won't get the VIP seats.

 

Big thanks to everyone that enjoyed the commentary. I had a blast doing it. The criticisms of some of my inaccuracies were totally fair. I rewatched it after and saw some things, then heard what I said, and thought, "Well, that was a mistake". I definitely had some screw-ups and left some things out there that deserved commentary. I will say it was the most awkward position I've ever been in to be by myself on the stage between the fighters, who were the real stars of the show. I know I do best with someone next to me that knows every single little detail of the game mechanics and has a sharper eye than I do on picking up the nuance.

That being said, I f*cking loved every minute of it. The matches were absolutely great. And the intensity was there. And I consider it my job, every time I'm on the mic, to get DOA fans and non-DOA fans alike excited to watch this wonderful, rich, complex game of ours. Seriously, I've been to so many tournaments where DOA finals are going on and there's ZERO energy. Meanwhile people are losing their minds over Smash, SF, Marvel, or even *ugh* Tekken (kidding, but not kidding).

At EVO that was simply not the case. We were on a great stage and as finals went on our section got louder and bigger. People standing in line to play other games at the MadCatz booth went from dismissing us, to being locked-in viewers. I specifically remember moments in which we had people who were watching main event turn their heads to see what was going on with us on our stage. And that was further compounded later with people I've never met or seen stopping me the rest of the day to tell me they never knew that DOA had that many people and could be that hype. For that it's my proudest moment as a member of the DOA community.

I love doing commentary and I'm gonna bust my ass to step my technical game up and become closer to the all-around knowledgable commentator you guys deserve. This community is awesome, full of awesome people for an awesome game. We had a great showing at EVO. It was a massive step toward elevating our game and community to the levels of respect and admiration we can achieve. We should all be proud and energized to continue the momentum at the various awesome tournaments over the course of the rest of the year.