Anyway, let's get started... *ahem*
East Coast Throwdown is this weekend. For those who don't know what that is, it's a fighting game tournament set in New Jersey. In order to prepare for this occasion, I'd like to talk about my past experiences of an epic quest that I've spent for 6 years. Well it's not that epic, but you know what I'm getting at.
The truth is this: finding a community to support within the FGC isn't easy to do. Sure you can start your own, but the hard part about it is when you have to find players that are willing to play the same fighting game that you play.
For instance, I live in Maryland. In my state, we have a Smash Bros. community, Marvel community, Street Fighter community, and many more within the Maryland FGC. We would have gatherings at Xanadu in Baltimore and Coin-Up in Waldorf. Every Thursday (used to be Wednesday, then Friday in the past), Xanadu would have weeklies. On Tuesdays, they will have weeklies for the Smash Community. And every once a month we would have Monthlies, which takes place on one Saturday a month.
But where did my love for fighting games begin? Back in my childhood days, I've been playing fighting games since I was 4. My parents got me a Sega Saturn for Christmas and the first game I've played was Virtua Fighter Remix. It made me fell in love with playing fighting games. Since then, it would evolve to playing other fighters such as Tekken, Street Fighter Alpha, Fighters Megamix, and many others.
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Ah, Virtua Fighter Remix... I would like to thank you for making my childhood awesome!
Fast forward to 2009. Street Fighter IV came out to consoles and it revived the FGC. And this is where it begins for me...
Now I'm gonna be real when I say this: it took me 6 long years to find a community to belong to within the FGC. I started out with the Street Fighter scene when SF4 came out to consoles. After school, I would go to my local arcade (which is surprising still up to this day) and play Tekken 5, Capcom vs. SNK 2, and many others. After playing one of the guys in Capcom vs. SNK 2, he invited me to a local Street Fighter 4 tournament in Greenbelt, MD. It was my first tournament, and I sucked. I sucked really bad. Holy crap...
But when I was in high school, I remember one of my friends showing me EVO Moment #37 for the first time in Computer Graphics 2 class. Holy shit, I was hype. I can see it now, a friend of mines showed me Daigo Umehara vs. Justin Wong in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. When Justin went for the SA2 with Chun-Li, Daigo parried EVERY SINGLE HIT and then made a comeback win with only a pixel of health! Hot damn, did the crowd go wild! I was stunned!
The moment that sparked hype within the FGC.
I went to Japan after I graduated from high school. During my trip, I managed to pick up a copy of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes for the Wii. Played it, but didn't find a scene for it. So I tried Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for the first time online, and of course I had a long way to go. But then I noticed that it wasn't the scene for me because I started too late.
In order to level up my game, I decided to join a fighting game forum. I started with Shoryuken.com, but I made the worst first impression ever by promoting one of my videos on the site. As a result, I got trolled hard, and at the same time I was accused of trolling. I was new to this at the time, so I didn't know better. Because of that, I got a taste of what the online FGC was like, and it wasn't friendly. In addition, I stopped playing Street Fighter as a whole and played 3D fighters such as Tekken 6 and more of Virtua Fighter 5.
I joined two more forum sites such as Tekken Zaibatsu and VFDC (a forum site for Virtua Fighter players). I posted more often on those sites compared to SRK to get away from that scarring moment. But thanks to a friend online, I got back on playing on Street Fighter again 7 months later, starting with Super SF2 Turbo HDR. I've played HDR since 2008, so it was a good warm-up before SSF4 came out. Since then, I gave Street Fighter a second chance with Super SF4, and joined Eventhubs.
It felt so good playing with people who you know online. But... it wasn't enough. Since then, I've started watching more fighting game streams for the first time, especially when it came to watch my first EVO event live on stream. When I transferred into UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County), I needed to find a scene within my area. That's when I heard about Xanadu for the first time. I've always wanted to go at first, but because I had a fear of the backlash, that's what held me back.
In 2011, I went to the college's game room for the very first time. They had a scene for Street Fighter and Smash. And my god, it kinda opened my eyes. By the time Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Mortal Kombat 9 came out, more and more people came to the game room to play it. But I didn't find much joy into playing those games because I wasn't feeling neither one of the game's communities. Don't get me wrong, I respect their communities and I enjoy watching high-level gameplay from these competitors. It's just that it didn't peak my interests.
During the summer while I worked at Staples, I met a guy who played fighters. He invited me into his house, and we played Super SF4 AE and Mortal Kombat 9. He whooped my ass, but I managed to get better overtime. Then KOF XIII came out a few months later, and I managed to get people to play the game in the game room. Too bad the consoles they had on there at the time was just old as dirt.
2012 was when things took off. I got involved with Soulcalibur V, Street Fighter X Tekken (although the game had so many controversies), Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and last but not least: Dead or Alive 5. I tried Soulcalibur V, but I did it only to pass the time before SFxT came out. By the time SFxT came out, I did 2v2 with other players in my college. But because of the controversy with the game (DLC-gate, Cross Assault incident, etc.), it was hard to support the scene. Thus, I ended up abandoning it.
Goodbye, SFxT...
Virtua Figther 5 Final Showdown was coming out in June. Because I wanted to show my knowledge on VF on EH, I decided to make a super guide on here to get ready for the release of the game. I played VF so many times, but by the time I kept playing, there were less and less people playing it. I still play the game, but it was hard finding offline competition. I hear SOVA (Southern Virginia), California, and New York all have a small VF community. On top of that: NYGX is only a few months away, and it's a VF-only tournament for Virtua Fighter 3TB, Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned, Virtua Fighter 5 R and Final Showdown.
Only at Next Level.
Ah, I'm getting a bit sidetracked here. A few months later, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 came out, and I had no intention on playing this game competitively. On top of that, I wasn't feeling it because the game felt overhyped to me (Sorry guys). Sure, they had free on-disc DLC, a Snoop-Dogg stage, and all that jazz. But I wasn't feeling the mechanics at all. I'll give Tekken another shot once Tekken 7 comes out (or if Bandai Namco decides to bring it to Summer Jam this year).
When Dead or Alive 5 was released on September 25th, I wanted to support that game. I made a guide for it on Eventhubs like I did with VF. I played it non-stop after watching it in tournaments. In order to get connected with the DOA community, I joined DOAWorld first (little did I know it was just a fan site for DOA and Ninja Gaiden), and Free Step Dodge (a site for competitive DOA players). It was then and there where I finally went to Xanadu for the very first time after years of procrastination and doubt in order to play some DOA offline. At the same time, I met new players and got reacquainted with an old high school friend who I played Fatal Fury Special with at school in front of 40 people. That was when I met the owner of FSD, Matt Ponton (who goes by @Mr. Wah in FSD). He was a top Bass player, and I learned how to play DOA on a competitive level.
But it didn't stop there. You see, I joined the Competitive Dead or Alive Group page which was started by Perfect Legend in 2013 on Facebook. When DOA5 Ultimate came out, I decided to compete in a major for it. I started going to The Fall Classic on September 2013, and it was my first time competing in a major. I made 1-2 in my debut. Along the way, I met Team Ninja's creative director Tom Lee, some people that I met on FSD, and also top players such as Perfect Legend, MASTER, Kwiggle and his brother SonicFox, and Justin Wong. It was something that I will never forget.
It also opened up to me competing in other areas, like being on stream for the FilthieCup for DOA5 Ultimate, and going to Summer Jam 8. Greg (a fellow DOA player who goes by the name of @Gill Hustle) made a documentary for DOA5U at Summer Jam 8 for The Road to TFC. If you got the time, I'd give it a watch. Pretty fun stuff.
Get to know the real DOA community.
To this day, no matter how many times I get the haters talking about the DOA community whether it's at my college, or on EH and Kotaku, other members of the FGC, or even from people who don't play video games or fighting games in general, I've found a community that I want to support. Since then, I am now helping Team Ninja and Big E Gaming on keeping score for Battle Royal 2015: a tour for DOA tournaments. Most recently, Team Ninja announced the Dead or Alive Festival, which is a tournament dedicated to DOA players around the world located in Tokyo, Japan. If you are curious on who's in the lead in the series, check out the current standings.
Battle Royal 2015: The current tournament series for DOA. SoCal Regionals is rescheduled for October, while ECT takes place this weekend.
All I can tell you guys is this: you aren't going to find a community if you are just sitting around in your house and doing nothing. You can either start your own or find one in your area. Sometimes there a Facebook group page based on the scene near you. Check them out because they usually have awesome gatherings.
Food, friends, great times. And also, Pacman.
It took me 6 years to find a community that I belong to. But I didn't give up. I'm not a top player or anything like that. I love fighting games, I love the FGC, and most of all: I love the hype!
That's it. That's the end. If you will excuse me, I'll be going to the lab now...
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