Back from FR as of like 2 hours ago. A shame that I didn't get to see the finals but oh well. Lots more great play coming in the next few months.
I spent most of the weekend helping Kazunoko, Itazan and KitasenjuDJ get around and do all of their stuff instead of actually playing. As I posted in the FR thread Saturday night, they ended up in my room and it was going to be the 5 of us in there until their room got cleared out at the last second, lol. Sunday morning, I met up with Kazunoko and Abegen to watch Xrd which was awesome as fuck. There was some seriously crazy play in that and despite the 6-0 blow-up in GFs was really awesome all around. After that, we went up to their room and hung out until I went down with KitasenjuDJ to find Filipinoman to do a match. That ended up with having everyone playing KitasenjuDJ for like 3-4 hours in one of the side rooms which was awesome.
For pools, I got to Winner's Semi-Finals and got blown up by KBrad's Cammy. I know I could have played that much up way better but I definitely gotta grind more to play at the level I'm imagining how the fights turn out. I just barely lost to an Abel in loser's when I should have just straight won it. Blegh. Oh well, not bad for my 3rd out of state major in SF4, not counting Topanga Banzuke.
I got blown up in DOA but that was to be expected since I just started recently. It's a hella fucking legit game though, So much fun to play with folks that are doing it competitively.
I didn't get into Xrd as I mentioned in the FR thread. All my pools were roughly around 10am on Saturday morning and since USF4 has been my main game recently, I did that instead. Luckily, DOA5 was running a bit behind and I was able to play it. Thanks to the DOA folks for being understanding. In Xrd, they DQ'd and said they'd put me into a later pull like a late reg for to make up for putting me in an early pool but they ended up not putting me in anyway so I just got my reg fee back.
I did get to play in a Persona side tournament on Saturday night after it getting delayed a whole day.. Got beat by a Yousuke 1st round, beat a Kanji in Loser's and got a bye, then lost to DC's Yukari. I definitely need to play the game more too but lack of setups for the game at all except for before the tournament and just general lack of players for the game outside of events has made it harder for me to keep my Ken playing at the speed I want.
General thoughts on FR as a tournament: The venue was pretty good. The hotel layout is interesting with the central area being where folks could gather between matches. The arcade cabinets were really nice to have in the main area and was really fun. The large number of players attending really helped bring the atmosphere up and there was always something going on which was pretty great. There were a ton of great matches offline too which is a nice little bonus for attendees.
However, as I mentioned in the FR thread on Friday, I think there were a lot of things that could be done to improve the event. I spoke with RoninChaos, who's been involved with the event for a long time, about it at length on Saturday. A lot of what I talked about wasn't just at FR but a lot of other events as far as I can tell from pictures, spoken accounts, and all that. Things like configuring setups to be more conducive to crowds watching offline matches and walking space to general roles to help make the event run smoother.
I may do a more detailed post tomorrow when I have a bit of free time during work and if RoninChaos doesn't mind me talking about it a little here on GAF.
