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Kotaku: Fans Are Ripping The Halo World Championship For Its Shabby Venue

Trup1aya

Member
Has anyone from 343 commented on the venue issues?

Lol I'll cry tears of joy the day 343 owns up to anything.

They just grit their teeth and, pretend everything is fine, and claim that they are learning/growing.

Seriously, a simple "the event should have been seen unforgettable celebration of our competitors and their fans from all over the globe. this venue fell way short of that expectation. For that we apologize and promise to do better" would go a long way.
 
343 should have never taken Halo from MLG. What a disaster.

Pretty much, seems like they have no idea what's going over there. What makes it worse is the pics Frank posted like everything is all good and games. I usually stay away from shit like this but man I grew up on Halo and still love it, so quite pissed to see how it was handled at this year's event.

What's also worse, there was no check presented to the winning team, and the trophy looked like some rushed bullshit, probably made from random pieces of metal found on the grounds of that campus. Come on.
 
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LOL HOLY SHIT!
I just spit my tea everywhere.
11/10
Incredible stuff
 

RexNovis

Banned
Refusing to comment after various competitors voice their extreme disappointment is not how you grow a brand. What the hell are 343 even thinking? How does not commenting help anyone here? Ignoring things doesn't make them disappear. The very people they depend on for the success of this charade are going to remember and seeing as this a job for many of them they sure as hell aren't going to be forgetting. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see some teams move on after this amateur hour display and the total lack of responses to it.
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
Refusing to comment after various competitors voice their extreme disappointment is not how you grow a brand. What the hell are 343 even thinking? How does not commenting help anyone here? Ignoring things doesn't make them disappear. The very people they depend on for the success of this charade are going to remember and seeing as this a job for many of them they sure as hell aren't going to be forgetting. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see some teams move on after this amateur hour display and the total lack of responses to it.

Expected a measured, PR heavy and marketing vetted response in a few days. Something about being sorry, an apology, something about learning and growing and how much they care and take fans concerns seriously.

If they bother at all.
 

CyReN

Member
New impressions:

One from a former top player that came as a spectator - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqHTqOk_h7s

and another from Enemies Aglow at Beyond:

Hey Beyond. I've lurked for quite a while but finally made an account to jot down my experience attending Worlds as a spectator. I'm going to try to avoid retreading on topics that have already been discussed at length, but I'm sure there will be some overlap. I figured the more honest information out there about this event the better. Leggo.

- Friday

My pal Vulture am I and I arrived in Burbank on Friday night and stayed at a hotel relatively near the venue. He drove down from a work conference in San Jose and I flew in from Minnesota. We were unable to make it out before Friday and airport streaming was a no-go so I missed out on all the hype Day 1 matches. Caught up on the scores Friday night and prepped for Saturday.

- ”Super" Saturday

First match was scheduled for 10am so we wanted to arrive early to check out the ”Festival" before catching the first series. We walked to the venue and arrived around 8:45 to hop in line. The line to enter was in the dirt along the train tracks that run parallel to the venue, so that wasn't great. Sandman was the first guy in line, we thought it was strange that he was stuck out with the plebs since he had a Media badge (sick TB cutout btw). The guys in front of us said the venue opened at 9:30 on Friday so we waiting it out and laughed at the event welcome sign getting blown over in the wind.

By the time the gates opened at 9:45 a pretty large line had formed, but we had less than 10 people in front of us so we felt pretty confident about getting seats for the match. As we went to enter we were pulled aside and told to wait until all the badge holders had entered as we had not checked in on Friday. So we started a new line and watched 80% of the old line (and our hour plus of waiting) enter the venue. Once we got checked in and into the venue we went straight to the main stage hoping to still get seats. Luckily, we had no trouble getting in as it seemed most of the crowd had gone to the ”Fanfare Tent" for FFA matches. We watched Liquid 4-0 Str8 and then headed out of the studio to check out the rest of the venue. I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise after seeing pictures, but the word ”Festival" turned out to be a bit of a stretch.

- Merch Tent


Tent with team and ESL merch available for purchase. Set up by Viewing Tent on Saturday (bad location) and by the Raffle Tent on Sunday (good location).


- Raffle Tent

All spectators were given a raffle ticket each day upon entry. Drawings held every half hour for a huge variety of Halo merch given away near the studio. A40's to MegaBlocks, merch ran the gamut. There were A LOT of prizes and it seemed like an individual winning something was the norm rather than the exception. Also had the best music (only music?) playing in the venue.


- Food Trucks


Two trucks on Saturday, two different trucks on Sunday. Food was excellent, but the lines were a logistical nightmare on Saturday. They tried to line people up for both trucks in between the two trucks, not in front of the trucks. People didn't realize there was a line (or ignored it) and jumped in front of the trucks skipping the line all together. Some players were told they had to wait in line (see Ninja's tweet here), others weren't. If that was confusing to read, it was worse trying to live it. And the task of coordinating this disaster was left to one ESL employee. He tried his best, but it was ROUGH. They ditched the structured lines on Sunday and just let people form their own line in front of the truck of their choosing. Much better.

- Facilities

Restrooms were provided in the form of luxury port-a-potty trailers. That sounds ridiculous, but they were surprisingly nice. I believe there were a total of 8 units and never had an issue getting into one when needed. There was plenty of water provided throughout the venue.

- Fanfare Tent


In case there was any confusion, the Fanfare Tent and the FFA Tent were the same tent. I heard you could play Halo Wars 2 in there and it looked like there was a TV with the stream on and a few couches, but as neither of us were in the FFA we didn't spend much time here.

- Warthog

There was a Warthog.

- Viewing Tent


The infamous. This one is tricky to talk about due to all the emotion and conflict surrounding the topic. I'll try to stick with the facts in this section. As far as tents go, this one was pretty nice. Definitely large enough for the ”overflow" crowd and it was cooled by an air system so the temperature was very comfortable. The bleachers were pretty standard. Narrow, hard, literal pain-in-the-ass. Seats on the right hand side were taped to designate them as the waiting line for main stage seating, though the only way to find this out was to be told by the person guarding the studio entrance. An ESL employee was always present in the tent and would notify you if there was sufficient space in main studio (hint: there wasn't).

The main stream was displayed on a very large jumbotron-style display, but the native screen resolution was so low you could barely read any text on the screen. Audio was fine once they brought the volume up. The secondary stream was shown on a flatscreen TV in the corner of the room with only the TV speakers to compete with the large speakers of the main stream.


- Bravo Stream


Although designated on the campus map shown online and on the rear of our badges, spectators were not allowed into the Bravo Stream studio. Per the ESL staff member in the Viewing Tent, the only way to watch the Bravo matches was on the TV in the corner of the tent. It's hard to overstate how disappointing this was. Became a non-issue once they consolidated all matches to the main steam, unacceptable before that.


- Main Stream


Not much to be said here that hasn't been said before. Studio could hold 120 spectators: 30 Legendary passes, 60 standard passes, 30 seats reserved by ESL for friends/family of players or anyone else deemed important enough to watch games live. It seemed as though the room could hold at least 30, possibly 60 more seats. I assume (hope) the limit was set due to fire or safety regulations. The seats were small, hard, and zip-tied together. Would have been great for a 2nd Grade field trip, less so for grown adults. Hopefully you were planning on getting intimate with your fellow fans.

As shown on stream, the stage looked great. With the lights and colors going it's quite a spectacle. The center screen is great if you can see it. The center seats have the only chance of seeing the entire screen as it is ground level and the player rows are set forward of the screen. There was also constant media staff working in front of the screen, particularly as the end of a match drew near. Made for some great shots for the stream, but a pain to spectate live. The primary screen was supplemented by two TVs on the left and right of the stage. All commentary, analysis, and interview stations were in the rear of the studio.

- ”Super" Saturday (continued)


Back to Saturday. We left the main venue and wandered around to scope out what the rest of the event was like. Once we had our fill of disappointment we went back to the main studio only to be turned away as it had filled up. We were told to go wait in the taped off area of the viewing tent for seats to open up. That sounded almost as ridiculous as it actually was, so we hung around the merch tent hoping to walk in once the current match was over. I guess we looked like we were loitering, because a second ESL staff member told us if we weren't doing anything we needed to go to the tent as standing in the main lane in front of the studio was a fire lane safety hazard. Cool.

We went to the Viewing tent and watched matches/sulked for a few hours until we were let back into the main venue. We caught the better part of the last three matches and were lucky enough to watch the incredible Str8 - Splyce series. We both blew our voices by the end of that series.


We headed back to our hotel and planned to return around 10am on Sunday to get seats during the FFA and then just not leave for the rest of the day. Nah, imagine?


- Championship Sunday


We checked out of our hotel and made our way to the event. We arrived around 9:45, the venue was already open, and the main stage was already full. In retrospect, I'm not sure what we were thinking arriving so late. The only we got in on Saturday was because the FFA was going on, and the only FFA action on Sunday was on the main stage. Wish we would have done it differently in retrospect, but I refuse to beat myself up about it as the whole situation was messed up.

We got into line in the Viewing Tent and crossed our fingers. There were 9 people ahead of us, and 5 of those were in a group that wanted to go in together. We felt pretty good about our odds of getting in as there was going to be at least 4 hours between when we got in line and the finals starting. Again, nah, imagine?

We spent all of Sunday in the Viewing Tent. If you saw the picture of the tent with the lopsided crowd, that entire side of the tent was the line to get in. 7 of the 9 people in front of us made it in.

As depressing and ridiculous as that situation was, I do have to give credit to the event team for stepping up the Viewing Tent experience on Sunday. Much of the staff from 343 spent the entire day in the tent with us, and the rest of the crew cycled through when they had breaks. There was a separate raffle exclusively for those in the Viewing Tent and they did a few ”crowd games" during downtime (shoutout to the kid who turned his shirt backwards in half a second). They also provided snacks and soda in the afternoon. No one came out and said it, but the attitude seemed to say, ”We get that this sucks."

The matches were great, and our adorable, lopsided tent got pretty hype during the big moments, but it was a pathetic experience compared to being in the studio.


- Conclusion


Was this event worth the $40 price of admission for the two days I went? Yes. I won more than $40 in prizes and I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy watching fantastic matches of Halo surrounded by people that share my passion, even in the tent. That alone is worth $40.

Was this event worth the $600+ I spent on travel and lodging? No. I don't think it was.

I bought my tickets thinking it would be like the MLG events I went to 7+ years ago and I was let down in almost every way. And that's not intended to be a shot at ESL, 343, or any single party in particular. At this point, I don't really care where the blame ends up. I just want to put my experience out there so hopefully we can improve in the future. I was sad when I left Burbank not because I was reluctant to leave the hype, but because I was disappointed.
 

Rymuth

Member
Pretty much, seems like they have no idea what's going over there. What makes it worse is the pics Frank posted like everything is all good and games.

Refusing to comment after various competitors voice their extreme disappointment is not how you grow a brand. What the hell are 343 even thinking? How does not commenting help anyone here? Ignoring things doesn't make them disappear. The very people they depend on for the success of this charade are going to remember and seeing as this a job for many of them they sure as hell aren't going to be forgetting. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see some teams move on after this amateur hour display and the total lack of responses to it.
This isn't new news. Recall when the Halo cup was cancelled because of MCC being... what it is.

Everythingfibenothingtoseehere.gif
 

IHaveIce

Banned
Wow thanks for posting these here CyRen.

These tell alot.

Can't believe there are people here who think I made the thread to shitpost about Halo and Xbox.. lmao.
 

Doc_Drop

Member
If there's anyone who's truly interested in the topic at hand- the terrible venue- here's esl's response to fan backlash when the venue was announced... Back in February



TLDR: ESL had a whole year to plan the event, and apparently couldn't find a venue. So they used their home base, put up some tents, and sold as many tickets as the fire code would allow. And they "marketed" it as a festival to justify the price of admission to people who couldn't fit into the venue.
That is exactly how to completely fuck up planning a live event. I've seen better ran village fetes. Damn
 
If there's anyone who's truly interested in the topic at hand- the terrible venue- here's esl's response to fan backlash when the venue was announced... Back in February



TLDR: ESL had a whole year to plan the event, and apparently couldn't find a venue. So they used their home base, put up some tents, and sold as many tickets as the fire code would allow. And they "marketed" it as a festival to justify the price of admission to people who couldn't fit into the venue.

This is all fucked.
 
I have been really wanting to go to some of these events. Glad that I did not go this year. It would cost a ton to fly over there, get a hotel and stuff.
 

Trup1aya

Member
X-post

Here's the venue for the upcoming gears tournament.
TXJeoWl.jpg


This game generates less money that halo and its esports scene had never been quite as popular...

So they couldn't afford an overflow tent or balloons
 
343 Industries finally responded on r/Halo

a0e60d3fe17c2410b495a8b50ecff9d1.png


No word on refunds yet.

It's great that they acknowledge but this shouldn't have happened in the first place, no excuses, even if they used the campus they did...they could of done a much better job at decorating the place making it look nice and legit.

Looked like super mart or w/e its called in Fallout.

X-post

Here's the venue for the upcoming gears tournament.
TXJeoWl.jpg


This game generates less money that halo and its esports scene had never been quite as popular...

So they couldn't afford an overflow tent or balloons

Now, that is nice...do you have the link to that?
 

Madness

Member
X-post

Here's the venue for the upcoming gears tournament.
TXJeoWl.jpg


This game generates less money that halo and its esports scene had never been quite as popular...

So they couldn't afford an overflow tent or balloons

Jack Felling and the folks at Coalition realize the value of eSports. They don't just pay lip service. They partnered with MLG from the start. They didn't let their ego get in the way. Plus, they got skins for several teams quickly for support. It is night and day how eSports is run for Gears and Halo.

AY8uSuM.jpg


Ht51rwp.jpg


Contrast Halo org support now. Allegiance recently left as well. No team can build anything with the rules they have, the shitty venues. Were OpTic not the defending champions, you think H3cz would support HCS after this?
 
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