Never thought I'd post on this blog again, but it seems more fitting for my gaming stuff to go here rather than LJ or MySpace, which I've recently focused on my offline social circles.

A lot of people seem pissed off at me right now, based on a recent (justified) tirade in The Virtual Underground. Maybe I didn't make enough exceptions for everyone's liking, I don't know - of course, I never go out of my way to sound more diplomatic than I am. Still, everyone got so wrapped up in what a prick I am, admittedly, that my entire point was missed. It was never about who feels what way, but a simple philosophy that seems like common sense to me:

People who don't know what they're talking about should either just shut up and leave the discussion to people who do get it, or at the very most, ask questions - they should certainly not offer "answers" as if they have a clue. That's how misinformation is propagated.

How on earth is that argument far-fetched? Seriously?

Again, maybe I didn't make enough exceptions, or didn't make them clear enough, but that shouldn't overshadow the real point. Then I have people taking personal jabs at me - the laughable part being that none of these "accusations" are things I've ever made any attempt to hide; the lack of social skills, being a prick/elitist, or whatever else. This is generally common knowledge, not something that has any chance of coming off as news, rest assured.

But back to the point...I don't see how anything I said was that far-fetched. I've done a lot to try and get the GameSpot community some respect in more hardcore circles, and I've had more success than most will ever know. After all the time I've spent defending these boards from those who have referred to it as "ScrubSpot", do I not have a legit beef when idiots come along and prove me wrong for doing all I've busted my ass for?

I'm feeling a little better now, and will most likely stick around, but the backlash seemed completely over the line for all I was really trying to say, especially on a UCB that has a reputation for being above all that.

Whatever. We'll see what happens.

Needs to be good in one of two styles.

Dark-themed western comics (see: Chris Bachalo)
Serious, action-themed manga (see: Yasunari Toda, Kubotite)

No Toriyama disciples, please.

It may or may not be D4AD related.

I'm retiring my GS journal.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/darkcatalyst

Tekken 5:
1) Stephen Mace
2) Joey Geurts
3) Patrick Mifflin
4) Tony Stockseth
5) Alex Pritchett
5) David Hendel

Tekken Tag:
1) Joey Geurts
2) Alex Pritchett
3) Patrick Mifflin
4) David Hendel

There are the results for tonight's tournament, since many of you asked, and I subsequently promised, that I'd give you the results ASAP.

Other notes...

1. All players were from Logan. Not one out of town player showed up, and while a six-player turnout is pretty sad, I'd take a handful of good local players over a good number of players (of any skill level) from, say, Ogden or SLC, hands down.

2. Stephen Mace is a psycho. One of the first things I'm going to do when I come down from the "tournament high" is get on Tekken Zaibatsu and figure out how to cope with a good Law. OMG.

3. I participated in what Tony Stockseth labelled the series of the night; Tekken Tag Losers Bracket Finals vs Alex Pritchett. The whole thing was basically a Mishima sausage fest, but it was a well-played one (despite my inexperience with Tag) that I'm happy to say I have on tape.

4. Joey Geurts is a cool mofo. The dude's a really good fighting gamer that Tony and I didn't know about, he's cool with other players, rocks 3rd Strike, rocks Zero 3, watches anime, and does it all despite living in Logan. I thought I was the only one.

Anyway, that's all my mind can produce after jumbling it to the tune of all this Tekken (as well as the post-tourney 3S exhibition between Joey and I - looks like I still have a good Makoto). It was a good time overall. Definitely one for the success column.

I'm about to get my blog on. Anyone who doesn't like that kind of thing can click the "back" button on their browser now.

Have you ever had such a hard time getting something you really wanted, that by the time you actually got it, you really didn't want it that badly? Or maybe it was a misplaced desire in the first place; you only thought you wanted it, only to find it's nothing particularly special once you get it.

Now, I'm sure I'll have a great time at Evolution if I find a way to get there. I'm not expecting to win anything, and probably won't even still be in any tournaments by Sunday (final eight), but for the first time in my life, I realized I'm fine with that as long as I at least roll my playstyle as well as possible. I'm fine being a second-tier player as long as I'm still good enough to get some respect.

That takes some immense pressure off (despite the fact that any way you slice it, my 3rd Strike entry fee will only amount to a $10 contribution to the Japanese economy at the end of the day), but also leads to some frustration; if my goal was never to be the best, why have I been training so hard in 3rd Strike, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution, and Super Turbo over the years?

Years ago, I read this article at Shoryuken. It brought back a lot of memories, naming players that I hadn't heard of since the early 90s when I was a tournament player the first time (my active runs as a competitive player include a massive gap from 1995-2001). In a sense, the span of the article - 2001 notwithstanding as I found my way to SRK just after ECC6 and watched that year play out live - really brought me completely up to speed on the competitive scene from the time I stopped playing initially; what the main games were at the time, who the top players were (a list that had dropped only a handful of names and added many)...what the big deal was about "this Valle kid"... (Like I said, I'd been gone for awhile. Alex Valle was getting "LeBron Hype" and up to that point, I never had the chance to see him play.) At the time, that one article reignited my competitive side. I once again wanted to play in tournaments, get the props of a top player, and finally see how I stacked up to the top players in the country.

Now, as nice as that would be (I sure wouldn't complain if I managed a top-three finish in some game at Evo), I'm not sure how badly I want it.

See, fighting games are inherently social, and the social focus is rarely on the games. Even at a tournament, or a late night at an arcade, far more talking goes on away from the machines than right there, and those conversations more closely resemble SRK's General Discussion forum (their version of OT, and the one here would do well to be more like it) than its Fighting Game Discussion board. That's one part of the fighting community I've never really opted to partake in, but I suddenly find myself more interested in that aspect than being one of the top-of-the-top players. It's kinda hard to describe it in a nutshell; something like...Jack Bauer and Sakuraba Kazushi playing Marvel while RoninChaos throws Ann Landers down some stairs as she's giving Super Warrior some advice. Yeah. And suddenly, I find myself relating to that more than the strategy threads these days (though I'm still not a complete stranger in those, either).

That spreads to Evolution, as well. If I do go, I'm not going primarily for the tournaments this year (as cool as it'll be to play against the best in the world). I'm going because I have a lot of other friends going that I want to finally have a chance to hang out with. Evolution has outgrown fighting game competition. Hell, the same could be said for almost all major tournaments these days. It is fighting game competition, fighting game non-competitive play, in-person conversations with people you've only talked to online, good food, just about any type of entertainment you can find in town (though I'm told this has been a problem for some ECCs in the past - "It is a total Andy Griffith town if ever I've seen one." -Zeruel on ECC6), and basically anything else you could hope for. That's why I recently suggested in Virtual Underground that a mini-GameSpot get-together should be planned for Evolution. It'd be perfect.

The frustrating part about this is that I'm in my prime as a fighting gamer, and tournaments are becoming more of a regular thing in my area. I've reached a high level of skill, and have the venues in which I can show it off, only to find out that by the time I arrived, that level of play wasn't my prime objective anymore. It's nice to know I have a good Makoto or Dhalsim or Marduk or Zangief or whatever, it's nice to know I can hold it down when I do play, I just wish things would have reached that point two or three years ago when I cared more.

As it stands, I don't know what this will mean for my gaming in general. I've always been primarily competitive in my gaming, and I'll always have that side of myself, but if it's not the biggest part, I can't help but wonder if my concerns about gaming becoming a secondary part of my life are about to be substantiated.

I guess I'll find out, if I'm still playing as much after Evo as I am right now.