[Magnezone]

Brawl would be one of those games that makes competition fun again. I say go for it, though I don't have an opinion on whether this should be a subsite or not.

[JBertolli]

Subsite is my opinion. Definitely beneficial to the awesomeness of the site, and, so far, no one tracks Brawl except CS... I think. And I haven't seen SSB charts anywhere, but I have seen huge SSBM charts on that one site (what site is it?). We can add that anyway just because. As for not having charts for every character? If someone did say that, every character has a different move set, so times and scores would be different?

[CosmicFalcon]

In semation: our standards of quality have changed, and while we are 'The Sonic Center', we should not take the car just because it's more familiar than the airplane.

This kind of misses the point, in my opinion. The point is not that Smash is a game dissimilar to Sonic... that much is obvious, yet irrelevant. The point is that for inclusion in "The Sonic Center" (NB not a subsite) it should be a Sonic game. i.e. part of the main series, or a spin-off (an official one mind you).

If debating whether to include SSBB in a subsite, the discussion of how much it has to do with Sonic is irrelevant. The people talking about how Sonic-y it is are making cases for or against inclusion in the main site.

Anyway.

The more I think about it, the more I think a subsite would work best. Then we could do SSB and SSBM as well, if anyone is interested. However... "The Smash Center" unfortunately has the same initials as TSC... TSBC I guess words. Sounds like a merger between HSBC and Lloyds to me. :(

[Zeupar]

The Super Smash Bros. Center would be a coherent name.

[ieatatsonic]

I'm also up for a Brawl subsite, though I bet that'd take a lot of attention away from TSC. Also, if there is a brawl subsite, I think that we could add SSB and SSBM and call it "The Smashbros Center".

[Shadowfan]

There should be a subsite for this game. I wouldn't say it was a sonic game because not all characters are sonic characters. Plus it would probably bring a lot of popularity to a subsite and creat awesomeness too. We'd still be able to compete on the game if we chose to do so. 

[Alondite]

Unless I am mistaking, the only reason subsites aren't weighted is because competition isn't developed enough to warrant inclusion on the main site. This is the only logical reason I can think of. To say a subsite game isn't "similar enough to Sonic" to get weighted is duplicitous. In that case they're completely ignoring the variety in Sonic games tracked. Sonic Drift is nothing like Sonic 2; Sonic 2 is nothing like Sonic Adventure; Sonic Adventure is nothing like Shadow, etc. In the vein of "don't include it, it's too different", let's partition 2D and 3D Sonics in weight because they have little in common. Surely we should not penalize players in the rankings just because they aren't good at one type of game.

Brawl has "nothing to do with Sonic", sure, but why does it have to? Everybody agrees it would be beneficial for the site, with deep competition value and the interest group to sustain it, and as previously stated relegating something with so many potential (and more importantly present) competitors to subsite status makes no sense. Why trivialize something this invigorating? Just because we've never given weight to a game loosely involving Sonic before doesn't mean we never should.



In response to PPA and a few others who suggest all games with Sonic and co present deserve tracking on the same grounds: you are overlooking the most important factor of a game's inclusion in a subsite, popularity. If a large playerbase exists then a large playerbase should be allowed to complete. 'Sega Superstars Tennis' doesn't have anywhere near the player pool as Brawl, nor does NiGHTS, and certaintly not Mario and Sonic at the Olympics. On that last point, the standard of trackable games has changed, we no longer add games knee-jerk just because they involve Sonic. Why do you think it took Rivals 2 and Sonic 06 so long to get included? There were serious considerations as to whether they had quality enough to add. If you deem M&S worthy of tracking then convince Rolken it is (taking care not to pester him of course, which will only make you look wheedling and desperate to be amongst a handful of competitors).

In semation: our standards of quality have changed, and while we are 'The Sonic Center', we should not take the car just because it's more familiar than the airplane.

I think genus pretty much hit the nail on the head here.  It's really a bulletproof argument aside from "It doesn't focus enough on Sonic" Sure, this is The SONIC Center, but we're also a competitive fansite.  On top of that, many records are being theoretically maxed, or at least far enough to where people will just accept that there is only little to improve, and therefor is losing competitive value.  Sonic games are not pouring out, and the ones that are leave something to be desired. IMO we need Brawl.  It may not be a Sonic game, but it includes Sonic, has a huge fanbase, and great competitive value.  I'm not seeing how it would be bad for the site.

[yse]

I'm made my opinion to rolken, so I won't repeat it entirely.

However,

as a fan of brawl and the smash bros series in general, I say:

this is a really stupid idea that is being acted on in impulse and not thought.

Why is Stefan the only person in this topic with any sense :(

[CosmicFalcon]

this is a really stupid idea that is being acted on in impulse and not thought.

Why is Stefan the only person in this topic with any sense :(

I'll agree that the idea is being put forward on impulse, but the fact that it is being discussed and debated in this topic by definition shows that it is not being implemented on impulse.

As for it being a stupid idea... I don't see why that is such an obvious opinion to take. There's plenty of statistics to be competed in, why would it not make as good a subsite as Megaman or Mario? If anything, it would be more successful, with many more competitors.

On a note somewhat separate from the actual discussion, I am not a fan of posts in a discussion topic saying "I made my point to [xyz], so I will not repeat it." As much as this is Rolken's site so at the end of the day he makes the decision based on input, it is quite difficult to discuss points that are left unknown.

Let it be known that I vote subsite, "TSBC", but at the end of the day I am indifferent considering that I am hardly a regular competitor in anything.

[Rolken]

Here is a line of thought for consideration that has mostly gone unaddressed, since the conversation seems to have settled on a subsite.

There are perhaps three levels of "authority" to shoot for: to just be a diversion for TSC members to compete amongst ourselves, to gain serious support of internet brawlers from such places as smashboards and GameFAQs, and to genuinely be the worldwide authority on what the best stats ever achieved have been (which I don't think TSC has necessarily reached itself, and it could be argued follows after the second option). Each requires a different level of commitment, knowledge and community activism. Which are we shooting for, how are we going to get there, and who is going to get us there?

I am happy to engage in the first by myself, but embarking on the second alone is pretty much a waste of time. Are there people or boards that we should establish "diplomatic relations" with, and if so, what should be the manner of its doing? Is there anyone here who has particular tenure at smash communities or is on friendly terms with significant people in the smash community? -Is- there a "smash community"? Who are experienced smashers who can work through complicated decisions on the rankings and how do we enlist their support? How do we establish ourselves as the go-to place for competition? Do we want to handle the direct non-ranking side of competition? How is competition evolving in the absence of a TSC site? Would people move to a TSC site if they knew it existed? There are many questions to be answered before throwing up a subsite if we want this to work, and yet the window of opportunity appears to me to be acutely short before people start settling on their own suboptimal solutions, and so it is essential to act quickly. I have my own responses to many of the above questions but most are tentative and somewhat uninformed and I'd rather see others' opinions.

[Waxwings]

Here is a line of thought for consideration that has mostly gone unaddressed, since the conversation seems to have settled on a subsite.

There are perhaps three levels of "authority" to shoot for: to just be a diversion for TSC members to compete amongst ourselves, to gain serious support of internet brawlers from such places as smashboards and GameFAQs, and to genuinely be the worldwide authority on what the best stats ever achieved have been (which I don't think TSC has necessarily reached itself, and it could be argued follows after the second option). Each requires a different level of commitment, knowledge and community activism. Which are we shooting for, how are we going to get there, and who is going to get us there?

I am happy to engage in the first by myself, but embarking on the second alone is pretty much a waste of time. Are there people or boards that we should establish "diplomatic relations" with, and if so, what should be the manner of its doing? Is there anyone here who has particular tenure at smash communities or is on friendly terms with significant people in the smash community? -Is- there a "smash community"? Who are experienced smashers who can work through complicated decisions on the rankings and how do we enlist their support? How do we establish ourselves as the go-to place for competition? Do we want to handle the direct non-ranking side of competition? How is competition evolving in the absence of a TSC site? Would people move to a TSC site if they knew it existed? There are many questions to be answered before throwing up a subsite if we want this to work, and yet the window of opportunity appears to me to be acutely short before people start settling on their own suboptimal solutions, and so it is essential to act quickly. I have my own responses to many of the above questions but most are tentative and somewhat uninformed and I'd rather see others' opinions.

Well, I think it would be best if we were to see someone well-known in the community (LinksDarkArrows is both relatively prominent in the Smash BtT community and has an account here, so perhaps him) and ask whether the community would like it, as CS isn't exactly a common hangout for people who compete in Brawl, even though they have charts up.

There's a good chance that they'll reject us: we'd seem like we're just trying to take over them because Sonic is dead. Not to mention if we do attract the community, how will we deal with mods and admins? We don't really want to give people we don't know well adminship, but not giving the right people some authority may cause issues.

[Alondite]

Well, I think it would be best if we were to see someone well-known in the community (LinksDarkArrows is both relatively prominent in the Smash BtT community and has an account here, so perhaps him) and ask whether the community would like it, as CS isn't exactly a common hangout for people who compete in Brawl, even though they have charts up.

There's a good chance that they'll reject us: we'd seem like we're just trying to take over them because Sonic is dead. Not to mention if we do attract the community, how will we deal with mods and admins? We don't really want to give people we don't know well adminship, but not giving the right people some authority may cause issues.

I think the key point that you made there is that Sonic is dead.  Records seem to be reaching their max (or at least reaching a level where noone cares to try to do better), and the games aren't pouring out (and the ones that are, as we know, are pretty sub-par for the most part). I don't think we can survive just being The Sonic Center, which is why we need games like Brawl, huge games that have tons of competitive value, and will likely attract new amembers. I'm not saying we should be Cyberscore, but maybe The "Compete in Games That We Deem Pro" Center >_> . Also, since it's an official game that has some relation to Sonic, I see no reason NOT to put it on the main site. The main site needs something new, because it's dying due to lack of new games and maxed records.

[Taco]

It seems that the decision to add brawl to our official rankings ties in with other recent site matters, such as site expansion, keeping the site alive and interesting, etc

I think adding brawl to the rankings would be a great idea because it would help resolve these problems. I don't think brawl should be added
in as a sonic game to TSC site because it's not a sonic game, I don't define it as one. I don't know if there's really a set definition for what defines a game to be a sonic game, but I would say a sonic game is a game in which the environment, storyline, and characters all take place somewhere in the sonic universe. While brawl has certain themes, elements, characters, from some sonic games, the game itself is not established in the universe of sonic. It isn't established in the universe of mario either, or Pit, or Kirby, or Samus, or any of the other characters for that matter. The smash series is its own separate universe, and should therefore be treated as one.

Like I stated earlier, I would love to see rankings for brawl on the site, just not on the main site. I don't really see why we can't add it as a subsite, or why it should really make a difference if it's not on the main site, but a subsite of its own. Am I missing something here? Even if brawl was added to the main site, everyone would still only be competing in brawl. The other sonic games would still be "dead". Unless you're suggesting that adding brawl to the main site will perhaps bring in many new players to spark up competition in the old sonic games? But I still don't see why adding brawl to the main site would be any different than adding it as a subsite, or why the subsite addition of brawl wouldn't be able to accomplish the same thing. Plus, if we did add brawl to the main sonic rankings, and lets say it did get very popular and people wanted to start up some rankings for melee and old skool smash, where would those go? Certainly not in the main site, since sonic is non-existant in those two games. It would just be a huge mess. I think it would be much more efficient to simply add brawl (and any of the other smash games) to a seperate subsite called the Smash Center, or whatever

A few other things / incoherent ramblings on my mind:

When we started the whole subsites concept, we added games that never really had any official rankings chart, but were still deemed popular (or worthy for competition). While I really want to add brawl to the sub site rankings, I find it somewhat hard to believe that there is no other source of record keeping (other than cyberscore, which doesn't count) for the super smash brothers games. There are many communities for the games out there (the biggest being smashboards probably). Does no one know of any of these sites or communities that have a well known ranking system for the game? If not, well then it's all the more reason to at least add it as a subsite.

gah, I had a few other things in my head, but I'm really unfocused right now, so I apologize if my post came out sounding kind of funny

I think sooner or later though we are going to have to make a decision as to whether we still want to be "Main Site - The Sonic Center, with competition in other games" or "Main Site - The Competitive games we deem pro Center". In the case of the latter, TSC would become a subsite.

But yes, I want brawl rankings! Brawl got me somewhat back into time attacking, and I'm really curious to see how a few of my BTT times compare to others!

[Waxwings]

Well, the smash community keeps record videos and etc, but apparently isn't as good with totals and overall rankings. Essentially what what we're trying to to is persuade them to come over here, where we will hopefully let them have semi-autonomous priveleges.

[Alondite]

So Taco had an idea, and though it may be difficult to do (i don't know >_> ), and me may not want to do it, it might be the best way to keep TSC alive. Possibly have a "Main Site", as he called it, which track games that we deem "pro", and possibly some of the more popular, active Sonic and Mario titles, and have the core of TSC be as a subsite.  I just don't think there is enough life left in sonic competition to keep TSC alive as the main site. just a thought.

[Stefan]

CF, It erupted into a huge, long, waste of time argument that I didn't want to repeat.

But eh, my argument really had three points:

a.) the haste in putting up a game so incongruent with TSC's prior history is kind of stunning. Subsites went up after months of deliberation, and they encompassed more than one game. This is -one game-.
b.) would people play? seriously. I am not so certain that this would be better off than any other subsite. I am even less certain that we'll attract much of anyone from other sites. I don't see this as having a good likelihood of working out at all.


All really leading to

c.) our becoming a pseudocyberscore. We'll track any and all games we like, regardless of if it works. Will we end up being a less successful, wannabe cyberscore?

Anyway, I said all of that more in detail and more elongated, with more stupidity, and didn't feel like reiterating it all in favor of the gist of my opinion; we are impulsively making a decision and it seems stupid to me.

EDIT:

I also find the idea of making tsc no longer to focus of the website ridiculous too. I can understand gradually adding stuff and the popular stuff receiving the focus but..

TSC not being about TSC..

because of brawl' and other games like brawl having reputation as "pro games" we want to rank?

=/

[Waxwings]

Hypothetical rebuttal below. Given as Stef doesn't want t repeat it, nobody respond to the below.

Hell, you'll have to copy it into notepad even if you want to read it:


Just because this was pretty much thought up on the spot doesn't mean it's going to go up in less than a week. There'll be quite a lot of preparation and planning before this happens in the best of circumstances. I think Smash was one of the ideas that was proposed around the time of the Mario Center, with the whole basic concept of keeping TSC alive. They mentioned about using a new game to stir up competition, as opposed to just trying to peddle older games without much to attract people from. SSBB was one of the first  ideas proposed there.

The only reason it's coming up again now is because the game was released long enough ago that just about now people are really starting to get into competition.

And anyway, making sure TSC doesn't become a mini-cyberscore is the main reason why people rallied for subsites in the first place: the ability to have competition in other games without losing the sense of community and interest that makes TSC favorable to CS.

[F-Man]

I feel the need to reinforce the fact that anyone saying the site is dieing in any way is delusional and a drama queen.

[Strong Bad]

A whopping 12.1% don't approve in some way.
I really think this poll should end here and a subsite be made. <_<
Also to all who are like "If we do then we have to x", no. Those games aren't cool enough, even if they include Sonic. I think this is supposed to be a subsite anyway, so it really shouldn't harm anyone who doesn't want to play Brawl (rofl, weirdos). Plus I'm sure they it'd be a subsite including Melee, Brawl, and SSB64. As a competitive Smasher myself I feel that adding a Smash subsite to TSC would drastically heighten the competitive value of the website, and stir quite a lot of activity. Currently there are barely any new records as opposed to a year or two ago, and Sonic games aren't exactly pouring out quickly either. I also don't feel that it would take much away from the current level of competition in Sonic games, as most of them have reached a stop as the fastest times/highest scores and ring attacks have mostly already been reached or are so good no one cares to improve them anymore.

[ieatatsonic]

I want to say one thing, Strong Bad. Did you read what F-man said? It even seems like The Mario Center is being paid less attention to than TSC(and all those other subsites).Though I do agree that Brawl will make TSC too competetive.


How many people on TSC have Brawl? How many have freinds ho own Brawl? I think that we're not arguing, though bragging at the thought that we have Brawl. Maybe some people don't have Brawl, though want to buy it. Maybe they can't buy Brawl. Some people might not even have a thing to do with brawl(or maybe hate the entire SSB series)and get annoyed that there are so many threads about Brawl. In fact, Brawl sort of get's annoying(especially near the end of the Subspace Emissary, which I had a tantrum over because I couldn't seem to beat it) once you've played it a lot(well, for me at least). Brawl might just be the one thing that would make TSC a total disaster, which I don't want to be a part of.

[Strong Bad]

What F-Man said has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. In my post, do you see "TSC is dying" anywhere? I don't.
TSC too competitive? What? TSC is quite competitive, and always has been (or at least, for as long as I can remember). There is no amount of competitiveness that Brawl could bring that we haven't had already.
Also, at the annoyingly shrunken text, what. Seriously, what. All games can be annoying. Have you ever played Sonic '06? XD People who can't; It'll be out in EU in Q3. People who don't have a Wii: Don't see you complaining about Sonic and the Secret Rings...

[fastnaturedude]

Add Brawl? :o Adding Brawl would make me actually want to start coming here again!

[yse]

That should make the decision easy. >_>

[General Throatstomper]

I'll move away from the "should we even track Smash" vein of discussion and address some of Rolken's points.

As a competitive entity, Smashboards is dead. The well respected members are really the pros from Melee, most of whom want nothing to do with Brawl for being less "tournament worthy". A few oddballs do support Brawl, and are developing competition, but they're mostly drowned out, and a schism has developed that's wrecking their community. It should also be noted that Smashboards becoming the definitive compendium of Brawl information drew an unsavory (mostly underaged) userbase, who have no desire to compete in anything. We shouldn't be gunning for the support of smashboards, unless we like seeing people submitting one perfunctory record before getting bored and never coming back.

As for establishing ourselves as -the- competitive smash site, I don't have much to say that Rolken didn't allready. We find affluent members in a -coherent- smash site (admittedly, I know of none, but I haven't exactly been looking), give them some power, and have them drum up support for TSC on a resident level. A token partnership would probably help us more than the other site, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't get anything out of the deal...the most important thing here is to respect this site and its members, because hostilities will only take away from potential competitors.

If it means anything, I'd help with developing rankings and rules. Before we do that though, I think it would be a good idea to decide what to track. A rough assessment of worthiness, with things to consider:

Classic Mode-This would be a good, if not shallow, addition to the subsite, if only to add depth. Better smashers will usually get better scores. But is it too dependant on luck, with certain runs wrecked by a single matchup or inopportune item draw? Is it too frustrating to get a good score? If it's not, and we agree that we should track Classic, should we do unidivision since the strategies are comparable, or 35 different divisions because we'd have enough people to submit?

SubSpace Emissary-Fundamentally broken; scores are easily maxed, or else increased indefinitely by camping near generators or waiting for primids to appear and attack you during sections that don't autoscroll.

Target Test-Of course, Target Test would be tracked, with 35 subdivisions. There's versatility in approach, and enough of it relies on pure skill that there's no reason not to track it.

MultiMan Brawl-This is tricky. In multiman, the differences in characters are compelling enough to warrant 35 seperate divisions, but what about 15 minute Brawl? A single submission is arduous enough; even with the prospective number of competitors, will people really dedicate 8.75 hours just to get a complete chart for a single category, ignoring competing to get a good score? Do we have the same problem with endless Brawl, or is it expecting too much for someone to survive over 15 minutes? And what about 10 man Brawl; how easy is it to max times there? Should we track co op as well?

Boss Battles-This has the same problems to discuss as classic, though to a lesser degree...is it too frustrating at higher levels though? Or does its shorter length balance that out?

Home Run Contest-Short enough, and with enough diversity in strategy, that the problems generally associated with segregated divisions are moot here; distances are not easy to max either. As with multiman Brawl, should we track coop?

Event Matches-For sure these should be tracked, with unidivision for the simple reasons that most force you to use a character, and those that don't do not track individual characters anyways. Coop events seem like they'd work well...but as coop is offline, is it too much to ask of players to find someone else to play the events with?

All Star-Less random than classic, but also less forgiving; do we track different characters -here-?

I'll post more tomorrow, since this is a lot to respond to by itself.

[PsyMar]

I post-poll-closing vote option 3.  It'd make me care about the records portion of TSC as opposed to the community/lulz/drama portion of TSC again.

[JBertolli]

Targets are definitely in. Multiman Brawl: I couldn't see why 10-man would get easily maxed, they are harder here than Melee and they weren't maxed easily. Endless, 100-man, and three-minute may be alright, but quite tedious, especially endless if it is anything like Melee. 15-minute is long, but not as long as endless could be if your good enough while Cruel is just cruel. Overall, I'd say 10-man Brawl will last the longest competitionwise. The thing is that they are just slightly harder and altered versions of Melee, so experts may just not bother with it much. Getting high scores on Classic (and maybe All-star) is just about going through Intense without losing a life, for higher difficulties give more points for targets and finishing bonuses. And you say Boss Battles are shorter at higher difficulties? Less stamina or less individuals to battle? Home-run Contest can just go away, though, I must admit Brawl's is better than Melee's. Events aren't as good in this game as Melee, but they are good competitionwise. My main point is that a lot of these modes, I think old experts just won't bother with because some are long and very similar to Melee. Personally, the only thing I really want to compete in are targets, simply the best thing competitionwise in this game.

[Rolken]

OK, here's the deal. As I see it, the main issue with a Smash site will be getting support. All previous subsites have had pretty solid rankings, but languished unnoticed regardless. So my question is, if you want Smash competition, what are you going to do to ensure that it succeeds? If I am convinced that y'all are sufficiently serious about this happening to justify me being serious about making it happen, then I will do so.

edit: also responses to the questions in my previous post are still solicited.

edit2: er, what is necessary on the ranking side beyond what genus posted?

[Alondite]

I personally know of probably a good half-dozen smash players myself that would pretty much definitely compete, to varying degrees.  I would do my part in attracting new members, ones that i deemed beneficial to competition.  I'm also up for helping with rules, and what charts we should track as well. Just wanted to throw that out there.

[Waxwings]

Well, I know some people who play smash, but none to a degree where they would actively compete.

I think we should look for good players off Youtube: we don't need to post comments, just PM them and ask if they would be interested. It would get more people competing because the competitive community has largely abandoned Brawl, so the people who compete in it nonetheless are those we want, not the people who would whine about us not tracking Melee.

[Mo]

I don't care what DSS says and I want brawl added on to this site.