NoBrandCon '08
Picking up the kids and then NoBrandCon '08. I'll update laterz.
Friday
Went down to NoBrandCon to see what was going on. Everything pretty much looked the same as last years. Vending room was fairly decent. I thought that last years was better but this years was alright. I saw a giant Piplup (Japanese name is Pochama :] ) and I was contemplating on buying it, but decided not to. Anime rooms weren't really interesting since I had no intention to stay to watch anime (I clearly didn't waste $35 just for that). When it hit half past 9, I decided to find the head poncho of the VG room (Cheesy), and ask him if he had found Traegorn for the other copy of Soul Calibur 2 since the vending room was closed. He went out to look for him while I was setting up for the Soul Calibur 2 tournament. A few minutes later, Cheesy had found Trae and gave me the other copy of SC2 so I could begin the tournament. I looked at the sign-up sheet and saw that there were 22 people that had entered the tournament. I felt quite pleased with the amount of people since I thought there would only be 12 or so, but 22 was a solid number. I thought it was going to be a decent tournament....however it made a turn for the worse. When it came time to announce the tournament, no one could hear me with all the commotion going on in the video game room. When you have Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DDR, and a hold bunch of other games going, I don' think anyone could hear you no matter how loud you scream. This part was the most frustrating part since I didn't have a mic at the time but I still went on with it. While I started announcing matches, I discovered that some people didn't even show up and pretty much bailed without telling me. At that point, I became seriously frustrated and just gave up. I didn't care much about the tournament but then a few people came to my aid and helped me out (Jim, random dude). Though I appreciate the help, I still felt pretty crappy about people not showing up when they clearly signed up for it. At the end of the tournament, the winner was some person named Jimmypikachuchoi and he was a huge Pikachu fan. I guess I was happy with the ending results. The problem wasn't the brackets or anything, but rather people just didn't show up when they signed up for it. It also didn't help that everything else was up and running but I don't put all the blame on that. I blame myself for carelessly not telling people ahead of time. I have to say that that Friday was the worst Friday I ever had at NoBrandCon, and one of the worst tournaments I have ever ran. I will try to not make the same mistake again. Again. Seriously. After that catastrophe, Kilcher, Spencer and I went to Perkins for some foods, and then to Frey's house for some sleep.
Saturday
Woke up roughly around 11:00AM. Played SSBM with Spencer til 12:00PM to go home to take a shower. After that, went back to Frey's to pick them all up and go back to NoBrandCon. Went to check the Capcom vs. SNK 2 sign-up sheet and found that only six people had signed up for it. I felt no desire to start this tournament because of what happened last night and contemplated on dropping it. Thirty minutes before 4:00PM, there were 16 people who signed up and I had no choice but to run it. The random dude from before helped me set up the mic since some of the VG staff in the room were incompetent and didn't know how to deal with people. He helped me out a lot, and Frey helped get the brackets up cause I couldn't draw straight lines but he found a straight edge and drew it. Tournament ran pretty smoothly. No complaints really except one that I had. I only had one copy of CvS2. I did not know where my other one went and I was pretty ticked about it. But everyone was really respectful and didn't mind to say the least. One person (Casinodragon) bailed on us, but Spencer said that he'll become Casinodragon and entered the tournament for him. I have to say that this tournament was MUCH better than SC2 for various reasons. I also can't help wondering if the whole VG committee even knew if these tournaments (SC2 and CvS2) were even supposed to run on their scheduled time. Granted I got a little bit of extra help from people who weren't staff (excluding Cheesy for getting me another copy of SC2) but some just didn't care cause they A. Had another tournament to look after or B. They did not have a single clue as to what was going on. I got some positive feedback saying that I did an excellent job running the CvS2 tournament and I thought I did a pretty kickass job too. I'm going to experiment more on this to see where it leads me (different games, different variety). After the tournament, I was free to go see other events with my good buddies (Kilcher, Spencer, Frey, Jim, Morgan, Monica, Nate, Lud), and the first stop was the Cosplay contest. In my opinion there were less people in the contest than last year. Went back to the VG room for an hour, and then went back up to the main room for the dance. I have to say that the songs were pretty lackluster. We all heard Sandstorm but maybe it is necessary or tradition to play it each year. The one thing that annoyed me the most was some stupid random mix that lasted more then twenty minutes. I have no idea who thought it was a good idea to pick in some repetitive song like that, but it really made the dance dull and boring. A bunch of cool dancers though and a ton of human trains were formed. Crew and I left an hour after the dance was officially over.
Sunday
Didn't do much. Went into the vending room and bought a Piplup backpack (so badass). Saw the variety show and left. I was going to stay for the Raffle and see what other con goers thought about NBC but I decided to see their reviews on the forums. I also heard some pretty disturbing things from my friends regarding last night and I have to say it is the equivalent to the Level C incident.
Grading:
Vending Room: 7
Thoughts: I don't know why but it seemed to of lacked variety but it was fairly decent. I don't believe I have seen the Kimono shop before so I thought that was interesting. Best thing of all though was the Pokemon stuff. Having more Pokemon stuff makes the Vending room kick more ass.
Video Game Room: 6
Thoughts: This lacked a ton of variety. About a fourth of the T.V.s weren't really used. I saw way too much SSBB going on, and I was already getting tired of the game. They could at least make use of other the Other T.V.s and put in some random game to make it look appealing (like what Cecil did). Another reason why I give it such a low score is mostly because of Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and DDR. I could barely hear myself shout out for names during my tournaments due to those three games and I think the staff definitely needs to put a volume restriction on these games.
Cosplay Contest: 8
Thoughts: Less Naruto so it was a plus. I was kinda sad that it ended to soon though.
Dance: 7
Thoughts: Not that many great songs. The +20 minute song killed me too
Variety Show: ?
Thoughts: Didn't stay long enough to give it an accurate score
I don't feel like writing anything else. This year's NoBrandCon was alright but it could've been better. If I had to rank the years it go like this: NBC '06 > '05 > '08 > '04> '07. I might have more to add later.
Friday
Went down to NoBrandCon to see what was going on. Everything pretty much looked the same as last years. Vending room was fairly decent. I thought that last years was better but this years was alright. I saw a giant Piplup (Japanese name is Pochama :] ) and I was contemplating on buying it, but decided not to. Anime rooms weren't really interesting since I had no intention to stay to watch anime (I clearly didn't waste $35 just for that). When it hit half past 9, I decided to find the head poncho of the VG room (Cheesy), and ask him if he had found Traegorn for the other copy of Soul Calibur 2 since the vending room was closed. He went out to look for him while I was setting up for the Soul Calibur 2 tournament. A few minutes later, Cheesy had found Trae and gave me the other copy of SC2 so I could begin the tournament. I looked at the sign-up sheet and saw that there were 22 people that had entered the tournament. I felt quite pleased with the amount of people since I thought there would only be 12 or so, but 22 was a solid number. I thought it was going to be a decent tournament....however it made a turn for the worse. When it came time to announce the tournament, no one could hear me with all the commotion going on in the video game room. When you have Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DDR, and a hold bunch of other games going, I don' think anyone could hear you no matter how loud you scream. This part was the most frustrating part since I didn't have a mic at the time but I still went on with it. While I started announcing matches, I discovered that some people didn't even show up and pretty much bailed without telling me. At that point, I became seriously frustrated and just gave up. I didn't care much about the tournament but then a few people came to my aid and helped me out (Jim, random dude). Though I appreciate the help, I still felt pretty crappy about people not showing up when they clearly signed up for it. At the end of the tournament, the winner was some person named Jimmypikachuchoi and he was a huge Pikachu fan. I guess I was happy with the ending results. The problem wasn't the brackets or anything, but rather people just didn't show up when they signed up for it. It also didn't help that everything else was up and running but I don't put all the blame on that. I blame myself for carelessly not telling people ahead of time. I have to say that that Friday was the worst Friday I ever had at NoBrandCon, and one of the worst tournaments I have ever ran. I will try to not make the same mistake again. Again. Seriously. After that catastrophe, Kilcher, Spencer and I went to Perkins for some foods, and then to Frey's house for some sleep.
Saturday
Woke up roughly around 11:00AM. Played SSBM with Spencer til 12:00PM to go home to take a shower. After that, went back to Frey's to pick them all up and go back to NoBrandCon. Went to check the Capcom vs. SNK 2 sign-up sheet and found that only six people had signed up for it. I felt no desire to start this tournament because of what happened last night and contemplated on dropping it. Thirty minutes before 4:00PM, there were 16 people who signed up and I had no choice but to run it. The random dude from before helped me set up the mic since some of the VG staff in the room were incompetent and didn't know how to deal with people. He helped me out a lot, and Frey helped get the brackets up cause I couldn't draw straight lines but he found a straight edge and drew it. Tournament ran pretty smoothly. No complaints really except one that I had. I only had one copy of CvS2. I did not know where my other one went and I was pretty ticked about it. But everyone was really respectful and didn't mind to say the least. One person (Casinodragon) bailed on us, but Spencer said that he'll become Casinodragon and entered the tournament for him. I have to say that this tournament was MUCH better than SC2 for various reasons. I also can't help wondering if the whole VG committee even knew if these tournaments (SC2 and CvS2) were even supposed to run on their scheduled time. Granted I got a little bit of extra help from people who weren't staff (excluding Cheesy for getting me another copy of SC2) but some just didn't care cause they A. Had another tournament to look after or B. They did not have a single clue as to what was going on. I got some positive feedback saying that I did an excellent job running the CvS2 tournament and I thought I did a pretty kickass job too. I'm going to experiment more on this to see where it leads me (different games, different variety). After the tournament, I was free to go see other events with my good buddies (Kilcher, Spencer, Frey, Jim, Morgan, Monica, Nate, Lud), and the first stop was the Cosplay contest. In my opinion there were less people in the contest than last year. Went back to the VG room for an hour, and then went back up to the main room for the dance. I have to say that the songs were pretty lackluster. We all heard Sandstorm but maybe it is necessary or tradition to play it each year. The one thing that annoyed me the most was some stupid random mix that lasted more then twenty minutes. I have no idea who thought it was a good idea to pick in some repetitive song like that, but it really made the dance dull and boring. A bunch of cool dancers though and a ton of human trains were formed. Crew and I left an hour after the dance was officially over.
Sunday
Didn't do much. Went into the vending room and bought a Piplup backpack (so badass). Saw the variety show and left. I was going to stay for the Raffle and see what other con goers thought about NBC but I decided to see their reviews on the forums. I also heard some pretty disturbing things from my friends regarding last night and I have to say it is the equivalent to the Level C incident.
Grading:
Vending Room: 7
Thoughts: I don't know why but it seemed to of lacked variety but it was fairly decent. I don't believe I have seen the Kimono shop before so I thought that was interesting. Best thing of all though was the Pokemon stuff. Having more Pokemon stuff makes the Vending room kick more ass.
Video Game Room: 6
Thoughts: This lacked a ton of variety. About a fourth of the T.V.s weren't really used. I saw way too much SSBB going on, and I was already getting tired of the game. They could at least make use of other the Other T.V.s and put in some random game to make it look appealing (like what Cecil did). Another reason why I give it such a low score is mostly because of Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and DDR. I could barely hear myself shout out for names during my tournaments due to those three games and I think the staff definitely needs to put a volume restriction on these games.
Cosplay Contest: 8
Thoughts: Less Naruto so it was a plus. I was kinda sad that it ended to soon though.
Dance: 7
Thoughts: Not that many great songs. The +20 minute song killed me too
Variety Show: ?
Thoughts: Didn't stay long enough to give it an accurate score
I don't feel like writing anything else. This year's NoBrandCon was alright but it could've been better. If I had to rank the years it go like this: NBC '06 > '05 > '08 > '04> '07. I might have more to add later.