AEX Ranbat Milan #3.4 + CdF session

I'm tired.

Nothing much to say about the ranbat, results were pretty much the same as usual with some minor drama here and there... Togo getting his revenge on... Kelly (no less!), me almost winning winners final against fran only to choke and die immediately and such. Whatever. The important thing probably is that I'm tired. I'm tired of the way italian players (especially the supposedly most dedicated, or stuff like that) treat the game. That's it. I feel personally touched by this because I gave everything I could for the game and even for them, and I'm not receiving anything back. What I want is plain and simple: have some competition to get 2nd in a ranbat. With more players on my stupid level or above even the other guys that now can't beat ME would improve much faster. Otherwise it's pretty useless, we might as well stop doing this monthly and just have random events every once in a while.

It's not about how many people enter a tournament (last turnout was better for 3s than SSF4), it's more about WHO enters.

Really, I understand every single situation (some better than other) but it's too much now, people take these things for granted or don't care enough. Oh, but OE is coming soon! That will get people back in the game again! How disturbingly hypocritical does that sound? To me, a lot.

Whatever, whatever. Anyway, I want Cooperation Cup 2 to happen, this year. This would lead me to talk about the subject of "how to drag the SF4 players to a tournament" but I won't even get started. I just want to say that I'd like a 3on3 3s tournament and about 30 players, but who knows what could happen. A 2on2 with about 20 players is way more realistic.

Anyway on sunday we went to CdF for some arcade action. The setup is now pretty sick, with 3 vs city or vs city-like cabs and a nice piece of forniture that is the original Game Sakura sign that fran bought. Nothing special happened, we could play a little bit with LEVA and that was cool, the BlazBlue guys played some 3rd Strike as well and that's pretty much it.

May = ranbat #3.5 and another CdF session.

3s Italian ranbat #3.3, CdF and ARCANA

I don't even remember when it was, I just remember that fran won the ranbat, Mitsu with Urien got 2nd, and the fabulous RushingMonkey got 3rd place. LUN? 4th. Lost to fran and Mitsu. I won't indulge on any consideration about that. It was a bad 3s day.

CdF on the following sunday was awesome. Mitsu's first time, LEVA, val, togo, fenrir, lalbelcd and the usual suspects were there. We held the first and only LUN's cup in honor to my recent graduation (ah, it happened the day before the ranbat, so the ranbat was on the 19th, good to know). Of course I was the mastermind behind it, but don't tell anyone. It was single elim, one match format, random seeding. I mean, total random seeding. We should do this more often because no one was really prepared to it, and the tension took its toll. LEVA won, fran 2nd, LUN 3rd, TOGO 4TH! Way to go, toghella-san :/

Speaking about my graduation, I've got a job too. It was about time, I know... Whatever, I'll be working in Padova in a few days, and I'm already living in Mestre with Fenrir and other students. Good thing is: I get to play Arcana Heart 3 everyday with Fenrir. Yeah we'll play 3s too but Arcana is just this awesome. We you get the arcana fever you don't think about anything else, you don't sleep, you don't eat, you just want to try out that new arcana on Eko. No, I'm kidding. I don't even have the game, lol. But you get it, it's a damn good game. It's the GGXXAC of anime fighting games, the system is brilliant and mature, it's complex and deep... But never too hard, and the general design never fails to amaze... It's a good game (TM).

Last but not least, PANCA-time: RushingMonkey is a good-mannered and clever guy, and he's also so handsome that fighting game girls ask for his pictures all the time (girls, you can find some on AEX -> galleries, you know). With this kind of credentials, why should't he play more 3rd Strike? I don't know, go ask him. I did my part by saying that he's still a fantastic 3s player. Oh no, I didn't! But yeah, he is. It's good to get out of the jungle for a while, you know.

3rd Strike italian Ranbat #3.2 and CdF #3

So let's get this year started. Resistance is futile but we do like futile things, so here we go, another 3rd Strike weekend in Italy. A couple of weeks ago we had ranbat on Saturday at Casa dei Giochi and freeplay day on Sunday at CdF, 3s only. Low turnouts, same results as ever (1 Fran, 2 myself 3 SpinalB), just a small danisen session to keep things going. I'll handle things from now on with a mundane list, because today I'm in that mood (actually it's just easier):

• my Ken is getting a little bit better (4th Dan now, ehm), and that's cool. Sometimes things gets desperate with Chun, you need to have a backup plan. Like... Badly
• italian 3s players are not dedicated and every few months it gets frustrating
• during the ranbat some SFIV players came to us to try out the game, we'll have at least a new head next time... All good
  
• Rushing Monkey is a beast (paid adv). No seriously, we played quite a lot of 3s and he should get back at it seriously. Like... Enter tourneys as well or come to CdF for a full "re-education" (more like brainwashing) session. He doesn't feel comfortable enough with the game now, he's just rusty
  
• Jack is back! Maybe. Good to see him playing again. His urien is now 3rd Dan as well
• I was able to see Nev, BR1, RAX, 1c0n and Goon as well during the weekend, as part of something similar to a small shooting games reunion... Well nothing special actually games-wise but it was good to see them again, it always is

Let me conclude saying that me, Fran, Valmaniac and Togo (ownz_u) are the heroes of this game. We're keeping it alive, that's it. There are many, many 3s players around Italy but they seriously need to think about how much they care about the game before it's too late. This includes everyone.

Slightly related note: 3rd OE is scary. Please don't fuck it up Capcom, no HD and no "rebalance" (LOL) or we're screwed. Seriously. Also, Arcana Heart 3 is sick. Too good to be true. I don't have the game but I play a rather silly Luck Eko when I can at Mitsu's.


Jack is back, and he's after you. "This burrien is anblogaboooooool!!1"

Ranbat #3.1 & CdF #1

6/7th November weekend. So the Ranking Battles in Milan started again, this time with BlazBlue: CS in the mix with 3s and SSFIV. I didn't play it because I don't have the game at the moment but I'll join for sure in the future. Anyway, the turnout was promising, to say the least. Good job guys!
As for 3rd Strike, the situation was quite different, and we just had an 8 man tournament with too many people missing for one reason or another. I ended up getting second place again, against Fran's Yun as usual. Good thing 3rd and 4th place were taken by Valmaniac's and Stratos' Necro. Results here, btw.
Anyway, it was a good time as usual and we chilled there till night, before reaching CdF to get some sleep and be ready for the next day. It was the first meeting at CdF with ARCADE 3rd Strike setups. Well actually due to technical reason we ended up playing on just one versus city instead of 2 vsc + 1 normal cab setup, but there weren't many players so it worked out quite well. Actually... Arcade 3s is LOVE. I finally got used to play on cabs and on this lovely version of the game, and PS2 is just... Well, we're forced to play that so whatever. But the experience is totally different. The thing I like the most is that you have to stay focused. It's freeplay, but it isn't. You can't change your character, and you don't want to give up your turn. Plus, you usually don't get to see the reactions of your opponent. For me, the mix of these elements is enough to let me play so much better that I'd usually do on freeplay. In the morning I got a 22/3 win streak and I didn't have any tension at all, I was just having fun and playing really focused. In the afternoon nothing major, Fran provided some major beatings to everyone as you'd expect and that was cool too.

Next time hopefully there will be more setups, but it's worth it anyway. CdF is a bit outside Milan and that's really the only bad thing about it. Well the place is a bit small too, but it's full of awesomeness, so it's ok.

Pic from a hot (mmm... Well, entertaining for sure!) session between Val's Necro and Tony's Dudley:



On 11/12th December we'll have another weekend here, and next Ranbat will be in January. Guess I'll post again next month then!

Tougeki 2010 results and some news from italian 3s

Just a couple of lazy updates. Fist of all: Tougeki. This year's tournament was sized down but not less exciting, and that said, I'll just copy/paste the results from here:

1)井上JAPAN	にっと[Nitto](YU)	MOV(CH)	クロダ[Kuroda](KE)
2)巨人軍	こくじん[Kokujin](DU)	ハイタニ[Haitani](MA)	ヌキ[Nuki](CH)
3)ＫＯファミリー	ケンゾー[KO](YA)	おちび[Ochibi](YU)	ときど[Tokido](CH)
3)マーベラスヒーローズ	ラオウ[Raoh](CH)	メスター[Mester](YU)	ヒガ[Higa](IB)

You can find videos of the top4 easily on YouTube, but the recording of the whole live streaming of Tougeki's 2nd day is here. You get to see... Well, the top4 and a little bit of Koshun's beasting in first round, iirc. It suck but looks like there's not going to be a DVD out this year, or at least I haven't heard of it. It's really that bad if true, we'd miss out a lot.
I won't say anything more on this subject because I discussed it to death on AEX and it'd be way too long, lol. Anyway, they put on a show (especially Kuroda acting like his usual self, Kokujin once again on fire and... Rikimaru as a "guest", lol) and I'm really glad about the results.

Anyway, let's go back to Italy for a second (damn... Actually a little more than that). Two great news you didn't wanna hear, but you're going to hear anyway: on november 6th we're going to have AEX Ranbat Milan #3.1, with 3rd Strike, Super Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue CS, and the following day... It'll be the first day at Casa del Ficcaggio (pics inside). No, don't waste time to translate it. Anyway, what am I talking about? It's just the place, owned by CPSteve, were we went sometimes to play 3s on a Versus city. Only it was actually PS2 version. But now Steve arranged the room like this:

• 1 VS City with arcade 3rd Strike
• 1 VS City like setup (2 linked cabs) with arcade 3rd Strike
• 1 normal cab (1 cab for 2 players) with... Arcade 3rd Strike again
• n normal cabs (I think 3) for other dead games like Guilty, IIX and such... Oh, arcade versions of course
  

Yeah... No SFIV at CdF. So, the basic idea is to have sessions (freeplay and quick random tournaments) there next to other events, like ranbats and other stuff, so we can add value to any trip to Milan.
So yeah... Feels like we have something like an arcade now, lol. Too bad it's actually outside Milan and it'll be only about once per month, so no, we're not going to improve dramatically as a scene, but it sure feels great.

And last but not least... At the last Videogames History in Monza (you now, the first post of this blog is all about the 2009 edition) early this month we actually tried out the dan'isen system. I think it needs some work to be perfect but it might work, we'll try that again for sure. Maybe during ranbats, maybe at CdF... Depends on many things. We're still in beta phase, lol.
Meaningless first results shows LEVA at 5th dan (Ken), Mitsu at 4th (Ibuki), me (Chun) and Fran (Yun) at 3rd and about 10/12 other people behind. We'll see how this turns out, hopefully it's going to be a lot of fun... If people understands it.

AEX Ranbat Milano - season 2 results

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

1. Fran (YU) - 185 pts. / center
   
2. LUN (CH) - 115 pts. / left
   
3. SpinalBlood (KE) - 100 pts. / right

Street Fighter IV

1. Rushing Monkey (CA) - 165 pts. / left
   
2. Coden (SA) - 128 pts. / center
   
3. BlackHole85 - 118 pts. / right

Read everything about season 2 here!

AEX Ranbat Milano #2.8 - season finale!

Oh yes, it's over. It's been a long season, with many difficulties to face but it's been great anyway. Let's put it down as it is: our scene is poor. In many ways. We've had some major tournaments in both Milan and Rome with sponsorships and stuff, but ranbats are just put together for passion. It's supposed to be some regular meeting that offers players something more than just freeplay. It's precious tournament experience, and the ranking should motivate everyone even more. Too bad some people here up north didn't understand this at all... SF4 players, of course. I won't go into details, but it's so stupid and so italian that we have good players that will never show up because... Woah, whatever. The support for 3s has been ok instead. Nothing crazy, but at least the game is still alive. There are still a number of problems that I won't name in order not to type a gigantic post, but let's sum it up like this: the competition is still not good enough. And I'm in the not good enough category, just to be perfectly clear. We all need more TIME and even more dedication. Because that's it, we're just a few players, so we need more efforts. This game is the cruelest game ever. And also, coincidentally, the best.

But let's go to the point of the post. Oh, the tournament took place on february the 27th.
SF4: who cares. Oh well, congrats to Kelgar for his first top3 (with Chun), Rushing (CA) won again, Coden second. So the final standings for the season are... I'll post later about it.
3s: decent turnout. My main concern was EXG / gogu with his Yun, and I had to face him in the first phase. The scenario was like this: winner gets a supposedly easy road to the final, loser gets to face Fran in semi-final. I won almost easily because clearly gogu was way more nervous then I was, but I played him a lot during the 2 days we spent together and I know for a fact that both of us could have won. He's really, really good now. And usually more concentrated and on point than me, to say the least.
But let's go back to the subject. In an unexpected upset, Makhbeth (YA) beat Spinal (KE) to get to my semi. Makh is not (yet) an expert 3s player so it wasn't a big problem to reach the final, but it was good to see him get 4th place (he later lost the 3rd place playoff against gogu), and hopefully he'll keep playing and improving.
He also got second (IIRC) in the scrubs tournament we've held for the first time. That's right, we've had a quick 8 men bracket set up randomly just for... New players and SF4 heads, lol. BlackHole85 (KE) ended up winning that, so now he's a well known SF4 player and the king of 3s scrubs at the same time. Woah!
Whatever, the big boys (ehr...) tournament went as you could expect: I got destroyed by Fran in the final. I just let it go, again :/

Good times chilling with Togo and gogu afterwards. Late night dinner with pasta and Nutella (no less) and all night long 3s session with gogu (Togo passed out too soon, lol). Great games indeed!
The day after Makhbeth joined us and we went to Steve's house to play 3s (other people were there playing SF4, of course) with Fran also. It was PS2 version but on a Versus City. Great feeling, but it just wasn't the real thing, you know... Ehr, it's ok if you don't, really.
Whatever, it was good times.

Later on I'll post the final standings for second ranbat season of both games. Be prepared for some fancy shots...

AEX Ranbat Milano #2.7

So... The 24th of this month (first time on Sunday!) we had our ranbat 7 out of 8. Ahbi from UK (and shoryuken.com) was in town so he visited us and played a little bit, and also Tonda came to take very good pictures. Very good to see some new faces!
And guess what? RushingMonkey (Cammy) got second place securing the season's victory in SFIV. He won 3s last year so that's 2 in a row in 2 different games! BlackHole85 (Ryu) won this tournament and it's a first time, so good job. Now on our stuff...
It was a one day trip for me and mitsu, so very stressful. Anyway, I was moderately optimistic because I was playing fine the day before, and actually my game was really OK even after the day of the ranbat, but on that day, well... Ugh. My mind was just empty all day, and Chun can get really predictable and useless when you're like that. I got 5th place anyway, knocked out by mitsu's Ibuki. He played Ibuki all the day and did great, getting 3rd. Good shit! I also have to add that even though I'm not happy about how I played, the top4 players are better then me anyway. LEVA won as usual (but using Urien!), fran (Yun) reached the final after an extremely close match against Fugo (Urien) that later on lost to mitsu for the 3rd place. Judging by the level of top4, it was one of the best 3s tournaments in Italy in a lot of time, so that's positive. The turnout was ok too. Vids and full results will arrive soon, check AEX if you're vaguely interested!
Next... Oh well, later this month this season will end. It was long and difficult in many ways, but sure it was a lot of fun. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to confirm my general 3s second place, but that doesn't matter much. I'm not so happy about this season because at least a couple of times I could have done way better, even though my first second place was not bad at all. But more importantly, we have to start thinking about season 3. There will be Super Street Fighter IV for sure, and I'd say BlazBlue too. 3s will last forever, obviously. But in orderd to be able to do everything, we need some serious reorganization and some kind of fund raising as well. We'll sort things out, I'm sure. Things are happening in Milan, Rushing is trying to have regular meetings for local players, so hopefully more people will support the tournament scene as well in the next months. There might be some other good news, but that's it for the moment, I guess!

AEX Ranbat Milano #2.6 we + Peyosan's magic

Not so much to say I guess... Missed out another practice opportunity on friday, I just arrived in Milan on Saturday right before the beginning of tournaments. It was the last ranbat before Christmas (is it that big of a deal? Apparently yes), so the turnout was a bit lower than expected. Well, SFIV was still around 16 people, with some new guys joining, but 3rd Strike was just a 5 men battle. Yeah... A lot of our usual people had other things to do, other guys there could have joined but weren't really interested, so I said fuck it and let's roll this way. I placed 2nd again but this time it didn't feel that good, Spinal got 3rd place and of course fran won (using Yun all the time). I beat everyone else quite convincingly during the tournament, but he just destroyed me both in group and final, so I've got a lot to think about for next time. In the final I just looked like a food with no solution to his improved dive kick game, I guess...
It's a shame that we keep missing players like LEVA and mitsu at the ranbats, by the way. And many others could come more as well, but that's how it goes this season, so whatever.
SFIV results were pretty much the usual, with Rushing (AB/VI) taking it, followed by Coden (SA) and Bucio (RY). This weekend they'll go to this tournament in Rome to clash again with the guys that, as of now, won more in SFIV. Let's hope for a good battle. Yeah, because that kinda rivalry is the only interesting thing I can find in SFIV :/
But let's back to us. We spent Sat night at EXG's playing 3rd Strike, of course. Fran immediately passed out for like some hours (and later came back to beast on us), while me, EXG and Togo kept rotating. Following day I was in good company and took a nice walk in the center of the city, which was nice. I also found the lamest Starbucks' ripoff ever, THIS, but let me say that it rocked, ahah. It's just starbucks with a different name, so it worked out pretty well!

And that's it for the weekend. Let's talk about shooting games now. It's been a while since last time we had something this big, but this week we published Peyosan's amazing Dodonpachi Dai Ou Jou western record. Check it out here, it's worth it. Definitely made me miss those good old shmups times... Well, Mushi Futari 1.5 etc. etc. will definitely pass by my house for some reason, so I'll check it out. I don't know if I want to mess with downloads and stuff, and they also say that Black Label is fucked up somehow, so maybe I'll just check out Ultra to see what happens... You never now.
Anyway, major props to Jck for encoding Peyo's video that well. It looks amazing even on YouTube.

So that's all. Next post will be about... Uh, I have no idea.

AEX Ranbat Milano #2.5 weekend

So here we are again. Last friday there was a nice session of various games at Makhbeth's, but I was unable to attend. Too bad, but whatever. The following day after travelling all the morning it was ranbat time. This time I wanted to focus on 3rd Strike and I surely did. After sign-ups and setting up the brackets I completely avoided SFIV all day long, and a big thanks goes to the guys that ran that tounament. Rushing Monkey in particular, who even won it.
Anyway, I managed to get a better 3s warm up than usual, and then my group ended up being quite easy, so I was ready for some knockout action. My part of the bracket had Biollo (UR, #2.4 finalist), SpinalBlood (KE) and Rushing Monkey (GO/MA, season 1 3s winner, now fully focused on SFIV) as major threats. I got to play Biollo in the second turn and last time agains him in the group didn't end well, so I was a bit worried. But I knew how to beat him, and this time I just did what I had to in order to win. Not easily, but it was a 2-0 afterall. He's a very good player overall but he still does some stuff that I can easily punish with Chun and he has some bad habits. Always good to play him though (he's very, very good at Super Turbo, btw).
In the meanwhile Spinal randomized out Rushing! That was really unexpected, lol. But Spinal can be very solid too. He just put too much random in it this time... Just too much!
So I was in semifinal against him. And it wasn't so hard, since recently even though he's always doing good, he's not able to beat me. I don't know why precisely, he surely could do some harm to me as well.
So my first ranbat final was against fran, of course. LEVA and Mitsu weren't there, by the way. Since he's almost sure (we should do some math, but whatever) about winning this season he was using Hugo and Yang in tournament along with Yun. With me he started with Hugo, and he lost in a close match. I was relaxed because I didn't expect to win, and that was GREAT. But my stick started doing crazy stuff, like pause the game and other random inputs. It's not a new thing too... And what did I do? I didn't change it for game 2. I lost it against Yang and only after that one I changed it with another one that I didn't like much, so whatever. Next time I'll try to be smarter... But anyway, I was happy enough for my first RB final, so for this time it's ok.
For full results just remember to check AEX in a few days, as usual.

After that, we also had the time (and the will) to have a 3s team tournament. It's always great to teamplay in this game. Honestly I think that it's the best format too...
I asked EXG (aka gogu, YU) to team up because I feel we really think the same about the game and we both are in a good moment. I was right, we ended up with a close, very close second place. In the final fran killed both EXG and me with a clutch Gigas in round 3. Full bracket for 3s teamplay here: challonge bracket.
After that we also had tons of freeplay... I particularly enjoyed a little session with Rushing. There is always something to learn from him.

So what do I think about 3s in Milan now? First of all, it's the only place in Italy where the game gets some real love. Second thing is: we already have some very good players and that is not news. Last thing: some other players in the background are actually improving and are slowly becoming a threat: me, EXG, BlueDragon (his execution is awesome, but his style is wild, lol), Biollo, Spinal and so on. We also have new players (CFC) and other dedicated heads that will do good (Togo, Jck). We have to keep playing no matter what. No matter what.

The day ended chilling out a bit with fran, LEVA, Togo and EXG. The latter also gave me a place to sleep, so we ended the night-chat talking about... 3s all the time. There is no game like this, definitely. Sunday I just went home, so that's it.

Random note of interest (?): I just bought a HTC Tattoo. It's an awesome smartphone that will allow me to do some wonders like twittering live from events and also stream some stuff... Hopefully it will be useful for my thesis at uni too, but that's another story.
3s wise, something cool might be happening soon in Milan... So let's see what happens.

AEX Ranbat Milano #2.4 & Inferno Cyber League

Took me like a week to finally sit down and write this, but whatever. Last weekend, Ranbat #2.4 and ICL SFIV tournament took place in Milan. 2 days of gaming that attracted players from everywhere in north Italy (Milan, Turin, Trieste, Veneto etc., everyone was chill as hell), Rome (these guys are on fire), Slovenia (Kekken & Champ too good as usual), Naples (Jinbe and Manlio = top tiers IRL) and even Spain! It was nice to meet RickyTTT (SVB 2009 champion), Kenichi and Amano. He's living in Padova at the moment, so we plan to play together again soon, and that's a cool bonus.
So, who won in SFIV? Italy or Spain? And who cares?
For full results check AEX in a few days, but well... Saturday Ricky (Sagat) won the ranbat. But the fight against Mitsu (Rufus) was close. Sunday we all went to Monza at the local Lan Point, where Beta and the Inferno esports team organized a pretty sweet event. We helped with the rules and ran the thing (it was a very demanding task, ~70 players attended and there were a few minor issues, but it went down quite well), so we did our job as well. Ricky this time wasn't abel to confirm his invincibility, and top3 was like: Shirl (Gouki, Rome), Sean (Viper, Rome), Champion (Gouki, Slovenia). There were a few upsets during the tournament but eventually it was nice to see Shirl take his revenge (even though indirectly) on Ricky! I got in top 32 and it was the right place for me, top16 was all made of dedicated players... And fran, who hates the game but is good enough and uses Rufus.

Anyway, let's talk about serious business. This time (well, Saturday at the ranbat) 3rd Strike was big enough with 21 players, or something along that line. Unfortunately I hit the 5th place wall again. Now that it's single elim, I can't get to the semis, last year with double elim I got there almost everytime. What's wrong with me? Part of the reason is the stress of running events (doubled this year with SFIV), it's an excuse but it really hurts my play. Also, talking with some other "new generation" (lol) player we realized that we just lack consistency and we should be able to always hit that minimum of performance that we must expect from us. No matter what. Anyway, I really believe that all this time isn't wasted. We have some players in Milan that can do well, we just need the years. We started last year to have regular tournaments so it's like we are in our 2003 or something. Plus, the situation isn't exactly easy, so props to us anyway.
Sunday night I had a nice private freeplay session with EXG too. Let's keep it up, it's all I have to say! And just to reinforce my statement, I quit SFIV once and for all, lol. I never want to waste my time again playing this game in tournaments. I don't like it, I don't like my useless character (but that's my fault, lol) and I never practice it anyway, so it's all good. More energy for 3rd Strike.

Next weekend in Milan will be in November, and maybe I'll travel to Slovenia as well for one of their awesome tournaments. Stay tuned for other news from AEX as well...