Straight on Melee, the tl;dr Edition

So yeah, here I am, lookin fairly straight on melee.

I had this nice, long version of this started up, but then I realized that alot of it really isn't nessicary. I mean, there's giving you the story, giving you the details, then there's beating you across the face with a blogpost. I was doing further than that. So, I axe'd that shit and decided to just give a tl;dr version. Don't worry, details will still come, but I won't be on ridiculous tier.

In short, right before I left to APEX, I got pushed over the edge by some posts in MBR (Melee Back Room. I still question why something like that should exist for a gaming community, but whatever.) It boggles my mind that, at "The summit of intelligence and posting within the community", all of my questions and counterpoints get shutdown by some elementary ass "oh that's too long, I can't read it", or "You're wrong because that's not how we do it." Really? The higher end of the community, and all I get is cop-out answers? Sounds about right to any outsider looking in, but you can't explain that to people. I mean, on one topic in there, it's literally taken me about 7 or 8 years to understand why Melee is the only game that bases their tiers strictly off of tourney results. It's a real simple answer; because you can't do it off of matchups. No, not because they're so dynamic and variable, not at all. Because inspite of the game being out 9 years, it hasn't been explored enough to be straight on half the games matchups.

Mind boggling.

But, all that is just backroom drama. Perfect examples of why a backroom really shouldn't exist in a game community. That's not the problem with that point, though. The problem, which is one of my many problems, is how I wound up back there in the first place. Lets put it like this, while I apparently have some sowrth as the "heel" to many arguments, I never specifically wanted to be there on my own. No, I'm there as a favor to people.

That's one of the big points that kills me about my whole "gaming career" thing, how I'm in a position to where people keep asking me favors of many caliburs, and they're really favors you can't say no to. "Dogy, help me learn ______ game." "Dogy, teach me how to ______." "Dogy, come to APEX and do commentary." (Yes, even that). But when I need somebody to turn to, who do I have? Nobody, really. And although it's partially my fault, it just drives me up the wall how that pans out.

Nobody to help me out. That's not an end-of-the-world problem. I can still practice with cpus, and I can still drive out to play with people. Right? Right. But that gets old after a while. Locals, right? Wrong. Seems like everytime I have a group of people in my immediate area, they have some trait to them that effectively kills the whole learning/training experience. Heck, if it wasn't for one of my original training partners (one of the main ones in my time), I'd probably be a falco main right now. Or atleast not a Doc main, to say. But no, that's what I have to put up with. Currently, it's a bunch of FFA randoms who "want to get better", but they really don't. They just want to magically be awesome overnight without any real effort. If only.

So, that takes me back to smashboards, and honestly, this is just another random shot complaint Melee. Moderating got on my last nerves. Why? Because it makes no sense how many people want to be breathing fucktards over some simple rules that they checked a box and agreed to. Like, really. If you've been banned for it 3x, AND IT'S STILL IN THE RULES, LOGIC SAYS DONT DO IT AGAIN.. But no, a lot of people don't even get logic in some b-flat-esque shiek dittos, but they do anyway. That got old real quick. But the inverse of it made it sooo much worse than that. I mean, yes, people check a box agreeing to abide by a set of rules on a site that's owned by a fairly large company (news flash for random nobodies who still don't realize MLG bought SWF years ago), but should there really be rules for dumb stuff like censor dodging? Like, really? Sure it's a problem, but if somebody really wanted to get on the internet and find that stuff when they're not supposed to, it's not hard. But no, it "has to be done". Do I really need to slam people for multiposting? It's called vb updates, it got auto-mutli-post-merging ages ago. *Shakes head* Didn't help that I was a melee mod, so nobody really had my back on anything, and nobody really gave two flips about what I said. I posted my resignation BEFORE I went to APEX, was gone a week, came back and I was still a mod. All of the higherups don't play smash, infact, a few of them have NEVER played smash, they're just on the forum "for the social aspect". ....*shakes head*

So, to some degree, I can't stand dealing with the people. Mainly cause they're not in my immediate area, so I have to go through Hell and high water just to get to them. I can't stand dealing with the communication of the people, so what does that leave me with.

The game itself.

Playing melee is really double edged. When I'm actually sitting down playing it, it's a blast. It's fun, it's enjoyable, and in the right situation I always want more. But when it's said and done and I'm looking at it? -shakes head- I always realize how wack the game is. I really don't need to go into the details 'cause the game is at the point to where if you play it, you're probably in the camp that thinks its the greatest thing ever so telling you is like yelling at a deaf dog. If you don't play it, it's a complete waste of your time because you probably hate it for lessor reasons. So just note that I look at a game as an enjoyable game that I'm good at. Not some almighty "mistake from God", or what-have-you. I tell people if I put it on the tierlist of fighters, it'd be lucky to see midtier. Middle of mid is the highest.

All of that was the high point of many years of frustration. So, before I went to APEX, I said this to myself.

Unless APEX is somehow the most awesome tournament ever, being "Done" with melee is entirely a possibility.

And it panned out like this.

I'm not done with melee. Saying that was an extreme and I know it. I really can't afford to quit atm because I'm smart and I have sense. Inspite of what I say, I know that I'm solid at melee, so that's a crutch to hold me up as I go through other stuff. But, inspite of the good that came from APEX, I am going to turn down the Melee volume for a bit. (btw, ALOT of good did come since I (imo) asked some insightful questions and got some good answers in the interviews.)

I can't say "it'll be weird going to a tourney and not playing melee", I've done that for a while seeing as the tourney scene barely exists in my state. I'm sick of going to tourneys and being disappointed. So, I'm kind of to the point of where I wanna test my luck in other games. People ride me as being "some great being in Super", so lemme try that and see what happens. I got some interest in Melty Blood, and I (think) I have the capability to make something of that, so why not try it?

The only difference between getting into those and my start in melee is that I have some faux reputation to uphold in those games. Oh, and to some degree, I have people willing to play and help me in those games.

But that's for another post, sorry for offtopic.

In the end, no I'm not quitting melee. Again, that'd be a horrible decision on my part at the time, and if I drowned in the sea of other fighters, I'd kick the everlasting shit out of myself for throwing my life preserver away if I did. However, until stuff shapes up, I'm not keeping it as my main game. That's really asking too much at this point. Yes, I'll still go to tournaments, yes I'll still practice (honestly, I've turned the game on so much more since APEX cause I've got even more dogy ideas), but yeah, look at it like this.

Tipped Off 6 is ... sometime in October, can't find the date. Season's Beatings 5 is the same weekend. Rightnow, SB5 is looking soooooo much more intersting than TO6. Headline looks epic, wider variety of interesting, oh and at the least, I theoretically have to drive the same distance to get to both of them (seeing as for all TOs when I've seriously asked FL for a ride, who HAS TO DRIVE STRAIGHT THROUGH ME TO GET THERE, I've driven myself.) Who knows, I might be a TO6.

I might not.

(really depends on how I'm feeling bout my SSF4 game at the time. And other stuff there.)