[nirvAnA]

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+ [ACL 2013 Feedback] +

For those who have been loyal followers for a long time, I must say... I'm sorry for the lack of correspondence, but I am still here to help guide the growth of eSports here in Australia under the ACL banner. I've been focusing on building a few business relationships in the background and developing plans for growth in a rapidly changing marketplace. 2012 was a great year for ACL but there is still a lot of room to lift and improve in 2013. Expect bigger and better things moving forward.

Now, I am not going into detail in this thread about updates and developments, but I will promise you all some more direct communication between me and you, the gamers, moving forward. You should be kept in on the loop for my vision and of course then able to get behind it! For now though, this thread is very important to bring up some key feelings in the community about structure change for 2013.

Just further proof as to how serious I'm taking the plans for 2013. The first ever "ACLPro Summit" has been organised. I've flown to Brisbane, booked an apartment for a couple of nights, have flown Damien Cauci & Josh Inman up here as well, and am locking down 3 sessions of brainstorming and planning for ACL and our wider events company. Why Brisbane? Because JB Hewitt, owner of LanSmash in QLD is part owner of our wider events company and by default a vested interest partner in ACL. So, the 4 of us will be scrutinising in detail how to make ACL 'work' in 2013, in a growing competitive climate. We want the best for you guys, at the same time ensuring we don't go for broke . There are a lot of big deals on the table at the moment (small insight) but we must plan for a sustainable future, best and worst case scenarios.

[Crux of the thread starts below]

With that, we want to modify the structure for ACL in 2013. We have essentially run off an MLG modified structure developed by myself and Nick Houston since 2009. This has seen new iterations and adaptations for games like Fifa and SC2, but the overarching 'season' structure for ACL has been in effect for the past 3 years. That has meant 'year long seasons' with season points. For the first time, this could go out the window.... We are open for radical new structures and formats. We may run less events, we may run more events, we may split up our events by console and PC..... everything is up for review.

This will be your best bet to effect change, by posting your feedback in this thread so we can review.

As a guide, here's some questions to potentially address (answer what you can or want to):

• What has worked well in the past?
• What has NOT worked well in the past?
• What did you think of the points & seeding system?
• What would you think of a 'per event' qualifying system?
• What do you think would work well for competitive seeding in 2013
• What will best define the CHAMPIONS at the end of the year?

Hopefully that's a good starting point. The Summit starts tomorrow, so we will be looking through feedback as it comes through, though the sooner the better.

Thank you all!

Love eSports

What has worked well in the past?
The Streams / Media / Interviews are my favourite part of the events.

What did you think of the points & seeding system?
I think it can be tweaked to look at big SEA events outside of ACL to help determine rankings. i.e Work with masters cup maybe as a qualifier of some sort and ranked players get ACL points? And wT weeklies you get less? This way less duplication of tournaments and less taxing on the players + more integration with the SEA scene. Something like the MLG / DH global ranking maybe.

What will best define the CHAMPIONS at the end of the year?
Most fair would be by points/events won, but I think everyone would rather see a big explosive climatic final.

[UHF]

I can only comment as an online spectator & someone who was trying to follow the ACL scene over the year. There are good things to say about ACL, however I'll solely focus on the negatives as that's where the improvement is going to come from. I'm sorry if I come off a little vague at times, but if i go into detail I'll probably spend all night here.

Solidarity from start to finish
A year is a long time, and sometimes things need to be changed. Personally, I admire the tournaments/leagues that stick to their formats for the whole season - it gives off the feeling of stability and makes it much easier to follow. I'd like to see a standard qualification process, a standard group or bracket system, and standard equality through all the events through-out the year.

Trim the fat, focus on the core
The system ACL uses probably isn't that complex once you learn it, however i still couldn't explain it if asked. I still don't fully understand how everything works (perhaps that's my own fault!). The points system is interesting and it's something players can have beside their name as a quasi-prize for being loyal and showing attendance. However if it's kept, I think it should be slim-lined and made readily available on a webpage that tells everyone what it is and what it means looking forward.

Be clear, communicate with us
I think the EB Expo is the perfect example of confusion and bad communication. I remember sitting the chat amongst others on the day of the tournament and no one had a clue what was going on. It was only from the tweets of GTR that we were getting information relayed to us. We had no schedule, no idea on prize pools, no idea if a stream was even coming up, results - you get the idea. (It eventually was being relayed officially, but really late in the tournament).

It wasn't just that event either - many times I'm sifting through multiple threads or webpages to find all the details I need to know or receiving second-hand information (it makes it hard with multiple announcement threads, sign-ups threads, X other threads and web pages). I think having a concise, easily readible and easily accessible overview of the event in a single location would go a long way.

Make it a better experience for the players & the admin
From what I've seen there seems to be a real struggle with time at ACL events. I think anything you do that reduces the long grind into the night is going to be appreciated by both the players and the admin. I'm not sure how you fix this, it's probably a multitude of small things.

Improve the stream
I don't think the stream necessarily is bad, however it has a lot to compete against and does need some work.

1. Quality of video and audio needs to be priority - anything other than perfect isn't good enough for the majority of viewers (especially international that are hard to get in the first place).
2. Choice of resolution - can't really remember all the events but i have seen complaints about this
3. Downtime - another thing that viewers are getting more and more vocal about. I remember watching the Sydney event, where 'Next game in 5 minutes' actually turned out to be 30+ minutes. Interviews and roaming cams are fantastic, but you can only do so much before viewers start leaving due to lack of games.

Marketing and exposure
This needs some serious work. ACL Melbourne was a disaster, with the Team Liquid thread going up mid-way through the first day of the event (IIRC). Even WCS was all over the place with multiple threads splitting the overall interest. Reddit should also be utilised a lot more, as when I checked last time there was a total lack of ACL there.

Content
Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but it feels like there is lack of overall content being produced for ACL. There is a few things here and there, but no one is really putting in the effort to get the event in the faces of the community. How many times have you heard the big name personalities say "we just don't hear about what happens down there in SEA/Australia".
At one point I tried to play a small part by producing the statistic infographics, but it was so hard to find all the information I needed that it became a real burden to make them (i spend more time annoying Dox for information then producing the content).

A dissappointing end to the year...
Note: I apologise if this comes off a big 'whingy'

I thought GESC would take the most disappointing event of the year, but EB Expo takes the wooden spoon from me. Honestly, I can get past all the struggles you guys had at the event, however I can't say the same for the format and how it was portraited. At one point I was considering attending the ACL Nationals over the WCS event, that's how big I though it was going to be.

I thought you'd be showcasing the best players from over the year in one final bang of a tournament. I thought those super important points the players had earned over the year would finally give players a reward for their dedication, time and money spent - turns out I was totally wrong. I also thought there would be some sort of ceremony to crown the 2012 ACL Champion - if there was, I missed it.

I read this shortly after the event, and I think the following pretty much sums it up:

"Your ACL australian circuit champion for this year, walking away with... nothing... is moonglade! And this guy who has had no real showing in acl before this but got fourth at the eb games expo gets a free trip overseas! Thanks for coming to the national circuit finals!"

EDIT: Just to clarify - I totally understand that technical issues are hard to avoid sometimes. I tried to specifically move around that subject when i wrote this and write purely from the perspective of a spectator that wouldn't be privy to secondhand information.

Quick Comments

	Zepph:	EB expo's disorganisation had literally nothing to do with the people running the tournament (: just fyi
	NOM:	I agree 100%