Tetris Sport - summary of 3 first years

[Rosti_LFC]

Lastly, wouldn't it be more useful to offer suggestions for what we can do about these problems than to simply complain? Or, are you saying there's nothing to be done, and all this time we've been playing a flawed game that can never be good?

Rephrase the latter statement to "playing a variety of games with various flaws that will never be popular in a competitive way" and yes, that one. The current games are far from ideal for an eSport, and then there's the whole surrounding legal aspect of TTC controlling everything whilst seemingly having no real desire to create anything truly good (and I don't care what PR fluff Rogers and Pajitnov might have said in the past - words are cheap and they've done basically nothing of actual substance in the last 5 years to properly back up what they say). The thing is, I feel they can run as many tournaments as they want and it won't really help - there are core aspects to the game that will work against it. There are reasons why large competitive communities have sprung up around fighting games, SC2, MOBA games, various FPS shooters, Trackmania, and whole other hoard of other titles, whilst for Tetris the competitive scene has pretty much always been niche and tiny.

Sure I was grossly oversimplifying VS to say it boils down to 40L with stupid bells and whistles, but I feel that the current way things work does basically reduce down to whoever has the most speed and resultant APM from their opening will most likely win. I feel games would benefit a lot more from being forcibly slowed down, and shifting the garbage system to something that sends less garbage but which is more difficult to clear (maybe even multiple holes/line).

Like, I don't feel I'm saying this out of TGM/Death bias, but I think TAP Death VS has more to offer as a broadly-entertaining competitive Tetris variant than the standard TOJ/Cultris/BB rulesets. It's slower and places a far higher emphasis on stacking control and how you send garbage (because of the hole system), which means it can generate games that are far more accessible. The high levels of skill are far more subtle and aren't so much "well F*** ever being able to play that fast". If it wasn't for the fact that 20G ARS is hard as balls I think it'd be a far more accessible type of game mode.

The issue is that TTC aren't going to make it, and as a community we barely have the skills, resources and organisation available to make something that would seriously have the potential to gain big popularity.

[Paradox]

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]TTC controlling everything whilst seemingly having no real desire to create anything truly good  [/quote]

ikr what is up with that T_T

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]but I feel that the current way things work does basically reduce down to whoever has the most speed and resultant APM from their opening will most likely win.[/quote]

People rarely lose from openings unless its 4wide or the skill gap is huge.. You can find many players with different apm and speed that have games that last 2 minutes +.

tbh i think slow players Q_Q too much about speed like its some sort of imbalance. You need a combination of skills to do well in tetris and any fast player should tell you the same.

Anonymous is a good example of a player who is known for beating people going much faster than him. He is capable of going fast but trades his speed for downstack efficiency and apm.

I even have first hand experience that many players are consistently better than me going much slower than me. The reason the best players are fast is not because speed is everything but it is because it is just another skill to be learned.

I would even argue that on the balance end downstack efficiency is by far the best skill to have, followed by GPL and speed right after.

[benmullen]

speaking of team modes think of this: NES Tetris California vs Not California.  that would be fairly even i think

[Joshua_Tolles]

speaking of team modes think of this: NES Tetris California vs Not California.  that would be fairly even i think

California is going down!  

[benmullen]

California is going down!

I wonder, lets see:

California: Jonas (max), Harry (max), Alex (Max), Eli (985), Trey (953) Dana (909), Jesse (884)

Not California: Thor (max), Matt (max), Ben (996), Dan (861), Mike (833), Josh (831)

I might be missing some peeps, i forget

California still holds a wee bit of a lead on the rest of the country combined, but not a huge one and any given competition could really go either way.  But it is interesting that about 1/11th of the countries population is still about 60% of its best NEStris players    But i would really enjoy to see a team mode in the next championship for sure.  I do think that some of the non cali lower scores here underrepresent some abilities and maxouts sure dont mean your going to do that every game lol.

Our problem is that the Cali folks all show up and 2 of our top six are often not there (dan in fact has never been to one).  But even lacking a few i feel confident we could be victorious!

I do think that some of the non cali lower scores here underrepresent some abilities and maxouts sure dont mean your going to do that every game lol.

[Paul676]

Rosti...have you not noticed the 500+players online every minute playing TF, or those playing TOJ when it was up, or the 5,000+ players on Hangame? Or the 16,000,000 players playing TB every month?

People are starting to be hooked on competitive Tetris. See SirJeivus' most popular game video, with 700,000 views. People watch Tetris matches and want to watch them. Just because HD is relatively small compared to this doesn't mean that there is no demand for a competitive-play-ready game.

[XaeL]

Or the 16,000,000 players playing TB every month?

lol and all of these people think their the bestest and everyone better is haxor.

[Rosti_LFC]

Rosti...have you not noticed the 500+players online every minute playing TF, or those playing TOJ when it was up, or the 5,000+ players on Hangame? Or the 16,000,000 players playing TB every month?

Firstly, I'll dismiss Hangame and TOJ because they're essentially Korea/Japan only. Any success there is likely to have very little impact over here on the basis that the communities are almost entirely separate with very little overlap. Even for the TGM series, where the bulk of the best players are in Japan and that's where most of the popularity is, there isn't a huge amount of dialogue between the western community and the japanese one.

16 million people playing Tetris Battle means little for the competitive aspect, as I said in a previous post. Most of these people are not playing Tetris in the same way we're playing Tetris, and the overwhelming majority of those people will sit in a casual demographic where the notion of putting enough time into a game to become competitively good at it is something that just seems sad (even if they do inadvertently waste hours playing it on Facebook). I'll repeat the analogy that you don't see huge participation in professional cooking competitions as a sport, even though the participation level for cooking itself is absolutely massive.

Lots of people playing a game because it's fun to them and lots of people playing a game because they want to get better and beat people at it is a fairly big shift (except in SE Asia, where it seems to just be how people play video games). This is especially true when the games played for fun (Tetris Battle) aren't even the same games as those played competitively (Cultris, Nullpomino). If we hosted tons of tournaments on TB and they were advertised on TB maybe it'd expand the scene a bit more and raise interest, but that's how you'd have to do it. I don't even know if that would work.

People are starting to be hooked on competitive Tetris. See SirJeivus' most popular game video, with 700,000 views. People watch Tetris matches and want to watch them. Just because HD is relatively small compared to this doesn't mean that there is no demand for a competitive-play-ready game.

Given it has about 60,000 views more, I'd say more people are hooked on Tetris hacks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UICvTguTucA

Going off YouTube videos is a pretty shaky way to judge anything, and is massively dependent on videos being picked up and linked from places (see Shuey's video viewcount history). You're also looking at one-time viewers, some of which might only have clicked onto it out of curiosity and watched the first two seconds rather than people who actually enjoyed it. Like, for example, I just clicked on this video on YouTube because it was in the sidebar. It has 1.5 million views but I don't feel it represents a genuine market demand for people completing 11x11x11 Rubik's cubes.

I think with decent rebranding and redesign Tetris could definitely be interesting to watch neutrally, but at the moment I'd expect most views are "wow I didn't know you could be this good at Tetris" novelty value rather than an active desire to see more games.

[massi4h]

I guess it doesn't really count, but Guitar Hero got into the WCG, ran it's course for a couple years and got people interested around the world.

Sadly it didn't really have the spectators (though in 2010, they did the finals on the day before the finals day at like 10am not on the main stage so no-one knew it was on and nothing got streamed/watched by the public) and WCG kinda went down the poo-hole so the competitive community kind of died. There's still a scene for it in America though and people casually love to watch the game if it's put out there.
People found the game exciting to watch, even though they had no idea how to play and the more you understood about the game, the more impressed you were with top level players. This game isn't really a multiplayer game though, which is why I feel like tetris is 100x better to play and to watch. Just like a fighting game, you can see back and forth action, crazy comebacks and insane speed and thinking ability where the better you get at tetris, the more you can understand and appreciate.

I feel like tetris could be an amazingly competitive tournament game, it just isn't put out there enough and isn't advertised in the competitive multiplayer aspect. At least with fighting games, you know that you wanna beat the sh** out of the other guy, in tetris people normally first think of making tetrises and getting a high score.

And to be fair, TTC have no reason to try and support the competitive community as it's still too small especially compared to the playerbase that they are getting thanks to TF/TB. Though on the plus side, thanks to TF/TB alot of people are playing alot of tetris and alot of it in multiplayer, so given some time, who knows people might start getting into it as a competitive game.

Also highest viewed guitar hero video by a long shot is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VBfDfgiavM

[Integration]

Competetive Tetris will never be a big deal. Still, we haven't seen yet its full potential. Right now, it's very hard to find some information about the multiplayer aspect, e.g. google Tetris or have a look at Tetris.com (or try to find the non-fake multiplayer in Tetris Battle). This would have to change first.

Tetris is the most popular timeless video game. So if there is an video game at the Olymic games, it will be Tetris for sure. Still, this is very unprobable - even chess is not olympic.

[benmullen]

Competetive Tetris will never be a big deal. Still, we haven't seen yet its full potential. Right now, it's very hard to find some information about the multiplayer aspect, e.g. google Tetris or have a look at Tetris.com (or try to find the non-fake multiplayer in Tetris Battle). This would have to change first.

Tetris is the most popular timeless video game. So if there is an video game at the Olymic games, it will be Tetris for sure. Still, this is very unprobable - even chess is not olympic.

I'm really surprised, and not happy with the fact that chess was taken away from the olympics.  Also, tetris will NEVER be in the Olymicis, the Olympics are for older peeps.  If we want to have a shot at the big time, its the X games, that seems a bit more in keeping with our tratidion.  Besides the X games are a sort of proving ground for olympic stuff anyway (not that tetris will get there)

[Joshua_Tolles]

I know this has been mentioned, but I think in order for Tetris to become more popular as a sport, the commentary has to appeal to the observers who are not adept at Tetris.  I am not so sure that some of the newer versions quite give the commentator/observer enough time to explain/absorb what is going on (I am talking about novice Tetris players or non-Tetris players here).  The person playing might get in a bind, but with hard drop functions, he or she can cycle through 5 to 10 pieces really fast and get what they need to fix their mess, which may not be enough time for a commentator to explain to the observer what happened, what piece or pieces are needed to fix it, what the other options there are, the likelihood of the player to get a clean fix, etc.

I know most of you will roll your eyes at this, but seriously, NES Tetris is much better suited for the casual observer to enjoy watching because of its pace.  You can experience a drought of any given piece at any given time, which would give the commentator plenty of time to explain what is going on.  Now, I realize NES Tetris is a single player game and is not well suited for sport, so I am not suggesting that it is the ultimate version for this, I am simply saying that it is designed well (as far as the randomizer and pace of play is concerned) for an observer to enjoy with the aid of knowledgeable commentary.

I guess all I am saying is that super-fast hard-dropping may be hard to sell to a non-Tetris player, simply because they need to have things explained in order to appreciate what is going on. And they can certainly appreciate what is going on...as anyone who has seen Ecstasy of Order in the theater can tell you.  When you get an entire theater full of people cheering and groaning, it is very fun  

[Integration]

Is this slow enough?

This video made me think: Pft, this John Tran doesn't even drop 2 pieces per second, but still he dares to call himself World champion?   My opinion: When you use harddrop, the games should be as fast as possible. Elsewise it is missing the wow effect.

Actually, I enjoyed more the 1 vs. 1 NES marathon videos at the Classic Tetris World Championships.  It had that wow effect, because the pieces fall so fast and still people not only managed to survive, they constantly do Tetrises. The games even stay thrilling, when one player is 50,000 points ahead, because one mistake can cost you the game. Though, I wouldn't enjoy the screwed marathon you find everywhere these days.

[Rosti_LFC]

I have two problems with high speed.

The first is as Joshua said - it makes the game harder to follow for people who aren't as adept. It's hard to appreciate good decision-making by the players if you can't mentally keep up with the speed the game is going. It also doesn't help if the game progresses too quickly for the commentators to recognise and explain good decision-making. If you can't process Tetris quickly enough to keep up with what is actually being done with the pieces, then for the spectator you might as well not see the pieces at all and just show the stack because that's about all they can really process. Sure, you get the impressive factor with high speed, but that doesn't actually hold any long-term value for anyone.

The second is that it makes games end too quickly. And I don't mean in terms of having 10 second matches - I mean in terms of a player going from "OK" to "dead" in far too short a space of time. A lot of excitement in sports and eSports hinges around tension and not knowing what is about to happen next. If a player is about to top out, then the longer they sit on the brink of death, the more tension is raised as to whether they'll be able to survive it or not. When you combine 180tpm with the ability to easily send 6-10 lines in an incredibly short space of time, you totally eliminate any chance for that sort of excitement to build unless you're extremely good at following the game.

Speed is an easy way to increase the skill ceiling, but I think it's a fairly cheap and blunt way to do so, and it makes the game less interesting as a result.

even chess is not olympic.

Its federation is recognised by the IOC though (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_sports)

And eSports won't ever be in the Olympics for the same reason that darts, chess, pool, etc won't ever be in the Olympics, which is that they don't represent feats of physical technique, strength or athleticism and they're not what the Olympic games are actually meant to be about. Regardless of anything else about the success of something as an eSport, it's just silly media chatter to suggest anything like that will be included in the Olympics unless there's a massive overhaul of the system.

And if one does somehow make it in, then it'll be the equivalent of SC2/LoL/whatever is popular at the time that makes it.

[myndzi]

Everybody hates are for vs but I honestly think it would do a lot for the game as a "sport" so to speak, for the reasons mentioned above. Unfortunately, it is boring to people who don't need a long delay to play well... but on the other hand, it allows good players to really excel. I played meow with 60 are in Blockbox once and got positively rocked. He said he had 'too much time to think'.

I don't see that as a bad thing for a spectator-sport kind of arrangement, though. Imagine if the crazy stuff you can do in KoS was viable in a live game? More to talk about and more to watch... and more time to do it all in.

With high speed play, there's this chance for players to "come back" by playing extra fast, but with low speed play, garbage has a more inevitable, dangerous feel to it. You have to play more strategically because you can't fall back on speed to get you out of a tight spot.

Edit: Reminds me, I once planned to run a kind of multi-speed tournament; each round having a lower ARE setting. I think nobody who signed up actually played any games, but if there's interest I could try it again. Bonus points if we get some commentary to see how that works out.