It was a few weekends ago where I settled in to start working on some Super Street Fighter IV stats, and then I noticed people talking about the North American Star League finals. The more people talked about it, the more it piqued my interest. 

As the final day and the championship began, I said to myself, "OK, I am going to intentionally sit down and watch this just to see what is going on." It captured me, in part because I barely knew what was going on, but people were so welcome to get me in and start learning about Starcraft II.

Let me say that the only Starcraft matches I had ever intentionally watched in the past involved a player named NoNY, and I couldn't understand what he was doing. I'm not putting any blame on NoNY; it's more of my own doing for not being involved in the game.  

That NASL final captured me like few matches have ever done. I had a feeling that if I could understand it, numbers-wise, I'd probably enjoy the game a lot more.

That's what this post is about. I'm not going to drag on forever about how there will be a slight shift in coverage on this site. You followers know that I have heavily broken down stats of fighting game tournament matches. That won't change, especially now with Super Street Fighter IV Ver.2012 being released next year.

I know that the stats revolution is a slow one. There were more questions and interest about stats in the weeks following Evolution 2011 than there were in the year before that. Laughter and mockery has been mostly replaced with questions and interest. That tells me people want to know more about the stats they put up in fighting games.

Extensive stats of StarCraft II? I see it as a possibility. 

It'll be a slow process, but I want to find those little tidbits that make matches interesting. What numbers are important? How do units factor into matches? What do players tend to care about? Is there truly one race out of the three that is overwhelmingly dominant? I don't know any of this. But over time, by collecting data, I'll get an idea.

I want to learn more than anyone else about this game. Yeah, I'm late to the dance, but I'll get there, slowly. 

Help me out in this stats revolution by leaving a comment here or talk to me on Twitter.  no comments

The finals of the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 tournament at Super vs. Battle 2011 were between Kyzerton and 1UpMiles. I have watched the match and will post stats later today, but I hope you all can check out the video. It was a very close contest.

UPDATE: Stats of the match are now available on the Fighting Game Stats database.

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It is one of the most memorable moments in competitive gaming.

And now, it's in 8-bit format!

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With apologies to Ryan "Filipino Champ" Ramirez (pictured, center), I AM going to talk about his EX usage, ha ha.

The reason I am is because it is the most amazing stat I will mention this month. Yes, we still have more than 10 days remaining, but it is that good.

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A Hall of Fame for competitive players is something that has been brought up repeatedly. I've even brought it up a few times in terms of what players and tournament organizers would go in first.

But a lot of the talk has been about opinion. What if it was based solely on wins or milestones?

The World Golf Hall of Fame does a selection process for its hallowed halls. However, a player can't be considered unless he or she meets a certain win requirement. So there's two things I'd like for you to think about.

1. Name 10 players in all games that you'd pick for the initial Hall of Fame ballot. These are 10 players that you believe are no-doubt-about-it the greatest of all time. To make things easier, let's shorten the field to North America only.

2. Now, let's put in a requirement of tournament wins since 1995 where ...

• Regular tournament with at least 30 players: 1 point
• Major championship, regardless of size: 10 points

Once a player gets to 50 points, he or she is placed in this imaginary Hall of Fame.

If you win a tournament under this format every weekend for a year, you're in. The scary thing is, some players are good enough to do that. But realistically, it'd take a few years. If you even started in 1995 and won three tournaments a year, you'd almost be in. I remember someone like a DieSuperFly who won seven tournaments in as many weeks and was a fluke KO from extending the streak a few more weeks.

Are there any players under No. 2 that qualify that would surprise you? I thought of all the players that would qualify under No. 2 and there wasn't someone that I wouldn't put in.

Now, is there a player in your Top 10 that doesn't meet the requirement? Is he or she close? 

This is just another way of looking at this imaginary Hall of Fame debate.

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In the past, the Madden demo was just a quarter or a couple minutes. This year, the demo was a full game with 5-minute quarters. While the demo was very enjoyable, having more time to play the game was essential in understanding what EA Sports did to this year's version.

I'll talk about a few things that caught my attention as I played the demo.

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Think about how you get your tips and strategies in whatever competitive game you play. There's sites out there that provide a lot of info on how to be successful. Then there's sites that produce just cheat codes. Either way, you're getting something from going to those sites.

What would you do if you couldn't access those sites anymore? How would you get your tips and strategies? Would you just YouTube it all day? 

When I was trying to get 9,999 online points in Mario Kart Wii, I hit up Mindscarp's YouTube portal to look at how the world-record holders accomplished their feats. There really isn't a site dedicated to Mario Kart strategies, so that was the best option.

That's hardly the case in Madden. There are plenty of sites that offer tips on how to gain an advantage. However, there are also sites out there that do a mix of cheat codes and real tips.

And in most cases, you have to pay to get the real good juice.

Apparently, EA Sports is trying to stop the paywall.

Shopmaster over at MyMaddenPad shares his thoughts on several Madden tips sites being told to stop charging for tips and cheats as of Monday. I believe this was an issue a couple years ago, but it wasn't made known. 

Now that EA and Prima Games have upped the ante by promoting their own site with tips and info, it seems as though the idea is to get players to go there for their fix.

But what about the guys whose bread and butter was made by selling tips and cheats on these secondary sites?

As I was writing this entry this morning, I tried to go on a couple sites and received error messages, so appearently this is for real.

Here's some thoughts from Shopmaster:

I reached out this past week to a number of Madden websites that sell Madden Guides and inquired about the issue and if they received a letter from EA’s Intellectual Property Office.  So far, I know about 4 websites have received this letter and some haven’t received the letter yet but fully expect to be put on notice soon.  Most don’t want to be identified but was kind enough to share their thoughts on this matter.

 

My biggest question is “Why now?”.  Some of these guys have been doing this for years; they are not doing anything new now.  They’ve always sold guides with videos that broke down their tips in a better fashion than just a PDF that told you how to set it up in text.  So what’s the big deal? Some of these guys are just passionate about the game and breaking down plays.  I’ve had the pleasure to meet some of these guys in person and I remember this one guy started breaking down plays with french fries.  His site is among those that are being shut down.

After talking to multiple people, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not EA at all that is demanding that these sites get shut down.  It is my opinion that the popular strategy guide company Prima Games is putting pressure on EA to shut these sites out.  Now these are strictly my opinions and one else’s but it all makes sense.

I’m a big supporter of Prima Games and the guides they sell for NCAA Football and Madden NFL Football games.  Their strategy guides are good and with my good friends Sgibs and Zfarls doing the guides this year, I expect them to be even better and the NCAA Football 12 one I have is better just not as detailed as some of these NCAA Strategy guides that others have created.   I didn’t think Prima would let them create that kind of guide.  The Official Strategy Guides that Prima prints are just bare knuckle, basic stuff even though I did see some new things this year with Sgibs and Zfarls at the control.   That being said it has never competed with the details that these website were giving out with the video breakdowns.  Prima has never been able to compete with that …… until now.

Now I know a lot of people here are fighting game followers. Is there a site out there that makes people pay to get tips? I can't think of one out there. They probably would get laughed at anyway.

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Remember how Latif was so crucial to his team in the first Super Battle Opera qualifying tournament? In the Top 8, he stepped in everytime trailing 1-0 and won every game for he and Mr. SNK.

It was a similar situation for 801 Strider during last night's third Super Battle Opera qualifying tournament. In the second championship match, he did not lose a round when his opponents — John Choi and Hsien Chang — both were on tournament point. In those four rounds, he outcomboed both guys 16-4.

There seems to be a theme with this year's qualifying tournaments, and it's perseverence. Whether that'll help the teams as they go to Japan for next month's event (Latif and Mr. SNK will be replaced) remains to be seen.

Video of both finals matches from yesterday, from Arcade UFO, follows the jump ...

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OK that's a given. Kevin "Dieminion" Landon uses Guile, a character not built on needing combos to win. But what Dieminion did in the Guard Crush 21 finals against Chris Hu was fairly amazing. Dieminion finished with 11 combos in the match. At 12 rounds played, he didn't even break a rate of 1.000 per roun. He finished with a rate of .917. Chris Hu had a combo rate of 1.500.

I'll try to compare Dieminion's feat with something. When he made the Top 4 in an Evolution 2011 circuit event, his combo rate was 1.231 per round. He was the eighth-worst player in Top 4s when it came to getting combos.

Dieminion in his match against Chris also went 4 rounds without getting a combo, which might be the most amazing stat of all. I'll glass-half-full this despite the fact he lost a game. Based on the matches I've charted, a player that is outcomboed in a round has an 8.19 percent chance of winning a round. Here's the four rounds:

• 2-0 - won
• 3-0 - lost
• 4-0 - lost (lost the game)
• 1-0 - won

So in that four-round stretch, Dieminion was outcomboed 10-0 and won two rounds. Amazing.

I'll likely talk about this match more in an upcoming Stats Series podcast this week, so stay tuned.

Video of the finals, broadcast by Team Spooky, can be found after the jump ...

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The day has finally come! The Madden 12 demo is available. The game in the demo is Chicago vs. Green Bay, a rematch of the NFC Championship game from last season, played at Soldier Field.

The demo is 1.53 GB.

Check it out and post your thoughts here. no comments