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[BitterBeing]

WARNING: Angst-induced teenager rant ahead, AKA, Public Service Announcement of doom. If you don't like reading negative (yet truthful) criticism about Otakon, don't read this.

*clears throat* Anyhow...

Hi. I'm Joe Howell. Most of you know me as BitterBeing, or "that guy that does nothing but talk shit about DDR and play that damn arrow smashy game all day", or even at best, Solid Snake or "That Box Guy".

But I'm not here today to talk to you as a B-grade famous cosplayer. I'm here to talk to you as a friend.

I am here to whine about the shoddiness of the game room and one particular staffer that was about to be caused bodily harm by me.

First, let me enlighten you. I did not come to Otakon just for the Dance Dance tournament. It was a major reason as to why I had come, but most of you know that I cosplay heavily, so the tourney was really just a bonus. Case in point, however, I'm not here to whine about the cosplay, or the weather, I'm here to bitch and moan about a tournament that I lost unfairly in. First, let me give you the story, taken straight from my angst-filled LiveJournal. (username: Hicks)

Last warning: Lots of cockiness, swearing, and ego-inflating ahead. I'm very competitive. Some parts have been edited because I tend to get a little rowdy at times. You can find the original prints on my LJ.

Saturday. The ONLY thing I did all day was the DDR tournament, because I kick that much fucking ass and got all the way into finals before I lost (due to a pad malfunction, and shitty staffers that think you're bullshitting and won't listen to you). I'll break it down for you.

A max of 32 people for both divisions were allowed to be registered. There was a Heavy division and a Standard division. Of course, I join Heavy. They line us up in the order that we showed up and count us as a number, and my friend Will (whom I just met recently), gets counted as #30. But, when he gets up to the registration booth, apparently the staffer, "Frequency" (as the winner of the Freestyle competition called him) needs to make room for "other people" and won't let him in. We hated this guy. All fucking day. He literally ruined my Otakon experience, and you're going to find out why. Anyway, on to the tournament.

First round, qualifying song: Candy <3.

I get up, I'm kind of nervous (big, obvious crowd behind me). I ended up choking and broke my combo, and managed to whistle by with 22 greats. It put me in the bottom of the bracket of the top 16 people, but I was cool with that.

Second round: Me vs. Some Guy.

Some Guy gets to pick first song (I pick modifiers) because apparently I suck and I always get screwed the right side pad (both are ignition pads, and the one I got stuck with had a shattered control box), and he picks Sweet Sweet Magic. I'm unfamiliar with the song and I pick 1.5. We play through and I get 33 greats (FUCK) and 1 miss, he gets like 27 greats and 2 goods. Ok, so I lost that one.

Second round I do Spin the Disc and he picks 2x. I PA the song the entire way through (5 greats) and he gets like, 32. I win that round. Some Guy is getting a little nervous. We roulette the next song and get to pick one modifier a person.

So we roulette (this is 7th Mix PS2 btw, which is the most horrible mix ever, I've decided, roflizzylizzyharhar) and we get Logical Dash. I got like 17 greats and a good, he got 23 greats and, like, 3 goods and 2 misses. So I win the round and pass on.

Next round, I play this really good Asian fellow. Of course, I get the right side pad again (I swear to god, that fucking judge/admin/whateverthefuck DJ Frequency hates me, because I GOT THAT PIECE OF SHIT RIGHT PAD EVERY TIME I PLAYED) and he gets to pick first song AGAIN. So he picks Still in My Heart MOMO MIX. Bad move. I practice that song like I practice laying into your mom (LOLROFLZLZZL), but I fail to realize that shuffle is on from when the last people were playing, and put the game on 1.5. Then I realize, "AW, FAWK, JOE YOU MORON" when I see 'SHUFF' at the bottom of the screen. So I just wing it (keeping on the tips of my toes) for the entire round, and end up combo'ing the song with something like, 20 greats, no misses/goods/boos/almosts, and he gets about 19 greats and a couple misses/whateverthefucks here and there. Ok, that's fine, I win that round but they don't inform me of it later. Die, Mr. DJ Frequency-guy-that-nobody-likes.

Next song, I pick Dynamite Rave B4 ZA BEAT MIX and he picks SUDDEN and DARK. I don't practice those. WEEJOY. So I get about halfway through the song until I realize I'm going to lose, and around "Listen to the music and feel that beat", I figure, "Hey, let's go out with a bang" and I pull a backwards-to-front handplant - and the pad stops registering. I step a bit, and I'm kind of like "WTF?" and prod it a bit. I turn around and I say, "Umm.. the pad isn't registering." A guy gets up and tries it. Nothing. Yup, it died. My fucking handplant killed the pad and actually SAVED ME THAT ROUND. This is where I met Frequency for REAL, and he's the rudest Otakon staff-member ever. I went up and made sure that I was going to get a re-do, and he turns around and snaps at me, yelling "Jesus christ, of course you get a damn re-do, sit the hell down." WTF? So while they're busy duct taping the control box of the pad down as hard as they can, I'm negotiating with the player that I'm playing with to be a little more manly and just have a straight shot tech battle with me, no mods at all, mainly because I came out of that one with 22 greats. So they fix the pad and he agrees to it (bad move), and I totally WHIP HIS ASS with 7 greats. I move on to the 2nd-to-last-finals. Don't get me wrong, I'm greatful, but I murdered him.

I play "That Hispanic Guy". That was the name he went by. This is where things got sour. The pads we were playing on had literally gotten up and died so we got to switch over to the pads that the Trick Division was using, momentarily putting them on hold. So Jenn pokes me and tells me that the pad I'm playing on is pretty flaky and I need to step solid. Supposedly the right arrow sticks from time to time so I'm in danger of missing. So step solid. OK, I can do that, I don't want to give the judge a hard time, mainly because he's an asshat to begin with, and I'm a nice guy - I was trying to actually be understanding for once. So I'm screwed with the shitty pad (once again), AND the pleasure of picking modifiers again.

WHAT song does he pick? He picks Crash!. Of all fucking things, he picks Crash. "OK," I think, "I can roll with this. I'm fine with that." So I play it through and every 40 steps I'm getting a shitload of Boo's and Misses. This isn't fucking me; this is the pad. So after horribly losing that round, I go and report it and Frequency completely fucking ignores me. I try to get his attention a couple times, then I just give up. God, I want to kill that man. I roll with it once again (I'm so good at that) and I pick Do It Right (2 Step Harmonized Mix) and literally BOMB THE ENTIRE WAY THROUGH. Why? Because of a terrible pad. Apparently everyone that had been playing on the right side had always lost. So I tried to report it again, he ignored me. Oh well, I was out of the tournament and there wasn't shit I could do about it, EVEN AFTER a staff member (Leah, who is the coolest cat in the world) brought it to his attention - he just claimed that no one told him about it, despite the fact that I wasn't the ONLY one who brought it up. Bullshitbullshitbullshit. So it's "That Hispanic Guy" vs. "That Crossplayer fellow that I hate". Guess who wins? The Crossplayer, because Hispanic Guy (who is really awesome and I admit, had a chance at whipping my ass to begin with) is on the right side and NO ONE REPORTS IT AGAIN.

God, this tournament is seriously fubar and so not fair. So the Crossplayer gets away with an ill-gotten prize.

After that comes the Freestyle tournament. I do Spin the Disc and I get SECOND PLACE OUT OF LIKE 32. The guy that got first place liked my style and was extremely cool, but he got a $100 ignition pad and I got.. a trinket from the dollar store. I shit you not.


Anyway, here's my little conclusion.


The grading system for freestyle was terrible - what they did at the end of the freestyle tournament was lined us all up, and had the crowd cheer for us one by one and went by crowd reaction. What's the problem here? I'll be happy to tell you: A LOT OF SPECTATORS LEFT A LONG TIME AGO.

So after getting done with that BS (a good 6 hours later), I asked around about Mr. Frequency (he's semi-pale, has glasses and somewhat spiked hair and a goatee) and apparently myself and Will were not the only ones treated like garbage by him. He'd been doing it to everyone -all day-, since 9 in the morning, and had been getting away with it.

Did anyone else run into this chap? Because he makes me wonder as to how Otakon goes about the recruiting of staff and gofers.

Finally, did anyone else find any major disappointments in the gaming room and/or tournaments? If so, what were they?

[EdibleX]

I'd bitch for two and a half pages about how the artist's alley was screwed up as well, but... -_-;

[EdibleX]

Oh, and there was no Tekken 4 tournament. WTF?

[Amethyst Lady]

Same here! I wanted a Tekken 4 tournament! They had one last year, but I didn't get to join. And now I go this year--ready, willing, and able to kick some major grass--and find out that there wasn't a tournament for one of my favorite games, Tekken?!

Oh the unhappiness!