Official***** Kong Off 4 (July 30,31,Aug 1, 2)

[f_symbols]

I think the event had very fair coverage and exposure from wihthin; a lot of the comments are coming from people who were unable to attend and were heavily dependent on streaming coverage and online updates.  As far as being there..

We got tons of love from ReplayFX, the papatv crew and the event coordinators.  Announcements went over the intercom anytime a player reached level 20 or so , this always resulted in a crowd of 20-50 spectators aggregating behind the cab (and coupled LCD screen) of interest, we got public interest and support, large rounds of applause and photos a plenty.  There was an on-site media crew that followed the KO exclusively, with high end audio and video equipment, these people were genuinely dedicated to doing a good job, I was told a bluray is in the works; service with a smile.  On Sunday, they literally gave us the main stage, I was told by the head IT guy that they spent over 5 hours Saturday night setting up our stage.  The papatv crew had a legit broadcasting station that covered Sunday professionally and they included educated players in the commentary. 

Imo the ReplayFX staff and the papatv staff were beyond professional, supportive, and truly courteous; they appreciated us as players as much as we should appreciate them for the inclusion in this wonderous location and event.  This was the first year for ReplayFX, let alone their first time hosting the KO.

Everyone has growing pains and lesson-learning on their way to greatness; this event was a total homerun and will only be better next year, don't even get me started on how fkn epic the conference center and its location in the city were.

I would like to personally thank anyone who helped make this event special, it can only get better going forward; thank you Richie, ReplayFX, PapaTV, danman, JC, mikegmi and anyone else who helped in any context with the event. 

Easily 10x better than KO3, the venues are truly incomparable, it's not even close.   

[KIG666]

The Pinburgh Championship has over 600 players and $100k in prize money.

We are hoping the festival and the big championships here (Pinburgh, KO4, and the WDRWC) can elevate the status of ALL the events and grow them all to levels never before seen.

Call me old fashioned, DK should get played for max points. The bracket style was not my thing. Let alone the fact that not even the games in the bracket got played til the end from the winners. As I saw the first two ppl playing against each other stopped playing right after it was clear who won I was not really interested anymore. I wanted to see ppl that playing out full games.

The streaming was an disappointment. Without ppl like Dan and Jeff it would have been a total disaster.

It might have been a great event for ppl that were there no doubt but it was everthing else than profesional for me as viewer of the streams 

For me DK is not about a coin drop nor about stopping games. Never surrender, to stop games until Kong stops you is against the nature of the game haha


The game is so random so to say one coin drop is the best way to determine the winner just didn't work for me that's all.

Maybe I would have enjoyed the bracket style a bit if ppl would have played full games and if it would have been streamed professional who knows as for now for me Kong Off 4 was a big disappointment 


To end my post with something positive here we go.

Still great to see that Kong Off reached round 4 and that Hank is back in business 

[timhett]

Call me old fashioned, DK should get played for max points. The bracket style was not my thing. Let alone the fact that not even the games in the bracket got played til the end from the winners. As I saw the first two ppl playing against each other stopped playing right after it was clear who won I was not really interested anymore. I wanted to see ppl that playing out full games.

The streaming was an disappointment. Without ppl like Dan and Jeff it would have been a total disaster.

[/quote]


I understand what you mean and at first agreed. However, I decided later that a bracket system was fine.  The competition was not for a world record but for the best at the event, in head to head competition like the old days and like most athletic games.  Baseball doesn't always get played through the 9th inning if the last batters have no chance to win it and a 7 game series isn't played out if the game count is 4-0 (as examples).  Also, with the initial High Score contest, it still allows for the high score angle.  Going for a world record on DK usually means many restarts over many hours and is boring to watch.  For this kind of event head to head action is more exciting, it's player vs player instead of player vs Kong.  I also like the idea of getting a single coin drop and you have to make the best of it.  All those restarts pays into luck quite a bit, for a head to head it's better to make it all more difficult. 
I do think the streaming situation left much to be desired until the final day of course.  But there is talk of that being improved for the next time, so no stress.  Huge thanks for those that did stream, JC, Dan, Richie etc and thanks for the commentating which was awesome.
Just my two cents, FWIW.  I was sad to not be able to go but enjoyed it very much from afar. 
 

[PAPA_Doug]

"The game is so random so to say one coin drop is the best way to determine the winner just didn't work for me that's all."



I'm curious about this statement because at the Pinburgh championships we played one tiebreaker game of Pinball at the end for $15,000 dollars (the largest individual prize ever for pinball). You could feel the tension in the air and it made for a great broadcast and a huge crowd on hand to witness it. If we had just played  for high score all weekend the dramatic moment would've never occurred.

In order for the sport to grow you need these kind of moments to occur and I think that was part of the thinking behind the format change for this year's event.

I think it might've been confusing that there were multiple streams as well, but maybe I'm wrong there as it did offer viewers a choice, but I think we need to communicate all of the options for the viewers better in the future.

That said, I'm interested in any and all feedback that would make the stream better. We are always looking to improve what we put out there.

[WCopeland]

Thanks for being open to feedback.

Let's get the obvious out of the way: in a head-to-head format, the broadcasting scenes need to show the cameras for both players rather than alternating back and forth. Users should be able to get all their info about the event from a single stream, rather than jumping back and forth between three to figure out what's going on.

So for example, rather than have 8 different scenes in the first round, there should've been 4 so each game could have been broadcast. With it split the way it was, it's kind of like watching a football game but only being able to see the offense or defense -- it's almost impossible to get the whole story.

Other than that, I think most of the disappointment comes from two areas:

There was no digital scoreboard or bracket beyond what the community maintained. I had family and friends telling me they were completely in the dark over the event. The only way they wouldn't have been in the dark would be if they were active members of the DK community.

The big games were not streamed, and huge moments of history were lost. No one will ever see Lakeman's first man million again because it wasn't recorded. No one will ever see the full games of Dean's and Jeff's that tied -- without the complete game footage it's impossible for the community to analyze. Anyone who set a PB cannot submit it. I cannot submit my 1,060,900 arcade score because the entire thing was not recorded. If you check out the DK Milestones section, you'll see this community loves its charts and loves its in-depth game analysis... unfortunately these things are all lost forever.

Let me make myself absolutely clear -- in person, ReplayFX and Kong Off 4 were great events. However, for these events to grow, their online exposure must be equally great to produce constant long-term growth. I think that's the area that leaves a lot to be desired.

[f_symbols]

I don't think it's fair for us as players to expect them to archive all of our scoring attempts; if you want all of your  attempts archived, then bring a camera and a laptop.  We gotta be realistic here; If we give so many damns about all this stuff then why don't (didn't) we step up to the plate and take care of it ourselves. 

Even if the "big games" had been streamed, it's insanely unlikely that they would have been complete, as the stream-scenes would be bouncing from the end of one large game to the next; even If we had been locally recording and streaming the HS attempts on some sort of DKF KO stream, I'd reckon no more than the last 400-500K of Robbies game would've been taped, and If we really want to get anal here, its useless unless it's complete. So, I'm saying that aside from locally recording every single cab for the entire event, there is no way that we would've been able to rectify the losing of "huge moments of history".

[RichieKnucklez]

I agree 100% with Wes. I was told going in that the Wi Fi bandwidth was reserved Fri and Sat for the Pinburgh contest, but Sunday it was all ours. I put Jace Hall in touch with the Replay FX organizers and last I heard he was on board for making the Sunday finals a great broadcast. Some time amidst the melee Jace texted me he was not coming. I had to trust the pinball guys to make an 8 game arcade head to head stream and be done by 5pm. Long and Short, If you came out and supported the event in person you had a front row seat to the best Kong Off ever. If you were unable to make it, you will have to wait for the DVD. Think of it as a Rush Concert. If you don't buy the tickets, drive out, tail gait and drink the kool aid you don't get to enjoy the show...... Until they release a live DVD then you buy it. If you want to enjoy some of the footage that was not "lost forever" about the last 20 minutes of every single big game. tune into the return of Richie Knucklez' webshow Arcade Culture. Sat Aug 29 my Co-Hosts will be 2 of the top 8 from "The Kong Off 4"  -  Radio announcer extraordinaire Wes Copeland and my home town home boy Ethan Daniels. We will be sneak peeking the exciting footage Jeffrey Ohler captured and giving insight into the future of the Kong Off 5. Anyone from our community who wants to come in and join the fun let us know. please spread the word Sat Aug 29th at 10pm EST www.twitch.tv/richieknucklez as well as my twitter periscope. text me at 908.797.7901 if you wanna talk shit

[KIG666]

I'm curious about this statement because at the Pinburgh championships we played one tiebreaker game of Pinball at the end for $15,000 dollars (the largest individual prize ever for pinball). You could feel the tension in the air and it made for a great broadcast and a huge crowd on hand to witness it. If we had just played  for high score all weekend the dramatic moment would've never occurred.

DK is not a pinball, you compare apples and oranges here.

I'm not an expert if it comes to pinball stuff but some friends of mine play pretty good and I never seen them struggle pretty bad on one coin.

The randomness in DK is quite different. On DK you can play 700k with just one life the next time it's game over at 300-400k if everything goes wrong.

1 coin drop is nothing on a game like Donkey Kong and that's why I wished they would have added some kind of reward bonus from the HS contest.

For example the first in the high score contest should get 3 extra tries as reward, the 2nd 2 and the 3 one still one extra coin. To play well in the HS contest would at least mean something for the title at the end with this kind of rewarding system.

Just earn more coins with a higher score. Sounds good to me

If that takes too long and you want save time make it harder on the extra coins. 1st extra coin just 3 lives, 2nd 2 lives and last still one life, this would be much better than just one coin drop and still exciting to watch.

It also would give the HS round from the first two days a bit more meaning for the title at the end. Right now it means nothing for the title it's just there to determine the final 8.

Pretty sad imo, once the main event now just used to determine the final 8 as it doesn't make any difference for the title at the end if you placed 1st or 8th......

[Xermon54]

I agree that the lack of streaming for the first 2 days might've been disappointed for some people. However, once you guys see what has been filmed at the Kong Off 4, you will DEFINITELY enjoy it 100x more than any kind of stream. The cameraman captured so much awesome moments at the Kong Off 4. I heard a DVD of the Kong Off 4 will be out very soon.

Otherwise, the only other thing that should've been improved would've been a screen of everyone's scores and standings. But overall, Kong Off 4 did blow away the Kong Off 3 in every aspect.

For those who missed the Kong Off 4, you will definitely be pissed for missing it once you see the DVD of the Kong Off 4  , but you can redeem yourself by coming to the Kong Off 5 next year 

[lakeman421]

The lack of streaming and scoreboard is something we can all agree on.  In my opinion this was the best and most exciting Kong Off yet.  With the amount of competition this year a million point game didn't guarantee you top 8.  People were playing for top 8 and this created more quality games and more drama towards the end.  Kong Off 3 we felt the need to go for the world record on day 1 which made it a lot less eventful.  I was skeptical of the bracket format at first, but once I saw it unfold in person I realized it was the best way to run the event.  All top 8 players agreed that it was anyone's game.  I would say the favorite in that format would maybe win 55% of the time because they were all equal match ups.  It was anyones game and nobody would have a pick that would be guaranteed to win the whole thing.  Once the DVD comes out, you will see how exciting the event was.  Never a dull moment and very entertaining for the players and spectators.  Thanks again Richie for making this whole thing happen and anyone else who helped.

[danman123456]

This was a new venue with new scenarios. We know what worked well and we know what didn't. Overall this event was amazing and for everyone there it was fantastic. I hope to be working hard with Richie next year to help make this event even bigger and badder for everyone. The stage this year was fantastic, the venue had plenty of space, tons of support from the crowd, etc ,etc. People don't realize just how much work was involved and while small MINOR issues may have occurred overall this was a HUGE success in my mind and I was happy and proud to be a part of it. I have ideas how to address the streaming and online part of this going forward so let's all move forward. Again this event was great, the staff at replaxfx/papatv was great. The players were great. The crowd was great. The venue was great. I was very impressed overall and hope to be a part of this next year! Awesome job Richie and to everyone else involved (JC/Sarah/Wes/etc)... Looking forward to the AC show! 

[DadsGlasses]

I look forward to being able to order the Kong Off 4 DVD. I'm also looking forward to receiving the signed Kong Off 4 Marquee that I ordered. Lighted display box is ready to go!

Thanks again to everyone involved for offering up such a great event to the community. Next year I hope to attend in person.

[f_symbols]

FWIW DadsGlasses, on Sunday, we all signed a LOT of marquees, they were not forgotten

[DadsGlasses]

FWIW DadsGlasses, on Sunday, we all signed a LOT of marquees, they were not forgotten

Very cool!  I'm looking forward to it. I was pissed that I wasn't able to attend, but glad that I got to buy a piece of memorabilia which hopefully helped offset at least a small portion of upfront costs.

[LMDAVE]

I had no idea Robbie had a first man million game, so that's been done now. <Thumbs up>
 
I agree that the high score contest is what Kong is all about. I wasn't there to see the tension from the crowd watching the brackets, so I don't know if it was a hit or not. But, also, in head-to-head it's pointless to play after you've won. These guys arent playing their normal game when it's head to head, so it's a waste of time seeing it go to the end.