CLUB SYSTEM UPDATE

[Smidget]

Yodle. Just wanted to post this for those who have been wondering, WTF is up with that crazy club system thingamajig

Obviously the way AM wants the system to work won't work very well in the USA, so we're going to make a modified version of it. We'll be doing that real soon. Until then, you can still begin to make a club.

******

Main Requirements to gain club certification: minimum number of members, club activities, and general activeness of the club.

They haven't announced the MINIMUM NUMBER OF PEOPLE REQUIRED which is kinda silly. I would really like for all clubs to have at least 10 people but I know that in the USA, even 10 people can be hard sometimes. We'll get this number soon so for now, I'd recommend shooting for 10 people.

They also haven't announced what the CLUB ACTIVITY requirements are. What it means is to hold tournies, exhibitions, or any kind of PIU activity in your clubs name. Just to show that you are continually active as a club and trying to help PIU grow. I can't imagine AM will ask for too much from this so until they (or we) announce the requirements, just think maybe 3-5 things a year. Tournies and exhibitions are just examples; you can really get creative with this I'm thinking as long as its constructive (Club battles would be pretty cool). When a club is ready to hold an event or activity, the club should sumbit this to AM's Marketing Team and AM will give full support to help make the event successful. What "full support" means has yet to be announced.

GENERAL ACTIVENESS is similar to "club activity". Rather than it meaning things that involve the public and/or people outside your club, it means the club within itself being active. Regular practice sessions, members competing in local tournies as well as the club sending members to compete in distant tournies to raise the awareness of your teams name, and being part of the piugame.com community are just a few examples of this. And oh, if you were wondering, I got the "general activeness" term from where AM lists these three requirements ("minimum club members, activities, etc") and ends with "etc". This is what I assume "etc" to mainly encapsulate. Of course if there is more, we'll let you know asap.

OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS TO CONSIDER/REMEMBER

Club Management - AM expects there to be a "Club Organizer", a person in charge of the club. Other than this position, the management and organization of a club is completely up to each individual club.

Job of a Club Organizer: (taken as-is from piugame. "the company" means AM)

1) An organizer is the person in charge of the club and should take best efforts to invigorate club through close relationship with the company.

2) In holding events for local people, the company gives certificate recognized by the company and the organizer is appointed as head of the event.

3) An organizer should select club members who participate in WPF national team competition with fair method.

4) Excellent club organizers can be designated as jurors in competition for selecting national team members.

5) Excellent club organizers can be designated as jurors in the WPF competition. (The company pays all the expenses like the WPF athletes)


Club Members - AM recommmends that club members should be from the same region. This is for obvious reasons as one of the requirements of a club is to hold Club Activities. Is it okay to have distant members? It seems so. But make make sure that the clubs initial growth is in a specific region, otherwise not only will it not meet the requirements of a club but it won't really even be a club (you can't practice together, you never see each other, etc.).

Community Participation - AM wants clubs to be part of the piugame.com community. They will actually look at this when considering how many people from your club will be allowed to compete in the national competition. **Most people know that the US boards on piugame are normally pretty slow. The International section however has actually picked up in the last year quite a bit. It is probably most important for a club to post in this section since the main reason AM has requested piugame participation is to increase international relations and growth.

I think that about does it. This is all taken from PIUGAME.COM, just reworded to not be in Korenglish. There is more information there concerning the national comp. and a few other club items. Hopefully this answered most of your questions

[cj iwakura]

I don't like this system at all. We have a hard enough time keeping active communities going in the USA, and they want to make it even harder on us?

Can't people just play the game and attend tournaments? Why do they have to make it a practical chore?

[Kuhazan]

This sounds like they want PIU to be more of a job for someone than fun... =(
If I own and run an arcade sure I'd do this but... I don't. On the other hand... it opens other ways to get a free trip to South Korea... heh... and then on the other hand doing so would mean you would judge other players? Umm... I sense this is going to get screwed up sooner or later.... if former competitors are becoming judges... then how do we know if people are getting judged fairly?

[Turkeyslam]

This is a ludicrous idea and will not work outside of Korea, Mexico, and possibly Brazil and Argentina.

But in actuality, I like it. This along with the "non-noob-friendly, non-mainstream" vibe of NX work hand-in-hand to put Pump back to its old-school roots. Tournaments will hopefully become local again without Andamiro's silly interventions and custom rules.

Even better, I hope they "screw up" one step further and dissolve the supporter thing altogether. I would love it if there were no more of that elitest abomination that is the supporter system.

If Pump could go back to how it was in the Prex/Premiere 2 era (the music, interface, and animations are already pretty much there), then HELL YES. Drop all the sillyness. Those were the high times of Pump. Let's bring it back.

[Smidget]

I love the idea of a club system, just of course not the way AM has it layed out. "This sounds like they want PIU to be more of a job for someone than fun... " I agree AM continues to try to push push push people and players who have a passion for the game to do their work for them. Yes, holding events and/or activities should be done by clubs simply for the clubs sake (I mean, thats part of what "clubs" do) but that doesn't necesarily mean anything that would help pump be marketed/exposed; just stuff for fun. It feels like AM is trying to make it that way though; like the events will need to be things in public view. Clubs should probably want to do some things like this to help the game they have passion for grow but they shouldn't be pressured into it.

Keep in mind though, the reason AM is trying new ways to organize things like this is because they do want PIU to be an organized sport/pro video game series (they're just going about it wrong imho). They're slogan for 2006 and continuing in 2007 is "Step Into Sports". They just need to have a more direct hand in this stuff, like they do in Korea. All this stuff works there because AM is hands-on with everything that goes on there.

The Supporter system could very much be disolved with this since they require clubs to hold events and tournies and such. The only thing the Supporter system would be needed for really is to have a team to run a national comp. So who knows whats gonna happen. I'm not gonna give any rebuttal to the Supporter comments; this isn't the thread for that.

"Tournaments will hopefully become local again without Andamiro's silly interventions and custom rules" Besides the regional ones that were held and of course the national, when did tournies stop being local? And the tournies that were held by Supporters weren't constricted to any ruleset by AM; I give the supporters complete freedom on running their tournies. Thought I'd point that out.

I don't want Pump to go back to the way it was in the Prex days. Those times were great and all but I don't want Pump to just continue on, I want it to grow exponentially. I want to see Pump on the level of games that are in the World Cyber Games. A game can still be enjoyed as a game while at the same time being enjoyed as a highly competitive game. Now, will a club system help in pump growing exponetially? If done correctly and at the right time, yes. I personally think its a too early for AM to introduce this system. They should have done something else first to increase the player base, then done a lcub system.

[Kyosuke Kagami]

The Supporter system

The idea sounded good in theory, but it tends to corrupt people.

... or that's what I've seen around here, so far.

[Turkeyslam]

I find myself, unbelievably, agreeing with Kyosuke.

TENFOLD.

There are very few supporters left that aren't elitests, assholes, power-hungry, egocentric, or a combination of all of those.

What I meant by "local" was it was something just catered to the local players, not advertised on Piugame, not run by one of those supporter people, not used as a "preliminary" to rigged national tournaments.... merely a tournament set up for local players, BY local players, 100% independent of Andamiro, their rules, and some "head honcho" on top "giving the supporters complete freedom on running their tournies". Why in the hell does everyone have to report to someone like it's their boss? For a videogame? What's with the unbelievably pathetic superiority complex with that supporter system? I'm seriously sick of supporters bragging about inside knowledge before mixes come out, teasing people with stuff they have but can't share because "Andamiro gave it to them", the way they act like they're better than everyone else, and seriously, just the general attitude behind it all. It was a failure.

And now, going back to this club system... I mean, COME ON. How in the world is this going to work? And if you don't adopt it, then we'll still be under that supporter system anyway. Oh please.

[cj iwakura]

I've never had a problem with the supporter system. I just figured it was an extension of trying to spread the proverbial gospel(which I was doing just for the heck of it since the PREX days anyway).

If it gives us more leverage to get more organizations and players into the game, then I'm all for it.

But this club system seems like they're trying to make Pump something that's 'exclusive': only certain people are eligible to be involved with the series, and I don't like that at all.

Pump's supposed to be about community, not a cult.

[Smidget]

Nothing is stopping anyone from running tournies. Just because the supporter system exists doesn't mean other people can't run tournies. Anyone can hold any tourny they want; nothing has ever stopped that.

How is the club system gonna work? If it does, it will be a "modified" version that actually makes sense in the US. I think clubs could be hella kewl if they were just fun. And I'd like to keep the USA in the WPF pool of countries. My main goal is to disconnect to club system from determining players in the national (because thats just silly) and make it something fun rather than a burden for people. Most of the "pump" countries feel this way so we'll see what AM does in the coming months. I think they got a little over anxious with the club system.

As to all the rest; i just don't feel like making this a supporter discussion thread and it isn't something I want to start ranting about online. I'd talk to you in person (EDIT: i meant over the phone) or online about it to do my best and explain some things, as long as you're willing to listen.

[Kuhazan]

I'm going to try this club stuff out, but not with any of the machines currently around here... let's see how much interest I can get online for one.... if all goes smoothly we'll just have a meetup and play some Exceed for PS2... I guess that could count as long as it's on home made hard pads

If that goes over well there is this place called Woodland sports, maybe I could talk them into either letting me place a machine there or them buying a machine themselves... it's pretty easy to get adertisement from local news programs here since multiple LAN Centers have done this and advertised DDR as a healthy activity they offer (console mixes)

In this event I would try to have like a day in every week where you just pay $5 or $10 and play on Event open until close... I could call it Pump it Up Practice Night... and hold uh... free to enter tournaments using some of the money earned from from freeplay nights as a prize...

yeah in my wildest dreams... anyhow I'm going to go see if it's possible to talk to the owner of the Woodland Sports place.... because their gameroom is empty and begging to be Pumpified... haha

[Wolfen]

This will work in Illinois.

Not that I like it though.

Oh yeah, go to piugame.com
Updates galore.

[Smidget]

Updates being: OFFICIAL CLUB RULES & OFFICIAL WPF 2007 RULES

Check it out; a lot of info. to take in.

[original z]

Bizarre!

Heh, I'd really like to be involved in the whole club thing, but I can't see it being easy to run events. Most places have a D&B for their Pump, and trying them to allow a tourney is like pulling teeth from what I've heard. Guess we'll need to look for possible spots. At the very least, I can see what they're trying to do, encourage newer players to start up by having special events for them.

Regardless, I'm against using the bar in male speed. Playing no bar requires so much more endurance and skill, hopefully they'll change it or something. Maybe they're trying to make it more accessible?

[Kuhazan]

I herby change the name of World Pump Fest to...

Koremexico Pump Fest... because what this does is reduce the amount of participants from outside those two countries...

[Kyosuke Kagami]

Koremexizil Pump Fest

Much better Don't forget Brazil.

Anyway. For some reason, I find this idea interesting... Gotta read that stuff at piugame.com.