I just won a GH:M tournament!

**kwkemrtapu** · Joined: 07 Jun 2007 Posts: 133 Location: Minnesota

I get a trip to L.A. to play in another tournament, the winner gets to meet Metallica!!
_________________

Bang Camaro Minneapolis Choir Member
The Bang Camaro definitley runs on dude power.
My avatar is 135 pixels wide by 101 pixels tall

**massi4h** · Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 536 Location: New Zealand

Wow that sounds pretty awesome. Congratulations.

**LlamaYip** · Joined: 23 Dec 2008 Posts: 3151 Location: Chicago, IL

Geez! You're in a good position-except JLC lives in LA. (I think)
_________________

My Youtube | My Accomplishments | Total Hard FCs: 723/725 | My Stream | GenericName

Latest Hard FC: Through the Fire and Flames GH3 | GH1: 47/47 GH2: 62/64 GH80S: 30/30 GH3: 70/70 GHA: 41/41 GHWT: 86/86 GHM: 49/49 GHSH: 48/48 GH5: 85/85 GHVH: 47/47 BH: 65/65 GHWOR: 93/93

**boberta13k** · Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 2:01 am Post subject:

**kwkemrtapu** · Joined: 07 Jun 2007 Posts: 133 Location: Minnesota

**Vertiggo** · Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:28 am Post subject:

I'd love to know where the other locations were....

Just saying

Grats on the win though man, that's awesome!
_________________

JasonParadise / vVv Paradise / Ubi Paradise
http://www.twitch.tv/JasonParadise
http://twitter.com/UbiParadise

**kwkemrtapu** · Joined: 07 Jun 2007 Posts: 133 Location: Minnesota

**Tempest8** · Joined: 03 Oct 2006 Posts: 327

I checked with the local LA, CA players about this tournament, AND THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!...

**ricecake** · Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 4:57 am Post subject:

Congratulations! I just won the same one in Baltimore! I will be getting a call tomorrow with the details.

Do you know when the LA trip is?

I hope you don't mind, but since you already posted a thread, I'll just piggyback on yours to share my experience

So, I was driving home from work and I hear about the competition on the radio. I call up my friend sabowski and pick him up, and we head over there.

15 people signed up for the competition. The rules were to play All Nightmare Long on Expert, highest score wins. So, we had to sit through the song 15 times.

The first guy goes up and gets 488k. Several others play, many failing but most of the ones who did pass got less than 400k. A couple people came close to beating his score but fell a few thousand points short.

Then I get up there, I was 11th in the lineup. I get 661k on my first ever playthrough of the song (I only have PS2 so I hadn't played any of the Death Magnetic songs). The lag was still a little bit off (we tried to calibrate before it started but it kept coming up as (0 ms, 0 ms)).

Then sabowski gets up there, and he gets around 370k or so. He tells me he was just happy to pass

He hasn't played any guitar in a long while, he's been concentrating on RB drums.

A couple more people play, and then the last guy goes. He was decent, getting 500k and second place.

Top 10 finishers got a free copy of the game, on their choice of Xbox 360 or PS3. Sabowski chose PS3, and I picked the 360 version. Since I don't have a 360, I am going to give it to my girlfriend's brother.

We hung around and I sightread Master of Puppets and sabowski sightread Orion.

We then went home and got some dinner, then played a couple songs with me on guitar and him on drums.

Overall, a good night. It still hasn't sunk in yet that I get to go to LA. I've been there a couple times before, and I have some family that lives out there, so hopefully I'll get a chance to see them while I'm there.
_________________

DLC Quickplay Profile

**boberta13k** · Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2009 10:44 am Post subject:

how come I never get to play in tournaments where everyone else (practically) is failing the song and i get to see metallica in person??

(anyone know if there's one in the boston area?)
_________________

I totally died. in the meantime im drumming for my band, Magnum Solstice. if you want look us up and tell us we suck, ill love you for it :P

**GuardianDemon** · Joined: 11 Apr 2008 Posts: 1792 Location: Ireland

You guys are so lucky you all get to have GH tourneys !!!! i envy all of you !

**kwkemrtapu** · Joined: 07 Jun 2007 Posts: 133 Location: Minnesota

**ricecake** · Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:36 am Post subject:

I talked to my Warner Bros. representative and he told me the competition in LA is on May 8th, so they are flying me and my girlfriend out on the 7th and flying us back on the 9th. We also get two nights in a hotel paid for. He told me we will probably have to pay for our own ground transportation, and I'm assuming meals and stuff.
_________________

DLC Quickplay Profile

**boberta13k** · Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2009 12:37 pm Post subject:

now i feel extremely envious because i got 713k on my run.......
and which local radio station should i check? there are a whole bunch 'round here....
_________________

I totally died. in the meantime im drumming for my band, Magnum Solstice. if you want look us up and tell us we suck, ill love you for it :P

**ricecake** · Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 2:56 am Post subject:

So I guess I'll write about my experience at the Warner Bros. tournament on Friday...

The shuttle to pick us up from the hotel shows up around 11:45, but there are only four of us getting picked up (two players and our guests). There were supposed to be about 10 or so but most of the people flew in on Friday and ended up getting there late. We ride over to the studio and there are a couple camera guys there. They give us Metallica t-shirts and tell us to get back in the van so they can film us getting out and walking through the doors, acting all badass and stuff. We go into the building and go downstairs to where the competition is taking place.

We go into a big room with a huge TV and really nice sound system setup. There is a buffet of food with sandwiches and other things for us to enjoy.

They explain the rules and we pretty much get right into it. There were 20 or so people in the competition, divided up into 2 groups. The idea was that the top 2 people from each group would advance to the next round... however, due to the timing of people arriving, this didn't work out, and it was just the top 4 scores that advanced.

It was supposed to be based purely on score. First round was All Nightmare Long, the next round was Master of Puppets, and the final was The Unforgiven. They said they randomly picked the songs from the Metallica songs, which explains the weird order.

I was the first to play. I go up against some girl in Pro Face-Off (they picked Pro Face-Off to make it go much faster, but the ranking is still based purely on score, not necessarily if you beat the other person). I pick Expert, and before I realize what had happened, I see that she picked Medium. We play through the song and I realize that my score is nowhere near what it should be, and then I remember that the scoring mechanics for Pro Face-Off are different when the players are on different difficulty levels. In other words, she got more points per note since she was on a lower level. None of the people running it seemed to understand this before we started, so after seeing our scores at the end and realizing what happened, I bring this up and the good news is that we decide that the only fair way to do it is if everybody plays on the same difficulty level. However, the bad news is that they decided that we should all play the first round on Medium

I felt like if this one girl hadn't picked Medium on the first round, then everyone else would have picked Expert and it wouldn't have been an issue.

So, our first round was discarded, and the other guy that showed up with me played against another guy on medium. Then I get to re-do my round and I annihilate the girl. We used Schecter wtars, and I think mine overstrummed due to the touch strip, so I had a 100% overstrum run (394k). I think she was pretty pissed off, because in the rules it said that you should use strategy to get more points, but now that we were on the same difficulty level, she was like, "but now there is no strategy involved", at which point I countered that Star Power usage is where the strategy is, but she seemed to think that it didn't make much of a difference. As soon as she saw her score and realized that she wouldn't be able to advance to the next round, she asks to leave and takes a plate of food with her.

Eventually more people show up, and they play through their rounds. There is some downtime in between some of the players showing up, so they let us screw around and play some in between as long as we don't pick the songs that are in the competition.

A very large number of the people FC the song, but due to a better Star Power path, I manage to advance to the semifinals (top scores were 399k, 397k, 396k, and my 394k). Since there are only 4 people now, they decide that we can play solo on any difficulty we want. All four of us pick Expert, and beforehand, we had a discussion on whether Hyperspeed is allowed. The people running it had no idea what it was, so they let us decide. Obviously, all four of us agree that it can be used, but only two of the people actually used it (I personally do not use it).

I go up first, and I had a mediocre run. I missed several Star Power phrases that I can usually hit, so I only get 599k. The next guy goes up and he gets 665k. Then, the third guy, who I learned is Draktyr here on ScoreHero, gets 712k (he was also the top scorer in the first round). I don't remember what the fourth guy got, but he was above my score and below 665k.

The last two guys then play The Unforgiven for the finals. The first guy gets 309k, and Draktyr FCs it with about 320k. So, Draktyr is declared the winner! Grand prize is a trip to Las Vegas with backstage passes to the Metallica show or something like that.

They have a short interview with him and his fiance (maybe wife now) and they say that this means a lot to them since they both have been huge Metallica fans for the past 20 years, and they met at a Guitar Hero competition, and got engaged in Vegas. Plus, he showed up in his own Metallica shirt instead of having to be given one

Overall, I had a really good time and I got to meet several cool people from all over. Draktyr from Florida, kwkemrtapu from Minnesota, and people from Ohio, Michigan, Utah, myself from Baltimore... so this really was a national event. Even though I didn't win, I thought the final outcome was fair, though I wish the first round had been set up better.
_________________

DLC Quickplay Profile