ESOCommunity

I've been deciding for a few weeks whether or not to make this post, and today I made my decision. I'm putting an indefinite hold on Saturday Smackdown. For those who have been following for awhile, this probably is expected, but I figured I would make a post explaining my decision.

I've always told myself that I would continue to do the event as long as I was having fun doing it. For the better part of two years, I have really enjoyed hosting the event. Recently, however I've found that the fire I once had for Smackdown is no longer present and as a result, the quality of my own casting and the event in general have degraded significantly. In addition, the common problems of finding players and co-casters, maintaining an ESO connection, and having a working high end PC and internet connection puts added pressure on the days of casts, especially on the single day of the week I actually consider a "day off."

All that aside, I do plan on continuing casting, just on a less frequent time schedule. I plan to host smaller, more spread out events which I'll announce on this forum. These events will be more well organized with pre-selected set of players and casters for the whole event. I also am hoping that with less of a time commitment on Saturdays that I'll find myself doing more informal streams just for fun.

I consider this an end of an era (for me personally) and as such want to thank some people, without whom, Smackdown would have never been possible.

@Aizamk

Aizamk wrote:notification

and @Garja

Garja wrote:notification

Without you two, Smackdown would have never existed in it's current format. Smackdown and the competitive scene owes it's existence to you two.

@Interjection

Interjection wrote:notification

My faithful co-caster. Absolutely.

@_H2O

_H2O wrote:notification

@Mitoe

Mitoe wrote:notification

@Goodspeed

Goodspeed wrote:notification

@musketeer925

musketeer925 wrote:notification

@91

91 wrote:notification

@iNcog

iNcog wrote:notification

@MCJim

MCJim wrote:notification

@Buckethead

Buckethead wrote:notification

@tilanus

tilanus wrote:notification

@edeholland

edeholland wrote:notification

@Mr_Bramboy

Mr_Bramboy wrote:notification

@DivineFire

DivineFire wrote:notification

and anyone else who has helped make, mod, and promote this site
The community lives because of you guys. Be proud of that.

All the players, Smackdown would have been really boring if we only ever watched @Aizamk

Aizamk wrote:notification

and @Mitoe

Mitoe wrote:notification

(although sometimes it feels like we tried)

And finally, the viewers. I would have quit ages ago if there wasn't someone to talk to. For anyone who ever tuned in, my public speaking skills will forever be in your debt.

It's time for a break; thanks for reading and thanks for watching!

Thanks for everything you've done for the community Zuta!

I always thought that it was a lot of pressure for you to find players for your event, and that you wouldn't be able to maintain this rhythm indefinitely. Doing smtg more organized,less often and less time consuming for you sounds wiser and more realistic over time. I enjoy your castings a lot, so as long as you don't quit it's all good!

This makes me sad but it's understandable and not totally surprising given the state of AoE3 right now. Coming across some Saturday Smackdown vids is what got me interested in AoE3 a while back after being a long time AoK fan, and I've enjoyed watching your streams immensely. Thank you so much for all of the hard work you put into it, and enjoy having more free time on your Saturdays :).

Wow for the first time since I'm playing aoe I'm feeling old... It's indeed the end of an era, not only for you, really. Those castings were by far the most enjoyable we had in non-tournament times. But I guess recently a lot of good players quit the game, so yeah must have been hard to find challengers... I don't feel like the quality of your casting has decayed though. But anyway, if you don't feel like going on with it, it's of course your call. I hope your future events and streams will be as fun as smackdown used to ! And thanks for all those good gameplays you casted, thanks to interjection as well for his hype.

Hopefully with the servers being more stable players will start to come back

RIP

Thank for all the effort you have put into this series, zuta. Saturday smackdown was always something to be excited about for me, although recently this hasn't been the case.

damn

i'm too short on time to give my full thoughts on this one, expect a big post out of me soon in this thread though

love ya zuta, for the time being what i'm going to say is that smackdown was one of the best things to happen to aoe3 in these past few years. not even going to lie. thank you so much! <3

ah, i'm glad that this is only a break and that there is more to come

This isn't a bad thing. We can probably get some better quality games with this change. I wouldn't mind casting once in a while, since I know so many of the builds but hardly find myself playing these days.

Peeps need (want?) a longer break after the winter tournament with how long that went.

thanks zuta, although it may be a little less stressful if you had like a sign up sheet for players to sign up for the week coming's saturday smackdown so its easer to find players. Either way hope you come back soon.

^that's a pretty neat idea hazza

anyway zuta, take that breather, everyone loves you anyway ! <3

Thanks Zuta, Saturday Smackdown has always been a special thing. Especially in the beginning, but still, it has been something that kept me home on a Saturday evening. Week after week I looked forward to it, and made sure I was ready to sit down and relax. The beginning was great, 250 viewers was a normal thing, but after some time it decayed. Personally, I think it needs some new fresh blood to be able to make it interesting again. I also think you can't really do the same thing year after year every week again and stay on the same viewer count if you don't change the concept.

Saturday Smackdown did really good, but it needs some changes to make it interesting again. I hope to see you back soon! Missed your voice

Zuta op

Hazza54321 wrote:it may be a little less stressful if you had like a sign up sheet for players to sign up for the week coming's saturday smackdown so its easer to find players. Either way hope you come back soon.

indeed, I immediately thought of the same. Sometimes it seemed that SS was starting at 20 GMT and Zuta was looking for players at 19.30 GMT
Nevertheless, I don't think that the quality has got worse as well. Even if so, I'd blame that on your PC issues, which is something you can't really do much about if they suddenly appear. Also Interjection seemed to be up to something else. But the latest one with Aizamk casting was pretty enjoyable as well! xD
Furthermore, I'd like to thank you for all the effort put into this. When I wasn't that interested in playing AoE3 online and didn't really know much about that (my ESO account was lost at that time), I found it very pleasurable to watch a nice BO7 between two high-level players with the commentary of two wise native-English speakers. There was some great banter sometimes, good analysis and so on. And to sum it up, recently even I had the privilege to take part in SS, which was a great experience I'll honestly never forget. Although it wasn't the best performance from me, it was still a lot of fun!
So once again: thank you! Keep up the good work, remember that Saturday Smackdown is still a thing for the large part of our community, so come back in the future at some point!

Thank you for your hard work on Saturday Smackdown! Since I haven't played competitively until recently, it was a great way to see good players combined with insightful and funny commentary to get me back to the game! Thanks again and good luck!

Saturday smackdown has always made the weekends where I didn't have anything else to do. I know the struggle to find players has always been quite immense. Maybe it's an idea to make a forum thread where people can sign themselves up for the next smackdown?

Thanks Zuta for all your effort, ever from Wednesday Unofficial Smackdown, to Saturday Smackdown to Illegal Smackdown, I enjoyed it. Hopefully we'll still see you around sometimes!

Jerom wrote:Saturday smackdown has always made the weekends where I didn't have anything else to do. I know the struggle to find players has always been quite immense. Maybe it's an idea to make a forum thread where people can sign themselves up for the next smackdown?

And now your Life has ended.

Well, thanks for all the smackdowns you've casted in the past, Zuta! I won't lie, smackdown has always been my main motivation behind working on the UI. Just as you say smackdown in its current form may not have existed without the UI, similarly the UI in its current form would not have existed if I wasn't motivated by smackdown to continue working on something that would be used for a weekly event.

Was always a good feeling whenever I got shout-outs from you and Interjection, it's justified the many hours of work I've put into it. All the feedback from you two has also helped immensely. Many thanks to you two for continually supporting me throughout development.

Anyway, it looks like my ongoing lifelong series vs Mitoe will be put on hold for the time-being. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since I'm winning >:)

thats np @Aizamk

Aizamk wrote:notification

cuz im winning challengers of the new world, I avenged you in advance @Mitoe

Mitoe wrote:notification

Has you're neighbouring dog got you mad?!

Gonna miss this very much! Besides watching SS I used to have it on without watching because I just like our Zuterjection talking.
Dear Zuta, thank you for all content you have produced. Looking forward to new/different future events. All the best to you.

Thanks Zuta! Your casting has always been great and it seems like you've contributed so much to the community. Good luck with all the future events and tournaments etc.
Btw, always wondered what it takes to be a caster.

Sounds like you will be playing by your own rules a lot more :). Thanks Zuta! Looking forward to the future events!