Calling ALL HDR (West Coast) Players...Don't Let SF2 Die

Classic Fighting Games SSF2T: HD Remix
21

I’m with oldschool_BR.

Sure, money is a cool hook in general, and money WILL motivate/draw a certain type of player. (often some of the most dedicated or hungry)
But I’ve participated in competitive/tourney scenes all my life (Soccer, Track, Magic, Hyper Fighter, Poker, etc.), and most the people/players there really didn’t have a shot at winning (cash or otherwise) and (more importantly) didn’t have an expectation to win… and they still came and paticipated… and they still were excited and had fun.

I’ve been in both groups: I’ve been a top player/team looking to cash/win (hunting down tourneys and traveling for the pay day), and I’ve been a player who just wanted to participate in the scene and “do something” fun (usually cause it was part of the scene or as part of a road trip).

There’s a local ST tourney here in SD that is run a couple times a year, and they draw about 30 people. There isn’t much advertising for it, it mostly draws locals from the area, and most players there are just casual people looking to have fun. But they chip in their fee, and they play. And Kurropi wins. But it’s still fun, ESPECIALLY cause Kurropi is there playing and it’s fun to have impressive players in the tourney.

As a player hunting for pay day, I HATE it when good comp shows up: harder to cash. (though for some who are fame hunting, they like the comp so they can make their name)
As a player just playing in the scene, I LOVE it when good comp shows up: makes it feel exciting to be part of something big time.

Another thing that stands out for me is the type of tournaments I see defining the offline tournament scene: flashy, expensive ones.
Lots of scenes (including SF back in the day) are dirt cheap events that figure out some place/field to meet and have at it.
We could do local tourneys like LAN parties where people bring 3-4 set-ups, everyone brings their sticks, and someone convinces a restaurant owner to float the space with payback coming from food purchases. (lost of restaurants around here have seperate areas for special events or otherwise have unused space: Chevy’s Del Mar, Rock Bottom La Jolla, Boomerang’s Clairemont, etc.)

I am a firm believer that if you build it, people will come.
There’s a lot of bored/wandering people out there that would love to have something to do or be a part of. And right now there aren’t that many scenes for people to get into. HDR is easy to get set-up on (TV, 360, Internet Connection, Live Account, Download, and optional Stick) and it’s a format that is proven sophisticated enough play wise to support a playerbase. (heck, Pogs did)

22

I’m just sayin’ sign up, every Monday at 8:00 we’re playing. You want to help out? Then we need to prove that there are people who will play this game. DGV said he needed 80 entries at whatever tournament. Using XBL if we work hard enough there’s no reason why we can’t have double that EVERY WEEK. Heck I’ve been doing this for 3 weeks and we’ve already got 56 people who have signed up. There is interest, people do want to play and have fun, and as numbers grow we’ll GET the resources to pay off the big names to come back and play.

23

While I find that surprising, I can tell you very convincingly that the physical numbers for the game aren’t reflecting that at all. Almost no one plays HDR at any of the New England gatherings and entries for tournaments are barely reaching the 20 player mark. The offline scene just isn’t there =(

Btw, I know this is a thread calling for WC players, but I just wanted to make a statement at large about how it’s looking on this side of the fence, and it’s not good.

24

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this game is pushing close to 20 years…no one should be alarmed that this game is dying. I’m amazed it hasn’t died yet. And I’ve been playing since the original sf2 came out. Its time to move on. There are better fighting games out there today, much more BALANCED games that have much more depth and flexibility. We simply cannot expect the same system to be replicated in the fighters of today. Believe me, I love all the sf’s that have came out. and I’ve played and enjoyed them all. but its time to accept the fact that time will kill off most games; the people who follow them will diminish. However, credit for the fighters of today will always be pointed back at the sf. all props and honor will be for capcom’s sf2, and ssf2t. I think its pointless trying to advertise to gamers to play a game that is over 14 years old. But good luck. and I know that whatever happens, I’ll still be playing this game, until my hands don’t work anymore.

25

I have a hard time agreeing with this.

If you threw a prize pool of 2K or something into the game people would come. I couldn’t see JWong/ Ricky/ Alex/ Cole/ Choi/ DamDai/ Sabin/ Sabre/ Cigar Bob/ Shirts/Gramham/ Alex W/ Nelson/ NKI/ or many other non-regonial players coming to a HDR event ‘just’ to hang out and be part of a scene.

Like most things in life, most things follow the pursuit of money & status.

Top U.S. players want money for their efforts, respect for there abilities, and status for their achievements.

The only way to get all the top players to take and event and game seriously is to make it worth their while. If you practice a game 3-5 hours a day and 7-10 before a tournament, it more than just a “game” to them, it is a lifestyle.

In Diago’s interveiw after Evo, he said he played 5 hours a day. In Justin’s MTV interview he said he played more than 3-5 hours day, and 7-10 before events. Many top player’s invest their time in the same manner.

Having a scene isn’t enough any more. Players want to be rewarded on many differnt levels.

26

First, one quick thing. I don’t think money is the deciding factor. SF4 isn’t thriving because everyone thinks they can make big money or even because everyone thinks it’s the best game. Everyone plays it because everyone plays it. Competition is all you need. Anyway…

I don’t really think the SF2 scene is dying. I think it’s just changing. To me, the current “problem” is more of an image thing, than it is a real problem. But perception is a strong force, and if people buy into it then it could ruin the scene. That’s the only thing that scares me.

There are a few unfortunate things about HDR:

  • It was never released in Japan. Who knows why? And that’s retarded. And it does suck that we can’t get on youtube and watch Tokido being a slut with the fake wall dive or Daigo wrecking fools with fake fireball shenanigans. But while it’s cool to see half a dozen Japanese players playing at Evo, if the never play again, it won’t *really *affect the US scene. We’ll have lost 6 people at one tourney. Big deal.

  • Some of the big name players aren’t really invested in the game. For some, it’s that they don’t like the changes from ST. For some, it’s that the don’t like playing on console/online. And for the biggest names(Valle, Choi, Cole, etc), they’re already good enough to just show up and beat most people down for free without even really knowing all the subtle changes from ST -> HDR. Couple this with the fact that those guys play all the newer SF games, and I think it’s easy to see why they’re investing most of their time into SF4. However, most of those guys do play HDR(and often win!) when they go to a tournament that’s running it. But even if none of them ever played again, we’d still only be down a handful of people.

  • HDR was released only a few months before SF4. Had it been released a year earlier, as originally intended, it would’ve been THE BIG NEW GAME at Evo that year. The big name players would’ve been focused on it. New-school players from other games(MvC, CvS2, SF3), might have tried to pick it up as a side game and got into it. And it’s image would’ve been that it was a new game. Instead, SF4 was released and took away much of that potential.

  • Tournaments are often run by new-school players, who grew up playing 3S, CvS2, etc. They never really played SF2. And because HDR didn’t get a year to shine as a new game, they basically consider HDR the same as ST. But again, this is just an image thing. It didn’t get worse for SF2. It’s not like those guys used to throw big SF2 tournaments and now don’t. Nothing really changed.

Despite these “problems”, there’s also bee a lot of positive developments in the SF2 scene. Between ST on GGPO and now HDR, a lot of new people have entered the scene. And it’s an fun and interesting mix of people. You have really old-school people who quit playing fighing games and have now gotten back into SF2 now that you can play online. You also have the new generation of people that started with things like HF on XBLA. And I’m sure there’s a few people who migrated over from other fighting games.

For every big name guy that isn’t into SF2 as much as they used to be, there’s at least 10 new players that are. And I think the numbers at Evo this year showed that. Also, while situations like what happened at WCW are unfortunate, it still had a good tournout and many good games went down. In fact, I severely doubt that if WCW was run last year that the numbers for ST would’ve been as high. It might’ve had video coverage and had the finals played on the big screen, and thus looked like a higher profile game. But it probably would’ve been ~10 teams instead of ~30. So again, image…not reality.

I still think SF2 is very much alive. But the future is what we make of it. During the 3S era, there were no SF2 ranbats that I knew of in LA. But these days, whenever Denjin holds a tourney or ranbat for SF4 and 3S, me and EA Megaman and MonGoloRobokop show up and run one for HDR and sometimes ST. And it’s been really cool seeing new people from XBL/PSN show up to these.

So YES! If you live in an area that throws an HDR tournament, get out there go to it. If you see SF4 tournaments being held that don’t have HDR on the roster, contact the organizer and ask if you can bring a setup and host it yourself. Trust me, it’s not that hard to run one. And yeah, spread the word about tournies to people you meet on XBL/PSN. There’s a lot of really good players on there that should come out to more live events.

SF2 has had incredible staying power over the years. It’s [media=youtube]CQDM1tJMX4w"[/media].
If you support the scene, the scene will support you. :tup:

27

And I don’t expect to see Jordan in the YMCA men’s basketball league… but people still show up at that league to play.

I’m talking a local and casual scene.
Online and offline.

So which were you at EVO for: money and status?

Did you cash?
Do you expect to cash at EVO next year?

For most of us, EVO = Blizcon.
Celebrate the scene, have some fun, that’s it.

Only if money is on the table.

Historically, SF players in Japan and US play in tourneys cause it’s part of the scene.

And furthermore, we are looking to get a scene going, not get a professional league launched.
WWL and casual leagues don’t require “professionals” to succeed, though they don’t exclude them either.

Players play.
Give many of them a place to show up that’s fun and convenient enough, and they’ll show up.
Maybe not on the same week as a big cash tourney, but it’s all good.

Afro plays XBL and he doesn’t even charge his opponents.
And his post on the WCW was very pro on doing HDR tourneys.

From my experience casually interacting with them in the scene from years ago, people like Valle, Choi, Afro, etc. are VERY COOL PEOPLE.
Maybe it’s an older generation thing (in contrast to some of the younger net players who get all juiced up being dickheads and trying to carve out some sense of manhood), but many (not all) of the people from the arcade scene are good people who enjoy the scene and like to play.

If you want to cultivate a SF fanbase then YES, you need to draw and spotlight top players to follow.

If you want to cultivate a SF playerbase, then I don’t think you need to tie it to the flashy big cash, big hype tourney scene.

If there was an online league built into HDR (and the format didn’t suck), people would play it.
Something to do.

What do we want?

A flashy pro scene?
More players?
Sustain/Support the community?
What?

Like most things, what is doable or the prcess to follow really depends on what “we” want.

I expect many here would disagree with you.

I’m not speaking to the popularity of a thing, just the quality and depth of it.

28

No offence vintage, but SF2 died when Super SF2 came out in the arcades and 80% of the SF2 Arcade scene walked away in the U.S. and most comp was in mk2 or KI at the time. SF2 hyper fighting was the last SF2 installment to have such a huge following of competetion in the U.S.
I mean it went from an arcade like golfland having 6 SF2 HF machines to only 2 or 1 super turbo machines when it came out, basicly HF was the end of the old school as Jeff Schaefer pointed out in his history of SF2 videos. In 2001-2002 I would commute from merced to Sunnyvale Golfland to get comp on ST from top players like Jason Cole, Jason Nelson, Graham Wolfe, John Choi, and etc and none of them hardly ever would play on the ST machine which was just collecting dust. i would ask for matches and they refused it cause they rather play shitty combo games like CVS2 or 3rd strike.

I think the only reason that hdr had a good amount of comp for awile is because people were playing it only to tied them over like an appitiser until SF4 came out on Console.

29

battosai is right, most players like that infinite combo shit or high combo games…I’ve talked to plenty of vf4 players and tekken players, and they don’t like sf4 and its combo system ( or lack of). HDR is just preventing the inevitable from happening sooner. bought some more time, so to speak.

30

If the game is that good, it’ll push itself.

Again, with the redundant old school shit blah blah… I too, was a little high school kid in the early 90’s playing at every 7-11 and laundry mat place there was. I played at Almaden expressway south san jose digital playground/ keystone, east side Namco arcade in eastridge, and competed in Milpitas Golfland… the game was hot and I kinda agree with battosai… that 1 button do it for me combo marvel bullshit was a turn off. That really killed it for me. And I think it killed for everyone right about that time. I stopped playing actively for 13-15 years cuz of that. When Dave and Buster’s had the 40 in 1 arcade with Hyper in it… I was kinda happy but nobody knew how to play that shit. Then HDR comes around, which really brought me back to the scene. I started doing local tournies again… our biggest turn out at fuddruckers… was what… 32 players? If I remembered correctly, that’s an average on a weekly basis for back in the day. And when the bigger event comes around… it was easily 2 or 3 times as much. It’s just not like that anymore.

What I want to know is in the minds of the new schoolers… why is SF4 that much better than HDR? I just don’t see it.

I really appreciate the passion a lot of old schoolers have but it is what it is, you have to admit it. The first 3 editions were hot: world warrior, CE, and Hyper. If HDR came right after that… it would be money. We come from the every button counts generation… all the bullshit between threw us off.

31

WCW was a flop because the organizers didn’t give a crap about HDR. I’ve been to some bad tournaments in my day but that was the worst one I’ve experienced. That experience may give people second thoughts about going to future tournaments that don’t have a proven track record like EVO does.

Zaspacer, I’d love to see an HDR section on your site. I know it’s very time consuming for you to run your site but I think that is something that would help the community quite a bit.

Ultimately, I don’t see a solution though. HDR is going to stay like this because Japan doesn’t play and the players here want to play SF4. Those who don’t are divided between HDR and GGPO and it’s just slowly going to dwindle. (And I’m guilty as charged. I’ve been taking a break and have been playing GGPO lately.)

32

The game’s been around the longest of any other fighting game and a lot of its game mechanics can be found in all fighting games. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long, but I won’t be surprised if it lasts even longer.

33

I agree with zas, let’s worry more about a community of friends who share something in common, like a social circle, and not as much as a pay to get in event.

I’d be much more likely to attend an offline gathering for fun, than a twice a month gotta pay(even if its a dollar) event.

I’d rather just play with people, it doesn’t even need that much organization.

Exaggeration: If you need money get a job.

34

We are discussing to different things then. Not point disagreeing. I am not talking about a local & casual scene. I am talking about how to build more support in the professional arena player base.

Vintage’s post was to discuss to waining interest in HDR. WCW, was a big deal and part of a pro-scene. The overall lack of enthusiasm, interest, and support by the broader player base during the event is a clear indication of how the the player base majority feels about the game. Which is sad… but still reflective. I love the game.

Yes, there were many groups that signed up for HDR at WCW. But ultimately, it didn’t happen the way it was supposed too. That is a sign to me. It is a prefect example of Convergence theory.

Convergence theory holds that crowd behavior is not a product of the crowd itself, but is carried into the crowd by particular individuals. Thus, crowds amount to a convergence of like-minded individuals… In other words, people who wish to act in a certain way come together to form crowds.

Which could be interpreted (loosely even) as that the majority of crowd at WCW was not interested in playing HDR. Which is why it was dismissed and not given much attention.

Maybe it was a fluke and many players there wanted to play HDR. We’ll know soon enough, there are may little tournaments the fall and winter all over the US. If the trend of disinterest continues, then it speaks for itself. If it doesn’t, then I was wrong and will admit it.

I am all about creating a local and casual scene. I have done it all my life. However, many of the big names mentioned earlier want more than that. To get real national interest in HDR, the ‘scene’ is gonna need to offer them money and status and in a big tourney with big prizes.

Unfortunately, it creates a causality dilemma, to get the bigger player base you’ll need offer money and status, but to offer the money and status you need to attract the bigger player base.

Look at the WSP. It took a while but the draw of Money and Status has slowly caused the game growand attract players over several decades to now become the huge ass event it is.

Sure you can have a local scene at a local card house damn near anyplace in US, but it just not the same as the WSP main event

35

Maybe that’s the problem, HDR shouldn’t be combined with SF4 events? Then again, HDR isn’t popular enough to hold on its own? HDR: the new red headed step child.

36

Agreed.

Agreed

LOL

I hate to say it, I played over there for a small bit too.

37

Won’t SFII die anyway once Xbox720 and PS4 come out (or whatever they’re going to be called). Sure, there’s a chance for an anniversary edition of SF (in one of its forms) to come out for the future systems, but…isn’t it inevitable?

I’m speaking in terms of the community as a whole and not the OGs and diehards who’ll play SFII on PS1 if they have to.

38

There was interest at EVO for HDR. WCW just handled it very poorly IMO. SF4 was the only thing they cared about. All the other games got the shaft. Although (somewhat) in their defense, from what I understand they added HDR as an afterthought because there was interest from the community in having the tourney.

I do agree that in theory, HDR would be better off not being combined at SF4 events but I just don’t see it being successful.

39

Oh and on more thing… About the Money. If you think it isn’t a factor. I would like to tell you a story. Some of you are new enough that you may not know this.

Back when T5 came it was picked up by MLG. It drew a lot of ppl and had the ability to greatly increase the exposure to the game and greatly increase number of ppl playing it.

However, it took MLG (at the time) several months to get the winnings out to the winners. The winners and player base totally rebelled. So much so, that the game lost all support in the scene. Bigger players, many SRK/TZ members, where unhappy with the delay in getting paid and stopped supporting the scene. The scene immediately died on the MLG side, and the MLG dropped the game due to there frustration with the player baase and lack of support.

It didn’t matter that it had huge exposure and lots of potential competition. It simply took too long to get paid. If money wasn’t a factor, it would have never been a issue.

Players have always gathered where other players play. Humankind has always showed that characteristic. But, if you want ppl to take a real interest, throw money and status into the mix. Then look what happens (interms of increasing interest).

40

I agree with this. If you throw a $1K HDR tourney this weekend you’ll get players coming out of the woodwork for it.