So I live in North Yorkshire and Manchester as of now and from what I can see there is almost no scene for people to meet up and play casuals.
I get so jealous of Cali or New york and there amazing fighting game communities they have with tones of local tournaments everywhere. But if you want to compete in the UK you have to travel hundreds of miles to London or some shit.
The only person who plays fighting games is my best friend at home. So we just play endlessly against each other. We are both really bad too. I just want to play vs good people so I can learn from them.
Just wondered if you guys had any advice on this.
Am I destined to play play on-line warriors for the rest of my life?
Sometimes you don’t have much choice but to travel. See if your area, I’m talking the entire state level and beyond has an FGC. I’ll admit I know nothing of foreign geography so I can’t speak on the size of North Yorkshire, but if its within three hours driving or so, those are the people you want to reach out to.
Obviously you wouldn’t be able to play on a weekly basis, but setting up large monthly events where your entire region is involved are the way to go.
One of the fondest memories I’ve had within the FGC was at an all-Georgia KoF session. I live in Florida, and Atlanta is a six hour drive for me. But the fine folks in GA set up an all weekend casual event and invited people from all over to crash at their place and play some fighting games for two and a half days.
One of the guys in the PNW lived hours away from everybody else, so he would just sit in the training room practicing combos for days. He got seriously good that way, and then when he finally did manage to travel to places with competitive players he was able to better further level up there and put his work into practice.
Sooo… training room / practice modes are one useful place to head. Emulate awesome / important combos.
I live in rural middle America. When I started going to locals, I had to drive about an hour each way. It was totally worth it, the first visit I had so much fun, my face hurt after the drive home because I had this stupid grin cemented on my face during the whole trip. I was finally free of online, and could enjoy my hobby like it was meant to be enjoyed.
Don’t mean to sound rude, but you live in a part of the world with an extremely high population density, it cannot be possible that you don’t live within half an hour of a dozen dudes who can each uniformly beat you. Even if you can’t find weeklies around you, find a tournament happening in Manchester or something and go. Make friends and start figuring out what the scenes around you are made up of. You’ll figure out people close you eventually.
Anyone know any facebook groups for scenes near this guy?
You could become a Training mode/ Online Warrior, they can become really good. If you practice, study how to play the game, watch what top players do, replicate it and beat it, nothing is impossible.
Travel. It can be pricey but in my experience it’s always a blast and it’s great to meet new people doing the hobby you enjoy.
seek out your local scene, it probably exists.
if you don’t find one, make yourself the centerpiece of one and try to attract players.
if it turns out there is one after all, they’ll likely notice you eventually and now you know where your local scene is.
Neoempire isn’t really used much anymore. Most people are on facebook these days. UK fighting games is one of them. There’s also a specialised group for most games. I know of a P4/BB/GG/AH3 group for example.
For Manchester, you’re a little too late. Their gamerbase closed down, but previously there were a lot of people who went there regularly.
There’s a Manchester Battle Arena group where quite a few Mancs will post.
Can’t post the links right now because facebook is blocked here, but you should be able to find them easily. If not, send me a PM.
I know a couple of people from the UK and many of them are from Manchester. There may not be a place everyone can go to, but there are certainly players (for multiple games … SFIV, tekken, mvc3, BB, GG, …)
Hey, I’m in a similar situation. Based in Indianapolis. Not much of a scene here, most of what is here seems to be high school/college-age kids. As a dude who is about to be 29, that pretty much leaves me in the dust (my “ah-ha!” moment with fighters came late). I want to play people outside my friend circle and get better but I don’t want to be the weird “old” guy and I sure don’t have the time, patience and physical dexterity those kids do to compete with them…
29?
Man so fucking old, do you have arthritis already?
These people like Sako who are about 40 years old, run a full-time job from 9 to 5, almost only play online, are known for their masterful execution and beat up kids a Capcom Cup are probably genetically engineered superhumans employed by the Japanese government to make you feel bad about yourself.
Lol, I’m just saying I’m old relative to these kids who play in the area. And dudes like Sako have probably played in arcades all the way back since before ST. Like I said, the genre didn’t click for me until I was about 23, which is pretty late to be trying to pick up fighters, and I didn’t start attempting to get truly better until a few years ago. These kids may not have been playing for longer but their brains weren’t already done growing like mine was when they started.
But yeah, man, to someone between 17-22 I’m pretty damn old.
Theres a guy who comes down to Arcade Ufo from Killeen 2 hours away to play Tekken every other week or so when he can. Hes a cool guy, and hes making new friends. Sometimes the travel isnt that hard if you get to play your favorite game for 5 or so hours two days in a row and meet new people. He also plays online against the people hes made friends with here. So if you travel and meet people try to get them to be your online friends.
simple fact, many more people own these games than know there is even an FGC. Start to hangout and network at video game stores. Network with people till you start finding the people who own these games then invite them over. Don’t go by what you find already in the FGC. The most popular game on stream, UMvC3 also happens to be Capcom’s worst selling new fighter this generation. If there is no scene, build one.