Good looking
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Time/Date:
8PM PST / November 14**
Stream: http://www.leveluplive.tv/
From impressions/hands on time how powerful is Classic Iori?
heads up people… there will be a $500 pot bonus @ NEC XII for KOF XIII, provided by myself, Dark Geese and Big E Gaming!
Oooh that’s pretty nice!
So with the game coming up fairly soon, there’s a bit of things I’d like to go over with everyone and get their feedback. We’re in direct competition with some of the most well-known games in the world. At the Southtown Ranbats yesterday, a fellow player and I had a discussion about “Why KoF will die like MK9” and it clearly focused around the fact of how easy the games like SFIV and MvC3 are. I argued a couple of key talking points, but it made me wonder if it’s at all possible the game could just flop like MK9 in terms of fighting game coverage and attention.
I think it’s important to up the information on how much easier KoF is for new players to jump into than games like 2k2UM and XI. Admittedly, XI was probably easier than 2k2, but it’s fairly difficult all the same. Not only that, once the game drops, it’s likely to be 100% community driven in the US. I can see sponsorship from Atlus now, but I don’t think that will always be the case. Shoring up competitive gaming exposure as well as bringing in fresh players will be important. So what can be done with the product once we get it?
My initial idea was a elive tutorial going over specific characters with commentary from top players on specific points on each. That’d get people more exposed to popular names in the gaming community (atleast Stateside) and the game basics so the information is easily accessible. What other ideas do you think could be done to strengthen its foundation upon release?
MK9 showed that if a game can make it in to majors, some of the top players in other games will give it a shot if for no other reason than the fight money. Acting in this early stage is our best option.
One of the main ways we can separate XIII from the other big games is by providing comprehensive knowledge for players to easily access. There’s plenty of Street Fighter IV resources, but where does one begin searching? The SRK boards aren’t really reliable, the wiki pages consist mainly of frame data and fragments of combos and analysis, tutorial videos exist but aren’t specifically organized anywhere, and even the amazing resources like Maj’s Footsie Handbook or Domination 101 are never mentioned enough. Dedicated players can dig through the information and carefully learn through playing and observing, but newer players get by mainly due to the large and accessible playerbase. The Prima Guide and the MvC3 Hyper Guide were valiant efforts in trying to be strong player resources, but unfortunately MvC3 has a grand scale of information to process that changes nearly weekly as new techniques, glitches, counters, team synergies, and setups are brought out.
Some of us are already working on the KOFXIII Hyper Guide wiki and once the finalized version is in our hands we’ll blitz in the new changes and further expand the guide. This should contain a copious amount of strong information plus be a centralized source of information, meaning that all types of new players can be referred to the wiki to start learning the game.
Visual guides can get ideas across in an observable fashion and I’ve evengiven this a shot in the wiki. What we’ll need are tutorial videos along the lines of Dandy J’s guide, not combo montages. I think Dandy himself is looking into the possibility of expanding his video to incorporate more, and at EVO Atlus seemed interested in the idea of future video resources, so there’s the chance that they’ll put out more official Technical Reference-like resources or at least have a solid in-game tutorial mode for teaching some basics. An idea I’d be interested in seeing made is an (EX) Iori guide that shows his tools for playing the neutral game, such as how his projectile encourages hops and how hops can be beaten with a j.B and how j.B can be read and crouched under for a punish. Something that focuses on all of his options that shows off his strengths but also weaknesses, so that players can understand why he’s always so good while being cognizant of his poorer options like his terrible sweep. So I’d recommend videos that focus on a really solid character like Iori to demonstrate the flow of spacing or working on a guide to meter management that gives a rundown of the system mechanics.
One of the biggest concerns overall is dismissing misinformation about the game, i.e. “It’s too advanced for me to understand” or “The execution is too difficult”. Our information should aim to show that the game isn’t as difficult as everyone makes it out to be. Basic combos are more lax than SFIV since everything is a chain cancel and the most combos don’t begin to touch the level of length in MvC3. HD combos may scare off players since they may “look complicated” or something, but learning one or two simple combos for each character is enough for learning how to play and with the Neo Max changes simple Attack-Special-Neomax are more relevant for simple damage.
At the very least, just keep playing the game at your local hookups to keep interest growing while disproving the common myths about the game.
i’d agree that more vids like dandy’s would be best, since he did a great job of getting you thing about how to attack and defend. it’d be really nice to get a series of them explaining different aspects of the game.
however i have to disagree that combo vids are a good way to show what you can do in the game, i do believe that tutorials are more important though. my reasoning is because people nowadays love flashy cool looking things happening on their screen, plenty of people started playing street fighter because of the daigo parry.
XIII’s visual presentation is a great plus for catching attention. However, I’ve seen the attraction of combos backfire though, especially with MvC3. With all its aesthetic advantages (Character popularity, visual appeal, combo design, and even series legacy) I’ve personally seen many new players put off by being hit by the very same crazy combos and setups that may have attracted them in the first place. The appeal can draw players in, but also turn them away when being outplayed and outdamaged.
I suppose I was reasoning along the lines of getting more players of other fighting games interested in the long term vs getting more people to try or buy the game. At the end of the day, everyone’s going to have their own reasons for playing.
What Sparkster said. wwww
Other than that, for me the most important thing for us to do is just simply to play and enjoy ourselves. By enjoyment, I mean the entire process of becoming better as a player, making the pragamtic developments for improvement, and reap the joys of the effort we put in to playing. Having a dedicated player base to show that we are competent at this game, that we put effort and passion for this game, and that we ultimately enjoy the game will encourage others to join in the hullabaloo.
With MK9, it seemed as if the game was wonky in itself. Weak netcode, too many patches too quickly, and the top players being very dissatisfied with the final product. That, and it seemed that not many people were playing it as much/anymore. So, the game just seemed to die.
With how I feel with KOF XIII, the biggest factor against it is netcode and the availability of competition. Melty Blood was in a similar case when it was at EVO. The only online version was the obsolete version, that being Act Cadenza. So, most of the scene was still able to come together and play Actress Again, offline, and still put a showing at EVO. So even if XIII follows the terrible route of succumbing to bad netcode, that shouldn’t stop us from trying to get together to play and making this game get to EVO mainstage.
MCM TOURNAMENT!
3rd place matches
PREVIEW video!
Was some pretty epic matches there, but also Wednesday Brawl in London was epic too. Cristina running people through with EX Iori was pretty epic.
over an hour of iplaywinner matches!!! Even more epic matches!
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new vid from atlus explaining the a bit about the game.
KOF XIII is being delayed in Japan until 1 December, 2011.
There has been no word yet if the international release date will also be altered.
Does anyone have an idea if the 22nd is a street date or a ship date?
Street date, you get it from Amazon on that date, they now offer release date shipping.
Wow, that’s really well done Sparkster! Keep up the good work.
haha. i checked just last night and it wasn’t release date delivery so I was hesitant. thanks for the headsup.
Casuals going on and workshops about characters on Console version XIII
Reminder that the game will be streamed tonight at 8PM PST at by Level Up.
http://www.leveluplive.tv/