Um…That’s rather weak. YOU didn’t like it which means it should get axed from the guide. That’s pretty bunk and lazy. I don’t recall your opinion being part of what I or the rest of the community likes. You were enlisted to write a guide for a game that has been in the series since 97 (96 if you count the arcade port). I don’t see how you can call yourself a fan (or even a good writer/tech writer/player/etc) of the series when you ignore a game in a ‘guide for the masses’ because YOU didn’t care much for it. You know, I think everyone should adopt your trend of not writing about something if they don’t care much for it. We’ll have game instruction booklets lacking info on how to play the game because the tart writing the book didn’t like the game at all. Excellent concept.
Yes, I’m bothered. A2G never had a competitive scene? It never will? Not with that attitude it won’t. Again, when reading a guide, I don’t care about your opinion for the majority of the time. If you included all the info about the game, then MAYBE I’d care about your opinion, but you didn’t and you were lazy…not to mention taking a firm stance on killing ANY sort of adoption of new games. I suppose because I don’t bust a nut over your shoddy guide, I’ll be flamed to no end.
Last minute addition. I’ll let that slide for HSFA. No one could have guessed that was gonna be in there, but the Upper characters? Come on now. I could have told you what the arrange modes (outside of HSFA) were gonna be when the game was announced. Not to mention the JPN cover art was being solicited as early as March. Are you really not a fan that much? I could understand a guy who never played SF in his life making such silly mistakes, but someone who CLAIMS to be a fan of the games and of Capcom’s whole fighting entourage to make stupid mistakes like that is compareable to a child with down syndrome driving a president’s personal helicopter. It’s just something you don’t let happen. (ps, I have nothing against those afflicted with down syndrome - just lazy people.)
Were you two on a trip when you wrote it? Like the kind where you giggle and see pretty colors? We (the fanbase) want that list. Make it happen and maybe in the process pull some of your dignity off the bottom of our boots.
A correction list would definately be useful. I suppose Brady needs a good ass-kicking for hiring shitty tech writers to do what’s more or less a job of meticulousness. Maybe they should look into firing those losers and getting a new bunch. Trust me. There are plenty out there who care enough about their work and a product to not fuck up repeatedly - including yours truly. Note why FAQs have revisions, but if you want a guide with a single release - homework needs to be done - especially when you have contact with the team who is working on the game.
Another good question is - when was the deadline for the guide? I would hope it was BEFORE the JPN release of the game. Of course, there was plenty of technical knowledge out there for a lot of these mistakes to not be made. For instance, we KNEW the same team that did Vampire Darkstalker’s Collection was working on this collection. It was OBVIOUS that they’d use the same layout and game revision.
The guide was a failure. Pure and simple. I particularly LOVE the competitive play focus of the guide - coupled with the choice of revisions being the OLD revisions with broken stuff still included. Good job guys. Don’t push balance or anything. In fact, lets go play MvC2 on the JPN DC or Arcade version so I can jump off the screen with Gambit and beat you via Timeout.
Do us a favor and don’t write another guide. Of course, I’ll get flamed for that statement because I’m not all super shit like you guys or Sirlin and don’t have a name for myself. Because stature apparently outranks stupidity, ignorance, and lazyness.
Of course it’s condescending. So basically what you’re telling me is that you were contracted by Bradygames to make a guide you knew nothing about so Brady could simply make a buck off a game and its fanbase? That’s more disgusting than being let down by the guide. Worked under the gun is an understatement. I’d call 10 years a damn short period to possibly work on a guide for games that have been released repeatedly on mutliple systems. Of course, if you were in talks with and that you wanted to do this to begin with, why not start before you possibly had the contract?
YOU also wanted to make a name for yourself as a credible source in the community and then you dilly dally and attempt to recover with “you don’t know what you’re talking about and you shouldn’t tell me how to do my job.” Wrong buddy. You should have written the guide for the fanbase in mind - not how it best suited you. I have every right on telling you how to do your job - as does the rest of the fanbase. The community basically did you job for you. Was your deadline back in February? If so, I can again completely understand missing the Upper characters since those were on the boxart which was solicited in March in Japan.
I’m also guessing you did get paid for this little venture and you’ve probably got a steady job. If you’re so ga-ga over the series, I’d imagine you’ve got some CPS carts tucked away somewhere? I know i’ve got some and I’m just a nobody - no big name in the community. Granted I’ve lacked the cash to afford a Naomi but i’ve got a DC - and a psp somewhere with SFZ3UU in it. Course, those are minor details.
Instead, I’m greeted with a page with one paragraph and the rest is taken up by Sodom. Great use of pagespace.
[quote=Dr. Deelite]
A3 Upper characters - we did find out about A3 Upper being in the game at the very last minute (roughly when we found out about HSFA as well). Because those characters never had a competitive shelf-life and because there was no time we opted not to include them at the time of the guide release with the possibility of doing breakdowns for them later on the site. It wasn’t safe to ‘assume’ anything about this conversion. Up until the days of working on the guide we couldn’t even get Capcom to just answer us as to whether or not the ports were PS1, DC, arcade, weird emulations, whatever. If they WERE arcade perfect, which is the assumption we decided to go off of, then A2G and A3 Upper aren’t really part of the Alpha series ‘canon,’ in that they are considered sort of non-serious peripheral home games. While this is already changing with tourneys going largely to console and arcades dying, the arcade has been the standard since forever. Hence the lack of emphasis on A2G and A3 Upper.
[quote]
Wow. That’s weak again. A3 Upper was confirmed in the game in March. Never had a competitive shelf life. WTF. Who said write the guide without ALL the information there. Where did you learn how to write a guide - let alone a mass published one which would be used/seen by the masses. You don’t leave stuff out because you fancy it. Perfect example - Versus FFVII guide vs Official FFVII guide. Versus had EVERYTHING and the Official one lacked a lot. Guess whos sold more and still goes for a pretty penny if you can find it? I’ll give you a hint: It’s not the official one.
Also, if it’s not Canon, why even bother including the Pocket Fighter section? Kthx.
Last time I checked - the guide wasn’t for your beloved hardcore tournament audience. Frankly, most of the folks who play these games competitively looked at your guide and scoffed and the foolishness you presented (like using Gouki’s Asura warp repeatedly over and over without telling someone to be careful.) The guide was for the masses and NEW fans if anything. New fans a) will be turned off by your lack-of-effort guide and b) probably move onto something else. New fans can’t even relate to the characters in these games with your guide. Your guide doesn’t tell who anyone is or why they are even there. It just gives mumbo jumbo about how to use a move and maybe a few combos. No where does it state that playing the game is the best experience for anyone. It gives broken tactics for characters that I might add, you make seem godly. News flash: There is a way around everything sport. Maybe you should tell your ‘audience’ about the problems with a move too.
So the lack of balance includes not giving out folks strong points and weak points? Jesus christ. There are strong points and weak points for all the characters with no need to mention where they fall on the tier list or how balanced they are.
What is this bullshit about MvC2 being a good game. It’s not. It sucks. Is it fun to play casually? Sure it is. Is it a good game, not really. It’s full of broken combos and glitches regardless of what version you’re playing. Also, 75% of the cast is garbage. Hey, you said it. Why on earth would I want to play a game where characters were garbage. OR, why would I even want to play a game?
FOR FUN. Sure, playing games for competition is great, but I’m thinking you and your comrade missed that whole point in your guide. Everything is about winning in your guide. Nothing can be played for fun. In fact, you can’t even play the newer revised versions of Alpha because it’s not built like you remember it, and thus, you can’t always win. SOOOOO…suggest everyone play on your level where those who are unable to adapt sit and cry about how the game got ‘tweaked’ and balanced more. What is with that?
Too late. I did buy it (this means I get to bitch.) Like a lot of folks bought it - expecting something that wasn’t there. Expecting a guide that wasn’t filled with pure excrement. You’re also wrong with folks digging it. Every person I’ve talked to who has read over the guide has had nothing but disdain for the lack of info it presented. Of course, you’re gonna offer up that I must talk to a small group of people who never plays fighting games or games at all and that I must be out of my mind. Sorry bub. People didn’t like your guide. Anyone who did doesn’t realize how much is missing and how crappy your overall presentation is. In fact, those are probably the folks too new to the games and the ones you’d want to pull into the community. Chances are though that they’ll just flutter onto something else because you gave them NO reason to stick with the games. Either that, or they didn’t read it.
Not to toot my own horn, because seriously I don’t care but maybe it’ll get you off your high-horse - I’ve got emails from random joes telling me they would have rather paid 20 dollars of their hard earned money for my 24 page Secrets FAQ.
Dr. Deelite, I just wanted you to know that I am a hardcore SF fan and I’m very pleased with my purchase of the guide. I know you’ve said this but people have to realize that this guide covers 5 game and you guys were not even given proper builds of the game from capcom. I was surprised and pleased to see that A2G Cammy had her own section. The small A3 section alone blows away that horrible a3 guide that came out approximately 7 years ago, that thing was a glorified move list. Just wanted to thank you for a job well. I’ve read the comments on the message boards and 95% are very positive. You can’t please everyone. Quick question, do you know the quality of that alpha 3 guide was so bad? Its crazy that the alpha 2 guide was the best english sf guide ever and the alpha 3 guide was the worst ever.
I understand that you have complaints about the missing information; that’s fine. We did what we could to get as much information into the guide within the time allowed while attempting to tackle numerous problems along the way. If you don’t believe these problems even existed and we were simply slacking off the entire way through, that’s your uninformed opinion (One that lacks all of the information and any kind of experience with this line of work).
Additionally, Joe’s reasoning for discluding information for games that the community hardly touched is not unreasonable. Not only did we not have the time or space to include much information about these games, but players have no use for advanced tactics for a game that no one is playing competitively. The players that do care about these games don’t care about playing them that well; they simply care about endings and unlocking extras. In essence, you wanted us to include information that most people wouldn’t have much use for when we didn’t even have the time to include it.
In the case of the information people can use, again, I’m sorry It didn’t make it into the guide. Believe me, there’s no reason why I wouldn’t want that information to be there. When I return, I’ll do my best to include some of the information on the Brady games website that I couldn’t include in the actual guide.
You see I think that’s your problem right there. Why do people buy strategy guides? For strategy and combos; if you want to know why a character’s there why don’t you go read some comics or something.
Concidering the deadline and lack of resorces they had I think they’ve probably done the best they can possibly do; especailly since they had to do it before the game was even released. I mean, what do you expect them to say? “Yo Brady Games, stfu! This is how we’re doing it!” They can’t do any more than they can, and to expect things that the fighting game community hasn’t even figured out yet in a guide released so early is just retarded.
So why don’t you go cry somewhere else? None of your moaning, whining or bitching is going to make any difference what so ever. You don’t like the guide? So fuck, who cares? I certainly don’t, and I don’t think these guys do either.
Gotta love assumptions. First, I completely understand what is entailed with ‘this kind of work’. Just because you don’t know who I am doesn’t mean you instantly know that I’m not in the tech-writing field. Kthx.
Next. I’m fine with your approach of competitive gaming. What I’m not fine is the general consensus that playing these games is for no OTHER reason than to win. Yes, winning is fun, but not everyone out there is playing these games to go to tournaments, to beat the best players in their area, or even never lose a round against a ‘scrub’.
THAT is what is wrong as an overall majority with your approach. You ignore those who want to play the games to have fun and to remember playing the games earlier in their life - but not playing to be super competitive.
It’s perfectly within my grasp that folks who don’t want anything other than to destroy their opponent would like your guide. That’s who you wrote it for. You didn’t write it for everyone.
I’m dissatisfied with the community overall as a whole in this fashion and I really don’t like your perpetuation of this ideal on everyone that is not in your circle of thinking. It drives away new players and players looking to get back into the game. You can’t play a game if you can’t relate to it. You can’t play a game if you can’t play it for fun. You especially can’t play a game if you instantly get flamed for being new to the community and not being 100% hardcore.
For me, and really what you should be pushing for the community imho, is that these games need to be played for fun first, competition second. I know the concept if probably new to you, but everyone outside your competitive community really thinks of SRK as a den of elitests.
I know one person can’t change how a community thinks especially with one guide, but there has to be a step in the right direction. If this doesn’t happen, Street Fighter is dead. If you can’t see this, I suppose I’m wasting my time.
The guide lacks several key features that are essential for a “Strategy” guide. How can I formulate a playing strategy on less than all the movelists for the availible characters? The exclusion (or omission) of the Arrange Alpha 3 characters is completely unacceptable. If there is not sufficient time due to publishing contraints to include this information than the fault lies with the publisher. And it does in this case. The lack of information regarding an included title in the collection is also unacceptable. I am pretty sure the cover of that book says Street Figter Alpha Anthology. It does not say “Most of Street Fighter Alpha Anthology”. If there is a considerable portion missing then their needs to be an explanation why. Alpha 2 Gold was not an unlockable title in this collection it is an included piece of software. The author’s disapproval of this title which is included is irrelevant to the fact that it is part of the program, therefore it bears some discussion along with the other included titles. To not give this program it’s due is to short change the programmer’s who contributed to it, the company that produced it, and the fans who just paid for it when they bought the game. The personal bias of the author(s) has cheated the fans of information that should have been included in a 288 page book. This is unacceptable. As someone who does technical writing for a living, I am amazed that the publisher allowed such a gross oversight in the guide creation process. I do not at ALL fault the author(s) for having an opinion of what they like. I do fault them for allowing that opinion to prevent them from creating the most thorough guide possible. I also fault the publisher for allowing authorial bias to prevent the purchaser from getting what they paid for, which in this case was a guide to Street Fighter Alpha Anthology and not “Most of Street Fighter Alpha Anthology”. To the sublect of game secrets and all that: As a fighting game (and guide) customer I purchase the “strategy” guides also to discover what secrets lay buried within the game if any. As a customer I am unhappy with what was not revealed within the guide. Servbot has written an extremely helpful FAQ that gave information in STAR function (with help from Middlekick), hidden modes of play, feature menus etc. This he did on his own time and posted at ZERO cost to SF fans on several websites. I am sad to report that what he provided at no cost was far more thorough than what Brady provided to me for $16.99 plus shipping. The author(s) have stated that they will provide the STAR function information when possible, and we need to give them the time and opportunity to do so. But I believe that there is a serious flaw somewhere in the creation process when information that is free on the web cannot be superceded by a book publishing company that has exclusive contact with the software publisher. Brady was set up to have access to the game, and its COMPLETE contents. They should have gotten complete information, and then provided it to their customers when they created the book. They did not do so. They were either ignorant of the software contents, or lazy in providing the information to the author(s). Both of these explanations are unacceptable. The guide at the end of the day is not complete,. The fans know it, the author(s) know it, and the publisher knows it. The fans and the community do not deserve anything less than the best, and most professional of efforts from the guide creators and from the author(s). We got neither.
You have to remember though, Cpacom didn’t release any information on this game at all, other than 5 arcade perfect titles, people didn’t know if they where arcade perfect or not. Can you imagine if Brady Games released a guide with all this information on Upper or whatever and it turned out to be completely different? What would happen then? People are still working out the dip switch crap, Upper and HSFA now, if they where to do the same you wouldn’t even have the guide yet to complain about. Sure I agree BG should have allowed more time to work on the guide, but there’s no point in going on at these two about it. It’s not as if they could have done any different than what they’re told to do, like they said, they’re just doing their job.
Agreed. Which is why I look forward to the author’s fulfilling the comittment they made in their comments to include the missing information at the Brady website. It’s unfortunate that for all the commentary in the press release about Brady Games and Capcom’s “exclusive” partnership that there was not more effort made on both sides to provide a better product for the consumer. Capcom should have been anxious to provide build versions to the publisher, and the publisher should have been energetic to pursue them. I also seem to remember seeing the box art for the Japanese version sometime (Capcom Japan website) in March or April. This artwork clearly shows Fei Long, Guile, and T.Hawk. Now if the characters are going to be visible on the box, doesn’t it stand to reason they’ll be in the game? Again this is all solved by professional and competent discourse between the game developer and the guide publisher, but again somewhere in the process the decision (deliberate, or unintentional) was made to not do that.
Just wanted to throw in my two cents. I really liked the guide, and got a lot out of it, but my one gripe is… what happened to the SFA3 Upper characters? I was really hoping to get some tips on Dee Jay, Fei Long, and Guile.
A bit late, but I’d like to throw in my support for the guide. Considering all the constraints, it’s pretty good. But it IS incomplete, sadly. Not even talking about frame data or HSFA. Since SFA2G was advertised, it should have a dedicated section, even if it was just 2 pages of system changes and character changes/additions. I personally don’t care, since I was one of the few who went through A2G on Saturn and noted all the changes (which I posted to a thread on alt.games.sf2), but I think they should have been there.
Does anyone have access to what all the stars do? If so, that should have been made public knowledge as soon as possible. I don’t know why Capcom would be so secretive about this; you’d think they learned from the Vampire Collection (aren’t they still trying to figure out what all the stars do in that collection?)
servebot:
Your star FAQ is fine. But otherwise, well, you have some legitamite complaints, but most of it is just scrubby whining (“these games need to be played for fun first, competition second”; competition = fun) and baseless stupidity (box art showed upper characters, therefore they MUST be in the game; see also, Capcom using Super Turbo art for A2G).
The guide was written for everyone. Everyone within a certain realm of thought (i.e. the thought that the player playing the game is playing to win; because really, what else are you going to do while playing? Seriously, is there something else in the game to keep track of?), but still for everyone. If it was just written for hardcore players, they wouldn’t even have bothered with moves lists or basic system descriptions, and just include character vs. character strats and the more esoteric systems. Much like the A2 Versus book, the guide was written with the intention of making the player better at winning, or how to trim your opponent’s life bar down (opponent being another human player that is) the most effectively and efficiently. This has always been the spirit of Street Fighter, and there is no better way to celebrate the game than to explain to players the nature of that spirit and help them getter better attuned to it.
Yeah, it’s not as good as the Vs. SFA2 guide because the A2 Vs. guide was super complete, while this one is not. But you can’t match 256 pages for one game written by 13 authors versus 288 pages for 4 games (should be 5, but A2G was mostly omitted) written by 2 people. Your labelling their constraints as “weak” is ignoring reality, or placing blame on the wrong people. If you want, blame Capcom for not telling anyone, not even their guide makers, what the anthology’s actual contents were.
Man, I thought SRK had eradicated this type of scrubby whining years ago, but I guess some managed to escape. You’re still relatively new here, so there’s hope for you yet.
re: Dee Jay
Dee Jay had the insane projectile recovery on all home versions of A3 (PSX,DC,Saturn), but they slowed it down for the arcade Upper. Thus, Dee Jay in the arranged version of A3 has the Upper recovery.
First and foremost, I would like to say (a late) congratulations on the creation of the guide. Despite all of the gripes here and there… being a new player, I love the guide. Again, me being a new player, my 2 cents may not mean shit to all of you vets out there who have the game broken down to frame by frame action, etc… But, I would just like to say, I have never been more absorbed by a strat than I have with this one. The fact that it was written by real players, and not random employee A & B from Brady Games just makes my heart soar.
The Arcade scene in the midwest is dead. (Not that you could really find alpha games in arcades anymore, that’s besides the point.) So for me, finding someone to show me the ropes of a game is really hard to do, and that’s just what this guide has done. Granted all of the afore mentioned vets who could probably write a guide of their own, sure, there are probably flaws to you. But to people just picking up competetive fighters in general, this guide is a godsend. To both of the authors.
Thank you.
If this was in no way coherent, I apologize. But I needed to just share my praise, as meaningless as it may be.
It did have the system changes listed in the alpha 2 section. it also has character specific changes in the characters alpha 2 section. i think the guide was very good especially considering the limited # of pages they had and the fact that capcom did not provide them with any info… also, does anybody know if they updated the brady page as they promised.