441

I don’t think the last link applies to ST. Super came out and it was almost dropped over night. Hyper fighting was more static, while ST was more dynamic. People tend to dislike what they do not understand.

442

LOL, how old are you? I have a feeling your the one who doesn’t understand. You’ve posted some pretty ignorant posts so far in this thread, without adding really anything.

The only thing people didn’t like about Super was the speed (though some missed the CPS1 chains). By the time it came out SF2 in the arcades were losing popularity and it didn’t improve hen ST came out. People seem to think that ST was very popular in the arcades but it wasn’t (I know, I spent some lonely afternoons by the ST machines back then). SF2 in general was pretty much out of the spotlight by then and arcades in general were already on the decline. HF came out right during the fighting game peak, no SF2 game has ever been as popular as it was. ST was the standard for so long because it was the latest version, not because it was considered the best or most popular. If those were the standards we’d all still be playing SF HF’.

443

I’m 26 and from texas, different scene i suppose. I didn’t even know super turbo existed until 1996 when a friend told me about it at school.

444

All this talk about the old days, and this documentary gets posted.

[media=vimeo]16293297[/media]

What a coincidence! :stuck_out_tongue:

445

I haven’t posted in a while and this thread is mostly retarded but I have to respond to this.

Did you seriously just list DSP and DreamTR as monsters? Really? Really??

And Graham is the only Wolfe brother who would still play and he’s a monster at both games. Sabin will never be a ST monster because of SSF4.

And Shirts and Watson? Is next years EVO taking place in a time machine?

The fact of the matter is that HDR is keeping at most a handful of players from showing. Even if it was ST most of those cats aren’t showing up in tourny shape.

446

snk-player: Ironically, your comments actually support ST when carried all the way through.

For example, where are those players who prefer HF now? Almost none of them play offline anymore. HDR is coming closer to being in the same situation right now. There are apparently fans but many never show up to tourneys. HF fans have mentioned support of their game online (I remember talks of high stakes HF years back) but nothing materialized at tourneys so it was all just talk.

And that’s why ST has survived whereas HF and entire series like SFA have fallen out. The more dedicated players took over setting up and playing in tourneys while nobody in support of anything else really bothered to support their games. In the early AE era, I was hoping to keep using CE characters but it was readily apparent nobody wanted to play it at tourneys so I went along with the ST scene that was taking over again and found I enjoyed it.

As for Evo and SBO, they give all new games an opportunity to succeed. But when players just stop playing, as was the case with AE and CFJ, then the game disappears. I remember Virtua Fighter being given chances but the turnout was always disappointing. ST has survived because many tourney players find it good enough to keep participating. At Evo, it is admittedly helped a lot by casual players who remember playing SF2 “back in the day” and want to make the most of their time. And that’s where the argument comes in that casual players may enter at Evo regardless of which SF2 version is there.

And it’s not solely because ST is the last arcade game of the series either. Vampire Hunter 2, Vampire Savior 2, Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha, and Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper were all latest versions that weren’t popular either at release yet completely died soon after. There’s a reason ST was played all this time whereas other lines died.

Accessibility isn’t an issue either because the CPS1 SF2 games received PS/SS ports, PS2 ports, and HF even received a 360 port but they were completely ignored. Whether ST is the “best” or not is a completely subjective matter but as for monetary popularity, if that was the key factor, we’d be playing WW, which would be silly with no mirror matches and all.

Now, with regards to playing the same as Japan, just like playing one standard SF2 version nationwide is ideal, playing one standard SF2 version worldwide is even more so. That said, we don’t have to follow Japan’s standards but there’s no reason to shun away from them either. We stuck to US T3 speed for the longest time just because that’s what we always played. Everybody new was confused about the tourney standard speed here so we decided to compromise recently by switching to the international US T2/JPT3 speed standard. Nobody has really had an issue with that change because there’s really not much reason why we have to stay different.

In any case, I’m not even pressuring HDR players to play ST right now; if HDR players would just come play their own HDR, that would be giving some more life to a game whose offline majority is composed of ST players and SF2 version agnostic players right now.

447

I find it kinda funny that the ST side of this discussion are glad to include the so called SF2 agnostics as to being on their side.

Leading to a situation where it is ST only and players that play both vs HDR only players.
Instead of the more logical comparison:
ST only players vs HDR only players.

I say this myself being an SF2 agnostic which by itself is probably one of the funniest terms i have ever read who by far considers HDR to be the superior version of the game.

448

Stunfest this year had about, what? 10-12 more entrants for ST than HDR? I think raw numbers speak better than some douchebag troll. Makes me wonder how europe actually feels rather than some dude with no clout.

449

@ Rufus - yeah stock 360 wireless controller

450

gasp 12 more entrants !!!?

451

An entire 12…if only HDR players would come support their game.
Casual players…sigh

452

At this point i don’t think the ST Babyzone crybabies even know themselves what they are arguing for.

What exactly is that post trying to say ?

That if the circa 30 entries to 2v2 HDR had not been there the 40+ 1v1 ST tournament would have had more entries rather than fewer ?

Maybe in their delusional world.

453

Shari are you just trolling? Are you just being a realist, and that logically HDR should get the support by default? I played HDR before I ever played super turbo. Then i played super turbo on ggpo, loved it so much i bought my own ST cabinet. If you have a point, make it clearer.

454

I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

455

Well in answer the question of the topic I’m going to say no, even though I have long said yes. I know in the past I have said consistently that I believe HDR (or at least some form of SF2) would be at EVO. Mr. Wizard’s language on the Live SRK Podcast about it wasn’t completely dismissive but maybe a little annoyed?

Of course I can’t say I blame him. I mean the truth is we nationally can’t make a decision and we’re going down the route of different regions playing different games and that’s fine but then we should expect that the largest national tournament then would not feature what will become a highly regional game. I know there are people who say they’ll play whatever is available at EVO no matter their preference, but I wonder if this splintering gets any more severe if that would be really true. I mean at some point I believe there are enough dedicated people that for EVO in particular, they could probably find 4 ST cabs and run their own tournaments all weekend while HDR had a side tournament in the BYOC area and did the same thing and never sniff the main stage and for many of us not really care, but from a financial point, I don’t know if there’s this much animosity inside of the community that I can guarantee X number of entries to make it financailly viable to run HDR as a main game when many people will stay pay the entry fee and play their own tournament in the BYOC area while paying Mr. Wizard for whatever game(s) take its place.

But more so I’ve been trying to think of an appropriate analogy to what I see in the ST / HDR debate. Not having had a console for the last 3 weeks I’ve been playing alot of Starcraft 2. Now its not a perfect analogy, but it seems to be the closest sort of game evolution I can find from ST is to HDR as say Starcraft is to Brood Wars is to Starcraft 2. I will fully admit the analogy is not perfect but I think the argument still makes some sense.

Historically both Brood War and Super Turbo enjoyed success well passed their intended life spans. Brood War became the most popular multiplayer game in the world for a decade and spawned E Sports as we know it as ST has been an arcade mainstay for over 15 years now.

Blizzard says they’re going to make Starcraft 2. They get a bunch of really great players together, get their input, make changes, evolve the game come up with a final product, and bam Starcraft 2 is released. It is different than Brood War, but the fundamentals of the game are the same, there are some new units, some new mechanics but 90% of the skill from Brood Wars carries over directly into SC2 and SC2 is almost without argument easier to play (requires less Actions Per Minute). Now some old school players complain, Brood Wars is still being played in South Korea but the writing is on the wall and Starcraft 2 is quickly supplanting it as the “Starcraft” of choice. It’s graphically superior, the gameplay is easier, the music is different, the game is extremely similar, but in my experience I don’t hear many people saying that we should throw away SC2 and all run back to Brood War.

Now with that being said, the differences between Brood War and Starcraft in comparison to ST to HDR are much more vast but similar. HDR is graphically (by every definition technically, ignoring how you feel about the UDON Comic Look) superior, the music is different but similar, it has easier inputs which make the game easier to play but do not change the fundamentals. HDR has no new characters but offers some alterations on their previous incarnations. If Brood War is 70% of what Starcraft 2 is then HDR is 90% (if not higher) of what ST is. I am curious then what causes some ST OGs to be so adamant in their opposition. I understand the analogy isn’t perfect but I think it provides an accurate reflection of what is going on. Is it simply a matter of scale? Are there so many SC2 players that people who really feel BW is superior don’t matter?

If SC2 was released in the US and Korea was still playing BW would we see the US Starcraft community rejecting SC2 to play what Korea is playing? I don’t believe so.

I mean I read the arguments people make for ST and I guess it just doesn’t make sense to me in light of how other people view the evolution of their favorite gaming series. Is it ST’s sort of ‘cult’ status and the desire to maintain it as some sort of exclusive club where only the ‘refined’ fighting game players go and anything else is simply unacceptable? This isn’t a question about the results, I actually agree with Ganeleon when he says if people will not play HDR where he is and will play ST then its silly to not play ST. From a personal utility point of view, I think its absolutly the right decision, even if I feel on a macro level it isn’t, it certainly is on a micro level. So then I’m left with the psychological and rhetorical question, even in light of games which have stoked as much, if not more, loyalty over the course of their histories, why did other groups of gamers embrace change to their favorite series despite the fierce loyalty they had to its original idea and why then should ST be exempted from this process? What makes Super Turbo so much different than other games and their evolutions to make many of its players explicitly reject the attempt to bring the game back to relevance in a new updated modern form that keeps 90% of what the game is?

I am not asking this question to troll or to sound angry. I’m asking because I’d like an answer that doesn’t say “My character got nerfed or I think the input changes break the game.” What is it, at its core, that makes Super Turbo exempt from this modernization process? Because I will be completely honest, despite everything I have read in this forum, I have yet to see the answer to that question, or at least I have yet to see an answer that I personally find convincing.

456

It was a long post, but you got to the crux of things at the end!

To try and answer your question, I’ve only ever seen two arguments put forward:

  1. that ST is perfect or “10/10” and cannot be improved.

  2. that ST is a classic, cherished game and to change it would be heretical.

Both are necessarily extremist positions because unless they are held with absolute faith they can be criticized. Hence my recent analogies to religious extremism.

457

I don’t see HDR as a modernized ST. I’ve come to see it as a port of the Dreamcast version with HD sprites and new music that was hacked by Sirlin. With extra input delay to boot.

Edit: No I was not brainwashed by East Coast ST players.

458

In response to silver rain, I know you said your analogy wasn’t perfect, I just want to address some of your similarities.

Regarding graphics, HD does not equal superior. The entire production quality is not up to professional standard, from the menus, to the animation, to the drawings, and programming. It is certainly not up to capcoms standard, as capcom had no part in it’s production. I don’t see how this can be viewed as a successor to the franchise. It’s like the latest chun li movie. All capcom did was give permission for someone else to use it. SC2 is a polished product developed by a talented team that obviously loves what they’re doing, and who also made the original.

A collaboration of experts did not take place. Nearly every single expert that was asked for input, had their input rejected, and is currently not in support of the finished product. HDR team wasn’t looking for educated ideas, they were looking for confirmation of theirs.

HDR was constructed as a penny arcade disposable product, and that’s what it is. Within this pond, it’s a big fish.

ST isn’t exempt from modernization. It’s exempt from an attempt at modernization that takes 10 steps back.

459

First of all, I want to say thank you so far to the people who have responded who recognized that I was asking a question out of a genuine desire to have a responsible conversation and really get down to as was said “the crux” of things.

Damdai, as a game making professional, you certainly would know better than I would about how games are made and what is expected etc. But I do have a couple questions.

On graphics, is it really fair to say in any objective manner that HDR’s graphics are not superior as a matter of measurement to ST? I even took the point to remove opinions on its art stylings. To me its like saying Zelda Windwaker is graphically inferior to Ocarina of Time. That’s just not true in any measurable way except that some people really disliked the cell shaded kid link look.

I can’t speak to the level of expertise in HDR’s menu design, its implmentation etc. Everything you said might be true. But even if that’s the case, the fact that they have those things at all is a step forward in game design (even if done poorly) compared to what was before a 15 year old game that had none of those things. Now I have never played the Dreamcast version of ST and I have no idea what its menus / interface / etc. was like so I can only make the comparison to arcade ST which is, I believe, what in fact you would and have argued for.

Perhaps it wasn’t the original Capcom staff from ST who worked on HDR, but make no mistake, Capcom’s name is all over that product. You go into HDR and you see Backbone Entertainments Logo and you see Capcom’s logo. If Capcom had really felt that the final product weren’t up to snuff, I have no problem believing that Capcom USA would have rejected the project soundly. I could be wrong in that assumption, but my gut instinct based on seeing 20 years of Capcom business practices is to fall on the side of Capcom’s ability to edit itself and not release total garbage (and yes every company has a few clunkers…)

I’m not sure I buy you’re analogy to film with the Chun-Li movie since we all know that 1.) Movies based on video games take such huge licenses with the franchise and 2.) They’re not expected to be good, they’re (comparably) low budget films designed to take advantage of series followers who will go see anything with their games’ name on it, a la the Final Fantasy movie, the upcoming Tekken movie, etc. I just don’t think that’s a fair comparison in that light.

I’m not sure I completely disagree iwth your statement about what HDR was sort of designed to be, but I don’t think that matters. I mean in the total video gaming landscape pre HDR, arcade ST (in North America and Europe) wasn’t even a fish, it was a minnow struggling to breathe in a landscape that was largely passing fighting games behind completely.

It is nice to hear you say that ST is not, in fact, immune to the modernization process. I appreciate that you don’t like the way this was handled, I appreciate that you put forth why you feel that way. I guess to you, its almost like HDR simply isn’t a SF2 game. I almost get the feeling that to you its just a knockoff clone that happens to bear a great deal of similarity to Street Fighter. Okay.

But if ST is not immune to modernization (and I think its grossly unfair to say that HDR was anything except an attempt to modernize and revitalize Street Fighter 2, even if you feel it was a failure), and the attempt at modernization failed. What are you left with? You’re left with a version of Street Fighter 2 that no matter how hard you try has a death sentence for multiple reasons which culminate in its inability to grow beyond its existing and significantly shrunken base.

If you can say with a straight face, that that doesn’t matter to you, you are completely off the hook. If that matters at all though, then even if you feel that HDR was the “wrong” direction, you either have to fix it (which I don’t believe is an option since Capcom isn’t going to give anyone else the SF2 liscense) or live with it and push it forward and help show its commercial viability in the hopes that one day Capcom will make another update.

Of course maybe this is all mute anyway because it is completely reasonable to say that no matter if ST or HDR is the standard, that there will never be another version of SF2 and that either version has a death sentence, I don’t know.

But you know Damdai, how much I respect you, how much I respect your game, and respect your opinions on these matters and I hope you know that while I disagree with you, there is not an ounce of intended disrespect intended towards you, John, or any of the other people who feel strongly for ST. I just want to put that out there in an attempt to keep our discourse civil and to help advance ideas which bring more people to the table.

460

I highly respect this, and I want to issue the same to anyone else I address, especially Sirlin. We are friendly in person and I will continue to be friendly in person as none of this is personal. I separate what goes on here with what goes on in person. Person person person.

As for ST death sentence, I have a great group of friends that I play with regularly under the best conditions possible (thank you howard!), and we’re all growing together. For that I’m greatful and I hope it never ends. Sure I’d love to be able to attend many tournaments under the same conditions, but that’s just not reality right now. We only see the future of ST regardless of what happened in the past because it’s the game we want to play and master. Death isn’t a concern for us.