Melty Blood: Actress Again PS2 version in August Confirmed (now with Ryougi!)

[Dipstick]

The only reference being made to an official release is this listing on Famitsu, but let's run with it.

Hopefully this doesn't get fucked up beyond belief like Ecole's port of Arcana Heart 2. 

EDIT: CHECK AGAIN



OHSHI SHIKI RYOUGI AS A NEW CHARACTER IN THE PS2 PORT 

Now Ecole really better not fuck this up!

Now they have a website with all sorts of random official information. The first bit of news? An alternate sprite for Ahika where she's in her school uniform. Wat.

[Iduno]

Yet again I curse the EU version PS3s lack of backwards compatibility

Hope a pc version comes out as well.

[COD3player]

I still find it very hard to believe that Ecole ported That Game. iirc, their company logo isn't anywhere to be found on the disc case or when you boot the game up. I'm not sure if they're listed in the credits either since I haven't bothered playing single player mode. Even the official website for That Game is hosted on AQI's server judging by the url. And as I said before, I find it hard to believe that Ecole could produce such a herrendous port when they're responsible for the MBAC PS2 and ver.B PC ports (which are infinitely better by comparison). The links to the MB ports are listed on Ecole's site as well but That Game isn't listed. Strange.

But anyway, news of a MBAA port couldn't have come at a better time. A PC port would be pretty convenient as well but I wouldn't try to get too picky.

[scottind]

PS2 port is better than a PC port.

people will have to start going to venues for tournaments again, and not be stuck at the PC on their precious netplay. it'll be like 2007 all over again.

[MK dagawd]

PS2 port is better than a PC port.

people will have to start going to venues for tournaments again, and not be stuck at the PC on their precious netplay. it'll be like 2007 all over again.

  Would you mind explaining why a PS2 console release is better?  I think just saying one is better than the other really isn't productive.  Especially when its not.

[scottind]

cuz people will have to go out and mingle with other players, and not be dicks to each other online. And i'm not exactly saying the "PS2 is better than PC", but really "PS2 is better than Netplay" and that having no netplay can be better for the community.

[f-wlen ice loop]

I believe what Scott's saying is that netplay doesn't make a community stronger; it just means that the game can be played by more people.

Fighting game communities are built around friendship, rivalry, and the determination to improve. These things are diluted by the impersonal nature of the Internet. It's hard to befriend someone you netplay because you really know absolutely nothing about them. It's difficult to improve when you have to consider that lag is a constant consideration and that you may be limited by input delay. The drive to improve is muted because netplay is glorified casuals, and you're not in an environment where you have to face the stress of having to win. Without that pressure, most people have no reason to step their game up, so the scene's strength stagnates.

Playing online can also breed an environment where there's a lot of hostility. People talk shit behind their keyboards and don't back it up, citing the lack of funds/time excuse as a reason. People say things online that they wouldn't in person because there's little room for repercussion. People say things without thinking as much online because it doesn't mean the same thing to everyone; some people go out of their way to act retarded online but are otherwise fine in person. It's difficult to judge someone's character online and the impersonal nature of it makes building a community harder.

The strongest communities are formed when friendships result as a side effect of playing the game. Netplay does not cater to this kind of camaraderie, so while you may have more people playing it the overall community will still be weak, as it is now. More people playing does not equate to a stronger community.

If I'm wrong on this please feel free to correct me.

EDIT: hey looks like i was right

[Iduno]

^Well surely the people who actualy in the situation to go to tournaments and stuff and care enough to do so are going to do so whether there is netplay or not so really the only effect should be bringing in more potential tourney goers and even if it doesn't hell more people enjoying the game has to be a good thing anyway and it's not like they would have become tourney goers if it didn't exist.

[f-wlen ice loop]

^Well surely the people who actualy in the situation to go to tournaments and stuff and care enough to do so are going to do so whether there is netplay or not so really the only effect should be bringing in more potential tourney goers and even if it doesn't hell more people enjoying the game has to be a good thing anyway and it's not like they would have become tourney goers if it didn't exist.

If you're suggesting that tourney players wouldn't exist without netplay, that is a completely wrong assumption (see: EC and WC PS2 MBAC scenes). Your post was somewhat incomprehensible so I could be talking about something else entirely.

And as far as "the only effect", that's pretty much incorrect. Netplay has many effects on a scene, which I described in my post and you probably glossed over. SF4 would be disastrous as a primarily-netplay game; look at how terrible the online communities are for that game. It's strong because many people play it offline and form the community as a result. Forming a community from netplay is not only difficult but has to be tightly maintained and continually driven or else it will be weak (see: 4chan and Mizuumi's SWR scene) and/or fail to grow (see: every other doujin game netplay scene that I've hosted besides IaMP and SWR). The main reason the IaMP netplay scene is decent is because I and many others had to help maintain it and keep interest alive while pushing people (including ourselves) to improve, while knowing that ultimately there was little motivation to do so. I know that the game's scene would be a lot stronger if people played it more offline, as online there's no pressure as it's just casuals.

Netplay really isn't the means to building a game's scene. It's good as a tool to help existing scenes get their fix when offline play isn't possible, but as a foundation it lacks strength.

[MK dagawd]

I believe what Scott's saying is that netplay doesn't make a community stronger; it just means that the game can be played by more people.

Fighting game communities are built around friendship, rivalry, and the determination to improve. These things are diluted by the impersonal nature of the Internet. It's hard to befriend someone you netplay because you really know absolutely nothing about them. It's difficult to improve when you have to consider that lag is a constant consideration and that you may be limited by input delay. The drive to improve is muted because netplay is glorified casuals, and you're not in an environment where you have to face the stress of having to win. Without that pressure, most people have no reason to step their game up, so the scene's strength stagnates.

Playing online can also breed an environment where there's a lot of hostility. People talk shit behind their keyboards and don't back it up, citing the lack of funds/time excuse as a reason. People say things online that they wouldn't in person because there's little room for repercussion. People say things without thinking as much online because it doesn't mean the same thing to everyone; some people go out of their way to act retarded online but are otherwise fine in person. It's difficult to judge someone's character online and the impersonal nature of it makes building a community harder.

The strongest communities are formed when friendships result as a side effect of playing the game. Netplay does not cater to this kind of camaraderie, so while you may have more people playing it the overall community will still be weak, as it is now. More people playing does not equate to a stronger community.

If I'm wrong on this please feel free to correct me.

EDIT: hey looks like i was right

 I would agree but consider this, AA does not have a community to begin with.  There really are not many cabs in the US even.  You cannot befriend the community when there is no community to befriend.  I think netplay would at least give us the option to better connect to those players we otherwise couldn't and would help the community overall in terms of numbers = stronger community.  Im sure casual players can turn into serious players ergo through netplay and we would have more participation in tournaments.  We could still have some AC players make up the majority of the AA community and hold small events or whatever but it would be nice to have a variety of players that I just don't see happening with only a PS2 release.

[f-wlen ice loop]

I would agree but consider this, AA does not have a community to begin with.  There really are not many cabs in the US even.  You cannot befriend the community when there is no community to befriend.

What you're stating here is that the sequel in a series has a different playerbase than the previous game. This line of thinking is ridiculous and mostly untrue. People who played MBAC are obviously going to look into MBAA because they want the newest thing available, and that is who the MBAA community is comprised of at this point. Lack of availability does not mean the community does not exist; the scene is obviously not as strong, but that's to be expected. Having a situation where the community disavows the newest game is usually reserved for when the game is perceived as inferior to the previous iteration, and in MBAA's case my understanding was that many people, myself included, find it superior to MBAC. In such cases, the community will migrate over and become the default playerbase for the latest version.

I think netplay would at least give us the option to better connect to those players we otherwise couldn't and would help the community overall in terms of numbers = stronger community.  Im sure casual players can turn into serious players ergo through netplay and we would have more participation in tournaments.

As far as netplay goes, the problem is not bringing in new players via netplay (because netplay is good for that). The real issue is what kind of players it brings in. "Why travel when you can netplay? It's almost as good and it takes much less effort, right?" Truth is, people who want to travel to tourneys after starting on netplay are the exception, not the rule. The MBAC scene has many people who have proven this time and time again. Most people netplay because it's easy and effortless compared to traveling for a casual gathering or a tournament. If someone doesn't even have the dedication to find local people to game with, they more than likely do not have the motivation to improve themselves to tourney-level.

(And before you go down the road of "there's people who can't afford to travel/have no time/live too far away from everyone/whatever other reason": yes, netplay can be a useful tool for them, but they are not going to be central figures in the community because nobody's ever seen them. You probably missed when Veteru finally made an appearance for MBAC after years of spinning theoryfighter at anyone and everyone, and how public perception of him changed drastically after that... well, for some people it did anyways.)

We could still have some AC players make up the majority of the AA community and hold small events or whatever but it would be nice to have a variety of players that I just don't see happening with only a PS2 release.

Completely baseless assumption. How would having more netplayers be any better than having more offline players? Are netplayers somehow more interesting than offline players? Does having more scrubs make a scene more "varied" and "diverse"? Would a PS2/offline only release not be able to develop a variety of playstyles? This statement doesn't even make any sense. If anything, it sounds like you simply want it to be easy to play for everyone, which is a fine goal in and of itself, but not the way to developing a strong community.

And on that note, let's look at one of your earlier statements:

...and would help the community overall in terms of numbers = stronger community.

A community with more players is not always strong. Things are not that simple. For any given community to survive you need two populaces within it: the hardcores and the casuals. The hardcores are the ones who define the top level of play and give the lower players something to strive towards. At the same time, there needs to be at least a semi-regular flow of new players so the community does not become stale. There must be a balance between these two populaces. When you have too many hardcores, the newer players are turned off by the learning curve and lose interest in learning most of the time because they realize they're up against too much experience and knowledge (see: IaMP, MvC2). When you have too many casual players, there is never any drive to improve and, for many players, no visible path towards improvement because they do not understand what higher-level play is made of (see: US SWR). In both situations, the community stagnates; one from lack of growth, the other from lack of upward movement.

Netplay is a fine tool for communities but it should not be the basis by which they are made. Not to mention, even if there was a PC port for whatever reason there's still no guarantee of netplay, so until a tool was made it would only make things more difficult for the serious players who would be forced to use PC version as default instead of PS2 (see: the hassle at running MBAC at any event due to having to fuck around with USB polling rates, installing drivers for converters, getting a setup that doesn't lag, looking amazingly ghetto having to play your game on someone's laptop...)

[MK dagawd]

What you're stating here is that the sequel in a series has a different playerbase than the previous game. This line of thinking is ridiculous and mostly untrue. People who played MBAC are obviously going to look into MBAA because they want the newest thing available, and that is who the MBAA community is comprised of at this point. Lack of availability does not mean the community does not exist; the scene is obviously not as strong, but that's to be expected. Having a situation where the community disavows the newest game is usually reserved for when the game is perceived as inferior to the previous iteration, and in MBAA's case my understanding was that many people, myself included, find it superior to MBAC. In such cases, the community will migrate over and become the default playerbase for the latest version.

  Excuse me but the playerbase HAS changed.  You think the player base will be intact when it "migrates" to AA? The truth of the matter is most of them moved on to other games or like you said the newest thing available (SF4, BB, etc.).  So this community migration you speak of will probably not be larger than what MBAC was, not that it would be a smooth transition because its hard to tell exactly how many people will drop MB in general for something like BB (Which is going to be released way earlier/has a better scene/some people consider better.).  I think your under the delusion that there are a lot of veteran MBAC players behind AA when they are out playing BB or otherwise just not interested.

As far as netplay goes, the problem is not bringing in new players via netplay (because netplay is good for that). The real issue is what kind of players it brings in. "Why travel when you can netplay? It's almost as good and it takes much less effort, right?" Truth is, people who want to travel to tourneys after starting on netplay are the exception, not the rule. The MBAC scene has many people who have proven this time and time again. Most people netplay because it's easy and effortless compared to traveling for a casual gathering or a tournament. If someone doesn't even have the dedication to find local people to game with, they more than likely do not have the motivation to improve themselves to tourney-level.

(And before you go down the road of "there's people who can't afford to travel/have no time/live too far away from everyone/whatever other reason": yes, netplay can be a useful tool for them, but they are not going to be central figures in the community because nobody's ever seen them. You probably missed when Veteru finally made an appearance for MBAC after years of spinning theoryfighter at anyone and everyone, and how public perception of him changed drastically after that... well, for some people it did anyways.)

  Its not that netplay brings in a different kind of playerbase, its that it brings it in LARGER amounts (And lets face it, most of the netplay community consists of assholes or immature people, look into the channel right now and I willing to bet someone is trolling or raging etc.).  The difference is without netplay you have only a fraction participating seriously who come to tournaments or gatherings.  Netplayers as a whole do seem like it is mainly made up of these type of people but they are probably just like you and me in real life (Like you said in one of your earlier posts shit goes down on the internet differently, people don't give no fuck on the net.) So you cannot say that people who only netplay are annoying or unmotivated because you would have never met them  .  Whats wrong with having something easy and effortless to play a game you enjoy playing with other people?  If they don't want to come to tournaments it means they are just casuals and should be ignored other than when you netplay against them (Hey, they can't really hurt the community since they don't play live at gatherings right?).  So, the netplay community consists of people who do or do not take this game seriously enough to travel, but as a whole I am sure they are not these immature kiddies you see in the channel everyday.

Completely baseless assumption. How would having more netplayers be any better than having more offline players? Are netplayers somehow more interesting than offline players? Does having more scrubs make a scene more "varied" and "diverse"? Would a PS2/offline only release not be able to develop a variety of playstyles? This statement doesn't even make any sense. If anything, it sounds like you simply want it to be easy to play for everyone, which is a fine goal in and of itself, but not the way to developing a strong community.

And on that note, let's look at one of your earlier statements:

  Yes, having more new players usually means a community has more of a diverse scene since there is a scrub to pro ratio.   More playing in general usually means more diverse or solid strategies, so I don't know what you were trying to say (Maybe that it doesn't matter if its online or offline since it will get the same amount of play? Either way thats incorrect, good strategies and styles/gimicks are accelerated in proportion to how many people play the game.).

A community with more players is not always strong. Things are not that simple. For any given community to survive you need two populaces within it: the hardcores and the casuals. The hardcores are the ones who define the top level of play and give the lower players something to strive towards. At the same time, there needs to be at least a semi-regular flow of new players so the community does not become stale. There must be a balance between these two populaces. When you have too many hardcores, the newer players are turned off by the learning curve and lose interest in learning most of the time because they realize they're up against too much experience and knowledge (see: IaMP, MvC2). When you have too many casual players, there is never any drive to improve and, for many players, no visible path towards improvement because they do not understand what higher-level play is made of (see: US SWR). In both situations, the community stagnates; one from lack of growth, the other from lack of upward movement.

Netplay is a fine tool for communities but it should not be the basis by which they are made. Not to mention, even if there was a PC port for whatever reason there's still no guarantee of netplay, so until a tool was made it would only make things more difficult for the serious players who would be forced to use PC version as default instead of PS2 (see: the hassle at running MBAC at any event due to having to fuck around with USB polling rates, installing drivers for converters, getting a setup that doesn't lag, looking amazingly ghetto having to play your game on someone's laptop...)

  Can't argue with this, the balance you speak of is usually very important.  And I never said or even suggested that netplay should be a basis, I just said its a good supplement to a community.  It is not hard to make a netplay tool.  (I know, I've made a few back in my day.) Setting up setups is hardly worth discussion, quit being lazy.

[Nightvoomer]

One error you are making is that you assume that someone will not mbaa in addition to sf4, bb etc. Also crt tvs and ps2s are more in abundance than good laptops. Most tournaments usually only have 2 or 3 laptops worth playing on for mb.

[f-wlen ice loop]

Excuse me but the playerbase HAS changed.  You think the player base will be intact when it "migrates" to AA? The truth of the matter is most of them moved on to other games or like you said the newest thing available (SF4, BB, etc.).  So this community migration you speak of will probably not be larger than what MBAC was, not that it would be a smooth transition because its hard to tell exactly how many people will drop MB in general for something like BB (Which is going to be released way earlier/has a better scene/some people consider better.).  I think your under the delusion that there are a lot of veteran MBAC players behind AA when they are out playing BB or otherwise just not interested.

Of course the playerbase isn't going to be intact, but to assume that MBAA has no community at all is preposterous. People who dropped MBAC may pick up MBAA (I know if I had a PS2 version I would, and we all know how I feel about MBAC). People who main other games can play MBAA; there's no reason someone can't play multiple games and be competitive in them. There's plenty of people who got into MB late and are looking forward to MBAA since MBAC is deprecated. These people are all a part of the community as much as anyone else, and I think you're under the delusion that there's nobody interested in MBAA when everyone's just waiting for it to drop.

Its not that netplay brings in a different kind of playerbase, its that it brings it in LARGER amounts (And lets face it, most of the netplay community consists of assholes or immature people, look into the channel right now and I willing to bet someone is trolling or raging etc.).  The difference is without netplay you have only a fraction participating seriously who come to tournaments or gatherings.  Netplayers as a whole do seem like it is mainly made up of these type of people but they are probably just like you and me in real life (Like you said in one of your earlier posts shit goes down on the internet differently, people don't give no fuck on the net.) So you cannot say that people who only netplay are annoying or unmotivated because you would have never met them  .  Whats wrong with having something easy and effortless to play a game you enjoy playing with other people?  If they don't want to come to tournaments it means they are just casuals and should be ignored other than when you netplay against them (Hey, they can't really hurt the community since they don't play live at gatherings right?).  So, the netplay community consists of people who do or do not take this game seriously enough to travel, but as a whole I am sure they are not these immature kiddies you see in the channel everyday.

See, this is the meat of the disagreement here. You have the mentality of "bring more players in, there will be some good stuff in all the chaff", while Scott has the mindset of "keep the netplayers out, they're too negative to make the meager numbers they bring in worthwhile". This is a problem with MBAC where lots of players turned on the game, and there's really no way for us to tell right now if it would happen again for MBAA. With the way MBAA has progressed it seems less likely, but we won't know until years later.

Yes, having more new players usually means a community has more of a diverse scene since there is a scrub to pro ratio.   More playing in general usually means more diverse or solid strategies, so I don't know what you were trying to say (Maybe that it doesn't matter if its online or offline since it will get the same amount of play? Either way thats incorrect, good strategies and styles/gimicks are accelerated in proportion to how many people play the game.).

I'm going to be blunt here and say that this doesn't matter because we're all going to copy Japan anyways. The good players are going to come up with their own shit on top of that and bring the diversity you're talking about. Having more lower-level players will not accomplish anything but slow the growth of the scene. More playing does not translate into more knowledge, as not everyone plays to learn (excuse me, Plays to Win).

Can't argue with this, the balance you speak of is usually very important.  And I never said or even suggested that netplay should be a basis, I just said its a good supplement to a community.  It is not hard to make a netplay tool.  (I know, I've made a few back in my day.) Setting up setups is hardly worth discussion, quit being lazy.

We agree there, netplay is a good supplement. However, in the case of MBAC, it eventually became the basis of the community since the offline meets stopped, and that's when the community degraded. At this point in time there needs to be any kind of release to jumpstart the scene, and I feel (along with Scott) that a PS2 release would be the more solid way to do it because it would bring in the serious players first and foremost and give credibility to the game instead of having to deal with netplayers who don't even know what a BnB is. You probably also missed the years when MBAC was ridiculed for being a loli fighter (even though it has what, 3 lolis in it out of 20-some characters?), a MUGEN fighter, an anime fighter (another nonsensical term from SRK elitists), and other names I forgot. The last thing you need when trying to establish a game is for it to have a reputation as a netplay fighter, and for the game to be taken seriously by more people, it will need a reputation past what it has at the moment.

And as far as setups go, it's a valid issue, albeit a small one. Try organizing a tourney where you have to run brackets on the same setup you're playing on. Try making a joint effort to release match videos when you have replays scattered across four laptops instead of on a single tape or hard drive. People notice these things in tournaments. When you have a smooth operation running, it makes the scene look better. When you're fumbling for USB adapters and screaming at people to save replays instead of raging for a runback, people will notice that too.

EDIT: beaten by voomer on the multiple games point

[MK dagawd]

Of course the playerbase isn't going to be intact, but to assume that MBAA has no community at all is preposterous. People who dropped MBAC may pick up MBAA (I know if I had a PS2 version I would, and we all know how I feel about MBAC). People who main other games can play MBAA; there's no reason someone can't play multiple games and be competitive in them. There's plenty of people who got into MB late and are looking forward to MBAA since MBAC is deprecated. These people are all a part of the community as much as anyone else, and I think you're under the delusion that there's nobody interested in MBAA when everyone's just waiting for it to drop.

  Lets just assume a community is compromised of at least 30 people who play the game often in arcades, if this was the case, AA would not have a community. (Unless theres another channel where all these AA players meet up or I'm missing something).  We don't have a community, yet, we just have a handful of people who play the game and noone who has any REAL experience with it.  Except there ARE reasons people don't play seriously on multiple games (They don't have enough time to seriously grind two games, They want to focus on one game, or they just prefer to take one of them more serious because its funner or better or whatever.) so there ARE reasons.  I KNOW there isn't nearly as many people in the MBAC channel waiting for AA to drop than people waiting for BB to drop (Sad even though its MBAC.) but it proves my point.

I'm going to be blunt here and say that this doesn't matter because we're all going to copy Japan anyways. The good players are going to come up with their own shit on top of that and bring the diversity you're talking about. Having more lower-level players will not accomplish anything but slow the growth of the scene. More playing does not translate into more knowledge, as not everyone plays to learn (excuse me, Plays to Win).

  Im going to be blunt and say that it matters EVEN if we copy Japan anyways.  Having more lower-level players means some of those will go pro and take the game serious, which means more knowledge, which means you have more people P2W.  Simple as that.

We agree there, netplay is a good supplement. However, in the case of MBAC, it eventually became the basis of the community since the offline meets stopped, and that's when the community degraded. At this point in time there needs to be any kind of release to jumpstart the scene, and I feel (along with Scott) that a PS2 release would be the more solid way to do it because it would bring in the serious players first and foremost and give credibility to the game instead of having to deal with netplayers who don't even know what a BnB is. You probably also missed the years when MBAC was ridiculed for being a loli fighter (even though it has what, 3 lolis in it out of 20-some characters?), a MUGEN fighter, an anime fighter (another nonsensical term from SRK elitists), and other names I forgot. The last thing you need when trying to establish a game is for it to have a reputation as a netplay fighter, and for the game to be taken seriously by more people, it will need a reputation past what it has at the moment.

And as far as setups go, it's a valid issue, albeit a small one. Try organizing a tourney where you have to run brackets on the same setup you're playing on. Try making a joint effort to release match videos when you have replays scattered across four laptops instead of on a single tape or hard drive. People notice these things in tournaments. When you have a smooth operation running, it makes the scene look better. When you're fumbling for USB adapters and screaming at people to save replays instead of raging for a runback, people will notice that too.

EDIT: beaten by voomer on the multiple games point

  Well we agree on this so no point in arguing, but since whenever theres a MB tournament its usually accompanied by tournaments from other games, which of course is going to be harder to organize because its multiple games.  If theres replays scattered across multiple laptops, the obvious thing to do is either upload them or put them on portable storage.  A highly organized tournament would do these things efficiently but most of the time MB is just a small side tournament in the shadow of other tournaments.

[Nightvoomer]

As long as you have people with a common interest (playing mbaa/wanting to play it when its released) you have a community. Almost no top player plays one game exclusively with the exception of marvel.

[f-wlen ice loop]

Lets just assume a community is compromised of at least 30 people who play the game often in arcades, if this was the case, AA would not have a community. (Unless theres another channel where all these AA players meet up or I'm missing something).  We don't have a community, yet, we just have a handful of people who play the game and noone who has any REAL experience with it.  Except there ARE reasons people don't play seriously on multiple games (They don't have enough time to seriously grind two games, They want to focus on one game, or they just prefer to take one of them more serious because its funner or better or whatever.) so there ARE reasons.  I KNOW there isn't nearly as many people in the MBAC channel waiting for AA to drop than people waiting for BB to drop (Sad even though its MBAC.) but it proves my point.

You're trying way too hard if you have to quantify fighting game communities with hard numbers and IRC channels. These things are afterthoughts for most other communities.

Im going to be blunt and say that it matters EVEN if we copy Japan anyways.  Having more lower-level players means some of those will go pro and take the game serious, which means more knowledge, which means you have more people P2W.  Simple as that.

Are you seriously suggesting that having more knowledge comes from lesser skilled players who decide to get serious, instead of good players who want to get better? This is so completely backwards that I can't believe it isn't a troll. Leave that shit on IRC.

Also, there is no way you can expect people to listen to what you say when you throw around Sirlin lingo with no sense of irony, but we've been over this before.

Well we agree on this so no point in arguing, but since whenever theres a MB tournament its usually accompanied by tournaments from other games, which of course is going to be harder to organize because its multiple games.  If theres replays scattered across multiple laptops, the obvious thing to do is either upload them or put them on portable storage.  A highly organized tournament would do these things efficiently but most of the time MB is just a small side tournament in the shadow of other tournaments.

MB has always been played as a side tournament at bigger events. The game will never become the headliner at Evo because of politics, but the first step to getting it recognized as a contender at other events is to get your shit together. PC does not accomplish this goal because it is more complex than a PS2 setup. You probably weren't around when older WTs were run on PS2 and everything ran smooth as silk. At Evo, it took 2 days to finish one tournament and it had to be done in a fucking hallway. This is no way for a game to thrive, and sure enough, after Evo the hype pretty much died.

Anyways, that's my last post on the topic. I'd like to see a PS2 release -- even if it's somewhat imperfect -- as long as it's not as bad as That Game. Netplay would be nice but I think you're overestimating its necessity and impact on the scene. Look at GGAC, which has no netplay (aside from #r) and is hugely popular. Wonder why that is.

[MK dagawd]

You're trying way too hard if you have to quantify fighting game communities with hard numbers and IRC channels. These things are afterthoughts for most other communities.

  I'm not trying too hard.  Obviously a handful of people don't count as a community.

Are you seriously suggesting that having more knowledge comes from lesser skilled players who decide to get serious, instead of good players who want to get better? This is so completely backwards that I can't believe it isn't a troll. Leave that shit on IRC.

Also, there is no way you can expect people to listen to what you say when you throw around Sirlin lingo with no sense of irony, but we've been over this before.

  Right, because we all begin good and not at lesser skill levels.    Let me dumb it down so you don't misunderstand again.
Having more scrubs means eventually more good players will arise. (We all begin as scrubs when we first play a game we don't know, it doesn't mean just because your a scrub you doomed to be a scrub forever.
Having more good players means more people taking the game seriously and finding their own styles/strategies.
Simple enough?

MB has always been played as a side tournament at bigger events. The game will never become the headliner at Evo because of politics, but the first step to getting it recognized as a contender at other events is to get your shit together. PC does not accomplish this goal because it is more complex than a PS2 setup. You probably weren't around when older WTs were run on PS2 and everything ran smooth as silk. At Evo, it took 2 days to finish one tournament and it had to be done in a fucking hallway. This is no way for a game to thrive, and sure enough, after Evo the hype pretty much died.

Anyways, that's my last post on the topic. I'd like to see a PS2 release -- even if it's somewhat imperfect -- as long as it's not as bad as That Game. Netplay would be nice but I think you're overestimating its necessity and impact on the scene. Look at GGAC, which has no netplay (aside from #r) and is hugely popular. Wonder why that is.

  Nothing to say here except theres a reason why GGAC is more popular, its a better game than MBAC.  If you take my P2W lingo seriously you deserve to be trolled, spoilers, I'm not serious.

[F9|Chibi]

Nothing to say here except theres a reason why GGAC is more popular, its a better game than MBAC.

If you're solely talking about MBAC then I agree.

Outside of that, not really sure how to take news of a PS2 port of MBAA especially considering how bonklers the MBAC port was (and how we literally didn't know any better at the time).

I'll take it as is right now.

[f-wlen ice loop]

I'm not trying too hard.  Obviously a handful of people don't count as a community.

Obviously not, but it's pretty embarrassing when you need to fish numbers out from thin air and say "IS THIS WHAT WE NEED TO BE COUNTED AS A LEGIT COMMUNITY GUYS???" There's no need to quantify it, it just smacks of desperation. If you want the game to be taken seriously, you have to be confident, and asking for numerical validation is not the way to do that.

Right, because we all begin good and not at lesser skill levels.    Let me dumb it down so you don't misunderstand again.
Having more scrubs means eventually more good players will arise. (We all begin as scrubs when we first play a game we don't know, it doesn't mean just because your a scrub you doomed to be a scrub forever.
Having more good players means more people taking the game seriously and finding their own styles/strategies.
Simple enough?

First off, this is another bad assumption. There are going to be people who are more skilled than others even having not played the game. Why? Because they play fighters proficiently and have fundamentals and experience from other games. Hellmonkey was no scrub when he started playing MBAC because he played GG and as such understood the concepts very quickly. While he wasn't "good" by MB standards at his first West Toast, he already had a large headstart because execution in MBAC was easy compared to GG and there were many similar things you could do between the two games. As a result, he placed high in the brackets even though it was a new game to him, beating out people who had been playing for a far longer time. (You probably missed that.)

Also: "Having more scrubs means eventually more good players will arise." You're basically saying "throw more people into the pool, and eventually something good will come up!" Good players arise because they want to get better, regardless of how big their playerbase is. The SWR scene is full of scrubs. Do any of them get better? Yes. Would they have gotten better if there were fewer random scrubs on 4chan? More than likely (see: asdf and alpha10th, who developed their game extremely well even when the playerbase was mostly comprised of Touhoufags who had never played a fighter seriously in their lives). Introducing more scrubs isn't a guarantee that you're going to get more high-level players. It means you have a chance of having more high-level players simply because you have more numbers.

We are really talking about two different things here; you are referring to expanding the population with the net effect being that good players will come from it. What I'm saying is that there are going to be people who are naturally better than others or have enough experience to be ahead in the game, and that the path to improvement is to learn from those players. You're not going to accomplish anything having a huge MBAA community where nobody knows anything beyond a basic BnB. Somebody has to step up, and that person is going to do it regardless of if it's 50 people or 500.

Nothing to say here except theres a reason why GGAC is more popular, its a better game than MBAC.  If you take my P2W lingo seriously you deserve to be trolled, spoilers, I'm not serious.

And herein lies the problem: if GGAC is better than MBAC (which it is), why should people play MBAC? (This is the question XAQ asked himself, and why he's no longer in the MBAC scene). For MBAA to succeed, it cannot be "that game GG players go to when they're bored" or "the game people play if they suck at GG". There has to be proof that MBAA is a superior game in some aspects apart from other games out there. The best way to demonstrate this is to show the game at tournaments with an organized presence, to upload quality match videos, and to hype the tournaments up. Netplay is barely a blip in the radar for what the game needs because the considerations of people who aren't going to travel don't matter to the serious portion of the community.

[Masu]

Whoah! Thats awesome news!

[llama_egg]

I still think net-play is a good thing, and I love it to pieces. Why? Because otherwise I probably would never be able to play against anyone. Ever. I live in a decently size town (though it is considered a city), and I've yet to find a single person who even knows what Melty Blood is, let alone anything Type-moon. Not only that, I don't even believe their is a single arcade cabinet of MB:AA in all of Alberta.

Hell, without net-play I probably wouldn't have even gotten into MB:AC, because really, after getting a hang of the game, how much fun is playing the AI? Not much eh? I think I know a single person in this town I might be able to con into playing the game a single time, then he would probably give up, so really I have no one to play against in person. Even when it comes down to going to a larger city, Edmonton, even Calgary, I only know a couple people who would be interested, so once again, I would let the game hang around collecting dust.

All in all, I think net-play adds to the community, not take away. I mean, all the players who want to take it up a notch will still head to tourneys, play with friends, etc.  while people who are more casual or just don't have the opportunity to head halfway across the country to join in are still able to play with others.

Dunno, just my two cents.

On a different note, I'll believe the release date once it gets confirmed.

[Sp00ky]

Yay ps2 mbaa.

Boo netplay drama.

[MK dagawd]

Obviously not, but it's pretty embarrassing when you need to fish numbers out from thin air and say "IS THIS WHAT WE NEED TO BE COUNTED AS A LEGIT COMMUNITY GUYS???" There's no need to quantify it, it just smacks of desperation. If you want the game to be taken seriously, you have to be confident, and asking for numerical validation is not the way to do that.

 I was just trying to use numbers to better explain how many people should be playing a game for a community to be established. (Obviously a handful of people playing AA cabs do not coun't as a scene.).  Whats so embarrassing about trying to find some common ground to discuss what a community really is, because it certainly isnt what AA has atm.

First off, this is another bad assumption. There are going to be people who are more skilled than others even having not played the game. Why? Because they play fighters proficiently and have fundamentals and experience from other games. Hellmonkey was no scrub when he started playing MBAC because he played GG and as such understood the concepts very quickly. While he wasn't "good" by MB standards at his first West Toast, he already had a large headstart because execution in MBAC was easy compared to GG and there were many similar things you could do between the two games. As a result, he placed high in the brackets even though it was a new game to him, beating out people who had been playing for a far longer time. (You probably missed that.)

Also: "Having more scrubs means eventually more good players will arise." You're basically saying "throw more people into the pool, and eventually something good will come up!" Good players arise because they want to get better, regardless of how big their playerbase is. The SWR scene is full of scrubs. Do any of them get better? Yes. Would they have gotten better if there were fewer random scrubs on 4chan? More than likely (see: asdf and alpha10th, who developed their game extremely well even when the playerbase was mostly comprised of Touhoufags who had never played a fighter seriously in their lives). Introducing more scrubs isn't a guarantee that you're going to get more high-level players. It means you have a chance of having more high-level players simply because you have more numbers.

We are really talking about two different things here; you are referring to expanding the population with the net effect being that good players will come from it. What I'm saying is that there are going to be people who are naturally better than others or have enough experience to be ahead in the game, and that the path to improvement is to learn from those players. You're not going to accomplish anything having a huge MBAA community where nobody knows anything beyond a basic BnB. Somebody has to step up, and that person is going to do it regardless of if it's 50 people or 500.

 OFC there are going to be more skilled players who are used to this type of game, but no matter how much exp they have they WILL start as a scrub initially (even if it takes them 10 minutes to become a "Good" player the point here is a group of scrubs have a better chance of producing good players as opposed to only 2-3 scrubs.) Okay so lets apply your logic, good players arise because they want to get better right?  Well you have a better chance of finding those people in a group of 25 scrubs who netplay as opposed to 5 scrubs who have to play the game on PS2 without much experience playing with other people.  EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE started as a scrub somewhere, it doesn't matter if it was MBAC or GG or SWR the point is they wanted to become better so they took the game serious and theres a greater chance to find people like this in higher numbers as opposed to just assuming experienced players are just going to migrate to a certain game.

And herein lies the problem: if GGAC is better than MBAC (which it is), why should people play MBAC? (This is the question XAQ asked himself, and why he's no longer in the MBAC scene). For MBAA to succeed, it cannot be "that game GG players go to when they're bored" or "the game people play if they suck at GG". There has to be proof that MBAA is a superior game in some aspects apart from other games out there. The best way to demonstrate this is to show the game at tournaments with an organized presence, to upload quality match videos, and to hype the tournaments up. Netplay is barely a blip in the radar for what the game needs because the considerations of people who aren't going to travel don't matter to the serious portion of the community.

 In my opinoin AA is better than BB, I enjoy the pacing of AA as opposed to the floaty feel of BB, but everyone has thier tastes.  Sometimes whether a game is good or not doesn't determine whether someone will play it because of the specific taste of that person.  Netplay would help bring in more players (There might even be a few experienced players out there who just decide to try AA on a whim because it has netplay and if they happen to like the game well, we just have another experienced player in the scene.) I agree it isnt necessary but it would sure help.

[F9|Chibi]

Yay ps2 mbaa.

Boo netplay drama.

Hell camp returns?