Informed gamers (casual or hardcore)...

First of all, despite logic or convenience, hardcopy is more popular than online alternatives to the general person, which includes gamers of all sorts. This is a generalization, does not apply to everyone, but it applies to a huge population. Generally, more people would like to buy a hardcover copy of a novel, than download an internet alternative. For me, it's for the feel, it's easier to read (well doesn't your necks hurt when you read my longer posts? Yep, attacking myself for fun/images/icons/tongue.gif). Not only that, it's part of greed for me, I guess just having it in my hands. Hence my binders full of VF3 and VF3tb information, organized for my convenience and ready to be read wherever I am. Anyways, enough about that... Just keep in mind that many speculators on the popularity of online books have been proven wrong (to this day, the future may change). Hardcopies are still popular as ever.

Okay, so where does this lead to... Not every gamer goes on the internet. Not every gamer that goes on the internet reads the faqs or movelists that are available to them. The information that kicks the living crap out of Prima and BradyGames and the like. However, much of the information comes from two things regarding VF... 1)Most important, Japanese resources. 2)Experience from gamers.

 

Now... Japan is so damn lucky, or at least they have the sense to promote the game as well as having a pop/arcade culture that supports it. Look at the resources for any game. ESPECIALLY VF... The freaking character tapes to start off with, the MOOKS!!!, a RESPECTED arcade scene (keep in mind that as I see it, US Arcades are seen as playtest areas for console ports, whereas to others it's the other way around plus the benefit that a home port will probably be a training ground for the arcade), anyways, the resource list goes on... TV, magazines, guide books, an actual scene that communicates, a link between the promoters and the most respected gamers (whether they are the best or not the best).

Okay, now let's look at the US. I mentioned the VF training pack for 32x (which I got for a collector's sake). What masterful secrets did it tell me? A movelist of probably 20 for the whole game, nothing more (besides basic controls)... Wow, I kick ass at VF now? What's that? If that's all there is to VF it's too simple and lame. The people who kick my ass must be winning on luck... well, whatever the person thinks (unlikely to be what I mentioned, but I put it there anyways), the case in point is that he has no clue how to play the game. Furthermore, he has no clue that he has no clue... No basis for appreciating the game at all. Just more basis to say the game is lame or stupid. THEN, if we look at the Official Strategy Guides released in the US, what do they get? An extension of the manual plus some tactics that were thrown out of someone's ass and do not work. Basically, they get the same thing as they got on the video example above. Nothing, they feel like a master because they don't know what they don't know. They think the game sucks, has no strategy whatsoever (quitea few players feel VF has no depth to it despite the mention, due to lack of resources and reference I would think). Not to mention the lack of material in magazines (well, it's getting better, but unfortunately only in the underdogs of magazines which only a very small population of gamers read).

 

Okay, I'm ranting here, but bear with me... To most gamers, there's a lack of material in the US. Faqs are finally getting more popular as well as people looking for sites (thank goodness vfdc is listed in yahoo, therefore, let's structure this site to be a very damn good resource), but despite an increasing online activity for players... I think there still needs to be a hardcopy push... I probably don't know how to word what I'm thinking here, but maybe most of you've got it by now... Maybe half of those that got it thinks I'm ranting about something that's insignificant (keep in mind that despite how much you guys did your research as well as I am doing mine, keep in mind how many questions are asked on the forum that would have been answered on a simple movelist or faq, now think about the laziness of the general gamer).

In general, I'm poorly expressing my view that there needs to be a push for GREAT MATERIAL FOR GAMES. IGN guides don't do it (I imagine they are popular, they are actually marketed so to speak). Prima and BradyGames guides don't do it. Magazines these days, the more "reputable" ones don't do it.. Not in the US anyways. HARDLY ANY GENERAL GAMER HAD A CLUE OR RESOURCE KNOWN TO THEM ON HOW TO PLAY THE DAMN GAME OR EVEN A MEANS TO UNDERSTAND IT (especially if they didn't have the community, newsgroup access, or what not at the time)!!! And where do they get their resources? Not everyone is resourceful, keep that in mind... most likely they got it from the store. Or they got it from magazines such as EGM. Etc... The Japanese, and I imagine the Koreans, had the resouces... Yes, there were those players that had no use for such information as the mooks or videos or magazines, they figured it out through experience and a quicker grasp of the system or whatever... However, for the general population that was on the HUGE SUCCESS of VF I imagine, they were informed, they were encouraged, they had the resources, the game was being marketed through well researched and thoroughly written material.

 

But what about the popularity of Street Fighter or Tekken? Street Fighter came at a time when arcades were on the rise, still above the consoles (hence in the US, more reason to play games in the arcade), before the advent of online gaming, etc... It was a game almost everyone played at least once, and many liked it once they figured what you could do with it. The series has changed a lot, but people can at least jump into it more than they could initially... they have a sense of how it's controlled. It is simpler (than VF) and they can understand it on that level. It is well supported still, most gamers can relate to that series. Tekken had the power of the Playstation success, Tekken 2 was the game to own of the rising star that was the PSX, next to Final Fantasy 7 anyways. Tekken 2 was where Tekken's popularity began here, and it was a system that at least kept gamers interested with flashy gameplay and a scheme that's simpler to get into (I'm not gonna compare complexity or anything, I don't have the knowledge to argue against Tekken, just play experience which isn't enough for me). So that's a conflict to what I'm talking about here, however, loaded movelists built in (in the home versions), a HUGE PUSH by the game magazines with more in depth articles than was even touched on VF, etc...

Okay, I should let this end here because I don't have a perfectly organized approach to explaining this idea, but I think it's a valid thought... I just wish the US had the types of materials you had pushed in Japan for VF3. How to play certain characters, an accuracy of the data as well as real experience in using it. Advanced options. How to play the game accordingly. Flowcharts. etc... On videos, books, and magazines. Where did the informed English speaking get their information? translated faqs (originally in newsgroup posts and webpages), discussions, experience, and their push for it. VF is a complex game, so those that pushed had to push pretty hard if they wanted to learn quite a bit from experience. I want VF to still be complex. I just hope there would be good enough material to breakdown the complexity into an understood art for the general gamer, I hope for it to get pushed through magazines and guidebooks at the least (as well as represented accordingly and easy to understand for those that do play the game, even on a casual level).... The internet is getting more and more popular... but it isn't everything and not everyone uses it... and even fewer people make the effort to find the info they want. Especially with VF since they can't just go to the arcade and ask the local good player what site he goes to for VF information... Anyways... this post has been long enough... maybe I'll reorganize it or add to it later...

 

Excuse the cheap tactic I used here.... No, this wasn't how I got so many posts listed above... it's only something I did so you can at least "bookmark" where you left off wherever I lost your attention span/images/icons/smile.gif

I know my posts are ridiculously long, I thought I might as well break it down so words didn't turn into smudged dots on the screen. Thanks for reading this far/images/icons/smile.gif

-Chanchai

 

First off I think as someone else stated in an earlier post this site needs character movelists and some more FAQ's would be nice as well, secondly I dont ever think their will or could be a Official strategy guide in the U.S there is just to much information. I mean the thing would end up being 700-800 pages long and would probably cost 60.00 plus dollars and as far as U.S game magazines covering VF and publishing mooks there is just not a demand for it when there is a demand you can bet you will see it.

P.S. No EGM bashing they got me started playing VF and I am for ever greatfull plus in their recent review of Tekken Tag Tournament they said and I quote "Tekken Tag is no Virtua Fighter2"

Under the surface of the most jaded cynic lies a dissappointed idealist- George Carlin