Mike Watson's take on Final Showdown's lack of support as an example of how games die in a community

Let me get this straight. So you were basing your opinion of this community today, on your experience of it years ago? Yeah man, things do change. You still going to have pockets of elitism, just like SRK forums got their elites. There are threads that I've posted over there than get no attention and I never get my questions answered. Over here at least folks will troll you, or call you a noob and point you in the right direction.

 

My opinion was based partially but not entirely from days past. Of course when I venture out of my little Goh forum cave and see the little pockets of elitism I'll be reminded it's still here. I will admit I could do a better job of visiting all the other sections of the VFDC forums as I would love nothing more but to totally wrong about this place. I'd love it if this forum had made a 180 degree turn and became the friendliest community in the FGC.

As far as SRK vs here, that place is a whole different animal. The tempo there is WAY higher. Who cares about their so called elites there as it's so filled up and convaluted with members from all over the place. This place is much smaller and can be a lot more personal.

 

I'm from America but a good portion of those 10+ years was spent doing military service overseas where I tried to visit other VF players in neighboring countries(with no luck due to a lack of interest on their part) as well as building a community from scratch in the part of Germany that I was living in for years which had even worse results even though I proposed a similar money prize like LA_Akira did. So while I wasn't at or able to attend the events I was actively community building and still am here in Mississippi.

And yes what you mentioned that definitely is the bigger picture and what I had mentioned was just a side suggestion that was something to think about as every detail that is holding us back should be mentioned and discussed regardless if we agree/disagree, like/dislike it.

 

I've been meaning to go at least once, but I've got 2 kids under 4, so it's hard for me to justify the time and cost of a non business interstate trip at the moment. I'll make it there eventually one day!!

 

VF players seem to have these kinds of issues more so than I think other fgc have. I never hear of this being a reason of a sf or marvel player not making an event.

I don't thinks is negative, it just highlights that what works for one fgc may not work for others.

 

You're dead wrong on what the community is like in person. VF community in-person is one of the more loving and tolerant communities out there. This isn't like Marvel or GG where the players tend to be jerks.


I wish I could have done more locally, but the difference between 3 players and 4 isn't significant. All I could do is show up for majors, and I did. After seeing how poor the turnout was at NEC, I'm wondering if I should just accept that VF is an online game now. Tournies don't really do much for me anyways.

 

True Alstein!!! I make your words mine. BTW your Jeff is killer.

 

Mississippi- so Keesler (assuming you're in the AF)

Ironically- the first guy to actually tech me anything about VF was when I was stationed at Keesler? Learned that abare was bad as my first lesson.

BTW my Jeff is not killer- I'm nothing more than a poor man's Kamais really. The folks who truly do understand this game tear me apart and show me for the fraud that I am.

 

I'm glad I'm dead wrong about what the community is like in person. So at least that can be scratched off.

Yes, I'm in the Air Force but I'm not stationed at Keesler even though I live near it. I got out of the active duty military and joined an Air National Guard unit in nearby Louisiana. I think it's quite surprising that you learned what you did from an Air Force guy seeing as most of the time AF guys are only interested in FPS and sports games. When I got to Spandahlem Air Base in Germany I issued a challenge to all the gamers on base that I'd pay them 50 dollars if they could beat me in VF, Tekken, Street Fighter or KOF and Tekken was the only game I could get them to bite and still then I never payed up 50 bucks because they weren't interested in learning and improving. Then the interest completely died. So nothing I tried with the locals both military and German nationals came into fruition. VF fans are scattered too far and too wide and not enough of us use this site to communicate imo.

 

Hi Spinmaster X, I just wanted to say that I'm a fellow Mississippi resident who plays VFFS : ) I'm so bad though (now) I think any of you could beat me without using any buttons. I sent you a message.... cheers.

 

If these Mississippi players keep popping up like this then we won't have to go to California to get some offline action. After all of these depressing years of community building in 2 different countries things are starting to look really good and luckily it's happening in my state!

 

Aha. Unfortunately I'm one of the poor sods playing on PS3. Most of the other Aussies are on XBox I hear.

Would be great to see more people just give VF a try. Here in Melbourne, we've got some great dudes who join up for other games just to show support. I try to do so myself sometimes too.

 

While I'm new to this community, as someone whose been a part of organizing a lot of local things in general, here's what I've seen.

1) It's expensive and time-consuming: No matter how you slice it, any FG commitment is going to be significant. Between working in the dojo and trying to improve yourself, it's a significant portion of hours in the week. Most people have many time commitments, so it can be difficult to devote enough time to level up fast enough to feel tourney ready. Also, if you have to drive 1 hour to a place and 1 hour back, it's going to be hard to justify it unless you can get something for that lost time. I've only been to a couple of tourneys for Marvel, but I was quickly turned off by how few casual stations there were. It's kind of annoying to spend 2 hours driving to only play for 2 hours (after being there for 6 hours total) since tourneys are dominating everything. While I haven't been to a VF tourney, if it follows the general pattern of most game tourneys, than most likely people are making the decision that it doesn't make sense to go to events if it means getting 2-3 games in and then just sitting around since most people are going to be knocked out early. I can watch games via stream while hitting the dojo. Also, between venue fees, hotel rooms and everything else that goes with it, it can be a financial burden as well. Some places charge $20 venue fees and $10 pot fees?! Basically paying $30 just to go to a tourney is bad enough when you aren't even factoring everything else. Hell, that's 3 cases of Lionshead in PA, yes 3 cases of beer.

2) Competitive play is not always fun: I think a lot of people are lured into playing a game because they think if they put the time in, it will be fun because they win. However, in reality that isn't the case as no matter how much time you put into a game, you're going to lose a lot unless you're one of the lucky few. While I'm sure the community is fun and tolerant (as most scenes I have checked out tend to be), when a high emphasis is placed on winning, it can be mentally draining. If you aren't getting pure joy from playing the game (which is probably the case for many people, myself included), then it's just a matter of time before you eat enough losses that you just don't want to play anymore.

3) People just aren't leveling up fast enough: This, I think, is the real-killer for most people and community efforts in general. My friend and I picked up KOF and have been trying to get better at it. Since I've played a decent amount of FG's before, I'm capable of learning much faster than him (albeit it's still f'ing hard for me) which I told him not to worry about. However, the more I practiced, the more I noticed the less he wanted to play. When I asked him why he didn't play KOF anymore he said, "It's annoying that you have to put in 30 minutes to learn something where as I'm spending 2 hours to just learn simple hit-confirms." After a while, it dawned on me that because of the all the experience I had (which minimal compared to other people), I had an advantage that most people didn't have. I think it just sucks that if someone is just trying out VF, the amount of things they have to learn is really amazing. When FG's were first coming out back in the early 90's, everyone had the same experience so it was balanced in that regard, but now, unless you've been playing for a long time, it can seem pointless to put the time in when the chances of getting to a competitive level are tiny. Combine this with the fact that games have shorter and shorter shelf lives now and basically you have a system where people are getting turned off faster and faster.

I applaud people like akai and LA_Akira who put the time in to help a community (and I know I'm not doing anything too active right now) but just as a casual observer, here may be somethings that help the community.

1) Focus more on local group sessions instead tourneys. That way, people don't have to worry about winning and all that crap and can just play the game. I always try to help anyone who asks me for help or give them advice on why I was able to beat them. Also, instead of venue fees (aside to cover cost of renting space), maybe just have everyone bring setups so everyone can keep playing if they want so there time is being utilized to its fullest. That way, the tourney isn't the highlight, but people playing, learning and having fun is. I know many card tourneys (my roommate is big into L5R) make a point about having enough space so that all entries can play while the tourney is going. Hell, some will actually hold the tourney until some casuals have just so they don't cut some people's casual time.

2) Stop with the "Step you game up / Sink or Swim / blah blah blah" crap. I know back in the day, everyone was hungry and was hitting the lab to figure out the how to beat that one guy who was apparently unbeatable. That was also when many of us were in school and not old enough to have anything significant in our lives. This is a different day as most of us have real lives to tend to. Just like UFC had to step away from the "blood and carnage" and promote "athleticism and internal virtues," of MMA it would probably benefit the community to tone down the "Being the champ and competitive monster" stuff and promote the "We are having fun together and helping each other with something we love"

3) Get proof from SEGA that they will continue to support the game besides holding tourneys (patches mainly needed here). The game has been out for a long time now and so far SEGA hasn't really done anything where DOA5 has gotten more support than anyone thought possible in the 3 months it has been out. While people complain about over patching, in reality, patching can really improve a game and promote diversity. I remember when Marvel 2 became 6-8 characters once people figured stuff out. A lot of people (myself included) just dropped from playing it competitively because they didn't want to play with the characters that were viable. We'd really only play it amongst ourselves while drunk hitting random everything to just have laughs. Third Strike eventually just became and endless sea of Ken, Chun, and Twins since everyone was trying to win. I think if SEGA steps up and shows that they have a stake in this as well and will make is so all characters are viable and the game is truly balanced, then more people will be willing to commit to the game.

 

That last point - VF got patches before release, this is the final version, and they're now working on VF6 supposedly.

DOA5 is a console game that had huge bugs on launch, they had to patch that- they didn't have the benefit of arcades to test out the game for the console version.

Sega's sponsoring a national in April, how much more do you want for a downloadable $15 game 10 months after release that probably only got 100-150k sales?

 

Here's my opinion. It was the timing. Sega should have realeased FS 2 years ago like summer 2011. FS wouldve been popular then because 1)it wouldve been 1 of the few new fighters on the market 2). It wouldve had almost no competition. lnstead it came out june 2012, 3months before TTT2 came out. Anyone notice how decent FS was doing last summer until TTT2 came out and numbers of players started decreasing?
2012 was the revival of fighting games in general. TTT2, Guilty Gear, SFXT, DOA5 UMVC3 (i think?) SC5 along with FS. So it was bound to lose popularity. If it came out in 2011 it wouldve gave casual gamers and other players from Tekken SC SF etc, enough time to learn the game and focus ONLY on VF. Then by time 2012 it wouldve been alot more popular and had a thriving community of more skilled players and more casual players taking interest in VF. Then when SC5 and others came out it wouldn't have affected FS. At least people know what VF is now because of FS. I except better results 4 VF6 in the future.

 

Fair points on the VF6 and DOA things. I didn't consider that stuff so touche on that. However, it's really only a small part of what I'm saying.

As I mentioned before, SEGA's promoting tourneys and competitive play and not the actual playing of the game for fun. How about events where you can play star players and have them give you pointers?

My big point was that it seems like community is just becoming a synonym with competitive play as opposed to competitive play being just a part of community. I'm all for tourneys to a certain degree, but realistically, they only benefit a small percentage of players since unless you have a significant chance of winning a tourney, you're really only throwing money into a pot to be taken by those top players. Most people get knocked out in 2-4 games and that's there tournament experience.

Unless there is something to cater to those people who get knocked out early, why would they go or want to get involved in the first place? For example, when I was in college, I ran a Soul Calibur 2 tournament. I wasn't really any good compared to top TOP players but was definitely one of tops in my area. I would spend 20-30 minutes with each person giving them advice on how they could improve and why I was beating them or why they lost a match I saw (too many vertical attacks, you didn't throw enough, you didn't take advantage of walls or ring edges, etc). It was a smaller tournament, maybe 16 people (and nothing by today's standards), but by having enough stations so everyone was playing and having fun, it was probably the best tourney experience I ever had. The prize was a pizza since we couldn't really afford anything else as we were all dirt poor. However, by emphasizing improving and playing for fun (we marketed it as come out and play Soul Calibur 2 with other people who like the game as opposed to "OMG, all the hitz for VICTORY!"), it grew because the tournament was always second to people having fun. Eventually our venue closed but worked around it because it was always about having fun and eventually we just didn't care about the tournament anymore. We preferred to drop the tournament instead of the air of fun. I don't know if something is still going on at our college but that's what got me involved in the FG community as a whole. If FG's are only being marketed as eSports and winning, then people shouldn't be surprised why communities spark and die because most people realize they will probably never significantly win and that's not fun.

 

I can only speak for myself, but for me fun and competition aren't mutually exclusive. I'm not a competitive type of person at all, but it's been fun to play in local tournaments and see myself slowly progress my skills since I started back in August. Tournaments benefit whoever is willing to learn from their games and/or have a good time at the event, money or no money. I was, and still usually am, one of the guys who gets knocked out within four games, but the experience at a tournament is more than my results - it's meeting other players, learning from my mistakes, playing casuals, and gaining a passion to challenge myself to get better for next time.

That being said, I understand what you're saying. For lots of people, competition is a turn off and they only want to play casually, or even just stay at home and only play online. There's nothing wrong with that, unless everyone approaches the game that way, which causes tournaments to die. But there is always room for both tournaments and casual sessions (Portland and NYC are both good examples). The best solution, as always, is to just get more people interested in the game. Sega's done fairly well supporting the game, the rest is up to us.