The following is a bit commentary on the issue of people not wanting to come down to the arcades to compete. Written by Jaeshi of the BlazBlue community and reproduced here with permission. I personally think that his view is a little skewed since he plays almost exclusively at Bugis. But it’s still a poignant bit of commentary and definitely worth saving. And yes, Jaeshi is the fabled one-handed Hakumen. Which goes to show his level of dedication to the scene. (Now, with his arm out of a cast, he’s back to playing Bang again.) – Farpenoodle
I’m surprised that after the successful Iluma tournament turnout, there are still so many people shying away from getting real action down in the arcades.
To most of the people who joined the tournament and did not do well, I only supposed they joined without having any real interest in getting better at the game eg. competitive spirit, seeing that the crowd at the BB machines are either the arcade regulars or casual mashers. Either that, or they belong to the console PSN/Live crowd, and its understandable why they avoid playing in the arcades (to save money etc.)
Its great that guys like prinnydood, Mono-GTR, Barewolf, Pablo, Rucky and Hannybal (The most prominent members i can remember atm) are showing their mettle in the arcades. I also recognise icecube who teamed with Chichiboy and he has no fear in trying to get better at the game, which is also the right attitude.
Also a thumbs up for the new female players for giving Blazblue a good run: AKA Revive and her sister. I don’t know how long BlazBlue will hold your interest for, but having the drive to prove your ability ingame is respectable. BlazBlue is NOT Hello Kitty Online and I’m sure that you girls command alot more respect out from us compared to other people for wanting to prove that fact.
Regarding the console players. I feel disappointed that many will not become good at the game. BlazBlue is a precision game where fast reactions and sharp counters contribute to wins. Online play is generally not the same, no matter how lag free you feel the game is. I would liken it to be as if people were playing soccer underwater.
Players transiting from Online to Offline would receive a rude shock as they receive punishment one after the other executing moves that worked at home simply because it is too laggy to block on reaction. There are also those players who have potential at getting better at the game due to their creativity and strength of mind who will simply flower in the arcades instead of stagnating at home. Reason being that they can actually play the game the way its meant to be played: fast furious, and unforgiving.
Some people play the game, some just press buttons for fun. I hope more people start playing the same game that arcade regulars and I play.
If anyone is truly interested in getting into the arcade community please do not hesitate to talk to us in real life! Unless you are totally creepy or more of an asshole than I am, you would be welcome to hang out and we can learn to get better at BlazBlue. As always it is your prerogative to speak up and out, so don’t lurk too much ^_^
I agree with what Jae said about the console players, but as much as I want to believe BB being a good game, after reading the post below, I can’t bring myself to do so.
http://dustloop.com/forums/showpost.php?p=434834&postcount=113
I agree somewhat with the sentiments in this article. I’m finding online PSN play unsatisfactory as I can’t find good latency opponents. The lag works both ways, it hinders your opponent’s play but it hinders yours as well; I can’t seem to pull off some combos due to random frame drops.
On the other hand, the standard of arcade play is so high right now compared to where I am personally. I don’t have any problem with losing, you tend to learn a lot anyway; the problem is that it costs a huge amount of money and time to grind out the experience you need to compete against the pros in different matchups. Unfortunately, right now it’s time and money that I simply can’t afford.
Axel:
I know how some of you GG old-schoolers feel about Blazblue, but its time to let go and embrace whats new.
Blazblue is a new chapter for Arcsys. Its their first game, and the second version will be coming out at the end of the year.
Blazblue is the game that the industry is going to support with tournaments, sponsorships and press coverage. I encourage you to look at the bigger picture and see things in the long term: Blazblue needs the support of everyone for the sake of the entire arcade scene.
However, nobody can force you to play a game you don’t like. But as a prominent and respected member of the “Arcsys Games Community”, bashing the game won’t help the Arcade scene as a whole. Perhaps BB can serve as a gateway into the world of Arcsys games..and for those who don’t like it, there will surely be a spillover effect of players into older games like GG.
I spoke with the guys over at AMI (distributors of Blazblue) while I was in Tokyo and there are big plans for the next version of BB. Get hype!!
Sup Lang,
I appreciate all the stuffs you have done for the arcade scene, but I don’t really agree on letting go of old games and embracing on new games. Games like Super Turbo and 3rd Strike are still played competitively in Japan, even though SF4 has proven to be a huge success. Momochi, the man who plays a GM Akuma in SF4, actually won 3s in SBO this year, playing Makoto instead of Yun (remember the legendary Yun mirror match between him and Matsuda last year?). Good games will forver remain as good games, and there will be players playing it on a competitive level since there is demand for it.
Regarding BlazBlue, my gripe is not really so much on it being an inferior game, but it totally killing off GG interest. US players on Dustloop are facing the same issue, with tons of players moving to BB and dropping GG completely. Josh Ballard, a well-respected US fighting gamer, claimed to pick up v-13, play some matches online for a day and was able to place 2nd in a tournament against seasoned players. People like to use SBO results to argue about game balance, but remember that SBO is but 1 tournament out of many in a month in Japan. A good indicator of BB interest will not be before SBO, but rather after SBO. BB definitely needs a lot of reworks if it really wants to replace GG completely in Japan, but IMO, it is quite impossible unless SBO decides to dump GG out of the main roster, just like what they did to MBAA this year. Business is business after all…
I type this reply during work in a tactical manner, so pardon me for being incoherent at any point. Maybe I am feeling sore, but I guess people do get sick of seeing a Volcanic Viper and will prefer to see an Inferno Divider in HD format? If there will be a new GG coming up, will it actually enjoy similar success as BB does in SG?
Peace.
I still don’t understand why they did what they did with MBAA. The new version of the game is pretty much fantastic and the series has been a staple of SBO for a few years now. AFAIK the scene for MBAA is still very strong in Japan despite not being in SBO due to it’s strength as a game. By contrast, I can see F/UC being dropped like hot rocks once it’s no longer in SBO.
Anyway, as far as GG goes, I’m not sure what you guys can do about that. Only hope that a good amount of the former GG players would be willing to support both games at once. Because issues or not, BB has the biggest potential for expansion.
Hey Axel,
Great reply. I watched Momochi cream everyone with Makoto live and that really inspired me to dust off my 3s game and play it again. True, good games are good games, and they will never die.
Anyways, you know me la. Community developer/whatnot. I’m concerned about new faces, bringing fighting games to a wider audience, securing corporate sponsors, getting the media’s attention etc. and currently, the ArcSys game to do this is BB. ArcSys seems to do a good job of updating their games properly, so personally I’m looking to see how the next version pans out.
BTW lets hope we’ll keep seeing more Carl domination in the future.
I was just speaking with Axel regarding BB last night, and he gave me the little push i needed to drop BB. 15 minutes on youtube watching Acho Ranbats for GG sealed the deal.
The only thing i would like to add on to Axel’s post is not very nice though. But its the truth you all know and it has to be said. The reason why BB is more popular than GG is not only because its prettier. A bigger part is, its a game even scrubs can play.
GG is, and hopefully always will be, the game with the highest learning curve. Its something simply too difficult for the average gamer to pick up. Dont make light of GG’s graphics, either; up till BB it was the most graphically alluring 2D fighter (3s coming close though.)
But even a year ago, GG never enjoyed the popularity BB is enjoying now. Why? People aren’t afraid to pick BB up. Jaeshi’s long post calling scrubs out of their hidey holes to come get their asses whooped in the arcade is proof of how CASUAL the BB scene is in Singapore. I learnt one incomplete and bad combo in BB and i can win roughly 90% of the people i fight in the arcades, and i feel bad for it. If it was GG, that shit wouldn’t fly.
Do you know why they say “HERE COMES DAREDEVIL” everytime a new challenger appears in GG? Because thats the kind of person it takes to slot a token into a GG machine for the first time. I do hope with all my heart we get a new version sometime soon.
Well, coming from an ex-hardcore Third Strike player, I completely understand how you feel about this issue.
However, in my recent trip to Japan I’ve seen how deep SF4 is becoming and how fast the gameplay is becoming. Its unfair to compare current 3s play, which has evolved after years, to current SF4 play. Dare I say, the same can be said of GG and BB.
Accessibility =/= lack of depth. I for one, am happy that many new people are playing SF4. Isn’t that a good thing for any game? The inaccessibility of fighting games was what led to the pre-2009 arcade slump. 3s, to me, is the greatest SF game, but it also is to be blamed for killing interest in the franchise. And with that, ultimately, a contributing factor to the decline of the arcades.
As much as I disagree with him, David Sirlin made a good point in one of his articles about barriers to high-level play. What is high level play? Is it your ability to memorize complex combos and set-ups through the strengthening of muscle memory? (think MVC2) Or is it the clashing of two human minds in a mind-read tug of war? Sirlin’s hypothesis is that high-level play is the latter, and that games facilitate high-level play by allowing players to reach the point where mind meets mind easier without having to go through too many ‘artificial skill checks’, like combos. Because you’ve mastered a complex combo at home, that doesn’t make you a better mind-reader, which is the very essence of fighting games.
I don’t completely subscribe to all of the above though. Complex combos are a mental dexterity and endurance check: a test of your ability to handle pressure by pulling these complex sequences off in a tight spot, therefore adding an element of pressure. Combos are what make fighting games more exciting than chess, although in essence both games are the same.
I’m also of the school of thought that difficulty of execution is not the same thing as depth. Which is probably why my favourite games are what they are. I was talking with Raymus (Shen Yuan) about this yesterday and we both differ a bit in opinions on this. He thinks that if you’re not willing to put the time in to get good with the game you’re just lazy. And maybe that’s true, but I feel like I shouldn’t have to invest hours and hours of time into mechanical execution in order to be able to compete and play at even mid-level gameplay. I just don’t find that enjoyable. And to me, being able to have fun and enjoy a game should be more important than the satisfaction of being able to perform difficult moves and combos. And I think this is where BB succeeds. It is easier to pick up and play and has enough depth to keep people interested.
All that said though, of all the games I currently play (and I think most people know that I play too many), I do think BB is the weakest. With the possible exception of Daemon Bride. Which hasn’t been out long enough for me to form a solid enough opinion on it. It is a much better game than I expected however, and it also has fairly low execution requirements. But back to BB. Despite it’s many flaws, the game happens to be pretty fun. If it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t play it. I mean that’s the entire point of playing right? Frankly, if I could, I’d play AH2 or SC4 all day if either had more competition (and one had an arcade release). So I go for the next best thing. Which is BB. Because as much as I like SF4, the game is too different from what I usually play and I have problems with execution and thinking fast enough in that game.
But GG took many iterations to get where it has. It’s not like GG was the greatest game ever when it started either. So I personally think we should give BB a chance. And as I said, at least the game is fun. Many games are fun while being technically broken. AH was actually a fairly broken game (even AHF) but was fun and it could keep players interest. Even towards the end of the games life cycle people were still finding new things. Same situation with SC I think. SC3/4 is the game you get when you take all the complaints people had with SC2 and fix them. And now a lot of the older SC players don’t feel like the game is fun anymore and thus don’t play it. Even though it’s technically now a better game. My personal opinion is that SC2 is still probably a slightly better game than SC4 because of this. SC4 at times can feel like work. And this is another area where Raymus and I have differing opinions. With him liking SC4 more because of it.
Our fighting game scene is still relatively small, and BB has the most potential to bring new people in. Probably more than SF4 and T6 at this point. So to me, for us as a scene, I think we should still at least be behind the game in principle. If not in spirit.
Also, if we were to go with the “BB stole my players” line of thinking, you could also apply that to AH2. Many of the older AH players have moved on to BB. Much to my chagrin. The reasoning being (guess what?) the game has more players and it’s more rewarding playing a game with active competition. I’m honestly surprised we managed to keep our AH2 tournament numbers up despite having players leave for the past few. But this latest tournament with 10 people tells me that it’s probably not worth it to run tournaments for it anymore. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit bitter but what can you do?
Strong language used! http://www.versuscity.net/2009/02/25/making-fighters-more-accessible/
I believe this article was written in view of how virtua fighter was losing popularity, and it seems largely relevant to this discussion (which btw is really out of point from the original article by jaeshi XD).
Overall, ac probably could be accused of neglecting the casual gamer community. The community’s lack of knowledge of other characters and lack of practice to do their own combos/frcs would result in them having a tremendous disadvantage. Not saying that you have to be hardcore to win, but those who hardly practice at all definitely won’t get far.
Generally though I think tka should just shift the ac machine nearer to the bb machine >.>
Location probably plays quite a large part here as well. If someone goes over to the ac machine and puts in a token, I don’t know who would be able to notice it in that faraway corner. Especially since most of the guilty gear players would be hanging around the bb machine anyway, which is at the opposite end of the arcade.
Personally i’d like it best if tka would shift ggxxac and mbaa (probably 3s for others as well) over to the bb area so that the particular section would have all the best/recent 2d fighting games, but that’s probably just wishful/selfish thinking on my part.
Perhaps tekken could be shifted? =x
I’m not particularly sure on how many tekken players play the other 2d fighting games there.
The funny thing is that Marvel is actually put in the area with HD cabinets. Nothing against Marvel, but it seems rather out of place. I will rather see GGXX or even MBAA being placed in between AH2 and BB. Sometimes I do wonder if the new BB players even know the existence of GG to begin with?
FYI, GGXX is the only 2D fighter which is in the SBO roster running in 3v3 format from SBO1 till this year. Even 3s was relegated to 2v2 in SBO3, despite its immense popularity. This goes to show how good a game GGXX is.
Tien Lang: What determines high level play differs from game to game. For games like SF3 & 4, Yomi is where its all at. Correct me if I’m wrong but thats the reason Daigo Umehara is as feared as he is.
However for GG, high level play isn’t determined only by good yomi skills. Its impossible to fully read your opponent in a game that complex, where even seasoned players still fall prey to new devious mixups and setups devised in the ever changing metagame. I agree with you disagreeing with that guy. Being able to pull off a complex and highly situational combo on pure instinct is proof of how honed your senses are. Your mind becomes a katana that cuts anything it touches. Yes i read too many mangas.
Also, i wouldn’t compare fighting games to chess. Chess matches last HOURS. You can sit your ass there and think as long as you want.
Farpe: “I’m also of the school of thought that difficulty of execution is not the same thing as depth.” It depends on how you look at it. Difficult combos tend to also be more situational ones. Being able to pull off a difficult combo in training mode is one thing, to pull it off in a match requires a level head.
“But GG took many iterations to get where it has. It’s not like GG was the greatest game ever when it started either.” Why give the game a chance if its not fun now, is what i’m saying. 2 versions from now i guarantee you V-13 will be nerfed or removed from the roster completely, and carl won’t have the clap loop. It’ll be a whole new metagame. Don’t drop tokens as a future investment. Do it for the funsies.
BB brings people in, but how many will stay? We don’t need CASUAAAAL players, what we need is to fix the mindset of Singaporeans. Dare to step into the arcade. Dare to pick up a game even if it looks like everyone is better than you. Work hard on your combos, learn advanced strategies. Earn that win, drink Coca Cola.
I did just say that I do find BB fun didn’t I? And I assume so do most of the other players. So for us, dropping tokens on the game is still worth it. Even if we think the game has issues.
Anyway, I would second the motion to move the GG machine over to the area with BB and the other more played 2D games. IIRC the machine got much more play when it had it’s brief stint there anyway. Moving MBAA over would be nice as well.
This is a rather late post but anyway:
I can understand where axel is coming from, but we must also look at the current scene.
Guilty Gear is a technically intensive game compared to BlazBlue and that turns many new players off. Playing GGAC for fun is one thing but you can only go so far with simple combos. For example, FRCing is the first hurdle most players have to face and that’s only the beginning. If you don’t wish to FRC much suddenly you are limited to a few characters like Slayer or Faust, both which you need to learn other technical stuff to strive.
I’m not saying that Guilty Gear is bad. I myself enjoy Guilty Gear because of the crazy technical stuffs I have to learn and also because of the pace. However, because of these reasons, it’s harder for newer players to pick up.
Blazblue on the other hand, is slower, easier to play and graphically better (yes, that gains points). It’s much easier for newer players to get sucked into playing Blazblue compared to Guilty Gear. Even better, Blazblue came a couple of months(?) after SF4, which revived the arcade scene. People who lost interest in SF4 have a high chance of looking at Blazblue..
So the reasons why old Guilty Gear players prefer to play Blazblue are very simple.
1) Blazblue mechanics, although simpler, is similar to Guilty Gear, so old GG players can easily pick it up
2) The Guilty Gear scene is pretty much stagnant for the past…dunno how many years. Every friday I fight the same 5+ people over one machine.
3) This is the arcades’ fault. Only Bugis have GGAC and it’s only ONE machine. Imagine a new player coming in to get murdered by axel or jae or seth.
4) Blazblue has a bigger player base, with some of the players playing fighting games for the first time.
So it’s a combination these facts that makes Blazblue much popular compared to Guilty Gear.
Also I do not think Blazblue will be a replacement to Guilty Gear. I think they should be looked at separately, not from a prequel-sequel view. The gameplay might be similar, but there are differences as well. It’s like SF2, SF3 and SF4, all fundamentally the same game, yet different in their own way.
sorry for the double post (can’t edit >.<) but I don't agree with the link axel posted at the first comment: http://dustloop.com/forums/showpost.php?p=434834&postcount=113
Blazblue, to me, is a new game, with a new engine and mechanics, which inherited some mechanics from Guilty Gear because it is the basis of what Arcsys developers have. What direction they are going with in this game is still unknown. Perhaps they are going to add FRC? Remove combo'ed throws?
The point is, right now, Blazblue is still young. It is NOT a sequel of Guilty Gear and will never be. It is a NEW game with a few mechanics taken from Guilty Gear AND other possibly other doujin fighting games.
Saying that Blazblue is a sequel of Guilty Gear is like saying that WoW is a sequel of Everquest. It is fundamentally true, but its different.
So I think we should stop comparing so much between them. It's okay for compare just for laughs, but taking it to a serious level is a bit silly. No one really wants to see Arcsys copying everything from GG into BB. That defeats the whole purpose of coming up with a new IP.