For the past two months, I've been hounding our host, complaining that our server has seen a message performance decline, doing everything I can to see what they could do to tweak our settings and boost performance. But at this point, I've come to the conclusion that we've just been growing too much and now our current service plan can no longer support us.

So today I put in for a server upgrade... We'll be going from a 512mb plan to a 768mb plan; a full 50% memory boost. So the server may be down for a bit later today during the upgrade, but you probably won't notice because of how bad our server has been acting for the past few weeks...

Northeast Championship (NEC XI) which is taking place here in my hometown of Philadelphia, PA on December 4th & 5th, will be here in a little over month and I cannot wait because Soul Calibur will be in the house.

Last year, only Soul Calibur 4 was ran. This year, we will have tournaments for all four versions of Soul Calibur. I wasn't around in the community when the other versions of Soul Calibur were being played, so it's going to be interesting to see how I do in those games. I also want to use this as an opportunity for people to get reacquainted with Soul Calibur and with the Soul Calibur community if they haven't played Calibur in a long time because so many people have played Calibur at one point or another. Or were maybe part of the community at one point or another and maybe moved on to other things. It's never too late to come back. We're still here...

Earlier today, at the Tokyo Game Show 2010, Katsuhiro Harada dropped his bombshell and announced Tekken Tag Tournament 2 for arcades (and consoles?). Really this came as no surprise as the Tekken community has been expecting a new Tag game between every 3 core titles. While very few people actually expected an announcement for Soulcalibur V, I can already see that many people here on 8WR are a bit "miffed" on the lack of news.

I have just spoken directly with Harada on Twitter about this very subject. He has asked me not to post anything from our conversation to the public, but pretty much it has come to that Namco still needs more proof that there is indeed interest for sales in Soulcalibur V. Basically what that means is that we must continue to spread the word about the Facebook Like Petition as much as possible. Only with the direct support and power of this community will Soulcalibur V truly be possible.

While it may be true that Soulcalibur IV has sold more copies on consoles than Tekken 6 (according to VGChartz); it can never be so simple. If you look at the entire franchise history, Tekken has sold over 40 million, while Soulcalibur has only sold a quarter of that. So while 3 new Tekken games have just been announced (T7, TT2, TvSF), we may have to wait a bit more before we find out any news on the Soulcalibur franchise. Just keep putting the word out about the Facebook Like Petition and 8WayRun!

*EDIT* Harada-san has informed me that VGChartz does not accurately reflect sales in Europe; and at this point Tekken 6 is rocking Soulcalibur IV's socks off. This certainly makes sense as Soulcalibur is most popular in the US.

So it's finally here. The tournament everybody and their momma's momma have been waiting for. Full Speed Aerial Kicks this weekend in Massachusetts. One entire weekend of nothing but Soul Calibur featuring the best Calibur players in North America in one large scale round robin tournament.

I know this tournament is going to be ridiculous just from the fact that I will have to play everyone who enters in the main tournament. So if 60 people enter the ironman tournament, I will have to play 59 matches. Usually in tournaments, I'll play 2 matches and that would be the end of it. But the good thing is that I will have a better idea of my overall skill level since what usually happens at tournaments is that my first match is again someone who places either 1st or 2nd at that tournament.

The main thing that I am looking forward to is getting together with the community and having a great time. Every Calibur tournament that I have been to since 2008, I've always had fun. The people in this community are so welcoming and fun to be around. Plus I will get to meet again the friends that I made when I went to Devastation back in June. Hopefully, we won't get kicked out of this venue either, but do be sure to check me out at the venue on Friday for the meet and greet.

Competing comes secondary for me since I'm old and have to work and take care of family. Boring yes but responsibilities come first so that I can do stuff like travel across state to play video games. All I know is that somebody is catching a beatdown with Sophitia. Be ready. I may enter in the Soul Calibur 2 tournament. Since I use Sophitia, all I need to do is use the same 3 moves to win. The problem is that I am overly aggressive with Sophitia when I should be patient when using her. I'll know for sure once I find out how much money I will have available.

The other thing that I am looking forward to are the money matches that will be taking place. The main "pay-per-view" match that I will be checking out will be Mick Vs Something-Unique. Will Mick add S-U to the list of big names that he's defeated or will Something-Unique show him what SC4 is all about? We'll find out soon enough. All I know is that I am talking so much trash to the loser afterwards.

In addition to the greats from North America who will be in attendance, Malek will be flying in from France to compete in this tournament and take our money. Also, he should be bringing with him a special guest as well. So it's going to be really interesting to see who comes out on top when its all said and done. And if you are unable to make it to the tournament, Jaxel will be streaming the entire event which you should be able to get to using the link below.

Get hype!!!!!!!!!! http://www.8wayrun.com/live (or http://www.ustream.tv/channel/8wayrun)

So it seems like not that many people want to take advantage of the blogging functionality on 8WayRun. I do hope more members take advantage of it. It’s a good opportunity to let people know more about yourself and what’s on your mind. I started using the function on SRK, but now that section is filled with spam and nonsense. Now with 8WayRun upgraded to v4.0.6, it’s offering a fresh start for me where I can get rid of some boredom and people can read what I write.

Today, I wanted to write about what had me hyped this morning. When I looked at the calendar this morning and realized that Full Speed Aerial Kicks was just two weeks away, I was like daaaaammmmmnnnnn,

Short and sweet: Thanks to this picture in a recent tweet from Harada's Twitter we now know that Namco knows we exist. Get hype!

In case you can't tell, look at what Katsuhiro Harada is holding in his hands...

Well for the past week, this website and several others have been ablaze, discussing the possibility of another installment in the Soulcalibur franchise. While Soulcalibur IV was hugely successful outside of Japan, the game was obviously designed to be the last in the series; especially since the word around the rumor mill is that Project Soul, the group responsible for SC3 and SC4 had been disbanded. Last week, Katsuhiro Harada, the producer of the Tekken franchise for Namco dropped the bomb that he would only look into another Soulcalibur game if it appeared to him that there was enough interest.

While some may have thought Harada was simply trying to boost his twitter following; this community banded together, with the help of other fighting game communities to show Harada that the interest still exists. In less than a week, 3,000 people signed the Facebook petition to prove to him that we still...

With the success of some community driven fighting games, it seems that Namco has realized that they too should try to be a bit more active amongst their respective fighting game communities. Since then Katsuhiro Harada, the producer for the Tekken and Soulcalibur series has been very active in talking with his fans. A few days ago, one of our local veterans, Enkindu, discovered a short mention of Soulcalibur on Harada-san's twitter. In short, he mentioned that Namco could possibly put work into a new Soulcalibur game if the interest was high enough.

Well since then, several members of these forums have been sending tweets to Harada, asking him for the game, showing him that there is indeed an interest in a sequel. Well as of one hour ago, it seems that Harada has informally responded to my tweet in which I requested a new Soulcalibur game, and that he involve the folks here at 8WayRun. I'm not sure if Namco even knew we existed, so I felt it worth mentioning. While not making...

As you can see, there has been some changes here at 8WR. We are now running the most current version of vBulletin4. The main reason for this upgrade was for security reasons, but with the upgrade comes a lot of changes, hopefully for the better. I really have no interest in going over them all, so I'm sure you all with figure them out in time.

As it stands, the upgrade isn't complete. Naturally I have a lot of styling work to do in order to get this website to look a bit more similar to our old styles. For now, I have released this new version as it stands so that the downtime on these forums would be minimal. I've been preparing for this upgrade for a few months now, so bugs should be few and far between; nevertheless, you should keep me informed of any issues you find.

Of course, we have also lost a few features in the upgrade. I have removed the arcade system; it just seems pointless and I don't see any reason to bring it back. As well, the online tournaments and ladder...

Important note from 8WR's official hypeman Malice

There's alot of people out there who are either unaware that Hilde/Algol were banned from tournament play, do not know what the current ruleset is for Soul Calibur, or have no idea where on the site to find the current ruleset.

If you happen to be one of those people, then this friendly reminder is for you. You can find the current ruleset within the Wiki section of 8WayRun.com under Frequently Asked Questions. From there, you can see the standard rules and that Hilde/Algol have been banned from tournaments for Soul Calibur 4.

http://8wayrun.com/wiki/tournament-ruleset/

You all heard the man. Now get hype and get ready for FSAK!