If you were at NEC this weekend, or perhaps watching the 8WayRun video stream, you may have heard that FilthieRich from Namco was in attendance! I myself spent a few minutes talking without and briefly discussed the need for a relationship between the players the Namco itself. Well clearly our pleas haven't fallen on deaf ears and Namco has today, launched the Official Soulcalibur Facebook Page!

What does this mean? Well we can't really say at this point, but now we know Namco is reaching out to its players and they want to know what you think! We now have an official, central place, where we know Namco will be looking!

While you're at it... don't forget to also check out 8WayRun's Facebook Page as well.

You may already notice... 8WayRun.Com has been updated and completely overhauled! I think we can all agree that the upgrade to vBulletin4 a few months back was a mistake; it should never have been done and it did nothing but hurt this community. Thankfully, some new software has just entered it's beta stages, and it's already so polished that I'm taking the risk and upgrading our community to it.

With any new software, there are of course some changes you will have to get used to. The biggest change you will notice that when you click on a thread name, instead of it bringing you to the beginning of the thread, it will bring you to the most recent unread post (as far back as 28 days). It will take a bit to get used to this, but before you know it... you'll be browsing other forums and wondering why the feature is missing! There are other small changes that you will figure out in time.

The chatroom has been temporarily replaced with Mibbit IRC until Addonchat brings up support for XenForo. The Wiki is also relatively empty as I will be working for the next few days in converting our data to the new format. The Events RSVP system has also been completely overhauled... in which case, all existing event information and RSVPs has been lost. If you have an upcoming event, just make a new event thread, then send me a message and I will merge the old thread with your new one.

You may also notice that "premium" membership has been disabled. I'm working on ideas for the new premium membership system that will give higher incentives for people to join... things like physical goods and prizes, as well as true motivators. If you are a current premium membership and wish to get a refund for overpaid months, message me. Of course, I ask if you would instead kindly chalk it up as a donation for 8WayRun.Com and let it go.

It's time to get hype! The tournament that everyone has been waiting for is upon us. NEC XI here in Philadelphia, PA. Not only will be tournaments for every fighting game that you could possibly think of, but also a full weekend of hot Soul Calibur action lined up with tournaments for Soul Calibur 4 taking place on Saturday, December 4th and tournaments for Soul Caliburs 1, 2, and 3 taking place on Sunday, December 5th.

Also, Namco and FilthieRich who will be in attendance will be adding prizes and giveaways for Soul Calibur and for Tekken, which just adds on to the hype that I already had with the French, ATL, and everyone else who will be in attendance for Soul Calibur.

If you are unable to attend, you can still check the action out online as Jaxel will be streaming all the action on UStream. But NEC is truly an event that you don't want to miss out on. Hope to see you here.

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)