Ya know what, I kinda hope it is. Quick mode is a great mode for casuals like me to enjoy hours fighting against difficult CaS characters. And they could even make it more advanced using other people's creations from the servers instead of just randomized / project soul made ones (similar to what they are doing with libra) - this would give it endless replay value and variety.
I'm surprised there aren't more people talking about the suspicious new gameplay that surfaced this morning from Bamco Latin America. The absence of Azwel was brought up briefly, but there is plenty more going on in the video. The build they show differs significantly from the beta and everything else we've seen so far.
In the video we see a new CSS: View attachment 51724
Obviously the first thing to note here is the absence of Azwel, whose place is occupied by one of the mysterious white circles. This lends credence to the idea that the circles represent unlockables and not DLC (though I could see them serving both purposes). Sadly the player cameras cover the bottom of the screen, so we cannot see whether those two small circles are still at the corners.
Interestingly, the character slots are now grayed out while the cursor is not on them—a design choice abandoned in the E3 build. For reference, here's the CSS from most recent press build: View attachment 51728
The stage selection screen is also quite different from what we've been seeing: View attachment 51725
Why are do so many stages lack their screenshots? This seems like a rather odd thing to remove. The characters are also not shown in the background here.
Stages without a proper screenshot have a curious placeholder: the coliseum from SCV. The stage they chose here was Kunpaetku Shrine, but they all have this same image. View attachment 51726
Upon closer inspection, it also looks like the positions of the stages have been rearranged. Here's the arrangement from the older builds: View attachment 51729
It's hard to tell because of the low-quality recording, but they've done something with the lighting and the textures. It's very subtle so you'll probably miss it if you're not paying attention, but something about Taki's face looked odd to me so I started to do some comparisons. You can see the new build to the left, and the older version to the right: View attachment 51730View attachment 51731View attachment 51732
Taki's face looks different, with deeper shadows around her eyes. There also appears to be a general reduction of shadow contrast. Hair rendering also seems improved, but again that could just be the low-resolution recording.
Also Taki's protruding nipples have been nerfed pretty hard.
The lifebars at 100% health are now violet! View attachment 51727
At first I thought it was an optical illusion resulting from the poor white-balance of the recording, but nope! All the other colors remain identical, it's just the 100% health color that is now different. I played around with the brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation of these screenshots to match the deep blue we've been seeing since the E3 build, but I couldn't do it without massively distorting the image.
Overall, it looks like the UI in this official namco stream is substantially different from what we've seen in the press builds and in the online beta.
So what does all of this mean? I think we might be seeing the final build of the game on the disc, before the day-1 patch. I can't see them dramatically changing the UI and upgrading the graphics two weeks before release for a simple press build. It makes more sense that this official namco subsidiary had a copy of the final game and decided to stream some matches for promotional purposes. Since we know there will be a day-1 patch, adding missing stage screenshots could be among the things it fixes.
@Sectus proposed it might be an older build, but that's inconsistent with the upgraded graphics and the presence of two characters announced after Azwel. It just seems implausible to me that a pre-release press build was developed, never seen, and replaced with a different build which removed all the graphical improvements of the previous one. It makes more sense that the Azwel build was sent out to press outlets before the implementation of these final touches, and the game was later finalized and printed onto the discs. As @Frayhua pointed out in the roster thread, a closed press build with at least Astaroth's stage has been around since NVIDIA's video in June. That could very well have been the build we've seen this past month. The strange situation with the stages is the only thing that puts this timeline in question, but that doesn't particularly favor one explanation over the other.
Regardless, the main takeway here is that at least some of the small white circles are empty slots for unlockable characters. Get hype?
The build would seem to have better antialiasing (less edges on takis boobs :D)
Slightly different coloring on items (check Taki's hair thingy for example)
More shadows on faces, also seems to have different sort of effects on Taki's special
(And the nips are gone! cruel world)
I'm surprised there aren't more people talking about the suspicious new gameplay that surfaced this morning from Bamco Latin America. The absence of Azwel was brought up briefly, but there is plenty more going on in the video. The build they show differs significantly from the beta and everything else we've seen so far.
In the video we see a new CSS: View attachment 51724
Obviously the first thing to note here is the absence of Azwel, whose place is occupied by one of the mysterious white circles. This lends credence to the idea that the circles represent unlockables and not DLC (though I could see them serving both purposes). Sadly the player cameras cover the bottom of the screen, so we cannot see whether those two small circles are still at the corners.
Interestingly, the character slots are now grayed out while the cursor is not on them—a design choice abandoned in the E3 build. For reference, here's the CSS from most recent press build: View attachment 51728
The stage selection screen is also quite different from what we've been seeing: View attachment 51725
Why are do so many stages lack their screenshots? This seems like a rather odd thing to remove. The characters are also not shown in the background here.
Stages without a proper screenshot have a curious placeholder: the coliseum from SCV. The stage they chose here was Kunpaetku Shrine, but they all have this same image. View attachment 51726
Upon closer inspection, it also looks like the positions of the stages have been rearranged. Here's the arrangement from the older builds: View attachment 51729
It's hard to tell because of the low-quality recording, but they've done something with the lighting and the textures. It's very subtle so you'll probably miss it if you're not paying attention, but something about Taki's face looked odd to me so I started to do some comparisons. You can see the new build to the left, and the older version to the right: View attachment 51730View attachment 51731View attachment 51732
Taki's face looks different, with deeper shadows around her eyes. There also appears to be a general reduction of shadow contrast. Hair rendering also seems improved, but again that could just be the low-resolution recording.
Also Taki's protruding nipples have been nerfed pretty hard.
The lifebars at 100% health are now violet! View attachment 51727
At first I thought it was an optical illusion resulting from the poor white-balance of the recording, but nope! All the other colors remain identical, it's just the 100% health color that is now different. I played around with the brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation of these screenshots to match the deep blue we've been seeing since the E3 build, but I couldn't do it without massively distorting the image.
Overall, it looks like the UI in this official namco stream is substantially different from what we've seen in the press builds and in the online beta.
So what does all of this mean? I think we might be seeing the final build of the game on the disc, before the day-1 patch. I can't see them dramatically changing the UI and upgrading the graphics two weeks before release for a simple press build. It makes more sense that this official namco subsidiary had a copy of the final game and decided to stream some matches for promotional purposes. Since we know there will be a day-1 patch, adding missing stage screenshots could be among the things it fixes.
@Sectus proposed it might be an older build, but that's inconsistent with the upgraded graphics and the presence of two characters announced after Azwel. It just seems implausible to me that a pre-release press build was developed, never seen, and replaced with a different build which removed all the graphical improvements of the previous one. It makes more sense that the Azwel build was sent out to press outlets before the implementation of these final touches, and the game was later finalized and printed onto the discs. As @Frayhua pointed out in the roster thread, a closed press build with at least Astaroth's stage has been around since NVIDIA's video in June. That could very well have been the build we've seen this past month. The strange situation with the stages is the only thing that puts this timeline in question, but that doesn't particularly favor one explanation over the other.
Regardless, the main takeway here is that at least some of the small white circles are empty slots for unlockable characters. Get hype?
I believe Norik has created FALSE evidence in order to push his own AGENDA in order to CORRUPT this very forum! But, worry not, I have my own evidence to disprove him!
... Sorry, I just wanted to make it all sound dramatic. And I don't even have any more evidence to show. But I think the graphics comparison is difficult to make because:
- The latinoamerica footage is in low quality and it looks like the colour range is wrong (everything looks washed out).
- A lot of these differences could be the result of minor changes in lighting.
My personal theory is that the build they showed off is a build meant for QA which is up to several months old and was never meant for any public appearance (I think the stage select screen is the most placeholdery thing we've seen of the game so far).
Another thing to add, I think the most recent build we've seen is the network test. I think that build is even newer than what's on the disc. If Namco wants to make a serious test with the game's netcode and matchmaking system, it makes sense to do it with the most recent version of the game. It was probably them testing a build of the day one patch to see if it works fine. And the game went gold over a month ago, so they would have had time to prepare a different build for the network test.
I'm surprised there aren't more people talking about the suspicious new gameplay that surfaced this morning from Bamco Latin America. The absence of Azwel was brought up briefly, but there is plenty more going on in the video. The build they show differs significantly from the beta and everything else we've seen so far.
In the video we see a new CSS: View attachment 51724
Obviously the first thing to note here is the absence of Azwel, whose place is occupied by one of the mysterious white circles. This lends credence to the idea that the circles represent unlockables and not DLC (though I could see them serving both purposes). Sadly the player cameras cover the bottom of the screen, so we cannot see whether those two small circles are still at the corners.
Interestingly, the character slots are now grayed out while the cursor is not on them—a design choice abandoned in the E3 build. For reference, here's the CSS from most recent press build: View attachment 51728
The stage selection screen is also quite different from what we've been seeing: View attachment 51725
Why are do so many stages lack their screenshots? This seems like a rather odd thing to remove. The characters are also not shown in the background here.
Stages without a proper screenshot have a curious placeholder: the coliseum from SCV. The stage they chose here was Kunpaetku Shrine, but they all have this same image. View attachment 51726
Upon closer inspection, it also looks like the positions of the stages have been rearranged. Here's the arrangement from the older builds: View attachment 51729
It's hard to tell because of the low-quality recording, but they've done something with the lighting and the textures. It's very subtle so you'll probably miss it if you're not paying attention, but something about Taki's face looked odd to me so I started to do some comparisons. You can see the new build to the left, and the older version to the right: View attachment 51730View attachment 51731View attachment 51732
Taki's face looks different, with deeper shadows around her eyes. There also appears to be a general reduction of shadow contrast. Hair rendering also seems improved, but again that could just be the low-resolution recording.
Also Taki's protruding nipples have been nerfed pretty hard.
The lifebars at 100% health are now violet! View attachment 51727
At first I thought it was an optical illusion resulting from the poor white-balance of the recording, but nope! All the other colors remain identical, it's just the 100% health color that is now different. I played around with the brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation of these screenshots to match the deep blue we've been seeing since the E3 build, but I couldn't do it without massively distorting the image.
Overall, it looks like the UI in this official namco stream is substantially different from what we've seen in the press builds and in the online beta.
So what does all of this mean? I think we might be seeing the final build of the game on the disc, before the day-1 patch. I can't see them dramatically changing the UI and upgrading the graphics two weeks before release for a simple press build. It makes more sense that this official namco subsidiary had a copy of the final game and decided to stream some matches for promotional purposes. Since we know there will be a day-1 patch, adding missing stage screenshots could be among the things it fixes.
@Sectus proposed it might be an older build, but that's inconsistent with the upgraded graphics and the presence of two characters announced after Azwel. It just seems implausible to me that a pre-release press build was developed, never seen, and replaced with a different build which removed all the graphical improvements of the previous one. It makes more sense that the Azwel build was sent out to press outlets before the implementation of these final touches, and the game was later finalized and printed onto the discs. As @Frayhua pointed out in the roster thread, a closed press build with at least Astaroth's stage has been around since NVIDIA's video in June. That could very well have been the build we've seen this past month. The strange situation with the stages is the only thing that puts this timeline in question, but that doesn't particularly favor one explanation over the other.
Regardless, the main takeway here is that at least some of the small white circles are empty slots for unlockable characters. Get hype?
I probably should be spending my time doing other things (like figuring out why my PC keeps randomly blue-screening), but I decided to try to dig up old character select screenshots.
And here's my final theory about the mysterious latinoamerica build. I'm convinced it's actually older than the E3 build we've seen a billion times.
First character select screen we ever saw back in January:
- Gray-scale character thumbnails.
- No 1P/2P indicators on character selectors.
- Old background.
Character select screen for the E3 build:
- Coloured character thumbnails.
- 1P/2P indicators on the character selectors.
- New background (look at the clouds).
Character select screen from a very recent IGN video:
- Coloured character thumbnails.
- 1P/2P indicators on the character selectors.
- Same background as the E3 build.
Character select screen from the Namco latinoamerica stream:
- Gray-scale character thumbnails.
- No 1P/2P indicators.
- The same background as the build we saw in January.
Unless Namco decided to revert a ton of assets last minute, I think it's pretty clear this is a build which was created sometime before the E3 build, but after the build we saw in January.
The defence now rests! I believe it's up to the judge to decide the sentence.
I just want to note the obvious Azwel is not in the LA build at all. Unless he is unlockable, which I don't recall being stated at all anywhere, he should be there.
Regarding the recent build and gameplay news.
1st, i like that they changed the 100% HP color to violet, it looks good in the eye.
2nd, the removal of Azwel probably means that he's unlockable in which case his portrait is replaced by the small grey dot (same goes probably for the rest dots, they might pull an SCV and let players discover them on their own IF they are indeed unlocks)
Lastly, the whole rearrangement of the UI, lighting, textures etc. looks more...natural which is nice. All in all, interesting news from that Mexican build. A tad curious for the placeholder thing but otherwise, all good.
It seems that the nipples are safe then, after all I'm sure they wouldn't want the ensuing online nipple rage if the final game came out with them missing.
Joking aside, I have to say I do prefer the more realistic shading on this older build. I do like the more anime / figurine like visuals they went for in the end, but I wish they stuck with this older visual style, gives it a darker more interesting edge, more similar to the old engine in sc4/5.
The Latin American build had the small white circles added post E3 build and the CaS slot as well, as far as we know the E3 build is also the first stable build with Geralt .
Two, network test build had stuff remover from the press builds we got from people like Hayate .
The Latin American build had the small white circles added post E3 build and the CaS slot as well, as far as we know the E3 build is also the first stable build with Geralt .
Two, network test build had stuff remover from the press builds we got from people like Hayate .
The first could be a small mistake. They would have to modify the select screen of any build made for public appearance to ensure they were hiding unrevealed characters, and they might have unnecessarily made two locked slots blank.
As for number 2, what stuff is missing in the network test build compared to other recent builds? If you're thinking of the character select screen, I think that's intentional. I think it's very possible the network test shows how we'll be selecting characters before a match when playing ranked.
The first could be a small mistake. They would have to modify the select screen of any build made for public appearance to ensure they were hiding unrevealed characters, and they might have unnecessarily made two locked slots blank.
As for number 2, what stuff is missing in the network test build compared to other recent builds? If you're thinking of the character select screen, I think that's intentional. I think it's very possible the network test shows how we'll be selecting characters before a match when playing ranked.
I just talked to my boy who went to New York Comic Con which i will be attending aswell tomorrow and he did indeed confirm that they have the actual final build on display for play and he asked Namco staff and they said this will be the “finished” product that will be released to public on 10/19. Azwell and inferno werent present which leaves me to confirm that yes indeed their unlockable characters. I’ll check tomorrow right after checking out CERVANTESfinally droped anchors.
If those 4 slots really weren't for DLC after all and they are unlocks, then that's just awesome and I can pretty much forgive my other issues with the game. Not to say the lack of stages and 2Ps isn't gonna bother me forever but I can deal with it.
One thing's for sure; once I get the game, I won't be coming to 8-Way until I have beaten all the modes (every Soul Chronicle, both Libra paths, etc.) and unlocked everything I think there is to unlock because I would really like some characters to be secret until I find them and I don't doubt most of you lot will unlock them all within the first day, lol :D.
If those 4 slots really weren't for DLC after all and they are unlocks, then that's just awesome and I can pretty much forgive my other issues with the game. Not to say the lack of stages and 2Ps isn't gonna bother me forever but I can deal with it.
One thing's for sure; once I get the game, I won't be coming to 8-Way until I have beaten all the modes (every Soul Chronicle, both Libra paths, etc.) and unlocked everything I think there is to unlock because I would really like some characters to be secret until I find them and I don't doubt most of you lot will unlock them all within the first day, lol :D.
you and me both, 1st completing the game in all modes 100% then training mode (LAB) then once i feel that the venom is ready to be distributed we'll reside online for the remainder of life lol.
I am going to try and platinum this game!I only do that for games that have really easy trophies or the games that I REALLY liked (nier automata,bloodborne)
finally droped anchors.
