Klimat
[13] Hero
She still had nothing to do with the swords even after Mitsurugi fought her master, so that's besides the point. Some SoulCalibur characters are just not all that involved in the main plot period.
Fair enough.
Soul Calibur VI: General discussion
- Thread starter SSfox
- Start date
Nyte
Fu-ma's Shadow
Zasalamel and Tira. I was referring to content, not story.
LisaK
[14] Master
damn-I-Suck
[12] Conqueror
Cassandra will be my new main. I'm getting tired of Sieg's flaws.
Crash X
[14] Master
Technically, the franchise would’ve ended with Lost Swords and the Pachinko Slots if we didn’t get SCVI.I feel like the hype is dying down at an incredibly fast rate. If they don't release them both at EVO next month then they might as well not release them at all. As much as i love this game, i can't deny that it's dead already lol.
I don't have any hopes for a season 2, or a sequel at all. Except maybe in 10 years if ever. At least this is a better game to end the franchise with than SCV.
sytus
[14] Master
All but one then. :P
Soul Knight
[10] Knight
I think they should release the remaining pass content sooner, rather than later.
CAS 1 - January
Cassandra - February/March at latest
CAS 2 - April
Amy - May/June at latest
By June, all Pass content should be released, I think. anything later, I feel would be too long.
Then at some Summer or Fall event, they can announce Season Pass 2.
CAS 1 - January
Cassandra - February/March at latest
CAS 2 - April
Amy - May/June at latest
By June, all Pass content should be released, I think. anything later, I feel would be too long.
Then at some Summer or Fall event, they can announce Season Pass 2.
AMillionHP
[13] Hero
@DanteSC3 i think you're being a bit too strict about continuity. I doubt the team will place that level of emphasis on it honestly. Now... it might be hypocritical to say this but i really hope they dont include anything from SC5. Then again, not really because SC5 is a huge timeskip. SC2, 3 and 4 all occur within the same year. Characters from those games should be ok to include. I'm not convinced DLC characters will get any story material anyway. Yes, story continuity has been an important focus concerning the base game but i dont see a hugely popular and demanded character like Setsuka being omitted strictly because of continuity.
FluffyQuack
[14] Master
I could see Cassandra and Amy getting announced at the same time. It's impossible to tell for certain what their development schedule has been like, but they must have planned Cassandra and Amy to be DLC extremely early on (considering their re-designs are visible in the base game) so it's very possible they're very far along in development.
As for a sequel, I personally think the only way we'd see a new SC release early next-gen is if it's a port of SC6. I'd be astonished if Namco has been convinced to give Project Soul the budget to work on a big sequel for next-gen.
As for a sequel, I personally think the only way we'd see a new SC release early next-gen is if it's a port of SC6. I'd be astonished if Namco has been convinced to give Project Soul the budget to work on a big sequel for next-gen.
Rusted Blade
[14] Master
Woops, sorry Lisa, I accidentally added you tot he multiqoute here initially, by error.
It could drop mid-cycle, as you say, but I think that is exceedingly unlikely to happen too soon in, and (though it is far from the only reason) the upcoming changes in the console cycle can only make it less likely, not more. Most game developers do not target launches of any of their games (especially mainline entries in their more well known IPs) for the early period of a new console's lifespan, instead preferring to wait a couple of years until there is an install base for the series to help guaruntee a certain number of sales off the bat, and because it reduces production costs when the new system's architecture is better understood. (These are factors that you alluded to and clearly understand, but I'm adding them anyway for the benefit of the discussion at large). With regard to the first of those two factors, Namco's fighters (like most games in the genre) have struggled to hit truly profitable figures (as such things are determined in the industry and considering the development costs of a 3D fighter) since pretty much forever; they really can't afford to halve those very same lackluster sales just to enter the market a little earlier, and it honestly makes zero business sense for them to even try. That game is mostly for producers of either:
1) Triple-A titles which are either being produced for both the current and next-gen consoles (something Namco has also always avoided doing with Soul Calibur, with no exception--and with most of its properties for that matter) or which have a substantial franchise loyalist base (and I'm talking ten, twenty times the size of our loyalist community for SC) and/or which have massive marketing budgets--one or the other, such that sales are sustained well into the console generation and costs are eventually recouped and then some. Basically your GTAs or your Assassin's Creeds. Or, 2) new IPs with small to moderate budgets which are experiments to begin with and which can be more safely positioned and the beginning of a cycle with less of an increase in risk over what was already there.
Again, the third option is to launch on both last- and next-gen consoles simultaneously, but this is something Namco typically eschews and has never done with Soul Calibur in the nearly 23 years history of the franchise. Nor has it ever released a Soul Calibur game within two years of a console launch--not once: they typically come around three to five years into the new console generation. And aside from this factor, there's also this: every single main entry release in the series has taken longer to drop than the previous one. That is driven by a larger trend in gaming and market forces and rising production costs that Namco is just not large enough (or in a safe enough part of the industry) to ignore. No, I'm afraid that hoping for an early 9th generation release of SCVII is pure wishful thinking.
Look, a plot device can always be constructed to justify the inclusion of a returning character if the company thinks it will drive sales of DLC content--especially here where there is a reboot at work and the story is as absolutely nonsensical and inconsistent as Soul Calibur's. Nevertheless, I think we've been given every indication that Setsuka and Hilde are unlikely candidates for a season 2 pass. There's extensive discussion on which in the SCVI roster and DLC speculation threads, if you are interested in the details. As to the other point, the reason that the first season pass was all female is because the second is going to be all male. I can almost guarantee that; those type of things don't happen just be accident, not when you have an internal market research team like Namco does. They clearly realized they had nine series stalwarts left, picked eight of them to develop and then realized they could be evenly divided into two gendered packs, which is the type of marketing hook that companies just love. So they divided them accordingly. I'll eat my hat if that doesn't end up being the case here.
It's virtually certain that the second season pass will be roughly identical to the first one, with four characters (one probably a guest), a new stage and a couple of CaS packs, with only slight variations. Doing anything else would be bad business sense: the company is trying to establish a fixed price point at this stage, which gives them some degree of predictability of sales and sales-cost calculations. And giving players more content for the same pricepoint would only invite outraged, nerd-fueled griefing from the consumers, with those who bought the pack with less content whinging about it non-stop. What a business like Namco wants at this point is parity moving forward; its safer and more likely to generate them more income for the same amount of resources expended. It's possible they might release a new mode in place of a character or two, but I think its highly unlikely.
And for the love of all that is good, pure, and sane in this world, please, please, please no more wizards or wielders of completely nonsensical/would never happen in reality anime weapons! We need at least a small break to allow for some actual historical weapons (/ fighting styles / cultures) to start coming into the series again. We haven't had a single one in over a decade and only one in the last fifteen years (and that one is Hilde, who just barely qualifies, given that she uses those weapons in a completely illogical / historically unfaithful fashion). Look, I'm not ignorant of the fact that I can't expect a supreme devotion to realism in my game about sticking my six foot sword through the midsection of an opponent twenty times in one fight, only to leave him just a little out of breath. But I still prefer a fighting aesthetic that is at least remotely anchored in actual martial arts. Not hoola-hoops of death, not wolf familiar appritions, not slashing weapons gripped by one hand in the middle of their center of gravity like exactly zero actual real-world weapons for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who thought about it for more than five seconds instead of getting a hard-on for their own "badass" concept art, not glowy phantom blades that appear and disappear at the whim of their wielders, or any of the other anime nonsense that has typified every single new fighter for a decade. Why can we not just get one character with a frickin sabre, or scimitar, or falchion, or miaodao, or any of a thousand other historical weapon styles that would bring some weight and gravity into the series? Why does everything int he fighting genre have to arc towards fantasy nonsense these days? I swear to god, at this point I expect a Darksiders character in the next Virtua Fighter...
But anyway, there is unlikely to be an new original characters in the DLC in any event: they will be returning characters and guests who stand a decent chance of driving sales, not unkknown quantities, which are the exact opposite they want at this tricky time in a new sales model.
It could drop mid-cycle, as you say, but I think that is exceedingly unlikely to happen too soon in, and (though it is far from the only reason) the upcoming changes in the console cycle can only make it less likely, not more. Most game developers do not target launches of any of their games (especially mainline entries in their more well known IPs) for the early period of a new console's lifespan, instead preferring to wait a couple of years until there is an install base for the series to help guaruntee a certain number of sales off the bat, and because it reduces production costs when the new system's architecture is better understood. (These are factors that you alluded to and clearly understand, but I'm adding them anyway for the benefit of the discussion at large). With regard to the first of those two factors, Namco's fighters (like most games in the genre) have struggled to hit truly profitable figures (as such things are determined in the industry and considering the development costs of a 3D fighter) since pretty much forever; they really can't afford to halve those very same lackluster sales just to enter the market a little earlier, and it honestly makes zero business sense for them to even try. That game is mostly for producers of either:
1) Triple-A titles which are either being produced for both the current and next-gen consoles (something Namco has also always avoided doing with Soul Calibur, with no exception--and with most of its properties for that matter) or which have a substantial franchise loyalist base (and I'm talking ten, twenty times the size of our loyalist community for SC) and/or which have massive marketing budgets--one or the other, such that sales are sustained well into the console generation and costs are eventually recouped and then some. Basically your GTAs or your Assassin's Creeds. Or, 2) new IPs with small to moderate budgets which are experiments to begin with and which can be more safely positioned and the beginning of a cycle with less of an increase in risk over what was already there.
Again, the third option is to launch on both last- and next-gen consoles simultaneously, but this is something Namco typically eschews and has never done with Soul Calibur in the nearly 23 years history of the franchise. Nor has it ever released a Soul Calibur game within two years of a console launch--not once: they typically come around three to five years into the new console generation. And aside from this factor, there's also this: every single main entry release in the series has taken longer to drop than the previous one. That is driven by a larger trend in gaming and market forces and rising production costs that Namco is just not large enough (or in a safe enough part of the industry) to ignore. No, I'm afraid that hoping for an early 9th generation release of SCVII is pure wishful thinking.
Look, a plot device can always be constructed to justify the inclusion of a returning character if the company thinks it will drive sales of DLC content--especially here where there is a reboot at work and the story is as absolutely nonsensical and inconsistent as Soul Calibur's. Nevertheless, I think we've been given every indication that Setsuka and Hilde are unlikely candidates for a season 2 pass. There's extensive discussion on which in the SCVI roster and DLC speculation threads, if you are interested in the details. As to the other point, the reason that the first season pass was all female is because the second is going to be all male. I can almost guarantee that; those type of things don't happen just be accident, not when you have an internal market research team like Namco does. They clearly realized they had nine series stalwarts left, picked eight of them to develop and then realized they could be evenly divided into two gendered packs, which is the type of marketing hook that companies just love. So they divided them accordingly. I'll eat my hat if that doesn't end up being the case here.
It's virtually certain that the second season pass will be roughly identical to the first one, with four characters (one probably a guest), a new stage and a couple of CaS packs, with only slight variations. Doing anything else would be bad business sense: the company is trying to establish a fixed price point at this stage, which gives them some degree of predictability of sales and sales-cost calculations. And giving players more content for the same pricepoint would only invite outraged, nerd-fueled griefing from the consumers, with those who bought the pack with less content whinging about it non-stop. What a business like Namco wants at this point is parity moving forward; its safer and more likely to generate them more income for the same amount of resources expended. It's possible they might release a new mode in place of a character or two, but I think its highly unlikely.
And for the love of all that is good, pure, and sane in this world, please, please, please no more wizards or wielders of completely nonsensical/would never happen in reality anime weapons! We need at least a small break to allow for some actual historical weapons (/ fighting styles / cultures) to start coming into the series again. We haven't had a single one in over a decade and only one in the last fifteen years (and that one is Hilde, who just barely qualifies, given that she uses those weapons in a completely illogical / historically unfaithful fashion). Look, I'm not ignorant of the fact that I can't expect a supreme devotion to realism in my game about sticking my six foot sword through the midsection of an opponent twenty times in one fight, only to leave him just a little out of breath. But I still prefer a fighting aesthetic that is at least remotely anchored in actual martial arts. Not hoola-hoops of death, not wolf familiar appritions, not slashing weapons gripped by one hand in the middle of their center of gravity like exactly zero actual real-world weapons for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who thought about it for more than five seconds instead of getting a hard-on for their own "badass" concept art, not glowy phantom blades that appear and disappear at the whim of their wielders, or any of the other anime nonsense that has typified every single new fighter for a decade. Why can we not just get one character with a frickin sabre, or scimitar, or falchion, or miaodao, or any of a thousand other historical weapon styles that would bring some weight and gravity into the series? Why does everything int he fighting genre have to arc towards fantasy nonsense these days? I swear to god, at this point I expect a Darksiders character in the next Virtua Fighter...
But anyway, there is unlikely to be an new original characters in the DLC in any event: they will be returning characters and guests who stand a decent chance of driving sales, not unkknown quantities, which are the exact opposite they want at this tricky time in a new sales model.
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Klimat
[13] Hero
We have already disputed on that topic and even bet to choose each other's mains for a period of time depending on who ends up being right. So I'm not gonna repeat myself on why you are absolutely wrong here =).
Rusted Blade
[14] Master
Haha, fair enough! The three main SCVI threads are already bleeding together enough as is.
Project Bokuho
[14] Master
These 1000 word essays...
Rusted Blade
[14] Master
Hey, if you know a briefer way to respond to three people at once and accurately describe the market forces / industry business practices that are essential to understand if this community is going to have realistic expectations of what comes next, have at it! ;) I know some people will not be interested enough in those topics to sustain interest through the entire post, but often times it takes much longer to clarify why a hoped-for development will not occur than it does to express that hope/expectation itself.
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Ciruxxx83
[05] Battler
You mean something like this?:
Yepp, that would be great. I think a lot of people would be happy with some back-to-the-roots weapons/styles. It would be interesting to see how many fans actually prefer realistic/historical vs. abrakadabra magic crap. We could even start a poll here and vote. I undersrand it would in NO WAY be a representation of the bigger picture, but it would indeed be interesting to know what we hardcore fans (and I'm assuming pretty much anyone taking the time to read these posts is a hardcore fan) think about this particular topic. In any case, my vote definitely goes for historical/realistic, of course. And I think it was you who.mentioned a crossover with For Honor would do very well. I agree. Even if someone said that FH chars don't have a story or personality (don't remember which), since when does Namco need a story/personality as an excuse to bring someone? I'm not aware that's one of the "rules" for a character to be included as crossover material. As for the actual character name ('cause that could be another thing , given the FH chars are named after their class/style) we've had characters named "Berserker" and "Assassin". It can't go more generic than that. Still, and call me pesimistic, I don't really see them including any "grounded" styles or weapons any time soon, seems people nowadays prefer non-sense bad-shit-crazy shennanigans than actual, historically-based content. I hope I'm wrong though...
RagingGhost
[10] Knight
Then again, the setting already isn't that grounded in reality to begin with, considering Soul Edge's existence, Ivy using alchemy as a source of magical power, Cervantes being too early to jump into piracy (150 years early, to be precise) and Siegfried still fighting in plate armor and with a greatsword at a time where military doctrine goes towards firearms and pikes (which would make Mitsurugi's quest for Soul Edge pointless from the start). And that's if we limit ourselves to a few examples and don't go into Sophitia's case.
AMillionHP
[13] Hero
I understand your point and agree that it would make sense but then how does Tekken go from 2 characters and a bowling game to 6 characters?
I'd also like to point out Tira was a special case. She was clearly put up with the Season pass just to help sell it. I didn't think so at first but realized the truth after booting up the game over and over for the past few months and looking at her face at the bottom left banner advertising "season pass available". They stand a better chance of selling them if there is a face to sell it. Or in other words a character ready to actually buy and play. That is why she was a season pass "bonus" and not really a part of the season pass.
Leonhart
[10] Knight
Have you guys ever experienced a heightened play when returning to a character you used to play alot, perhaps mained, but neglected for a while? I switch more than ever in SC6 and whenever I get back to previous ones it's like I'm alot sharper with them. I play more safe, react quicker, find new setups and just feel better overall despite the absence. It's weird.
Ciruxxx83
[05] Battler
Perhaps it's because you're playing other chars, thus learning their movesets, pros and cons as well, so when you return to your main, your knowledge of the game as a whole has increased. Happens to me as well, and I'm pretty sure that's the reason.
Leonhart
[10] Knight
That would make sense if I'm better against these opponents in particular but I just feel sharper overall, quicker, playing smarter in general. Maybe other movesets give you perspective on things and your brain processes the gameplay differently. Or some shite.