DanteSC3
[14] Master
Ivy’s 2p outfits are almost always better.
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I still assume he was speculating that Raphael might not make it into SC6. If that was the case, I would say that would’ve been a crime to exclude Raphael, especially given how much of a mainstray he’s been and that he was the only SC2 newcomer to return to SC5.It was "Raphael fans might wind up having some stress sweat," as disgusting a phrase as that was. I still am not sure what was meant by that.
I thought her 1P design in SC5 was better than her 2P tbh.Ivy’s 2p outfits are almost always better.
One of the reasons why I'm hesitant to believe the leaks were intentional is due to how different and seemingly random they've been. Here's a list of the leaks I can remember:Yeah, my thoughts run roughly in the same direction: Amy may very well have been an honest mistake born out of sloppy coding/prep for a near-future update, but with each subsequent release doing the same exact thing, it's become increasingly difficult to imagine this isn't intentional. There's actually a fair bit of additional contextual evidence to suggest this is their approach to viral marketing, which I won't belabour yet again because I fear I am beginning to sound like a broken (and verbose) record on the subject, but really it suffices just to point out that there is no possible way they are unaware that people are noticing the reference names and character IDs. I mean it already strained credulity to assume they wouldn't be aware of what as programmers themselves with even the initial data leaks, but at this point there have been numerous industry articles discussing these "unintentional" reveals and countless times where the devs have been directly tweeted at about them. They certainly know, so at a minimum, they are unconcerned about this information getting out.
But I'm pretty sure that at least from Cassie on (if not going back to even Amy), this was just clever viral marketing. It directly engages the fanbase who then spread the news directly via the fan communities and beyond. No matter how plain and obvious it seemed to me, people were pretty slow to buy into this when I started arguing this is what was going on about...a year and a half back, I guess? But I feel that at this point the writing is really on the wall. The thing is, even though I've argued this was a marketing strategy during that period, I've simultaneously doubted it was a -smart- marketing strategy. They are experimenting here, and probably because it is cheap alternative to the kind of direct marketing they would do for a cashcow like Tekken. But I doubt their market research on the matter is refined enough to tell them (particularly at this point) whether this approach has really helped sales/preserved momentum for the title. It's probably just a 'better than nothing' approach. But I have a hard time believing its truly more beneficial than just announcing the characters at the beginning of (or part way into) development for a given season pass; I just have to think that would generate the most aggregate interest and discussion for at least the average hardcore player.
Raphael was the last character to be announced (if we ignore the 3-4 times he leaked...) so maybe it was supposed to be a reference to that?It was "Raphael fans might wind up having some stress sweat," as disgusting a phrase as that was. I still am not sure what was meant by that.
Ah, but I think there's been some confusion here: I'm definitely not saying every leak with regard to this game is part of some greater marketing framework (as you say, that would defy credulity for a company that gives such short shrift to this game when it comes to promotion). In fact, of the events covered n your eleven bullet-points above, it is only those detailed in the ninth that I find suspect: those which we in this ommunity have developed the shorthand of "the data leaks" to reference. These just all follow a pattern that is pretty hard to swallow as an ongoing mistake, given a) the repetitive fashion in which these 'mistakes' have occured, b) despite Namco getting feedback on said supposed errors via industry press and tweets directly to head developers about them, and c) with these names going into the code ages before there is any need for them (does anyone really believe any work had really gone into the assets for most (if any) of the codenamed six at the time those names went in?)One of the reasons why I'm hesitant to believe the leaks were intentional is due to how different and seemingly random they've been. Here's a list of the leaks I can remember:
- Knowledge of the game leaked a few weeks before being announced at Game Awards via Vergeben (I won't mention any of the other Vergeben stuff as they've been mostly ambiguous).
- Geralt leaked via a tester posting some very tiny details about him and SC6 (this went under everyone's radar since it was posted on a random forum and didn't seem very believable at the time).
- Taki trailer leaked one day before being announced online.
- Yoshimitsu trailer leaked one day before being announced online.
- Voldo leaked (via Israeli arm of Xbox) a few days before the formal announcement (was supposed to be announced during a comic con show).
- The entire roster leaked by a guy working on the game's localization (though it took a long while before people actually believed the list).
- Namco sent the wrong build to an e-sports event in Melbourne which happened to have the entire roster (except Inferno) unlocked, and thus footage of Cervantes and Raphael showed up.
- Cervantes and Raphael leaked once again before their formal announcement via promotional trading cards Namco sent out to the press.
- Amy and Cassandra leaked via 2B patch due to configuration files referencing them. The next patch would include the 6 weird codenames added to the same configuration files.
- Screenshots of Character Creation Set A leaked via Namco Taiwan's Facebook 5 days before being announced with Amy at Evo Japan.
- "Assassin" and "Alpha Patroklos" leaked due to very obscure references to them in the game's executable.
I should note that in addition to the character leaks via game files, they have periodically been adding some files now and then they're not supposed to. For instance, several patches before Cass was added would have the occasional file for Cass. Haohmaru actually had a file for him added back with the Hilde patch. I think those are all accidental due to it being hard to ensure no unused file is leftover in a patch (I should note that it's extremely rare for any game to not have unused leftover assets in their builds).
I don't really see how any of these leaks are to Namco's benefit. Their marketing plan for SC6 before its release was pretty straightforward: announce 1-2 characters every month. I think Cervantes and Raphael leaking so early was especially damning as that meant they had nothing to announce before release (and release was nearly 2 months away at this point) except for Inferno. And no one was gonna get excited about Inferno.
And then you have some character trailers which leaked mere days before they were supposed to be announced, and if those are intentional then what's the point? Especially since most of those trailer leaks were in such bad quality.
So yeah, my theory is that Namco is simply very sloppy. I can also confirm this when it comes to press assets. I have access to a European Namco press site for my Youtube channel and what's the last SC6 asset they posted there? ... The trailer for Amy. On the other hand, I have access to two Capcom press sites and both of those are updated super quickly whenever they announce something. Back when Namco actually did update that press site with SC6 press assets, it was very random how slow or quickly they did it.
Raphael was the last character to be announced (if we ignore the 3-4 times he leaked...) so maybe it was supposed to be a reference to that?
I do really like the bottom left one, though I think the boob snakes are a little awkward looking. Bottom middle is also quite nice, very reminiscent of her SC1 2P. Bottom right is....a dodged bullet...
I couldn't agree more. Not to point fingers at anyone in particular (which would just feed back into the negative energy further), but sometimes there is way too much gravedancing here
Bottom right is....a dodged bullet...
Which is why I included the word “almost”.I thought her 1P design in SC5 was better than her 2P tbh.
No, not at all--I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular. There's certainly no shortage of people willing to talk trash about He Who Should Not Be Named--nor, it must be said, a shortage of legitimate reasons why they like to mock him, even in his absence. I just personally find that at a point it gets as tedious as the person who inspired that level of animosity and feel like it's probably time to move on. And bear in mind I say that as one of the people who (excepting Dante anyway) had to deal with his full volume as much as anybody.Seems Rusted is calling out grave dancing... So I have to confess, he’s talking about me!
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and I don’t regret any of it!
y’all are free to openly mock me if/when Amy’s traveling companion isn’t Z.W.E.I.,
It's less the existence of snakes on her chest and more the size of them. I feel they'd have looked better as more subtle accents to some kind of bodice than the entirety of a boobplate thing.Agreed. It looks like a prototype for the lesbian barbarian imo.
In contrast, I did like the boob snakes on the bottom left; it's very "Ivy" to me, to mix sexuality with the snake motif.
That's a good point; I agree that would have been a better way to incorporate them.It's less the existence of snakes on her chest and more the size of them. I feel they'd have looked better as more subtle accents to some kind of bodice than the entirety of a boobplate thing.