Looking And Waiting For Something Special?

Update: Dec 25 - Patience finally pays off?

SC is back! Get ready, fans! http://twitpic.com/3j16ui

Well I'm sure most of you were worried, as all the surprises we've seen so far have been Tekken related! But you were promised something spectacular, and now you finally get what you've been waiting for... Daishi Odashima, Lead designer for the Soulcalibur series has just opened up his own twitter!

Odashima-san used to be a tournament player in Japan back in the Soulcalibur 1 days! Since he's the new director of all things Soulcalibur at Namco, and by his own admission, has the final say on his team; you should follow him on twitter. Merry Christmas everyone?

I say again!! The day has finally come when I can tell you all about it. Soul Calibur is BACK !!

Update: Dec 23 - Katsuhiro Harada recently unveiled a new trailer and character for Tekken Tag Tournament 2. He also promises that more surprises are on the way:

Thanks for tons of comment !! OK next !!
I have something new to tweet about tomorrow night. so get ready!
(Not a footage. But important)

Update: Dec 21 - from Katsuhiro Harada's twitter:

Sorry guys I'm so busy now.
However, I want to show you something within the course of a few days...

Original Post - Namco-Bandai's Katsuhiro Harada has been having a lot of fun with his twitter account lately; their community manager FilthieRich is no different:

Looking and waiting for something special?
Make sure to continue following and tell your friends to stay tuned ....

What could this cryptic message possibly mean? Well that I couldn't really tell you. All I can say is that Namco-Bandai is probably planning some big surprises for the holiday, and you should pay attention to the twitter feeds. Just look at that face... you know he's up to no good!

We'll do our best to keep you updated with any relevant information here on 8WayRun.

 

I actually wholeheartedly agree. Honestly.

The sad part is that we have majors. Centralized tournaments on a grander scale where organizers can't simply in essence, flip a coin to decide what happens and what doesn't without a severe backlash of "who died and made you king" complex.

A big part of why the community was 50/50 split in the first place was that a minor few had the balls to say "we will go this way" from the early get-go. As more people debated and argued, the fights became personal and heated to the point of no return. Without an agreement to say "abcd", a war basically went on to the point of too many casualties on either side - no hope of reparation.

Sorry for the weird figure of speech, but you get what I mean. Nipping it in the bud, I think, would've changed the outcome of that 50/50 split drastically.

 

Aren't we forgetting something else, as we prepare for SC5? Something that single-handedly destroyed the SC4 competitive scene?

Banning protocol anyone?

No, read my last post. Unless it's gamebreaking. Don't even bring it up. And this is EXCATLY what i'm talking about. Why don't you stop focusing on banning something and focusing of other balencing issues that we currently( or may) have when it comes time for SC5. Maybe at that point once all of the character threads have been created they could possibly fix what could poentially become a probelm for the next Soul Calibur game

 

I actually already posted that then read that part of your post, sorry for missing it.

And again, don't get the wrong idea, I agree 120% with your point. I don't want to swing the ban hammer or even bring up that idea.

I just really don't want what happened to SC4 to happen again. After Evo2k9, 8wr just tore itself apart because of it.

 

It's no big deal. Forgive me, the last thing we need a ban happy members jumping the gun and the game hasn't even reach beta testing. So i might seem a little harsh about the situation. Anywho, HRD has started a thread on the Maxi forums, as well as i started a thread on the Astaroth forums. i would add more but i'm at work. Plus i haven't play the game in awhile so it may take some time for me to remember stuff. But it's good showing the participation.

however i am surprised that MALICE hasn't started a thread in the sophie forums just yet. Also, it's probably helpful to list certain properties that you would like to keep from the previous SC games to give the developers a better idea why a move should have what we are requesting. Also, all the individuals who have connections to those in control to come to 8wayrun and view what we are talking about. Either that, or at least post it to where our ideas can be viewed.

 

I was reading this topic http://iplaywinner.com/news/2010/12...ek-what-would-it-take-to-get-you-to-play.html and it's really too bad the image out there of SC is not the best it can be. I hope if SCV is good that players and Namco will represent the game the best they can.

Why would you guys openly object to an arcade release? Smart business decison or not what does it matter to any of you, they aren't using your money? Working on an arcade doesn't hinder anything. SC3 and SC4 came out and obviously they weren't perfect so theres no evidence that not working on an arcade produces a better game

Our money or not, Namco Bandai isn't doing too awesome lately, so personally I would rather they spend their resources on the console version of SCV t as I fear working on a arcade version could affect the console version.
Imagine an scenario where SCV console version needs some balance patches and we didn't get them because money was spent on arcade business that has yet to turn a profit. Would rather have them spend their money on the console version so they can try to make it as best as it can be.
Having said that, I am not opposed to an arcade version. If they have more than enough resources, go for it, as long as it doesn't affect console versions.

 

I actually already posted that then read that part of your post, sorry for missing it.

And again, don't get the wrong idea, I agree 120% with your point. I don't want to swing the ban hammer or even bring up that idea.

I just really don't want what happened to SC4 to happen again. After Evo2k9, 8wr just tore itself apart because of it.

What happened after EVO is that alot of people stopped playing. We didn't tear each other apart. The console didn't get an update and the latest game was on the PSP, so people just stopped playing, played something else, or waited for Tekken to come out.

After EVO and Nats were over, we reopened the topic of bans at Jaxel's house because no one wanted a repeat of what VC did to SC3. At that point for me, it was about keeping the game alive which wouldn't have happened if we didn't implement a ban. For a long time, we never had a consensus on what to do or what criteria should be used in banning something.

I think the problem came from people wanting something in black and white when you really couldn't in this situation. I took a wait and see approach because I was still learning the game myself and was waiting for Hilde to dominate which didn't happen, but they always got close in doing so while leaving a bad taste in people's mouths.

Then at that point after EVO, it was clear to me that they needed to go and it was put to a vote and was supported overwhelmingly. I'm still glad that Hilde didn't come out on top because people would have just pointed to that and use it to call this game trash.

It's no big deal. Forgive me, the last thing we need a ban happy members jumping the gun and the game hasn't even reach beta testing. So i might seem a little harsh about the situation. Anywho, HRD has started a thread on the Maxi forums, as well as i started a thread on the Astaroth forums. i would add more but i'm at work. Plus i haven't play the game in awhile so it may take some time for me to remember stuff. But it's good showing the participation.

however i am surprised that MALICE hasn't started a thread in the sophie forums just yet. Also, it's probably helpful to list certain properties that you would like to keep from the previous SC games to give the developers a better idea why a move should have what we are requesting. Also, all the individuals who have connections to those in control to come to 8wayrun and view what we are talking about. Either that, or at least post it to where our ideas can be viewed.

I haven't done that because we're still getting ahead of ourselves. All we know is that the next project is off the ground. But who knows what their plans are or who's going to be in the game.

If they want to ask for suggestions, they know where we are at. I'm just taking things a step at a time so for now, I am just focusing on getting rid of the negativity surrounding the game and community, try to bring people into this game and community, and continue to play SC4, and let Namco do what they need to do.

 

Actually one of the more important questions I have is, do guest characters cost money? And to the marketing department, is that shit worth it?

 

I have this maybe incredible stupid idea, but i think what we need to do is making decisions from the beginning on together on an international scale. Having different rulesets in different countries has already shown to decrease the quality of tournaments in my opinion, a good example for this is Frenchies against Ramon who is whoring the shit out of Algol or even the last tournament against RTD's amazing Apprentice. Same thing happened in Germany with Algol etc.. If Apprentice would have been allowed from the beginning, maybe it would have been different etc etc, you know what i mean.

Since a lot of people are willing to travel for SC4 im sure it will be the same for SC5, so i raise my voice for an international committee. It may sound completely delusional but we ALL know that making decisions will be a mess again, terrible terrible mess. We all know it.

So maybe in order to get faster and definitive decisions we nominate representatives for all active countries. Yeah you got it, its a fucking Soul Calibur Parlament. BAM.

SO USA, France, Dominicans, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, UK, Russia, Singapour, Korea etc...Depending on size i think for example USA should get 10 Votes, France 10 Votes, the Rest more likely 5. I think thats fair and should be considered.

The communities for their own nominate their 10(5) top players with a good understanding of the game, the ability to express their opinion + a good support of the people. For US i think of people like RTD, Hates, Malice, DK, Ramon...people who know the game and are considered not beeing idiots :) Then we have people out of every country who are in touch with the community..Malek, Belial, ShenYu, Me, Santana, Omega, Oof etc...

We simply start of by saying every fucking character is allowed. Then we play the game, if we notice some major issues, the different nations debate the issues and their nominates make up their mind and vote. We will have clear decisions, we even could say we need at least 60:40 votes or we just dont change rules etc.

We would also need a president, which would be Jaxel in my mind, who gives dead lines for decisions.

I think this would be much better than the general "Tournament organizer defines the rule as he pleases" mindset. I think 8wayrun became that big that we should be able to demand the rules we want, since 98% of top players are from here. No TO would say no to a international ruleset.

Im not sure about Japan etc, since i dont know the scene there, but im sure Europe/America could handle this. Just France makes me worry a bit with banning every endboss...:P
If people are mature enough, what ya thinking?

Greets, doc.

 

People tried to do stuff like that, but it fails. Everyone wants to make the rules, but you need people to respect and follow them.

This is also one of the reasons why we couldn't get one ruleset going because one region will feel one way and another region will feel the opposite, and you can't make a decision effecting everyone on a 50/50.

But ultimately, the game needs to be balanced so that there's no need for a parliament. If there's nothing that needs to be banned, then there's nothing that needs to be discussed.

Here's what I am doing, I'm waiting 3 months before I even think about any of this stuff. Everybody should go in with a fresh slate and not think about what needs to be banned or whatnot. There will be plenty of time to discuss that stuff if the need arises, why worry about it now?

 

Japan usually does stuff their own way (in gamin at least).
Usually we play the game as is w/no bans (thus we play/want the arcade tested and balanced AE).
But even when we play console we are the same (no bans).

Here they don't seem to complain much- just find a way to cope with a character and learn how to take em down.
Maybe that's the Asian way (remembers the X vs Hilde action in France a while back, Kira and his Talim etc), haha.

I do know that recently we were thinkin of sendin someone to France.
If we had a comp to decide who would go, for example, we would try to use the rules that they use in France (such as banned characters and stages) so we (and the person) would be workin under the same conditions.

 

People tried to do stuff like that, but it fails. Everyone wants to make the rules, but you need people to respect and follow them.

This is also one of the reasons why we couldn't get one ruleset going because one region will feel one way and another region will feel the opposite, and you can't make a decision effecting everyone on a 50/50.

Hmmm im not sure if you understood my post or maybe the idea is not clear :) Because everybody wants to make the rules AND every region feels different there should be a "parliament". Then every region has their spokesperson and can vote according to their feelings.

I dont know if you remember the tier list discussions and stuff related to banning but there was so much bullshit and misinformation it will be absolutely impossible to get to decisions with 90 page threads... in the end one guy who organizes a tournament will make a decision then, people will be pissed, stop the game bla bla bla. You know the stories.

With my system we would make sure that the vast majority of top players stand behind a decision, otherwise SC5 will be exactly the same mess like SC4. Algol allowed. Then Banned. Then allowed. Then banned. Same for Hilde. Then banned on the eastcoast. Banned in France. Allowed in Germany....

I dont insist on anything, its just an idea to make things easier.

 

I got no problems with it if the community supports it because we can't have each region or country using separate rules. I'm for whatever the community wants to support.

 

The communities for their own nominate their 10(5) top players with a good understanding of the game, the ability to express their opinion + a good support of the people. For US i think of people like RTD, Hates, Malice, DK, Ramon...people who know the game and are considered not beeing idiots :) Then we have people out of every country who are in touch with the community..Malek, Belial, ShenYu, Me, Santana, Omega, Oof etc...

Unfortunately, I don't think that works. The best players would have voted together NOT to ban Hilde; which is how it worked around the majority of the US. On the East Coast, I decided that its not about the balance; its about the APPEARANCE of balance. Any fighting game is about the pot monsters, not the tournament winners; the tournament winners account for a very small percentage of the tournament attendees. So I was the first to ban Hilde; she wasn't unbalanced, but I felt that she would scare away the majority of players. Which she did.

It ended up that the East Coast remained stronger than any other region in the United States; simply because we didn't have Hilde scaring people away like on the West Coast. If you remember, I was also the first person to ban VC. People fail to realize that I've been right about almost every affect certain mechanics would have on the community; except for Critical Finishes. And the only reason I was wrong about Critical Finishes is because Namco agreed with me and nerfed Critical Finishes hardcore, before they had a chance to run away with things.

With SC4 I made a mistake; after the clusterfuck with SC3, I decided I didn't want anything to do with the plannings of SC4. I gave my opinions with SC3, and everyone unilaterally ignored my advice. Eventually I was proven right and people still refused to acknowledge the efforts that both myself and ChaCha did in order to get things running as best we could in SC3. Remember that when SC4 came out, we were running on the old CaliburForum regime for a good 5 months before 8WR finally took over; and both myself and ChaCha didn't want anything to do with their plans.

So by the time 8WR took over the Soulcalibur community in December 2008 (SC4 came out July 2008) it was too late; the lack of management within the community for those first 5 months at CaliburForum had already done their damage. By this time, the nationals circuit had already been underway and the plans set forth that proved a horribly run event. Of course, when 8WR took over, at that point I was forced to do the plannings for SC4, but we had gone so long without central leadership that it didn't matter anymore.

So with the next Soulcalibur game I've decided. I'm going to do everything I can to set standards and plan the direction of the tournament community. I will run the nationals circuit myself, instead of having it delegated to third party organizations like NVGA. I will of course get the opinions of people I respect, but the buck will stop with me. Yes its fascist, but decisions have to be made, and the community clearly isn't willing to govern itself.

 

I'll talk with the TO's in any case.

When playas heard about the French Hilde/SW bans over here they were surprised (especially the playas that use em, esp if they don't/can't use another character) cause as I said we don't ban over here.

Even if we end up doin things our way over here (we're an island anyways, haha) when we hit other shores we will of course abide by their rules.

 

Jaxel i can understand your point of view, while this may be the best for the US unfortunately this will again lead to national differences. French people, we in germany etc will most certainly not accept any rules "because the US does this". As you have seen not even the westcoast accepted the Hilde ban on the eastcoast, im not sure if the dictatorship will work. You seem confident, good luck anyways. I just cant imagine this working without enourmous drama. But again thats what makes this community funny :) Especially when you decide something and Europe/Asia does the opposite people who are not happy will open the shit out of new threads asking for bans etc.

My idea was exactly to prevent this from happening. International guidelines---> less room for whining.

Maybe i hope at least we in Europe will find a common guideline, not like in SC4... so people can go to UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and always have the same rules...but with the US defining their own rules i see France dictating the rules in Europe i guess.

In best case we dont need to decide anything :P

 

After all the things that have happened throughout the years many of us are still here, that alone tells of our love for the game, haha (listen up Namco).

 

I just hope that there isn't any bans on characters whatsoever. I mean every character must have some sort of counter, no one is perfect, so I guess that could mean something.

 

I don't know what is going on with this new SC, but I think some people have the limits of Title Updates/patches wrong.

There is not a limit of 2. Unless it has changed recently, the first 2 are free. Then after that, you have to pay a fee to MS/Sony for the submission.

Namco is just being stingy with the patches and did not see a financial upside of patching SC4 further.

I think Modern Warfare 2 had 11 or 12 TU's. I think Black Op's is up to 3 already?

They have incentive and see worth in balancing and fixing bugs, as the active player base is huge and vocal, and DLC is bringing in that money.

So we have a situation here, on what will make Namco further patch their fighting games past a certain threshold? Either the player base is going to have to be bigger or they are gonna push the DLC, so maybe they can slip in balance changes and whatnot.

I just want whatever new SC project that is being worked on to have better netcode, and more steamlined front end/options.

And they have to be willing to listen and patch beyond the first 2 months of a games release.

 

One of the problems with bans, is that there's a segment of the FGC who believes bans= bad, no matter what it is. There are people who want ST Akuma to be tourney legal to this day. That said, a lot of that comes from the arcade mentality, which didn't really apply to Soul Calibur 4, as a console-exclusive title.

I think the most important thing is to have the best competitive game, not please other communities.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing if different countries have different rules- who would that really effect other then a tiny handful of top tournament players. As Jaxel said, it's about the pot monsters like myself- and I'm never going to be good enough to go to France. Why would I care what the French think? Why would the average French pot monster care what we think? This is not meant to be disrespectful to France/French community.

The only time this would be an issue is with international tournies, and just using the home country's rules is best in this case. True top players will adjust.

Jaxel, if I can make one suggestion, it would be to use this as a guideline for any bans.

Normal characters have to be proven to be bannable, Guest/Boss type characters have to be proven to be non-bannable.

That said, I hope this doesn't become an issue, and no banlist is needed, or at least, if there is a banlist, it's so obvious that no one complains about it.

 

One way to slip in patches is through DLC. It's actually what ArcSys is doing with BBCS. So maybe they'll do that with SC.