EVO 2015 Preview (July 17-19, live from Las Vegas) 3 days, 9 world championships to be decided!

@fredchuckdave: Tom Jones Dictator though...

Do you think we'll be able to buy these costumes with fight money? Or are they just going to sell them for actual money only?

EDIT: updated the link.

@hassun: Oh hey guess I'm getting the Chun costume, looks alright I suppose. Cammy's default costume looks way better and it's always a chore going to best buy so fuck that.

I feel like they'll have to put something in the game to buy with fight money that's cosmetic or people will just accumulate it forever; could just be colors though. Unless of course the characters are like 100 million each or something ridiculous. What's more likely is that new stuff costs real life money only and then older stuff can be bought for (ludicrous amounts of) fight money.

Hm, I'll be getting the Bison costume and Bison is the character I play but it's the costume I'm the least interested in. Whatever, I'm gonna end up buying them all anyways.

Can't preorder the CE yet on Amazon booh. Also I miss the days of $70 CEs that just had like a dumb tchotchke instead of these $100 monstrosities.

EDIT:

Gallery

@starvinggamer: You don't have to buy the collector's edition.

@fredchuckdave: That's not even close to being factual. Also you actually can preorder it now on Amazon, it's just not tied in any way to the SFV page and doesn't show up if you do a search for Street Fighter V. So I preordered it.

@hassun: I'll wait until someone actually thinks up a compelling reason to do so.

@starvinggamer: If today hasn't shown you a compelling reason I'm not sure anything will ever be enough for you.

Just remember that pre-ordering video games not only affects you. It also screws over everyone else.

@hassun: Regardless of what that nonfunctional video may say, one shady instance of a thing does not mean said thing is de facto bad for everyone every time always. As an informed consumer I have only benefited from preordering games for the past 20 or whatever years. It is not my responsibility to protect other people from their own stupidity unless they're my children.

Oh capcom why must you tempt me so with these costumes...

@starvinggamer: I believe my first instance of pre ordering was Front Mission 4 and they gave me a demo disc on the spot for Final Fantasy XII which wasn't too bad though it didn't give an impression of how the actual game would be. So like 2004/2005? Dunno when it all started. Don't tell @austin_walker though.

Of course nothing can compare to the original Front Mission 3 demo which was like 5 hours long, what a game.

I think as long as you're pre ordering a game that you would buy anyway on release there's not much of an issue; if you're pre ordering because of a pre order bonus then you're probably on the wrong track. This doesn't explain why I bought SFV.

@starvinggamer: Nonfunctional? Oh they made it private. That's perfect.

Enjoy a reupload:

Also, I don't think you realise just how much it affects others. It's not a case of "Hey this is a rare(!) scummy practice but us intelligent, informed people are above that". Pre-order incentives have gotten worse and worse over the years. Much more pervasive and invasive as well. If you have been pre-ordering games for over 20 years I do not believe for a second that you haven't noticed that.

We do not exist in a vacuum either. "It doesn't affect me personally, so fuck everyone else!" is a terrible attitude to have.

Either way that's all I have to say about that. Don't want to derail our fighting games general thread too much.

P.S. There is, in fact, a good reason to pre-order games and I have made use of it before: Big discounts.

@hassun: Yeah just got the email ad with the video. Still don't see what the big fuss is about. Invasive preorder stuff, sure that sounds shitty although I can't name any game with preorder DLC that I would actually call "invasive" off the top of my head. That's my whole issue, people are all doom and gloom with preorders but how often is it anything that really fucking matters? Like woo I get a free SFV costume that will probably save me $2 down the line but who the fuck cares? It's not like if we all just stopped preordering I'd suddenly be getting all those costumes for free.

It's not fuck everyone else, it's, "I directly benefit and who is really getting fucked here honestly?" and the answer is no one. If enough people preorder Deus Ex to get the game 4-days early (just in time for the weekend) no one is getting fucked. No one. Everyone still gets the same $60 game for the same $60 (or like you said, a big discount) and some people get some random inconsequential DLC and a few extra days to play.

Which is to say nothing of the fact that I imagine preorders (for non-digital goods) helps publishers get a clearer picture on demand and therefore make better estimates when it comes to manufacturing. The more accurate they can be when they order from the factories the more money they have at the end of the day to invest into future products.

You guys are missing out on all the hotryu action.

http://www.themarysue.com/hot-ryu/

http://kotaku.com/street-fighter-vs-bearded-ryu-is-the-hottest-ryu-1727774068

@starvinggamer:

It's not like if we all just stopped preordering I'd suddenly be getting all those costumes for free.

Again, that is a terrible attitude to have. Nobody is actually saying people should be getting things for free. That's utter stupidity.

It's not fuck everyone else, it's, "I directly benefit and who is really getting fucked here honestly?" and the answer is no one. If enough people preorder Deus Ex to get the game 4-days early (just in time for the weekend) no one is getting fucked. No one.

But that's not true. The answer isn't "no one", the answer is "everyone" and especially "everyone who does not join in on the pre-order train".
You're going ham on this 4 day thing but that's actually the least troublesome aspect of it. It's the mission, it's the items, it's the skins, etc.
You can say that is all inconsequential (and I have to agree that, so far, it often is) but there is no guarantee it will always be the case. Nor is there always a guarantee that those things will be made available to everyone somewhere down the line. In-game pre-order bonuses are a massive slippery slope because they actually impact the game experience itself.
They also divide the playerbase and prey on people's weaknesses. E.g. "If you want the complete experience, you will have to pre-order/engage in microtransactions/buy the season pass/etc.

Judging from your comments, you are not affected much by these temptations (or at least think that you're not) and to that I say "Kudos! Good for you! Lucky you!" but the reality is that even if you aren't, there are plenty of people who are. (The way some games make a lot of money on the mobile market is clear proof of that.) And of course you can say "Fuck 'em, it doesn't personally affect me so I don't care" in response to that but I would rather not live in a society like that if at all possible.

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I'm not sure you understand the reason that all of this bullshit exists either. It is because developers and publishers are trying to find ways to get more money out of their customers. (It's pretty sad that you think you're actually getting something for free or saving $2 somewhere down the line, I can assure you you are not saving anything. These things are not created to save the consumer any money at all. Quite the opposite.)

"Why?" You ask? Well there are a few reasons for this:

• The cost of making big (aka AAA, aka big budget, etc.) video games has massively increased over the years. This made publishers/producers of video games very wary and risk-averse because 1 or 2 flops are now enough to massively damage/bankrupt (publicly traded) companies.
• The asking price of video games has not gone up all that much (definitely not at the rate the development costs have increased), further increasing the risk of making big budget video games.
• This has made publishers/producers of video games search for alternate ways to get more money from the consumer for their games as soon as possible. This is where (store-exclusive) pre-order "bonuses", season passes and microtransactions come into play.

Now you could say that the obvious solution to this is to raise the asking price of video games but there are multiple reasons why that is a bad idea.

• The buying power of the average person hasn't really gone up all that much, in fact it has gone down for quite a lot of people.
• It's an unpopular move which would probably create a lot of public outcry compared to the more stealthy, incremental methods of pre-orders, microtransactions, etc.
• It might actually not solve the real long-term problem which is the rising development costs.

That's right, the main culprit here is probably the arms race between producers of video games in development costs. Big budget video games have just become too expensive to make.
It's a dangerous situation which could result in another video game crash or a bursting bubble.
How do we solve this issue? That's the big question.

As for the manufacturing aspect, that is becoming less and less important as pre-orders are getting more and more egregious. Hmmm.

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In the end I think people need to realise that the reasons for pre-ordering have changed over the years. People used to pre-order to make sure they were going to get a copy of whatever they wanted to buy at the time of release. This isn't really the case anymore, especially for digital goods (which video games are increasingly exclusively becoming).
Pre-orders (and season passes) now exist for the producers of video games alone. They provide payment (long) before the goods are actually made available and valuable data on consumer interest in their product.
But when pre-orders are something which exist to benefit the producers of the product, why would the consumer go along with it?
That's where the pre-order bonuses, exclusive "betas", earlier access, etc. come into play.

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Anyway, back to fighting games:

@l1ghtn1n: *freeze frame of Tom Brady at the highest point of a cheerful jump*

@hassun: Frankly I've never been a fan of vague slippery slope accusations. If the best argument you can make is that maybe it might end up being something bad someday then I really don't want to hear any more unless you have something more than your imagination backing that up. I'm not going to outlaw gambling and I'm not going to outlaw drinking. I'm certainly not going to rail against preorder bonuses that "prey on people's weaknesses" when it, again, is so fucking inconsequential. A few skins, maybe a slight gear advantage in a single-player game for the first hour, and a mission that is almost definitely half-baked because it was originally going to be cut from the game before they cobbled it together into a "bonus". Basically shit that you wouldn't even notice if it wasn't there unless you would in which case the game is so on fire that holding back that piddling bit of content for preorders wasn't the break-point to begin with. This isn't another slide closer to the annihilation of video games, it's video games-as-usual since 2008 or whatever.

Not sure what you're trying to convince me of in the second half. All I'm saying is that pre-orders don't exclusively fuck players. More money in publisher's coffers means potentially more money going to developers means potentially better games. Obviously I don't have insider info, all I'm saying is that it's not just a way for devs to get more money, it's a way for them to get it more efficiently and increase their profits per copy.

And I am saving money. I am not stupid and I know that games are expensive as fuck yadda yadda alternate revenue streams. And I know they are going to charge money for it later. And I know that I am going to want to buy it regardless because I like costume DLC and I like Capcom and I want to throw more money at them to keep their lights on (as long as their games continue to be good). So if Capcom wants to give me one of those costumes as an incentive for me to preorder the game, great. Because now something that I was going to want to buy for $2 is costing me $0, ergo I am saving $2.

I can't wait to get my Bison costume I'm never going to use for the character I don't play. Though I do approve of the big dumb gold skull shoulder pad.

I play Ryu currently (mostly because I haven't found a character that really clicks with me yet), but I'm sure as hell not switching my Amazon pre-order over to Gamestop.

I wish there was a way to get all those costumes on PC. My favorite ones are the Ryu and Cammy ones, but they all look pretty neat. It also looks like they fixed the weird foggy eyes some the characters had.

That gif is nauseating.

Edit: Oh almost forgot: Perfect Legend just had to put his dignity on the line like that. Switching to Tempest Kung Lao when he was supposed to use Buzzsaw for that BO3 match and then not winning a single match. Don't worry guys, he was just using those 13 matches to download Fox while hiding his own tech for the next ESL $50k. It is all part of the long con.

@thunderslash: Sorry about the .gif. It's gone now.

@starvinggamer: I think it's pretty clear that neither one of us is going to convince the other.

I feel that I have given plenty of valid points and information outside of "it's a slippery slope".
I feel that I gave a strong argument against "it's all inconsequential" as well.
And finally I will also continue to disagree with you on the saving money aspect because you missed a critical aspect of how that transaction works. The price of the game and the DLC will not remain the same over time. You pre-ordering the game now for full price (I assume $60?) and getting that (one?) costume you wanted will not save you any money compared to buying the game at or after launch and then buying the costumes separately. In the end you will have just paid more for the same content and because we're still so far from release you won't actually be able to use this content earlier using this method either.

Either way I think we've both said our piece on the merits and demerits of (store-specific) pre-ordering, microtransactions and whatever else related to it.
We don't agree on it. That's fine. Even good friends don't need to agree on everything.
We both like fighting games, the FGC and talking about them so I hope we can enjoy them together and appreciate each other's knowledge and experience with them regardless of our opinion on this matter.

Bonchan is now with Red Bull!

Source:

http://www.twitch.tv/topangatv/v/13884248?t=1h57min5s
+
http://www.redbull.com/jp/ja/games/stories/1331744591114/bonchan-welcome-to-red-bull

He looks so goddamn funny with that hat on. I love it!
Although I am also extra sad for Kazunoko. I remember that one episode where Kazunoko and Fuudo were making fun of Bonchan with their sponsorhip T-shirts.

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Also,

MKX patch notes! Seeing some interesting stuff here. Mah boi Kotal Kahn got himself some sweet buffs!

http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2015/aug/31/mortal-kombat-x-patch-notes-kombat-kast-live-stream/

UPDATE: Sadly it seems NRS is still NRS and a whole lot of things got broken in this update. SonicFox lists a few things in this exchange on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sonicfox5000/status/638670166646222848

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Also, also!

1 guess as to what that will be about!

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Also, also, also!

P.S. Apparently the voice actresses for R.Mika in both Japanese and English are the voice actresses of Naruto.

@starvinggamer: @hassun:They really nerfed the shit out of Kitana's damage (not in the patch notes?); literally every combo does 5-10% less damage now, so a meterless bnb that did 36-37 now does 30-31, and NJP setups that did 30-31 now do 26 (!?). The only part of her damage that was broken was the Ex Fan scaling where you could get 45-48 and 49-53 in the corner, but everything else was fine/pretty much on par or worse with most other characters. But they just straight up nerfed virtually everything. I guess we can blame Perfect Legend.

@fredchuckdave: Now now, we can't blame PL for everything. After all, he did personally see to it that he didn't just get beaten by Kitana.

It definitely seems like they are going to patch again soon. They already released a hotfix but it contains some temporary workarounds for issues which are going to have to be fully addressed in the near future.

Speaking of PL, Mike Ross and FloE got all up in that ass on Capcom Pro Talk. "Perfect Myth." Damn.

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In other news, REAL fighting games have finally arrived on Steam!

@fredchuckdave: Hm, that's certainly strange. Have you checked if it's specific attacks that are doing less damage or if it's her scaling? I suppose I could go look but it's been a while so I can't remember what her numbers are supposed to look like.

@starvinggamer: I'm pretty sure it's the scaling off of every single fan hit (i.e. every combo).

Friendly reminder that Test your Luck can be fun:

God damn it. Sako isn't going to compete in the Topanga A-League. Please don't retire yet, Sako san!

The idea makes me so sad. He's still the king of execution in FG and watching him do nutty shit is so fun :(

Inb4 he's going to start playing GGXrd only.

Just finished watching the X-Mania SF2T tournament from last Sunday, courtesy of James Chen. Crazy how that game and its players have evolved.

@l1ghtn1n: I hope he recovers well and becomes a better player because of this. Livestreaming his going to be rough for him (and his chat moderators) for a while to come though.

Edit: seems like one of his mods went crazy and is just deleting every single message/banning everyone.

Guess who's been hired by Twitch? http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/09/gamerbee-brings-love-of-fgc-to-twitch/

Improved SFIV performance, marriage, organising tournaments and now partnering up with Twitch. Gamerbee is making moves!
Putting Taiwan on the FGC map and Twitch.tv on the Asian (FGC) map definitely sound like objectives he can tackle.

I sure hope this doesn't prevent him from entering CPT tournaments though.

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Ed Boon teasing what I presume to be Kombat Pack #2 as well:

Knowing Ed Boon those are just as likely to be placeholder images to mess with people as they are to be actual silhouettes. I'd actually find it kind of funny if those were the real silhouettes, and he had been posting tons of xenomorph images on twitter only for it to have nothing to do with MK. I bet a lot of other people would be pissed though.

@starvinggamer: Here's my video from today if that helps jog your memory (I believe the corner combo would have done 47 instead of 36 in the past, not 43-44 as I say in the video):

@hassun: So it seems like Kotal's damage got nerfed as well. Looks like this was just the mega Injustice-esque patch where everyone with above average damage now does low to mid 30's in most situations.

@fredchuckdave: Hm yeah, guess they realized giving her footsies and zoning and damage might have been too much?

@fredchuckdave: Weird, when the patch hit on PC I took Kotal to the training room and I was doing the exact same damage on his major combos.

@hassun: Ah, I'm not exactly sure with Kotal. Quan Chi is definitely doing less though so I figured it was almost across the board.

@fredchuckdave: It could be a PC vs console patch/hotfix discrepancy. I'll recheck it and report back when I have some time.

The Tokyo Game Show CPT premier tournament preliminary bracket looks absolutely brutal. (Can't wait to see Daigo lose in the first round because he's up against Japan's best Hugo and he's been playing nothing but GGXrd.)

That reminds me, maybe the first CPT premier tournament since EVO is a good time to set up a new thread? What say you, @flstyle?

A lot of stuff going on right now as well. Topanga B league and First Attack in Puerto Rico especially stand out to me. Sadly, Topanga is PPV on niconico.

Brackets: http://fa2015.challonge.com/

Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/teamsp00ky

Edit: Oh god this tournament is sponsored by Doritos and Mtn Dew.

@hassun: These First Attack commentators aren't too bad, have to pull for Pugera to somehow win it though Infil will probably just nullify the points as always.

@l1ghtn1n: At around 60 hours of MGSV I think so far, since 5 days ago. Pretty healthy.

@l1ghtn1n: This top 8 is really taking forever now that you mention it...

@l1ghtn1n: Yeah yeah great matches blah blah footsies blah blah Chris G didn't suck for once blah, but I could be Foxhounding fools right now! The agony. I suppose I should be micromanaging and visiting people at mother base while waiting.

INFILTRATION PICKED HUGO

UPDATE: 7 GOLDEN LETTERS. JUST JAB IT.

UPDATE 2: JUST DO THE CMD THROW.

UPDATE 3: JUST FUCKING DO IT.

UPDATE 4: This is good. SnakeEyez adapting and more HUGO.

UPDATE 5: SLAPPIN AND BOOTIN FROM BOTH SIDES.

Hugotration takes the points.

Edit: Spoke too soon!

Edit2: Or not!