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Northwest Majors MKX Hype, Updates and top 8!

x_0

Noob
Problem is - learning how to beat Kung Jin won't make the process of watching tourney streams
more hype and/or interesting. I remember very well the 1st EVO for MK 2011 when even Aris
[who was commentating it] said that diversity of characters for MK 2011 is like a bliss,
after watching Tekken Top 8, which was complete and utter Bob/boredom -fest that year.

I understand the desire of tourney players to achieve their goals with the least amount of troubles,
thus choosing the chars with the best result/efforts rate. Nothing wrong with that
...but as a spectator I gotta say - seeing the same char over and over again, does NOT help
with increasing audience for the streams as well as quality of MK competitive scene IMO...
 

Zoidberg747

My blades will find your heart
Problem is - learning how to beat Kung Jin won't make the process of watching tourney streams
more hype and/or interesting. I remember very well the 1st EVO for MK 2011 when even Aris
[who was commentating it] said that diversity of characters for MK 2011 is like a bliss,
after watching Tekken Top 8, which was complete and utter Bob/boredom -fest that year.

I understand the desire of tourney players to achieve their goals with the least amount of troubles,
thus choosing the chars with the best result/efforts rate. Nothing wrong with that
...but as a spectator I gotta say - seeing the same char over and over again, does NOT help
with increasing audience for the streams as well as quality of MK competitive scene IMO...
So right now we have Kung Jin, Dvorah, Raiden, Scorpion, and Quan in the top 8. That is 5 different characters, which is absolutely fine as far as diversity goes. Not only that, REO has played both cassie and sonya on other streams, so he could bring those out too.

Having 8 different characters in a top 8 is great, but you can't realistically expect that every time.
 

peaces

Noob
knee jerk reactions is what made sentinel in mvc3 useless. kung jin hasn't won shit as far as i know. it's way too early to say anything about the game. everyone calm the fuck down. let's give it a few months before we start panicking.
 

thehadou

Bumbling towards greatness.
I agree w this

If u want the FGC to grow then streams/productions need to aspire to be as great as sport productions for any live sport
Our live streams can't aspire to (much less grow to) sports productions without drastically increasing attendee prices. Most events would have to triple gate money to even consider what you're suggesting. I think some players may buy into that, but the vast majority won't, and player fees are what make events possible.

If events in the FGC could run a PPV model at even $3 without backlash and expect 50% of current viewership to buy-in what you're after might be sustainable, but its a very steep hill. Current broadcast costs for major stage "expectation" level live-streams in the FGC are in the $4,000-$6,000 range (depending on location, equipment, stage equipment, staff, etc) for relatively basic presentation and skeleton staffing. NWM had a $30 registration, so you're looking at 200 attendees just to pay for a basic-level professionally staffed primary broadcast. From what I saw online NWM had roughly 1000-ish total game entrants, which is probably best case 500-ish unique entrants (Most Capcom / NRS players enter 2-3 games, and the Smash & anime communities are often 3-4 games per entrant). I'm extremely hard pressed to suggest an event put a 3rd or more of their gate into one broadcast.

I say that having done it a few times, but its not a smart thing to do.
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
Our live streams can't aspire to (much less grow to) sports productions without drastically increasing attendee prices. Most events would have to triple gate money to even consider what you're suggesting. I think some players may buy into that, but the vast majority won't, and player fees are what make events possible.

If events in the FGC could run a PPV model at even $3 without backlash and expect 50% of current viewership to buy-in what you're after might be sustainable, but its a very steep hill. Current broadcast costs for major stage "expectation" level live-streams in the FGC are in the $4,000-$6,000 range (depending on location, equipment, stage equipment, staff, etc) for relatively basic presentation and skeleton staffing. NWM had a $30 registration, so you're looking at 200 attendees just to pay for a basic-level professionally staffed primary broadcast. From what I saw online NWM had roughly 1000-ish total game entrants, which is probably best case 500-ish unique entrants (Most Capcom / NRS players enter 2-3 games, and the Smash & anime communities are often 3-4 games per entrant). I'm extremely hard pressed to suggest an event put a 3rd or more of their gate into one broadcast.

I say that having done it a few times, but its not a smart thing to do.
I actually think for this to truly take off in the way we're discussing now is someone is going to have to pkg built and shop it among people in the business. An idea would be construct a pilot 30-60 min episode of a top 8 of a major, built w backstory/narrative, edit it, make a season out of majors that year, with every episode title being the name of the major, with the season finale episode one hour evo special

#TheDream
 

x_0

Noob
So right now we have Kung Jin, Dvorah, Raiden, Scorpion, and Quan in the top 8. That is 5 different characters, which is absolutely fine as far as diversity goes. Not only that, REO has played both cassie and sonya on other streams, so he could bring those out too.

Having 8 different characters in a top 8 is great, but you can't realistically expect that every time.
I know, mate. Right now it's not all that bad.
My reference was more towards upcoming events, rather than the current one.
Hope time will prove me wrong here, and there's no real reason to get worried.
 

thehadou

Bumbling towards greatness.
I actually think for this to truly take off in the way we're discussing now is someone is going to have to pkg built and shop it among people in the business. An idea would be construct a pilot 30-60 min episode of a top 8 of a major, built w backstory/narrative, edit it, make a season out of majors that year, with every episode title being the name of the major, with the season finale episode one hour evo special

#TheDream
I worked with a company that did exactly this for competitive bass fishing. The events themselves and vendor relationships were still the driving revenue sources, and the entire vehicle was dependent on two financial backers using the show as strategic product placement. What you're suggesting doesn't translate to satiating the "immediate" need of the tournament broadcast though - as this type of "reality" programming would need pre and post production to have an enticing narrative and meet consumer expectations. Closest current broadcast products are what companies like UFC/WWE/Boxing are offering via PPV, but those are immense production teams.

Even then though these still are not directly comparative to our events, as we have open brackets and unknown players/faces/voices at every stop to contend with. No matter how well prepared the production team is they won't have suitable assets/info for the majority of players, making the Friday/Saturday broadcasts a crapshoot. Some of these assets could be developed in a marathon session Saturday night prior to a Sunday Top 8 showcasing (and I've wanted to do this for years everywhere, but its been limited to a few testing events with so-so success) but the staffing and equipment costs skyrocket beyond current means.

I want it too man, badly, but a lot has to happen for that levy to break.
 
someone i know made an interesting point on twitter: tournaments could run a heck of a lot more efficiently if everyone and their kid brother didn't want all of pools and top 8 streamed nowadays.

where i agree with this is that i think top 8 has become EXTREMELY overrated in the modern FG climate. we do it even for games that have 30 players, and i would argue that's barely an accomplishment at all unless it's an exclusive all-top-players type of event. the core issue is that double elimination is only accurate in determining the top *2* players in a given tournament - past that it's bracket luck for players on a similar level. i think making top 8 the new brass ring has led to unrealistic expectations for tournament seeding among other things, and it creates a problem for running events efficiently.

the pools expectation is even sillier considering pools are 80-90% jobber matches. who wants to watch that unless you personally know the people involved? if there were a way to schedule the pools so that you could always have winners & losers finals on stream that would be ideal, but that's probably not realistic. feels like this is an area that could be improved somehow though, pools are such boring filler...
 

Prinz

watch?v=a8PEVV6tt14
I know, mate. Right now it's not all that bad.
My reference was more towards upcoming events, rather than the current one.
Hope time will prove me wrong here, and there's no real reason to get worried.
I agree. From a viewer's point, even two players who main the same character in the same top 8 is not too interesting to watch. Btw, did you guys notice Kung Jin's disapearing bo during gameplay? Even the game hates him and takes action for him to lose :DOGE
 
Sucks cuz footwurk hasn't lost to anyone this tournament. He checked in early but they still put him in losers... So yea he's undefeated technically.
wow didnt know that, well good luck to him. Very cool that he made top 8 nonetheless and has a chance to make some noise in top 8
 

Johnny Based Cage

The Shangest of Tsungs
Talk about knee-jerk reactions. You Kung Jin mainers sure are going hard lol. Nobody even mentioned anything about nerfs or any sort of balance changes.

The fact of the matter is that anyone who's been watching MKX from the Fatal 8 to NWM has seen Kung Jin about five times as much as anyone else and it's starting to feel like Superman syndrome all over again.

And it's not even just him. If the community doesn't level up enough in the next two months to prevent an Evo top 8 of Kung Jins everywhere, Kano knife spam, and Scorpion's same old shit, I sense a huge blow to this game's hype.

It's still super early and I'm still hopeful, but one can't help but become wary that history can repeat itself again if things don't change and change quickly. I want this game to absolutely thrive on the big stage and I'm already finding myself rooting for Justin Wong over most of this community which isn't the best sign lol.
 

Slymind

Noob
To be honest, this top 8 reeks of foreshadowing to me. This Kung Jin everywhere shit is reminiscent of the anti-hype that Injustice went through pre-patch when there was nothing but Superman everywhere.

I know it's a bit premature to draw that comparison just yet still, but I'm wary of how fast the hype for this game would fade if Kung Jin makes up half the top 8 at its first Evo.
This.

I think character variety is one of the best things to keep everyone entertained, otherwise you will be seeing the same thing over and over again, i love watching this game, but so early in this game's life and i'm already tired of Kung Jin, and the bad part is, it's pretty much Boujutsu all the time, the variation system could be great for people not to get tired of the same character, but apparently, Jin's boujutsu seems to be the optimal for him, because i never saw a Shaolin or Ancestral.
 
ALRIGHT GUYS I'M GOING TO TRY AND TAKE THIS THREAD IN A MORE POSITIVE DIRECTION:

so in all this debate (pretty darned good debate for TYM, granted), we've completely missed a huge story with this top 8...

the MK specialists are beating the top players known for other games!

remember early MK9 when justin & floe & PR rog were cleaning up at majors? remember PR rog's evo top 8 in injustice? well, we aren't exactly seeing that here:

- arturo out in 9th to slayer & krayzie
- filipino champ & aris both lost to brady and didn't make it to loser's finals of their pool
- PR rog getting completely and utterly destroyed on stream by kotal khan
- justin lost to REO
- chris g lost to dink

really the only big exception there was footwurk taking out brady. by and large, this has been an infinitely stronger showing for the core MK community than the early majors in previous games were.

i think that's one hell of a statement that this scene really has stepped it up over the years, and it's something to be happy for. let's see if it holds up over future events...
 
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...but as a spectator I gotta say - seeing the same char over and over again, does NOT help
with increasing audience for the streams as well as quality of MK competitive scene IMO...
so you better dont overreact with not well thought buffs/nerfs, or youll have that problem for the entire game's lifespan, like it happenend it mk9/inj.
 

x_0

Noob
so you better dont overreact with not well thought buffs/nerfs, or youll have that problem for the entire game's lifespan, like it happenend it mk9/inj.
Not a single word about buffs/nerfs been spoken in my post, mate

Anyways, NWM MKX Top 8 is about to start. Hope we'll all enjoy watching it.
 

Error Macro

It April yet?
A lot of people here care about those games.
All I know is when you pull a game off stream with over 10k wanting it for a game a few hundred people at most want to watch, you are not doing a very good job advertising your event. You think people are considering spending money and traveling to things like this more or less now if things like this are a possibility?
 

Ophe

Noob
Since people are still on that NRS vs. everyone else. Is there a NRS player that is a top player in a non-NRS game since the vice versa seem to be true?

Edit: I forgot Sonic Fox. He's the king of games nobody plays.
 

Chaosphere

The Free Meter Police
All I know is when you pull a game off stream with over 10k wanting it for a game a few hundred people at most want to watch, you are not doing a very good job advertising your event. You think people are considering spending money and traveling to things like this more or less now if things like this are a possibility?
Then I don't think you have the slightest clue how running a yearly tournament works. You don't just shit on the communities that have consistently showed up the last however many years. Of course MK got a lot of views. It came out 11 days ago. NRS games have pulled like 30 people max the last 3-4 years in a row.

You want to fix this? Start coming to NWM every year. And stop being crybabies.

One pool wasn't streamed. Matches were recorded though. You guys HAVE to stop this bullshit
 

Error Macro

It April yet?
Then I don't think you have the slightest clue how running a yearly tournament works. You don't just shit on the communities that have consistently showed up the last however many years. Of course MK got a lot of views. It came out 11 days ago. NRS games have pulled like 30 people max the last 3-4 years in a row.

You want to fix this? Start coming to NWM every year. And stop being crybabies.
Well they were the ones who had to pick one over the other because of fucks ups, so it seems pretty obvious who doesn't know how to run things correctly. And you just quoted my thoughts on going cross country for A CHANCE to be featured in something. I don't see how me showing up would fix what they did wrong at all. I mean. lol, wasn't too many ppl the problem according to them?
 
remember early MK9 when justin & floe & PR rog were cleaning up at majors? remember PR rog's evo top 8 in injustice? well, we aren't exactly seeing that here:

- arturo out in 9th to slayer & krayzie
- filipino champ & aris both lost to brady and didn't make it to loser's finals of their pool
- PR rog getting completely and utterly destroyed on stream by kotal khan
- justin lost to REO
- chris g lost to dink
<3
made my day!