King Rizz
Noob
Recently on SRK an interview with James Chen conducted by NeoEmpire was posted. In it, James made some comments regarding MK compared to MvC3. Now I'm a fan of both games, and I don't care for fanboys bashing either game without good evidence just because they lack the ability to play one or the other, however I had to respond to his comments. This is his quote from NeoEmpire:
SRK: http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/26/neoempire-interviews-james-jchensor-chen/#comment-13018
NeoEmpire: http://www.neoempire.com/?p=9451
I'm curious to see everyone's response to this as well. I know its a lot to read and if you did read it all, Thank You for helping a writing tutor believe his field doesn't go to waste, haha. Still, I don't mean to bash on James as I do enjoy his commentary and the passion he has for the scene, but I don't like it when someone of his standing makes what I feel are untrue remarks about a game with a community that is just starting to grow. I think comments like this have the potential to hurt the growth of the community which is particularly painful when they are false. Please, if you have any comments on this I would love to read them and see where our community stands. Thank You.
-Rizz
EDIT: Also, here's a link to Jchen's response to a former article posted by IGN back in early May on the SRK forums.
http://shoryuken.com/forum/threads/james-chen-thinks-mk9-lacks-depth.133435/page-2
However, I won't go into detailing my thoughts on this article since he debunked himself in the most recent one, stating that he was proven wrong and that he was happy that was the case. Also, rather than being redirected to a SRK discussion, I feel our community deserves to share our own thoughts on our forum seeing as this is our game and dedication on the line.
Now he was not bashing the game, he also did go on to state he was wrong about prior comments he made and that he was glad he was wrong. However his comparison between the two games in terms of how much depth they had bothered me a bit. I responded on SRK in length just now and in short I laid out how I think recent tournament events proved him wrong and how certain mechanics in MvC3 limit what even needs to be explored. This changes the comparison with MK which has been experiencing exponential variation and change in recent tournaments. I also go on to discuss my views on NRS's patching. Now I know this community is divided on this subject, but I do think much better of it in light of recent tournaments. If you're willing to read it, here's my quote:There have been a few threads with a large number of posts on both SRK and Mortal Kombat’s Test Your Might forums about a comment you made on MK9 stating: “I definitely feel that the game is lacking in the depth department” in one of your IGN articles. Some players wondered why you felt this way as you didn’t go into enough detail in the article, mainly as your article was on IGN where you can’t really go into nerdy fighting game specifics. Is there anything further you would like to add now?
Yeah, I actually answered that in an Shoryuken.com forum thread at one point, because I felt it was only fair to address my concerns to the people who would understand and appreciate feedback and intelligent debate. But without going into much detail, I just didn’t feel like the game has a lot of room for experimenting and variations, due to a lot of the “dial-a-combo” nature of the game system. The creativity, I believed at the time, was limited mostly to combos and not much else. I’ve changed my tune since then, and I do think the game has evolved in many ways I didn’t expect, and I’m happy to be wrong. I still don’t think the game is quite as deep as many others. For example, I still think we are only at 15% to 20% capacity of knowledge and understanding of MvC3. I think there is still about 80% of the game we haven’t found yet. But I’d say we are at around 70% to 80% understanding of MK9, not factoring in balance changes from patches. And keep in mind, I never meant it as a criticism. I think MK9 plays fine, and if it continues being played how it’s being played now, I think that’s perfectly fine. I’m mostly worried now that the thing that was supposed to help keep it competitive, the constant patching, has actually become a problem in that people are growing weary of the constant changes.
I'll also include links to the various sites cited in this response.I like James but his comments on MK compared to MvC3 leads me to believe he honestly knows next to nothing about the game nor does he care to learn.
Now I like MvC3 for all the things it does right and I agree when he says the game has yet to be fully fleshed out, however I disagree on the comparison between MK and MvC3. Just look at the tournament results. In MvC3 we’re seeing the exact same results in terms of what teams are being used, team synergy, and overall effectiveness of skilled players using particular teams. Granted, there is much to be discovered among the rest of the cast, however since it is a tourney season players will just use what they know works. However, a deciding factor among those decisions are the capabilities of the DHC glitch and a character’s effectiveness with X-Factor (particularly lv3). Even the commentators at ECT brought up the overuse of DHC teams and Phoenix teams (even worse combined, lol). These gimmicks alone really limit what is possible in this game for a hardcore competitive scene. It doesn’t matter how much depth there is to the rest of the cast when all you need are the same 12 characters in set teams relying on the same gimmicks. If it works THAT well, why bother exploring any further when nothing else works as well? Sure, bring up how Spiderman or whoever can snuff out a D. Phoenix transformation, but are we seeing that? No, because using those characters compromises the greater strengths of more capable teams.
Now lets look at MK’s recent tournaments. Yes, at the beginning we saw a lot of the same characters and NRS’s debuffing of those characters could have led to their decline in popularity, but look at how many players have been placing with different characters in each tournament. For the first time we’ve been seeing phenomenal play from Liu Kang, Jax, Sindel, Sektor, and Jade. More than half the cast is more than viable and more players are doing amazing experimentation with characters once thought ‘low tier’ (there are players now doing scary scary things using Sheeva of all characters). Now most of this is due to the constant patching. He claims it hurts more than it helps, but if thats the case than why are we seeing such huge variation among results? What we have is a very vocal minority who believe the patching hurts their playstyles, yet we’re seeing the opposite from the majority of players who are getting favorable results from trying new things and experimenting with new combinations. If anything, this game has yet to be fully explored to the 70% he claims. Now there’s no way to prove what percentage MK or MvC3 is at without approaching MIT professors, but I can see that Jchen’s view is no where near the actuality of it. Why does he state this then when results show he’s absolutely wrong? As with any under performing student he’s just not paying enough attention.
SRK: http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/26/neoempire-interviews-james-jchensor-chen/#comment-13018
NeoEmpire: http://www.neoempire.com/?p=9451
I'm curious to see everyone's response to this as well. I know its a lot to read and if you did read it all, Thank You for helping a writing tutor believe his field doesn't go to waste, haha. Still, I don't mean to bash on James as I do enjoy his commentary and the passion he has for the scene, but I don't like it when someone of his standing makes what I feel are untrue remarks about a game with a community that is just starting to grow. I think comments like this have the potential to hurt the growth of the community which is particularly painful when they are false. Please, if you have any comments on this I would love to read them and see where our community stands. Thank You.
-Rizz
EDIT: Also, here's a link to Jchen's response to a former article posted by IGN back in early May on the SRK forums.
http://shoryuken.com/forum/threads/james-chen-thinks-mk9-lacks-depth.133435/page-2
However, I won't go into detailing my thoughts on this article since he debunked himself in the most recent one, stating that he was proven wrong and that he was happy that was the case. Also, rather than being redirected to a SRK discussion, I feel our community deserves to share our own thoughts on our forum seeing as this is our game and dedication on the line.