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On July 31 (this weekend), Arcade UFO in Austin, TX will be hosting Tougeki qualifiers for the BlazBlue: Continuum Shift 2v2 team tournament! The winning team will be selected to represent the U.S. at the upcoming Super Battle Opera tournament this September in Japan.

Arcade UFO will also hold tournament/exhibitions for Melty Blood Actress Again: Current Code as well as other games, and a live stream will be provided by Team Spooky if you're unable to physically make it to Arcade UFO yet still want to catch the action.

The stream will start at 3 PM EST/12 PM PST, and the SBO Qualifiers will start at 6 PM EST/3 PM PST, and will be shown in the link below.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/teamspooky

Or if you're around the Austin area, come out and support the scene by heading down to Arcade UFO in the address below.

Arcade UFO
3101 Speedway
Austin, TX 78705
http://www.arcadeufo.com/map.html

If you're interested in participating, here's a link to the thread.

http://www.dustloop.com/forums/showthread.php?8694-Blazblue-U.S.-SBO-Qualifier-Arcade-UFO-Austin-TX-Sat.-July-31-2010

If you want the nitty gritty and just want to see who's participating so you'll know what kind of matches to expect, here's a partial list:

CopperDabbit (Arakune) / Goryus (Lambda) [NorCal]
Zong_1 (Carl) / Spark (Hakumen) [soCal + NorthWest]
Render (Jin) / DacidBro (Bang) [soCal]
Hsien (Ragna) / Jan (Tager) [Texas]

And many more!

Don't forget to thank fubarduck for hosting the qualifiers and Sp00ky for providing the stream!
Guest
This is an article about how I discovered high-level fighting games and high-level fighting game players to be an amazing and integral part of the past five years of my life. To give you guys a small amount of back-story, I started my fighting game adventure much the same as any other teenager in the United States. I lived in a little town in south-west Ohio and I was an avid BMX rider. My friends and I would wake up every summer morning, hop on our bikes and ride around doing whatever crazy tricks we could do with the mundane architecture around sub-urban Ohio. We continued doing this throughout every summer (we had been friends since grade-school) and would always sustain a few injuries due to in-experience, but nothing major. It was amazing having a group of friends with a similar interest helping each other further our skills and understanding of our sport. We also didn’t realize it at the time, but we helped each other mature and gradually grow into smart, understanding, athletically built men.

Eventually, as we were hitting our late teens, we started becoming interested in other things. With the help of my knee exploding and having to go through a year of physical therapy, I started getting more and more serious about practicing my Kilik combos in Soul Calibur 2. As my interest was growing and my skills stayed the same, I started looking around the internet for more information. Inevitably I stumbled across soulcalibur.com which was the main place for information for the Soul Calibur series and community. I was overwhelmed. Needless to say, the amount of initial learning was a tad bit daunting due to the myriad of notations, forum rules and regulations that I had to learn. I was a scrub, I talked trash and nobody took any of the information I posted to heart. I quickly learned my place when I competed in my first tournament. Obviously, I was humbled. I felt like I sucked and shouldn’t ever play games again, but then, the people who were playing in the tournament asked me if I wanted to go back to the hotel room and play casuals. Of course I wanted to, so I followed them and proceeded to have my ass handed to me for a few hours. They were very helpful and understanding though, they showed me where I was doing things wrong and how to fix it. I left that hotel feeling way better than I did after I played in that tournament. Then and there was when I realized that I had found another group of people that shared a common interest and helped each other to better their understanding and skill with the game. I felt like I had found something worth-while.

With the eventual death of Soul Calibur with the release of SC3, I started looking for other games to play. I played Smash Brothers Melee, tried to play 3rd Strike casually and generally just played Soul Calibur 2 with a tight-nit group of friends here in Cincinnati. Then, on that fateful Friday night, I was at my favorite game store at the time. The store was called Game Junkie and allowed the kids around town to come in on Friday nights, pay ten dollars, get a free Bawls and play games until the wee hours of the morning. There were always people playing really obscure games from Katamari, Naruto, SSBM to Guitar Hero. This Friday, though, there was a 2d fighting game on the big screen that seemed so interesting, when I first looked at it I could not look away. I was enamored with the art style, the music and how I thought the system worked. I called next and asked what the game was called and they replied “Guilty Gear XX: #Reload.” I had heard about the series before but never really got interested enough to research what it was and I had always heard that, “Guilty Gear is nuts. You have to be crazy to be good at it.” I took that as a challenge and played that game with those guys all night long. The character I picked first was not Slayer. It was quite the opposite, actually. I picked the cute little blonde girl wearing the nun outfit and used a yo-yo and a teddy bear for a weapon. What went through my mind is this: “Wait… I can put this on the screen and either call it back to hit someone, or TURN IT INTO A FUCKING BEAR?!” Instantly I realized the amount of options and movements were possible in the game and obviously this was the most complex piece of amazing metal blaring art I had ever have the pleasure of controlling.

I went through the same process as I did with Soul Calibur and Smash Brothers. I scoured the internet for a place where people posted relevant information, obviously, that led me here. At that time, Slash was on it’s way in and I had to import a copy, rape my playstation and get learning. I learned my BnB’s (THANKS JAIS!!!), tried to understand how the system worked and started my long, arduous journey into the world of Guilty Gear. The sad thing was, no one wanted to get serious about the game in my town. They all had the same argument which was, “It’s too complex to learn and take seriously. I’m too lazy to put the effort in.” So there I was. Sitting in my basement, doing Bridget combos and FRC’s and having little to no success at improving my game due to lack of competition that knew what was going on.

Then Game Junkie decided to put on a Guilty Gear tournament along with a few other games. This was the day, much like my first Soul Calibur tournament, that I was put into my place and humbled. The humbling of Yo-Yo Holla (my old username here) was dealt to me initially by two players, doragonkoroshi and SH_. During casuals, they mopped the floor with my shitty Bridget and the ass whipping just made me more and more hungry to learn what I should be doing and why. Eventually after learning Bridget’s combos pretty well and getting a little bored of not doing a lot of damage for the amount of work I had to put in (Again. Jais is a MAN) I started looking for another character to learn. Sol was the first character I tried besides Bridget and I learned a few sidewinder combos, learned how to VV like a scrub and maybe do a command throw. Needless to say, Sol wasn’t working for me. I then moved the cursor over a well dressed, bearded man who was very tall and very stylish. Instantly I fell in love with this character model and delved into learning him as a side character. This is where the story of Yo-Yo Holla ends and the journey of MacArthur Blunts begins.
Guest
Hello everyone with our upgrade to vBulletin4, one of the perks is we now have a front page. The staff has been writing articles well before our upgrade so we'll be bringing them out as they are edited and made readable.

If you want to write an article, please post your submissions in the article subforum and we will go over it with a fine-tooth comb.
Guest
Burst is easily one of the more characteristic features of Guilty Gear (and games inspired by it). At first glance, it's a renewable, separate meter bar that gives you an occasional “Get out of combo free card” that you can use approximately once a round. If you use it when you're not getting hit, you can even fill your meter with it! This is how most inexperienced players see it, and it makes sense, from a design standpoint, why that may be a useful thing. Unfortunately for inexperienced players (And fortunately for the metagame), it's not that simple.

If you don't care about higher-level mind games in Guilty Gear and want to stop reading here, just take this advice: Never burst against anyone good. You'll probably win more than if you burst like a scrub.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
The True Face of Burst:
Still reading? Okay, here's the ugly truth about burst: It's just an attack. It animates like an attack. It has startup and active and recovery frames like an attack. To get technical, it's actually two attacks, but blue burst is more interesting, we'll talk about gold burst later. The cool thing about blue burst, of course, is that it's the only attack you can do during hitstun. It also has some invulnerability because, well, it would kind of suck if it didn't. In fact, as it turns out, it has invulnerability all the way up to and through the active frames. However, there are some problems with burst: It's not throw-invincible, it's kind of slow, it's blockable, and it's got a lot of recovery. Therefore, just like dragon punches and throws and just about any other attack in the game, it can be baited, and it can be punished.

Ancient Kung-Fu Secrets: How to see a burst
Just like anything else, to beat a burst, you have to know it's happening. The startup are generally very subtle animations, so they are visually hard to confirm, even though they have 19 frames of startup. Sometimes, you can do this with a lucky guess, but I can't teach you how to be psychic. What I can teach you how to do is know what to look out for. There are three good indicators that a burst is happening:


Momentum stops. One of the weird properties of burst is that the character completely stops their momentum and stays in one place to do it. In a game like Guilty Gear, where momentum is usually preserved, this can be very weird and obvious.
Invulnerability is immediate. Even if you don't see the burst happening, you might notice that your attack went through the other character mid-combo. If you see this happen, though, it might be too late to do anything.
The Burst meter disappears. This is the best indicator of a burst. It is the FIRST thing to happen when the other player presses burst, and it's obviously very visually distinct. If you watch the burst meter, you can visually confirm a burst when the meter disappears.
OH GOD WHAT DO I DO NOW?:
Now that you've seen/predicted the burst, you probably want to do something about it. Since a burst is just an attack, there are obviously some things you can do to avoid them:


BLOCK. If you can get to neutral by the time a burst hits, you can block it (Preferably instant-block). Generally you will be neutral if:

You were doing a short move/not doing a move when the burst happened.
You can cancel whatever you were doing, with a jump, an FRC, whatever

[*]DODGE. If you're not where the burst is going to hit you, when it's going to hit you, you're obviously not going to get hit. To do this, you can generally:

Actually be/move out of the way.
Do something invincible through it.

[*]BEAT IT CLEAN. Bursts are strike-invincible all the way up through the active frames. You will never stuff a burst, and you will never trade with a burst. It just doesn't happen. If you want to beat a burst, be neutral and airthrow it. Bursts are always considered airborne, and they're never throw-invincible.

Note about gold bursts: Gold bursts are strike-invuln all the way through. Most gold-burst punishes are airthrows (Although you have 3 frames to ground throw after they land, too). That's pretty much all you can do about a gold burst.

How to avoid sucking: When not to burst
There are a ton of ways to bait a burst. Listing every single one for every single character? Probably would take a zillion years. Instead I'm going to clue you in on some general places to NOT burst:


Fast moves. If there's a jab in their combo, it will bait your burst pretty well. Most jabs, for example, can start up, be active, and recover in less than 19 frames. That means by the time your burst hits, they're neutral, and you're going to get hurt.
Movement in combos. Almost every kind of movement can be canceled. If there's a run or a jump or an airdash in their combo, it's probably a bad place to burst. Also note: If it's an air combo and they're at any point going downward, there's a good chance they'll fall through your burst if you do it. That's obviously bad, even if you're near the ground.
Cancel points. If you know their move has an FRC in it, or can somehow otherwise cancel to some neutral state (Like jumping), or even a special (If they have something invincible to use), you probably shouldn't burst it.
Don't drop the soap!: Burst baiting as a reset
Getting burst baited, as anyone it's happened to can attest, can hurt like a bitch. You take a ridiculous amount of damage for it, sometimes. This is because the combo ends, the damage scaling resets, and you're in a brand new combo, from, if the other player knows how damage scaling works, what is probably an anti-air move with little or no proration. While this isn't a hard and fast rule, it's probably a bad idea to burst if the combo isn't going to do much damage (Because it's from a throw or something else that prorates like crazy). It can be the difference between a little chunk of health and your whole lifebar being gone.

Advanced Voodoo Magic: OS Burst
Some people try to bait bursts by delaying attacks in their combos. It's almost always a bad idea, but people do it. I certainly did, at one point. In fact, the first time I played Kyle Wattula, he yelled at me for it and then neutral-teched and beat me to death with a dolphin loop. Anyway, whether it's intentional or not, there will be occasions when you're unsure if you can tech, but want to burst if you can't. Like most situations where you have multiple options and don't know what's going to happen, this can sometimes be solved by an option-select. In this case, tapping a button (Not dust) and then quickly hitting Dust will option-select between teching and bursting. If you could have teched, you will tech from the first button-press. If not, you'll burst, because the input window for burst doesn't require you to hit the buttons simultaneously. The best part is, if you get the tech, the burst won't come out, because tech has recovery frames and you can't gold burst during them. This timing isn't hard, but you may want to practice it a little if you plan to use it, just to make sure you have it down.

Was that a DP?: Gold burst OS
Also notable is the throw/Gold burst option select, done by hitting 4 (or 6)+HS+D, with the D similarly slightly delayed. If done right, you will either successfully throw, or gold burst. You'll mostly use this for situations where you are unlikely to miss the throw unless the opponent does something throw-invulnerable through it.
shtkn

Page Management

By shtkn, in Pages,

The page management module interface has many powerful tools built in, designed to help you work with pages and folders in IP.Content efficiently.

Firstly, the folder navigation utilizes AJAX to load the folder contents inline without requiring you to visit a new page to view the contents of the folder.

We have also updated some common management features to utilize AJAX to help facilitate management of your pages. Actions like clearing folders and deleting folders, for instance, will now occur without page refreshes, making your managerial activities flow smoother and quicker.

Additionally, the interface as a whole has been updated to provide a nicer, smoother feel for the page management areas. In practice, we found that many administrators spend the majority of their time setting up and utilizing IP.Content in the page management areas, so we wanted to update the user interface to make this experience as easy and enjoyable as possible. Minor details like confirmation dialogs have been updated to bring everything together for a more consistent feel.

A new filter bar, utilizing AJAX to retrieve the results without the need for a page refresh, has also been added to the page management area. You can begin typing in the name of a page and a live-search action will occur in the background, showing you the results of your search as you type. If you have many pages and many folders (and many pages within those many folders), you will find that using the filter bar to locate your pages can dramatically speed up your navigation of IP.Content within the page management areas of the ACP.

Overall, we've modernized the IP.Content page management area of the ACP, polishing up the little details, in an effort to make your experience all the more pleasant.


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      Probably late to the party, but: Wagner mechanic notes: 22+X__________ 22+A will enhance your sword, granting a small damage buff to 66+B/C, 236+A/B (ground or air) and its follow-up. The important note here is that you also gain the ability to attack (cannot block, Assault, or Shield) immediately after doing an enhanced 236+A/B (ground or air) follow-up, where the normal version prevents you from doing anything until you land; this will open up new combo opportunities. 22+B enhances your shield which will give 214+A/B and B+C start-up super armor, which can take multiple hits but will lose to attacks still active during their own active/later frames (when super armor is lost). 214+A/B also gains projectile invulnerability (note: B+C by default nullifies projectiles, you can even Special/EX cancel after nullifying a projectile!) and 214+B is even made safe on block. 22+C will enhance both your sword and shield at the same time and even has an added hitbox (note: NOT invulnerable) and also has an interesting quirk; if you already have either your sword or shield enhanced before activating you will get both buffed, but if both are already enhanced before doing this move you will actually LOSE both and waste meter for nothing. Also the buff from 22+X has no time based duration, the only way to lose it is to either use the enhanced special associated with it (A = ground or air 236+A/B > X. B = B+C or 214+A/B) or if you get hit. Another interesting note, if you have both buffs on at the same time, when you are hit, you will only lose 1, with the 2nd buff going first, UNLESS you gained both buffs from 22+C, then you will always lose shield buff first (note: you can circumvent this by reapplying the A buff after the C buff, but really, if you have time to do that . . .)
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