Nobus3r1

Perhaps I should have separated my statements. The evidence states that neither Evo nor ASW care about a level playing field due to deciding to include a game that will have been out in most of the world for a month and giving their native population a massive head start respectively. Full stop. I was then implying based on this that I would, contrary to many here who're saying that SIGN and REVELATOR are similar enough that a massive head start in playing the latter isn't that consequential, be very surprised if turned out to be the case as I was expecting comparable or worse results than non-Japanese players experienced with SIGN last year.

I don't get what's not to get. ASW probably kicked some money to both Evo and the prize pot and clearly neither they nor Evo give a fuck if the playing field is level. I'll be amazed if there's more than one non-Japanese player in Xrd top 8.

I'm sorry...I don't know how to say this so I guess I'll just come out and say it. Revelator came out in Japan in August 2015. That's the release date that matters. Ooh, the console version may (emphasis on 'may') come out at the same time for both Japan and American (sorry Europe) but that's not going to make a bit of difference when the most relevant player population will have already had the game for nine months. America has already been left in the dust. I agree about the elephant in the room but disagree on the 'zero chance' part. Remember this is the Evo staff we're talking about. Mortal Kombat X was announced as a main stage game despite not even having been released when said announcement was made. Similarly Tekken 7 got, for some reason, a main stage slot as well despite not even having a console release (that is to say being essentially unplayable outside of Asia). If ASW wants Revelator to be the version of Guilty Gear at Evo and especially if they kick in anything resembling the pot bonus that they did last year then I'm pretty sure that Revelator is going to be the version of GGXrd at Evo.

The last console release only had the Western release a week after the Japanese one but I guess June or July might happen in which case I suppose I'd be up for another year of Xrd -SIGN- at Evo.

play-asia.com has Q2 2016 (i.e. some time after March) listed for both the Japanese and North American versions which makes me think that Amazon is at least in the ball park even if May 31st isn't the exact date. This is kind of disappointing because and here I'm paraphrasing something I posted on SRK: If SFV releases with netcode and matchmaking similar in scope and quality to what was experienced during the third beta test period then Arc Systems Works should send Capcom a 'Thank You' check for putting Xrd over. It really does seem like they're just that scared of going anything resembling head-to-head with SFV release wise.

*sigh* Amazon.com has the Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator release date as May 31, 2016; i.e. less than two months before Evo. *sigh*

On the one hand I'm not super surprised because new and shiny usually equals popular. On the other hand she plays kind of weird and from having watched matches I'm not sure that people are all that close to figuring out how she should be played yet. I guess "new and shiny" is winning out. Also unless there's really something I'm missing it feels like not enough people are using the kamikaze minions. My example called for a current UFC champion who had at least one weight class on me (not that Daniel Cormier couldn't also kick my ass). Plus Werdum seems like a pretty cool guy so he'd probably just try to finish someone who's obviously overmatched ASAP as opposed to drawing out the fight to prove a point.

1) Decent ports (i.e. not Ubisoft, Capcom, NRS, etc.) happen all of the time and in a hell of a lot less time than we're talking about here. 2) Given how little has been changed it shouldn't take that much time. 3) I'm pretty sure that's not how these things go. Usually there are separate teams working on separate projects. 4) See #3 5) You're correct that it's not going to kill people to wait but given the fact that they're going to be competing with SFV not having a solid release date might kill the scene. 6) I'm glad you don't mind getting jerked around by a publisher. Some of us do. 7) Wanting something and actually getting it are two different things. I'm pretty good at martial arts but if you told me I had to fight Fabricio Werdum I might not want to get beaten up but I'm pretty sure that it's going happen regardless of my wishes. The Japanese players have an incredible head start on this game and an ambiguous release date isn't helping close that gap.

Firstly, the bolded part makes no sense in the context of what we're talking about, which is the gap between the arcade release and the console release, something that the actual development time of the game has no real bearing on (i.e. I don't care how much of a gap there was betwen AC+R and Xrd). The part that I italicized is the only thing that should really have an effect on how long it takes to localize. Which kind of undermines the 'groundwork is done' so Revelator will be released sooner as unless the game drops on literally the first day of spring (March 20, 2016) then the gap between the arcade and console release is going to skew towards the longer gap between arcade and console versions that I, for one, am already expecting (my expectation is an April or May release date followed by the Japanese bodying fools at Evo). Also the underlined part doesn't really make sense either. We have a season, not a date so there is merely a range to speculate on with regards to where the release will fall with the hope that it doesn't turn into Summer 2016 and we end up with either Sign at Evo again or Xrd getting dropped from the lineup.

I actually just looked at the release dates for the entirety of the series and assuming I can count, the gap between the arcade release and the console release for Xrd was the second longest that any Guilty Gear game has ever had. That, combined with the fact that we don't actually have a release date for Revelator makes it very difficult for me to believe that they're giving serious consideration to changing how they do things. I mean I and I assume pretty much everyone but the Japanese players who treat non-Japanese events like the free money they are would likely appreciate a change in release practices but I don't really see that happening.

Fixed that for you. At this point digital distribution IMO completely undermines almost every argument against why a game cannot be simultaneously distributed worldwide. Hell, for most people to be satisfied with a release all that would really need to happen would be to localize the menus and maybe if it's really super important add subtitles to cut-scenes and/or story mode. It really feels like ASW is scared of changing how they do things and, I guess, that's fine for them but they also shouldn't be surprised when the results at tournaments skew so heavily in favor of the audience that they favor.

At this point I have no idea why localization a) takes so long AND b) if it legitimately takes so long why it isn't started earlier in the development process. I would say that the post below, in hoping for a release difference of no more than two months, is being overly pessimistic. Umm that might be a problem, as if the US release is two months after the Japanese release then depending on when in 'Spring' said Japanese release occurs we might be looking at a second year of Xrd -SIGN- at Evo.

You are very much correct about because X is one way Y should be that way too being a highly flawed argument. That said having used both PSN (PS3) and XBL I would, at this point, be willing to pay for PSN (when I actually need to; currently own Sign for PS3 but will be buying Revelator for PS4) if it means that the online play isn't crap. Hell, I'd pay extra if Sony figures out a way to set the consoles of those who attempt to play fighting games over a wireless connection on fire.

Very much agree on the first part. People get very (see also: way too) invested in this sort of thing and, if I'm reading articles about how this is going to be decided correctly, the people voting have a chance to have a significantly higher financial "investment" in their character voting than those involved in the Skullgirls voting did. Also as you mention that since practically every character has a longtime loyal fanbase it wouldn't be a surprise if the voting is quit close. Lastly due to the sheer number of candidates it's going to be virtually impossible for any character to achieve an actual majority. IMO a smarter (see also: less likely to incite nerd rage and/or result in death threats to the developers) way to do this would have been to make the voting less consequential by say making the top 3 (or 5 or whatever) candidates receive consideration for being added to the game rather than a guaranteed ticket to entry. ASW would still get their market research while being more likely to avoid the nasty fallout that pissing off passionate fan bases usually results in. Also agree on the second part. Jack-O represents a very interesting approach to character design that I look forward to seeing more of in action. I do however get this sinking feeling that she will be a very difficult character to balance.

Have a couple of issues here. First is that there's (at least) two big differences between how a fighting game evolved in the early nineties and how a fighting game evolves now. In the broadest sense the internet accelerates the rate at which information (kind of like what we're doing now) about a game is disseminated and more specifically the degree to which Youtube has allowed tech to evolve. This drastically changes how quickly a game is, while not perfected, taken to a very high level. The sort of information that it took SF players in the early nineties years to figure out can now be derived in months if not weeks (even less for some games). The second issue I guess is one of content delivery and value. If there aren't any real significant system or balance changes and the only major changes to the game overall are a few new characters then why am I being asked pay $40 for it? Additionally on this subject ASW, as perhaps the last real holdout on this issue, really needs to get more on board with digital distribution.

We are on the same page. Hell, the example you gave, to me, doesn't even warrant communication between the moderator to the offending user. It just requires the moderator to make it clear in the edit function of the post who edited it (them) and why (image size). My issue was that I've seen "beyond that" too often aired publicly. I've also seen some fairly egregious IMO editing behavior by moderators. In the latter case what I'm thinking of was a user bitching about a character, followed by a mod warning said user to knock this sort of behavior off and then without, as far as I know, issuing an infraction going back later and editing the users post in a way that dramatically changed the wording and intent (i.e. putting words in someone elses mouth). As far as I'm concerned a mod that does that shouldn't be a mod the next day. Either the post is offensive enough to warrant an infraction or it isn't. If it is then issue the infraction and consider deleting the post. If it it's close but not infraction worthy communicate this to the user via PM. A moderator should not take it on themselves to be someones personal, unsolicited editor. Yeah I am definitely not in favor of a Reddit-styled board either. I will say I think that one way in which I think Dustloop could condense is by binning the Matchup subforums. SRK manages just fine with SFIV having a "Matchup" thread for each character (keeping in mind just how many more characters there are in USFIV then say GGXrd). I, in general, find that format more conducive towards discussing and sharing strategies. The fact that, as best as I can tell, the Xrd matchup threads average barely 5 responses per thread (lol Zato matchup forum with 4 threads and 19 replies) says to me that the space isn't being utilized well. The general trend seems to be that only characters that are really popular and/or kinda shit have even marginally active matchup sub-forums. There are only, for Xrd, only four characters who, if their respective matchup sub-forums where condensed into a single thread, would yield a thread longer than this one (Bedman,Slayer, Sol and Venom). That seems pretty manageable to me.

Doesn't seem like it's being properly utilized then. I can agree to disagree on the publicly calling someone out without infracting them though that said I've never seen such public warnings being what I would consider polite OR (and this IMO is the bigger issue) sufficiently targeted. They've been more like a blanket "You kids get off my lawn" sort of warning where, if any infraction does get handed out, it seems like the person most likely to suffer mod wrath is not the most egregious offender but rather the most recent. That is, quit simply, shitty moderation.

Perhaps bans shouldn't be so rare? I will also say that whether it was IRL or online that I've never witnessed a positive outcome for 'act like children' -> 'get treated like children'. All it does is pour more gasoline on the fire. Do I remember when Kokonoe was revealed? Nope. I peaced out on BlazBlue around BB:CSII and since there wasn't anything going on with P4A or GG at the time (at least that I can remember) I had no reason to be visiting this site. As a brief aside I know that TYM gets a lot of shit (largely deserved) but the, from what I've gathered, Kokonoe reveal is what the developer of their chosen game subjects their community to ever couple of weeks in the form of DLC characters and/or balance patches. I imagine if something along the lines of Kokonoe where being dropped on Dustloop twice a month that there wouldn't be as much of a difference between TYM and Dustloop as many seem to think there is. Disclaimer: I do no post on TYM, I am not registered on TYM, I mearly observe them from behind a duck blind for comparison purposes. *ahem* Anyway I think that some amount of venting is perfectly fine as let's not forget the amount of work that some people put into these games and how frustrating it is when that works goes up in smoke for reasons outside your control. I don't know how things are here now but something like warning, warning, temporary ban, permanent ban seems like a fine escalation to me. All handled via PMs with any public whining about infractions escalating to the next level; i.e. a user gets warned and bitches in the Xrd news thread about it and now they get their second warning. Could Should also have some sort of expiration on warnings such that prolonged periods of inactivity or good behavior remove warnings. The flip side of a much more agressive ban system is that there would need to be much greater discretion in what does and does not deserve moderation.

If you had asked my impression of this site when I first registered in *checks profile* 2009 I think that my edited version of your post would have more or less summed up my thoughts and it's definitely a large reason of why, among forums that I've actually bothered to register on, that this one is perhaps, relative to time registered, the one I've been least active on. I would also say that in the six years since that that first impression hasn't really changed much. Hell, the only reason I'm poking around these days is because there's a new version of Xrd being discussed. If you're in favor of heavy moderation then I'm genuinely curious what you think the moderation level is right now. You know what stops "users who threaten to disrupt the goal of the forum"? An infraction policy that actually has some teeth. I have no idea how many users have been banned here or how many infractions get handed out. All I know is that when I see a mod going "Don't make me infract you" it makes me think that the mod thinks that the user is ~5 years old and that the mod isn't mature enough to mod. It does not make me think that said mod is stopping users from disrupting the goals (whatever those may be) of this forum. In general I think that any steps that moderation here takes to make them less like The Escapist, a site that I've stopped posting on due to its insanely rigid moderation policies, the better. If the goal is to change the perception of this community and be more welcoming towards new players then moderating with an iron fist and treating users like little children is not the way to do so.

Sort of this. I feel that overall sites benefit from having a small, well identified, unified moderating team over having a ton of people with varying degrees of authority and responsibility. IMO you don't want a situation where someone sees a problem and corrects it only to get underminded by someone with more authority (because why have the lesser authority person at that point) nor do you want someone to see a problem but be unable to correct it because they don't have the authority to act in whatever sub-forum said problem occured because now you've wasted two peoples time to correct the issue. Since the day I registed it has always amazed me at how many superfluous moderators this site has. Even a very badly over-moderated site like The Escapist doesn't have as many mods as Dustloop does. Hell, for example, Bodybuilding.com, a site whose "Misc." sub-forum alone has ~380 times the thread volume as all of Dustloop and whose registered member total is slightly over 11,000,000 users, manages to not burn to the ground with, as best as I can tell, a moderatoring team only slightly larger than the one found here. And while I realize that some (many?) of BB.coms moderators are likely compensated for their efforts the fact that that site hasn't burst into flames should indicate that this site is severly overstaffed. Having the right people will do more good than having more people.

Alright. I (kind of) enjoy a challenge. To me the biggest issue is that when there isn't a new game about to come out, a new version of an existing game about to drop or a loketest going on then this place (as in pretty much the entire forum) is dead. Since I've already had my simplest solution to that (though not, obviously, a total solution) shot down repeatedly (an Off-Topic/General Discussion forum) the answer is simply more content. Looking at other forums dedicated to non-Capcom games it's pretty clear to me that, for example, TestYourMight and FreeStepDodge are more active and robust communities despite having (by my best calculation) 2,000 fewer registered users and 26,000 fewer registered users respectively (no idea on number of "active" members but a cursory glance to post numbers would suggest that both TYM and FSD are more active overall than Dustloop). While I might find some of their UI choices unfortunate there's no denying that both of the aforementioned sites have given their users reasons to come back even during lulls in the development and release cycle. There is a ton of front page content and even if ~50% of it tournament results that's still something to talk about. Looking at the header on Dustloop I see three categories that need to fuck off entirely or find somewhere more relevant on the site to reside as IMO "Submit a tip!", "Awards" and "Rules" should disappear, disappear and relocate somewhere else respectively. "Calender" needs to change into something like "Events" and "TV" should change to "Streams" provided of course that there are actually any streams. Hell, stealing the "Live Streams" feature from Eventhubs but having it only for games featured on this site wouldn't be the worst idea.

Conversely Japan had a nine month edge with P4A:U and took 13 or 14 (I don't recognize every player) of the top 16 and all of the top 8 at Evo 2015. I would also consider dropping the "early on" part with regards to time with the game making a big difference. When I've looked at tournament results over multiple versions of a game relative to release dates it (and I'm very aware of how crude this sort of metric is as there aren't many games OR tournaments to go off of) but it would seem that the experience edge compounds over time rather than diminishes.

There are still many issues with this. Namely that the Japanese players aren't static. They're continuing to improve as well and given that they're starting from a position of advantage any handicap to those in the disadvantaged position is going to have a significant impact on the head to head results. It would be like going into a fight with prime Mike Tyson and letting him get five free hits on you. Also, I happen to agree with Nage about matchup experience being the biggest difference between Japanese and American players and that is something that a release differential most impacts. Lastly, there's a good chance that the rest of the world is going to have substantially less than 6 months to learn the new version. It wouldn't surprise me if Guilty Gear Xrd -Revelator- is at Evo next year if there where fewer non-Japanese players in top 16 than there where this year. I think your ideas about distribution are interesting even if the company that implemented them would get crucified for trying to nickel and dime its customers (even if that's what arcades also essentially are doing). I also wouldn't imagine that Japanese players care about the non-Japanese community viewing their results as having asterisks attached to them as they [the Japanese players] likely simply view said non-Japanese community as one big piggy bank. I play Guilty Gear because I have fun playing it. If I was good enough at fighting games to actually win money playing fighting games I wouldn't play Guilty Gear (or really any non-Capcom, non-NRS game) simply because it wouldn't be worth the effort trying to overcome the publisher/developer enabled hurdles.

One would hope it would be smaller but I wouldn't count on it. Hell, even if the delay between arcade and console release where shorter it would have to be a basically unheard of turnaround time for Revelator to get released outside of Japan this year. Like let's say Revelator gets an arcade release in September. At this point a delay between arcade and console similar to what Sign saw (arcade: February 2014; console: December 2014; i.e. 10 months) would be really problematic as that would mean a console release between June and August 2015 (i.e. the fuck over getting the game at Evo release schedule). Even slightly less than that (i.e. an April or May console release) would, IMO, be problematic from a competative point of view even if such a release at least wouldn't fuck the game out of being considered for tournaments. The issue isn't between the console releases of the game as in Xrds case there was less than two weeks between the Japanese and North American releases but rather the difference between the arcade and console versions for which there was a ten month gap. That is an enormous and nearly insurmountable competitive advantage. America has many advantages over other parts of the world. Creating conditions that are conducive towards e-sports success is not one of those advantages. People are too far apart and the countries internet infrastructure is a joke (I realize that the USA has it good compared to many places but compared to Japan not so much). For example the people being too far apart is, IMO, largely the reason that this year saw more international players placing at Evo in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2x Japan, 2x Mexico, 1x Chile) than placed in every preceding top 8 for UMvC3, MvC3 and MvC2 combined (13 total top 8s with 1x Peru and 1x Mexico) as for a game on the downswing, community becomes more important especially since that game is essentially unplayable online.

If there's a similar gap between the arcade and console releases of Revelator like there was for Sign then no, we're not coming for anyone.