I was so excited for season 3 up until a couple of weeks ago. Other than the announcement of Arbiter at the Halo champions, the way they have released details has been sub par imo. They said we will see where they better invested their time (and money), but we are still waiting to hear/see where this investment was put…as the devs implied it was more than just “better lightning”.
The investment will most likely not be worth having a 5 stage cut. I’m under the assumption that extra stages would ravage the budget and thus it was cut down to 3. With this in mind, what we will get will not equate to five stages budget wise.
You guys are under the impression that they have 8$ and 1$ for each stage, but they took 5$ out of that 8 $ and used it for something else. As a result, we only have 3 stages.
What if they only had 5$ and its 1$ per stage? they’d need 3$ more.
My assumption is that they used what budget they had to give the characters who deserve a stage and split the remaining funds across the board. What they give you wont be equal to 5 stages if you value stages that much…but who knows?
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Do you have any justification for being entitled to 8 stages per season?
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I think the lighting change seems like a good trade off. Changes the look of the game as a whole really. Would you prefer 5 new stages or 17 redefined stages? And every character is getting themes anyway so my reason for wanting more stages is gone. The stages we’re getting already looks good as it is.
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I know I may get flamed for this regardless but, If MS would have given this game the proper budget to begin with starting with season one, Then we wouldn’t have any of these problems at all.
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Yes. After having two seasons with one stage per character, I feel totally entitled to say we have “lost” 5 stages in season 3.
Wow. This thread.
On topic: I feel that they have something cooking already. Me personally? 5-6 stages is a pretty small price to pay for tusk IMO. But that a very personal story which I will not go into right now.
Plus the lighting makes up for the stages anyway IMO.
You don’t have any idea of the kind of money an MK style cinematic story mode costs. Nothing compared to 5 stages.
- You need Actors to mocap every scene
- You need voice Actors to voice every line of dialog
- You need to build new environments for the scene to take place in, or you have to modify existing stages to be viewed from angles they weren’t designed to be view from.
- You probably need to redo the facial rigging on characters to enable better facial expressions.
- You need to write the story, all the dialogs.
- You need to put everithing together.
Making games is not easy as a lot of people in this forums make it look like, and I’m sure I missed a lot of stuff in this list. So they probably had good reasons to go with 3 stages this time around (like the new lighting and the PC port and maybe some new game modes).
Remember guys that this is not a AAA game, no halo like budget here, and still is the only game that has almost a stage for each character. We need to be happy for what we got, cuz it’s awesome!
Great Job IG, keep it up
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I understand what you’re getting at at least to a degree. I reckon this could be the case (possibly) - they overran on the lighting budget or similar and couldn’t do what they wanted on new stages.
Moreover, for my actual two cents on the op:
I know I’m in the minority here, with @Jukesy1992, @blindgamer102 and other totally blind/VI gamers. However, on a personal level, I believe that the lighting change was completely unjustified and a waste of the budget that could’ve been used elsewhere. Pretty understandable that I’d think this, I’d say - I didn’t have a problem with the lighting before and the only reason I can take issue with it now is due to the frankly distinct possibility that this has left us in the state of affairs we find ourselves in now.
Admittedly, I am being rather hyperbolic, but I have been under the impression that this lighting change has cost a large amount of time and money, which does disappoint me to an extent. I’d rather have had the almost expected 8 stages+characters +possible bonus character that we all believed we’d be getting based on the previous seasons.
On the point about music and how it links to stages, I’m also very surprised that the devs haven’t clarified exactly how the selection of music will actually work in the new UI - it’s been annoying the living daylights out of me and others since they announced the lack of equivalent stages for most characters. Moreover, the fact that we haven’t heard Rash’s full theme and we have yet to see a new character and their trailer to check if they will be on an old stage with a new theme still makes me wonder how this’ll work for ranked games etc - who chooses the stage, is it going to be an overcomplicated mess of wrapping menus… you likely know the drill by now.
OK, I’ll stop rambling now, but I hope I’ve made my point - until we know what they’ve got up their sleves and how these issues that relate pretty strongly to accessibility will be solved via the UI, it’s a frustrating turn of events regardless of how many times developers tell us to “stay tuned”.
I’m hoping for a oiced stor mode personally. No, not necessarily cinematic like mk’s because that would cost a looot to put together, but instead of just sitting in silence while a text scene goes across the screen, have it voiced ala Blazblu.
I am trying to remember if Capcom or Netherrealm ever got away with this…I think a MVC2 game had more characters that stages, IDK about MVC3. But honestly I would not expect a SF game or an MK game with less stages than characters. I know this is a KI forum, and that is why KI gets a free pass sometimes, but we should think with a cool, unbiased head about this and not be like “well, at least…”.
The following is a rant about the status of the gaming industry, not just about KI.
/startrant
During my decades of gaming, I have seen a change in the perception of the consumer. Before, none of today’s crap (preorders, terrible releases, online only games, dlc, microtransactions) was accepted by the consumer. You would buy a game, and it was a vast, great experience. The single player campaign was extensive, the story engaging. After that you would go online and play with other people. And after that if you liked the game enough, you would by an expansion pack, with new weapons, missions, mechs, characters, I mean a lot of content. It was worth your time and money.
Now apparently is cool to take the developer’s perspective and justify all the shortcomings of a game. Phrases like “hey, it is expensive to develop a game”, or “they don’t have time/money” or my favorite: “well, at least (insert here whatever you are getting out of an unfinished game you think is worth your money)”.
//startrhetoricalquestions
Why is it politically correct now to justify developer shortcomings?. Why is it OK to accept hyped up crap, regardless of its state?. Why is it “too expensive to develop single player campaigns” and we just have to eat it because “reports show nobody plays single player”?. Why is it OK for studios to blow their budget on marketing (not IG of course), and then come up with a half assed KickAZZ game everyone will stop playing in about a month, but no one cares because developers are already working on KickAZZ 2 and we can’t wait to preorder it?. Why game longevity no longer matters?.
//endrhetoricalquestions
/endrant
In the end, we are all consumers and we need to be wise about spending our money. It just seems we are becoming less and less wise with it. Developers notice and see what else they can get away with. It is up to us to decide what is good or bad, it just seems that as time goes by we are more willing to accept less for more.
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SF and MK games almost always have less stages than charactes, in most cases substantially so, and stages are usually not connected to the characters either.
Only in the older games as far as I can remember, like SF2, did everyone have their own stage.
That sums up how I feel pretty well, while I can only hold myself responsible for my choices as a consumer, I feel bad complaining about first world problems. Of course thats just how I personally feel about it.
The fact that we as consumers have a choice in purchasing any kind of content really just justifies whatever game DEVS feel like pushing out. They can always use the argument of “well, then dont buy it”. Just as the casinos in Las Vegas have an advantage over gambling so to does any whole seller or distributor. Are games getting worse or am I just jaded and unimpressed, I cant answer that honestly really.
whats is disgusting and arguable is that fact that IG has the nerve to reach into our wallets and demand we as consumers allocate 10-20 dollars extra out of our pockets for SE3. Effectively holding that money hostage that could be put to better use for people with economic hardships.
having said that tho, what I stated above applies here.
Having poor DLC and pre-orders is one thing, but telling people to save 20 bucks just in case is a new low really.
Even tho gamers are looked upon as cash cows with disposable income I cant help but feel this might a little to far.
whats even worse, they are using silence as a defense for everything Im suspicious of. At the very least can we get a confirmed date of price announcement? Nope…As to the topic of this thread tho, everyone is correct. weather or not people view it as a cut or an addition to. Ex: Is christmas still christmas if I dont buy any presents? People expect presents, but technically the essence of the holiday is still intact. Flip Side EX: I didnt go big on christmas but I provided one heck of a birthday party with gifts beyond expectations and thats what is really at the heart here. People’s expectations.
lets not asked for too much… microsoft might close it down 
Man how many times are you guys gonna post about this did you ever think that the last 4 will share a stage and there’s a reason for that like
Gargos - Shares Kan-Ra’s stage because he was pulled through the the portal to earth.
Eagle - he may be rescued by Thunder and he fights on his stage after being rescued
Vampire - fights on Wulfs stage because he may have tried to find a cure for himself using data Wulf collected.
I’m not sure about the fourth
Jago? Why jago. I understand the others but jago retro looks fine. Especially the colors
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Its also possible that who ever the season 3 sibling is, wil share the stage with that season 2 character,
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Probably new features
should be announced shortly in the coming weeks.
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So… is it safe in here? (looks back and forth feverishly)