Hey, how about add that one 3d sky stage from the first game with arena knockoffs to make up for the missing stages. That’s as classic KI as you can get. And come on, it’s just a big square with with a cloudy jpeg. Couldn’t be that hard to make!
Maximilians post on neogaf (link below) leads me to believe season 3 is gonna have a better story mode and the trade off was less stages. I always wanted a better story mode but not at this price 
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=195960593&postcount=31
Do you remember when James G. said in a live stream that Shadow Jago is the only character in the game with an Ultimate, and the initial reaction was “Oh he said in the game. Season 3 isn’t in the game yet so there’s hope.” Well, my job is to make sure those points come across super clear. So while it sounds terse, it’s only to make sure there is no ambiguity.
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Well now. It’s great to see so much passion around KI and what we’re gearing up to in S3. Most of you have been nice and rational about the news, some not so much. Thanks for (mostly) being positive.
Let me reiterate a few things.
As @rukizzel said, there are three new stages being added in S3. You’ve seen one at least so far.
As he also said, every character in S3 still has full dynamic music, and there’s obviously more than 3 characters. We’ll be talking more about what that means soon.
So why we didn’t do as many stages: First, we’ll have 20 stages already, which is a lot, especially considering they’re all interactive in various ways. Second, we wanted to make some other parts of the game bigger and put more effort into some new things coming this season.
We’re not at a point to discuss these yet though - we’re saving some good stuff for just a bit longer.
It’s always hard to know when to share news and updates, especially when something can be taken as a negative, but we felt we wanted to get this one thing out now, as everything from here forwards can all be positive. Hopefully once you see everything we’ve got planned you’ll agree the trade was worthy.
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Oh totally. I had a guy on twitter argue with me that he needs more confirmation of only 3 stages. I was like “dude it’s in an article and the community manager has confirmed it like 10 times in the thread. What else do you need?”
I totally get it.
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Lets add more unhealthy speculation. Three NEW stages? Does that mean the remaining stages are from classic KI so technically not new? 
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I hope so too. We are your loyal customers, and while we may not always be right our preferences are our preferences. Orchid’s music on Devil’s Landing is thematically a mess.
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What I am saying is that we didn’t pull anything to sell you later. Nothing is held back. Locked away, or just sitting.
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I hope people will see that though…
My poor phone is exploding with 2 Friends Ranting right now… 
I’m very optimistic. I believe in you guys! 
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No, it does not.
…I don’t know what to believe anymore.
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Straight from the big man himself. Well I’m a man of my word so I’ll take what I said earlier back. However I am interested to see what the trade offs are
Same. I’m being made fun of by mine. It’s not a good feeling.
If someone asks me when news will come, and I reply with a YouTube link to a woman saying “I’ll never tell,” that is complete trolling. When a news article comes out that says something with the gravity of today’s news… that’s not something we’d generally feel “playful” about.
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Such a shame. KI has got such a fantastic sense of identity. The characters and their respective stages, the fantastic music and stellar sound design, it all comes together to form a package that for me and many others is irresistible. Part of the excitement of the rollout of season 2 wasn’t just seeing the new character being unveiled, but the stage as well, how the Ultra melody plays on it and what crazy stuff happens to the stage during it, etc. Here’s the thing, to go from season 2 (what in hindsight will probably be known as the golden age of KI) to just three stages is quite the downgrade. The new lighting looks great, but frankly i didn’t have a problem with the old lighting, i still think the game looks great as it is now. If the reason we are getting just three stages is due to the new lighting then to be honest i would have preferred they left it alone and concentrated on giving each character the full treatment with stage and music, and i would guess that the majority of the KI fanbase would agree.
The whole thing is making me readjust my expectations on season 3 in a negative way. People automatically assumed that each character would have their own stage. We also assumed that there would be an equivalent amount of characters compared to S1/S2, now i’m thinking i should prepare myself for the possibility that there will be less characters as well. The community has long wished for Ultimates since the S1 days which it would seem is also not happening.
I don’t know, just feels like to go from such the awesome season 2 content to something less can only ever be anticlimactic. If it’s a budgetary thing i would have hoped that Microsoft would have been willing to support their own FG franchise a little more, especially considering the loss of the Street Fighter franchise to Sony. One thing is for certain, if you guys do decide to do another community fund thing, don’t go for another Shadow character (much though i love Shago one is enough) but stages would be the obvious choice.
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Time to mod in some stages on the PC version I guess.
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But they didn’t… trust me.[quote=“Fnrslvr, post:359, topic:5032”]
I mean, I get it: there’s dumb politicking involved. People really don’t like Microsoft this generation for basically trying to transition into a friendlier version of Steam, Sony locked down basically every other fighter in response to Microsoft making KI, and there’s always a group of PC gamers who don’t want to buy another gaming machine because everything should run on their main rig. And then there are the stick/hitbox players who’d have to buy an expensive accessory because MS would rather make using 360 sticks hard and port the entire friggen video game, and I have more sympathy for those guys because the money and/or hassle really starts to add up by that point. The port is good for getting a bunch of people on-board who were mostly being fickle and peddling their wrong politics about not wanting to own a 'Bone.
I get that the port helps the community – or at least, it friggen well better – but I’m not sure how much this helps Microsoft, and if we are losing out on content for the sake of the port, then I’m certain that this is a net negative for me.
[/quote]
I’m confused. Are you saying/implying that everyone who wanted to play KI but didn’t own an Xbox One didn’t rush out to buy one because they are fanboys? No. It’s because no one wants to go out and buy a $400 machine, a $60 yearly subscription, and anywhere from $5 to $40+ on Killer Instinct WHEN they already own a PlayStation 4 and/or a PC.
Using myself as an example: I own a PlayStation 4 and PC (which is compatible to the PS4/XB1 in terms of specs), why would I need an Xbox One? 95% of the games that’s on PS4 is already on Xbox One, and vise-versa. The only games that aren’t, are of course exclusives. Do I want to play Killer Instinct? Yes. Badly. But not enough to buy an entire machine and buy into another subscription service that I honestly just don’t need. And as for the other exclusive games, I don’t really even care about those – (with the exception of maybe Quantum Break. And no, that isn’t just because it is coming to Windows 10. KI and Quantum Break were the only games on XB1 that interested me. It just so happens they are both coming to PC) – so that means I have even less of a reason to buy an XB1.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. If I could spend around $500 carelessly just to play maybe 2 games that I can’t on my PS4/PC, I would. But, I can’t… so… yeah.
(Anyway, if you didn’t mean it that way, sorry for the wall of text)
Or in Spinals Stage 
This type of info seems misleading to me. Arbiters trailer shows what would be his stage and from what I remember it was confirmed that it was footage from KI (not Halo 5) that was being shown so wouldn’t we have seen 2 stages? (One in game and one from a trailer)
If we’re just getting 3 stages I personally would think that Kim, Tusk and Gargos are the obvious picks to get stages. Gargos especially needs a stage considering he’ll most likely be the final boss and ‘The Pinnacle’ was really underwhelming tbh.
Everything!!!
But seriously, maybe look into bringing forward some sort of more comprehensive announcement about the content and pricing structure of season 3. And in future, consider putting your negative announcements in their own articles.
The thing is, those are core-game features that don’t contribute directly to the season 3 value proposition.
I realize how unfair it is that I am saying this, mind. Seasons 1 and 2 were great value, and these features continue to contribute to the core of a game that I already have. It’s hard to gate core-game improvements behind a paywall with KI’s structure and business model, which is at odds with the fact that these improvements are the kinds of things they have to do to move the game forward. I’m also highly likely to buy season 3 even if it’s 6 characters for $20 and nothing else. But it doesn’t change the fact that directing season 3 development resources elsewhere, at the cost of season 3 content proper, diminishes the value proposition of season 3.
Nah, you’re good dude.