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Thankfully that ends tomorrow so the wait will finally end, if only for a moment. I personally passed the time by looking at the gameplay information we got on the first stream, and then my internet got knocked out for a week leaving me to spend more time with MKX.
Because of that time spent with MKX I’m even more wary of what the lack of armor moves will do to MK11’s meta, since the livestream tournament had a little too much zoning being viable…
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I’d laugh if there’s another Scooby Doo crossover movie with Mortal Kombat. I swear.
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Scooby: It’s Rombat Time! (Get repeatedly low-kicked by Reptile)
Seriously though, we had John Cena saving the Mystery Inc. gang from a boulder like Chris Redfield, and a Tom and Jerry crossover with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (they even kept the “Gates of Hell a-glowing” line for the cartoon). WB made it clear that era that anything was possible, so I would not even be surprised if it happened (even if it’s watered-down like the 90’s MK cartoon, Defenders of the Realm).
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When is the next reveal
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Tomorrow.
30th January, 3pm CST. 
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Speaking of Defenders of the Realm.
This is an awesome Remix.
My only hope for the event is that Reptile makes it in the game as a playable character. But I’m also keeping my expectations low.
Sweet, 5am for me. Guess I’ll be watching the VOD again 
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Asgaarth for MK11!
That reminds me, I just got what the Komodai meant. It derives from the word Komodo as in Komodo Dragon.
Sorry to drop this after the conversation largely ended and if no one’s interested in talking about it anymore, I won’t pursue it further, but the whole “LGBTQ character” thing. I guess I don’t quite understand what the big deal is.
Some seem to have the general sentiment of “why have one?” or “why promote a political agenda?” but how is simply having a character that’s transgender, for example, promoting an agenda? I mean, LGBTQ people exist in the world. Why can’t they exist in Mortal Kombat or any other game for that matter?
No one thinks anything of having a celebrity that happens to be white, a military major that happens to be black, a military lieutenant that happens to be a woman, etc. Is Johnny Cage promoting a white agenda? Is Jax promoting a black agenda? Is Sonya promoting a feminist agenda? Can’t they just be characters?
Now, I know some will say that fighting games are about fighting and keep the politics out. But MK is also about the story. MKX in particular dealt with a LOT of relationships. An estranged father and son (Kenshi and Takeda), the dynamics of a family with divorced parents (Sonya, Johnny and Cassie), a budding romance (Jaqui and Takeda), a man struggling with the idea his community won’t accept him (Kung Jin), two rival clans seeking peace (Scorpion and Sub Zero), and so on and so on.
Yet the only one that people ever really pointed out back when MKX arrived was Kung Jin. Why have a homosexual character? Why push that agenda? Those are the types of things I read and again, my feeling is “why not have a homosexual character? Who is it hurting? How is a character simply existing an agenda?”
Had video games existed in the 1950’s, Jax would’ve been a controversial character because he’s a strong, black man of military ranking with a close friend that’s a white woman. Had video games existed in the 1940’s, Liu Kang and Kung Lao would’ve been controversial characters simply because they existed and weren’t shifty caricatures of Asian people.
So I guess in 2019, LGBTQ characters are our modern day controversy? I dunno. That feels like something that shouldn’t be controversial and I think the only way games get there is to simply have them in games and have it be a NORMAL thing. Some people don’t want LGBTQ people to ever be seen as normal and to me, that’s far more of an agenda than simply putting a character in the game and having them fight and be a part of the plot or whatever.
There was one sentence about Kung Jin in the whole story and some people flipped their lid over it. They didn’t have a budding romance between Kung Jin and Raiden or any other character, but even if they did… Why does that matter? In a game that had so many other relationships and areas that the story delved in to in order to try and make some of these characters, many that have been around for 25+ years a bit deeper and more well rounded, why should having characters exist in the game be an issue when LGBTQ people exist in the real world?
Anyways, maybe some people don’t like how they chose to flesh out the characters in MKX’s story. Maybe the romance stuff and the relationship issues and all that stuff seemed unnecessary and all they wanted was a story about characters kicking each others asses and if that’s what you want, that’s fine. I personally like that they went a bit deeper and really delved in to the characters. It makes me care about them more and care about what happens to them, which strengthens my overall desire to absorb MK’s story from game to game. But that’s just me.
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Honestly, I don’t know why people care either. It’s not like I’m asking for an SJW character wrapped in a pride flag who uses the “power of transgender”. I mean, just look at SF’s Poison. It’s not really at the forefront of her story (what little is there to begin with) but it’s a nice detail that helps me relate to the character a bit. And sense Mortal Kombat puts a heavier influence on story, I feel like it would be a good place to do something like this and go a bit further with it. I’m not one of those people who demands that every minority group gets equal representation in every piece of media ever. But fighting games are all about huge diverse casts. It just feels like the perfect place for it.
It’s the perfect first step. If you made an entire game staring a transgender character, there would be a ton of outrage from too many people who aren’t ready yet. But including one among a large ensemble cast will help them get used to the idea in small doses. It’s like vaccination. Get used to a little so you can deal with a lot later.
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Because “showing” that this person is LGBT is much more difficult than showing if someone is black or white. Black or white/ race is easy to animate or create. But you tell us, how to you animate or paint a picture of a LGBT person? HUH? I hope you get it right becasue if you dont you are probably going to offend a lot of people.
Thats not something most businesses want to risk becasue no matter what someone is going to be offended. And dont tell me that Mk can take the same approach as Kung Jin…this discussion wasnt the same…this discussion was about a transgender character. SO without flat out saying they are trans in the story mode…how to you animate and build a trans character?
I dont necessarily care, but IMO I dont think NRS wants to attempt it nor any other fighting companies. maybe one will take a stab at it…and thats fine, but how do you @Iago407 presume they go about it?
Why can’t it be a part of a discussion the way it was about Kung Jin? As far as how they look, you just make a female or male looking character and if you want to reveal that their transsexual, you just have it come up in the plot or mention it in their bio or whatever. Maybe you slightly accentuate certain features of their body. Really, I don’t think this is something that has to be too complex or emphasized to the 1,000th degree. It wasn’t for Kung Jin, so why would it need to be for any other character?
However, I will say that if they do want to make it more of a plot point than a mere mention, I don’t see what’s wrong with that either. Maybe this trans character and another character fall in love. I dunno. I mean, if there’s a plot reason to bring it up, the way there was for Kung Jin, then sure, no problem. I guess I just don’t see what the big deal is either way.
As far as race goes, I get that it’s something you see on the screen, but if anything, I think that makes it more difficult, or it would if video games existed in a time when race was a more controversial topic to the extent that even including a black character was considered taboo or could offend people.
No one’s offended by Poison, for example, because there’s nothing to be offended by. So I don’t see what the big deal is really.
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Technically there’s a lot about Poison to be offended by. But none of it relates to her trans-ness
We can certainly take this to PM if the moderators deem it is too “political.” For the record, I remember a time during my own life when it wasn’t that unusual for someone to say “why does every show have to have a black character in it?” And when it was controversial to show an interracial couple on TV. 
The problem with this is that it is an “agenda.” I don’t want to debate the merits of anyone’s views on the subject, but simply acknowledge that there are different views. So some people will like this idea and others won’t. But there will also be some people who want to say “can’t we just avoid having social agendas in our games,” and I don’t think that’s a ridiculous idea either
I have complex, and frankly fluid, thoughts about “representation” in games. I think there’s a lot of valid opinions about the role of games and other media in reflecting, influencing or otherwise interacting with society. Including divergent opinions on whether it’s even possible for a game to influence society.
I tend to agree with @Iago407 that you don’t need a special reason to depict a character belonging to a certain group - with some exceptions (if you want to show an African living in medieval Norway it helps if you explain how they got there). But as the “Into the Spiderverse” creators pointed out when accused of shoehorning diversity into their movie, the diversity is present in the real world so it’s pretty hard to make a justifiable statement that a movie taking place in Queens should be filled woth straight, white, middle class 1950’s TV show characters.
So, maybe more interesting, is the question about MK 11. Let’s start by acknowledging that MK is not currently “representative” in its roster. There are a variety of ethnicities and there are male and female characters but there are plenty of “unrepresented” groups . Some of those make perfect sense - obese and physically disabled people are not going to be fighting in the MK tournament. I don’t think anyone could accuse NRS of not being inclusive based on these omissions. So I think it’s oerfectly defensible to not have a transgender character in the game.
Having said that, I think if NRS were to include a transgender character that would be pretty easy to justify. The FGC has lots of LGBT participants. They are there in the real world so there is enough justification to point out that the game reflects the community that plays it. No “agenda” required.
The other aspect is whether it’s a good idea or not, putting aside the idea of representation, to include a transgender character in MK. I actually started to address this days ago and then deleted it because it is likely to get me in trouble. I think it will be specifically challenging to include a transgender character in a game like MK because of the way the characters as a whole are depicted and the context around those depictions of sexuality. The short version is that every angle MK character is that 99% of the characters in MK are depicted specifically to have sex appeal. Even in relatively toned down MK the women are all playmate proportioned. I don’t want to get into a debate about whether that’s good bad or indifferent right now, but it’s a fact. So what sort of transgender character do you depict? Gorgeous? Less gorgeous? How do you depict a transgender man? Ripped like the other men in the game? Different? There’s just a lot of ways to get this wrong and not many to get it right in a game that really doesn’t have physical diversity. It’s “aerobics instructor sex fantasy” women and “weightlifter sex fantasy” men. I just think this particular type of diversity, in this type of game, is going to be especially hard to deal with.
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There’s no “right” way to do a transgender character. There definitely is a wrong way, but there’s no singular correct answer because anything else can come along with it. Just having that detail doesn’t really tell you anything. Like if I just said “this character is black” that’s not really telling you anything about them.
I disagree with the sex appeal in the designs. Just look at MK11 Sonya. Sure some characters are probably going to still have it, but it’s not a universal constant.
As for the rest of your argument… none of that specifiy applies to trans people exclusively. Every group has a diverse range of body shapes. It kind of feels like you’re just making excuses.
Also, if this is an agenda, then why is that a bad thing? There’s no malicious intent behind it. It’s not like I’m asking for an all-LGBTQ game with no straight people. I’m just asking for one character. Maybe two if you want to cover more of the spectrum.
I’m really starting to regret bringing this up because I’m worried we’re just gonna start fighting.
Forget about plot… how do you go about creating a character to physically show that he/she is trans gender? How do you look at a character and say they are clearly trans? I can look at Jax and see he is African american, I can look at Sub Zero and see he is Chinese or Asian. I can see Ermac is kind of a zombie, and Cassie is Caucasian. how can I tell Kung Jin is gay if there is no story mode? And if not, is it even important to determine sexual preference based off what they look like?
I mean… you can’t. But your point is invalid because the game HAS a story mode and character bios. Even a SNES game would have bios in the Manuel.
Like I said earlier, I’m not asking for some stereotypical characature where it’s obvious just by looking. That’s bound to be nothing but offensive. Just a character that I know is. Like Poison.
And if you only care about what you see on the surface… then why do you care at all about this.