(Cyber-Sub Zero cries in corner)
But yeah they weren’t the same, even in-game they say it’s just the aspects and combat data of the fighters.
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Did Infinite really even do that? None of the newbies really filled the “functions” of any of the cut ones. They just kind of said that in an interview.
And yet they still talked about characters having an 8-way dash like Magneto and whatnot. Even if they did back down on their initial statements they still said them at one point. Plus similar moves and frame data can still constitute similar functions to many people, even if it was indeed unintentional.
Eh. Marvel Infinite is a whole nother discussion. I’m actually posting an essay in the infinite forum for how I would fix it. Check it out if you want.
It still was more of a half baked marketing strategy than an actual development philosophy.
Yeah I guess.
Well with that out of the way, I feel it’s relevant to ask what system everyone is planning to get MK11 on? I bought every other NRS game on XB1 in recent years, so I’m planning to get MK11 there as well. I mainly ask because now there are 4 systems to get it on, assuming the Switch version doesn’t get massively delayed or something.
I pre-ordered for Xbox One, and I will by the inevitable “Ultimate Komplete Legendary XL Edition” for the switch down the road.
Ultron more-or-less filled the role of Magneto in terms of movement/playstyle. He was the Magneto “function” in Infinite, though with some tools that were all his own.
Still not letting these comments here ruin my hype. 
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Looks like its from MKX I could be wrong.
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That certainly seems to be the case at times, especially where it pertains to AAA games. I think industry-wide, most publishers want to keep that $60 price tag because it’s what people are used to as a sort of universally accepted buy-in rate.
In the last ten years or so, publishers have found some very creative ways to get around that however. You have special editions for the hardcore fans that range anywhere from $80 to $300 on the high end. You have DLC of course, which can be as much as $2 for individual items or $30 for a season of content, or some like DOA5 which I believe had hundreds of dollars worth in DLC items.
Then of course you have loot boxes, in game currencies that are purchasable with real money, and other sort of in game microtransactions which when balanced, can work pretty well, or can virtually kill a game if they’re not.
I think the industry is doing a pretty good job of finding ways to get people in at the same price point, and then making their money on the back end. It’s not a flawless system, of course, and the industry remains as volatile as ever (see Activision’s recent layoffs), but I don’t think we’ll see any real changes in terms of entry point any time soon.
That’s understandable, but just try and keep in mind that playing 25 characters a satisfactory amount to the point where you don’t feel like you have much left to do with them still takes up a relatively significant chunk of time. There will be a lot to learn and a lot of fun to have, and they’ll still be releasing DLC characters, probably for another year after the game comes out (if I had to guess). It might not be the ideal situation for you, but it’s still better than nothing, even if it means you’ll probably prefer to leave the game and come back multiple times.
So what do other games have in terms of content that you like to such a point that it makes NRS games feel like they’re lacking? I mean, most fighters launch with around 25 characters, some with significantly less. KI launched with only six characters.
Honestly, for me, NRS games always feel like they’re packed with a ton of content. A good roster of characters, a meaty story mode, an arcade mode that I want to get all the endings for, some type of living mode that gets frequent updates, plus the krypt and other stuff like that. You might think some of this stuff is mindless busy work, but it’s still there. So what would they need to do to make you feel like they have a lot for you?
Eh, I dunno, I don’t think it really works that way. Gamers have their expectations and it’s the industries job to either accept those and meet them or slowly alter them over time. I think we’re seeing that process play out with loot boxes right now. People don’t love Overwatch’s lootboxes, but they don’t mind them nearly as much as say Shadow of War or Battlefront 2. Even Injustice 2 got dinged pretty hard for their lootbox system. Now the industry is reacting to that and adjusting accordingly.
Gaming is an expensive hobby, but no one wants to feel like they’re getting taken advantage of, and we have a whole history of gaming where there was no DLC or lootboxes or seasonal content etc to compare the present to, so the industry will have to push, but push slowly. Just as we need to accept and understand that our hobby will get more expensive as development costs skyrocket, so too must publishers understand that gamers only have so much disposable income, especially in this economy where most college students are coming out of school with a mountain of student loan debt and most people in their 30’s and 40’s have at least some level of credit card debt.
Accepting the fact that it’s an expensive hobby is one thing. But if publishers push too hard, and things become too expensive, you’re going to drive enough customers away that no amount of DLC or loot boxes or special editions will help cover the cost of development and they’ll be far worse off than they are now.
Not necessarily. Some would, for sure. But Mortal Kombat in particular has a substantial casual audience and that audience tends to drop off pretty quickly. If you’re too far away from that initial release window and people have largely moved on to other things, spending a lot on content for a game that’s a year old might not give you the results you’re looking for.
Remember, people had been railing against Street Fighter’s release model for years, which is kinda similar to what you’re talking about here. Granted, you’re talking about only new characters, but even when they released brand new fighters with that Super Championship Ultra version, people still didn’t feel like they were getting their money’s worth. Sure, 25 new characters is a LOT of content, but I tend to think that upside might be mitigated by the fact that it’s content that’s tied to a year old game that a majority of players experienced and moved on from.
Well, I’ve been playing MK since the early 90’s, so I’m kinda used to the slow info feed. I mean, it’s really the best way to keep the game in the minds of fans leading up to the release, isn’t it? If you dump everything at once early on, you have a massive window of time for people to forget about your game. If you drop a massive amount of info right before release, then you have an even larger window of time between the last game and the current game where there’s radio silence from the dev.
Neither’s really a good option, right? As for this being the same old song and dance, I think it’s just one that you get used to, and the getting used to it part kinda takes the special hype feeling out of it since you’ve been there, done that.
My advice would be not to try and chase that original feeling you had, because you only really have that once. Last game I think I was over the moon hyped for was KI, and thankfully it delivered on its hype for me. But still, those moments are rare, and you savor them when they happen.
But for games with sequel after sequel, if it’s a franchise you like, my suggestion would simply be that if you’re interested in the franchise, try and find things that excite you about it. Do you like the story? Do you like specific characters? For me, my favorite MK characters are Baraka, Kabal and Erron Black, so the fact that all three will be in the same game is AWESOME! Couldn’t be happier. 
I also love the graphics, the new gameplay mechanics, the way they’re handling gear this time around, the story, and I’m excited to learn more. Maybe one of the new characters will become a favorite of mine. Maybe the story will really wow me. Am I as hyped as I was when I my buddy Scott first showed me pictures of an arcade game called Mortal Kombat in his GamePro magazine back in 1992? No. Am I as hyped as was the first time I saw a Mortal Kombat 2 arcade machine testing in dimly lit arcade at my local batting cage back in 1993? No.
But those moments were special to me. Unique moments that I still remember because of how truly rare they are in this hobby. So instead of hoping you’ll have that moment for every game, whether it’s that initial introduction to a game or the thrill of predicting something that comes to fruition, maybe just try letting those moments happen naturally and appreciating them, but acknowledging their rarity, and find the reasons you want to be hype for something that you know you’ll at least enjoy in the rest of the situations. That’s just my advice.
First off, that whole Germany thing was exceedingly uncalled for and you should apologize. Someone having a different opinion than you doesn’t inherently make them a sheep. He was asking you to supply support for your opinion because to him, what you were proposing doesn’t make sense from a financial perspective and instead of supporting your opinion with facts, you attacked him. Not cool.
Well for one thing, Ptolemy never posited that Earth was the center of our solar system. He theorized that Earth was the center of the entire universe. Copernicus proposed in the 16th century a heliocentric solar system, which greatly simplified the motions of the planets. Galileo then disproved Ptolemy’s theory outright in the early 1600’s by observing Jupiter’s moons orbiting Jupiter, which obviously couldn’t happen if everything orbited around Earth.
Kepler then created his three laws explaining how the planets were following orbits around the sun, which were confirmed by accurately predicting when Venus would pass directly in front of the sun. Today, Earth’s motion around the sun is well calculated and considered scientific fact.
He’s not trying to feel superior to you. He’s going off of factual information that our society as a whole accepts as common knowledge. The fact that you, for whatever reason, feel compelled to dispute this common knowledge doesn’t make it any less true. We have names for colors, words that are associated with feelings and emotions, words that denote a common societal response when we talk about sound. Much like how the Earth revolves around the sun, these aren’t just philosophical ideas. They’re what we know to be true, regardless of how debatable you might find them.
He is using factual information based on common knowledge and educated guesses. You’re talking about how common sense doesn’t exist. Well, it exists when people with a common understanding lightly extrapolate from known information. You can’t just sit here and respond to facts with “facts don’t exist.” They do and they’re provable. He was asking for you to prove your belief that the devs could do a lot more and that twice the workers would mean twice the profit, which goes against common sense business. He’s still waiting and honestly, so am I.
Again, you’re trying to turn a conversation about facts and supporting your guess with some type of logic and reason from a business standpoint into some philosophical conversation about your will and universal truth. No, we know your guess isn’t universal truth, obviously. But when you say that doubling the staff would double the profits, you actually do need to supply some type of reasoning behind it because it goes against common sense business.
WB is a business driven by profits. Do you think they haven’t analyzed the best way to make as much money as they can with as small of a financial input as possible? That’s their job. If they’re not maximizing profits while minimizing expenses, they’re not functioning as efficiently and effectively as possible. That’s business 101. So please explain why your theory of maximizing expenses will somehow further maximize profit.
Every studio has a budget. Sure, the budget for Call of Duty is different then the budget for Ori and the Blind Forest, but every studio has a ceiling. Sure, some can go over it a little, but at that point, you’re eating in to profits. Why would NRS be any different in this regard? What do you base that on other than your opinion, and what do you base that opinion on?
Here’s the thing, you can’t just throw out an idea that a developer can double their staff and then when asked why you think they can do that, just say “it’s my will” or it’s my opinion or whatever. Because at that point, everything you say after that is unsupported by anything approaching factual information and becomes essentially meaningless. I could say “yeah NRS could release ten sequels to MK and they can do it all tomorrow.” That doesn’t make it true. That doesn’t even make it a logical opinion because common sense, business, and reality all dictate that it’s not true. So what do you have behind your opinions that makes you actually believe something should be true?
Thing is, when you’re expecting something a developer to do something that costs money, such as doubling the size of their staff, you’re talking about a business decision whether you like it or not. You may not care about the business end, but simply expecting something because you want it doesn’t mean it should or even can happen. I think you’d be a lot less disappointed in games if you’d learn to align your expectations with the realities faced on the business end. NRS cannot afford to double their staff because the expense would eat in to the profits significantly enough to where WB simply wouldn’t let that happen. If they were able to double their staff, they obviously would have by now.
Just my two cents though. Do with it what you will.
Yeah I’m not really a fan of the monster movies to begin with, so a game with Freddy, Jason, Pinhead, Michael Myers etc wouldn’t be something I’d really even consider buying regardless of who made it, but that’s just me.
I’m not usually in to the friendship or babality type of moves, but a comedy finisher with a wrong move or sort of like an out-take type of move, like maybe Raiden goes to electrocute you, but accidentally electrocutes himself and both he and the guy just standing their wobbling stop and laugh would be pretty great. I could see them doing one of those for each character and I think I’d enjoy that a lot.
I’m not necessarily complaining about other fighters, just games in general. You finish the story mode in a day, you finish the arcade mode in two, and… I guess it’s my fault I don’t bother with the towers. They’re not something you feel like you can “complete”, even with things like the gear system and krypt, completing them just requires grinding. I don’t want a game that’s keeping me coming back every day because there’s always something new. I want to keep coming back every day because I’m chipping away at it till that glorious completion. Because that cool thing just happened in the story, I want to keep going, oh if you do arcade mode with every fighter you unlock new costumes or secret endings, beating this challenge gives you this costume and then that costume unlocks a new story segment. I want to feel like I’m progressing. The way NRS games keep you coming back almost feels Sisyphean. To the point where being “done” feels like an anti-climax. I want games to have a finite end point where you’ve completed it, but I want it to take a long time to get there, if that makes sense. Sorry if that felt a little random and all over the place.
I liked the story at first, but at this point it’s far to depressing with no repreve in sight. I know it sounds stupid to expect Mortal Kombat of all things to have a happy ending, but MKX’s ending just left me feeling scared, upset, and horrified at what happened to these “heroic” characters. Liu Kang and Raiden’s entire arc together is basically them both overreacting to each other to the point that they’re both evil and on the brink of causing Armageddon. It’s just sad.
I do like specific characters. I really like that Kabal and Skarlet are coming back. My favorites are the Cyber Ninjas (specifically Sektor) and Shang Tsung. I also have a softer spot for some of the 3D era characters. I’m glad that it sounds like I’ll be getting a lot of characters I personally enjoy (especially if Boon’s comments for the DLC mean what I think they mean), but it dosn’t last long to me. Especially if it’s not a certainty.
I think part of my problem is that I treat the pre-release like one big game. We’re all trying to work together and figure out what we’ll be getting. But the developers don’t see it that way. They just see a reveal as a reveal. Something cool to show to their fans. I want to theorize and try to figure it out, but when they don’t give us anything it’s hard to actually decipher what’s gonna happen. It’s just, a mystery. You have no power over weather or not it gets solved. It just solves itself. That’s not satisfying, that’s just… i don’t even know.
I should stop now. At this point I’m just rambling.
Well, I think at the root of the game, you simply have to enjoy playing it, otherwise it’s not worth your time. I say that because the towers, the gear system, the krypt, those all have rewards in them and if you’re not interested in the rewards (I am, but if you’re not, no problem, of course), then at the very least you should be playing the game because you like it and it shouldn’t necessarily feel like this arduous grind or “work.”
Ya know, it’s about the journey, not the destination. If you’re not having fun on the journey, then getting to the destination likely wouldn’t make the experience any better for you to begin with.
I know you’re talking about games in general, but if we’re specifically talking about Mortal Kombat, what types of things would you want that would help you chip your way to completion that wouldn’t feel grindy?
I think that’s honestly an answer NRS has been looking for years now. They want to give people content to enjoy their games for as long as possible. Long DLC windows, tons of unlockables, living towers to keep you coming back for more and more. I don’t think it’s necessarily designed with an end-point in mind. Probably because most people either move on long before they’ve unlocked everything or they simply unlock everything and keep playing or stop playing or whatever.
I like that idea! I mean, I think the towers are for unlocking costumes and stuff, if I’m not mistaken, but the secret endings and new story segments would be really cool. I love having as much lore as possible, and I’ve been advocating for arcade endings to be canon for years now, but having stuff that adds on to those endings and what not? Yeah, I’d enjoy that.
I think at the end of the day though, they still have to put out a finished product, so more endings on top of more endings on top of secret endings etc… To me, that would be great for DLC, and I’ve often wondered why they couldn’t add on story chapters as DLC, but to include all of that stuff in the base game might be asking a little much. Maybe not though, who knows.
It sounds to me like you just want a little more and while I totally get that impulse, I think we’re still getting plenty. We’ll see though.
Nah not at all. I totally see where you’re coming from. No worries.
I dunno, I kinda consider MKX to be sort of the Empire Strikes Back entry of the sort of modern 2D era trilogy. Not that it’ll necessarily be a trilogy, but I think they went down this darker road and something tells me MK11 will turn everything around. We may not get all the stuff we want and I doubt it’ll just be super happy ending or whatever, but I think the whole revenants thing will likely resolve itself. I could see us having a lot of our heroes back the way we know and love them, but that’s just a guess.
DEFINITELY excited for those two! Really hope Shang Tsung makes a return as well.
Oh I think they know we’re trying to figure out as much as humanly possible as soon as possible. It’s kinda their job to gate-keep for us so we 1. don’t see anything before it’s ready and 2. don’t get all the information so early that they have nothing to hype us up for the months leading up to release. We still wound up getting spoiled with the Steam leak, but I think they still have some tricks up their sleeves and I’m sure they’re just as excited to share what they’ve been working on as we are to see it. I mean, could you imagine working on a game series you love? I think that’d be really exciting. I’m sure they’re excited about it.
I dunno, I get why it could be seen as a mystery. But given that it’s not something we can solve, is it actually even a mystery or just information we don’t have yet? A mystery implies that we have the ability to seek out the information and intuit solutions based on that information. We don’t really have that.
All we have are leaks, fake leaks, the first three letters of a few names we don’t know… I think rather than looking at it like a mystery, maybe it would be of some benefit to just look at it like Christmas. When I was a kid, I used to LOVE trying to figure out what my parents got me (like a little jerk lol). They got wise to my act though, and they’d hide things in different places, put pennies in the boxes so I couldn’t guess by shaking the box, completely seal all the edges with tape so I couldn’t tug at the paper and try and unfold it to see what’s inside… My dad used to love finding ways to mess with me about Christmas and I absolutely loved it.
So what do we have? A completely sealed box, a box with pennies in it, and no real way of figuring out what’s under the wrapping paper. Now, we can be sad that we can’t solve the mystery right now, or we can simply be excited that we’re getting gifts and look forward to getting our hands on them on Christmas morning. It’s just a matter of perspective.
Don’t even worry about it lol. If there was an award for rambling on this site, I’d be the winner. It’s all good. All I’m trying to say is try altering your perspective a bit and focus more on what interests you about the game and look forward to seeing more as time goes by and actually getting your hands on it in April. It won’t be long now, so just sit back, relax, and enjoy the slow info feed as it comes up, rather than focusing on what you’d like to get, what could make things better, etc. Things can ALWAYS be more to our individual tastes. The more you focus on that, the more you’re just torturing yourself. Just have fun with it!
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Aside from some of the stuff that I mentioned earlier, I just want something uniform. The krypt is to random and most of the costumes don’t even come as krypt unlocks. I looked up the requirements for how to unlock all the costumes and got 0 straight answers on what to do. Some of them had multiple requirements, some of them had vague requirements, and half of them required you to pay extra for online play (and I guarantee I’d never be able to unlock Hotshot Johnny Cage no matter how hard I try). What I’d want is a challenge system, a mix of KI’s Combo challenges, Injustice 1’s STAR Labs missions, and Soul Chronicle mode from SoulCalibur IV. A series of increasingly hard challenges that drive you to master the character, and give you additional cut scenes and new costumes at certain thresholds. With some massive reward for finishing all of them (like being able to play as the Final Boss like in Marvel vs. Capcom titles of the past, or even just in vs. mode). I feel like the Challenge Tower from MK9 and the previously mentioned STAR Labs missions were a step in the right direction, but then in MKX and Injustice 2 they took the wrong path at the fork and fell off a cliff into a swimming pool. A heavily populated one that a lot of people have fun in, but is not the thing they were originally journeying towards and all the people waiting there for them are disappointing.
I had this really cheesy moment in my head planned out going into MKX, with all the family motifs in the trailers, that it would build to this moment where Raiden and Liu Kang are fighting, and then something happens and they both remember their familial relationships (probably egged along by the presence of the other parent/child teams in the game) before they hug and it breaks Liu Kang free of Shinnok’s control and Liu Kang says “Family Fights Together. Not Each Other”. I know, I’m such a grrrrrrrrrl, but I thought that would have been really sweet and I hope we get something along those lines. Could be helped out if Liu Kang and Kitana have zombie kids in this game that you fight with (a duo character like Noob-Smoke or Yun and Yang) and it continues to strengthen the theme. I can see where you’re coming from with the trilogy angle though, so maybe there’s hope.
I totally agree with you. The way they have it set up, it’s not a mystery. I just REALLY wish it was.
Jeezus dude…that might be one of the longest posts you’ve ever written. lol…
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So as of right now, it looks like Jade, with a Secondary Sub-Zero. I am really excited for this game. 
If that’s whats going on, someone may as well beg Sub-Zero to end them already. Still it is interesting.
HAHAHA, I dunno man, I’ve written some pretty long winded posts. I’m not sure that one’s even top five. Ugh, I really do need to take it down a notch sometimes lol.
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Tao feng need to be back in the games.
That games is from creator of Mortal kombat by john tobias .