THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS ENDS

Can't wait for +R!

Sore Winning

This is something I noticed some time ago, but recently came to light thanks to this video:

As you can see, this was part of a set I played with this guy on XBL. As you can also see, I lost horribly. As you can probably see, it was very laggy. What you can't see: this was one of the few, if not the only, matches I lost in this entire set.

This isn't the first time someone's uploaded just the match where they beat me. Refer to the following:

That last one was from a Dustloop vs. GameFAQS online tourney, where I played against a guy who, prior to that set, I had pretty much bodied every time we played, lol. 

Now this isn't to say that there aren't some noteworthy quirks in these matches that make them worth uploading, but it's oddly suspicious that all of these matches just happen to be one of the few I've lost in their respective sets. It's also evident that in these videos, I'm playing pretty sloppily/greedy (though, if you notice, so are my opponents).

Is it that these people want to prove that they can beat a famous player? Obviously not, since I'm a nobody in the "eff gee see" (and would like to keep it that way). Is it that they want to learn from the mistakes of their playstyle? Perhaps, but only uploading the matches you win isn't going to be productive towards that. So what could the reason be that all of these people just happen to upload the one match where they manage to win?

It's pretty obvious to anyone with experience in this community: ego. To them, playing me is like fighting a boss; like a frustrating, hellaciously difficult boss that they can come within inches of beating at times, but continuously fall short against (think Dark Souls). Once they're able to beat me once or twice, they consider themselves accomplished. Let's of course ignore the fact that in all but the VF vid I'm on the receiving end of bad, even terrible matchups (Johnny vs. Zappa is at least 7-3, and let's not even talk about BBCT).

What makes this all the more amusing to me is that, especially when I play online (for reasons I'll have to explain in the yet-to-be-completed articles on online play), I don't care whether I win or lose. To me, it's all about getting stronger, no matter how many losses it takes to get there (or, in other words, taking losses today for the sake of winning in the future).

If you don't put your ego aside, you're never going to reach your full potential. Sure, you'll improve, and you might even get damn good! But as long as you hold the kind of attitude on display here, you're never going to reach a point where you can look at how far you've come and think: "There's no way I can possibly go further than this".

In conclusion: lol.

Netplay 101: Prologue

As you all know, I'm hyped for the console ports of KOFXIII and Gundam: EXVS. There is one thing, however, that is eerily looming over my anticipation of both releases. You may have already guessed from the title: I am talking about netcode.

Looking at the track records of both SNKP and Bandai-Namco, I can't help but be a little scared DEATHLY AFRAID of both games having shitty netcode. The 360 ports of KOF98UM and Garou: Mark of The Wolves have some of the worst netcode of any videogame I've ever played. If you didn't know any better, you could be forgiven for thinking you were playing them on a Dreamcast via dialup. It's that bad. Tekken 6 didn't exactly set the world on fire with its netcode, either.

KOFXIII is only a little over a month away from release, and there's still no word on how good the netcode is, or even if it's rollback or delay based. I and everyone else that's buying the game are going in completely blind as to what the online experience is going to be like. While I'll be disappointed if the netcode sucks, at least I'll still have arcades to play at. But what about the rest of the non-Japanese world?

While you may be able to live without netplay in Japan, it's essential for the rest of us. It's a good way to play with local players on short notice as well as a good way to expose yourself to unfamiliar matchups. I'll go more in depth on this at a later time, but needless to say netcode matters a whole hell of a lot if you have no other way to play.

The question we should all be asking fighting game developers is this: if I can't play my friends just 20 miles away without the game turning into a slideshow, then what's the point of even including online play? 

The excuses of "Japan has the best internet in the world" and "they're making games primarily for their domestic audience" are bullshit. First and foremost, a good connection doesn't fix shitty netcode. If you've ever watched a Godsgarden SSF4 netplay stream, you know that they conduct lag tests before every match (both players are in Japan, mind you). On average, they lag anywhere between 2 and 6 frames.

Additionally, if a game's being released in the US market, it's not unreasonable to expect netcode that performs acceptably on American internet connections. While GGPO is probably too much to ask for in most situations, could we at least start to see some steps in the right direction? Can we just phase out delay based netcode already? We won't miss it. Really, we won't.

I realize that there will always be a market for bad ports because people will always buy them, but this shit has really gotten out of hand. SSF4 and MVC3 both have bad netcode (MVC3 especially) and they're the two most popular fighting games in the US right now. This may give our friends in Japan who make these wonderful games the impression that either the netcode is fine or that we just don't care if it's bad; neither is true. If KOFXIII has bad netcode, I'll be playing KOF98 on GGPO instead. If Gundam has bad netcode, I'm going to rage because I'm getting a PS3 just for that game. Also, it's going to cost $100+ to import, lol.

Bottom line: if a game is unplayable online, it's unplayable to the majority of the world. Online play doesn't have to be perfect (nor is it ever going to be), but it should be good enough that you can still learn from it. It's clear that Japan wants to sell fighting games to the West; what's unclear is whether or not they care enough to give us a decent product we can play online. Hardcore fans of fighting games will buy them no matter what, but what reason does Joe Gamer have to play SSF4 over the latest COWADOODY if he can't even play it online? Plus, isn't Joe Gamer exactly who they're trying to win over by releasing these games in the West?

To be continued...