Getting people back into UMK3 was a massive effort over the course of years. Back in 2003 I kickstarted a kaillera scene for UMK3 once I had a PC good enough to play it full speed. This was an awful transitional period because if the frame rate was off on one PC, it would desync like crazy. As more and more people got with it, the online scene grew and there were a solid number of us.
We started by making combo videos around 2001, where we released a teaser for an MKT combo video that was not completed as originally intended. Shortly after I made a short MKT video set to Scum of the Earth and it was very low quality with otherwise basic combos. In 2003 we (DreemerNJ and I through our then gaming site Darktemplarz.com) released a full UMK3/MKT video featuring some solid combos complete with a trailer and teaser, combos of which players are still just discovering today as new because most new players haven't seen our vids. We spread these videos to any and all MK sites, they were hugely popular, and eventually we opened ultimatemk.com ,taking all the 2D MK players from those sites, centralizing our promotions.
Those trailer and teaser vids can be found here:
http://ultimatemk.com/cvids.php?vid=1
http://ultimatemk.com/cvids.php?vid=2
Over the course of the next several years we released at least 9 more videos, eventually collaborating with many players via combo submissions and then with NinjaGrinder and ded_ and others for more specific videos, increasing production and what not. South American players, many of which are still around today also helped tremendously build hype and promotion. The videos inspired similar ones to be made by other players and even carry on the tradition/legacy.
These videos were not well-received by the Chicago crew on shoryuken.com mostly because it was things they never found or "not tournament viable" (it's an exhibition for Pete's sake) and also that the lead guy wanted the game to die. The other players didn't though, fortunately, however there was a faction type war on SRK for years until we got them to show up to a tournament here in NJ. They knew we were for real at this point and eventually we were all working and promoting the game together. Mind you this is now several years of promotion. As match videos became more readily available and the combo videos spread, more and more players got into the game.
ECCX - NJ Vs Chicago Vs Philly
Vids from that tournament 10 years ago can be found here:
http://ultimatemk.com/dirview.php?current=matchvids/eccx
It was a massive campaign to build at scene presence for UMK3 and subsequent games at tournaments and it also built the online scene, which seeded the XBLA UMK3 scene that was massive at one point. There were a few of us OGs that basically fathered a handful of new players who then trained their own players. I played on Kaillera and XBL for several years, but I don't think I've really played in more years than I spent playing online. We continued to promote the game, even making a hype trailer for NEC6 in 2005, which saw an abysmal 5 player turnout.
http://ultimatemk.com/cvids.php?vid=21
Having said all that, with a little bit of promotion and effort, we should be able to get people playing, whether it's vanilla or TE, online or at tournaments. Remember, by 2010 we started getting consistent 32+ player tournaments but UMK3 had to take a back seat to MK9. We continued to have UMK3 and MKII tournaments though with gradually dropping numbers. The reason why i'm posting all this is to show a snap shot of just how much work went into rebuilding the 2D scene while the 2nd gen console MK games were sucking ass.
I really would like to expose players to TE because it's a very deeply thought out modification to the game, and it's hard to convey to players that the changes they are seeing are literally to be tested and validated by the community in these betas. We need to know if certain things are pointless, too powerful, could be better, don't look right, cause bugs, etc.
There's way more flexibility than some would think. We have the luxury of no deadlines so we can literally throw anything out there to see if it works and if it doesn't we can revert it.
We will be running UMK3:TE casuals all weekend at NEC and if on Sunday there is interest we will squeeze a tournament in for it. I will try to have two setups but I can't promise anything. A couple of my sticks need tuneups and it's just more stuff to bring.
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