GLoRToR
Positive Poster!
For first. They have 20+ years of industry experience and plenty of budget to hire proper networking engineers that could have told them how their current set-up would not work.Reading through threads dedicated to the beta test of GGPO-like online announcement I have came across multiple posts arguing about how NRS was so slow about how to properly support their fighting games. Sometimes NRS is even blamed to be worse than other companies in some regards, because those did it earlier and better.
But I would like to look at the picture from other side and try to explain why in my opinion NRS should not be blamed about how slow they evolve regarding competitive play of their fighting games.
Mortal Kombat series never intended to be a competitive fighting game until Mortal Kombat 9. Which means you shouldn't compare NRS/WB experience with FGC with other companies who are in this business for much much longer. Even in one of Ed Boon's interviewes on MK Deception he said that they never intended it to be a tournament level game, it was made for majority, casual gamers, etc. With that being said, NRS only has like 5 years of FGC experience and each time they take it more and more seriously, where MKX is their highest point right now.
Every game of NRS is experiment that they use for polishing of their next projects. They started their path on the right track with Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe where they established their combo/juggles system, MKvsDCU already had a meter with two bars for combo breakers or Rage activation. Pro-Moves became EX and Meter Burn special moves in later games. Injustice interactables made their way into MKX in a much better, more balanced and suitable form, etc.
And I must say, that online actually became better from game to game as well. Of course it is not perfect and is worse if compared with other fighting games. But as I said earlier, the serious approach towards fighting game competitive and tournament wise takes its count from 2011 when MK9 was released. We had Player 1 advatage and in later games it was fixed, we've got deeper practice mode since Injustice, invulnerable frames on back dashes.
My point is that NetherRealm Studios is at the very young age as a part of FGC and after more than a decade making Mortal Kombat series for casual players only, they are doing more than a great job at attempting to become serious fighting game developers who strive towards great competitive games, yet remaining loyal towards casual auditory as well without making it too much complicated so that everyone can enjoy their games, not only tournament players.
Making new netkode provided with beta test is just one of those major steps they are doing in the right direction at their young age on competitive scene. Beta and arcade tests was never a part of Mortal Kombat series before and it's better late than never. Maybe in some near future we will be beta testing Mortal Kombat 11 not only online, but balance as well!
Kid should not be blamed for learning from grown ups the way that kid is capable of and NetherRealm Studios still has a road to go by.
Just thought I need to drop my 5 cents out here.
For second, the reason they didn't bother is that they have gotten away with it before. It's 2016 however, and were they going to continue the course they started out on, they'd have never sold kp2.
Nobody buys the "online doesn't matter" nonsense anymore. I hazard that over 80% of the actual playerbase of this game has not played it offline yet and most of them will not, either.
You're naive.
Please check your facts.