A simple solution to a complex problem....

[LordxMugen]

First i wanna give a shoutout to Lobo for giving me this idea. if it wasnt for him i probably wouldnt be making this thread.

Anyways, there was a thread made a few days ago about the current life of MK9 and how we could better it. what looked like flamebait turned into a big discussion about how best to rebuild the MK scene after many years of being the laughing stock of the competitive fighting game community and how best to utilize this newfound popularity for MK9.

Some said we need to ween the online gamers off the online play and show them theres a scene for them. some said the online MK9 players dont even want to come or theyre too stubborn to come play locals. me, i dont even believe they know TYM or MKU EVEN EXISTS.

Seriously guys, i honestly believe LESS THAN 2% even knows theres a site dedicated to tournament level MK9. Maybe they dont care. maybe they never thought about it. or maybe they thought the local scene for MK was long dead after MK4. for one reason or another, theyve never been given a decent reason to play MK9 outside of online play or a friends house, competitively UNTIL NOW.

NOW we have a game we can be (mostly) proud of. NOW we have something we can build on and show people how fun, deep, and accessible it is. something that anybody with some decent practice can be good at and win at. MK9 is here man. its fun, its competitive and IT THRIVES.

the numbers dont lie. at any given time theres several hundred, if not several THOUSAND who play this game online at ANY GIVEN TIME. THIS IS THE SCENE WE NEED TO BUILD FROM!! these are our resources guys and i can imagine if we welcome and absorb these people into our fold the tournament scene will EXPLODE!!

really, we need to be asking ourselves why alot of these people are not watching our streams. talking about playing with us in locals. or why they arent at our tournaments. i think the BIGGEST PROBLEM is that they dont fucking know because we havent told them where to go or havent advertised "Hey, theres an MK9 tournament at this place near where you live. we have a group, maybe you want to check it out.". We havent tried hard enough despite how absolutely EASY it is for us to do this on MK9 online.

and this is where the "Simple Solution" comes in. now before someone blasts me about how theyve thought about this long ago and did this or what not. or how it wont work, or SOMETHING (somebodys gonna yell at me i KNOW IT.). i have to say ive never seen anyone suggest this or even IMPLIED it (cept maybe Lobo).

Anyways, all we need to do is go on the highly populated chat rooms and squeeze ourselves in. we tell everybody on there were making a state room for where we live and that people who live there can join us for a few rounds and we can all get to know each other. after awhile, saying you get enough people (itll probably start small. then get bigger as you do it more), yall talk about the cities yall live in and tell them if theres a scene or not and if theyd like to try it out. you could also tell them about this site and how there a people around who can point you in the right direction if you want to learn your character more or just talk about MK9. just be real welcoming and bring in the people who are interested. you really might be surprised by the responses you get.

now will this always work everyday? i dont know. will you get trolls or people who can be assholes? most definitely. but this is what we have to work with. and thankfully because of the way NRS built the online portion of the game (not the netcode mind you but the front end and how you get matches started) and how thriving the online kommunity is right now we can leverage this to our advantage. think of this as a community building exercise. cause thats what we are doing.....rebuilding a community for this game.

i really hope some of yall will try this and maybe we can get some more people interested in our sites. and maybe some more streams and tournaments going.

 

[Vulcan Hades]

Anyways, all we need to do is go on the highly populated chat rooms and squeeze ourselves in. we tell everybody on there were making a state room for where we live and that people who live there can join us for a few rounds and we can all get to know each other. after awhile, saying you get enough people (itll probably start small. then get bigger as you do it more), yall talk about the cities yall live in and tell them if theres a scene or not and if theyd like to try it out. you could also tell them about this site and how there a people around who can point you in the right direction if you want to learn your character more or just talk about MK9. just be real welcoming and bring in the people who are interested. you really might be surprised by the responses you get.

I think this is a great idea and I encourage everyone here to do it.

Another thing we could do is come up with a written list of all places that run WNFs and tournaments. Starting with USA and Canada because that's where the most MK players are. Then post that list on all the big forums (mku, tym, srk, trmk, mkonline etc.).

Like someone said yesterday on the stream: Some players are interested and would like to go to offline tourneys and stuff but they don't know where to go or where to look. Some people live right next door to a WNF but don't even realize it yet.



btw, MKU and TYM were a bit hard to find with google. TRMK and MKonline are unfortunately the first that come up when you search for MK forums.

 

[GStick]

Another thing I do is when people seem really interested in actually playing the game (they say GGs, they don't complain about spam, etc) I always ALWAYS tell them about TYM. How many of them have visited? I don't know, but they always thank me when I tell them there's a competitive site specifically for the game with great people that can help them learn to play.

 

[H0ru5]

Hi, new member here. I've been reading a lot here since MK came out but never really registered until now .

I just wanted to drop in to tell you guys how important it is to find online ppl and tell them about this site and/or events that are coming up. I've played MK back in the glory days and played a lot of Tekken as well. Because of the online part of Tekken 6 I encountered lots of ppl who pointed me to TZ (the biggest Tekken site probably). Although I was pretty serious about the game, I never searched for an online or offline community. The only tournament I played was the official Tekken tournament. Because some guy asked me to join the site after some very nice online games, I noticed how much more there was to the game. Playing alone or with some RL friends means you don't have access to the "best" combo's, frame data and trends which make fighting games so great. I also met lots of Belgian and Dutch guys and attended some local tournaments!

I just wanted to share this because it seems that you guys are really fighting for survival (although the game is doing great imo) and could use a story about someone who got picked up online and joined the offline scene afterwards. Lots of ppl will just ignore you if you promote a website, some of them won't be interested to invest time in the game but you can make MK more popular by poking ppl online!

I also wanted to say thanks to all the ppl who are helping ppl out and creating streams or video's for the game.

 

[Kryogenic]

If you want to build a thriving community you have to get the "regulars" around here and the mods to not act like douches, treat people with respect regardless of your opinion of how "good" they are, and create an environment of mutual respect that is conducive to teaching, learning, sharing, and fun.

That won't happen because the MK community is horrible. Would you want to be involved with a local community after hearing people online or reading some of the stuff on these and other forums related to the discussion of MK?

 

[H0ru5]

If you want to build a thriving community you have to get the "regulars" around here and the mods to not act like douches, treat people with respect regardless of your opinion of how "good" they are, and create an environment of mutual respect that is conducive to teaching, learning, sharing, and fun.

That won't happen because the MK community is horrible. Would you want to be involved with a local community after hearing people online or reading some of the stuff on these and other forums related to the discussion of MK?

I've only been here for a couple of weeks but I do think the mods are great here. Take a look at the character forums where ppl are definitely getting helped. Even some "dumb" questions from total FG "noobs" are getting answered nicely.

Maybe you had some bad experiences, which is not that strange in any online community, but don't judge the whole community for it.

 

[Kryogenic]

I've only been here for a couple of weeks but I do think the mods are great here. Take a look at the character forums where ppl are definitely getting helped. Even some "dumb" questions from total FG "noobs" are getting answered nicely.

Maybe you had some bad experiences, which is not that strange in any online community, but don't judge the whole community for it.

I'm definitely not alone in this assessment. I'm just alone in coming back here after experiencing it and discussing it with the guys I play with. Those guys don't give second chances. They get turned off by certain attitudes and people and just 86 the notion of going back to that place, forum, game.

I think a lot of people that play games are just like that. I've read more than a few posts from people who like the game but hate the community so much they have traded the game in or are waiting for the patch to see how it affects things.

I understand that people are excited and they want to see the game flourish like SSF4 but I'm not so sure that that will happen.

You want to attract the online gamers to the offline events? That won't happen if their online experience is marred by some douche with an attitude and a chip on his/her shoulder.

I never said there weren't helpful posts from the mods and the players here because there are, but there are also some sanctimonious posts that are totally uncalled for and/or posts for the right reasons posted with a tone of condescension and derision.

You can't change those people and they aren't going to suddenly stop being douches so I don't see a whole lot of online gamers seeing the light and flooding the offline scene.