tehdrewsus
UMK3+
The total and complete lack of interest in the May tournament, save for a few guys, I think was the last straw for me. I've hosted 2 tournaments, not huge turnouts, but 8-10 players both times, not too bad considering the times of year. Close to holidays and beginning of spring, along with MKX coming out a few weeks before the bottom ten tournament.
I'm not sure if I'm right or not, but it definitely feels like there's a rift in the community. Now that I've been around it for a couple years, I can make a pretty good conclusion that there is. Not sure if you consider mortal_jason an OG when it comes to UMK3, but he definitely is when it comes to MK2. Again, not sure how far back @YourMKArcadeSource goes back, but I know he's been on the forums since I've been on. But here's what I've noticed. Not one OG, old school, played-a-lot-of-offline before online became a thing, played in my tournaments. I hate to state the obvious, but here's a bit of a news flash: I don't live in or remotely close to NY, where there's a huge core of offline players. What does that make my options? ONLINE. There's ONE UMK3 arcade cabinet in Cincinnati as far as I know, it's about 40 minutes from where I live. The only player I've ever played there with any semblance of skill is my cousin, @Sephiwolf42. And he lives about 3 hours away, and visits a few times a year. So when he's up, we play on Mame, we play on arcade collection, and we play on the cabinet. THAT is the only MEANINGFUL offline UMK3 that I can get. I know Nick Mathews lives in Cincinnati but I haven't had the opportunity, nor do I know how to get in touch with him. And as good as he is, that's ONE player.
Did I mention that I'm a pad player? I'm about 70% of the player I can be, on stick. The controls at the one cabinet are pretty abysmal anyway, more straight up jumps than Moe when he lost to Reo. Maybe this is my issue. I'm a (mostly) online pad player. I'm not an OG. I didn't have XBL 06, and I didn't get MKAK until it was patched. And I apologize but I feel like TE was a half cocked attempt to force players to play a "rebalanced" hack of a game that is just fine in form and execution. Sure the tiers are a little segregated, we see a lot of Human Smoke, Kabal, and Ermac in finals of tournaments, and it's hard to beat glitch jabs. But you CAN. I feel like Sirlin's credo of win at any cost does NOT include modifying source code to remove a tactic that YOU (the royal you, not anyone specific) cannot overcome. And yes, I'm talking about none other than MR. I. GOT. BASS. FIVE years ago that seismic rift was created. I wasn't around, but I've read 5 years of history, talked to every person I could, on both sides about it, listened to podcasts, and everything else you can imagine. What Bass said that finally toppled his relationship with TYM (with regards to a deceased close friend of the community) was clearly over the line. It's also been 5 years, and the community is still at odds with this. Besides proving that "online" players on XBL don't always act appropriately, what else did Mr. Bass show us? That there ARE online players every bit as skilled or more as offline, OG players. Even some of the new blood, like @nwo (not as new but still), @Drakonian, @necoarc12, and others (placing myself near the bottom of that list), I firmly believe could compete offline, if given the chance. But we won't get that chance. I don't have the convenience of schedule to drive 12+ hours to Philly or NYC. But guess what, even if it ain't Philly, there's some real players here, even if we play online most of the time.
I'd be willing to help host a tournament in the Cincinnati area if we could draw enough players. Yeah it's 12+ hours from NY and Philly, but UMK3 offline also exists outside that area. There's guys in Chicago, NE Ohio, North Carolina, etc. Like I said before it ain't Philly but there's some real players out here.
The issue I see is that there's 2 groups of players - offline and online. Offline players don't want to play online. Online players will play offline but don't have the opportunities to - at least the ones that live away from the east coast. MKX and other games are drawing players that would play this game, but there's nothing to keep them here or bring them back, for that matter. UMK3:TE creates another split. What we have is a kommunity that is dead because it has its viable parts, but nothing to keep them working together, only separate them.
I'm not sure if I'm right or not, but it definitely feels like there's a rift in the community. Now that I've been around it for a couple years, I can make a pretty good conclusion that there is. Not sure if you consider mortal_jason an OG when it comes to UMK3, but he definitely is when it comes to MK2. Again, not sure how far back @YourMKArcadeSource goes back, but I know he's been on the forums since I've been on. But here's what I've noticed. Not one OG, old school, played-a-lot-of-offline before online became a thing, played in my tournaments. I hate to state the obvious, but here's a bit of a news flash: I don't live in or remotely close to NY, where there's a huge core of offline players. What does that make my options? ONLINE. There's ONE UMK3 arcade cabinet in Cincinnati as far as I know, it's about 40 minutes from where I live. The only player I've ever played there with any semblance of skill is my cousin, @Sephiwolf42. And he lives about 3 hours away, and visits a few times a year. So when he's up, we play on Mame, we play on arcade collection, and we play on the cabinet. THAT is the only MEANINGFUL offline UMK3 that I can get. I know Nick Mathews lives in Cincinnati but I haven't had the opportunity, nor do I know how to get in touch with him. And as good as he is, that's ONE player.
Did I mention that I'm a pad player? I'm about 70% of the player I can be, on stick. The controls at the one cabinet are pretty abysmal anyway, more straight up jumps than Moe when he lost to Reo. Maybe this is my issue. I'm a (mostly) online pad player. I'm not an OG. I didn't have XBL 06, and I didn't get MKAK until it was patched. And I apologize but I feel like TE was a half cocked attempt to force players to play a "rebalanced" hack of a game that is just fine in form and execution. Sure the tiers are a little segregated, we see a lot of Human Smoke, Kabal, and Ermac in finals of tournaments, and it's hard to beat glitch jabs. But you CAN. I feel like Sirlin's credo of win at any cost does NOT include modifying source code to remove a tactic that YOU (the royal you, not anyone specific) cannot overcome. And yes, I'm talking about none other than MR. I. GOT. BASS. FIVE years ago that seismic rift was created. I wasn't around, but I've read 5 years of history, talked to every person I could, on both sides about it, listened to podcasts, and everything else you can imagine. What Bass said that finally toppled his relationship with TYM (with regards to a deceased close friend of the community) was clearly over the line. It's also been 5 years, and the community is still at odds with this. Besides proving that "online" players on XBL don't always act appropriately, what else did Mr. Bass show us? That there ARE online players every bit as skilled or more as offline, OG players. Even some of the new blood, like @nwo (not as new but still), @Drakonian, @necoarc12, and others (placing myself near the bottom of that list), I firmly believe could compete offline, if given the chance. But we won't get that chance. I don't have the convenience of schedule to drive 12+ hours to Philly or NYC. But guess what, even if it ain't Philly, there's some real players here, even if we play online most of the time.
I'd be willing to help host a tournament in the Cincinnati area if we could draw enough players. Yeah it's 12+ hours from NY and Philly, but UMK3 offline also exists outside that area. There's guys in Chicago, NE Ohio, North Carolina, etc. Like I said before it ain't Philly but there's some real players out here.
The issue I see is that there's 2 groups of players - offline and online. Offline players don't want to play online. Online players will play offline but don't have the opportunities to - at least the ones that live away from the east coast. MKX and other games are drawing players that would play this game, but there's nothing to keep them here or bring them back, for that matter. UMK3:TE creates another split. What we have is a kommunity that is dead because it has its viable parts, but nothing to keep them working together, only separate them.
