Hopefully, this little E-mail to the past will cost Raiden something, perhaps his life. This would make his doing it quite significant. How would you "wipe the slate clean?"

Well, maybe its like this. He can only do it once in his lifetime, so why not make it count. Also its not like its a complete message its just a random thought he sent to himself.

Why would you want the slate wiped clean? If they had a Mortal Kombat game without Mortal Kombat characters, we'll have a majority of unimpactful characters like Darrius, Dairyou, Kobra, and Taven...

Ed Boon said he wiped the slate clean and brought us MK5.
That was fucking awesome.


He said he would wipe the slate clean and we got MKvsDC
What the fuck?

He said he would wipe the slate clean for MK9.
We get MK1-MK3 all over again with a few changes.
What the double fuck?


Do you get what I mean now when I say wipe the slate clean? I guess his version of it means to forget all past problems or mistakes and start something again.

Oh, that's what you meant... well this could be an approach to wiping the slate clean by Raiden changing the future of Mortal Kombat and eliminating the not-very-liked characters for good; the few from the Classic games and the many from the 3d games...

well if thats the case, then "wip the slate clean" mostly refers to gameplay, I suppose, and MAYBE, a new villain.

I just want something new from the MK team; see them steer the characters in a new direction. And don't be afraid to shake things up!

idk what problems people have with the story after MK3, it was the MKA story that fucked everything up.

The deadly alliance and the Dragon king were just fine.

The story's going to be a disaster. Just enjoy the gameplay.

I always thought the dragon king was lame. Big Dinosaur man. Rawr!

:/ I think your giving in to cynicism a bit XiahouDun84. So far what we've seen is pretty rad.

oops

There are billions of time travel stories where somebody goes back in time to warn their past selves about something...if they can do it, so can Mortal Kombat.

Not to mention, the Armageddon story clearly states that all the fighters got even stronger at the pyramid. there's your hand-wave right there. "I got some new powers when Blaze exploded."

Boon before said he wanted to only Sub Zero and Scorp, this is bad in my eyes, and kill of the rest of the roster. Most fans would hate this path and odds boon knew about it.

Odds are the thunder god can't change ALL the things in past. If two major parts take place at the same time ,or close to it, then he can only pick one. A lot of newer cast if not to liked, to do having little or nothing going for them, and this will give them time to fix that.

This sending of the messages reminds me so much of the Back to The Future Movies.

MK9's story is gonna be FINE...they managed to make a crossover with DC Comics entertaining. Now granted, DC has crossed over with RoboCop, Looney Tunes, and Mad Magazine, but Mortal Kombat needed to put in their own work too.

At this point, they could make a comic series based on Cooking With Scorpion and it'd be critically acclaimed.

...no, they didn't.


Here's what we're going to get:
Either random and drastic changes with little to no rhyme or reason....like, as an example, the complete and total 180 they pulled on Kung Lao in Shaolin Monks....that will be explained away with a hand wave of "Raiden changes things."

I guarantee, that statement will become the Mortal Kombat equivilent of "A wizard did it."
Why would someone other than Liu Kang winning the Mortal Kombat tournament have a effect on character x" personality, disposition, or motivation? Why would the elder Sub-Zero surviving result in character y getting turn into a cyborg?

Raiden changed things.


OR....because the collective fanbase is horrified by any real change to their characters....
It'll be essentially the same fucking thing, with only minor and inconsequential alterations. If anything, it'll be the same, only dumbed down and simplified. Not unlike how the characters were portrayed in MK vs. DC.
Oh, this time Jax has a grudge against Kano, too. That's completely changes my opinion on the characters.


So yeah...you're going to end up with random things like Stryker getting turned into a wraith and Reptile becoming a wise-cracking comic relief character while Sindel still gets resurrected and MK3 goes on as schedule.


Nostalgia and illogical, fake change. That's what we're in for with this storyline.
If I'm being cynical and pessimistic, it's because they made me so.

hey if streetfighter can wipe the slate clean again and again. I say so what, think about it wtf happened to the ex chars and the other chars. ohwell i just ranting.

anyway, with the whole time and dementions/realms happening i really don't see this much of a strech.

Why does the slate even need wiping clean? It seems like an unfortunate turn of phrase -- which, even in the original quotes, never actually referred to throwing everything out the window -- that people have latched on to for no apparent reason.

With a bit of license taken for actual timeframes, they've got themselves the perfect out of having a new Earthrealm/Outworld tournament. The best way to wipe the slate clean without insulting the intelligence of the people or the legacy of a franchise and story would be to move forward. To logically continue the story with a built-in precedent that gives you all the room you need to play with new and old ideas in any combination.

Unfortunately, part of the problem with ideas like a new tournament is the fact that they don't pander to the fierce nostalgia that's always steered the MK ship. Since the "slate" reference, MKvsDC, and the YouTube Rebirth clip, it seems there's significantly stronger division in opinion now, but response to MK2011 only confirms what's always been the case -- MK is a slave to it's former glory.

The mainstream has been tuned out since MK4, which actually gave us the glory of a delayed creative rally to do better. Deadly Alliance delivered a definitive step forward with a great balance of the old and new (with some of the best gaming MK's seen, to boot), but there's always been a vocal component that want homogenous colour swapped costumes and martial artless special moves.

MK didn't swiftly redeem itself in the eyes of the consuming masses with MKDA, so it's been a steady process of self-mutilating regression ever since. The praise for MK2011 only seems to assert the fact that wiping the slate clean is the last thing anybody wants to do. The system is rewarding the opposite!

It's hard to tell if MK2011 is a weird attempt to trick fans into change, or a self-made hell of redundancy that condemns the series to constantly return to the same place over and over again. They've got the tournament to fall back on, it's inherent to the material, and it's a shame to think they might never use it. Or maybe they're just killing time until it's been a twenty-five year generation...

MK is a child of comic books and grindhouse cinema.
It's a darn shame they couldn't take more from the best examples of serialized fiction, because there's always a way forward. Armageddon gave us the widest berth of options and the perfect opportunity to balance a fresh start with a resolution of the old.

Games like these always start with stories of the old legends, which we're humbled by when we finally meet them. In a new game, the characters we know and love should have the opportunity to become the new legends. It's a shame they probably never will. The worst aspect of the serialized fiction from which MK sprung.

The reason "wipe the slate clean" is so popular is because Mortal Kombat has, essentially two seperate fanbases.

The story attracts the intelligent, but the fatalities (and the fighting game genre itself) attract the simple-minded who are easily pleased by violence but don't like to read much. And the second group is sadly larger than the first.
And when the simple-minded try to follow the story, they get too impatient with it to actually pay attention, and mistakenly interpret it as too complicated or convoluted.

The end result is a group of people who don't understand a perfectly good storyline, deciding that they'd rather scrap it and have a much dumber one they can actually understand.

all i care about is good endings!!

also gameplay is a must!

Just dont take the storyline too seriously. That's what I do. I dont play mk for the story. You should be grateful that MK even has a storyline unlike other fighting games out there.

This is a fighting game..who cares about the story gaps?

Could be worse...Raiden could wake up and say "what a Kraaazy dream!"

I know when I go out to do business my strategy is always to meet the barest requirements, matching the weaknesses of my rivals, rather than seizing on the opportunity to surpass them. Mmm, progress!

People who don't care about the story should be grateful. They have nothing to hold any kind of standard to. The story can be good and it won't effect or change their enjoyment in the slightest. At least, not in any valid or sensical way.

lol omg that made me cough up my coke through my nose!~