Considering MK Deception had Jax, Kitana, Kung Lao, Sonya, and Johnny Cage all dead, ressurected, and used as Onaga's Enforcers, something the developers knew they were going to do when making the game, and we had to wait until MK Unchained before being able to play 2 of them, that doesn't guarantee that any of the characters who died in MK'11 will be playable in the next game.
Personally, I think it's a bit of a waste to bring back dead characters when we have the other half the MK cast who could be redeveloped and used in the upcoming game. I don't want to play mindless puppets, not in an MK game.

I agree, having several playable characters as zombies is a serious fall.

This is one of the reasons I'd rather they stay dead. Still, a double roster could solve the issue, and having them be unlockable would really help.

I just don't see how having two rosters isn't a waste of time. It'll just make people ask "How come I can use these characters in versus but not single player?" or whatever. The devs would have to make ALL the same shit for the characters, alt costumes, finishing moves, they still have to be fully completed. The only thing you could skip is giving them an arcade mode ending, and those little animations aren't exactly a major time and space consumer. You're not sparing anybody ANY actual work or freeing up any empty spaces.
You WOULD be freeing empty spaces and allowing the dev team to work harder on new characters than on returning ones if there was only ONE roster in the whole game and the zombies weren't on it
But this "bonus roster only available in some modes" idea is actually EXTRA work. There is NO logical reason to have one mode go "Okay, here's all the characters we made" and then another mode with all the same features go "Okay, now you can only use HALF the characters we made, for...some weird arbitrary reason." It only serves to place limits what the players can do, it does not help the developers out in any way, shape, or form.

Story Mode is the only mode where "but he's just a bland zombie, that doesn't deserve to be playable" is actually a relevant complaint, a reason to not want to play as certain characters. And the reason that's not a problem should be obvious: In MK9, more members of the roster DON'T get chapters than DO. What makes you think the next game's gonna be any more likely to let you take a turn as everybody on the select screen?

And being zombies is a temporary condition anyway. You fucking know as well as I do that most of those guys won't end 10 in the same condition they start it, especially Sub-Zero.

Right, so let them be in the background while Havik, Dairou, Bo' Rai Cho, Drahmin and the other 30 characters not in MK10/the guys who lived and didn't get a chapter shine for more than 15 minutes, while the dead guys act as Shinnok and Quan Chi's necrophilia slaves behind-the-scenes.
Am I the only one who thought all the dead guys not being playable was reasonable and made sense in Deception and allowed the roster to breathe a bit?

It depends on the definition of "dead".

When the villains ARE the afterlife, the dead are SUPPOSED to be characters.

The reason it didn't make sense in Deception has a lot to do with how using death like a damn lightswitch you can flip on and off, killing off and rezzing Cage, Sonya, etc. in minutes, was really poor writing in the first place. You can't make characters a major part of the story and then not even have them IN the game. Kitana especially should've been in the launch version, not sitting on the shelf until Unchained, because she was a major player in like three different fucking endings.

It's not like there's a part of Konquest where Shujinko fights Onaga's bodyguards or you get to play the scene where Ermac and Liu's ghost free them. THAT stuff, the PLOT stuff, happened off-screen there, which is the opposite of how it should have been. What the game actually did, which doesn't make sense, is the NPC fights throughout Konquest against characters who aren't on the roster were all these weird non-canon encounters like "Here's Jax randomly guarding a bridge, beat him up to get past". Most of them weren't part of the story so really, there was no purpose to even having them in Konquest mode, they were more like dumb easter eggs.

Now...the situation we have in the next game? It's a little bit different. See, the whole ENTIRE reason the writers killed so many fucking characters off and then outright told us before the end of the game that Quan Chi now controlled them and that he and Shinnok are planning to hit once Kahn dies, was because they looked at MK4 and said "Y'know, this whole idea has a lot of potential but we totally blew it last time. Wouldn't it be way more interesting if the army of the damned were made up of actual characters who died in the previous games?" and then someone else went "Ooh yeah but even better, what if they were dead GOOD guys, so you have all this drama about how the good guys who're left are all broken up about being forced to fight the ghosts of their friends they couldn't save?"

You can't do a plot like that and then have the dead guys not be on the roster. You can't tell the story that way.

If you want to really leave a bunch of dudes out of a game so there's more room on the select screen for a dozen Dairous, a "The dead rise to reap vengeance on the living" plot is a little counter-intuitive to the plan. Because if that's your plot, then the dead guys have to be characters! You have to have fights against them, they have to carry out missions and achieve things for their masters, some of them even have to have personalities and goals of their own like Scorpion and Noob do. They can't just stand around in the background and be NPCs, they're actual participants by the very nature of the story being told.

The only right way to have characters sit out is to do it the way they did it in most of the games, where characters would just plain not show up. Have Nightwolf not be in a game because Nightwolf isn't in the game, that's the way you do that.

If a character plays an actual role in the story, they have to be in the game. If you leave them off the roster but want them to appear in story mode as an NPC, then they better literally be background. You can't just say "henchman don't need to be playable", because a henchman isn't the same thing as an NPC. Reptile isn't an NPC, Baraka isn't an NPC, those are characters. If you're fighting them, they're characters.

And you're gonna be fighting the dead in a game about Shinnok. That's what he is, that's what he does. He makes you fight the dead. So the dead need to be characters in the Shinnok game.

Now I'm not saying they'll all come back and have a role that warrants a spot on the roster. I can see Kabal, Stryker, and Jade sitting things out, maybe appearing in backgrounds as grunts you never fight. But some characters like Liu Kang and Smoke actually have their MK9 stories furthered by being in the Netherealm now, they can't sit out the game, it wouldn't make sense.

Lightswitch, you say?

Deception is the first game in the MK series where characters who died actually stayed dead or in the least did not advance. The lightswitch in this case would be Armageddon.

Also, those characters did not have major roles in Deception, and having a major role does not constitute playability. Not every existing MK who makes a slight appearance has to be included.

Above all, excluding all those icons allowed other characters a chance to bask in the spotlight. Characters like Mileena, Ermac, and Nightwolf would probably not be as popular as they are now if it weren't for Deception, and it is because of the exclusion that they were able to be such.



Armageddon must have the best roster ever then, huh?

Everyone was playable in that one.

Just because the person is a MK character, doesn't mean he/she has to be in the game.

I mean absolutely no disrespect when I say this, but I am going to be honest. At this point, it just seems like you're whining about all the icons being killed off. You're not giving any real detail into why excluding them is detrimental, you're just repeating yourself with:

"Not having them in makes no sense."
"If they're in the story they should be in the game."

The only thing that would be detrimental is including them, for that will prove that NRS is entirely incapable of advancing the series without retconning the storylines for the sake of character inclusion.



Actually, it's Quan Chi that makes people fight the dead, he being a necromancer and all.

I'm fact, I don't even recall Shinnok ever resurrecting or even reanimating someone who died.

MK should do what Tekken does and just absorb the rosters from previous games.

It would make more since if the dead characters were playable for Arcade mode, Tag Arcade, and everything else BESIDES Story mode. It would make no sense for them to be playable in just VS. mode.

That would be a great idea, but Mortal Kombat is prized for its storyline, and the rosters manifest the stories of their respective games.

The Arcade Mode reflects that type of roster much more than the Versus, which is why I felt the additional characters should be excluded from it.

I have no idea what you're even fucking talking about when you say this.

In MK Deception, Jax, Johnny Cage, Kitana, Kung Lao, and Sonya are killed and revived IN THE SAME MOMENT IN TIME. They are literally dead for only minutes at most before being resurrected. Raiden ALSO dies and rezzes in the same game.

Meanwhile...in every other game, a character who dies at least doesn't come back to life until the next one.

And then there's Sheeva and Motaro who die in MK3 and stay gone all the way until Armageddon.

Hsu Hao dies in Deadly Alliance and is stays gone until Armageddon, so two games instead of 1.

And a couple characters who the story hinted died but later pulled a "I wasn't really dead, I just went into hiding" rather than an actual resurrection: Kano gone from MK3 till MK5 and Jarek and Shinnok gone from MK4 till MKA.

MKD was the first and only game until MK9 where characters died and came back IN THE SAME ONE.



Seriously?

Shinnok's the guy who brought everybody back in Armageddon. He definitely at least brought back Onaga himself, it's in Onaga's bio.

In the old timeline, it was Shinnok, not Quan Chi, who helped them rez Sindel in MK3.

And where do you think Quan Chi got that power from? Shinnok rules the goddamn realm of the dead, of course he can raise them or let them out of Hell if he wants to.

That's not even what I'm fucking saying!
I never said I want EVERYBODY to come back in every game. My point is that some of the zombies CAN'T sit out because they will have major roles in the plot even as dead guys because the next game will be ABOUT the dead rising from the grave to attack the living!
You think I'll be mad if Sheeva or Rain doesn't show up for MK10? Fuck no. I don't mind characters sitting out. I even said I would expect SOME of the less important dead like Kabal, Jade, and Stryker to be NPCs who do nothing and aren't playable.
If MK10 weren't going to be about the Netherealm as villains, I would even agree with you that ALL of the dead should stay dead and not show up. If the villain had been telegraphed to be Onaga or Daegon or Blaze or some new character who has nothing to do with necromancy, I'd absolutely understand if all the guys who ended up with Quan Chi sat out the whole game.
But that's not the case. MK9 told us MK10 will be about the Realm of the Dead invading Earth and Outworld.
But you're just closing your eyes, putting your fingers in your ears, and going "la la la I can't hear you" if you think that dying took guys like Liu Kang and Sub-Zero out of the plot when the villains of the next plot ARE the living dead.
The only reason you think the zombies don't need to be part of the roster is because you don't WANT them to be, and that's not being impartial. That's not looking at the situation with cold hard facts and logic.

You're swearing entirely too much, which is a sign of growing animosity.

We're just having a discussion, man. There's no need for that.

Anyhoo, I am not closing my eyes or ears to the idea. I'm simply stating my opposition to it. And yes, I don't want them to return. I made that clear in the opening post.

This thread is about a possible solution to make all players satisfied, despite my decline to including the dead characters. You stated that the idea makes no sense considering what is already planned for MK10. I did not ignore your statement of the idea, or the idea itself. I simply stated my displeasure with it, and I am displeased.

Despite some of my favorite characters (Kitana, Sindel, Sub-Zero, etc.) having died in the game, I accept it out of my love for the series' story and particularly the game's story, which is, to me at least, nearly flawless. I'd prefer if they remain dead for at least MK10. I don't want another retcon or a crappy excuse for their return.

My hope is that, in MK10, the souls possessed by Quan Chi are relinquished following his defeat... or destruction if NRS decides to be asses and kill off my favorite character. Anyhoo, I am all for any of them coming back in MK11, but I hope they stay gone for at least one game.

HOWEVER! I am also all for my suggestion of having a double roster. I think it'll make a lot of people happy.

Okay well your "two rosters" concept doesn't actually solve your problem, it just makes more work for the devs and less options for the players because the characters you're leaving out would still be made for the game, you just can only use them sometimes as opposed to all the time.

How does that fix things?

See, if your whole reason for wanting the dead guys to be unplayable is so the new additions can get more screentime...then the obvious answer to that is to just have them unplayable in story mode, and that is the one mode of the game which has no select screen anyway.

Leaving the zombies out of arcade mode doesn't give Kai and Bo' Rai Cho more screentime.
It's like if while making MK9 they had said "Hey, we don't get to play as Baraka, Reptile, or Mileena in story mode so why should we get to play as them in Arcade mode?"
Besides, "only usuable in 2 player mode" is being outright mean to anyone who has no friends to play the game with. That's what Arcade Mode's supposed to be for, mindless fun for people who can't get down on Versus. Especially now that the endings are noncanon bullshit because they don't tie into story mode.

It is merely a possible solution that has the potential help the issue at hand.

It doesn't necessarily decrease options, because those characters would not actually be a part of the game. That is why they are exclusive.

Much like how Goro is only playable in MK2011 via Challenge Tower. It is an exclusive addition to the game. It holds no relation to the game's actual gameplay. It is something extra.



Be that as it may that some players may not have the luxury of playing with others, most players do. Unfortunately, the majority would receive the helping hand.

As for the endings, as much as the noncanon endings have always irritated the hell out of me, they have also always added new pieces of information to the series' story, i.e. Kitana's MK2 ending, or Noob-Smoke's MKDeception ending.

In all seriousness; I like the idea of bringing some deja vus that might not appear in the Story Mode, like possibly Tsung, to MKX but in the form of DLC in lieu of being slapped to the roster as in Kitana in Unchained.
The idea of bringing some of the old characters for gameplay is neat, something I'd support, but in the way I already implied in the first post.

Except that, for the millionth time, the dead guys aren't really dead. They're henchmen. Because the game's about Shinnok.

If the game wasn't about Shinnok, dead would mean "not in the game".

But the game is about Shinnok. So being dead doesn't mean being dead, it means "villain". In this instance, death is not a shelf the toys are being put on, it's a transformation.

So they're the same thing in MK10 that Baraka and Reptile were in MK9.

You realize Scorpion and Drahmin have always been dead guys, right? 'Cause that's what Kung Lao and co. are now. They're more Scorpions.



Except that, again for the millionth time I have to point out that it DOESN'T solve your problem. Nothing about your explanations are clear on HOW the problem is solved. (or even what the "problem" really is, to be honest.)

What does the characters not being playable actually accomplish?

You don't want dead guys to be on the select screen WHY? From what I've gathered, your reason is, if there are less old characters returning, then the devs can make the new characters more important to the game.

But in your idea, they'd still be returning. The devs would still have to spend time making them. They wouldn't be playable sometimes, but they would be playable other times. So they still have to be built and balanced, and no time that could be devoted to making new guys is actually being spared.
And the select screen has nothing to do with importance. Arcade mode has nothing to do with importance. Stryker didn't become cool just by being in the game. He became cool because they revamped his costume so he doesn't look like Chief O'Brien from Star Trek anymore and gave him a whole chapter of story mode to show off his personality. If you want new guys to get time the way Stryker got time, the select screen has nothing to do with that, all you need is a good costume, good moves, and their own chapter in the story.

Importance is determined by Story Mode and Story Mode DOES NOT HAVE A SELECT SCREEN.

So if the devs still have to spend the time to make Kung Lao and Kitana, whether or not they put them on the character select screen would have literally ZERO impact on whether or not players like the new versions of Kai and Bo' Rai Cho.

@RazorsEdge701 Dude, you're still not getting what I'm saying, and I'm starting to think you just don't want to.

You keep asking what my suggestion accomplishes when the entire issue is mentioned in the first post. If you feel it won't work, that's fine, but stop acting as if the subject of this thread holds no weight. I already stated what the situation is and what the solution could be. Everyone else seems to have understood it, even those that disagree. What happened?

And then you're going on about Shinnok and what 'dead' means and I'm like, "Wtf is he talking about?"

Quite frankly, I'm tired of having this discussion with you, because it's not going anywhere. I declare this one stagnant.

Maybe we'll come to an understanding on a later date.

You're right, I don't understand what you've been saying.

Because your premise in the first post doesn't actually make sense. I've been trying to tell you your premise doesn't make sense from the very start but you've made no effort to clarify it. You can't just assume it does too make sense and tell me to read the first post again.

What is the REASON to have two rosters?

You said, essentially, "Some characters won't be coming back...but they have fans...so they should come back, just for vs mode."

But WHY just for Vs. Mode instead of all or nothing? What does that idea, which you perceive as a "compromise", actually save?

If you want the devs to go to all the trouble of bringing everybody back, then what's the point of having them in some modes but not in others? The only reason to do something like that would be because you think it would save them some time and effort. But it actually wouldn't.

Because the only thing the characters would actually be missing, the only thing your idea allows the devs to skip out on doing, is arcade mode endings, and those are like the easiest part of the character to make. All the HARD parts of putting a character into a game would still need to be done just to get them in vs. mode like you want. So since they're already going to be done, why not put them in arcade mode too at that point?

Quite honestly I'm surprised nobody thinks that bringing in a whole boatload of new characters in the next game isn't going to blow up in their face.

Everybody uses Stryker as an example of what they can do with characters. Stryker is still only like 18 or 19 on the official site of favorite characters. If they make a whole bunch of strykers that's going to blow up on them. They can pay all of the attention they want to to new characters but if you don't have your most popular characters then people will ask why.

3 of the 5 top favorite characters in MK9 are dead. Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, and Smoke are dead. You can't replace them with Frost, Kai, and Havik and expect them to suddenly have more fans.

Like I've said, they left some of their lackeys alive while simultaneously killing a lot of their most popular heroes, and two of their more popular villains (Shang and Noob). You can't just expect these lesser known characters to come in and have the game be magically successful.

Everytime I bring up this argument it seems like people just brush it off, but it really should hold weight. The characters from the 3D era are not as popular as those form the 2D and I don't feel that any amount of makeovers is going to change that. You can definitely make them more popular over the course of say 2 or 3 games, but throwing them in MK10 and giving them a makeover isn't going to magically make them successful. Like Razor said their is also the off chance that some people won't like the makeover as well.

I wouldn't like if the characters that died in MK9 became unplayable in the next one just because they're dead. The MK Team doesn't know how to properly make a new character now, Skarlet being the exception gameplay-wise, because her story is the same old Shao Kahn grunt crap.

Same reason I dislike MKD roster so much. They dropped MK icons in favor of new characters, but those new characters were totally bland/uninspired, including the main protagonist of the game. Also, they were given recycled fighting styles from MKDA, probably the reason they decided to not put any of the ''dead'' characters in.

I don't really have problem with them putting non canon characters exclusive to versus mode. But first they need to actually implement a proper VS mode, because currently the only way to fight the CPU is through Arcade and Training.

If this is about them being dead, why would that matter? Nobody dies in MK. It's a fact. I'm sure somewhere down the road Shao Kahn will come back. Scorpion is already dead, but he's in every game.

Like Razor said, Story mode is not the only thing that determines if a character will be in the game. Popularity and gameplay come to mind as contributing factors as well.

I really do think MK pulling a Tekken move would appease everybody.