So you want to use a 3 year old gameplay engine and resources for a next gen game just to keep the roster intact even if the story will have to be absolutely bludgeoned to death just to make them all fit?

Personally, I don't like the Tekken model and I've been playing Tekken since the first one came out. Seeing the same characters, over and over, game after game, with slight tweaks, gets boring and stale after a while.

Several fighters do this and I think it's part of the reason why the genre petered out for a while. Oversaturation plus too many devs playing it safe and just refining the same engine and characters over and over again.

I think that one of the reasons why MK weathered the storm was because they innovated. They provided a lot of new characters, gameplay ideas and modes so that MK3 didn't feel like MK2, MKDA didn't feel like MK3 and MK9 didn't feel like anything from the 3D era.

I get it. I loved MK9. It's the MK game that I'd probably imagined in my mind since I first saw MK1 in arcades. But I have faith in NRS that they can give us something new, something better, with a story that continues to put the Tekkens, the Street Fighters, and the DOAs that all play it safe to shame.

And that part's key. I love the MK mythos, crazy as it's become. You seem to want to tailor the story to the characters, when I'd rather they tell the story that they want to tell with the characters they want to use. If that means all of the dead return as part of Shinnok's army, so be it.

But if they killed those characters in the story to make room for 3D era characters or even new characters entirely, then that's fine by me. I want their true vision for the future of this series, fan service be damned. As long as they have some anchor characters that are familiar and the gameplay is on point, people will buy.

I guess still being in the job hunting process has it's good side with no work on Monday.

Still want a job but I guess if seeing E3 and all these announcements happen during it, I feel that I shouldn't complain.

Yay!

Should I get a callback today, I'll be starting my new job on Monday.

A bittersweet moment, it would be.

I wouldn't say those other fighting games are playing it safe, just giving their fans what they want. Tekken fans wanted all those characters to keep coming back and they got it. Same with SF, but their catalog of characters is too big so they can't bring back everyone.

I'm not saying we need every single character back from MK9. I'd be totally fine if Stryker, Smoke, Jade, Sheeva, Nightwolf, Sindel, and Jax took the bench for awhile. But using MK9's engine as a base and continuing to build off of it wouldn't be bad. I want them to go with UE4 and really blow us away. But I'm just saying that if they went Tekken's way I certainly wouldn't object.

I'm not sure a fighting game should be all about story. I mean yeah it's important but at the end of the day it is a fighting game. So for me, character balance and gameplay trump story.

I agree 100%

This is a game, not a novel. There are far more serious priorities that should be taken before the story.

Other than polish and balance, not really. The story and the gameplay mechanics seem to be the two biggest complaints amongst fans. The gameplay, while still needing a bit more improvement, is there. IMHO the story was the reason MK stayed around. I played MKDA/MKD/MKA purely for the lore. We know how much the last timeline got out of hand. If you were to ask me, once the gameplay mechanics are solid, story needs to be a priority.

I couldn't care about roster more than the story. I REFUSE to be one of those fans who says we nee the krypt. A bunch of stuff I am only going to open once? No, thank you. I like the Krypt and Tower but people are a little too focused on quantity.

Reminds me of MKA....

I swear to god. The roster could be Jarek, Hsu Hao, Darrius, Mokap and Kobra. As long as they told a compelling and captivating story and the gameplay was solid, count me in.

You know with all the DC related content with Injustice, somebody in WB is still whispering "As long as we don't take the MKA route har har har" while being totally serious. I guarantee there are eyes on the story. I can smell it.

Very good points. I played Deadly Alliance and Deception mainly for the story as well. As I said earlier, Armageddon and MK9 turned me off in that department so I'm a bit jaded. Hopefully this game gets back on track with good story telling

But how many new Tekken fans join with each game? Sales aren't increasing in that series because they're selling solely to people who are already fans and those fans become less and less as they get bored of playing the same game each release, Madden-style. You see the same thing in the comic book industry, they target the tiny fanbase they already have of 30 and 40 year olds who've already been reading for years, never succeed at any of their attempts to reach out and attract the mainstream, and the industry is dying.

SF4 was so popular because SF3 was a radical departure and people were happy to have the retro style back, similar to MK9. And now they're just selling expansion packs, so nobody can complain "this new game is just a copy of the old game", because it's obviously not claiming to be a new game like something titled "SF5" would.

Well, you say they weren't playing it safe, but rather giving fans what they want,but isn't that bssically playing it safe in theory, and isn't the result the same in practice?

I'm not saying that devs should just ignore their fanbase, not at all, but when you have a large group of hardcore fans that really like something, there can be a tendency to resist change.

But if you don't grow and experiment and change over years and years and just keep giving people the same thing that they want over and over again , your product becomes overly familiar, predictable and stale. That's fine if you're 70 and can't get enough of the 14th season of NCIS, but I don't want that for MK.

Also, speaking as a Tekken fan, there's a lot of fat that they could trim off of that roster. Lots of repeats of characters and characters that are just too dull to begin with.

I loved the first three Tekkens, but four made changes for the worse and five and six just played it too safe. I got bored of them quickly. I honestly played Tag 2 for about a week and never picked it up again because it's just more of the same, over and over.

I do agree with you that character balance and gameplay trump story, but for MK in particular, I believe that you can tailor the cast to the story and still have competitive balance and great gameplay.

Really, I'm not saying just have Scorpion, Sub Zero and a whole new cast. SF3 tried that approach and while it was a great game, hardly anyone played it. I just think that there's a middle ground between all characters come back and no characters come back and I honestly think that any fighting game that takes one extreme or the other and does it repeatedly is destined to fail over time IMO.

Was it a confirmitation that "Animalities" Are in??? Since someone posted a picture of some cat hitting a ball with Ed's reaction something like "oh yeah animality" ????

I hope not, I didn't like Animalities too much. They could do it right probably, if they do then I welcome it. But I'd much rather see Friendships or Hara-Kiris.

I wouldn't be opposed to Animalities, but only if they replace Babalities.

How would you guys feel if they added Hara Kiris?

Would feel just fine. Loved that feature. Some kind of interesting dynamic at the "Finish Him/Her" screen would be welcomed for me.

if they do bring it back I wouldn't mind, it would help stop rage quitting.Maybe they should do it. That way it becomes like a challenge. Yea you just lost, but you do not give your opponent the satisfaction of killing you. This time around they could look a cooler too. Like Kenshi will perform Seppuku on himself and the guts will spill out. Scorpion could use the portal thing to hang himself. Sub-zero tears off his own head. Noob has his shadow kill him. Rain drowns himself. Johhny snaps his own neck. Sonya shot herself in the head with her blaster. Raiden explodes himself ( deception style). Kano rips his own heart out. so on and so forth, actually i kind of hope they bring it back

Return of Hara Kiris...

What if they bring in the Mercy feature and if you choose to show mercy then perform an x-ray it does a brutality instead? That would be awesome

If they changed Raidens fatality from Decepetion to a Harakiri, that would be awesome. That fatality was so fucking funny.

Maybe if the player disconnectes or Rage Quits the character automatically does a Hara Kiri and you get a win while they get a loss

I'm only up for friendships and fatalities. I'd like to see some kind of new finisher, something we haven't seen before.

maybe but if that's the case they should try and make it so the match locks if you land a fatality. So they can't rage quit so easily.

Wait for me

Tekken is definitely going to trim a lot of the character roster with Tekken 7. I could see them getting rid of bounds and rage too. But Tekken has never really appealed to new players anyway. The high learning curve scares away new players.

There's this saying that I hear a lot. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." And that's what we're seeing. Which I'm all for really. I'd rather have something that works and is familiar than them trying to reinvent the wheel and fuck it all up. I'm not against change in the roster, story, and gameplay. I welcome it. But I don't think MK needs to constantly reinvent the wheel. I'm seriously hoping the gameplay in MK10 is very similar to MK9 but with the tweaks it needs. Nothing substantially different. They have a great thing going and should stay the course. The roster is good right now, take away some of the dead characters, add some the characters from MK4-MKD, and boom. We have a solid roster. Otherwise it doesn't need much.

Tekken will have an inevitable downsizing come Tekken 7. I imagine it'll be like Tekken 4 in size only a little bigger. Which is great because in terms of tone, Tekken 4 was the best no contest. Only bad thing about T4 was the slopes. People often consider Tekken 5 the highest point aside from Tekken 3. It brought back many old characters and the gameplay was heavily tweaked from Tekken 4. Tekken 6 added Rage and Bounds, so it did try something. Of course, Tekken fans really didn't like either one. TTT2 went even further and added Fight Lab for casuals, which was poorly received. Whenever they try something new it's never for the best.

For those in England who don't know what time the reveal will be, 8am CST equals to around 2pm in the UK.