How many people here still play KOF?

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How many people here still play KOF?

Post by SonicTempest » Sun Dec 18, 2005 00:22

Just wondering.

Since our arcade here just got KOFXI (with NGBC on the way) I've been driven to go to the arcade and practise a lot more, especially since 2K3 dulled whatever "skill" I had by making me use K' as a crutch. So personally I've been playing a lot.

However I notice that apart from the SG and Aussie players and some other people like Blastrezz, frionel, Tel, etc, not too many people are posting in the gameplay forums. I suppose much of this can be chalked up to the lack of an arcade nearby or lack of competition, but is there anything else that contributes to it?

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Post by L1r » Sun Dec 18, 2005 02:29

Ah well, see, I think having an arcade nearby is menester to have regular gameplay posting, in my case it's nearly impossible for me to go practice at either NGBC or KOF XI, because arcades over here are all wankers. Another thing I think contributes to the lack of posting is that people really don't think much of DEEP gameplay strategy, most people just want to know some basic combos and be on their way, of course I might be wrong... who knows. Yet another thing, most people don't care about half the roster, since we all know 90% of the gamers play to win, and to win you have to, again, most of the time, play with top-tiers, which means only 5 out of 40 characters get their attention, thus they just go active when people talk about those characters (and the occasional favorite characters we all know and/or like) Personally I still play KOF, though I'm some years behind since I was only barely interested in KOF2k3 and playing KOFNW is like playing 2k2 all over again...

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Post by Bugle/Hawk'M » Sun Dec 18, 2005 03:39

With no arcade with KoF I've never really played at a competitive level, but I used to play intensely to learn characters (back with 98 and 99 on DC mostly), but I don't play all that much anymore, especially not at the level I used to. Lately I just use it as a time killer when I don't know what to do. I generally just boot up my xbox and choose a fighter at random.

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Post by Monpochi » Sun Dec 18, 2005 03:51

Well that's the same case here, i think XI hasn't appeared anywhere...

I still play KOF and occassionally talk about gameplay (ZOMG!)... but the lack of an arcade is making me crap since i think there's a lot of difference in 2k3 and XI. And it's the one that i mostly play in my PC...

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Post by Anti-K' » Sun Dec 18, 2005 05:19

I play 2002 on my PS2, but not as much as I used to, because I have less free time now.

I still wanna play KOFXI and NGBC.

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Post by Fuu » Sun Dec 18, 2005 18:09

Not really, i mean i try not to get too rusty, i like to study combos and strategies, i try now and then to organize some little sessions with old friends who frequented the long time defunct arcades, but obviously that's not 'playing KOF'.
I can say it is still enjoyable to an extend, but i sure miss the competition.

Blastrezz

Post by Blastrezz » Mon Dec 19, 2005 15:42

Omg, I don't know where to start agreeing to all that you guys wrote.

ShadowSonic: "However I notice that apart from the SG and Aussie players and some other people like Blastrezz, frionel, Tel, etc, not too many people are posting in the gameplay forums."

--> I noticed that, too.
I think when I first started to read ON.com I think there were far more actively posting people. That was also one reason why I liked it here.
This has changed now. I mean I still like it here but far less people seem to be actively participating..... :( So sad. Considering this is a world-wide board here it differs in no way from what's happening in Germany, too.
People losing interest, having less time or just being "dulled away" (;) @ ShadowSonic).
Here in Germany you don't have ANY arcades as I already wrote a lot of times. So that point drops out here entirely. Not just for me but for everybody here.
Capcom Competition seems to stay throughout the world for whatever reason. SNK Playmore gets ever less respect. Recently some "hardcore SNK-guys" in Germany officially stated having lost their interest in SNK - above all KoF - games. This struck me hard because those guys were one of the last remaining SNK-people of our whole community.
Except for one group of four guys (who live 500km away from me!) there are only some widely spread freelancing KoF fans in Germany. Do I need to describe the consequences?
Yesterday I visited a former KoF2k hardcore playing guy. It's one of my already "most frequent" KoF opponents. Now I guess your eyes will pop out when I tell you he lives 100km away..... One last guy that is left for more frequent gameplay is somebody I can only play against via emulator and Kaillera (don't worry, I own the games as NeoGeo modules).
Due to different playstyles and characters we don't learn much from each other. We only play for fun.

Now you guys know what it's like to play The King of Fighters in Germany.
The answer to the top question: Yes, I still play KoF and still enjoy it mostly. I also look forward to KoFXI but unless something changes for the good, I might quit playing again somewhen 2006 :-/

You already said it: People also have less time and grow older. Hell, I guess I was 11 when I first played KoF94. It was outstanding for sure but I was too young. As for most of you guys I guess it was fun play back in these days. Competition was maybe limited to the closest 3-4 friends. Around 1996 I quit playing fighting games entirely. I should miss some of the best years in fighting videogame history, as I noticed 2002 when I made my comeback and started what I'd call competitive gameplay for fighters. The last 3 years I spent my life mostly with KoF2k2. The two years 2002-2004 were ok. Since then it all started to fall apart here. People also got older and have jobs or they study. We are getting old, folks! Nobody posts anymore.

Sad story, huh?
If you were honest about what you told other people you'd have to say beat'em-ups are dead in entire Germany and THAT is a major fun killer even with games like KoFXI already at the horizon.

What about all the other people? In case anybody reads what I just wrote, feel free to tell your situation of fighting games.

--Blast

PS: Why do certain regions of the world are missing entirely here at ON?
People from all South Europe (France, Greece...) are not present here at all, are they?
That we get no visitors from far Asia like China, Korea and Japan is probably because they still have their KoF communites in their native languages (KoFUNION, Battlepage....).
I guess these guys mostly "snigger" at us. I guess we seem pretty pathetic to them so nobody will start posting here.

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Post by frionel » Tue Dec 20, 2005 00:20

Just to say that I m from France (and sometimes in Morocco) ^^'

We already have a french fighting games community with an active forum, so players don't really try to search infos from any other place...

If you understand french, or just curious, or saw that we use the same "motion signs" (qcf, cr, df etc...), you can just have a look here :

http://www.console-league.com/forum/index.php?f=44

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Post by Apathy Wind » Fri Dec 23, 2005 02:59

On the odd occasion I play my copy of 2K2 but beyond that I rarely touch KoF. And after the extremely uninspired XI I am pretty much ready to give up on SNK. I'm tried of supporting a company that puts so little effort into what they do.

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Post by SonicTempest » Fri Dec 23, 2005 03:05

Not to sound rude or anything, but how is XI uninspired?

The game's presentation (aside from the low-res sprites) is top-notch, and the music is the best I've heard since KOF2000. The engine has been significantly improved since KOF2003 (pretty much all the retarded stuff about that game is gone), and in spite of Gato/Kula owning everyone else I find it infinitely more enjoyable than the former game.

IMO, if you want to look for an uninspired KOF, look to NeoWave, not XI.

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Post by Apathy Wind » Fri Dec 23, 2005 03:52

ShadowSonic wrote:Not to sound rude or anything, but how is XI uninspired?

The game's presentation (aside from the low-res sprites) is top-notch, and the music is the best I've heard since KOF2000. The engine has been significantly improved since KOF2003 (pretty much all the retarded stuff about that game is gone), and in spite of Gato/Kula owning everyone else I find it infinitely more enjoyable than the former game.

IMO, if you want to look for an uninspired KOF, look to NeoWave, not XI.
XI is uninspired because it's just more of the same. The fact of the matter is that KoF has gone largely unchanged since it's inception in 1994. Yes, you get new characters and systems and touched up graphics but each game is comparable to the last and for all intents and purposes could have been last years version. I used to just assume that this was because of the limitations of the MVS and that SNK was rewarding it's loyal consumers by maintaining the platform. But their switch to AW eliminates that argument.

NW was indeed uninspired but I'd hoped that was just because it was a 'test' game on the new system - something hastily produced to fill the gap between 2K3 and XI. My hopes were high in that SNK finally moved to new hardware and was taking extra time to produce XI. But when they finally released XI I find it's a game with the same sprites, the same number of characters as the previous KoF games, and apparently loading. Sure, the backgrounds look great and the system sounds interesting but at it's core it's the same game yet again.

To tell you the truth I haven't even played XI - it might very well be an enjoyable game (most KoF's are). But what it isn't is enough to sour me on SNK. Even after the hardware upgrade and extra development time the game is still the same as it ever was. STILL. I've noticed for a while that SNK fans have been trained to settle for minimal improvements. Christ, they're even happy about them. When XI came out I read about the delight with the backgrounds, music, and even the freakin' menus. I know it's just my opinion but gamers deserve and should expect more. All the years of minimalism from SNK has left us like battered wives - we clamor for whatever scraps of affection 'our beloved' throws us.

I've supported SNK in my fashion since roughly 1986 and been their ardent defender throughout. I've enjoyed their games but feel that it's time for them to finally crawl into the present. I'm tired of their minimal conditioning and no longer care to cling to the hope that they'll get their act together. XI was my last hope for a product that could really show what SNK had to offer.

So in answer to your question, that is why I feel XI is uninspired. Sorry for the long post.

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Post by SonicTempest » Fri Dec 23, 2005 04:02

I see your point.

I was talking to Cinerith about this on the IRC and he made an interesting point - in XI you can still play Iori/Benimaru/K' etc the same way you played them when they were first introduced, whereas in a game like GGXX Slash you actually need to relearn characters since old combos don't work, or characters have been tweaked in such a way that they have to be played differently, etc. (Of course, GGXX Slash suffers from other stigmata, such as how the core system hasn't really changed since the first GGXX, but I digress)

I'm actually satisifed with XI, but I can agree with your point that in a lot of ways it's "more of the same."

Blastrezz

Post by Blastrezz » Fri Dec 23, 2005 15:12

I'd like to pick that up and put some of my opinion into here:

First of all it is CORRECT that SNK put little effort into their games for the most part. Of course there were milestones like Fatal Fury Special, Art of Fighting 2, KoF94, Garou:MotW and so on but for the most part above all in the KOF series there mostly weren't many changes from one to another KoF sequel. I recently thought about that and again came to the conclusion, that only the Dream Matches (KOF94, 98 and above all 2k2) are remarkable games. If these were the only KoFs ever released then I think it would be ok. Ok now I come to the point and try to make it short:
When Playmore took over they did a lot of shit. We all know that I don't need to explain it any further and the top crap that they've ever done was KoF:NW, that's true BUT I see that it seems to get better finally! Look, KoF2k3 gave us the nicest presentation since years. It sounded extremely nice (ok, except the hit sounds) and the graphics bore so much nice stuff that it was a pleasure visually. They even went on working on the sprites (Yuri...). Gameplay has been truely SHAKEN. It didn't feel like any previous KOF before and it also contained lots of new gameplay elements. Sure that brought up a lot of new problems but they INDEED seem to get a hold of them now!! That's what they rarely did in the years before. KoFXI seems to be a small blockbuster from what I see and hear so far and as ShadowSonic said, they brushed up the gameplay and stuff. That combined with the nice improvements in game sound, music and graphics since KoF2k3 makes up for the first nice KoF since 2k2 which kind of marked the top mark of the old SNK-era.

When NeoWave came out I said: "ok that's it, Playmore is never gonna get it right anymore, at least not in gameplay terms". I set my last hopes for NGBC and KoFXI and now that they both turned out nice I'm willing to put my negative thoughts out of the way and look forward what Playmore might be doing in the future! They probably gonna get it right finally.

I think if NGBC and KOFXI didn't introduce as many new features and as much new stuff as you expected then you probably got bored of the fighting genre as a whole! At least the SNK universe based stuff.

--Blast

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Post by Empyrian » Sat Dec 24, 2005 04:52

Apathy Wind wrote:On the odd occasion I play my copy of 2K2 but beyond that I rarely touch KoF. And after the extremely uninspired XI I am pretty much ready to give up on SNK. I'm tried of supporting a company that puts so little effort into what they do.
I am not sure what kind of significant changes you want. What's wrong with XI?
What should SNKP do to make XI less uninspired in your opinion?

I am sorry but the way you put it across, it reads more as a bitter former KOF player who do not have the luxury of playing the game and therefore adopting the "sour grapes" mentality.

I thought everyone knew that Cinz is a semi-bitter critic of KOF and a player more slanted to the GG series.

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Post by Apathy Wind » Sat Dec 24, 2005 08:36

Empyrian wrote: I am not sure what kind of significant changes you want. What's wrong with XI?
What should SNKP do to make XI less uninspired in your opinion?

I am sorry but the way you put it across, it reads more as a bitter former KOF player who do not have the luxury of playing the game and therefore adopting the "sour grapes" mentality.

I thought everyone knew that Cinz is a semi-bitter critic of KOF and a player more slanted to the GG series.
What should SNK do with KoF? They should bring the series into the current era of gaming. That means upgraded graphics, expanded rosters, and additional features. Good as it's gameplay may be, XI is a game that could have been released in 1996. It is in no way indicative of a videogame of the current day.

All the logical excuses (ie. loyalty to the MVS, limited development time) have been stripped away - the truth is that SNK isn't concerned with putting full effort into their titles. SNK fans often don't seem to understand this due to their devotion to the subject matter. Look at it like this - what if John Madden Football (a game more posters here could care less about) never evolved from it's Sega Genesis roots? Imagine the series if it maintained it's original appearance, limited team allotments, and just offered basic season play. Sure the gameplay would still be fun but any logical gamer outside of the Madden fanbase would look at this series as inadequate compared to modern titles in the same genre. And rightfully so. This is how I've come to feel about KoF.

I'm sure alot of you will read this as a complaint about needing better graphics but that's not what this is. I've been with SNK for over 10 years and have watched them become mired in the past. It's not 1996 anymore - the company has to get with the times. SNK can design games with the best of them but they apparently can't or refuse to make those games viable for the present day. And after years of holding out I'm sick of hoping that they'll do what needs to be done. It's like watching your genius child spend their life working at a fast food restaurant - you cling to the hope they'll be all they can be but eventually just lose heart.

I don't have a case of sour grapes - I'm just fed up with SNK's business strategy. I'm becoming increasingly unwilling to accept lackluster efforts and find that I'd rather lend my support to a company willing to take the extra steps to develop a complete product.

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