First Step: Trying to improve information for US players.

I think this is the best idea I've heard as far as contributing to the growth of the VF community. The idea of a complete guide with many different FAQs in it seems great for a few reasons:

1.It would be a collection of guides written by many different contributers, it means we can get as much information as possible into one complete guide.
2.We would finally have a source to go to any time we had a question about VF, and if all goes well, people could add their own answers when they aren't already in the guide.

I think the most important bits of info that we need are things like the backstagger after tech roll etc. that aren't documented in any guides. Things like this are the things that new people end up finding a long time after there initial search of the site for info.

The other thing is that i do agree with Myke in not being too unrealistic about this. I think it should simply be a bunch of faqs of different types, available either on the website or in a zip file, hopefully well catagorized so that people can find any information easily.

Anyway I would be willing to contribute to this guide with tactics for Shun, my guide being a good start. /versus/images/icons/laugh.gif

 

Oops. /versus/images/icons/blush.gif Maybe I made a bit too much of this. I just found that I had trouble filtering through all the information on VF when I was first visiting here. Comment withdrawn.

 

Yeah, Montreal does that to you /versus/images/icons/smile.gif . Shame we didnt meet up. Hope you get another excuse to come up to play.

 

Not a bad idea, actually. The other route to exchanging PS2 memory card files is through a device that allows you to connect the mem card directly to your PC. I can't remember the name, but it's out there, made by Gameshark I believe...might even be cheaper that using your PS2 with a net connection.

Anyway, one flaw I can see that would hinder this is that many many movies, etc are from direct feed video in an arcade or just from plain-jane captured video tape. I'd say that maybe 10% of media is from the PS2 saved replay files. Most media is arcade.

cheers,

 

the real major flaw is that not everyone who wants to get better at the game wants to purchase peripheral after peripheral. There are many players who don't even own a PS2.

The training videos started by CreeD are definately an excellent start and it does hurt those on dial-up connections. I'm wondering about people using p2p and sig2dats to release material and keep the flow going continuously (for those without web space or *fast* web space).

the alternative is to create print media to complement the videos. PDF styled breakdowns of the same matches or situations. The "taking your precentages" thread started by the FL crew is a non-graphical example of that. If you could take the same situations and apply screen captures to it....well its the mook of days gone by. and the mooks from VF2 (the versus section) was invaluable in my day.

I would certainly not have any problem partnering with a few people who could invest the time to do something like this.

GE

 

Rather than PDF, how about having the current html dojos be replaced with something nice that mixes text and pictures? I always hate having to load acrobat for something that coulda been done as a plain old web page.
If you want it saved to disk, IE/NS etc have such a function.

 

it makes no difference to me. I know Quark, not HTML so I would leave it in your capable hands! My only requirement for viewing would be that letter sized pages are strictly defined so that printing is "click print easy" without any monkeying with settings. That's what publishing in PDF is great for.

GE

 

I think that the organization of character threads isn't too good. It's good that you click on a character on the side menu, and get a list of all of the threads for that char...but it's how people open new threads when they're inspired by a new combo or strategy. One thread will start out, then die down, and a few months later a new one will open up.

Instead, why not have one specific thread for general strategies for a specific character, and another for combo discussion for that specific character. This thread would be THE place to go for your new breakthroughs in general strats (or combos) and to find minute discussion for dealing with certain characters.It would save the general VF community (especially those new to it who would rather discuss and converse than read faqs) the trouble of looking through multiple threads for advice. Of course, then you could open threads for dealing with certain characters.

I know it's a bit lazy wanting to look through one thread instead of searching through many (or reading faqs). But doing this would improve this venue of information exchange. Of course, character specific faqs such as the one Creed just wrote on Jacky (great job by the way Creed /versus/images/graemlins/laugh.gif ) should go under the character's section of threads as well so you get every avenue of information in one spot.

I thought about this because I had a few very basic questions on Brad for a long time, but none of his threads have been active for awhile. After going through each of those threads looking for an answer and not finding one, I felt as though I wasted my time. Sometimes a newcomers might hold their questions because the appropriate threads aren't very active. Having one thread may remedy this habit.

And of course, I'm not saying to not have multiple threads. It would just make things easier if there was one MAIN place to go to get started on learning a character (and develop into more "advanced" tactics as the thread continues).

Myke did something nearly identical to this when made specific threads for media from specific locations.

 

I think this was suggested before and nixed. Some guesses as to why:

[*] people wouldn't stick to posting in the correct place anyway
[*]Huge threads are a pain in the ass. Searching for a particular post, if nobody bothers to rename the topic of that thread, would be really hard.
[*]In theory the current system, which searches for character names in topics, handles that.
[*]If people would write some frigging faqs, threads wouldn't matter so much
[*]90% of the good stuff (I'm guessing) has already been discovered as far as VF4. What do we do with all the old posts? It's too hard to move them into some other thread. This would have to be for VF5 if it's done at all.

About your lack of brad info ... sadly it just isn' t out there. He's one character who hasn't gotten The Treatment the way hiro did with akira+sarah, or ETP did with vanessa, or I did with goh.
If he did get the treatment, I missed it.

 

Understood. It's just my opinion. Imo, either way has both advantages and disadvantages, and in my eyes having one thread has fewer disadvantages. Again just my opinion.

[ QUOTE ]
CreeD said:
[*] people wouldn't stick to posting in the correct place anyway

[/ QUOTE ]

So very true...

[ QUOTE ]
CreeD said:
[*]Huge threads are a pain in the ass. Searching for a particular post, if nobody bothers to rename the topic of that thread, would be really hard.

[/ QUOTE ]

True (on the searching point...I actually like huge threads better), but you can always re-ask. Or, just as people do with a faq, read.

[ QUOTE ]
CreeD said:
[*]In theory the current system, which searches for character names in topics, handles that.

[/ QUOTE ]

True. Either way posts it's difficulties. Just my matter of preference.

[ QUOTE ]
CreeD said:
[*]If people would write some frigging faqs, threads wouldn't matter so much

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah. Most people would rather read than discuss in thread form anyway.

[ QUOTE ]
CreeD said:
[*]90% of the good stuff (I'm guessing) has already been discovered as far as VF4. What do we do with all the old posts? It's too hard to move them into some other thread. This would have to be for VF5 if it's done at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I actually forgot to include that. It would suck for the admin. to try and put everything currently existing into one thread. Too much work and a waste of time.

[ QUOTE ]
CreeD said:
About your lack of brad info ... sadly it just isn' t out there. He's one character who hasn't gotten The Treatment the way hiro did with akira+sarah, or ETP did with vanessa, or I did with goh.
If he did get the treatment, I missed it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Actually it was very basic questions concerning moves. I wanted to know which move + produced, and I wanted to know if he had a mid-roundhouse besides regular kick.

Don't think that I'm trying to be difficult in ANY way. I'm not trying to convince you guys to change a thing...it's just my opinion on what I thought would make things easier, and this seemed like the apporpriate place to voice it. And if I have any other ideas on improving info-exchange on VFDC, I'll let you know /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[ QUOTE ]
Myke said:
In your example, you searched for your question in the existing Brad threads and didn't find your answer. Why, then, did you not post your question?


[/ QUOTE ]

Earlier when I mentioned a newcomer being too timid to post a question in an inactive thread, I was referring to myself /versus/images/graemlins/blush.gif As my posts show I'm relatively new to VFDC, and am new to competitive vf play (didn't get serious until I bought vf4).

In other message boards people tend to be jackasses to those asking "n00bish" questions, sadly, even when they aren't a "n00b". I just wanted to avoid getting pissed at some wise-ass poking fun for a simple question.

 

How about good old character specific sections in the forums to choose from instead of just having Junky's or CTT covering the whole game. It would be fun to have that in the Help center and skip the general stuff or sift through CTT and go straight to the character that interests you. You can have multiple threads going in the say Akira section, but they would all be pertinent to Akira. It would make searching for info alot easier. And since Evo is coming out soon, we'll be having an influx of posters asking questions that they cant find using the search ( be it by stupidity or lack of info ) about specific chars. This has been working well on a few big japanese boards. Anyway just my 2 cents.

 

Let me start off by saying that I am a swedish VF-player. I started playing VF when VF4 was released in Sweden and I love the game.

The first important thing I've noticed is the high number of used VF4 copys that are on sale. A lot of people here seem to have picked the game up and then sold it back to the store. A few of my friends also bought VF4 at the same time as me, but they got tired of it quickly. They found the game to be too hard and didn't want to spend so much time to learn to play it. So, I think the problem is that general public (gamers in this case) are not aware of exactly what VF is all about. They think they will get something like Tekken, a game that is easy to play from the start, it is something that everyone can enjoy, without to much practice. Instead, VF is about improving gradually and you need to put a lot of work into it before it gets really fun.

I am currently working on a project, a few different articles that (most likely) will be published on one of the most popular gaming sites in Sweden. The articles all have VF as subject and I will do my best to try and explain what it is all about. I think that perhaps this is one of the ways to get gamers interested. To tell them what they can expect. And I also think that I could be a good idea to try and tell people about VF as often as we can, not by telling everyone that it is better than Tekken or DoA, but by telling them what is so great about VF.

When I heard that VF4 was going to be released here in Sweden I preordered it and started searching around on the internet. Of course I found this site first.
Now, that is an advantage, if you just use it right. Not everyone have my patience (well, some refer to it as madness /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif), I spent hours reading FAQs and learning about the game, before I even played it! So, I think it is important that you make a good first impression.

Why not keep the first page of the site free from terms and words that may be unfamilliar to the first time players?
I mean, no one knows what "Daioh" or "versus city" is if nobody tell them right away. Getting into the VF community is not easy, you have to learn to play the game and there is more new words to learn and new concepts to grasp than there is in a one semester course in Quantum Mechanics (sadly enough, this is true). Not everyone will be able to keep the interest up long enough to actually get past the first page of this site. /versus/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Now, my suggestion is that you try and keep the first page of the site as user friendly as possible, don't scare the new players away. There also should be some kind of dictionary, that explain some of the new terms, like "Daioh" for example (hell, Im still not sure about what exactly Daioh is...). Not only the terms that you may encounter in the game.

I haven't written anything in english in a few years so it may be a little hard to understand me. =)

I also want to say that I appreciate all the hard work that you guys put in to this site. It have helped me a lot and I will always feel grateful. Thanks!

 

Why not keep the first page of the site free from terms and words that may be unfamilliar to the first time players? I mean, no one knows what "Daioh" or "versus city" is if nobody tell them right away. Getting into the VF community is not easy, you have to learn to play the game and there is more new words to learn and new concepts to grasp than there is in a one semester course in Quantum Mechanics (sadly enough, this is true). Not everyone will be able to keep the interest up long enough to actually get past the first page of this site.

I'm a big fan of this idea, though I can smell other people's reply a million miles away:
"If they are too lazy/stupid to figure out the stuff on the front page of the site, they are not capable of playing VF anyway"

Still, it wouldn't kill anyone to see the word "faqs" or "forums" and "movelists" right on the front page. It's not like knowing the bits of trivia associated with phrases like "Junky's Jungle" is more important and enriching than having user-friendliness.

To the rest who say "yeah but if they don't want to dig...."

Which do you think the average arcade joe says to himself?
"Hey that thing I stumbled across about VF4 was pretty neat, I think I'll glance over some other material and see if I can get into it."
or..."I am in the mood for some research! To-day I shall learn Virtua Fighter 4 in its entirety, and I won't leave until I have sought out all the informations appertaining to my endeavour! To the study, Watson!"
Bleah.

BTW: Daioh = an arcade in japan that records VF movies and posts them on their website, www.daioh.com . When people talk about daioh, they usually mean the page where you can download movies.

 

When I think about it, and maybe this should have been done earlier, why not simply add a link to a "For beginners" section on the first page. Not too much, just some pointers, links to the dictionary and some links to threads and movelists and such.
And of course, some kind of welcome phrase so they feel... welcome. =)
And perhaps a forum section for beginners (I mean, beginner threads are a problem anyway, you have to move them around and so on), where the noobs can ask some of the more basic questions and maybe there could be a sticky thread with advice. The rules on the beginner section could allow a little more freedom. This would actually make things easier for both the beginners and the admins, wouldn't it?

I know how much work that needs to be put in to this kind of site and as I said, I feel a gratitude towards those that have maintained it over the years. Thus, I wouldn't even dare to propose something drastic (because I know how much work it implies), but an additional page of information and a new section in the forums shouldn't be too much if everyone helps a little. Right?

I know a lot of people feel that anyone with a little skills should figure the front page out, but I think that is not the case. I think there is a lot of new VF players that has no past experience with fighting games and maybe even internet sites. These people could probably become decent players, but they never will if the community doesn't support them and welcome them. Of course everyone here want the community to develope, to progress, not to go backwards or simplify.
However, sometimes you have to go back to be able to progress and I strongly think that this is the case here.

I also think that some of you that have been with the community from the start feel that they want to preserve what they help to build (and that no noob should come here and tell you how you to do it), but isn't renewal something important in order to get the community to grow? And isn't a growing community something that will ensure a higher level of competition, thus something that will benefit everyone?

Creed: Ah! Now I see! I was really confused about Daioh before. =) Thanks!