I didn't think people would agree with me on this. I'm glad to see that wasn't the case.
I agree with a lot of points you guys have written about. Most of the blame for what's happening falls on Team NINJA themselves. But still, it's pretty frustrating how the otaku crowd is reacting to DOA6 when they clearly don't know shit about the franchise. I don't know if you agree with me but I feel like DOA6's visual style (at least for now, before we indeed descend into DLC hell) feels like a throwback to the DOA2-3 days when the guys were rude and the girls were hot and cool. There was a lot of fanservice but first and foremost, the characters were martial artists. That's the thing that got me to like the series so much in the arcade/Dreamcast days of DOA2.
Your experience is almost similar to mines (regarding the main topic) and NY locals, even main events but not as common.
DOA on my end, I went to my NY locals for offline venues quite a bit with Bladez, RenderingStar, Tenryuga etc. Heck, Tenryuga left DOA and this site because he was tired of supporting it due to DOA itself becoming a walking contradiction I guess and was tired of being in the environment on not being treated seriously or talking about game information. It was hard to get people to play the game in general over here, some tried with great spirit and happiness which is cool but extremely small (hey, start from somewhere). It's tough as hell trying to convince people to play a game that they already heard bad rumors about, on top of stepping out of their comfort zone from a game they already play outside of DOA jumping into DOA. You can ask Bladez, or even SlyBass when he came over here one time and we heard shit like "Why should I play this game when this game is better. DOA is a joke and its not even serious" "X game community has both 50% gameplay talk and 50% casual, DOA doesn't lol" but yet we ignored them and still try to get people to play it. Let me tell you, NY is the land of Marvel, SF, Smash, Guilty Gear and so on. Getting even a consistent scene here is hard along with time schedules.
Some people would say "well fuck those people, we don't need them" but at some point, DOA has to grow. You have to invite and help people like that so that they feel different about it and you prove them wrong that it's a fun game, that way, that person can tell their friends that the game is good, then their friends would tell their friends etc. and then it spreads. The more people playing DOA the better it is to get topics like you mentioned regarding gameplay and stuff while blocking out all the negativity.
Not a joke here. There are people who traveled and play DOA with us who went to the venue quite a bit in NY saying "I kinda regret learning and getting involved with DOA now..." and it's kinda depressing and infuriating hearing that because of something we can't just seem to control due to how TN does shit along with the community with how they take things and not talking about gameplay etc. I still support DOA for what it is but there are times where I feel like this whole DOA stigma needs a restart. Maybe TN could create an entirely new second fighting game IP while keeping DOA similar to Namco with Tekken and Soul Calibur, but TN kinda gets remembered for memes now regarding DOA so it might just do more harm than good. Who knows, I know how you feel though.
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