There are a few relevant topics I've noticed that I needed to vent about... elitism among players between two (or even three) console versions of the same game, and a glaring aesthetical weakness Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate that has existed since the vanilla incarnation... the lack of a compelling original score and a specific DLC soundtrack. Before I get into all that, I wanna say props to everyone who went out and supported their respective offline scenes this weekend, congrats to BlackberryChaos (aka FC Blackburry) for winning his second offline tourney, and props to Sly Bass for getting that well-deserved member spotlight at FSD for contributing so much as an Akira player, among other things. Congrats, you've earned it.
The subject I'm going to touch on isn't necessarily prevalent in FSD, per se, but rather in the DOA Facebook groups. It's the subject of console elitism, or rather, said scrub assuming he/she is better than other player because he/she plays on a console that most players have played on for years. Now don't get me wrong, I have common sense. When a fighter has been played exclusively on a specific console for so long, it's naturally going to take outsiders from other consoles to adjust. Therefore, users of that console will have a more experienced (and notably stronger) player pool. I get that.
But every once in a while you're gonna have certain people be the straw man and use this as an excuse to jump to the players who play on the other console just to ridicule them, with no intention whatsoever of drawing them to the competitive community or doing something positive or encouraging to make them want to play on or adjust to both consoles. This is part of the problem on why some multi-platform fighting games have become so stigmatic, if not the architectural differences of each version themselves. Some prefer a PS3 version of the game because it either has the most complete features or because there are no issues with syncing different controllers without having to power down the console. Some prefer the Xbox 360 version because there are no frame hiccups during gameplay or because it was designed to run optimally for that console. Either way, it doesn't excuse console elitism.
Regardless of the console you play in, one thing is always certain. You are bound to run into bad sports or people with a terrible competitive mindset. But don't judge an entire player pool of said console the same way. Once you get into this habit, you will begin to draw some genuine players away who want to learn. If you have the best of both worlds (or more), try not to make your big focus on a topic, status, or whatever about how awful the online is, how less experienced the players on said console are, or how this guy lagged really bad and played like a huge scrub when he said nothing to advocate you. Be more inviting rather than condemning. Try to relate with the player if you can. It should be common sense to everyone that there's always gonna be lag, so make the most of it in a positive, more constructive way if you have to.
For some of these players, it's all they got. For others, they probably want to play for fun and have no interest in playing competitively, but rather just have a good time fooling around. And for those who say "the ONLY way to have fun in fighting games is by playing it competitively", stop. Get off the high horse. When most of y'all were kids, you wanted to play fighting games by yourself or with a friend too for fun without necessarily knowing what you were doing, and tourneys were an afterthought because more than likely, you had much bigger priorities such as finishing school. For most of these "scrubs" and "braindead people" some of you enjoy picking on, that's probably the state of mind they're in now. If that's how they prefer to enjoy themselves, let them be or join them. Try not to shove your ideals down their throats, or it'll provoke them to become rebellious to spite you. Granted, some of them are legitimately bad sports and deserve the cold shoulder, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna believe everyone playing on said console is like this. Bottom line: Treat others as you would like to be, which I hope would be with respect. If they wish to compete and travel for console tournies, they may have to adjust to the other console someday... and you wouldn't want the guilt for treating that player like crap because they played on a different console than yours to support your offline scene, now would you?
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This past week, I had realized a feature that has yet to be included in DOA5U. We have the OSTs for DOA2, DOA3, and DOA4 as selectable music (the former two being unlockable content in the full game), but aside from Bass's "Superstar", there is no other BGM from the game that started it all, DOA1. This prompted me to use all of my audio-editing techniques to make 30-minute extended loops from most - if not all - the music from the game, whether it's the original or the PS1 arranged version. Here is a sample of what I worked on, and probably the most-wanted track out of those interested.
Perhaps upon seeing this, TN will consider adding this soundtrack as DLC. But my real concern is the future of DOA's music. Since DOA4, the quality of the score has since deteriorated, as there hasn't been much of a soundtrack that was truly engaging or catchy apart from a small few. Before DOA4, a lot of heart was put into the music as well as the flamboyant graphics the games are known for, as the quality for each character's theme was well-rounded. As of DOA5, there was no original character themes for returning characters, instead they were recycled tracks from DOA4, with only Mila, Rig, and the DLC characters ever getting true original character themes. Perhaps it's time to bring in some veteran talent such as Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage series) or Hideki Naganuma (Sega Rally 2, Jet Set Radio series) to the mix for Dead or Alive 6. Given TN's close ties to Sega as of late and the two composers' past relations with Sega, it's probably not a bad idea.
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