p.W
New member
This isn't the first time you've implied that game design is just a process where you throw in whatever you want any time you want.
What do you mean by "last minute"? Two months ago? Six months ago? A year ago? Two years ago?
I get it now, NRS now HATES Liu Kang.
- Thread starter the_pathfinder
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This isn't the first time you've implied that game design is just a process where you throw in whatever you want any time you want.
What do you mean by "last minute"? Two months ago? Six months ago? A year ago? Two years ago?
Commander
Well-known member
Dunno.
It feels like somewhere between E3 2014 to before they finalized the roster they added those 3 in.
Something about that MKX post-credits scene gives me the feeling that they weren't supposed to originally be in.
Whether they did or didn't do that is another thing, but that ending scene and them being playable felt off, to me.
Take from that whatever you will, since you like to twist my words and put words in my mouth, anyways. :roll:
Imperatrix Sindel
New member
I find the idea that Kitana and Liu Kang weren't always intended to be playable extremely silly. Kitana at the very least hasn't missed a single game since her debut apart from 3 where she was added to UMK3, 4 where she was added to Gold, and Deception where she was added to Unchained.
Kung Lao was also clearly always in because he's the connection for Kung Jin. All four of the new leads have at least one family member in-game.
Kung Lao was also clearly always in because he's the connection for Kung Jin. All four of the new leads have at least one family member in-game.
Tarkatan Trash
Active member
That is exactly the point I made earlier. To be honest, I'd be more pissed if Kitana was nerfed than I would be if she was omitted.
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Gouki
New member
I can't quite tell if ur comment is serious or sarcasm...but, you do know that Liu and Kitana become the rulers of netherrealm at the end of the actual MKX story, right...?
p.W
New member
What you propose is improbable, bordering on physically impossible.
First of all, let's look at art assets. We know for a fact that Liu Kang and Kitana were set to be playable and already had semi-functional or functional models two months after E3, because of Ed Boon's original footwear tweet. For you to be right, NRS would have had to make the decision to include Liu Kang, Kitana, and Kung Lao, do dozens of passes of concept art for each, and create the models from scratch, all within a 2 month period? While also working on the rest of the game? I know game devs are renowned for working self-destructive hours, but this is pushing it. For comparison: Raiden already had concept art being worked on in June 2013 for his March 2014 reveal. D'Vorah at least as early as July. By August, she already had art that was almost zeroed in on her final appearance. So D'Vorah with her 2 costumes gets 7 months of work, while Kitana with her 6 launch outfits, including an unprecedentedly ambitious redesign, gets two months? I hope you see how unlikely this sounds.
Now, let's look at the story. Liu Kang and Kitana don't just show up in the stinger, they're with Quan Chi throughout Jax's entire chapter and Kang serves as the climactic fight. Jax literally does not have a single non-Revenant fight. You're saying that eight months before the game was set to launch, NRS still had no idea what would happen in Jax's chapter? What if they decided not to include Kang, Lao, and Kitana? Who do they replace them with for Jax's final fight? A brand new character? Well, that brand new character might need to be properly set up at some earlier point in the story, e.g. during Shinnok's arrival on Earth. Oops, time to redo all the cinematics in chapter 1, get the motion capture artists back into the studio, get the voice actors back to re-record all the dialogue...?
Better yet, look at Raiden's chapter, which is literally all about his relationship with Liu Kang and Kung Lao, from the flashbacks to the climactic fight. If Jax's chapter can still somehow be salvaged to function with Noob Saibot or a brand new character instead of Lao and Kang, Raiden's absolutely can't, because the point of Jax's chapter is that he bags Quan Chi (and it doesn't REALLY matter who's protecting him), while the point of Raiden's chapter is that he FAILS on every level, and he can't fail on an emotional level if he's wailing on a brand new nobody. This is story-telling 101: before the story's climax, the heroes have to fail and their failure has to be miserable. That's why Sindel massacres the MK9 cast in chapter 15/16 and Liu Kang accuses Raiden of inaction. That's why Lex Luthor fails to take out Superman in chapter 9/12 and Superman kills Captain Marvel. And it's why Raiden doesn't merely get the shit beat out of him by Kung Lao and Liu Kang in chapter 10/12, leading directly to his capture and the need for Cassie's crew to step up, but he also has his failure to save their souls shoved in his face. Replace Liu Kang with Noob Saibot, remove that angle, and Raiden's failure becomes merely a plot development, not a reflection of his past mistakes. And what you're proposing is... what? That NRS simply wrote around those chapters, putting the decision off until as late as possible, hoping and praying that they wouldn't get screwed by picking a roster that they couldn't shoehorn into the story at the last possible second?
I think that you imagine game design to be a lot more exciting and chaotic a process than it actually is at a studio as big as NRS. I would be shocked to discover that all three Revenants weren't already a lock for the roster by late 2013. Late spring/early summer 2013 would be my guess.
edit: three paragraphs and I didn't even think about Kung Lao's connection to Kung Jin. gg need sleep
Commander
Well-known member
[MENTION=18661]p.W[/MENTION]
It's not improbable that Liu, Kitana and Kung Lao could have been added to the playable roster due to fan demand, at all.
Rain, Baraka and Sindel also all had voice work and have basic working models with move sets as well, in the MKX story.
None of those are playable in the game.
I never debated ANY of them being put in the story at last minute, soooooooo I don't know where this story argument is coming from.
Didn't Ed Boon say that there are characters in the story that aren't playable in-game (Sindel, Baraka, Rain) but that you can fight against in the story, at E3?
How do you know that this also wasn't the case for Liu Kang, Kung Lao and Kitana, at 1 point in time, and that they weren't JUST in the story and then later added to the roster as playable some time during the making of the game due to fan demand?
If Baraka, Sindel and Rain are anything to go by, they'd just have to continue building around the a basic no variation model of Liu Kang, Kitana and Kung Lao (if that was the case), no?
Am I missing something here?
You fight against Tanya in story mode, as well, yet she has no variations, and we all know that a playable Tanya model with 3 variations will be available as DLC in the next month.
It's not unfathomable for this to have been the case with Liu, Kitana and Kung Lao, as well in the process of making the game, due to high fan demand.
No.
Apparently you don't understand how Voice-Overs work in a recording studio.
I do this for a living in my own recording studio, and voice-over work like that -which are a few lines of dialogue- can be knocked out (TOPS) within a day for the fight intros, which are just little audio snippets.
You're making it out to be more than it really is.
Again, if they have a generic base model for Liu, Kitana and Kung Lao in the story, like they did with Sindel, Baraka and Rain, then they can later have the VO artist come back and add the small dialogue for the intros and add 3 variations on top of the basic model.
The dialogue in the cut-scenes have NOTHING to do with the dialogue in the fight intros.
Those are 2 totally different things.
1 of those is recorded for a movie-like cinematic (Story) and the other is recorded for interactivity between the different opponents.
The cinematic story is rendered like a movie, while the intro dialogue in-between characters are triggered events within the game.
It's not improbable that Liu, Kitana and Kung Lao could have been added to the playable roster due to fan demand, at all.
Rain, Baraka and Sindel also all had voice work and have basic working models with move sets as well, in the MKX story.
None of those are playable in the game.
I never debated ANY of them being put in the story at last minute, soooooooo I don't know where this story argument is coming from.
Didn't Ed Boon say that there are characters in the story that aren't playable in-game (Sindel, Baraka, Rain) but that you can fight against in the story, at E3?
How do you know that this also wasn't the case for Liu Kang, Kung Lao and Kitana, at 1 point in time, and that they weren't JUST in the story and then later added to the roster as playable some time during the making of the game due to fan demand?
If Baraka, Sindel and Rain are anything to go by, they'd just have to continue building around the a basic no variation model of Liu Kang, Kitana and Kung Lao (if that was the case), no?
Am I missing something here?
You fight against Tanya in story mode, as well, yet she has no variations, and we all know that a playable Tanya model with 3 variations will be available as DLC in the next month.
It's not unfathomable for this to have been the case with Liu, Kitana and Kung Lao, as well in the process of making the game, due to high fan demand.
No.
Apparently you don't understand how Voice-Overs work in a recording studio.
I do this for a living in my own recording studio, and voice-over work like that -which are a few lines of dialogue- can be knocked out (TOPS) within a day for the fight intros, which are just little audio snippets.
You're making it out to be more than it really is.
Again, if they have a generic base model for Liu, Kitana and Kung Lao in the story, like they did with Sindel, Baraka and Rain, then they can later have the VO artist come back and add the small dialogue for the intros and add 3 variations on top of the basic model.
The dialogue in the cut-scenes have NOTHING to do with the dialogue in the fight intros.
Those are 2 totally different things.
1 of those is recorded for a movie-like cinematic (Story) and the other is recorded for interactivity between the different opponents.
The cinematic story is rendered like a movie, while the intro dialogue in-between characters are triggered events within the game.
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Imperatrix Sindel
New member
Sindel, Rain and Baraka are all voiced by actors who were already voicing other playable characters.
Voice acting stuff aside (I've also worked in v/o, btw), the sheer amount of concept art for the non-revenant costumes indicates a lengthy development period. Do you really think they designed and modeled four full redesigns for Kitana in like two months?
Occam's razor is pretty clear here.
Voice acting stuff aside (I've also worked in v/o, btw), the sheer amount of concept art for the non-revenant costumes indicates a lengthy development period. Do you really think they designed and modeled four full redesigns for Kitana in like two months?
Occam's razor is pretty clear here.
Commander
Well-known member
Yes, but what does that have to do with anything.
Voice actors being called back into the studio isn't anything out of the ordinary.
Just a couple of weeks ago I had a voice actor come back to my studio because the production company that I handed the final product to wanted to add something to the narrated audio script that they did.
Who said anything about 2 months?
From the time before E3 2014 until they had the final version of the game done =/= 2 months.
I'm pretty sure that NRS worked of Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Ferra / Torr, Kotal Kahn, Cassie and D'Vorah for a few months before E3, for that demo build.
From E3 (June 2014) until they had the final build of the game done (February 2015) = about 8 months, not 2.
Totally doable.
Voice actors being called back into the studio isn't anything out of the ordinary.
Just a couple of weeks ago I had a voice actor come back to my studio because the production company that I handed the final product to wanted to add something to the narrated audio script that they did.
Who said anything about 2 months?
From the time before E3 2014 until they had the final version of the game done =/= 2 months.
I'm pretty sure that NRS worked of Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Ferra / Torr, Kotal Kahn, Cassie and D'Vorah for a few months before E3, for that demo build.
From E3 (June 2014) until they had the final build of the game done (February 2015) = about 8 months, not 2.
Totally doable.
Imperatrix Sindel
New member
The 2 months figure comes from the time between E3 (when you argue Boon caved to fan demand and made these characters playable) and Boon's footwear tweet.
Basically this theory does not hold water. Anyway, if NRS were caving to popular demand, where the hell are Cyrax and Smoke? Smoke isn't even fightable.
Liu Kang, Kitana and Kung Lao are all key to the story. All evidence suggests they were planned as playable from the jump. Your only evidence is "it's conceivably possible they weren't."
Basically this theory does not hold water. Anyway, if NRS were caving to popular demand, where the hell are Cyrax and Smoke? Smoke isn't even fightable.
Liu Kang, Kitana and Kung Lao are all key to the story. All evidence suggests they were planned as playable from the jump. Your only evidence is "it's conceivably possible they weren't."
Tarkatan Trash
Active member
Wasn't Kitana konfirmed to be one of the pairs of feet on that Tweet? Now that I think about it, Boon knew damn well what he was doing when he retweeted Kitana requests. Pretty easy to meet popular demand when you know it's gonna happen anyway.
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Commander
Well-known member
[MENTION=20359]Imperatrix Sindel[/MENTION]
I NEVER said anything about Boon's footwear Tweet.
That's you assuming.
I'm pretty sure that people like Perfect Legend, OSU16Bit and others were requesting Kitana, Kung Lao and Liu Kang for MKX way before then, given that they all died in MK9.
It does hold water.
All you have to do is look at Rain in MK9 and Tremor for MKX as proof of NRS caving into fan demand.
Cyrax is a good question, I'll give you that.
Smoke is popular, but he doesn't have as much demand as Kitana, Liu Kang, Kung Lao and Tremor did.
Again, story and playable are 2 completely different things.
All evidence suggests that they were planned for the story from the start, but not necessarily playable.
Kung Lao's concept art that states that the default human Kung Lao costume is a "what if" scenario perfectly negates them being planned from the start.
The evidence does point to them also not being planned from the start, but sure, go ahead and ignore that.
I NEVER said anything about Boon's footwear Tweet.
That's you assuming.
I'm pretty sure that people like Perfect Legend, OSU16Bit and others were requesting Kitana, Kung Lao and Liu Kang for MKX way before then, given that they all died in MK9.
It does hold water.
All you have to do is look at Rain in MK9 and Tremor for MKX as proof of NRS caving into fan demand.
Cyrax is a good question, I'll give you that.
Smoke is popular, but he doesn't have as much demand as Kitana, Liu Kang, Kung Lao and Tremor did.
Again, story and playable are 2 completely different things.
All evidence suggests that they were planned for the story from the start, but not necessarily playable.
Kung Lao's concept art that states that the default human Kung Lao costume is a "what if" scenario perfectly negates them being planned from the start.
The evidence does point to them also not being planned from the start, but sure, go ahead and ignore that.
Imperatrix Sindel
New member
[MENTION=5028]Commander[/MENTION] you alleged NRS changed course after E3. We are showing the timeline makes that impossible.
Kung Lao's old man design is a what if, but that doesn't mean his playable status was. Why would they commission concept art for a model they didn't plan to use??? That stuff isn't free.
Your Rain example would hold water (ha ha) if he were playable. He's not. How then does the fan demand impact who's an NPC and who's on the roster? Tremor is an example of fan demand, yes. So is Tanya. And they're DLC, which is exactly the smart thing to do with characters you're adding due to fan demand.
It's not as if these characters simply died in MK9. We saw them brought back as revenants. It's entirely logical to have them back -- the three heroes whose deaths Raiden regrets most. I continue to fail to see any compelling evidence for your theory. I'm not trying to be rude, it just doesn't hold up.
Kung Lao's old man design is a what if, but that doesn't mean his playable status was. Why would they commission concept art for a model they didn't plan to use??? That stuff isn't free.
Your Rain example would hold water (ha ha) if he were playable. He's not. How then does the fan demand impact who's an NPC and who's on the roster? Tremor is an example of fan demand, yes. So is Tanya. And they're DLC, which is exactly the smart thing to do with characters you're adding due to fan demand.
It's not as if these characters simply died in MK9. We saw them brought back as revenants. It's entirely logical to have them back -- the three heroes whose deaths Raiden regrets most. I continue to fail to see any compelling evidence for your theory. I'm not trying to be rude, it just doesn't hold up.
Commander
Well-known member
And I'm saying that the timeline for fan requests doesn't necessarily have to be during the time of MKX's production.
It could, but it doesn't have to.
It could have been from earlier that fans were requesting it.
How do you know that those 3 characters weren't requested a couple of years after MK9, during Injustice, for the next MK game?
Tremor was a HIGHLY requested character during the time of MK9 too, and they just NOW put him in.
How do you know that NRS didn't plan to have those 3 as unplayable and only in the story, originally, and afterwards decided to cave into the fan demand?
You don't.
You have no more proof towards the contrary than I do.
Concept art is done ALL the time for MK games, but it doesn't mean that that concept art always makes it in.
There was a TON of concept art in Deadly Alliance and Deception that was in the Krypt that never made it to the final game.
Tremor is a perfect example of people requesting a character for 2 games and he finally gets put in, though.
That's my point.
The timeline for fan requests doesn't necessarily have to start when the game is announced and can be before that.
I'll give you a perfect example.
As soon as I finished playing through Dishonored (2012), I Tweeted the creators of the game with some cool stuff that I thought would be neat in a possible future sequel.
Now, if others also let them know of the same thing that I suggested for a future sequel and it's finally put in due to fan demand but wasn't part of their original plans for the sequel, then that could be seen as requests that were made prior to the start of the sequel.
That's what I'm getting at.
Sure, but then how does that explain the logic for Smoke, Kabal, Sindel and Nightwolf coming back.
If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander.
I'm not trying to be rude, either.
I just don't see the logic in Kitana, Liu Kang and Kung Lao being revenants but are playable, yet the others who are also revenants are not playable, if not for fan demand.
Fan demand is the sole logical explanation for why Liu, Kitana and Kung Lao are playable, and the other revenants aren't.
Imperatrix Sindel
New member
So are you walking back your claim that NRS changed their minds after E3? Why would the models in the footwear tweet have existed if they were planned as revenant NPCs exclusively?
Do you not see the difference in importance to the story between those three and the other revenants? They're Raiden and Cage's friends who they failed. They barely knew those other people. Having the flagship couple of the franchise come back as bad guys is cool and making them playable is a no-brainer. Lao I assure you, again, was in because of Jin.
Do you not see the difference in importance to the story between those three and the other revenants? They're Raiden and Cage's friends who they failed. They barely knew those other people. Having the flagship couple of the franchise come back as bad guys is cool and making them playable is a no-brainer. Lao I assure you, again, was in because of Jin.
Commander
Well-known member
I'm not walking back on any claim.
I'm merely saying that fan request could have been there prior to E3, and after E3 they likely caved in to previous fan demands.
Tremor is the perfect example.
People have wanted him in since MK9, so NRS made him a half-assed character on the Vita version.
Fan demand for him was still high for him after MK9, and the petition was likely the tipping point for including him, but I seriously doubt that the petition was the SOLE reason for him being included.
I'm pretty sure that previous demands factored into that.
Cage and Raiden were also Smoke and Kabal's friend in MK9 as they all fought for the forces of light and were allies that got along pretty well with each other, so..........
Jin being in isn't a valid excuse for Kung Lao because according to Jin, Kung Lao was already dead in that flashback with Raiden.
Plus, Kung Lao isn't Jin's father, only his cousin, so Kung Lao isn't needed to be in for Jin to be around, unlike the scenario with Jax and Jacqui where Jax DOES need to be alive in order to procreate.
Last I checked, dead people don't have kids.
I'm merely saying that fan request could have been there prior to E3, and after E3 they likely caved in to previous fan demands.
Tremor is the perfect example.
People have wanted him in since MK9, so NRS made him a half-assed character on the Vita version.
Fan demand for him was still high for him after MK9, and the petition was likely the tipping point for including him, but I seriously doubt that the petition was the SOLE reason for him being included.
I'm pretty sure that previous demands factored into that.
Cage and Raiden were also Smoke and Kabal's friend in MK9 as they all fought for the forces of light and were allies that got along pretty well with each other, so..........
Jin being in isn't a valid excuse for Kung Lao because according to Jin, Kung Lao was already dead in that flashback with Raiden.
Plus, Kung Lao isn't Jin's father, only his cousin, so Kung Lao isn't needed to be in for Jin to be around, unlike the scenario with Jax and Jacqui where Jax DOES need to be alive in order to procreate.
Last I checked, dead people don't have kids.
BBBLP
Robot Rock
Tier has nothing to do with who is included. If it did, Kabal and Cyrax would be in the game. And how could tier matter? MKX is a wildly different game than MK9, not like tier transfers over from game to game.
Imperatrix Sindel
New member
What we are saying is it is literally impossible for them to have caved to fan demand after E3, as the timeline makes it 100% clear that human Kitana and Liu Kang were already in development long before E3. Those skins were useless to Story Mode, so the characters were planned to be playable.
Raiden and Cage had known Smoke and Kabal for like, a week. The MK9 timeline was very compressed. If anything, Raiden was implied to have a close-ish relationship with Nightwolf, but nobody is out here checking for Nightwolf.
I'm not implying Jin is Lao's son, I'm saying they clearly wanted at least one playable family antecedent for each legacy character. It's not an 'excuse', it was just clearly part of their roster outline.