Where Do You See The Smash Community Going In The Next Year?

[mas369]

Look on the boards now. The predominate threads right now are focused on the Melee vs Brawl debate, weather Brawl is competitive, if Melee is dead, if items should be used in competitive play, if competitive players have a right to choose what is a good game or if they have the right to mess with Sakurai's masterpiece, this place is torn apart right now and it's hard to see what the end result is going to be of these debates. This thread is to discuss what your views on the future of the Smash community is going to be. This way we can see our opinions on where we think these things that we are debating in WILL go instead of where we WANT them to go. Then we can come back to this thread in a year or two and laugh at our dumb beliefs, feel proud of how things have turned out so well or lament at the fact that it had to happen THAT way.

I'll start out with my own thoughts

I've always had a grim outlook on how things in this world would turn out (I personally believe the roster was going to be worse than what we got), and this is reflected in what I believe will happen to the community. The competitive community will, in large, move back to Melee or be alienated and leave the community all together, with only a small fraction sticking with Brawl. Many casuals will probably leave the community as soon as Mario Kart Wii comes out, while some will also stick around, but just be on and off with it. Word of mouth from the competitive community will slow sales of Brawl down, but not enough for the big N to start giving a **** about them. Competitive standards will remain the same, but the community will be smaller than it was in Melee's prime and definatly smaller than the community immediatly after Brawl's release.

Of course, that is just what I believe. I would love to hear your's.

 

[The_Smash_Champ]

I believe Brawl will start to die by the end of this year. People right now are still enjoying the freshness of the game however, once that passes the game will become obsolete and as a skilled player will go back to melee. I already quit brawl. After playing over 1200 matches i realized that the depth of the game has not changed since i got the game. Even though i was able to learn several things such as IC's chaingrabs, the game is still broken by the fact that a spammer was able to get close to beat me. Once i went back to melee i knew that i would never go back to Brawl, after going to tournaments on melee i knew brawl will never reach the popularity of Melee and its better for the community to go back to melee.

 

[Wiseguy]

In a couple months this whole thing will blow over. The folks who find Brawl lacking will learn to deal with it, continue playing Melee (much like the people still play Smash 64), or find a new fighting series to occupy their time.

And when that happens Brawl will still have a thriving community of Smashers who play for kicks with friends, battle online, and have spirited tournaments. The Great Brawl/Melee Flamewar of '08 will be nothing but a painful memory.

And there will be much rejoicing.

 

[Xengri]

Still here, still thriving. The moaning will be over with.
That is, if Brawl is a competitive success.

If not…

A very small, select few will be playing Melee but, the days of Evo caliber tournaments will be over.
Brawl will be mostly forgotten and, collecting dust while the thousands of casuals that it was targeted for, move on to the next shiny thing and, forget about it.

03/31/09, what will smash mean?

 

[LoVer]

Ludicrous. The arrow of time has one direction, and Melee is on the wrong end. The Brawl community will thrive, and Melee will be a relic. That's my prediction, since that is pretty much how things go with video game sequels.

 

[.::Link::.]

I think that Brawl will do quite well in the next year (and years to come). The people who dislike Brawl will scurry back to their so-called "advanced techniques" and talk about what Brawl could have been or they will learn to realize that Brawl is what Brawl is and all the pi$$ing and moaning won't change it even a little bit. I think the competitive scene will be strong seeing as the competition will just be different, not obsolete.

-Link-

 

[Jack Kieser]

I think that Smashboards will destroy competitive Brawl on its own. Brawl will never live up to any potential as a fighter because of stereotypes of what fighters have to be in order to be good and because players will expect Brawl to live up to their lofty (and pretentious) aspirations, all the while forgetting that we're supposed to be conforming to Brawl because... you know, we're playing it. As such, by this time next year, everyone who is not scared away by the rabid dogma and overall dickishness of these forums will be playing Melee competitively, albeit in smaller numbers because even a portion of the Melee players will find the whole ordeal ********. Melee will be seen not with respect, but as a novelty, a game played to relive a dead past.

The worst part is that two games will die because of one small community's arrogance. If you people prove this right, so help me, I will find you Jay and Silent Bob-style and personally **** each and every one of you.

 

[SunriseW12]

I dont know if I can see Brawl really taking off competitively.. I mean I want it to, I REALLY do, but it just seems to be more and more evident that it isn't really cut out to be a tournament level fighter.

Which is freakin gay because it's the only franchise that I was particularly good at. I suck at all FPS's and even other fighting games. I'm screwed.

 

[Mario_ 101]

In a couple months this whole thing will blow over. The folks who find Brawl lacking will learn to deal with it, continue playing Melee (much like the people still play Smash 64), or find a new fighting series to occupy their time.

And when that happens Brawl will still have a thriving community of Smashers who play for kicks with friends, battle online, and have spirited tournaments. The Great Brawl/Melee Flamewar of '08 will be nothing but a painful memory.

And there will be much rejoicing.

That sounds great, but what if it doesn't end and the boards split into the people playing melee and those playing brawl?

 

[pirkid]

That sounds great, but what if it doesn't end and the boards split into the people playing melee and those playing brawl?

I sincerely doubt that will happen.

This is an internet forum, not a country in the 1800s.

 

[Superstarmario]

4chan will explode, Nsider will return, and all the rest of the ******* will go back into the loving arms of Gamefaqs. Then this board will retain some civility and intelligence for the first time in years.

Casuals will be like causals and will move on to the next shiny new game Nintendo throws out. Competitives will play Brawl through anyway, despite it's much lamer Metagame simply because it's newer. Honestly, the people who kept Melee and Smash 64 alive YEARS after the casual crowd moved on to the next new fad aren't going to be as petty as you'd hope and quit Brawl because of "OMG NO WAVEDASH".

 

[EmperorCesar]

This place cant possibly get any worse. GameFaqs isn't the worst of the worst anymore. Theres an overwhelming amount of threads were some random n00b dumb@ss makes a thread and writes a giant paragraph about stupid **** thats already been discussed to death. And don't even get me started on the other threads Ive seen like "Hay guys, I dont like combos but I got an idea on how to start them. Use Jigglypuff's sing because it puts you to sleep! What do yall guys think?"

 

[mas369]

This place cant possibly get any worse. GameFaqs isn't the worst of the worst anymore. Theres an overwhelming amount of threads were some random n00b dumb@ss makes a thread and writes a giant paragraph about stupid **** thats already been discussed to death. And don't even get me started on the other threads Ive seen like "Hay guys, I dont like combos but I got an idea on how to start them. Use Jigglypuff's sing because it puts you to sleep! What do yall guys think?"

Trust me, if there is anything that the Bush presidency has taught me is that if you think it can't get any worse, it can.

Though I'm only responding to this to bump the topic

 

[Uncle Fitzy]

This place cant possibly get any worse. GameFaqs isn't the worst of the worst anymore. Theres an overwhelming amount of threads were some random n00b dumb@ss makes a thread and writes a giant paragraph about stupid **** thats already been discussed to death. And don't even get me started on the other threads Ive seen like "Hay guys, I dont like combos but I got an idea on how to start them. Use Jigglypuff's sing because it puts you to sleep! What do yall guys think?"

Lol, I saw that thread five minutes ago.
Anyway I can't really say what will happen to the Hardcore Tourney crowd since I wasn't a competitive player in the Melee days, but I can be sure of one thing. I think the success of Brawl as a competitive game lies in the new "competitive crowd". Players that never really competed in Melee but want to start with Brawl... and believe me there are hundreds of these people around... they just simply haven't really surfaced in the online Smash Community. I'm one of these people.

 

[LouisLeGros]

I think it could do fairly well for maybe a year. I don't see it keeping players playing for years and years increasing in popularity as time goes by.

casuals are fickle and they never go to tournaments in the place.


I also don't think melee will be able to really fair well. Everyone is moving to Brawl. People who play smash for money are going to have to goto Brawl. People who play Melee because they think it is more competitive really won't have anyone to compete with.

So I see that once the Brawl community starts to decline that all of the smash community will decline, sort of like with soul calibur and their community.

Sure the game will live on with casual online play, but I don't see it outshining every other fighting game with tournament attendees like Melee did... or atleast not for very long.

 

[shadyf0o]

I'm so sick of people complaining about Brawl just because it's not the same **** game as melee. You people are impossible to keep happy. If it's too similiar to melee you ***** if it's too different you *****. Brawl is going to be around for a long time and people that think they can judge it so soon are absolutely dumb i'm sorry. No one knows whether or not brawl still has some undiscovered technique just like people didn't know when melee first came out. And even if none are found that doesn't change the game at all. STFU with this **** people seriously. Brawl is going to be around for a long long time. Get used to it.

 

[shadyf0o]

(Apologise for rudeness. Had to blow off steam)

 

[Evla]

I believe Brawl will be a competitive fighter but not as good as Melee. To be honest I think that Melee will still be the competitive game of choice over Brawl. But what do I know.

 

[Cookiez]

Even if you are blowing off steam, you don't seem to realise that absoultely nothing discovered will change the fact that Camping will always remain incredibly strong due to such a weak risk/reward ratio for approaching due to lack of hitstun.

Unless whatever is found is absoultely gamebreaking, on a scale like never seen before.

Edit: Referring to Shadyfo0.

 

[S0crat3s]

I think the Melee vets that don't like Brawl will stay with Melee, and the Melee vets that like Brawl (such as myself) as well as the new crowd (who alone vastly outnumber the Melee competitive scene) will create the new, Brawl cometitive scene...

 

[Gilgamesh]

What you really want to know is what will happen with the tournament community. While i don't know for sure, i guess the rest of the smash fans will still be here, of that I'm sure.

I know that I'll be here.

 

[goodoldganon]

Even if you are blowing off steam, you don't seem to realize that absolutely nothing discovered will change the fact that Camping will always remain incredibly strong due to such a weak risk/reward ratio for approaching due to lack of hitstun.

Unless whatever is found is absolutely gamebreaking, on a scale like never seen before.

Edit: Referring to Shadyfo0.

I agree with this. I think the Smash Competitive Scene won't really ever come to be. There will be some tournaments here and there but nothing huge will be developed from this game. The game will sell well and it will still be played in a year or so by people who are just wasting time waiting for the next Mario/Halo/Zelda/GTA or whatever.