Northwest VF (Pacific NW, North America)

kil, just sent you friend request. Did you send me one awhile ago? I think I might have accidently deleted it. I just remember it was weird the someone sent me a friend request and had VF in the Compare Games list.

 

The male announcer was a G for having the mic in his jacket and be able to play and commentate haha! Seeing a cute Japanese female playing VF is better than porn, but pretty close to the real thing.

GGs to Chanchai and Rayblade tonight. Had a lot of fun!

 

Chanchai, you going to NWM 3? I was going to ask at SRK but the site is still buggy, so I'm asking here. I'll be there all 3 days with a 360, two sticks (1 TE, 1 Hori) and a monitor.

I also have all the SNK fighters, if your down. I'm terrible at them, but nothing a quick crash course couldn't fix...

 

Not sure how much you guys play, but I'll be in Seattle for a couple of weeks in February. Hope to be able to meet up with some of you while I'm out there!

 

I'm down to play. I'll contact Zass who is always down to play, but is too old to use the internet.

Pretty much stopped playing after XIII dropped but I can throw down, for an out of towner!

 

lol, awesome. I'll be in contact once I'm up there

 

Hi Ladon, I'd love to play! Don't listen to Femto, he just /ragequit VF because I started beating him

 

Ragequit nothing. XIII is the hype. Summer can't come soon enough...

 

Im on westcoast vancouver close to seattle. Anyone on west coast na? Or british columbia

 

Not that I know of. In WA it's me, Zass and Sorias. I haven't met Kil, but I just remembered I saw him post here before.

Oregon has Chanchai, R Panda and others. Most of the players from what I remeber were in Oregon during VF5 popularity.

Play and players will be picking up here in when FS drops, hopefully.

 

Yo Chanchai, I know your lurking and reading this. What do you say we make a new NW thread for FS. Clean it up and it'll be a new start.

What do you think about making a Northwest Virtua Fighter page for Facebook? Just wondering. I was the last of the mohicans that posted on SRK, in Seattle/Seattle-ish area so that place for the greater area of WA is done as far as I can tell and only serves as a pick up spot to get people to post on Facebook in the NWSF/KOF group.

I have a feeling that Final Showdown will make one last hoo-rah in Seattle at NWM 4 before console release since it's an EVO qualifier tournament...but maybe I'm getting my hopes up, haha!

 

@Ladon - I really want to meet up! I missed the great opportunity to meet up with JunoSynth and I regret that... I hope in part I can find a way for us to meet up. It'll be tough though, I don't think I can justify a Seattle trip for any reason in February. What I can try to do is help pitch in (I'm willing to pitch in a lot towards this) to maybe have you take the train down here in Portland and I can escort you and we can setup a big session at one of our local venues and I can try to arrange a place for you to stay for at least one evening (maybe two). I'd offer my place but I have to go through my wife first and it's most likely a "no..." so I will see what can be done. When in February are you likely to be here? You can email me at vf_chanchai@hotmail.com ^_^ Portland DOES HAVE PEOPLE WHO PLAY VF, and some have been itching for a reason to really rally everyone together. If I had maybe 2 weeks to rally everyone together, I think I can setup a good sized group for some VF and I should be able to make myself available for a lot of hours of VF!

Heck, if we do this right, we could also make it a big Portland and Seattle VF session! If I could justify going to Seattle I would definitely go up there, but my wife needs me down here (she won't let me go down to San Francisco for the FS Tourney though we have the means for transportation and lodging to make it a really inexpensive trip for us).

@Femto - Don't worry, this thread will pick back up. Just not quite the right time yet unless we get regular sessions going on. I was already having trouble organizing matches and practice sessions, but with my wife expecting (we're very excited) it's almost impossible for me, but there are people practicing VF and itching for it actually. Really need to get that going, but I think two months before the game is released the troops will really start to rally. But until then, I'll try to help get the communication together at least.

 

ROFL, this would be the most lop-sided ass whopping, not only in terms of numbers but in terms of skill. Like IF we can get a hold of Clayton with enough time, there's 3 people. If not, it's me and Zass, haha. For now and up until FS drops, PDX = NWVF to me. When FS drops, it's on.

 

Dude, Seattle and the whole Northwest has good players!
Seattle has the ability and has good players in VF! For most of the players, it might just be one or two little quirks that they have to get over, and the same goes for much of the Oregon players too!

Some bits of Portland VF History
Ray and I benefited from a lot of VF experience and constantly fighting each other as well as playing a lot with people who were passionate about VF. Fortunately Portland did have a lot of players that just kept working on VF for years throughout VF3-5, and especially fortunate were the mini-partnerships/rivalries that were formed: Ray and me, Burnside & Edge (these guys played VF2/3 a ton when it was at PSU and Edge got experience when he made trips to Japan), Burnside & Chanchai, AJS & Ray & Jetay during VF4, Ricardo and Jason (two roommates who just kept on playing all the time and they both formed a rivalry with me and even took me out of a VF4 tournament), Yangsing & Chanchai, AJS & Chanchai also, etc...

And every single player that has humored me and played VF with me, even if it was not a game they were interested in, I truly thank too. I'm lucky that I've always been able to find people who were willing to play VF with me, whatever they thought their skill was or their interest was, but they played with me anyways--they gave me their time. Many liked the game and some aspire to be great at it. They made VF and Portland VF all the better and they continue to do that and a lot of them become very good at the game and some are still getting quite a bit better. So many good memories of so many people I loved playing VF with. For some, I am remembering faces and dressing styles more than names, but if they read this they should know I'm remembering and thanking them.

Also, Ray is as much a part of Portland VF as I am (and everyone knows that). He was encouraging VF and he loved VF even before I contacted him to be a sparring partner in VF3tb. We even had some matches I still remember personally in VF2 from the old Beaverton Wunderland days. When I had a falling out with Ray, he kept pushing and encouraging the Portland VF scene (I focused on the players I already knew and I also played at college in Corvallis). As we all know, Ray epitomizes Portland Fighting Games and it was true with VF also!

Seattle's Legacy and Potential
But also, Seattle has a great legacy since VF2, even held one of the biggest VF2 Tourneys long long ago ^_^ In the recent era, I think Seattle had the great honor of housing Yosuke and also MasaRed (I never met him in person, but he was so awesome to fight against online). Frankdadank was an awesome student of Yosuke and Femto (you) have been a constant in Seattle and while I tend to hit on your quirk, I think you're really close to going above and beyond that barrier (it was evident the last time we fought). Personally, I think that you can find better random options and you can also embrace "controlled/selective randomness" because as far as I can tell, your weakness is sometimes you are way too deliberate and because of that I can sometimes take advantage of that (I have a similar issue)--your options also tend to hinge too much on you being correct. You are pretty good at reading opponents, but sometimes you use options that are too dangerous if you are wrong and again, you are very deliberate about countering what you think I'm going to do. I feel if you overcome this obstacle, you'll consistently be strong like the last time we played online!

And also I have a high belief in Zas' ability at VF and where he'll go, especially with an active scene. The guy is really good and I can see he's going to get so much better! On top of that, there were a couple of non-community members in Seattle who were very good though they mostly play with their own groups. I can't remember his name, but he reads SRK and sometimes VFDC I think, but he had glasses and I think kind of curly hair(?) but man, that guy is a real VF player! He's used to playing on pad, but even despite that, he understood the fundamentals and he was able to recognize general patterns in his opponents and he would know if I tried to change it up. I'll try to go through my iPhone notes to remember what his name was (well I did name him in the reports I wrote from PAX I think). Maybe that player was Clayton?

You have Dustin who showed me his commitment and passion to VF at PAX. I don't think I'm that good (you always see the mountains you have to climb and I see A LOT of mountains), but Dustin reminds me of myself while I was learning VF3.

Also a shoutout to Cole, I love that this guy has always respected VF and LA_Akira and I would love to play more VF with him and he has always kept an open mind and heart for VF. But I also understand that his competitive side needs a competitive scene he can consistently practice with to really make the game a priority for him. But I love how he has taken the time too!

Vancouver also has VF Blood
And let's not forget guys like Mackfactor (he's really good!) and the Vancouver scene which also has a rich history of VF greatness (particularly in the VF2 and VF3 days, VF4 days had great players but all had very busy work lives, but we're better for it--some of them developed/designed some awesome games that we all love!).

My Path in VF (this is not to say it's the best path)
But if you want to know what has helped me get better as a player... it's simple... passion ^_^ I mean, I trained like crazy on Virtua Fighter 3tb! You want to imagine what the scene was like during Virtua Fighter 3tb?! Soul Calibur was a US Dreamcast launch title! And you couldn't get a 2d player to play VF if you wanted to (it's still kind of true in many areas). This was before Virtua Fighter 4 was announced and long after Sega made VF3 completely unaccessible by demanding arcades to buy the Model 3 units that were commanding unprecedented prices!

Though I was lucky, I had the means to travel around the country. Just for VF3tb, I went to New York more than once, went to Chicago, went to California many times, went up to Seattle a couple of times too (a Toronto player named KBCat worked for a short time at Microsoft and so he lived in Redmond and he was the first person I learned higher level VF from, I made the drive just to practice with him and he returned the favor--though that day we got hit with no power on that day so we just chatted and ate Thai Food at my family's restaurant lol), I went to Vancouver BC, and I even seriously contemplated going to the UK just to play VF4 with their players! I met players from all over the country--just for probably the least popular well-known fighting game on the planet. The rivalry/training with Ray started after I returned from New York and I asked a common friend to get me in contact with Ray (I knew Ray from when I was in middle school, but we never spoke despite common friends) and we started having weekly sessions at ether my house or someone's apartment and it was great--some friends were there for the first day Ray and I played and their jaws dropped that VF looks good when two people have some sense of what they are doing (we weren't what I would call good, but we were better than average and we were comfortable with movement and some techniques and most importantly flow). Furthermore, when I was in college I worked hard to find the dedicated fighting game players that existed on campus (it wasn't easy and it was a lot of work but it paid off) and eventually I found some Korean VF players at OSU too! And when I visited Thailand I made time to meet up with the VF players there too and that was awesome!

I've also found that if you love something, and you are reasonable and have some social skills, you can become a very encouraging force in sharing your passion and encouraging others to at least give it a try. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of reasonableness, but it pays off when you can build it! You also need a lot of empathy for the people trying out the game, you have to really want them to be better but more importantly you have to want them to enjoy it (the hardest part). There's only so much you can do, but you can at least help ^_^

P.S. On top of every person I played VF with and those I call my mentors in VF, I was also lucky that VF has what I consider the best overall North American Community because of the level of passion and the resources they put out there even before YouTube and even way back in the Newsgroup days... we're talking Newsgroups, the FAQ writers of the VF2-4 era, sites (VFDC, The Home of VF, SRK to some extent, Shou's site, even Hardcore Gaming 101), IRC (#VFHome ftw!), all online video formats, ordering videos and dvds from japan as well as bootlegs, the sharing of Mook and data, and this great attitude in VF where most players seem to want to help each other become better--we all want to build better rivals, we're not looking to squash people under our thumbs, we're looking to have great fights in this series. I guess that's why the VF scene draws one another with "Gatherings" and then the occasional tournament.

 

I went to meet someone in vancouver paid him 90 bucks to fix my stick at some magic store. When i went inside there was some hidden backroom with tekken tag 2 and sf4 tournies happenin. There were live streaming of tournies of sf4 and tekken tag 2. There were like 20 ppl all playing. 3 ppl broadcasting this event livestream.. So i asked him if this could be possible if vf5fs came out ( he didnt even know btw it was coming ) for live tourney streaming... So i know someone that fix sticks and sets up live streaming incase vancouver wants to set up vf... I never did something like this so i dont know how much it would be for it the live streaming tournies. They had nice tvs prob 3 or 4. Btw is 90 quite a bit to ask to fix a madcats or have it moded(which i never ask for.. But itll serve me some use since i will be getting vf5fs for both ps3 and xbox.). My friends who got me into vf5 are now all holding offline meetings for vf . They ask me to go recently.. Ive also had a player from korea stay at my place for vf5. I think vancity could be a strong community for vf and a possibilty to have someone sponsor a livestream tourney event if we get enough players.

 

I've been to Portland once and hope to go again to see more sites and play some fighters. Same with Vancouver. I want to go because I've never been, games would be the cherry on the top. When are schedules open up I don't think it would be too hard to go either place and it's win-win, at least for me, since I get to see different sites and level up in VF.

 

What I absolutely loved about Vancouver (on top of the really cool VF players that I've met there) is that it used to have a lot of amazing arcades and it was the only place in the Northwest where you could play on Versus City machines with Sanwa buttons and sticks!

I think Lion's Den was the place I liked the most during the early VF4 days (the arcade owner even agreed to let us play the machine on free play for a whole night with a flat rate to cover the evening).

 

Yeah, I'm trying to go hard as I can for KOF XIII in the meantime but I plan to go harder in FS. Like we as VF players need to dominate. I know I need to work on my fundamentals. Like the two biggest matches, to me, were the first tourney I played at Preppy's and NWM 3. I lost to people who didn't even play or like the game, lol.

The first one was by someone who didn't like the game, lol. Used Lei-Fei. Now at the time, I didn't know what to do with El Blaze other than run and back 'em guess whether to block low( to hit 'em with a mid) or high (HOT DOG Throw). I was trying to go for a combo that was SUPER SITUATIONAL the whole time as well, so I was getting stuffed, but I chalk it up to not knowing what the hell I was doing.

NWM3. I played the West 2007 Evo Winner. Didn't know 'till after. Again did stupid shit that was correctly punished and didn't know what Pai could do. But like he mentioned that "the players didn't know what they were doing", when his friend brought up that he won this tourney and dude only spent 2 hrs. in training. Granted it was only one match and I play maybe six times a year in the past year, but damn.

Like I see VF not picking up in WA AT ALL, but I know there will be bigger scene in OR. My point is, it's hard for other people to get pumped about a game when the "VF heads" are getting beat in their own game. So I'm using XIII as way to get comfortable in tourney experience and to really represent, as much as I can, in US VF. It was only one match but still. I decided to look it up today and saw that dude won against VF heads even Chanchai (not trying to talk shit) and I was like, "Man fuck this buster" (the dude I lost to). It wasn't tourney or anything but still I don't want to lose to NOBODY, especially someone like that.

Like it's good to play VF but I think, for me at least, I need to be able to play tourney style as well. I was thinking about this at work. People who like their game, but get beat by people who play other games in tournies. I saw this happen in XIII with Rougeyoshi against Chris G. RY has been playiing KOF for years(apparently), and Chris G has been going hard in Marvel 3 tournies. Chris G swept him in GF, but only 2 weeks with XIII. The commentators were talking thay Rouge was "playing KOF with someone who isn't a KOF player. He should be doing stuff that Chris can't handle."

I don't know life is going great in another areas, but I really want to have ALL my bases covered and VF is something I really like, even though I don't like 3d fighters. Sorry for the long rant but even though are numbers in WA are low, I don't give a fuck. I'm throwing every cheap tactic I can at people especially those that are new and/or shit on VF one way or another. I'm sick of being "eh" at a hobby I like, now that other areas are coverd, I'm ready to murder motherfuckers. If anyone here claims to even like VF, get ready to fucking beast and not bother shaking hands with anyone, 'cuz that's what I'm doing.




Although I will shake Chanchai's hand, 'cuz he's like the nicest guy in the world.


Sorry for the rant. Just something I thought of today, for whatever reason.

 

I think it still should be the case with FS, since I only got beat by one masher at PAX due to not trying to attack when disadvantged and the move I want not coming out (operator error).

I thing stepping is going to be really important in this one, even moreso than the VF4 series, due to not getting yourself in a situation where you need to TEG, because of one direction throw breaks. Added that Failed Evade's and Back-dashes result in huge damage, I think solid fundamental play coupled with "ruthless" tourney play is going favor the person who can do both.

When I played El Blaze at PAX, he was fundamentally the same but with a much buffed tool set. In the couple hours I played and the vids I've seen/currently watching, I feel he is a "real VF" character with his gimmicks intact that made him good, not great, in OG VF 5. When I have time, I need to work on my stepping and poking by paying closer attention to the frame-data so, once I get comfortable with the new engine I can go by feel.