The FGC is one of my favorite communities out there. They're very thoughtful about what they do, selfless, passionate, dedicated, and most of all, fun. The videos they put out on a weekly basis are just plain entertaining to watch.
I see you looking at me with a funny look. "Hang on a second," you say. "What the hell is the FGC?"
Alas, we collide with the first problem with the FGC; unfamiliar terminology.
The FGC, or fighting game community, has been around for quite some time, but personally, I only happened upon the scene when Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (hereafter referred to as MvC3) was announced. I shamelessly admit that the only reason I took interest--having only really played Super Smash Bros. Melee as a serious fighting game--was the inclusion of Amaterasu, the titular wolf-Sun-goddess hailing from my favorite game of all time, Okami. I knew nothing about MvC3 or its predecessor, MvC2 beforehand. I started watching streams. I squealed like a little girl every time someone played with Ammy. I had nerdgasms when I saw how well and how faithfully her mechanisms from Okami were translated to a 2D fighting game.
But I was lost at sea. FGC? OTG? DHC? Hype? Salt? Body? Free? These commentators were rambling on and on in a foreign language. It felt like I'd just walked into a group of friends who talked only in inside jokes I wasn't in on. I kept at it just to see my favorite wolf lay waste to people time and time again, and gradually, I began to figure things out. FGC is fighting game community. OTG means off the ground, used to reference moves that can hit a grounded opponent. DHC means "delayed hyper combo", or canceling one hyper combo into another teammate's hyper combo. "Getting hype" means getting excited. When someone is bitter, they are salty. When someone gets perfected (the winner won the round with a full health bar), the winner bodied the loser, and the loser is free.
I figured these out over time just because of Ammy. I've come to love MvC3 and all its crazy, flashy, psuedo-random fighty goodness. But I wouldn't have without Ammy, and I'd be willing to bet people who might enjoy this would be turned away by all the confusing terminology. Some of it is easy to figure out. When the screen flashes and Dante whirls his guns about and starts blasting away, it's a super combo. When another teammate pops in, fires some bullets, and jumps out, that's an assist. These aren't too hard. But stuff like OTG, DHC--all have the potential to scare people away. If the FGC is to grow into a respectable competitive gaming scene, it must be made more accessible. Can it? I don't know. These terms are rooted deep in the community. But perhaps the simple step on the commentators' side of explaining briefly what these terms mean could help. It doesn't even have to be "Oh, dang, he's salty. That means he's bitter." It could very well be "Oh, dang, he's salty. He is not happy about that at all." It's not treating your audience like they're stupid. People who know what 'salty' means won't feel like you're dumbing it down for them, but at the same time, people who don't know will be able to piece it together.
On the note of commentators, there's been quite a bit of discussion even on Twitter about what makes a good commentator. I'd like to add my two bits to this discussion, but it's slightly longer than 140 characters, so here goes.
My top four FGC commentators, in no particular order, are UltraDavid, James Chen, Seth Killian, and IFC Yipes (Honorable Mention: Skisonic). These guys are the best, in my opinion. They make watching these games exciting.
The first thing to I want to note about commentators is that, for stream monsters like myself, they represent the entirety of the FGC. Newbies to the scene aren't going to recognize Justin Wong or Viscant (pronounced Viss-sont, by the way, he explained that a while ago) right away. What they will see is a commentator.
What makes the aforementioned commentators so enjoyable is that they all know what's going on at a deeper level, both in the player's minds and in the game. Occasionally they won't, but they're not afraid to admit it. They'll say "I don't know." But they'll collaborate offscreen and come up with theories, the most recent being Akuma's uppercut super, notable for being one of the most invincible level 1 supers in MvC3, failing spectacularly against Sentinel's Hyper Sentinel Force. UltraDavid and James Chen both said it. They don't know. To any seasoned stream monster, this doesn't make you look stupid at all. It means there's still more to MvC3 that we haven't quite figured out yet, that its complexity runs far deeper than "Play Phoenix, recieve salt, and win anyways." But for the rest of the time, they make good calls. They know when something was an executional error (the player pressed the wrong buttons) or when the player is trying to bait something out. They can feel the flow of the match; the momentum is in this player's favor, or it's dead even but tense as all hell.
But knowledge and insight is only half the battle. They also speak coherently, genuinely get excited (even Seth Killian, a key developer for MvC3), and most of all, present a likeable persona. Yes, even James Chen, with his long record of bad jokes. You can be the most knowledgable fighting game person out there, but if you can't present that well, you're a horrible commentator.
Moving on to the last topic, I wanted to touch briefly on players and which ones are enjoyable to watch on a stream. I think anyone who regularly watches the fantastic Wednesday Night Fights knows the four letters "LLND", the man who randomly showed up one tournament and bodied Combofiend, a well-known combatant who had recently won a major MvC3 tournament. What struck me most about LLND was not just his unorthodox team composition of Chris, Hsien-Ko (claimed by many to be the worst character in the game), and Amaterasu, but that he actually made it work. He makes Hsien-Ko look like a viable character. That's what makes him enjoyable to watch. It's not just another Magneto/Dante/Sentinel or Wolverine/Akuma/Wesker team. You get to see different characters, lower tier ones, being played well at a competitive level. That also means you get to see more technology (various tricks or clever uses of certain move properties) being used in action. LLND has won many a match on the strength of his Hsien-Ko alone, and because people haven't quite realized yet that trying to hit a gold-armor Hsien-Ko (one who's immune to hitstun) is an awful idea. He's gotten a ton of happy birthdays (catching the opponent's point and assist character in a combo; generally a huge advantage if he can kill off both), and taken down both characters with Chris' Level 3 Hyper, sometimes without blowing X-Factor. He's always bringing something new or clever to the scene, like OTGing with Chris's Level 1 Grenade super (something that normally doesn't OTG effectively) and using Hsien-Ko's assist to juggle the opponent, turning it into a viable OTG super.
There's only two other players I can think of who bring that kind of creativity to the scene, and that's Clockw0rk and MarlinPie, funnily enough both Ammy players (though I suppose Richard Nguyen's Dante does some pretty crazy stuff, but that's Richard N. for you). Both of them are always using their characters in unexpected ways. Clockw0rk's Dr. Doom is practically legendary nowadays--there's literally no one who uses Doom as effectively as he does. And his Phoenix is no slouch either--he has on a few occasions won despite using meter as regular Phoenix (and thus throwing away his Dark Phoenix). Their Ammys are both very creative in their approach as well. It's not just H-mashing combos left and right, air throw here, super there. They use Veil of Mist. They do crazy things with Ammy's Glaive stance. They go for the Rosary for chip damage (damage inflicted when the attack is blocked) now and then. And of course, there's MarlinPie's Crimson Viper, by and far the most impressive Viper in the US at time of writing.
Another characteristic these three players share is inconsistency. That sounds really odd, I know, but bear with me. Justin Wong may be impressive to watch, but he's not fun. His scientific approach doesn't lend itself to that. Touch character, X-factor, kill them, open up their next character like a can of tuna, kill them, etc. It's very close to watching a robot at work. On the other hand, LLND, Clockw0rk, and MarlinPie will all, on occasion, drop combos or miss hit confirms. They make more than a few mistakes. What this means it that, despite them being fun to watch, they will occasionally fail. These moments drag you to the edge of your seat, staring at your monitor as if you could will them into winning. LLND or Clockw0rk's hail-mary comebacks are exciting. Watching Justin Wong body yet another poor newbie is not. Don't get me wrong, Justin is a fantastic player, one of the best, and he makes some of the most insane comebacks ever (see: Canada Cup and dat Wong-factor Akuma). But if he's not making insane comebacks, he's not all that exciting to watch. He is not a creative player. You will rarely see him pull a MarlinPie and use a Team Hyper Combo to punish an assist and get a combo because Ammy's Okami Shuffle lasts much longer than Magneto's Magnetic Shockwave. He is an excellent player, but he is not as fun to watch as Clockw0rk, LLND, or MarlinPie.
I think that about covers everything. Please keep in mind these are only the observations of one stream monster (who has never laid his hands on MvC3).
Until next time! (I'll probably rant about various characters in MvC3/UMvC3).
