Archiving History: Not Quite Version Select

[Cattfish]

Before Dahlia ships out, I wanted to raise the topic of preserving prior builds of Skullgirls.

This game has gone through many formative changes throughout the years. There are only few ways for players to experience these.

-Owning a console that contained the Vanilla or SDE version.
-The "ireallyfearchange" launch option, for pre-2017 changes.
-Endless Beta for the "final" patch.

[If you have another route you are probably not at liberty to acknowledge these please don't get this topic in trouble]

This erases so much of Skullgirls' history of balance. There have been a lot of recycled suggestions, but with the new wave of players, many do not and cannot see these changes for themselves.

We are coming to the end of Umbrella's console release patch, and onward to Dahlia's. Annie, in her release patch, was no doubt a polarizing character for many to look back on. As all DLC, Umbrella will become adjusted as she is developed.

This situation is not exclusive to Skullgirls, nor to fighting games. With that said, it's sad that the current state of videogames suffers this cycle. We lose information that is now only spread via word of mouth, videos, and patch notes.

How do you feel about preserving versions of Skullgirls as the Season Pass moves forward? Have you wanted to go back in time to versions of characters you remember favourably? Do you like archiving for the sake of archiving?

 

[Chrono_Tata]

As a player, I'd love to see it. Being able to select old versions to play with older iterations of the characters and the systems would be very cool.

The development challenge to implement such a feature aside though, I wonder how realistic it would be, particularly for older builds. Especially with the turbulent history of SG development, I'm not even sure how many of the historical builds have been preserved enough that something like this could be implemented.

Perhaps if we ever get a Skullgirls 2, maybe a "Definitive" version of SG1 could be released with such a feature.

 

[Cattfish]

I wouldn't have much faith in the legitimate retrieval of old builds and the legal framework involved. At best, I think of it as a foregone conclusion but something to learn from.

And to emphasize it so it's not like an unviable request, it isn't an ask for a Street Fighter-style "version select". Local multiplayer with the downloaded build seems fine. Not asking for netplay functionality nor mixing & matching characters (however dreamy that sounds for some of us).

I don't know what is involved for launch options: ie "ireallyfearchange" to create "ireallyfearumbrella" for the Annie build.

 

[the_rpg_king]

It would be great if I can revisit older Skullgirls patches, because you know, I can revisit my PlayStation oldies thanks to my PS Plus Premium membership.

 

[Liam]

I'm not personally opposed to any of this in theory!

The main thing is that the execution of it will require us to have a ton of versions in our backend where we do our work for handling builds between our development, staging, and production environments for releases and console development. The more buttons and lists we have in there (Annie Build, Umbrella build, last Endless Beta build, between Black Dahlia and Marie build, etc), the more error prone and cumbersome it is for us to navigate, and human error can crop up.

 

[Ikkisoad]

Can't we already do that through steam? I'm pretty sure @Triviality or someone else figured out a way to get any version that was available on steam

...if not I'm crazy

 

[Triviality]

Can't we already do that through steam? I'm pretty sure @Triviality or someone else figured out a way to get any version that was available on steam

...if not I'm crazy

You can use steam archive to download any skullgirls build that was public all the way back to squigly pre green undizzy.

If both players on steam are on the same build, netplay is compatible, tested it and oh boy were infinite double combos with flesh step as her dash a hoot

 

[Triviality]

We already did this to get a true feel for for the following

Pre knuckle nerf annie
Golden era wishmaker umbrella
Tag in punch special peacock