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Report Replays? In My Skullgirls Encore?

Mr. X

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It might be more likely than you think...

In response to a snarky comment on Shoryuken.com's article "Developer Commentary: Derek “Omni” Daniels and Mike Zaimont Discuss Street Fighter IV’s Bugs", lead designer/programmer Mike "Mike Z" Zaimont hints that replays are currently in the works for Skullgirls Encore and will be added in a future update.

Mike Z said:
[...] Additionally - yes, SG does not currently support replays. But guess which feature I'm working on RIGHT NOW, which will get added to your already ridiculously discounted purchase at NO EXTRA CHARGE along with 3 free DLC characters and tons of other free updates.[...]

While no timeframe has been announced for the release of a replay feature, the news of this long-awaited feature from both fans and Lab Zero Games themselves, should excite many for its inclusion in Skullgirls Encore. Thanks Mike Z and Lab Zero Games!

Source: Developer Commentary: Derek “Omni” Daniels and Mike Zaimont Discuss Street Fighter IV’s Bugs
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ooh, I always wanted to see a video of my own sloppy gameplay! lol Seeing yourself in a match does help lots. Would love it if this becomes reality.
 
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Mike Z best (indie) programmer
 
Was just telling a friend that I hope Mike plans to add replays in the future.

What a coincidence.
 
Was just telling a friend that I hope Mike plans to add replays in the future.

What a coincidence.
He's already said a few times that he wants to do them but iirc had no UI guy to help him or something + busy with other stuff.
 
You keep being awesome Mike.
 
oh god damn this is frigging awesome news!

just give us the option to save them as well. man if you could also slow them down too and view hitboxes that would be incredible.
 
I dunno, his comment sounds like he's being sarcastic about this. Maybe it's just me.
 
To be fair, the guy who complained about replays not being in the game replied with this:

Thank you for taking a stand Mike. I realize how petty and rude I really did sound in that post. I looked up some of simliarly minded people complaining about silly stuff like "no ingame move list f*** this!" and realized my error. $5 for all this content is indefensible and I'm honest enough with myself that I have to recognize this.

The truth about why other fighting game developers are too lazy to really put in the work to make the best game possible is brutal and uncompromising and it's a terribly bitter pill to swallow for me and I suspect many other gamers. I dont want to sound preachy I'm just trying to express my recognition of your hard hard work.

I am so glad to hear that replays are being worked on as we speak. I fear I still wont devote a ton of time learning this game but at least the option is there if I change my mind.

Pretty uplifting if you ask me.
 
That's great! This will be an invaluable resource in the future.

I know something like this will be a pain to work out and to test, but if we get all the features Mike wanted: like taking control of the replay and playing it again, some of the training mode features (hitboxes, slowdown, save states etc.) it would be the most amazing thing to come in fighting games that will make people level up that much faster.

Oh yeah, not talking about this dude, but I love reading the front page SG trolls on SRK, it's just too retarded. And the capcom defense force. ¬¬'
 
To be fair, the guy who complained about replays not being in the game replied with this:

Thank you for taking a stand Mike. I realize how petty and rude I really did sound in that post. I looked up some of simliarly minded people complaining about silly stuff like "no ingame move list f*** this!" and realized my error. $5 for all this content is indefensible and I'm honest enough with myself that I have to recognize this.

The truth about why other fighting game developers are too lazy to really put in the work to make the best game possible is brutal and uncompromising and it's a terribly bitter pill to swallow for me and I suspect many other gamers. I dont want to sound preachy I'm just trying to express my recognition of your hard hard work.

I am so glad to hear that replays are being worked on as we speak. I fear I still wont devote a ton of time learning this game but at least the option is there if I change my mind.

Pretty uplifting if you ask me.

It's too bad he had to be called out on his bullshit before he changed his tune. At least he deleted his dumb tweet about it, too.
 
I mean what he said was uncalled for initially, but I think it's great that Mike got a positive response from someone who thought negatively about him and his game. That's a greater victory IMO.
 
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I remember him saying that Replays were some what always in but they never had the UI for it, im glad that they are getting to this, :)
 
Did Mike use a calculator to figure out how many seconds he would be able to work off that 4 cents, or is this a calculation he has done already and just so happened to be able to use it?
 
If Mike makes 4 cents every 9.6 seconds, and assuming he works 90 hours a week (I think he said that once), and assuming he takes 3 weeks a year off from vacation a year, he makes about $66,000 a year apparently. He probably works more than that though.
 
If Mike makes 4 cents every 9.6 seconds, and assuming he works 90 hours a week (I think he said that once), and assuming he takes 3 weeks a year off from vacation a year, he makes about $66,000 a year apparently. He probably works more than that though.
They don't make much. Assuming they're working on minimum wage (I hope not) which is $9 an hour since it's California, that's 900 cents for every 3600 seconds. So every cent he would work 4 seconds. So with 4 cents you could do 16 seconds of work at minimum wage.

Thankfully it seems he makes more. I mean, by Mike's calculation he makes exactly $15 an hour, which is pretty terrible still :( Especially in LA.
 
i hope they add the feature where you can take over the replays when you want. then i can save my matches playing against evo top 8 players, get an ass whupping until near the end, and then take control, making epic guiles theme comebacks by 300%ing the other team and then post the vids online claiming i am the best ever.

i cant wait.
 
This is going to help out a lot, this will also create a meta game since people will see what their opponents do. Example they will be able to figure out their crazy mix ups and resets.
 
i like how that snarky asshole fails to mention how many times greater Capcom's budget is lol

but yeah, excited for replays!
 
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@Zidiane
@guitalex2007
@erkicman (your name is HARD to spell, I thought it was eric k man for the entire time until now)

We've said $15/hr many many times, even in the IGG. And it's a flat rate per character, because the IGG was $-per-character, so 90-hour weeks are still paid the same amount. It's easier to quote $15/hr because the amount we got per character works out to $15/hr if you assume 40 hrs/week and 3 months/character. (We're WELL over that for every part of the estimate, so I'm probably at this point actually making under $4/hr.) But I wrote that whole post just so I could back-of-the-napkin figure out how much of his $5 I might feasibly actually get.

On-topic:
The game engine already supports replays, we've used them since well before we shipped, like for Friday Night Fights (who remembers those?), and they are at the top of my list as far as the last real remaining feature. Remaining work is:
- Make sure they handle rollbacks (they don't right now)
- Auto-save 'em somewhere (much more difficult on console, easy on PC)
- Make UI for a playback choice screen and hook it up (LOTS OF WORK)
- Fix up playback to not be ghetto, and actually have options in it like hitboxes etc.

I'm not sure how difficult it even is to do the "save one online so people can look at your replay that's on your profile" thing from the server backend.
 
I looked forward to every Friday Night Fights on GT almost as much as I look forward to the new Jojo's now....

Nah... with all due respect, I think nothing can compare to my Jojo's hype, but it was pretty close. o_O' Curiously I've watched Double's 2983 times, cuz the opening and cuz I was trying to figure out what she was saying.

---

What's easier? Putting an upload to youtube function or the saving online so people can look up? (I'm assuming both are hard and/or costly). It wouldn't bother me not to have it, since I'm much more interested in analyzing my own replays, and other people's I can watch on YT or tournament archives, etc. And the steam version wouldn't even need that, I assume.
 
- Fix up playback to not be ghetto, and actually have options in it like hitboxes etc.
O_O

Also, I remember Friday Night Fights.
 
O_O
Ah c'mon now hitboxes is easy. It's actually playing back the match while letting your joystick input do something different that's hard!
 
I can't wait to show myself being effectively curb-stomped to the internet.
But anyways I look forward to when replays will be ready
(So I can save the few times I actually manage to beat someone.)
 
HolyshithholyshitholyYAAAAAAY!

...ahem...

So, the natural next question is "what should be done for uploading and sharing?" Should it be automatic or manual, to a searchable database or just a list ordered by upload date?
The other, more FG specific question I have is "will it be possible to queue up a set of replays to watch back-to-back (in order to get the effect of a first to X)?".

This will make regular cast streams so much easier.
 
So, the natural next question is "what should be done for uploading and sharing?" Should it be automatic or manual, to a searchable database or just a list ordered by upload date?
HAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Database? Hahahahahahhaha. No way.

The other, more FG specific question I have is "will it be possible to queue up a set of replays to watch back-to-back (in order to get the effect of a first to X)?"
If you had not mentioned it, it would not have been.
It still may not be, but at least now I have it written down as a feature request.
 
So, the natural next question is "what should be done for uploading and sharing?" Should it be automatic or manual, to a searchable database or just a list ordered by upload date?
This would require money and time that the team most likely don't have. Since not only would it need someone to build the database, but they've need to pay for an actual server to host them.

Which is why Mike is fully justified with his reply of:
HAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Database? Hahahahahahhaha. No way.
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Okay, automatic is out. I guess it would need to be a manual community thing then, like GameReplays.org.
Still wouldn't be something that's in game. At this point, might as well just upload them to YouTube.
 
This would require money and time that the team most likely don't have. Since not only would it need someone to build the database, but they've need to pay for an actual server to host them.

Fair enough. Like I said, something community maintained with manual uploads could work too. Heck, even a dropbox or forum post attachment culture would work for a time, just need some way to share replays.
 
Fair enough. Like I said, something community maintained with manual uploads could work too. Heck, even a dropbox culture would work for a time, just need some way to share replays.
YouTube
 

No, you see, I want to cast other people's replays (easier, more reliable, and less embarassingly forward than asking people on IRC to do it live). That doesn't work with just YouTube. Also, a lot of people mention studying other people replays, which would be loads easier if people are in the habit of uploading replays somewhere than using YouTube.
 
They'll have some server which is out of the question.

Although... Isn't there something like replay theater in Street Fighter? Kind of like a lobby where the leader selects a replay for everyone to watch?
 
What do other games do?
:: clueless ::

I can only speak for RTS games, but here are some examples:

Supreme Commander, now represented by Forged Alliance Forever, has a replay vault accessible in the lobby client, which shows replays of all games that have been played, automatically uploaded to their servers. This is dependent on running the lobby client first (this setup is simply a continuation of the 1st-party lobby system that Supreme Commander originally had)

Spring engine games, such as Zero-K, have pretty much the same system, though instead of being passed through the lobby, it is accessed via web which then triggers the game to open via a lobby (Total Annihilation-based games like their extra-game lobbies). The replays can also be downloaded without having to start the game immediately.

StarCraft 2 doesn't have any auto-upload solution (not a publicly accessible one that I know of, anyway), but tools like SC2Gears and SC2ReplayStats stepped in to fill that void. They vary in how automatic they are, and there is a database for each tool, rather than a single centralized database for every StarCraft 2 replay.

For most other games, GameReplays.org will generally have a section for that game, in which a replay list is available. This requires that the users manually upload their replays, but is the most flexible as it doesn't need any additional tools or dev support, other than enough information about the replay format to parse players, faction selection, game time, and map.
 
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