Week 7/8

Read the following blog posts:

http://jchensor.blogspot.com/2008/08/evo-2008-for-love-of-game.html
http://jchensor.blogspot.com/2008/09/evo-2008-season-wrap-up.html
http://jchensor.blogspot.com/2008/09/evo-2008-addendum.html

All 3 posts are James Chen's recap of the EVO 2k8 tournament, once again examining each community and its state. After Melee's successful showing at EVO 2k7, Brawl was released in early 2008, just in time for EVO 2k8.

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Respond to the following questions:
How do you feel about James's comments in regards to the Smash community's "god complex"? Does having too much control over your game cause problems? Also, pick a community that James discusses (besides Smash), talk about some of its shortcomings, and suggest possible ways that it could be improved.

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I found the God complex label funny because it's true. The smash community is pretty strict on their philosophy of having a skill-based game, and they'll criticize anything in the game that detracts from skill and gives more to luck. I don't consider it a problem, however. I think it just makes the community all the more fearsome, and it makes it easier to distinguish competitive members from casual members.

As for games and their shortcomings, I think some games are at an equilibrium point where nothing can be done. For instance, SF3S sounds like it is tapped out. It has a good community and nothing left to discover in-game, so there's nothing you can do for it. On the other hand, CvS2 has more that can be tapped (such as from low tier characters), so the community has more to unlock.