Will Rivals of Aether join the family?

[jaffex]

So I, like many others in the smash community, are hyped for the release of RoA. I've seen various threads regarding it on SmashBoards and many smashers have shown interest in picking up the game and playing it competitively. My question to the boards is, will it ever be accepted into the Smash family? Will people regard it as the next Smash game?

Obviously the game is heavily inspired by smash, sharing many mechanics and character traits, but ultimately it's not a smash game. It doesn't have the iconic fighters, nor the stages or music we've grown to love. Most importantly, it's not made by Nintendo, the ones who made & own smash.

However, the competitive community have pretty much adopted Project M as the fourth smash game. It has its own unique rules, a dedicated fanbase behind it & tournaments held regularly for it. Obviously Sm4sh has stunted the growth of PM a bit, but the community is still thriving. Ultimately, PM is just another Brawl mod, but the fact that its mechanics were so similar to melee's resulted in its overwhelming popularity. It was just what fans wanted from Melee at the time - more characters & better graphics.

With the way things are looking, RoA will become the PM of this generation. It's basically Melee with online functionality (yes, I am aware of Melee netPlay, but the whole process of setting up the game & finding an opponent is infinitely more tedious when compared to sm4sh's online mode). If this game is just as successful as I predict it to be, do you think we will adopt it and consider it a smash title? Will we find ourselves selecting our Aether main on our SmashBoards profiles?

Personally, I would love to see that happen. Another 'smash' game seen at Apex/Evo couldn't hurt, right? What do you guys think?

 

[Manti5]

wow, what a lot of replys

 

[leefe]

it will definitely have a competitive scene
no doubt

 

[Manti5]

yeah, ive seen it played a bit, i agree, but mayB not something MASSIVE

 

[Minato]

wow, what a lot of replys

For future reference, please try to not make posts like these. This goes for everyone.

If you're going to bump a topic, bump it by actually discussing the main topic.

 

[jaffex]

it will definitely have a competitive scene
no doubt

yeah, ive seen it played a bit, i agree, but mayB not something MASSIVE

I think Mang0 tweeted saying he's gonna be playing RoA money matches at big house 5, so there's definitely hope for a competitive scene, especially if the mangonation get onboard. I know he's been streaming the game a lot lately

 

[Powerman293]

I would think so. Maybe it would develop its own community alongside the Smash people jumping onboard. But with that Project Wavedash or whatever getting announced at Big House tommorow.... I'm not sure if the community can spread itself over that many Smash/ Smash style games.

 

[smashbro29]

I think a lot of devs are in for a rude awakening when they realize that without Mario they're not pulling in Smash Bros money.

I wish them the best but when your competition has Mario in it your chances at competing are slim.

 

[Kasran]

I think a lot of devs are in for a rude awakening when they realize that without Mario they're not pulling in Smash Bros money.

I wish them the best but when your competition has Mario in it your chances at competing are slim.

Well, they don't need to directly compete with Smash Bros. For one thing, there are plenty of racing games, sports games, party games, and straight-up platformers that are doing just fine despite also technically having Mario in their competition. A genre can exist beyond a single series.

That said, I'm not sure they are even intending/planning for Rivals of Aether to grow as popular as the main Smash games anyway. Hardly anyone even has the resources to make a game of that scale. No, as long as the game doesn't bomb (and it hasn't from what I've seen), I'm sure they'll be satisfied.

(Also, sorry for kind of reviving this. Just wanted to lend my thoughts.)

 

[Dsull]

The game looks amazingly tight. I havnt played it yet since im short in cash atm but i intend to get it soon.
From what i can tell its the competitive smash scene without the gimicks people have gotten used to. Edge guarding is an entirely different game without ledge grabbing and no throws removes permathrow combo problems.

The game is definitely going to have a competitive scene. But since its an indie game, its going to take a lot for it to have more than a few hundred active players. Online indie games tend to be sparse in players because theyre noname games and usually trash or abandoned before being finished. RoA seriously just needs more characters at this point, what they have already is solid. Which is a LOT more than most indie games can claim.

Its also introducing a lot of interesting and unique mechanics. Of the 6 available, Wrastor seems the most generic but even hes got some unique stuff going for him. All of them have some gimick that they are focused around that adds immense unique playstyles. And i like that. Since theyre not entitled to remain true to the original character from the game...since they arent reps from any games like nintendo chars are.... they can create an entire moveset that works well with each other instead of having that bogie move nobody uses because it makes no sense with the playstyle of that character, but its a move everyone knows that character for so it has to be in there.

 

[smashbro29]

Well, they don't need to directly compete with Smash Bros. For one thing, there are plenty of racing games, sports games, party games, and straight-up platformers that are doing just fine despite also technically having Mario in their competition. A genre can exist beyond a single series.

No other Smaash type game has done well without the characters to back it up.

This might have modest success but let's face it, no one's taking smash and making their own breakout hit anytime soon.

 

[Reila]

I think it might have some success. Are there any other Smash-based indie fighters out there? Not counting mods like PM, Brawl- and stuff.

 

[Cheerilee]

I must be smashed because I still don't quite grasp what the "family" element is that the TC is attempting to allude to with him mentioning professional Smash players support the game, game play elements, characters, and mechanics as all being mixed factors to consider the question as to whether it can be "accepted into the Smash family" or regarded as "the next Smash game."

 

[Kasran]

I must be smashed because I still don't quite grasp what the "family" element is that the TC is attempting to allude to with him mentioning professional Smash players support the game, game play elements, characters, and mechanics as all being mixed factors to consider the question as to whether it can be "accepted into the Smash family" or regarded as "the next Smash game."

I assumed "be accepted into the Smash family" in this case means "get its own Smashboards forum", or in general be recognized in some official sense by community sites like this one.

No other Smaash type game has done well without the characters to back it up.

This might have modest success but let's face it, no one's taking smash and making their own breakout hit anytime soon.

And as I said in the second part of my post, I don't think they're necessarily aiming for a breakout hit on the scale of Smash. Smaller game, smaller expected scale. It certainly doesn't help that, while Smash is a broad-appeal party-game franchise, RoA is specifically geared toward the small subset who want a competitively viable experience.

 

[Cheerilee]

I assumed "be accepted into the Smash family" in this case means "get its own Smashboards forum", or in general be recognized in some official sense by community sites like this one.

If RoA has their own forum board, then how would that be indicative of being recognized by our community? What does it mean to be officially recognized by a given community, much less being incorporated in part of a "Smash family"? These are all analogy based descriptions that aren't really clarified and isn't helped by the spread of questions issued by the TC in the OP which is why the responses seem scattered as people are answering according to their own interpretation of these prompts.

 

[Kasran]

If RoA has their own forum board, then how would that be indicative of being recognized by our community? What does it mean to be officially recognized by a given community, much less being incorporated in part of a "Smash family"? These are all analogy based descriptions that aren't really clarified and isn't helped by the spread of questions issued by the TC in the OP which is why the responses seem scattered as people are answering according to their own interpretation of these prompts.

Yeah, I agree the OP was a bit scattered. :\ I just figured I'd provide my own knee-jerk reaction for what I thought was meant.
If Rivals of Aether becomes a popular enough game in the scene that Smashboards opts to give it its own forum section (rather than just a couple Light House discussion threads), to me, that would show the game has been accepted to such a degree and is being played by enough people to warrant having that kind of prominence.

I'm not sure if any of that made sense.