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I don't see how you playing the games means you understand them. I've technically played starcraft since 1998 but I'm a D+ iccup player at best. I've technically played CS in multiple leagues but I'll never be "pro."
no one here is trying to judge your tastes, rather, how it seems your stating your personal tastes as facts.
Saying a random noob can be pro at CS in a few months is absurd. just because it bored you doesn't change the fact that it is one of the most deep FPSs on the market (it's a decade old and it still has a very strong competitive following, remind you of anything?).
you are being the same type of person you stated you hated IMO, by talking about games in an ignorant manner.
you say no games in the past 5 years have been deep like SC -- how can we prove you wrong if you just say, "nope I played that one, sorry it was too casual."
EDIT: also, to the people judging games based on scores -- stop. just stop.
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I see you were born in 1992. I sincerely doubt that most people your age will have played SC seriously and/or have any sort of strong feelings associated with the game.
Granted, there is a serious lack of creativity in the gaming industry and a growing minority that seems to despise this, but overall the industry has found what sells, and people are happy enough with it to buy these games. And, as people have said, a lot of people are just looking for quick entertainment, not real-time-speed-chess-on-crack.
Furthermore, the games you speak of - WoW, CS, and Halo - do require a certain degree of practice to acquire skill and develop instinct in the game. Why do you think particular teams in Halo place consistently in the top 8 at MLG events? Because people have to not only have the raw mechanics to aim and shoot well, but also decision-making and teamwork. Same goes for WoW and CS.
Hell, in ANY serious competitive multiplayer game you have to think and plan out how you're going to win against your opponents... it's just that most people operate in a reactive fashion and shoot the first thing that comes onto their screen or build mass dragoons because it's the only thing they know how to do, or they get a rush when they win just operating on reaction. The games that truly require no skill or thinking are those that require only keyboard/button mashing to win, and I don't see any of those being played competitively.
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On September 23 2009 04:47 Chill wrote:
Starcraft has shitty graphics. There is no denying this. They are fucking terrible by today's standards. Graphics are a huge part of a game. Maybe you like the graphics because they are familiar, but that doesn't make them objectively good.
Really the only problem with the Starcraft graphics is that they were made for 640x480 on a CRT where you get free antialiasing, but these days everyone has LCD with strange sizes like 1366x768. Those pixels had a lot of love put into them that's hard to emulate in the modern content pipeline.
Game developers are expected to justify gamers' conspicuous consumption of hardware. This means you have to run at 2560x1600. What are you going to do with a 640x480 game there? Resample? 12 windows at the same time? And what about those 216 shader cores, you better be using those for something.
So obviously you do everything in 3D. Now instead of pixels coming out of the artist's hands, there's a whole team of craftsmen carefully assembling meshes and coordinates and effects. Then you have to make sure the screenshots show enough bloom and specular highlights (but no rainbows please). And this isn't Crysis, so it better fit in the polygon and shader budget of five year old hardware.
Also this isn't Hollywood; you don't get to set up Kubrick angles. The player's going to grab the camera and move it around randomly, so your models better look right from any perspective.
There are just too many variables you can't control. For a game that is essentially 2D (units move in a plane), realtime rendering is never going to look as good as pre-rendered sprites.
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I introduced a (female, not that it matters) friend of mine who isnt that much into gaming into pretty much every game I play. She isn't good in any, but she clearly liked starcraft best.
What she stated was, that the game is easy to follow and she could pretty much understand whats
going on at all times and when and why she lost or won a particular game.
This is something that is pretty unique. In other games its not that easy to see.
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On September 23 2009 07:03 eMbrace wrote:
Saying a random noob can be pro at CS in a few months is absurd. just because it bored you doesn't change the fact that it is one of the most deep FPSs on the market (it's a decade old and it still has a very strong competitive following, remind you of anything?).
Instead of my terribly thought up example about that from before, try this one:
Lets take the top CS player. I don't know WHO he/she is, if you could give me a name that'd be nice.
Then, lets take the top StarCraft player. As for who it is, I don't know. I could give suggestions but I'm sure I'd be missing someone.
If the counter-strike player was given a month to train constantly at StarCraft,
and the StarCraft player was given a month to train constantly at CS,
(Both by other top players of each title)
Who do you think would yield the best results in term of ability and knowledge of the new game?
Looking at that list, about 1/5th of the games >= 9 have been made in the last 5 years, when it should be closer to 1/3rd due to the timeframe. Why is that? Although the OP overdramaticized his argument, surely he's on to something when he says that games are getting worse. (And not even just the average game, but the best games are getting worse too.)
I agree. Sometimes I can be over-dramatic when it comes to these types of issues, but I really think that games are getting worse and worse in terms of gameplay. Blizzard can be our savior but hopefully some other gaming companies will start realizing what is happening.
On September 23 2009 07:11 d3_crescentia wrote:
I see you were born in 1992. I sincerely doubt that most people your age will have played SC seriously and/or have any sort of strong feelings associated with the game.
Granted, there is a serious lack of creativity in the gaming industry and a growing minority that seems to despise this, but overall the industry has found what sells, and people are happy enough with it to buy these games. And, as people have said, a lot of people are just looking for quick entertainment, not real-time-speed-chess-on-crack.
Furthermore, the games you speak of - WoW, CS, and Halo - do require a certain degree of practice to acquire skill and develop instinct in the game. Why do you think particular teams in Halo place consistently in the top 8 at MLG events? Because people have to not only have the raw mechanics to aim and shoot well, but also decision-making and teamwork. Same goes for WoW and CS.
Hell, in ANY serious competitive multiplayer game you have to think and plan out how you're going to win against your opponents... it's just that most people operate in a reactive fashion and shoot the first thing that comes onto their screen or build mass dragoons because it's the only thing they know how to do, or they get a rush when they win just operating on reaction. The games that truly require no skill or thinking are those that require only keyboard/button mashing to win, and I don't see any of those being played competitively.
Yes, I didn't play online until late 2004. You can understand a game in single player, just not very well (unless it is only a single player game). As I developed these 5 years I've come to learn more and more about the game, and I am still learning. That's what I thought he said when Game Understanding.
Practice to a certain degree you say? Through your eyes, Is that bar higher or lower than a game like StarCraft or WarCraft?
On September 23 2009 07:24 butterbrain wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2009 04:47 Chill wrote:
Starcraft has shitty graphics. There is no denying this. They are fucking terrible by today's standards. Graphics are a huge part of a game. Maybe you like the graphics because they are familiar, but that doesn't make them objectively good. Really the only problem with the Starcraft graphics is that they were made for 640x480 on a CRT where you get free antialiasing, but these days everyone has LCD with strange sizes like 1366x768. Those pixels had a lot of love put into them that's hard to emulate in the modern content pipeline. Game developers are expected to justify gamers' conspicuous consumption of hardware. This means you have to run at 2560x1600. What are you going to do with a 640x480 game there? Resample? 12 windows at the same time? And what about those 216 shader cores, you better be using those for something. So obviously you do everything in 3D. Now instead of pixels coming out of the artist's hands, there's a whole team of craftsmen carefully assembling meshes and coordinates and effects. Then you have to make sure the screenshots show enough bloom and specular highlights (but no rainbows please). And this isn't Crysis, so it better fit in the polygon and shader budget of five year old hardware. Also this isn't Hollywood; you don't get to set up Kubrick angles. The player's going to grab the camera and move it around randomly, so your models better look right from any perspective. There are just too many variables you can't control. For a game that is essentially 2D (units move in a plane), realtime rendering is never going to look as good as hand-drawn sprites.
Yeah, I didn't like the way Chill put that. StarCraft is a game that needs the graphics to be clear and understandable... If there was a bigger explosion and huge death animations when a siege tank died, it'd be very distracting. The death animations in BW are short and sweet, and you can tell if a unit dies without being distracted. Nice to see a technical aspect in this sense, nice post.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
why did you tlpd-ize your post
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I have no idea... I would say it was a misclick, but meh. Sorry and fixed.
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On September 23 2009 07:32 TwilightStar wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2009 07:03 eMbrace wrote:
Saying a random noob can be pro at CS in a few months is absurd. just because it bored you doesn't change the fact that it is one of the most deep FPSs on the market (it's a decade old and it still has a very strong competitive following, remind you of anything?).
Hmm... How about this example. Lets take the top CS player. I don't know WHO he is, if you could give me a name that'd be nice. Then, lets take the top StarCraft player. Again, this would be controversial for a few. If the counter-strike player was given a month to train constantly at StarCraft and the StarCraft player was given a month to train constantly at CS Who do you think would yield the best results in term of skill at the new game?
wow....
are you really comparing two different genres of games and then comparing the skills required to play them effectively?
you can't even begin to make that argument, if anything I'd say I'd easily stomp either of them in SC or CS.
a pro basketball player will not pick up baseball faster because it's a "lazy" sport (lol at micheal jordan).
just because you think CS is a joke doesn't mean it is. there is so much to that game besides *shoot at the head* that it is quite insulting to hear you talk about this stuff.
and you wanted to design games?
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It's easier to pick up and start playing an FPS game than an RTS game, is it not?
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On September 23 2009 04:47 Chill wrote:
Starcraft has shitty graphics. There is no denying this. They are fucking terrible by today's standards. Graphics are a huge part of a game. Maybe you like the graphics because they are familiar, but that doesn't make them objectively good. Why is someone who perceives something as fun because of nice graphics any different than someone who bases it on the gameplay or multiplayer experience?
But, on the other hand, it has excellent artwork. It is the art style and the clever use of color application that makes Starcraft so easy to 'take in' with the eyes. At a glance, you can get quite a lot of information, and the colors are generally pleasing - they are not overly brown and grey. Starcraft's lack of real shadows and shaders and motion blur etc. also contribue to the game being very easy to understand at a glance. The only real advancement that could make it even easier to 'read' would be real-time anti-aliasing.
Agree with everything else, just wanted to distinguish between graphics and art style.
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On September 23 2009 07:46 TwilightStar wrote:
It's easier to pick up and start playing an FPS game than an RTS game, is it not?
And it's easier to swing a bat and run to 1st base rather than sprinting back and forth across a court trying to shoot hoops, isn't it?
but it means nothing to what type of skills each game requires.
Starcraft is very easy to pick up and play, quite possibly one of the easiest RTS games out there. It's when you take SC to the next level that harder factors become apparent.
the same goes for CS, any noob can play this game for a couple of months and do decently on servers he joins.
can he join a beginner league and do well? hell no.
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On September 23 2009 07:46 TwilightStar wrote:
It's easier to pick up and start playing an FPS game than an RTS game, is it not?
And it's harder to be a good teammate in an FPS game than it is to have 200APM.
And, it's harder to read 20 moves ahead in Go than it is to do either of those. Does it mean that we should all drop SC and start playing Go instead, because it is clearly the intellectually superior game?
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Of course it is harder to read 20 moves ahead in a game of Go, because it's such an abstract game... That is what makes it great. Can you tell me WHERE in any of my posts, i'm asking anyone to drop the current game they are playing? I'm not telling them to quit that game and play a new one, I'm telling them to understand the skill gap between different types of games.
And I highly doubt being a good teammate in an FPS game is harder than being completely efficient with 200 APM.
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On September 23 2009 08:08 TwilightStar wrote:
Of course it is harder to read 20 moves ahead in a game of Go, because it's such an abstract game... That is what makes it great. And I highly doubt being a good teammate in an FPS game is harder than being completely efficient with 200 APM.
he was wrong to use the good teammate example, because being a good teammate is relative to the level of play you are at.
that doesn't change the fact that what you are trying to say isn't a fair argument in any way.
arguing what sport takes more skill than another is a pointless debate.
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Katowice25012 Posts
On September 23 2009 04:47 Chill wrote:I don't have much to add, but I want to say this: Starcraft players are some of the most closed-minded gamers on the planet. The majority of people are looking for something fun to pass the time, not a second job with no benefits. Starcraft players dismiss nearly every other genre. Have you ever noticed that WoW and WC3 players at live events can freely enjoy Starcraft and find it really interesting to watch? And conversely, when Starcraft players watch the other games, all they do is criticize them? This could mean that Starcraft is somehow an objectively better game, or, more likely, Starcraft players suffer a little too much from elitism. Starcraft has shitty graphics. There is no denying this. They are fucking terrible by today's standards. Graphics are a huge part of a game. Maybe you like the graphics because they are familiar, but that doesn't make them objectively good. Why is someone who perceives something as fun because of nice graphics any different than someone who bases it on the gameplay or multiplayer experience? Two men discuss their lives. One dates women mostly based on their personality. The other, mostly on looks. You can argue that former will have a deeper connection with his partners, and will learn almost everything about her. The latter may have a weaker connection, but will probably get bored and move onto something else. Yet they are both happy. Is one person objectively better in this case? Is one person "doing it right"? Does one person deserve to be looked down on? Your stupid sentence, Show nested quote +Alot of games have come out in the past 5 years, but none of them are close to being good. proves my point. It is this baseless brush-stroking that upsets me.
I want to add to this by saying I play games because they are fun. SC just so happens to have the most of the elements I find interesting and enjoyable. As chill briefly hit on, SC players in general seem to see it as some kind of serious career-quality pursuit that is not for enjoyment but to some how prove something to other people. Look at how often someone blogs about "ramping up their practice schedule to 6 hours a day" or something equally ridiculous, and those posters are never pros or even people who have won money playing.
Who cares if someone else likes a different game? This is an industry based on entertainment.
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Heh WoW arena is a non-trivial thing to be pro at, and I don't mean in terms of being top 5 or whatever on your battlegroup, cause there are some pretty terrible battlegroups.
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On September 23 2009 08:12 eMbrace wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2009 08:08 TwilightStar wrote:
Of course it is harder to read 20 moves ahead in a game of Go, because it's such an abstract game... That is what makes it great. And I highly doubt being a good teammate in an FPS game is harder than being completely efficient with 200 APM. he was wrong to use the good teammate example, because being a good teammate is relative to the level of play you are at. that doesn't change the fact that what you are trying to say isn't a fair argument in any way. arguing what sport takes more skill than another is a pointless debate.
Pointless, Maybe... but interesting nevertheless.
I want to add to this by saying I play games because they are fun. SC just so happens to have the most of the elements I find interesting and enjoyable. As chill briefly hit on, SC players in general seem to see it as some kind of serious career-quality pursuit that is not for enjoyment but to some how prove something to other people. Look at how often someone blogs about "ramping up their practice schedule to 6 hours a day" or something equally ridiculous, and those posters are never pros or even people who have won money playing.
Who cares if someone else likes a different game? This is an industry based on entertainment.
I don't care what games people like, nor am I trying to change it. People are obviously free to enjoy playing any game they wish. Most people on this subject aren't trying to change people, they are trying to inform them, or argue their position..
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On September 23 2009 08:08 TwilightStar wrote:
Of course it is harder to read 20 moves ahead in a game of Go, because it's such an abstract game... That is what makes it great. Can you tell me WHERE in any of my posts, i'm asking anyone to drop the current game they are playing? I'm not telling them to quit that game and play a new one, I'm telling them to understand the skill gap between different types of games.
And I highly doubt being a good teammate in an FPS game is harder than being completely efficient with 200 APM.
It's unfortunate that this is what you are effectively communicating this by comparing relative skill levels of different games among people who pride themselves at being "good" at gaming. If you say "X game takes more skill than Y game does" then how do you think the other person would react if they never touched game X and exclusively played game Y? At best they might say "oh that's pretty neat," try a few games and realize that it would take far too much work for them to get any good at X for them to enjoy it.
Now we should consider that a lot of gamers are a bunch of angry egotistical immature nerds. How do you think they would react?
I do believe the guy above me has it right regarding teamwork - it's obviously relative to skill level. Being a good partner is something that most people are absolutely shitty at, and I would argue that at the highest level of play this is something that everyone needs to work on even if they do have excellent communication already.
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United States47024 Posts
Not much to add, most of what I was going to say has been said, but one more little thing:
This happens to every entertainment medium. It's not exclusive to video games. It happened in television/cinema. It happened in comic books. It happened in basically every genre of music you can think of. Hell, it probably even happened to novels, though none of us were around to know it. As forms of entertainment enter the mainstream, the values that it was originally based on, or that it's original fans found "good" are changed. Common people think differently about different things, so its natural that the general populace has a different idea of what a "good" movie is, compared to a hardcore movie watcher. We used to have Citizen Kane, and now we get Transformers. Many entertainment communities have already had this discussion before us. Gaming's just next in line.
So what do we do? We go on. Video gaming isn't going to "die" just because its values changed. People still write comic books. Movies still get made. You can still find music in about every genre known to man. All that happens is that the original fans are faced with a choice. Either they embrace the new mainstream ideas, or they go off their own way. And the people who go off their own way do just fine. Independent movies, music, etc. come out all the time, especially with the internet as a new means to publicize them. They're not as big of hits as your usual Transformers summer blockbuster, but the good ones bring in enough money from the dedicated fans to get by. And that's enough to keep those hardcore readers/listeners/viewers going. We're already seeing this in the video game industry. A large portion of the good games that have come out in recent years were independent games, and the good ones (like World of Goo) actually find their way onto a mainstream platform.
TL;DR: You're not experiencing anything that thousands of people in different entertainment fields haven't seen already. They're all still alive in some shape or form, so there's no need for doomsaying yet.
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On September 23 2009 04:47 Chill wrote:I don't have much to add, but I want to say this: Starcraft players are some of the most closed-minded gamers on the planet. The majority of people are looking for something fun to pass the time, not a second job with no benefits. Starcraft players dismiss nearly every other genre. Have you ever noticed that WoW and WC3 players at live events can freely enjoy Starcraft and find it really interesting to watch? And conversely, when Starcraft players watch the other games, all they do is criticize them? This could mean that Starcraft is somehow an objectively better game, or, more likely, Starcraft players suffer a little too much from elitism. Starcraft has shitty graphics. There is no denying this. They are fucking terrible by today's standards. Graphics are a huge part of a game. Maybe you like the graphics because they are familiar, but that doesn't make them objectively good. Why is someone who perceives something as fun because of nice graphics any different than someone who bases it on the gameplay or multiplayer experience? Two men discuss their lives. One dates women mostly based on their personality. The other, mostly on looks. You can argue that former will have a deeper connection with his partners, and will learn almost everything about her. The latter may have a weaker connection, but will probably get bored and move onto something else. Yet they are both happy. Is one person objectively better in this case? Is one person "doing it right"? Does one person deserve to be looked down on? Your stupid sentence, Show nested quote +Alot of games have come out in the past 5 years, but none of them are close to being good. proves my point. It is this baseless brush-stroking that upsets me.
couldnt agree more.
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EPT
