There has been a lot of talk about SC2's graphics, the confusion of RTS in general for the public, and even the lack of micro skills for enjoyment of the crowd.
I cannot remember back to back tournaments where I enjoyed the games as much as I have the IEM and MLG tournaments. We haven't even started viewing GSL, either.
How does everyone feel about the games we've been witnessing in the first month of SC2? I've enjoyed so many different games and been on the edge of my seat in so many matches that it really is surprising to me. I did not expect to get much enjoyment out of watching early on in SC2.
I'm surprised every time a zerg manages to hold off reaper harass. I'm ecstatic every time a terran ball vanishes under storms or lasers. I'm worried when void rays or banshees are approaching the bases of my favorite players. I gasp every time a baneling ball collapses an enemy army.
I don't know how Blizzard manages to do it, but I couldn't be happier with SC2 so far. It feels like heresy to say it, but Jaedong v Flash wasn't as exciting as watching Dimaga or Socke.
I'm unimaginably impressed, and I wonder how you all feel?
I think it's impressive. I can't really say much else. The momentum is there, it's all about sharing your excitement with other's now, and ofc contributing what you can if you can.
Pales in comparison to the games I've seen in the higher stages of the MSL and OSL but they're good I guess. The lack of micro thingy still makes it less enjoyable for me
On August 29 2010 06:20 SubtleArt wrote: Pales in comparison to the games I've seen in the higher stages of the MSL and OSL but they're good I guess. The lack of micro thingy still makes it less enjoyable for me
Check out some of the PvPs from MLG Raleigh. Plenty of micro exists and plenty is yet to be discovered in SC2.
I think SC2 lacks the random factors from a spectator view. You almost always know how something will turn out once the lines are joined, not like the old high ground advantage, glitchy scarabs or scourges.
Maybe I'm old school(19), SC2 is just to repetitive for me to watch. Broodwar just keeps me entertained til 7 in the morning, watching it live straight from Korea.
I think SC2 is a lot more fun than BW right now since its a new game and has good graphics, but i would prefer to watch BW with Korean commentating than any SC2 game any day of the week.
Just watched Huk vs KiwiKaki finals and it was pretty shitty . So many 1 base all in strats, ugh. It was just really boring honestly, I hope they fix PvP to favor expanding more than warping in stuff from 1 base.
On August 29 2010 06:20 SubtleArt wrote: Pales in comparison to the games I've seen in the higher stages of the MSL and OSL but they're good I guess. The lack of micro thingy still makes it less enjoyable for me
Check out some of the PvPs from MLG Raleigh. Plenty of micro exists and plenty is yet to be discovered in SC2.
I did, and theres definitely not as much micro. I remember Kal vs Bisu on Outsider, Bisu lost the entire game because 2 of his reavers were slightly too far away from his main army
Mmm, you see a decent amount of diversity. Personally, I found all of the MLG matches very exciting. I'm not sure if this was just because of Day[9], or because the game is fresh- but damn the games were good. I think once the zerg problems get worked out everything will be just that much better.
I guess I'll just wait for a while, it might get boring with time if everything just stays the same- but I expect years of exciting matches
On August 29 2010 06:48 Kentor wrote: Not as fun as broodwar. Hate watching 1 base all in/aggression plays zzzzz
Meh, not too many I find apart from pvp, zvz. Then again, that's pretty much what zvz was in bw.
I love SCII as spectating, but the main problem is mirror matchups. It normally ends up as Ball vs Ball fights without any cool use of units. Hopefully after Blizzard balances the game, they will make the mirror matchups more fun to watch and play.
I prefer watching BW easily, but I don't completely hate watching SC2 or anything. I also really love playing SC2, so it's not some kind of biased thing. This could change, because I think one reason some people enjoy watching BW more is because you are often able to determine the outcome before it happens. Maybe, it's just me, but in BW if I see 12 marines and 5 medics against 12 hydras I know the Terran should win; in SC2, if it's 12 marines and 5 medivacs against 12 hydras I don't for sure(pretty sure hydras would win though). In BW, I know the timings of stuff; I know when players should be able to do damage, so if I see one player moving out I go "OMG WTF CAN TERRAN DEFEND THIS???", but in SC2 I don't know those as well either. Half the time I think one player has nice timing he ends up getting crushed easily and it's just not as epic as I think it should have been.
yeah I'm sure as the best get better and the maps get bigger, there will be less 1 basing, more "barely able to defend" moments, and overall more quality stuff for spectators
I would stay up till the wee hours of the morning to watch some BW. I would NEVER do that for sc2.
BW is waaay more fun to watch but sc2 isn't [i]that[i/] bad. If Blizzard didn't nerf everything that made for cool-spectator moments it'd be a lot better. (mothership, storms, emp, neural, burrowed roaches, etc).
pvp and zvz seem to be horrible mirrors to watch. it's all 4 gate or collosus accumulation with who can aggro warp-in the other person first. Not saying it does not take skill, but it's a bit "meh" to watch.
but stay tuned, all Terran games soon to be mass marauder marine if blizzard goes through with their patch notes (they already have become mass bio-fest).
It would be impossible for SC2 to already surpass BW watchability. Does anyone really expect it to be better at this point? SC2 metagame and talent is in its infancy. BW is a finely aged wine. Of course BW is better to watch, however, for it's youth, SC2 is amazing fun to watch.
Gretorp v Silver, Socke v drewbie, TLO v NaDa and numerous other games are already just fascinating to watch. In a couple years, with some new units to match a mature metagame and progamer-level talent? Have no fear, SC2 is here to stay. As long as the community's passion doesn't falter for Cataclysm or Diablo 3 or some other RTS that may come along.
On August 29 2010 07:32 Grobyc wrote: I prefer watching BW easily, but I don't completely hate watching SC2 or anything. I also really love playing SC2, so it's not some kind of biased thing. This could change, because I think one reason some people enjoy watching BW more is because you are often able to determine the outcome before it happens. Maybe, it's just me, but in BW if I see 12 marines and 5 medics against 12 hydras I know the Terran should win; in SC2, if it's 12 marines and 5 medivacs against 12 hydras I don't for sure(pretty sure hydras would win though). In BW, I know the timings of stuff; I know when players should be able to do damage, so if I see one player moving out I go "OMG WTF CAN TERRAN DEFEND THIS???", but in SC2 I don't know those as well either. Half the time I think one player has nice timing he ends up getting crushed easily and it's just not as epic as I think it should have been.
Yeah but it's going to take time and familiarity before the OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG moments truly start to happen. We have some now but they aren't the same as in bw, I agree. However, bw has been around for ages and a lot of us have played for 10 years or so. So obviously we know the ends and outs (or is it the ins and outs... I've actually never typed this phrase before... interesting) of it and can look at a situation and have a good idea of the turn out.
On August 29 2010 07:32 Grobyc wrote: I prefer watching BW easily, but I don't completely hate watching SC2 or anything. I also really love playing SC2, so it's not some kind of biased thing. This could change, because I think one reason some people enjoy watching BW more is because you are often able to determine the outcome before it happens. Maybe, it's just me, but in BW if I see 12 marines and 5 medics against 12 hydras I know the Terran should win; in SC2, if it's 12 marines and 5 medivacs against 12 hydras I don't for sure(pretty sure hydras would win though). In BW, I know the timings of stuff; I know when players should be able to do damage, so if I see one player moving out I go "OMG WTF CAN TERRAN DEFEND THIS???", but in SC2 I don't know those as well either. Half the time I think one player has nice timing he ends up getting crushed easily and it's just not as epic as I think it should have been.
Yeah but it's going to take time and familiarity before the OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG moments truly start to happen. We have some now but they aren't the same as in bw, I agree. However, bw has been around for ages and a lot of us have played for 10 years or so. So obviously we know the ends and outs (or is it the ins and outs... I've actually never typed this phrase before... interesting) of it and can look at a situation and have a good idea of the turn out.
Well when the mother ship gets a buff that allows it to use planet cracker then i might enjoy it.
On August 29 2010 07:32 Grobyc wrote: I prefer watching BW easily, but I don't completely hate watching SC2 or anything. I also really love playing SC2, so it's not some kind of biased thing. This could change, because I think one reason some people enjoy watching BW more is because you are often able to determine the outcome before it happens. Maybe, it's just me, but in BW if I see 12 marines and 5 medics against 12 hydras I know the Terran should win; in SC2, if it's 12 marines and 5 medivacs against 12 hydras I don't for sure(pretty sure hydras would win though). In BW, I know the timings of stuff; I know when players should be able to do damage, so if I see one player moving out I go "OMG WTF CAN TERRAN DEFEND THIS???", but in SC2 I don't know those as well either. Half the time I think one player has nice timing he ends up getting crushed easily and it's just not as epic as I think it should have been.
Yeah but it's going to take time and familiarity before the OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG moments truly start to happen. We have some now but they aren't the same as in bw, I agree. However, bw has been around for ages and a lot of us have played for 10 years or so. So obviously we know the ends and outs (or is it the ins and outs... I've actually never typed this phrase before... interesting) of it and can look at a situation and have a good idea of the turn out.
Everything clusters up way too much... it's really difficult to look at a marine/maruder ball and tell how many units are there in a glance. Starcraft you can tell that pretty much instantly because the area they take up is a lot larger. Nevermind Colossi walking over stuff...
The only reason I enjoy BW more than SC2 at the moment is because I have more emotional attachment to the BW players, and I don't have any favorites in SC2 yet to root for.
On August 29 2010 07:32 Grobyc wrote: I prefer watching BW easily, but I don't completely hate watching SC2 or anything. I also really love playing SC2, so it's not some kind of biased thing. This could change, because I think one reason some people enjoy watching BW more is because you are often able to determine the outcome before it happens. Maybe, it's just me, but in BW if I see 12 marines and 5 medics against 12 hydras I know the Terran should win; in SC2, if it's 12 marines and 5 medivacs against 12 hydras I don't for sure(pretty sure hydras would win though). In BW, I know the timings of stuff; I know when players should be able to do damage, so if I see one player moving out I go "OMG WTF CAN TERRAN DEFEND THIS???", but in SC2 I don't know those as well either. Half the time I think one player has nice timing he ends up getting crushed easily and it's just not as epic as I think it should have been.
I think a lot of the disliek for sc2 as a spectator sport from old dudes is just this. With so many years playing sc, youre used to recognizing shit right away and analyzing.
I think the graphics cause more problems than they solve. In BW I can always tell exactly what is happening because the graphics are slick and simple. SC2 has lots of effects and densely packed little dudes. Especially in big battles shit just dies while hidden behind all of the lasers and explosions.
I've found it severely lacking compared to brood war in terms of clarity and visibility when running on low resolution streams, but it clears up quite nicely on medium to high Q streams.
In particular, zerglings can be really unclear, because their blood is too dark to be distinct when zerg is certain colors or playing on a certain tileset. In BW, their blood pool graphic was actually bigger than their actual unit graphic =o
I agree with everything looking too clustered and unidentifiable too. A 200/200 marine marauder army only seems to take up 1/3 the screen, so the battles as a whole just seem a lot smaller imo. That and macro + micro is made easier so it's less impressive to see someone pull some clutch move off.
i really enjoy watching the game but i tend to like it more when there's zergs and protoss in the games. frankly i've been watching games for the past couple months and since release its been pretty much nothing but terran all the time. honestly it gets boring just watching the one race so much. not seeing enough zerg and protoss. TvT is the worst one to watch and its easily the most common.
thats just my view on it and overall im very happy. + Show Spoiler +
On August 29 2010 08:13 Takkara wrote: It would be impossible for SC2 to already surpass BW watchability. Does anyone really expect it to be better at this point? SC2 metagame and talent is in its infancy. BW is a finely aged wine. Of course BW is better to watch, however, for it's youth, SC2 is amazing fun to watch.
Gretorp v Silver, Socke v drewbie, TLO v NaDa and numerous other games are already just fascinating to watch. In a couple years, with some new units to match a mature metagame and progamer-level talent? Have no fear, SC2 is here to stay. As long as the community's passion doesn't falter for Cataclysm or Diablo 3 or some other RTS that may come along.
i'm going to have to disagree. it may be more fun to watch for some hardcore gamers, but the graphics just arent good enough and its too complicated for average people to want to watch. yes i know graphics dont make a good game, but it does dictate whether its watchable as a spectator sport.
At first I thought the OP was just being sarcastic trying to get a rise out of people but if he's for real that's cool. Skimming the comments someone said that they don't enjoy watching SC2 as much because they don't know it in and out and can't predict outcomes. Didn't think of that but it I agree that it is definitely one of the reasons I enjoy watching BW more. Veterans can see the smallest of details and know exactly the current state of the game.
I don't feel excited when I watch SC2. In reality, I just feel bored. BW was a much more interesting game for me to watch...
I guess the reason is because, like a lot of people said, the details of the game are still in the making so it's hard to thoroughly enjoy the game and make our own observations about it.
When I watched the Day[9] Daily, Day[9] would usually comment on how "smart" a play was in BW, and how "ingenious" it was. Even though he might've given some players the benefit of the doubt, I think there was a lot of "smart" play. Moving certain units, expanding in a clever way, mining up expos....stuff like that....
Stuff that...is so obvious to us now, but is still considered a "smart" thing to do.
I personally do not see "smart" play when I see Starcraft 2. I either see, all-in swings, or people yelling TIMING ATTACK...or....whatever...
And I think Day[9] has shifted from saying "smart" play to "solid" play...which in my mind, doesn't necessitate a fun game to watch.
One thing that really hurts SC2 as a spectator sport (and I use "hurt" loosely) is that it isn't yet a science like Brood War. Brood War is so boiled-down that spectators can see something coming, and think, "oh shit, if he just... oh god... oh here it comes... aaaaaah how did he not scan for that?!" It's there with SC2, of course, but there aren't many defined timings and go-to reactions since the -- oh god, I'm gonna use that term -- "meta-game" is still developing.
I still enjoy watching SC2, it just needs a bit of time to match-up to Brood War.
On August 29 2010 06:20 SubtleArt wrote: Pales in comparison to the games I've seen in the higher stages of the MSL and OSL but they're good I guess. The lack of micro thingy still makes it less enjoyable for me
I agree with Subtle,
I can watch SC2 and find it entertaining but it's pale compared to BroodWar
On August 29 2010 17:45 Grobyc wrote: I agree with everything looking too clustered and unidentifiable too. A 200/200 marine marauder army only seems to take up 1/3 the screen, so the battles as a whole just seem a lot smaller imo. That and macro + micro is made easier so it's less impressive to see someone pull some clutch move off.
yeah defenitely, when I see a 200/200 army I'm like, is he REALLY maxed? it looks like a 50/200 army from BW :p
On August 29 2010 19:45 Keldrath wrote:
i'm going to have to disagree. it may be more fun to watch for some hardcore gamers, but the graphics just arent good enough and its too complicated for average people to want to watch. yes i know graphics dont make a good game, but it does dictate whether its watchable as a spectator sport.
yeah but BW graphics were really clear and I could easily see what THIS unit was doing instead of easily seeing what this clump of 10 units is doing. so I much prefer BW graphics for spectating.
for all that grand talk about sc2 not requiring as much skill or whatever that keeps coming up in threads similar to this...
plus all the features available when youre obsing a game are great in sc2. Cant tell what's going on? Zoom in (or, change your graphic settings)
yeah but I'm not the one who's obsing usually,
beside having to zoom in to see clearly through all the particle effects is a good sign that something is wrong.
and about that video, since there is smart-cast I will think "ohh that's clever" instead of OMGWTF StORMS like I did when Jangbi stormed everything or when GGPlay used defilers,
also saying SC2 takes as much skills then BroodWar is plain wrong, You can say SC2 takes skills but as much as BW? I don't think so
On August 30 2010 08:43 swanized wrote: also saying SC2 takes as much skills then BroodWar is plain wrong, You can say SC2 takes skills but as much as BW? I don't think so
It's pretty obvious that how much skill a competitive game requires depends on your opponent as much as it does on the game. If there wasn't a Korean progaming scene you'd be missing out on all the skill that is in the competitive leagues today. When I beat Flash in SC2 then we can talk about skill.
for all that grand talk about sc2 not requiring as much skill or whatever that keeps coming up in threads similar to this...
plus all the features available when youre obsing a game are great in sc2. Cant tell what's going on? Zoom in (or, change your graphic settings)
yeah but I'm not the one who's obsing usually,
beside having to zoom in to see clearly through all the particle effects is a good sign that something is wrong.
and about that video, since there is smart-cast I will think "ohh that's clever" instead of OMGWTF StORMS like I did when Jangbi stormed everything or when GGPlay used defilers,
also saying SC2 takes as much skills then BroodWar is plain wrong, You can say SC2 takes skills but as much as BW? I don't think so
I'd like to see anyone in this thread do the same thing so flawlessly. It shouldn't be too hard.
Of course it's different than BW. The interface was completely different because it's over 10 years old. But you've got to be joking if you don't think that SC2 at a very high level requires a similar amount of skill to be successful
I watch SC2 form time to time, but get bored too soon for the same reasons many people mentioned - low skill level, the absence of micro (that hawk example looks sweet, but it really shouldnt be hard with the smart casting), the games are very short and repetitive and my inability to distinguish the different units in the streams.
I think that in a year or two, when there are much high quality streams and much better players, the things will look much different
I try to watch it, I really do, but I just can't get into it like BW. It's just another Smash Bros Brawl to me. Sure there's skill, but BW is just a more skillful game. It's the imperfections that make it great to me. However, what Blizzard did was correct by making implementing all these features. What kind of RTS game would it be if they didn't have automine, MBS, smart casting, grouping etc. Blob vs blob is the real killer for me I think. It would be scorned by every game site/magazine/review by it being outdated. Sure to the diehards we see it as making the game easier, but to everyone else it's just keeping up with the times.
This is just me, but I don't want SC2 to become big in Korea if it comes at the expense of Korean BW. I don't really care if it becomes the biggest esport in the rest of the world as long as I have Jaedong and Effort (lol slump) tearing things up.
I used to watch Lz's, Psyionic's, and Ret's stream for hours upon hours, but now I barely watch them. I still love Team EG for their antics and whatnot, but I'd rather watch Psy play LoL than SC2. It honestly saddens me that I hardly see any Chill or Artosis posts in BW now. But what can you do. This is perhaps one of my longest posts ever. Shows what kind of poster I am lol.
I don't care about lack of micro or mbs, smartcasting from the spectators point of view. Frankly I think mbs and smartcasting would not hurt SC1 if present.
The thing making SC2 less appealing for watching is lack of excitement. For me excitement is formed by the following : - Unpredictability : high ground miss advantage, reaver shooting, drops, mines... - Back and Forth long games(hopefully these may eventaully evolve in SC2) - Unit fragility : not so many units die easily and special abilities don't deal much damage(comapred to SC1), so units don't have to be managed carefully - Lack of power units/combinations : means you could get some really good combinations in SC1 that were really hard to counter unless you were superior in macro (e.g. carriers, mass vessels, defiler + lurker, battle cruisers vs zerg, terran 200/200 mech, ...). SC2 is designed in a way that most power units have hard counters and there is a lack of powerful special abilities.
EPT
. So many 1 base all in strats, ugh. It was just really boring honestly, I hope they fix PvP to favor expanding more than warping in stuff from 1 base.
