|
Dear Blizzard,
I first heard of you in 1998, when I was still 7 years old. My friend's dad was playing the recently released game, Starcraft: Broodwar on his PC while we watched from over his shoulder. The game was the coolest thing I had ever seen. My dad owned a mac, and there weren't very many games available for mac at the time. But Starcraft was. And damn, was it cool. I would turn down the speakers at night while my parents slept and play on the computer in their room, because it was the only computer in the house. The lights had to stay off, so I learned how to type to chat with the other players in game because I couldn't see the keys. If I didn't get in trouble when dialing up the internet, I knew I was free.
Over the years, my family got DSL and newer computers. There were new games and I played some of them. But Starcraft was always there. In the 3rd grade, my parents were going through some rocky parts of their marriage; shit that most couples would normally get a divorce over. While they were doing their thing, I could escape into the world of Starcraft. Eventually, things sorted themselves out, amazingly enough. We moved away and into the city where I now live, sometime in 4th grade.
It was late 2002 and I was 12; my 4th grade teacher in the new school was young, attractive, and very engaging in the classroom. I still played constantly, though. There were more impressive UMS games and people were figuring out some amazing things you could do with the units. Eventually, I would stop playing around 2006, when in the 8th grade, I met some cute girls.
Those cute girls turned out to be emotional, insane, and almost definitely succubi. But that is another story. I rediscovered Starcraft mid-2008 and found an entirely new beast in front of me. Between iCCup and the Korean pro-gaming scene, Starcraft had changed drastically. There were paid professionals who played, and legions of gamers wanting to be just like them. I watched GOMtv's season 3, and absolutely loved it. Flash was this rising monster of a player, but still couldn't beat Jaedong no matter what he tried. The fan designed map pool was brilliant. It had its flaws, but they were at least trying. There was a semblance of balance, and I'd honestly say that the current map pool is actually 99% there.
During the time between 1998 and 2008, you had several new Warcraft games out; and between Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft, had royally pissed fans off. Warcraft 3 was imbalanced to the point that as far as the fans were concerned you threw the game out the window and said, "Fuck it, I'm tired of trying to make this work." With WoW, you did the reverse and so over balanced the game, there were scores of comments claiming that picking a race and class were purely implemented for aesthetics- they all played more or less the same.
The question never was IF Starcraft would have a sequel, it was when. And you took your sweet time about it. Between playing Starcraft and learning new rumors about Starcraft 2, I was off at the local community college. In addition to homework, every day I would come home, play on iCCup, and watch the pro Korean leagues when I could find a stream. The community was on edge about Starcraft 2. What would happen? After the horrors of Warcraft 3 and the over balancing of WoW, a lot of the community didn't have much faith in your latest project.
What we hoped in was perfection, which was a high bar to reach. Of any company that could do it though, most would have said that you were our best bet. I was hoping for something spectacular that could follow in its predecessor's footsteps. You had reached some magic formula with Broodwar, and after patch 1.05 (less than 2 of Broodwar's release) the game reached a balance that is still played today. With so many years to develop Starcraft 2, we could only hope that you could remember that formula and apply it to the game.
The thing that really got the community's panties in a bunch was that you decided to take over the professional community. After seeing what KeSPA did to Starcraft, there were those in favor of this decision. You had a history of supporting long outdating games even after they stopped making you real profit. This was countered with the bullshit pulled in Warcraft 3. Without an evolving map pool in addition to the horrible balancing act in the game, others didn't have much faith in you. Besides this elephant of a problem, there were other complaints on how you were intending to run things. The removal of LAN play was a bitch move, but we would live.
Over the summer before the release in July, I managed to scrape up enough money for the game before going back to class. I played in the beta, and had hoped that the obvious balance issues were fixed. The first thing I did when unwrapping my newly arrived game was play the campaign through. I wasn't impressed. It was horrible. With a history of fantastic campaigns, dating all the way back to Warcraft 2, Wings of Liberty was like being served shit on a silver platter while expecting something gourmet. After beating the campaign inside of a couple days and being thoroughly disappointed, I decided to try my luck on your new battle.net.
None of my friends in real life played Starcraft anymore, and most of the people I played regularly were now limited to the European and Asian servers. So, I was left with playing with some randomly matched people who I had no history with, and no reason to abide by a sense of honor. The game wasn't even remotely balanced beyond the absolute basics. At least everybody had fighting units and workers, right? I gave it a chance, though. I had to- this was a game I'd been waiting, literally, the majority of my life to be released. What I found was exactly what I knew I was going to find, though.
I placed into Diamond league, hoping for some genuinely good games, and found the exact opposite. It was filled with cheesy bullshit. My race of choice since I first played, Zerg, was so uncomfortably balanced that I kept trying to switch to Protoss with little success- I just couldn't think like a toss. So I stopped playing. After the first Starcraft 2 GOMtv series, I stopped watching the games. The battle.net website was filled with propaganda to calm the masses, but the b.net forums were a place of garbage and noobs ranting about how void rays and marines were underpowered and that broodlords were overpowered.
My forum of choice, Teamliquid, filled with whiney little brats getting into the game and as much as I hate to admit it, I knew I was turning into one of them. I had Zerg tears, and resisted the urge countless times to bitch about how much the game infuriated me. Before quitting, I tried to GG every game; but occasionally I couldn't do anything besides 'command+q' (quit, for non-mac users). My wins were hollow, rarely would I play a truly good game.
This brings us to today; its been almost exactly 7 months since the original release. I've read that you released a new patch, but that still, nobody is happy. And I'd like to say, thanks for the fantastic games, and for helping me through my parents' drama when I was just a little kid. Thanks for the entertainment, and for a sport that I could actually watch and get excited about. Please, fix your mistake though. I had high standards for Starcraft 2, but was eager to forgive it for any shortcomings it might have had- those could be patched. It doesn't look like you genuinely care. And if you don't care about something I valued so highly, I don't want anything to do with such total garbage.
Starcraft 2 isn't fun. Sure, its competitive. But so was Command and Conquer, and look at where they are. The community is trash. I can't even play my friends from around the world without spending another 100 dollars on two more copies of the game. When Heart of the Swarm is released, I'll read reviews of the game and check in on the community once again hoping for a spark of the glory that Starcraft once had. Until then, though, peace.
 
|
On January 27 2011 16:28 flyinfart wrote:
This brings us to today; its been almost exactly 7 months since the original release.
Actually, it's 6 months.
But damn, time flies huh?
I can still vividly remember few days prior to release of the game when the entire gaming world was counting down like it was new year or something.
Already half a year...
|
|
|
oh my god waiting the day before was so killer
thats an awesome summary of why were disappointed by sc2
|
How much into WoW were you, cause the stuff they did in SC2 pales in comparison to everything they've done to post TBC WoW heh (minus the KeSPA lawsuit but that isn't really game design related so ya).
Pretty much stuck to RT and AT with friends, read one too many horror stories in the SC2 Strat section to try Solo ladder, did friendlies with Diamond/Platinum friends though.
|
your post was very emotional and touching, thanks for sharing and id like to say that you're not alone in the way you feel. mb one day everything will be alright.
|
You know, you've got a better chance of reaching blizzard if you post this on THEIR website.
Just sayin'.
|
Great post, I totally mirror your sentiments on a lot of points, especially the anticipation right before SC2 came out and the hugely disappointing campaign. I totally remember sneaking into my basement at night just to fire up that 56k to play some stealth SC on the family computer ^^
My only difference was that I actually enjoyed War3 / DoTA and was absolutely consumed by D2. Man, lots of memories...
|
Korea (South)2711 Posts
then here is what i don't understand, if you all love bw so much, why don't you go back to bw and play it again, i love bw and would love to see the faces and the names return. if you are so disappointed in sc2, don't let it grow, let it fade away into the black hole of gaming
|
Orly? Well Id much rather believe THIS GUY in that SC2 vanilla>>SC1 vanilla.
http://www.gosugamers.net/general/news/14244-gg08-sven-we-probably-didn-t-party-as-hard-as-we-thought-we-did
Also I thought the campaign was FANTASTIC! Seriously, guys, SC2 gets GOTY, blasts open the e-sports scene, gets 10/10 for its single-player missions from almost every game site, has the most intensely updated balance and patch releases and there are still a few of you like OP, who seem disappointed!?
Maybe you were hoping for it to be better than a 13 year old game at release but, I just think youre a bit overeager to QQ all over it.
|
Aww. I feel the sameish.
I'm not dissapointed completely with the game, and I think there is still hope. And to say it isn't fun just isn't true as far as I'm considered.
SC2 also seems to be producing more and more exciting games as time passes.
I think its foolish to expect or evne hope for true balance before the game is complete. SC1 wasn't balanced until BW came out, and I expect SC2 won't be balanced until a while after LotV comes out.
Until then, I'm thinking we just have to hold on tight and hope it stays exciting.
Also, I really hope that when expansions come out, Blizzard isn't afraid to totally rework shit. Some units just do not belong in this game and need to be removed or completely reworked from the ground up.
edit: lol @ the poster above me. Legit the first person I've ever seen someone give the SC2 single player a good review. Although to be fair I didn't read any gamesite reviews. Still, it was trash. Cheesy as balls with soooo little coolfactor.
|
Lol there is a quote in there that says "You have to want to win more than you hate to lose" In almost every quotes I heard from a successful athlete, I hear the opposite 'You have to hate losing more than you like winning"
|
My letter to blizzard
Dear Blizzard,
Give us some realistic times of when you say games come out
Sincerely,
Your common everyday PC gamer
PS. nice letter OP
|
I agree. The campaign was terrible. It bored me to shits. The only thing that kept me going was to know what happens next.
|
Dear flyinfart,
Thanks for your money, we spent it on creating the ultimate chat channel; a secret cow channel that ends all your sentences with ... mooo!
and bitches.
We hope you'll just buy Warcraft 4, it'll be awesome and balanced ... honest. Also it will have Facebook integration.
Follow us on Twitter!
Yours trolly,
Bobby Kotick
|
On January 27 2011 17:23 Firereaver wrote:Orly? Well Id much rather believe THIS GUY in that SC2 vanilla>>SC1 vanilla. http://www.gosugamers.net/general/news/14244-gg08-sven-we-probably-didn-t-party-as-hard-as-we-thought-we-did Also I thought the campaign was FANTASTIC! Seriously, guys, SC2 gets GOTY, blasts open the e-sports scene, gets 10/10 for its single-player missions from almost every game site, has the most intensely updated balance and patch releases and there are still a few of you like OP, who seem disappointed!? Maybe you were hoping for it to be better than a 13 year old game at release but, I just think youre a bit overeager to QQ all over it.
Blasts open the E-sports scene?
Really? ...Where?
New game, tons of tournaments, kinda reminds me of Halo 3. Seriously though it hasn't made any great strides into the esports scene.
It's a good game and all but let's not over state the facts here.
|
On January 27 2011 17:23 Firereaver wrote:Orly? Well Id much rather believe THIS GUY in that SC2 vanilla>>SC1 vanilla. http://www.gosugamers.net/general/news/14244-gg08-sven-we-probably-didn-t-party-as-hard-as-we-thought-we-did Also I thought the campaign was FANTASTIC! Seriously, guys, SC2 gets GOTY, blasts open the e-sports scene, gets 10/10 for its single-player missions from almost every game site, has the most intensely updated balance and patch releases and there are still a few of you like OP, who seem disappointed!? Maybe you were hoping for it to be better than a 13 year old game at release but, I just think youre a bit overeager to QQ all over it.
blizzard placed big sums of dollars for advertisements .. i would not be surprised if blizzard payed those sites ..
|
On January 27 2011 18:07 Jayme wrote:Show nested quote +On January 27 2011 17:23 Firereaver wrote:Orly? Well Id much rather believe THIS GUY in that SC2 vanilla>>SC1 vanilla. http://www.gosugamers.net/general/news/14244-gg08-sven-we-probably-didn-t-party-as-hard-as-we-thought-we-did Also I thought the campaign was FANTASTIC! Seriously, guys, SC2 gets GOTY, blasts open the e-sports scene, gets 10/10 for its single-player missions from almost every game site, has the most intensely updated balance and patch releases and there are still a few of you like OP, who seem disappointed!? Maybe you were hoping for it to be better than a 13 year old game at release but, I just think youre a bit overeager to QQ all over it. Blasts open the E-sports scene? Really? ...Where? New game, tons of tournaments, kinda reminds me of Halo 3. Seriously though it hasn't made any great strides into the esports scene. It's a good game and all but let's not over state the facts here.
I am really interested in how you would define "Blasting open the esports scene"? maybe you could also clarify what "Making great strides into the esport scene" means by your standards?
|
10387 Posts
SC2 was also a huge disappoint for me :\
Played a bit of the campaign and nearly puked over the horrendous writing. After laddering and being placed in Diamond, playing the game for a week or two, I found myself not enjoying the game anymore. It just wasn't very fun to play and I couldn't immerse myself into the game the same way I did w/ BW :\
Luckily, Blizz gave me a refund when I asked to "return" my game (Bought it digitally) :D
For me, BW is just a lot more fun to play. The sound design for one, is miles ahead of SC2's. The graphics of BW, while simple, are more appealing to me and the artistic design I like better. The gameplay in itself, while it has a "limited" interface, is what makes the game just a lot more fun for me. It's just much more visceral and engaging.
|
On January 27 2011 16:28 flyinfart wrote:
Those cute girls turned out to be emotional, insane, and almost definitely succubi..
Hahaha, so true m8 :D
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
