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The story of Columbus should be new build, play styles and an evolution of competitive play. We might have been discussing the significance of Select's new tech upgrade build against Idra to keep alive, or Major's amazing spam drops that even made veteran caster Tasteless headspin. Instead, this story is lag.
We have lag, technical issues and this time MLG cannot be blamed. The only person, place, thing or corporation to be blame is Blizzard and Blizzard alone. I have never discussed the fact that LAN is not included in SC2 in any thread, discussion or comment, nor do I care. According to one source Blizzard designed the game particularly for low graphics rendering so that competitive play would be smooth. If this was their goal within the Battle.net system without without a doubt has failed. Regrettably, I don't believe we can say, or do anything to Bli$$ard ($=Z), but hopefully that in the new expansion pack that we get the ability to LAN.
The story here, is how Blizzard servers impact game play. Ruin Live gaming and significantly impact the credibility of ESPORTS and tournaments. Several times throughout the tournament lag screens came up, and if it wasn't for the unbelievably talented casters, any young or newcomer might have been turned off by all the difficulties. Let's just be glad that the sc2 casters are so damn good they set a standard that Halo and COD have not yet touched and continue to save Blizzard's reputation for such a failed system for competitive play.
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I have been watching the main stage for 2 straight days in person and I have seen 3 lag screens for approx. 10 seconds total. I mean no LAN sucks but the servers are handling it pretty well... but complaining about 10 seconds is pretty sad...
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On June 05 2011 16:20 buzzkill568 wrote: I have been watching the main stage for 2 straight days in person and I have seen 3 lag screens for approx. 10 seconds total. I mean no LAN sucks but the servers are handling it pretty well... but complaining about 10 seconds is pretty sad...
I don't remember any major incidents, but I haven't been streaming the entire thing straight. There's been worst instances of Blizzard's no LAN causing tournament problems than MLG Columbus, like that 4 hour wait between Jinro and TTOne.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
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Did you watch Incontrol vs Losira?
Three to four times Incontrol was just randomly timing out because of BNet issues. Then the connection lost thing comes up, but it restores.
Nothing tilts you faster than lag or a disconnect in a tournament environment. Maybe on your ladder you'll shrug it off after a "fucking lag" but in a tournament booth you are calculating things in your head over and over and over, in the zone, doing this that this that, you've found your groove and nothing is in your way.
Until the game freezes because the battle.net servers are having issues. You have to re-establish that mental trance. 10 seconds is a LONG time in that sense, so no, it doesn't make it "sad" it makes it frustrating.
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I don't think the lag this time caused as much crap as it did to the previous MLGs. I think it has been pretty good so far.
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I'm not sure if you know this or not but....
Technology is the vehicle of E-sports. As you know, sometimes technology doesn't always work right, and we have to get in there and try our best to make it work.
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On June 05 2011 16:35 kibeth wrote: I'm not sure if you know this or not but....
Technology is the vehicle of E-sports. As you know, sometimes technology doesn't always work right, and we have to get in there and try our best to make it work.
lan was working pretty good before
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In 12 years we will all have flawless internet... just think about how much internet has evolved since 1999. Blizzard is just tripping over its own feet in this case.
MLG has shown that a huge live tourny can force us into the future with reliability. LAN is cool, but so is a ladder full of pro players that don't just in house because of LAN.
Honestly all complaints can be resolved with a disconnect save game feature, where players can resume from a replay.
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I heard that the main reason why Blizzard did not include LAN play in Starcraft 2 was because of what Garena did with Warcraft 3, and DotA. I heard from various sources that through Garena, you can play DotA and other WC3 custom maps without the need of buying Warcraft 3 legally. But I could be wrong on that
Lack of LAN play in competitive gaming can be a real drag. Though it's less of an issue because Blizzard's servers hardly give gamers a hard time.
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On June 05 2011 16:20 buzzkill568 wrote: I have been watching the main stage for 2 straight days in person and I have seen 3 lag screens for approx. 10 seconds total. I mean no LAN sucks but the servers are handling it pretty well... but complaining about 10 seconds is pretty sad...
This.
I'm here in Columbus right now, the lag screens have shown up yes but they're not the end of the world.
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the possibility of any lag at all is a pretty serious issue
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On June 05 2011 16:16 tdhz77 wrote: Let's just be glad that the sc2 casters are so damn good they set a standard that Halo and COD have not yet touched and continue to save Blizzard's reputation for such a failed system for competitive play.
To be fair, SC2 is a much more spectator friendly game than Halo or COD.
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I would agree on that. It's hard keeping track of which team is succeeding or something because it's usually in first person or something.
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abandon blactivision and play sc:bw it has lan mode and even fancy lan latency in online games
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On June 05 2011 18:12 StutteR wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2011 16:16 tdhz77 wrote: Let's just be glad that the sc2 casters are so damn good they set a standard that Halo and COD have not yet touched and continue to save Blizzard's reputation for such a failed system for competitive play.
To be fair, SC2 is a much more spectator friendly game than Halo or COD. I disagree; anybody who has ever watched/played an FPS game before (basically everyone I think) can sit down and at least get some idea as to what is going on in a game of Halo of Call of Duty.
But I mean to somebody who has never watched StarCraft before it can be extremely confusing as to what on earth is going on. That being said, it's easier to follow then some games such as WarCraft 3 or DotA (I played DotA for years and watching professional DotA still confuses me sometimes). Also, during some games of StarCraft where two players are macroing very intensively and there is little action, the games can become very boring for spectators.
On the other hand, if you've played Call of Duty or at least have some understanding of the game, then you could sit down and watch Halo with some level of knowledge. Sure you may not know the specifics of the game, but you know the general goals behind each game. FPS games appear very similar to the audience, despite requiring completely different mechanics and mindset. And while they are very different to play, it is easy to enjoy watching many different games.
That being said, the casters (Tasteless especially) did a very good job of explaining the game to anyone who might be new to StarCraft 2. In the finals I remember him explaining things like what Gold Minerals do, which obviously is something that anyone who has played StarCraft 2 knows, but somebody who just finished watching Halo and decided to watch some StarCraft would not know that.
And on the topic of lag, in the finals of MMA vs LosirA there were a lot of points where the lag screen came up. It's exceedingly frustrating for both the audience and I'm sure for the players. Blizzard needs to just implement LAN to make events like this better.
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