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The thing about the "it's not all figured out yet" argument: Yes, Brood War 1 year after its release was not entirely figured out. But the thing is, the BW scene was really small in the beginning - there was no pro scene, there was no Liquipedia or streams. You could hardly even watch a pro game, there were just these nerdy little descriptions of pro matches called "Battle Reports."
SC2 hasn't had a chance to naturally develop; nobody fooled around in this game. Right off the bat, tournaments were springing up, many of them sponsored by Blizzard - and these weren't your average, run of the mill tournaments... they were huge. The demand for SC2 pros was there before the first few patches. And needless to say, they were promptly filled. As a result, there were SC2 "pros" on the scene way before there were in Brood War.
In Brood War, a year after its release, there were PC bang heroes and ladder kings. Indeed, there were no snazzy rewards or sponsorship opportunities for the best players. There was no money involved - just passion. Pure and simple. For the love of the game. People saw unparalleled dedication in something, at first glance seemed banal and uninteresting. They made the games exciting, revolutionizing unique techniques to dispatch opponents. There was something elegant and ingenious about it - a time when even the RTS genre was in its primacy. Every discovery was awe inspiring and refreshing.
SC2 has been stripped down to the bare minimum, everything is crisp and clean; there are no dirty gears or kinks, just a smooth, classy veneer. It's appealing at first, but it wears thin fast. People figure things out quickly and efficiently, even utilizing old Brood War strategies to good effect. Pros are practicing 12 hours a day, already - just like in Brood War. It took years for real practice teams to arise in BW.
So SC2's pro scene clearly had a head start, and a large one at that. Therefore, the argument that this game hasn't had enough time to develop and grow is tedious.
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Why is it that every time someone makes a would-be good post, they decide to exaggerate numbers and attract the trolls/SC2 defenders?
Saying SC2 is easier is fine and dandy, bashing it as an inferior game is also more than ok because it's true.
But when you exaggerate so humorously saying 200APM is no longer needed or even perfect play could be achieved with sub 100 APM, then you're just asking to get flamed.
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On July 05 2011 13:56 masami.sc wrote:
The thing about the "it's not all figured out yet" argument: Yes, Brood War 1 year after its release was not entirely figured out. But the thing is, the BW scene was really small in the beginning - there was no pro scene, there was no Liquipedia or streams. You could hardly even watch a pro game, there were just these nerdy little descriptions of pro matches called "Battle Reports."
SC2 hasn't had a chance to naturally develop; nobody fooled around in this game. Right off the bat, tournaments were springing up, many of them sponsored by Blizzard - and these weren't your average, run of the mill tournaments... they were huge. The demand for SC2 pros was there before the first few patches. And needless to say, they were promptly filled. As a result, there were SC2 "pros" on the scene way before there were in Brood War.
In Brood War, a year after its release, there were PC bang heroes and ladder kings. Indeed, there were no snazzy rewards or sponsorship opportunities for the best players. There was no money involved - just passion. Pure and simple. For the love of the game. People saw unparalleled dedication in something, at first glance seemed banal and uninteresting. They made the games exciting, revolutionizing unique techniques to dispatch opponents. There was something elegant and ingenious about it - a time when even the RTS genre was in its primacy. Every discovery was awe inspiring and refreshing.
SC2 has been stripped down to the bare minimum, everything is crisp and clean; there's no dirty gears or kinks, just a smooth, classy veneer. It's appealing at first, but it wears thin fast. People figure things out quickly and efficiently, even utilizing old Brood War strategies to good effect. Pros are practicing 12 hours a day, already - just like in Brood War. It took years for real practice teams to arise in BW.
So SC2's pro scene clearly had a head start, and a large one at that. Therefore, the argument that this game hasn't had enough time to develop and grow is tedious.
Your logic is flawed. If the game has had enough time to develop there would be a dominant way of playing. There would be a flow to each race that happens in most games because it is the best way to play. Zerg is a classic case where hydra/corrupter used to be standard against the protoss ball, no longer the case.
Like I mentioned previously, the obstacles in SC2's first year are inherently different than in SC1. Using your example, the major obstacle for a pro in BW first year was getting enough money to play. In SC2 it is balancing streaming, coaching, community activities, practicing, tournaments, travel and other commitments. This is outside the game itself. There are also different obstacles inside the game. For example SC2 has a greater focus on strategy than mechanics.
Your argument seems to be that there is more information, a larger community and a polished game which allows pros to quickly get to the"top" level. Mine is that the "top" level hasn't been defined yet.
You mention that the BW scene was built on small passionate groups discovering new aspects of rts strategy. This is true and no sequel would ever be able to create that again. There are aspects of rts startegy that are the same regardless of the game. The fact that SC2 is based on the original means they share aspects that will allow people to port strategies across. Is this a bad thing?
It seems you want a game that is both similar enough to be a sequel but also completely different. I am not sure how that is possible.
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@masami.sc you are wrong. Broodwar has had 10 proteams since 2002-03 with 12+ hours training regimes. AND A and B teams, something no SC2 team has (no reason to). And 12 years after the scene matured strategies are still being developed and games are way more varied, the game has simply more depth. This is no fanboyism, Ive laddered a lot on SC2 and watch streams + tournaments from time to time. Game is too damn volatile and has a lot of super boring units+spells.
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I actually agree. I've played sc2 alot but I haven't played bw for many years. I have a limited time to play a game each day, I do indeed like to play competitive games but there is no point in playing competitive if there isn't a reasonable correlation between the amount of time you put into the game and your skill level. Indeed, this is somewhat the case for sc2 so let me explain it in more detail.
What exactly does it mean to be skilled? Think about it, it is not that obvious. A game that has a winner and a loser will always offer some kind of ways to improve your skill since clearly someone won and the other lost, right? A player having played 1000 games, no matter how this game is designed, will probably be more skilled than one who hasn't played it before. This is trivial but it illustrates a fact about sc2. As long as the game is somewhat reasonable created at a very basic level then the actual question of "good design" is related to what type of skills you can achieve rather than whether you can become a pro i.e. learn skills.
Allright. The skills in sc2 are very different from bw and depend on which race you play. If you don't like sc2 it is probably because you don't like the skills of this game. One of the important skills in sc2 is being able to counter what your opponent is doing with specific units. On the other hand, to do a specific all-in build that is hard to counter is also a skill in sc2. The units in sc2 are designed to counter specific units so basically one of the important things to learn in sc2 is to have the right units at the right time.
Mechanics is much less important than in bw and this is what I feel people are missing. The small details on how to micro your units and different macro styles have more or less disappeared. These are skills that people liked but cannot use in sc2.
I wish there were more skills to learn in sc2. That there were millions of ways to control your economy and units all leading to different styles and techniques. There would be simple skills for noobs and hard, but more efficient skills, for pros.
I wish Blizzard would consider a sc2pro version of the game.
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Ah well, not much you can do. I usually just stop playing when I get bored of games and move onto something else which happens pretty often.
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I'm personally waiting for 2-3 years after the final expansion is released in order to make the final judgement. There's still room for Blizzard or even the community to make changes to the game.
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I agree with your stetement: those discussions lead to well, nowhere so I quit doing that bullshit
I don't blog either! Take care ^^
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On July 05 2011 18:07 Mactator wrote:
I actually agree. I've played sc2 alot but I haven't played bw for many years. I have a limited time to play a game each day, I do indeed like to play competitive games but there is no point in playing competitive if there isn't a reasonable correlation between the amount of time you put into the game and your skill level. Indeed, this is somewhat the case for sc2 so let me explain it in more detail.
What exactly does it mean to be skilled? Think about it, it is not that obvious. A game that has a winner and a loser will always offer some kind of ways to improve your skill since clearly someone won and the other lost, right? A player having played 1000 games, no matter how this game is designed, will probably be more skilled than one who hasn't played it before. This is trivial but it illustrates a fact about sc2. As long as the game is somewhat reasonable created at a very basic level then the actual question of "good design" is related to what type of skills you can achieve rather than whether you can become a pro i.e. learn skills.
Allright. The skills in sc2 are very different from bw and depend on which race you play. If you don't like sc2 it is probably because you don't like the skills of this game. One of the important skills in sc2 is being able to counter what your opponent is doing with specific units. On the other hand, to do a specific all-in build that is hard to counter is also a skill in sc2. The units in sc2 are designed to counter specific units so basically one of the important things to learn in sc2 is to have the right units at the right time.
Mechanics is much less important than in bw and this is what I feel people are missing. The small details on how to micro your units and different macro styles have more or less disappeared. These are skills that people liked but cannot use in sc2.
I wish there were more skills to learn in sc2. That there were millions of ways to control your economy and units all leading to different styles and techniques. There would be simple skills for noobs and hard, but more efficient skills, for pros.
I wish Blizzard would consider a sc2pro version of the game.
(bolded part) There is about the same thing in TvP in BW. Vultures > Zealots > Tanks > Dragoons > Vultures so you have to make units based on what your opponent have but the difference with sc2 here is that even if you have, let's say, too few tanks (you have more vultures) for the number of dragoons of your opponent, only with your superior micro, skill or control, you can beat your enemy. You can also beat your enemy with less units depending on your unit placement and, again, with your control. I feel this is something missing in sc2.
Also, in BW you can't get up a ramp easily so that gives a big advantage to the defender and this is something else that makes the beauty of the game. You dont have a huge ball of units coming up the ramp while shoot-running and raping everything. In BW you have to control these units going up the ramp, recalling (arbiter) in your enemy base to remove the disadvantage of going up a ramp. It plays a lot on the basic physics of the game which is great.
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On July 05 2011 18:16 Zapdos_Smithh wrote:
Ah well, not much you can do. I usually just stop playing when I get bored of games and move onto something else which happens pretty often.
Yeah haven't played sc2 in 3 months so yeah..
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On July 05 2011 14:02 Ravencruiser wrote:
Why is it that every time someone makes a would-be good post, they decide to exaggerate numbers and attract the trolls/SC2 defenders?
Saying SC2 is easier is fine and dandy, bashing it as an inferior game is also more than ok because it's true.
But when you exaggerate so humorously saying 200APM is no longer needed or even perfect play could be achieved with sub 100 APM, then you're just asking to get flamed.
Uhm zerg is probably the only one where u need more than 100 apm so no I am not exaggerating..
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Great read man! I agree that SC2 was made for more people to play. BW is so much more challenging. It really allows for the great players to be seperated from the good. I was stuck at D+ too on iCCup and I was like "QQ such a scrub" lol. Now, I've played for about 35 hours of SC2 (stuck on guest passes cuz of school and crap) and I'm in Division 2-5 Platinum on all of the accounts. But still, you can't deny the fact that SC2 has really ballooned ESPORTS especially in NA. Blizzard knows exactly what's going on.
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On July 05 2011 14:02 Ravencruiser wrote:
Why is it that every time someone makes a would-be good post, they decide to exaggerate numbers and attract the trolls/SC2 defenders?
Saying SC2 is easier is fine and dandy, bashing it as an inferior game is also more than ok because it's true.
But when you exaggerate so humorously saying 200APM is no longer needed or even perfect play could be achieved with sub 100 APM, then you're just asking to get flamed.
Dunno what happened to the concept of "eapm" but I wouldn't be surprised if 50-60 effective apm was plenty to get by in sc2.
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EPT
