On September 21 2011 16:27 tree.hugger wrote: Mmmm someone asked me the other day what my favorite starcraft final was, and I said; Flash vs EffOrt, obviously, and they said that they had meant Sc2 final. And that stumped me, because really, I can name a handful of BW series that stick in my mind as ridiculously entertaining, but no Sc2 finals.
Lots of interesting SC2 finals: DIMAGA vs Mana, Naama vs Mana, DRG vs Thorzain, DRG vs sC, and that's only from the first year, there will be plenty more.
Meanwhile BW had tons of bad finals. Jaedong vs Yarnc, Calm vs Kwanro, Flash vs Movie, Flash vs Effort, some of the Flash vs Jaedong ones, Luxury vs Jangbi, and that's just in the few years I was paying attention.
And of course Flash vs Iris, which, apart from an interesting game 1, was much more boring and drawn out than any GOMTV SC2 TvT finals.
I didn't watch the SotG, I don't play sc2 and almost never watch it.
But I think one of the most important thing that separates BW from sc2 is the maturity of the scene.
In bw you have the OSL and the MSL, which are THE tournaments to win. They have long and pre-eliminaries, group stages and then the BoX quarters, semis and finals. If you win you are on top of the world. The tourneys are quite long and winning one leaves a mark in esports history.
For sc2, there's the GSL, MLG, DH... I don't know... MLG and DH are tournaments that span over a couple days- no real anticipation. No story development, no in-depth interviews, no hype before matches... As spectacular those events might be they lack some sort of solid core for the idea of the tournament to grow upon.
I guess the GSL is somewhat more like OSL/MSL, but after each finals. There's a one second pause and 'gg go re yo!'. The players of course need games to stay competitive. I am not aware how the Gom team league is working now but if I remember correctly it was also some sort of elimination type of tourney just for teams.
So the GSL's are needed to create the amount of the games to satisfy the players fans. (This is conditional if the bit on the team league is true, which I haven't checked up. ) So the GSL finals are not such a special event as OSL/MSL finals.
And then there's Proleague, which I think is every BW fans favorite. The drama, rivalries, ceremonies, tears, hope for your player doing better the next game in two days! You see that youngster B-teamer actually beginning to win legitimate games against A and S class pros and next thing you know you have his wallpaper
This goes on and on and one would think it could go like that forever, but some teams crystallize on top of the batch and some sublime at the very bottom. And it eventually climaxes and clashes in huge spectacular team finals.
There are probably in-game issues that separate the two games and others would be much more competent of talking about those.
I hope SC2 someday grows to something similar as SC:BW is now (used to be 2 years ago T__T )
... and at the same time I hope so much more that BW will never fade away!
On September 21 2011 16:27 tree.hugger wrote: Mmmm someone asked me the other day what my favorite starcraft final was, and I said; Flash vs EffOrt, obviously, and they said that they had meant Sc2 final. And that stumped me, because really, I can name a handful of BW series that stick in my mind as ridiculously entertaining, but no Sc2 finals.
Lots of interesting SC2 finals: DIMAGA vs Mana, Naama vs Mana, DRG vs Thorzain, DRG vs sC, and that's only from the first year, there will be plenty more.
Meanwhile BW had tons of bad finals. Jaedong vs Yarnc, Calm vs Kwanro, Flash vs Movie, Flash vs Effort, some of the Flash vs Jaedong ones, Luxury vs Jangbi, and that's just in the few years I was paying attention.
You best be joking! 'TONS'? 'BAD'!? How dare you put Flash, Jaesong, Kwanro, Effort and the rest in one sentence with 'bad'
On September 21 2011 16:27 tree.hugger wrote: Mmmm someone asked me the other day what my favorite starcraft final was, and I said; Flash vs EffOrt, obviously, and they said that they had meant Sc2 final. And that stumped me, because really, I can name a handful of BW series that stick in my mind as ridiculously entertaining, but no Sc2 finals.
Lots of interesting SC2 finals: DIMAGA vs Mana, Naama vs Mana, DRG vs Thorzain, DRG vs sC, and that's only from the first year, there will be plenty more.
Meanwhile BW had tons of bad finals. Jaedong vs Yarnc, Calm vs Kwanro, Flash vs Movie, Flash vs Effort, some of the Flash vs Jaedong ones, Luxury vs Jangbi, and that's just in the few years I was paying attention.
And of course Flash vs Iris, which, apart from an interesting game 1, was much more boring and drawn out than any GOMTV SC2 TvT finals.
If you think Flash vs Effort was a bad final, then I really don't want to follow your SC2 recommendations.
On September 21 2011 15:07 deafhobbit wrote: The BW community on TL is far smaller than the Sc2 one, and in my experience much friendlier.
Never thought of it. One year ago, before SC2 launch, TL was 100% BW community...
On September 21 2011 15:17 Flowjo wrote: I would love to play bw execpt I'd be terrible at it -_-
Ye, that's the main reason for most of us. SC2 is much more easy to play, it has new graphics, it has achievements after all that force you to play it infinitely. I played BW for about 7 years before SC2 release but after it i played maybe 5 games at most.
On September 21 2011 16:27 tree.hugger wrote: Mmmm someone asked me the other day what my favorite starcraft final was, and I said; Flash vs EffOrt, obviously, and they said that they had meant Sc2 final. And that stumped me, because really, I can name a handful of BW series that stick in my mind as ridiculously entertaining, but no Sc2 finals.
Me too. I can list about 30 Bo5 and Bo3 BW series that were amazingly epic and went through my head. But in SC2 there is nothing to remember...
On September 21 2011 15:26 CaucasianAsian wrote: BW seemed all about micro and unit positioning of your entire army. SC2 to me, feels almost like a complete 180.
BW is about micro/macro/positioning/strategy choices. In SC2 there is no differentiation in macro, there is too little micro and positioning. SC2 is all about unit choices but after a year all builds were refined and now there are so few unit choices. So it's about... it's like BW ZvZ which is boring and everybody agree with that. And ye, SC2 is largely about "WOW-factor". Wow, there is new graphics! Wow, there are cool units and abilities! Wow, this game is new and everybody must play it!
On September 21 2011 16:27 tree.hugger wrote: Mmmm someone asked me the other day what my favorite starcraft final was, and I said; Flash vs EffOrt, obviously, and they said that they had meant Sc2 final. And that stumped me, because really, I can name a handful of BW series that stick in my mind as ridiculously entertaining, but no Sc2 finals.
Lots of interesting SC2 finals: DIMAGA vs Mana, Naama vs Mana, DRG vs Thorzain, DRG vs sC, and that's only from the first year, there will be plenty more.
Meanwhile BW had tons of bad finals. Jaedong vs Yarnc, Calm vs Kwanro, Flash vs Movie, Flash vs Effort, some of the Flash vs Jaedong ones, Luxury vs Jangbi, and that's just in the few years I was paying attention.
And of course Flash vs Iris, which, apart from an interesting game 1, was much more boring and drawn out than any GOMTV SC2 TvT finals.
But that isn't what I meant. Sure I've enjoyed plenty of Sc2 finals. But I've never really been invested in them or won over by them in the way that I was by a bunch of BW series. I mean, I think EffOrt beating Flash was one of the greatest sport watching experiences of my life, it's up there with David Tyree's catch in the super bowl, Landon Donavon's goal against Algeria, Luis Gonzalez's bloop single over Derek Jeter in the 2001 World Series. Can't say that about anything in Sc2 yet.
On September 21 2011 15:26 CaucasianAsian wrote: BW seemed all about micro and unit positioning of your entire army. SC2 to me, feels almost like a complete 180.
BW is about micro/macro/positioning/strategy choices. In SC2 there is no differentiation in macro, there is too little micro and positioning. SC2 is all about unit choices but after a year all builds were refined and now there are so few unit choices. So it's about... it's like BW ZvZ which is boring and everybody agree with that. And ye, SC2 is largely about "WOW-factor". Wow, there is new graphics! Wow, there are cool units and abilities! Wow, this game is new and everybody must play it!
I don't think that's 100% the case, if you watch PvZ, it's 100% determined by how the two armies engage. There was one MC vs IdrA game where IdrA was way ahead but lost, and all of the IdrA fans blew up crying imbalance, but the truth was that MC just engaged with so much better positioning than IdrA did. The general point is ok though.
On September 21 2011 16:27 tree.hugger wrote: Mmmm someone asked me the other day what my favorite starcraft final was, and I said; Flash vs EffOrt, obviously, and they said that they had meant Sc2 final. And that stumped me, because really, I can name a handful of BW series that stick in my mind as ridiculously entertaining, but no Sc2 finals.
Lots of interesting SC2 finals: DIMAGA vs Mana, Naama vs Mana, DRG vs Thorzain, DRG vs sC, and that's only from the first year, there will be plenty more.
Meanwhile BW had tons of bad finals. Jaedong vs Yarnc, Calm vs Kwanro, Flash vs Movie, Flash vs Effort, some of the Flash vs Jaedong ones, Luxury vs Jangbi, and that's just in the few years I was paying attention.
And of course Flash vs Iris, which, apart from an interesting game 1, was much more boring and drawn out than any GOMTV SC2 TvT finals.
But that isn't what I meant. Sure I've enjoyed plenty of Sc2 finals. But I've never really been invested in them or won over by them in the way that I was by a bunch of BW series. I mean, I think EffOrt beating Flash was one of the greatest sport watching experiences of my life, it's up there with David Tyree's catch in the super bowl, Landon Donavon's goal against Algeria, Luis Gonzalez's bloop single over Derek Jeter in the 2001 World Series. Can't say that about anything in Sc2 yet.
On September 21 2011 16:27 tree.hugger wrote: Mmmm someone asked me the other day what my favorite starcraft final was, and I said; Flash vs EffOrt, obviously, and they said that they had meant Sc2 final. And that stumped me, because really, I can name a handful of BW series that stick in my mind as ridiculously entertaining, but no Sc2 finals.
Lots of interesting SC2 finals: DIMAGA vs Mana, Naama vs Mana, DRG vs Thorzain, DRG vs sC, and that's only from the first year, there will be plenty more.
Interesting... maybe but there is no history behind them. There is no tragedy and no emotions. Just tournamets played for few days.
On September 21 2011 17:15 Cassel_Castle wrote: Meanwhile BW had tons of bad finals. Jaedong vs Yarnc, Calm vs Kwanro, Flash vs Movie, Flash vs Effort, some of the Flash vs Jaedong ones, Luxury vs Jangbi, and that's just in the few years I was paying attention.
And of course Flash vs Iris, which, apart from an interesting game 1, was much more boring and drawn out than any GOMTV SC2 TvT finals.
ZvZ is definitely not the best side of BW. Many people agree that Jaedong vs Yarnc and Calm vs Kwanro were the worst finals ever. But there are not only finals in tournament. There are epic semi-finals, quoter-finals, Ro16, group-stages, preliminaries, offline-preliminaries... Finals are just the one day of three months that tournament longs. And of course Flash vs Movie, Flash vs Effort, "some of the Flash vs Jaedong ones", Luxury vs Jangbi finals were all epic (even though no protoss won :D).
Yeah, despite being a huge SC2 fan I just have to agree that it's kind of... boring, in that there's so much anti-micro 1A stuff, having not played BW for a long time before starting SC2 I feel like I missed out a lot. I mean, the colossus is in no way an adequate replacement for the reaver imo, it's a complete 1a unit.
Whenever you see a reaver dropped (protoss dropping units, that's another thing) into a relatively undefended base, it's exciting, it's thrilling. I can't remember which game, but I remember a moment where some pro terran pulled all his SCV's to surround the reaver that was in his mineral line, and then they all fucking EXPLODED. Gave me a heart attack.
If you make a mistake like that, forget about lurkers, try to pull a clutch surround on a reaver and fail, that can be game.
First of all, that kind of stuff doesn't ever really happen in SC2. The closest would be baneling mines, and yes, they really are exciting to watch, but the baneling in in of itself is still a 1A type unit. There's just kind of a difference between the terran getting completely caught off guard and losing his army because he forgot to scan (yes yes, hold position lurkers I know) and using your lings to eat damage while pushing lurkers forward.
Infestors do exactly what conc shells and force fields do, they prevent micro and that makes it kind of boring. Also as I kind of said before, I'd much rather see someone pull off amazing storms (which is also, of course, infinitely harder in BW) and kill off the hydras than have them just kind of... die to the colossus outright.
I guess I could use some smileys to portray the excitement of caster units and other types of engagements in the two games.
<--- Reaver shot incoming on mineral line (REBOREBOREBOREBOREBOREBOREBO)
<--- Fungal decimates huge clump of marines
<--- JangBi pulls off some sick storms
<--- HuK pulls off some "sick" storms (rarely happens with how easy it is to control large clumps of units, in addition to smart casting, it's not as impressive)
I guess I'm exaggerating a lot, but I got my point across.
Just dropping by to say the overall player levels in SC2 are arguably far lower than BW at the moment.
There's been no S-class players transferred over from BW to SC2. Or even A-class. The best player to transfer over (as in, how good he was when he transferred) was MVP, right? I could be wrong on this, I'm not sure how god IrOn was, or Nada was at the time of their transfers. But they weren't S or A-class players.
I'm not sure if that would make the difference we're looking for, but I'm pretty sure Flash playing Terran in SC2 would be on top in a matter of months, if not weeks. Whether or not that'd make the games more interesting... Maybe.
On September 21 2011 17:50 DeckOneBell wrote: There's been no S-class players transferred over from BW to SC2. Or even A-class. The best player to transfer over (as in, how good he was when he transferred) was MVP, right? I could be wrong on this, I'm not sure how god IrOn was, or Nada was at the time of their transfers. But they weren't S or A-class players.
MVP was kinda A-class i think and he actually won at least one game vs Flash (in MSL)
On September 21 2011 17:50 DeckOneBell wrote: Just dropping by to say the overall player levels in SC2 are arguably far lower than BW at the moment.
I'm not sure if that would make the difference we're looking for, but I'm pretty sure Flash playing Terran in SC2 would be on top in a matter of months, if not weeks. Whether or not that'd make the games more interesting... Maybe.
At this moment i really dont think so. Overall yes but top level players are kinda the same. I mean of course Flash > MVP and Jaedong >>> NesTea but SC2 doesnt offer too much for player to show. I think if Flash and Jaedong would switch to SC2 they will be kinda similar to MVP and Nestea in this game.
On September 21 2011 15:26 CaucasianAsian wrote: BW seemed all about micro and unit positioning of your entire army. SC2 to me, feels almost like a complete 180.
concussive shells: lol u wanted to micro against a terran? colossus: rofl sup hydra i dont need micro. or a good storm. sentrys: rofl sup force fields mean i can control the terrain. you shall not pass! infestor: rofl u thought plague sucked? try maelstrom + plague. oh it's also mad cheap and you don't need to research it! broodlord: rofl u thought guardians were bad? how about tiny zerglings being shot from one. rofl sup.
sigh..... that's what we get from the company that created command and conquer 4.
I was with you until the last sentence... It doesn't really make sense!
Firstly, the C&C4 to SC2 comparison is way out of proportion.... SC2 sure isn't BW.. But it's not complete fucking garbage...
And secondly.. Blizz obviously didnt make C&C4.. And I'm pretty sure Browder was gone from C&C development before they started C&C4??
On September 21 2011 18:20 Brett wrote: And secondly.. Blizz obviously didnt make C&C4.. And I'm pretty sure Browder was gone from C&C development before they started C&C4??
Browder worked on RedAlert 2 and C&C:Generals which were quite successful
On September 21 2011 18:20 Brett wrote: And secondly.. Blizz obviously didnt make C&C4.. And I'm pretty sure Browder was gone from C&C development before they started C&C4??
Browder worked on RedAlert 2 and C&C:Generals which were quite successful
On September 21 2011 17:50 DeckOneBell wrote: Just dropping by to say the overall player levels in SC2 are arguably far lower than BW at the moment.
There's been no S-class players transferred over from BW to SC2. Or even A-class. The best player to transfer over (as in, how good he was when he transferred) was MVP, right? I could be wrong on this, I'm not sure how god IrOn was, or Nada was at the time of their transfers. But they weren't S or A-class players.
I'm not sure if that would make the difference we're looking for, but I'm pretty sure Flash playing Terran in SC2 would be on top in a matter of months, if not weeks. Whether or not that'd make the games more interesting... Maybe.
Yeah, this was discussed a lot in the Elephant in the Room article from Intrigue a while ago. It's very true, obviously if the worlds best RTS players switched to another RTS the general level of competition in that other RTS would be highly increased.
A lot of SC2 newbies (not to make generalizations or be offensive, trust me, i'm one of them) will be very quick to say "but boxer was a banjowa!!!" when, as Intrigue also pointed out, both july nada and boxer were faar past their prime when they switched.
On September 21 2011 16:27 tree.hugger wrote: Mmmm someone asked me the other day what my favorite starcraft final was, and I said; Flash vs EffOrt, obviously, and they said that they had meant Sc2 final. And that stumped me, because really, I can name a handful of BW series that stick in my mind as ridiculously entertaining, but no Sc2 finals.
Lots of interesting SC2 finals: DIMAGA vs Mana, Naama vs Mana, DRG vs Thorzain, DRG vs sC, and that's only from the first year, there will be plenty more.
Meanwhile BW had tons of bad finals. Jaedong vs Yarnc, Calm vs Kwanro, Flash vs Movie, Flash vs Effort, some of the Flash vs Jaedong ones, Luxury vs Jangbi, and that's just in the few years I was paying attention.
And of course Flash vs Iris, which, apart from an interesting game 1, was much more boring and drawn out than any GOMTV SC2 TvT finals.
Flash vs Effort was awesome. I don't know what you're talking about with that one.
On September 21 2011 16:27 tree.hugger wrote: Mmmm someone asked me the other day what my favorite starcraft final was, and I said; Flash vs EffOrt, obviously, and they said that they had meant Sc2 final. And that stumped me, because really, I can name a handful of BW series that stick in my mind as ridiculously entertaining, but no Sc2 finals.
I also see it kind of like the current state of the music industry. There's just so much music nowadays, so many genres and subgenres, so much raw output of new music that it's much harder to appreciate and Savior music in general. In the past you had one hard plastic copy of music in the form of CDs. There was that special moment of unwrapping a fresh cd, even the tactile part of ripping it off felt great. You'd listen to all the songs even if you really just wanted one of the tracks.
But nowadays you go to hypemachine or .fm or something and have a constant stream of new music every single day. Everything is digital, so much easier to obtain and to skim through. BW had the osl and msl and proleague. Games were a lot less frequent. Now we have GSL, GSTL, GSL spinoffs like specialty or super tournaments, MLG monthly, dreamhack, NASL, IPL etc. And we even get the privelage now to watch from a first person perspective some of the best players in the world play, through their streams. And of course there are dozens and dozens of pro streamers. To put this into perspective, in BW, a third party program had to be programmed in order to imperfectly track the first person view of pro replays. And not many of those types of replays were even made widely available.
i also rated with 5 stars!!! great blogentry i really enjoy sotg to begin with but i think its great that jp even admits that the osl finals is worth talking about. i dont think we have to start a discussion now about the two games lets just say that the GSL could learn things from bw tournaments/starleagues to make it much much more interesting to watch!
I've seen most of the GSL finals and the only one that stands out in my memory was Fruitdealer winning...and he may as well be completely gone from the scene now.
I've also seen most of the OSL and MSL finals, and I could probably tell you both players in either finals from any year because they ALL stand out in my memory. Even the ZvZ finals from the Avalon MSL in 2009.
On September 21 2011 16:27 tree.hugger wrote: Mmmm someone asked me the other day what my favorite starcraft final was, and I said; Flash vs EffOrt, obviously, and they said that they had meant Sc2 final. And that stumped me, because really, I can name a handful of BW series that stick in my mind as ridiculously entertaining, but no Sc2 finals.
I also see it kind of like the current state of the music industry. There's just so much music nowadays, so many genres and subgenres, so much raw output of new music that it's much harder to appreciate and Savior music in general. In the past you had one hard plastic copy of music in the form of CDs. There was that special moment of unwrapping a fresh cd, even the tactile part of ripping it off felt great. You'd listen to all the songs even if you really just wanted one of the tracks.
But nowadays you go to hypemachine or .fm or something and have a constant stream of new music every single day. Everything is digital, so much easier to obtain and to skim through. BW had the osl and msl and proleague. Games were a lot less frequent. Now we have GSL, GSTL, GSL spinoffs like specialty or super tournaments, MLG monthly, dreamhack, NASL, IPL etc. And we even get the privelage now to watch from a first person perspective some of the best players in the world play, through their streams. And of course there are dozens and dozens of pro streamers. To put this into perspective, in BW, a third party program had to be programmed in order to imperfectly track the first person view of pro replays. And not many of those types of replays were even made widely available.
Maybe good comparison but Proleague spams about 8 BW games a day
EPT
) So the GSL finals are not such a special event as OSL/MSL finals.
<--- Reaver shot incoming on mineral line (REBOREBOREBOREBOREBOREBOREBO)
<--- Fungal decimates huge clump of marines
<--- JangBi pulls off some sick storms
<--- HuK pulls off some "sick" storms (rarely happens with how easy it is to control large clumps of units, in addition to smart casting, it's not as impressive)
