EPT
On November 01 2011 05:36 silverhand wrote:
From a very old school RTS player, BW vs. SC2 reminds me of the old Warcraft2 vs SC debates. Having played warcraft2 at a high level, there were things about SC that frustrated me. Warcraft2 had three resources to manage (gold, wood, oil), same tech paths for each race, three unit types (land, air, sea), multiple resource options to start with (low, medium, and high), midgame casters differed and late game casters differed as well.
There were no rally points, no queued units, no control groups and maps could be wide open and still be balanced for both orcs or humans.
SC chose to go a completely different route as far as the strategy part of the game went. Early in Beta, balance was a mess. If it wasn't for the allure of B.Net integrating a ladder system into the game (war2 required you to report matches to a 3rd party website) and the hacking of war2 that was going on at that moment in time, most of the top war2 players would not have left to play SC. With the exception of a few of the early pros (Tillerman, Agent911, etc...) that stuck with SC due to the PGL using SC as the RTS of choice to try and catapult the esports scene to where it is today, most of the top war2 players left SC to go back to war2 simply because it lacked the elements of strategy and "skill" we were used to. We were able to go back to playing war2 because the hackers eventually turned to messing with SC shortly after its release.
SC killed war2. It was never the same after SC was released. Sure, we had fun playing it for the first year SC was around, but drifting support from websites that were catering to the SC crowd, cool graphics and a more user-friendly interface from SC resulted in one of two fates for war2 players: Find a new game to play or give in to SC. War2 fought death up until the release of BW, where even though Blizzard released a B.net version in an attempt to garner a few more $$$ out of the dying game, it still was not enough to extend its life-cycle. Those who did not play SC longed for War3 to come out so they could relive the battles of Orcs vs. Humans.
That dream was crushed when War3 was released as they eliminated key aspects of what made war2 as great as it was - Heroes added an element that placed too much power in a battle in the hands of a single unit. I see that same mistake being made to a lesser degree with SC2 (colossus, infestors, ghosts just some examples depending on matchups); the removal of naval battles was more blasphemous to war2 players than the omission of lurkers and the prevalence of maxed out deathball armies in SC2 is to BW players.
I gave War3 a chance and it just didn't do anything for me as a former war2 player. I know people that never played war2 and think war3 is the best RTS ever. I can respect that opinion because they look at the game through a different paradigm. I guess I can look at SC2 in the same way because I never really got that involved in BW.
SC2 is a lot of fun for me. It still does not give me the same experience that war2 did. Nothing will strike fear in your heart more than hearing bloodlust being cast on a group of ogres outside your expansion. Nothing was more fun than polymorphing an entire group of bloodlusted ogres before they could hit your base. And nothing was more hilarious than sending hasted, invisible peons to mine out your opponents expansion without him knowing.
With that said, I can completely understand where BW players are coming from right now. Blizzard has done the same thing to BW that it did to War2. The sequel people hoped would build on BW's success is instead a very different game with a simpler user-interface, a different feel to battles and balance in general, and an appeal to the less-skilled (or shall we say casual) gamer. As the money shifts to SC2, the players will either move to SC2 or start searching for a different game if there is no more money to keep the BW esports scene alive. My advice to BW players: keep your game alive as long as you can because once it's dead, nothing ever rarely fills the void that is left. Sure, you'll find games to have fun with, but it will never be as epic as BW was for you.
With all that said, I have been watching some BW lately because I completely skipped that part of the series due to my frustration with SC1 being so different from war2. I've been curious what makes BW and SC2 so different in the same way war2 and war3 were. I'm sure after watching hours of matches I'll eventually figure it out, but with as little time as I have to dedicate to gaming these days, it'd be nice to have a well-thought-out and unbiased comparison of the two games as to the good and bad in both of them. Too bad it is way too difficult to get some answers to the questions I have regarding BW because I have to wade through pages of a bunch of monkeys flinging poo at each other. It's a shame because I think I've seen more interest from Blizzard (even though they may fail to get it right more often than not and may take forever in getting to the obvious fix) in balancing the game based on professional influence than with any other game.
From a very old school RTS player, BW vs. SC2 reminds me of the old Warcraft2 vs SC debates. Having played warcraft2 at a high level, there were things about SC that frustrated me. Warcraft2 had three resources to manage (gold, wood, oil), same tech paths for each race, three unit types (land, air, sea), multiple resource options to start with (low, medium, and high), midgame casters differed and late game casters differed as well.
There were no rally points, no queued units, no control groups and maps could be wide open and still be balanced for both orcs or humans.
SC chose to go a completely different route as far as the strategy part of the game went. Early in Beta, balance was a mess. If it wasn't for the allure of B.Net integrating a ladder system into the game (war2 required you to report matches to a 3rd party website) and the hacking of war2 that was going on at that moment in time, most of the top war2 players would not have left to play SC. With the exception of a few of the early pros (Tillerman, Agent911, etc...) that stuck with SC due to the PGL using SC as the RTS of choice to try and catapult the esports scene to where it is today, most of the top war2 players left SC to go back to war2 simply because it lacked the elements of strategy and "skill" we were used to. We were able to go back to playing war2 because the hackers eventually turned to messing with SC shortly after its release.
SC killed war2. It was never the same after SC was released. Sure, we had fun playing it for the first year SC was around, but drifting support from websites that were catering to the SC crowd, cool graphics and a more user-friendly interface from SC resulted in one of two fates for war2 players: Find a new game to play or give in to SC. War2 fought death up until the release of BW, where even though Blizzard released a B.net version in an attempt to garner a few more $$$ out of the dying game, it still was not enough to extend its life-cycle. Those who did not play SC longed for War3 to come out so they could relive the battles of Orcs vs. Humans.
That dream was crushed when War3 was released as they eliminated key aspects of what made war2 as great as it was - Heroes added an element that placed too much power in a battle in the hands of a single unit. I see that same mistake being made to a lesser degree with SC2 (colossus, infestors, ghosts just some examples depending on matchups); the removal of naval battles was more blasphemous to war2 players than the omission of lurkers and the prevalence of maxed out deathball armies in SC2 is to BW players.
I gave War3 a chance and it just didn't do anything for me as a former war2 player. I know people that never played war2 and think war3 is the best RTS ever. I can respect that opinion because they look at the game through a different paradigm. I guess I can look at SC2 in the same way because I never really got that involved in BW.
SC2 is a lot of fun for me. It still does not give me the same experience that war2 did. Nothing will strike fear in your heart more than hearing bloodlust being cast on a group of ogres outside your expansion. Nothing was more fun than polymorphing an entire group of bloodlusted ogres before they could hit your base. And nothing was more hilarious than sending hasted, invisible peons to mine out your opponents expansion without him knowing.
With that said, I can completely understand where BW players are coming from right now. Blizzard has done the same thing to BW that it did to War2. The sequel people hoped would build on BW's success is instead a very different game with a simpler user-interface, a different feel to battles and balance in general, and an appeal to the less-skilled (or shall we say casual) gamer. As the money shifts to SC2, the players will either move to SC2 or start searching for a different game if there is no more money to keep the BW esports scene alive. My advice to BW players: keep your game alive as long as you can because once it's dead, nothing ever rarely fills the void that is left. Sure, you'll find games to have fun with, but it will never be as epic as BW was for you.
With all that said, I have been watching some BW lately because I completely skipped that part of the series due to my frustration with SC1 being so different from war2. I've been curious what makes BW and SC2 so different in the same way war2 and war3 were. I'm sure after watching hours of matches I'll eventually figure it out, but with as little time as I have to dedicate to gaming these days, it'd be nice to have a well-thought-out and unbiased comparison of the two games as to the good and bad in both of them. Too bad it is way too difficult to get some answers to the questions I have regarding BW because I have to wade through pages of a bunch of monkeys flinging poo at each other. It's a shame because I think I've seen more interest from Blizzard (even though they may fail to get it right more often than not and may take forever in getting to the obvious fix) in balancing the game based on professional influence than with any other game.
Here
It's not really a comparison of the two but rather just a small compendium of what makes BW BW to us fans. I'm sure you can find many threads on TL of what makes SC2 great to its fans.
