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So, I always hear that the starcraft community is one of, if not THE best gaming community out there. While I can't deny that as a group we are capable of some amazing things (sending players to events, donating thousands upon thousands of dollars to charities, etc), lately I have been experiencing some frustrations with the community.
1) The first and biggest frustration I have is that in general, people aren't concerned with getting better at the game; they're interested in being heard/being right. So often people are looking to make their mark on the community by writing something edgy, inflamitory, or sometimes just rude to get their name out there. I browse the forums in between practice games and see tons of threads about how X or Y is hurting esports, or how they think that X or Y is imbalanced, etc.
Now, I'm not going to say that I don't think there are things worth the communities attention that aren't relating to the game; we've seen a lot of reform because of things put up on TL or Reddit (improper conduct of players, tournament organizers doing unethical things, etc). I'm also not saying there shouldn't be any discussion on balance; over the course of the life of SC2 there have been things that just give too much of an advantage to one race or the other (1 supply roach, old reapers, super fast WG, etc) and they needed to be discussed.
What I am saying is that there is just too much talk about these things, in my opinion. There are so many people who desperately want their opinion on how they think a strategy is imbalanced when they're in gold league or just want to be the next guy who writes a thread about how they think something mundane is killing esports. It gets to the point where it's hard to read through the strategy forums because I see hundreds and hundreds of threads about imbalance (or comments about it), advice from people who really shouldn't be giving it, etc. I have seen posts by people who are in silver/gold league who are arguing with pro/semi pro players advice. So rarely do you see a thread trying to analyze a pro replay to figure out a strategy or timing, and when you do it's generally by the same few (already really good) people.
I really love this game. To me it's all about overcoming obstacles and self improvement. I love the feeling when I finally overcome that strategy that has seemed so tough, or figured out a cool timing, or improved my hand speed a little bit, etc. Now, I acknowledge that different people play for different reasons and my idea of why this game is fun isn't the same for everyone, but I get so frustrated when I watch countless numbers of people look past all the cool, interesting facets of the game to focus on some strategy they think is imbalanced or focus most of their attention on external things. I realize some people are just spectators and don't play, but it's just feels like a lot of people in the community don't really love the game, they just want their voice to be heard or throw their hat in with the next big public outrage
2) A lot of people in this community are REALLY angry. Now, I understand that this is a really hard game that takes a lot out of you, so people are going to be frustrated when they lose, however it gets to the point where I just want to put myself to busy after a game starts. So often when I win a game, I get a huge spiel about how I wouldn't have won if I played their race and that my race is imbalanced or my strategy was imbalanced, etc. It's so rare to just see someone say "gg" after they lose (at least for me). This kind of ties in with point 1, but it's not just gameplay.
I browse stream threads sometimes when I get a chance to watch something and a lot of people are really negative. I see people calling incontrol and idiot on his stream thread or people raging about something someone said on a show. Now, I know that the these people are a vocal minority, but it gets to the point where I can't watch the chat in streams anymore. There are just too many comments insulting players or their opinions and I just don't feel like anything I say will help turn it into something productive.
3) My final frustration as of late has been with the communities reactions to players and commentators. As I have said, I love this game for the game, and one of the things that frustrates me the most is to scroll over a stream with Day9 playing Text Twist with thousands of spectators and then see Sen, Ret or some other REALLY good player with only a few hundred spectators. It just seems like people like hearing commentators talk more than watching the game being played by really good players. Now this is nothing against the commentators, as they do provide a service that the game needs to grow, but my heart breaks a little every time I see some stream of a phenomenal good player with a few hundred views because he isn't a huge community figurehead and just focuses on the game.
Well, I think that's it. It feels good to vent a little bit. I still love this community and think that it's great, please don't read this as me hating on people, just something I had to get off my chest. Thanks for reading my random thoughts, have a Merry Christmas (or other winter holiday)! Peace
 
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First, there is a very active Strategy section full of players constantly asking/giving advice or discussing specific things with the ultimate goal of improving, and just yesterday I saw several threads with hundreds of members signing up for general practice partners, "diamonds+", etc... --> there is definitely a very active portion of the community striving to get better at this game.
Second, I totally agree that this type of person does exist on TL but you said it yourself, they're a "vocal minority," and it's unfortunate but overall (at least in forums) these people get shut up by the more serious members and personally I've never seen it as a huge problem... on chat this might be but again, you said it yourself, don't be on chat then. The core of TL is fine.
Third... I actually totally agree with this. It'd be nice if people changed their viewing habits.
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I like your random thoughts, I have similar ones as well. 5/5
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On December 21 2011 07:55 KleineGeist wrote:
First, there is a very active Strategy section full of players constantly asking/giving advice or discussing specific things with the ultimate goal of improving, and just yesterday I saw several threads with hundreds of members signing up for general practice partners, "diamonds+", etc... --> there is definitely a very active portion of the community striving to get better at this game.
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Like I said in the blog, there are absolutely people who are committed to getting better at the game, but it seems that most people aren't. Yes, there are threads by people who want to get better, but often they're missed among the sea of other threads that aren't about getting better. Sure, the strategy forum exists, but the amount of good threads/responses I see are small. I'm sorry if my opinions offended you in any way, but they're just that, opinions.
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Points 1 and 2 are fine. Point 3 is just... well.. you can't control what people like, no matter how much you want to.
I think the thing you need to understand is that with the massive growth of the TL community since SC2 was released, this was obviously going to happen. The people that are not angry/whining, interested in building strategies and becoming better are still there, they just look like they're not there because of the massive amount of people that now populate these forums.
You just need to make a deeper search, and select what you want to read and participate in, and ignore the rest.
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Just as there are people who are great in our community there will always be people who are as equally bad.
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On December 21 2011 08:06 mordk wrote:
Points 1 and 2 are fine. Point 3 is just... well.. you can't control what people like, no matter how much you want to.
I think the thing you need to understand is that with the massive growth of the TL community since SC2 was released, this was obviously going to happen. The people that are not angry/whining, interested in building strategies and becoming better are still there, they just look like they're not there because of the massive amount of people that now populate these forums.
You just need to make a deeper search, and select what you want to read and participate in, and ignore the rest.
The point is that I believe that "the rest" should constitute the minority, not the majority. Like I said, I'm not ignorant that there are a lot of new people who enjoy other things than I do in the game, I just feel frustrated when a lot of the attention is not on the game itself but external factors. I fully realize and accept that not everyone is as interested in watching a world class SC player as I am, and I'm not saying that if they're not they shouldn't be here; I'm just voicing an opinion I have about something I'd like to see changed in the community.
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The first two of your concerns are mostly cause this is an online gaming community and online means internets and internets means immature, selfish behavior on the most part. It's unfortunate, but that's the culture online anonymity tends to breed.
Number 3 is unfortunate, but the thing is, commentators are simply more entertaining. It's their job to be entertaining and as a result, they'll draw more viewers. Could the distribution be more ideal? Yea, probably, but there's really not much anyone can do about it and it's not necessarily a bad thing.
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Regarding points #1 and #2, I think you're just observing a case of a vocal minority being louder than the silent majority.
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A word of advice: don't ever read stream chats. You'll save yourself a lot of aggravation. I'd love to be able to converse with the pros/semipros I regularly watch, but not while drowning in the sea of sewage that is stream chat. Usually White-Ra's chat is okay, and he talks back, which is awesome, but he's White-Ra, and everyone with a soul likes him. In general... well, thank god for embedded streams on TL.
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Day9's playing Text Twist?! Awesome!
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On December 21 2011 08:50 Iranon wrote:
A word of advice: don't ever read stream chats. You'll save yourself a lot of aggravation. I'd love to be able to converse with the pros/semipros I regularly watch, but not while drowning in the sea of sewage that is stream chat. Usually White-Ra's chat is okay, and he talks back, which is awesome, but he's White-Ra, and everyone with a soul likes him. In general... well, thank god for embedded streams on TL.
If this is the case (and in a lot of cases it is) then I think it's up to the community to self regulate and keep things productive (have a few more mods per chat and ban assholes, etc). I think if you aren't willing to even try to participate because it's so bad, the community needs to realize the problem and regulate itself.
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These are very random thoughts.
I appreciate it anyway sir. Thanks for sharing
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Most commentators got where they are through some big SC related achievement. They are many people's idols (tastosis, day9; all my idols) because of what they did/do in SC. I am glad there is a celebrity factor. I agree though that skill level is less an indicator of celebrity right now in the community.
These are all great thoughts, especially the ones about negative attitudes. People should not come to TL to let out all their anger; I'm tired of reading it. EDIT And that last sentence isn't directed at OP!  It's at balance whiners, bmers, etc.
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I'm really thinking a lot of the whining and general terribleness has come from WoW players.
If you were enough of a masochist to read the old worldofwarcraft.com forums, you'd see a striking similarity between 90% of the posts there, and the gold league help-me / whine threads annihilated by manifesto here.
You'll see much less caster/commentator flak, and much fewer "Listen to me, I am educated and have an important opinion that nobody actually wants to hear" threads in about a year.
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On December 21 2011 10:48 Ooshmagoosh wrote:
I'm really thinking a lot of the whining and general terribleness has come from WoW players.
If you were enough of a masochist to read the old worldofwarcraft.com forums, you'd see a striking similarity between 90% of the posts there, and the gold league help-me / whine threads annihilated by manifesto here.
You'll see much less caster/commentator flak, and much fewer "Listen to me, I am educated and have an important opinion that nobody actually wants to hear" threads in about a year.
I think you want to publicly bash on wow players which is part of part number II of my post. We don't need bashing because of waht community we came from, what strategies we use or what race we play, etc.We're all starcraft players now, it doesn't matter where we came from, what matters is what we do and allow.
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I feel like there's so many wanna be pro gamers in NA and that they enjoy the thought of trying to go pro over really doing it. Like HuK said, they're all lazy. It's really that simple. Even players on top teams like EG coL have players that are lazy and say that "they want it" but don't put in the work to "want it".
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As far as point 3, you are assuming that every single viewer is paying close attention to what is going on in the stream. I often put streams up the way some people turn on the radio, and so any stream without commentary is disqualified during those times. Day9 may have 1,500 people on his stream, but I bet the 200 on Sen's stream are paying more attention. If I have a commentator stream up, there is 50/50 odds that I'm watching it.
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On December 21 2011 11:31 Nizzy wrote:
I feel like there's so many wanna be pro gamers in NA and that they enjoy the thought of trying to go pro over really doing it. Like HuK said, they're all lazy. It's really that simple. Even players on top teams like EG coL have players that are lazy and say that "they want it" but don't put in the work to "want it".
What does this have to do with the Op? I never said I wanted to be a pro gamer or was a pro gamer...
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The community is still pretty divided for the most part because of races. People care too much about the balance of the game, and a lot of times I feel people play only to win or get better rather than just have a fun, a really big flaw when it comes to wanting to grow a casual fan base. When I look at other games there's just so many people who play for fun rather than a set mindset of "getting better". Every time I browse TL there's a million posts about becoming a better player, knowing the game more, etc. Although that isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's like when one of your friends starts taking a hobby too far and it just isn't fun playing with them anymore.
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EPT
