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I find it sad that sc2 isn't as fun to watch as bw. It's a halfway decent replacement from the perspective of "how fun is this game to play?"
But it fails hard when you measure up how fun it is to watch compared to scbw. It just doesn't have that same spark. Sure, the very best of the best games rival some of bw's, but they are so few and far between.
Blizzard did great making sc2 fun to play. The next two expansions should focus on making it more fun to watch. Otherwise, people will get bored with it too fast.
If we're still watching sc2, roughly as it is right now, in 10 years, I would be absolutely shocked. Watching BW in 10 years? If there's still a pro scene, I could see myself continuing to watch it.
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On March 26 2012 13:20 Kanil wrote:
What frustrates me the most about the "BW needs to die" crowd is that they don't seem to have any loyalty to SC2. It's what they play and when WC4 comes out, they'll be cheering "SC2 needs to die!" 'cause they play that now instead.
Maybe I just don't get it, but the idea of a game's competitive lifetime lasting just a year (or anything less then near perpetuity) is weird to me. I can never take CoD seriously as an esport, for example.
If they want to watch/play SC2 come ten years from now, then I'll try to respect that they genuinely feel it's a better game to carry us forward. If they just want Flash to play SC2 until they get bored and play WC4/SC3/DotA 2/LoL at a later date, then fuck 'em.
This is exactly how I feel, couldn't have worded it better. But what actually bothers me more than anything in the world right now is how LoL is more popular than sc2 and they are in all the same tournaments pretty much, possible cross polination? You can't even be mad at them though, they just seem to be oblivious to how casual the game actually is. I kind of felt the same way about sc2 in comparison to bw when I came back to the scene around sc2 beta period, but eventually after casually playing sc2 for a year or so I just decided sc2 is the only game that would ever be a worthwhile successor to bw. I'm pretty optimistic that sc2 will increase in popularity over the course of the next 2 expansions, but I know for certain it can always fall back on the fact it can become similar to the niche-like community bw was. I just don't think that it's possible for sc2 to maintain it's current popularity for too long though because of how casual the current/next generation of gamers are, they will just migrate from game to game in perpetually decreasing life cycles.
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On March 26 2012 13:20 Kanil wrote:
What frustrates me the most about the "BW needs to die" crowd is that they don't seem to have any loyalty to SC2. It's what they play and when WC4 comes out, they'll be cheering "SC2 needs to die!" 'cause they play that now instead.
I saw this somewhere: "'Tis is the age of the casual gamer." I think it makes a lot of sense.
That crowd of people just want to do what's new and more often than not, easy. They have no love for a game, no love for improvement.
BW is ridiculously out of fashion outside Korea, so followers like us are definitely as hell not part of that group, and I'm at least proud of that.
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Good read.
I have very mixed feelings on the whole thing. I love SC, and I have since I saved up a fistful of crumpled dollar bills to buy it when it came out in 2000. But I didn't do the whole iCCup thing, I just played the shit out of the campaign and had a blast. Every few months I'd find a new game, but I always came back to SC afterwards. However, iIt wasn't until college that I stumbled upon the GOMtv classics, and after watching 3 seasons of that and lurking on TL, I was truly hooked, and that middle school love crush matured. I've spent many, many hours watching our favorite game over the last 6 years. I still have never played BW against a human opponent, and I have no real intention of doing so, but I love watching tip-top level players duke it out. Eventually, along came SC2, and we're all seeing how that's turning out. I enjoy watching it, and do so regularly, and I guess it's sort of neat that it's simple enough that I could be good at it if I put some real effort into it, but that's not really what I want. I don't want the best game ever, I want the best sport ever, and that sport's name is StarCraft.
I don't give two shits about "E-SPORTS", and sort of find the whole thing a bit tacky and forced (sorry, Elly), but I will always love SC. Not "the StarCraft franchise", "StarCraft". I tell myself BW will never really "die", but I know it will eventually dwindle down to just a few empty servers and a few megabytes of sad posts on TL. Will SC2 be doing well then? Will SC3 be doing well? I don't know. I don't know if I care. I'll probably still follow it, whatever SC looks like that far down the line, but I worry it will be just out of habit. It's not all that bad, though. There's plenty of time for SC2 to develop into everything we hoped it would be when the beta was first announced. It's certainly possible that the soul of the game I love will keep jumping from sequel to sequel and rock nerds' socks off for generations to come. But it might not, and that worries me.
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Korea and Kespa think SC2 is the future, but only the ones who've been playing SC2 seem to realize just how different they are. Just having BW disappear won't be enough to gain the attention of all their fans, and if the top BW players don't do extremely well, it'll fail hard.
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Is there really that much difference between BW and SC2? I mean, there certainly is a lot of difference to us, now. But so many of the core mechanics are the same... I'm really not sure if the difference will look so great in 40 years, after we've (hypothetically) gone through many more versions and expansions of starcraft.
Also, motorsports has a very similar problem with technology.
(Very nice blog, btw).
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The difference is huge. It's about as different as WC3 is to SC2. It's not just me who says so, every SC2 pro, when asked about the BW players, say that they'll need a lot of practice because the games are that different. They're different mechanically, strategically, and even in micro. Hell, the only things that are the same are the functions of certain units and the fact that they're RTS games.
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On March 26 2012 14:47 munchmunch wrote:
Is there really that much difference between BW and SC2? I mean, there certainly is a lot of difference to us, now. But so many of the core mechanics are the same... I'm really not sure if the difference will look so great in 40 years, after we've (hypothetically) gone through many more versions and expansions of starcraft.
Also, motorsports has a very similar problem with technology.
(Very nice blog, btw).
You mention motorsports, well I love watching F1 or WRC, but I don't get how can people have fun watching Nascar. True, the skill set is similar, and the "core mechanics" are the same, but there is still a huge difference from a viewer perspective.
To me, SC2 is as unwatchable as Nascar.
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On March 26 2012 12:43 Toboe wrote:
I know it is completely different in many respects, but the fighting game "scene", with a few exceptions (e.g. Third Strike), has not secluded itself to a single game for very long at all at any point. They've gone through so many games and remakes and HD remixes and yet the best players consistently place well. Players like Daigo and Jwong - while not as dominating recently - have owned the scene through numerous games over years. These players transcend games because the qualities of a good player are not completely erased when they pick up a new game. The dedication and hard work lives on, and therefore the brand of the player can live through a game change.
I don't know what a falling of such a large pillar for this scene will do, but I do believe, like the fighting game community, it will continue to thrive. Yes, some of the community will leave the scene with the game, specifically those who are exclusionists and do not view the scene beyond a certain game. But new people will join the community with new games. The good players will continue to be good, and our love for the generic "game" - perhaps I should say our love for the scene itself - will allow it to perpetuate through games even if they are inferior to their predecessors. If there's anything the fighting game community as shown, it's that passion can trump anything that seems threatening to this community we love.
edit: hurr durr speeling
actually when I was in Japan, I was surprised how many old fighting games where still played. Ofc the most where like super street fighter 4 or tekken tag 2 but those places werent as full as the street fighter 2 (i guess not very sure) areas. people were actually lining up at the SF2 places, and some were fucking awesome at playing it.
Very similar to BW I could follow the SF2 immedeatly, it was such a clean game where you could nicely see why a player is better. the tekken tag 2 games were often overloaded for my eyes, to much effect that distracts from the players ability.
I played some tekken myself (mostly T3 and TTag, very little SF on a gameboy), but what I saw in Japan was awesome, I stood there for hours just watching them burning money on an old fighting game, true love for a game :D
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On March 26 2012 14:53 Itsmedudeman wrote:
The difference is huge. It's about as different as WC3 is to SC2. It's not just me who says so, every SC2 pro, when asked about the BW players, say that they'll need a lot of practice because the games are that different. They're different mechanically, strategically, and even in micro. Hell, the only things that are the same are the functions of certain units and the fact that they're RTS games. Yeah, but players---casual or professional---are immersed in the minutia. To take the example from the OP, what would happen if you took a football player from the 1940's to today's game. I don't think it's very far-fetched to imagine him going on about how different the game is. Hell, just listen to sports analysts whenever they talk about a player going moving from college to pro. They always talk about how a player is going to have to change their game, etc.
I'm not claiming that they're interchangeable. And I share the majority opinion of this thread, that BW is more watchable at the moment. But I think there's a chance that in 30 years we're just going to say, "it's all starcraft."
Ed: spelling.
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I don't think it's fair to compare it like that. Football "evolved" while SC was remade. BW 40 years later and SC2 aren't really comparable. The times are changing also. There's a lot of competition in the market with LoL, MMORPGs, etc. That's the real reason why BW is "dying". It's not so much because people are switching to SC2, but rather, switching to those other games. If they don't like SC2 or have no reason to hold onto the game if their idols aren't at the top, then they'll just end up switching games.
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On March 26 2012 11:52 Redmark wrote:Show nested quote +It remained the flagship game on MBCGame until that channel went down, and on OGN - well, if it is dying it is dying to a foundering interest and to League of Legends, not a direct competitor. You've answered your own question. Why are games replaced so often? The answer is that they aren't. If BW wasn't weakening already it wouldn't have been replaced by SC2. If Quake wasn't weakening already it wouldn't have been... etc etc So why are you complaining? Do you think that there aren't dead sports that no one plays competitively any more? Because there clearly are. Just that the biggest ones are too big to die, at this point. Doesn't mean anything about esports. It just bothers me that you claim that this is an instance of "the next big thing" when you refute yourself in that quote.
Sure, they are. Look there are many reasons why KeSPA had a hard time finding sponsors. The beginning of the end so to speak started with the huge match-fixing scandal and there were a lot of culprits.
Games get replaced all the time because the industry is fickle. Gamers want the latest candy and developers want to push their new releases. What's the new fab? Sports that aren't played anymore is an entirely different story and are no way related to this. There are sports out there that will never end unlike games. That's why we label digital sports esports.
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On March 26 2012 16:40 Itsmedudeman wrote:
I don't think it's fair to compare it like that. Football "evolved" while SC was remade. BW 40 years later and SC2 aren't really comparable. The times are changing also. There's a lot of competition in the market with LoL, MMORPGs, etc. That's the real reason why BW is "dying". It's not so much because people are switching to SC2, but rather, switching to those other games. If they don't like SC2 or have no reason to hold onto the game if their idols aren't at the top, then they'll just end up switching games. "Remade" versus "evolved" is an interesting point, but I don't really see how it affects the comparison (feel free to explain).
Most games go through dramatic rule changes at the start of their life. I can't speak to football, but dribbling wasn't part of basketball for the first ten years.
Also, the games are more similar than "both are RTSs"... the basic skeleton is the same in both. If I imagine giving a short description of SC2 or BW to a total beginner, the descriptions would be almost identical. The only differences (the macro mechanics in SC2, etc.) wouldn't be at all significant to a beginner.
On March 26 2012 15:22 endy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2012 14:47 munchmunch wrote:
Is there really that much difference between BW and SC2? I mean, there certainly is a lot of difference to us, now. But so many of the core mechanics are the same... I'm really not sure if the difference will look so great in 40 years, after we've (hypothetically) gone through many more versions and expansions of starcraft.
Also, motorsports has a very similar problem with technology.
(Very nice blog, btw). You mention motorsports, well I love watching F1 or WRC, but I don't get how can people have fun watching Nascar. True, the skill set is similar, and the "core mechanics" are the same, but there is still a huge difference from a viewer perspective. To me, SC2 is as unwatchable as Nascar. I think that makes a good argument that SC2 and BW can coexist, if we can get the audiences large enough to support both. Even though Nascar seems pretty dull to the uninitiated, it certainly is in no danger of dying.
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Not the type of thread to read before bed, this is making me sad 
I'm late into this starcraft game, I'd never even played (sc) until 2010, and I didn't play a single game of bw until late last year. I'd heard of it, but never played... so I can only wonder if much (or most? maybe not most...) of this sadness is the memories of the times playing the game and the times watching. Even I can sense the love bw players have for the game and things like Flash vs JD, Savior, and even things like this. The small, close-nit feeling shows to everyone; I wish I was there, and I have hardly even played this game. But this time gap also makes it hard for me to understand the "I'll be done watching sc when bw is done" idea. Most people would agree the standard level of play is going to increase as time goes on. But it isn't going to be the same type of play as bw. You may be marveling less at the macro, true. But is it not possible to enjoy watching a game well played, just in a different aspect of it? No one (well, no kind person) is asking you to replace bw with sc2 in your gaming "heart". They are just asking you to enjoy a different game. A similar game, but not an identical one.
I still wish I found bw before I did, I feel like I've missed something, and I do know the feeling of enjoying older games over newer ones (though most old ones ARE better). I can't decide if it's worth my semi-limited time to go back and try to get fully into bw's history... especially if the pros switch soon. This makes me sad, yet I am hoping the future can bring the same thing. Maybe it will lose its niche feeling, but that can't be helped.
Long story short, everytime one of these pop up, it makes me sad I can't fully understand it...
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I'm giving HotS a month or so of viewing to see if it can make itself into a decent game. If not, I'm just leaving TL forever when BW dies. I don't care if Flash, Stork, and all my other favorite players switch, it wouldn't be the same.
All I can say is that if the combined BW/SC2 proleague thing goes through, it is going to be absolutely humiliating for SC2. One game you're watching awesome reaver play, the next game you're watching...collossus wars. It's just gonna make people see SC2 for the inferior game it is.
If BW is burning down then I hope it takes SC2 down with it. Barring massive fundamental changes in HotS, SC2 isn't worthy of the name 'Starcraft'.
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On March 26 2012 13:49 shucklesors wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2012 13:20 Kanil wrote:
What frustrates me the most about the "BW needs to die" crowd is that they don't seem to have any loyalty to SC2. It's what they play and when WC4 comes out, they'll be cheering "SC2 needs to die!" 'cause they play that now instead.
I saw this somewhere: "'Tis is the age of the casual gamer." I think it makes a lot of sense. That crowd of people just want to do what's new and more often than not, easy. They have no love for a game, no love for improvement. BW is ridiculously out of fashion outside Korea, so followers like us are definitely as hell not part of that group, and I'm at least proud of that.
This is exactly what's going on. What started with a few people enthusiastic about a certain game has turned into a crowd of people barely interested in gaming, people that won't hesitate a moment to switch to a new game just because it has better graphics. The idea of a certain game dominating the scene for years is outdated and naive now imo.
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The mayans were right all along
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On March 26 2012 17:30 Introvert wrote:Not the type of thread to read before bed, this is making me sad I'm late into this starcraft game, I'd never even played (sc) until 2010, and I didn't play a single game of bw until late last year. I'd heard of it, but never played... so I can only wonder if much (or most? maybe not most...) of this sadness is the memories of the times playing the game and the times watching. Even I can sense the love bw players have for the game and things like Flash vs JD, Savior, and even things like this. The small, close-nit feeling shows to everyone; I wish I was there, and I have hardly even played this game. But this time gap also makes it hard for me to understand the "I'll be done watching sc when bw is done" idea. Most people would agree the standard level of play is going to increase as time goes on. But it isn't going to be the same type of play as bw. You may be marveling less at the macro, true. But is it not possible to enjoy watching a game well played, just in a different aspect of it? No one (well, no kind person) is asking you to replace bw with sc2 in your gaming "heart". They are just asking you to enjoy a different game. A similar game, but not an identical one. I still wish I found bw before I did, I feel like I've missed something, and I do know the feeling of enjoying older games over newer ones (though most old ones ARE better). I can't decide if it's worth my semi-limited time to go back and try to get fully into bw's history... especially if the pros switch soon. This makes me sad, yet I am hoping the future can bring the same thing. Maybe it will lose its niche feeling, but that can't be helped. Long story short, everytime one of these pop up, it makes me sad I can't fully understand it...
The parts of sc2 that are dissimilar from scbw are the parts that make it fundamentally less fun to watch. There are almost never any edge-of-your-seat moments, because the units are just generic (immortals lol).
Specifically, the colossus is a piss-poor unit to watch compared to a reaver, which required intense micro with shuttles and could potentially kill 15 workers in 2 seconds.
Then there are spider mines, absent from sc2, which gave no end of intense moments, particularly around mineral fields and when being dragged into their own army.
Banelings are also pretty poor to watch compared to lurkers (specifically hold position lurkers, or lurker pushes with dark swarm), but they also provide epic moments when burrowed and gasp-inducing marine micro, so they're not as bad.
Also, force fields are a ridiculously stupid mechanic to watch.
Protoss just needs to be massively overhauled in an expansion.
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On March 26 2012 17:07 munchmunch wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2012 16:40 Itsmedudeman wrote:
I don't think it's fair to compare it like that. Football "evolved" while SC was remade. BW 40 years later and SC2 aren't really comparable. The times are changing also. There's a lot of competition in the market with LoL, MMORPGs, etc. That's the real reason why BW is "dying". It's not so much because people are switching to SC2, but rather, switching to those other games. If they don't like SC2 or have no reason to hold onto the game if their idols aren't at the top, then they'll just end up switching games. "Remade" versus "evolved" is an interesting point, but I don't really see how it affects the comparison (feel free to explain). Most games go through dramatic rule changes at the start of their life. I can't speak to football, but dribbling wasn't part of basketball for the first ten years. Also, the games are more similar than "both are RTSs"... the basic skeleton is the same in both. If I imagine giving a short description of SC2 or BW to a total beginner, the descriptions would be almost identical. The only differences (the macro mechanics in SC2, etc.) wouldn't be at all significant to a beginner. Show nested quote +On March 26 2012 15:22 endy wrote:On March 26 2012 14:47 munchmunch wrote:
Is there really that much difference between BW and SC2? I mean, there certainly is a lot of difference to us, now. But so many of the core mechanics are the same... I'm really not sure if the difference will look so great in 40 years, after we've (hypothetically) gone through many more versions and expansions of starcraft.
Also, motorsports has a very similar problem with technology.
(Very nice blog, btw). You mention motorsports, well I love watching F1 or WRC, but I don't get how can people have fun watching Nascar. True, the skill set is similar, and the "core mechanics" are the same, but there is still a huge difference from a viewer perspective. To me, SC2 is as unwatchable as Nascar. I think that makes a good argument that SC2 and BW can coexist, if we can get the audiences large enough to support both. Even though Nascar seems pretty dull to the uninitiated, it certainly is in no danger of dying.
There's more differences in mechanics than just the macro. The micro engagements are much different as well. You control units differently between all races, spellcasting is different, and you move your army differently. There's things like forcefielding, marinesplitting, concaves, that all function a lot differently than they did in BW. Sure, in the end it comes down to you "controlling" your units, but the way you enact those functions isn't so simple. If your micro is good in BW, it doesn't mean you'd necessarily be good at marine splitting or forcefields and vise versa.
That's also my point when it comes down to your comparison. The mechanics in something like football would ultimately be the same, it's just that the strategies and formations have evolved since then. In this case we're talking about a whole different game where the way you perform actions is different as well.
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That "-" in your title was so unnecessary. o_O
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EPT
