I think you have to differentiate whether a person you are introducing a game to has general gaming experience or not. For example, my mother once asked me to explain StarCraft II to her (I was watching a tournament at the time) and I explained to her (in simple terms) the races, how the game works, I outlined the matchups, macro, micro etc. She didn't understand anything I explained to her, but she acknowledged that there is obviously something that can keep people watching the game, it's just nothing for her. I imagine that it is about the same with any game, that there will always exist a person who just "doesn't get it" and that this isn't necessarily anything wrong with the game, it's just that people who aren't "into games" aren't likely to pick it up (especially if they're in the age group where you don't learn things that easily anymore).
The same thing I just explained also holds true for DotA/Dota 2 - you aren't going to pick it up if you know nothing of MOBA games in general and you don't have someone to explain it to you.
However, let's say someone has played an RPG before: It's going to be much easier for that person to understand what's going on in Dota 2 since there are things like Mana, Attributes, Items, Leveling etc. that carry over 1:1 from RPGs to MOBA games. Again, the same applies for StarCraft II if someone has played some RTS games before: He's instinctively going to know what the workers do, that units have certain amounts of HP and that the players try to build armies to kill one another (remember, a new person who you introduce to games the first time has to learn all that!)
tl;dr: It depends very much on the background a new person is coming from whether they are going to understand a stream you are showing to them/a TV broadcast of a video game. It's not as simple as "This game is inherently more understandable than that one."
Being easier to understand doesn't make something a good or better spectator sport. That's just dumb. There's not even a large demographic for people who don't actually play the game and watch it. Sure, there's a few, but most everyone has tried it to some extent.
On June 15 2012 01:29 EneMecH wrote: "all you need to know to understand is that he is a melee carry that can teleport, he kills mana with his standard attacks, he is resistant to spells and his ultimate deals good damage on people low on mana"
Did you read that back to yourself? "melee carry" Carry?. "he kills mana with his standard attacks" Standard attacks? Mana? Resistant to spells? Ultimate? Low on mana? All of those need in-depth explanations and I still don't understand what it is or how it affects the game. and unless the blink dagger is an item that is clear to notice in the hands of whatever person you're talking about and then you can see how it is used to do whatever it accomplishes as opposed to not having a blink dagger, then you can't compare it to seeing marines dissapear into a ship and then the ship's empty boxes fill up and you can see 8 marines in the UI and then you see 8 marines fall out of the ship and shoot.
AND I DIDN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT HOW YOU KNOW WHO THAT MOBA CHARACTER IS OR HOW TO TELL HIM APART OR TRACK HIS MOVEMENTS FROM EVERYTHING ELSE Somebody trying to make Moba simple:
"all you need to know to understand is that he is a melee carry (moba term) that can teleport, he kills mana (we don't know how this affects the game or how to see the affects) with his standard attacks (explain?), he is resistant to spells (spells? Resistant to them makes what affect?) and his ultimate (ultimate?) deals good damage on people (meaning any of the strange things on screen?) low on mana (which we see how?)"
Somebody trying to make sc2 simple:
"all you need to know about the siegetank is that it gets in position then blows up enemies" (which is literally what it does... you'll see the tanks get in position and then shoot and then other stuff dies.)
No more in-depth understanding than that is needed to watch.
But you miss out so much on that description as well, because siegetanks are artillery units and not tanks, with that description they would think that siegetanks are still liek real life tanks. Real life tanks aren't squishy, you'd rather that the enemy shoots at your tanks than your infantry but in starcraft that is reversed. Also how do you explain where all of these units are coming from? In any real life battle you never train soldiers or build anything, you use what you got. Also dropships never pick up marines. Marines just disappear under the dropship, they are never picked upp, and since there are many things on screen how would they be able to tell that this was what was important? Maybe they looked at the workers gathering minerals instead or the buildings producing troops? Most likely they missed the dropship completely since it doesn't really stand out that much, to them it could just have been an addon to a barrack or something. Starcraft isn't easy to read, your mind have just adapted to identify everything in it.
Now, I added a few extra things on magine. But the short and very good version is this: "This is magina, he can teleport and he is good at hitting people in the face", basically explains as much about magina as your description of the tank. I mean, you didn't mention what the tank is vulnerable against, that the tank can go into siegemode and how it changes when it goes into siegemode or anything about the unit at all. You just told them what they can already see, your sentence explains nothing at all. My short version of magina covers it better than your explanation of the tank.
No. just admit that you're wrong.
We were both describing what it takes just to BE ABLE TO PERCIEVE THE BATTLE in a way that makes sense. We're not talking about the mechanics or metagame... if I have to say the purpose of the tank and where it comes from, you have to say the metagame behind dota etc but neither of those are necessary. The fact is, as a gamer but not a MOBA player, when I look at the screen of a moba I see a mess of colors and nothing that makes sense. When I first looked at starcraft, I saw a big tank blow up an alien.
You could compare sc2 to MOBA when it comes to the ease of spectatorship if all sc2 units were respresented by random items (teapots, refridgerators) and were all random sizes and had random attacks that did random damage. It'd be the same game to advanced players but you'd have to KNOW what was going on just like you do with MOBA.
Let's face it, that's what Dota and LoL are. "Oh, clearly the little elf is doing 35 damage in an area because of his magical shoe, you should be able to tell that from looking at the screen duh and that's why the centaur turned into a blue grave."
Or for someone who plays games ALL THE TIME but hasn't played that specific MOBA and doesn't know what all the effectively random and irrelevant visuals mean. I don't see how you can still argue this. Alien shoot acid... the effect of which is the smaller human melts. MOBA is (random moving visual) does (random animation visual) that creates (whatever the affect is) which is represented by (random or obscure visual effect). but times that by 10 and have multiple random things doing multiple random things. A total fucking mess unless you play the game.
On June 15 2012 05:54 ToFu. wrote: i'm pretty sure there are vastly more gamers that have played either rpgs or moba games than those that have played a rts.
in that sense, it'd probably be easier to understand for a lot more people.
it's probably still really confusing to anybody who hasn't played games at all.
I love how everyone can be all like: "YEEEAHHH ALLL FOR ESPORTS!!!! GOGO ESPORTS!!!"
Until one of these threads comes up, then it's: "My game is da best and all other games are lame!!!!"
What's good for Lol, or Dota, or SC2, or BW is good for esports. If we really want the scene to grow, it's got to incorporate other games and even develope some cross game viewers.
I don't know that I'll actually watch any Dota 2, but maybe it's inclusion is popular, expands esports, which leads to the inclusion of other games that I will watch. So gogo dota2.
On June 15 2012 06:13 TheToast wrote: I love how everyone can be all like: "YEEEAHHH ALLL FOR ESPORTS!!!! GOGO ESPORTS!!!"
Until one of these threads comes up, then it's: "My game is da best and all other games are lame!!!!"
What's good for Lol, or Dota, or SC2, or BW is good for esports. If we really want the scene to grow, it's got to incorporate other games and even develope some cross game viewers.
I don't know that I'll actually watch any Dota 2, but maybe it's inclusion is popular, expands esports, which leads to the inclusion of other games that I will watch. So gogo dota2.
On June 15 2012 06:13 TheToast wrote: I love how everyone can be all like: "YEEEAHHH ALLL FOR ESPORTS!!!! GOGO ESPORTS!!!"
Until one of these threads comes up, then it's: "My game is da best and all other games are lame!!!!"
What's good for Lol, or Dota, or SC2, or BW is good for esports. If we really want the scene to grow, it's got to incorporate other games and even develope some cross game viewers.
I don't know that I'll actually watch any Dota 2, but maybe it's inclusion is popular, expands esports, which leads to the inclusion of other games that I will watch. So gogo dota2.
That doesn't mean people are inconsistent, that means there are different groups of people on TL with different priorities. Some are all "DONT HURT ESPORTS BRAH", and some are all "Man, Starcraft is a good game, we should play/analyze/watch it". Remember that Gheed blog from a few months ago? Making things "bigger" is not everyone's goal in this community.
On June 15 2012 07:12 EneMecH wrote: I never said Dota was lame I said its ridiculous to say its easier to watch if you're not familiar with the game.
did you test it out yourself? I tried it with people i know who have never played video games and are not familiar with computers and they are often attract to the media through out the types commentators who are casting the game.
For example: Day9/Apollo: who are GREAT analysis casters could explain the game into the very detail as well as predicting players action are often attract players who has already know about the game. Mean while, play-by-play casters are often attract new comers attentions more. Husky and Tasteless (back when he was casting gomtv classic) are great examples of this.
Now how to attract attention of people who has NEVER played video games before? Think about your parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and the majority of the generation where TV/newspaper is the main stream media that deliver to them the information they need. If you have to describe competitive gaming, the closest comparison you can get these days is sports. Soccer, football, baseball... etc. So if you ever watch sports, the way to make people excited about a game without knowing anything is mainly the excitement the commentators.
Try to take a kid to a stadium for example. It will be freaking boring to them if the entire stadium just stay still with occasionly cheering. However, if you have a lot of actions going on, the commentators screaming and the fans are going nuts, the kid obviously will go crazy all over those without even knowing what a score is.
This is why i make this blog. Currently i think TobiWan is the BEST play by play caster in the entire esports scene. With him being on TV? DotA2 will get more recognition than other games in non-gamer audience's eyes.
Its people like THIS that attract others attentions to what they love:
i dont get it... are you talking shit on Naniwa? Nani is a fckin badass, bro, don't be talking shit. if my friends or parents think that pro-gamers are "just a bunch with social problems who play games for money and have no life." i would laugh at them and ask them when was the last time they made 50K by doing something they love. and i don't see why they would think DOTA players are any different.
and now i watched the video: (keep in mind that this is constructive criticism not just blind shit talking, i have never seen a MOBA being played before this)
1) wtf is going on? who is on what team? wtf is all that stuff flying around? why is a "two for one trade" important and what does it mean?
2) i can't understand a word this guy is saying, "great bait"? what is a great bait? (like obviously it means the guy baited someone in or something and it was great but why was it great, how did he get baited, with what was he baited, and etc.)
3) i don't see how that guy is better than anyone, including moletrap. i'm a big moletrap fan though so i guess that's just me. tbh, i would take Husky or even Tastosis (not the biggest Tastosis fan even tho they are the best technical casters, not just with game knowledge but with casting ability) over that guy based on the 30 seconds i saw. a lot of the best football (American) casters don't SUDDENLY START SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS OH MY GOD!!!! but i still get that i should be excited because i can see quite clearly what is going on. if i'm not gonna be excited by the fact that the guy just scored a goal, then why would i be excited just because the caster is excited?
4) idk, im pretty sure my dad (who would never watch either) would rather watch something like SC2 than DOTA, just bcuz SC2 looks more like a battle and less like a video game. of course, everyone has different taste and whatnot, but i don't see how a guy screaming incoherently (it was incoherent to me) is gonna suddenly make a person who thinks gamers are geeks to be like "Oh well, he screamed?! Then I guess he's a badass, not a geek at all! I'm gonna let this guy date my daughter!"
On June 15 2012 05:55 EneMecH wrote: Or for someone who plays games ALL THE TIME but hasn't played that specific MOBA and doesn't know what all the effectively random and irrelevant visuals mean. I don't see how you can still argue this. Alien shoot acid... the effect of which is the smaller human melts. MOBA is (random moving visual) does (random animation visual) that creates (whatever the affect is) which is represented by (random or obscure visual effect). but times that by 10 and have multiple random things doing multiple random things. A total fucking mess unless you play the game.
On June 15 2012 05:54 ToFu. wrote: i'm pretty sure there are vastly more gamers that have played either rpgs or moba games than those that have played a rts.
in that sense, it'd probably be easier to understand for a lot more people.
it's probably still really confusing to anybody who hasn't played games at all.
You are totally ignoring everything I said. It isn't important for the audience to know every detail of the game. They need to know the basic objectives and the means to reach said objectives. For example if hydras in starcraft for some reason gave 10% more damage if they shot a marine that was already damaged and the acid pools created when marines die gave 1 damage to surrounding units would that make starcraft a worse spectator sport? No, of course not. That would make the game a bit harder to calculate for the players but the audience have no reason at all to know about such trivialities. The only thing they need to know is that the hydra shoots and deals damage, exactly how much damage it deals isn't important at all. Same with all of these spells, the audience only needs to know that the spells hurts the other guy in some way, usually it is obvious (damage and/or stuns in some way) and sometimes it is less so but knowing exactly what it does isn't necessary.
Maybe you want to follow games by immense yourself totally in them understanding every bit of how the players thought when they played the game, but that is not how most watch games. Also if you go by that logic Starcraft is even harder to follow since it doesn't matter if it is easy to understand how a siegetank works, it is extremely complicated to understand how all the buildorders and counter builds works. How do you understand what that building means when you don't have the techtree in your head? Means that most of the game is just boring shit with people raising structures that have no meaning to you. At least in moba games it is obvious what happens, some heroes are beating the shit out of some other heroes or at least scaring them away.
Your only case is when you assume that when they watch starcraft they don't need to understand anything to enjoy it while when they watch moba games they suddenly needs to understand exactly what goes through players minds! If watching explosions and things die in starcraft is enough, why wouldn't it be enough in a moba game? Because a hero can create more than one type of explosion which would confuse people, or what? People don't even know what the single explosion a siegetank in starcraft does then, why would they care if they don't know the difference between explosion A and explosion B a moba hero can make? I don't really see where your argument really is.
Or maybe your point is that there is 10 heroes in a clusterfuck? But the game doesn't start out with 10 heroes in a clusterfuck, you have 2v2 lanes at most with quite few abilities being cast since they are conserving mana. Just watching these short 5v5 fights is like throwing someone into the lategame of a big starcraft game where each player have 4 bases and 200/200 armies are clashing, that would be impossible to comprehend for anyone as well. Then it doesn't matter if it is easy to understand a hydra, it isn't easy to understand what happens when blob vs blob ensues and afterwards one blob is living while the other blob is not. Dota have the same buildup as starcraft, it is slow at first with very few abilities seen introducing more and more as the game goes on. After having watched the 20 minutes buildup I would be surprised if you couldn't understand at least what mostly happens in the 5v5 teamfights.
On June 15 2012 08:21 sc2superfan101 wrote:
and now i watched the video: (keep in mind that this is constructive criticism not just blind shit talking, i have never seen a MOBA being played before this)
Maybe you would have understood anything if you had watched the cast from the beginning...
On June 14 2012 10:31 casualman wrote: MOBAs aren't good spectator sports because of the amount of foreknowledge required to actually understand the game. If you don't understand all the abilities, core items, and functionalities of each of the 10 heroes in the game it is absolutely unwatchable. Combined with the large amount of farming that takes place and the ability for already decided games to drag on because teams don't want to risk a bad teamfight, it isn't really very good to watch.
that to me is a big misconception. Look at sc2 the biggest esports game right now as an example: A lot of people i know watch the game, subscribe to GSL MLG etc without even owning a copy of sc2. 90% of reddit community has never reach above platinum but they still enjoy the game to the fullest extend.
The ultimate goal of a game when it transitioning to esports should be easy to 'enjoy' when watching, not easy to 'learn' when watching. Its the same theory applying to movies now aday: shitty movies like Transformer or Avatar are dominating the market simply bc they have top nouch computer effect instead of good writings. People will enjoy games with more action, explosion than just a boring macro starcraft where 2 side just sit and wait for the final battle.
Now this is where DotA come in play. All games has their own moments of excitement but it up to the caster to make it exciting. Lets take a look at a normal BW casting in Korea:
As you can see and compare it to modern sc2 casting right now, there is almost 0 emotion in any sc2 casters when they see a great moment. Everyone try to make the game sounds too predictable and the game became boring to watch. DotA2 currently is blessed with TobiWan Kenobi, the best play by play caster in esports atm and he will put up a hell of a show in the up coming dreamhack. Just wait and see!
yeah but we got the korean casters in starcraft if we want to listen to crazy yelling, i mean that is an option available.
On June 15 2012 05:55 EneMecH wrote: Or for someone who plays games ALL THE TIME but hasn't played that specific MOBA and doesn't know what all the effectively random and irrelevant visuals mean. I don't see how you can still argue this. Alien shoot acid... the effect of which is the smaller human melts. MOBA is (random moving visual) does (random animation visual) that creates (whatever the affect is) which is represented by (random or obscure visual effect). but times that by 10 and have multiple random things doing multiple random things. A total fucking mess unless you play the game.
On June 15 2012 05:54 ToFu. wrote: i'm pretty sure there are vastly more gamers that have played either rpgs or moba games than those that have played a rts.
in that sense, it'd probably be easier to understand for a lot more people.
it's probably still really confusing to anybody who hasn't played games at all.
You are totally ignoring everything I said. It isn't important for the audience to know every detail of the game. They need to know the basic objectives and the means to reach said objectives. For example if hydras in starcraft for some reason gave 10% more damage if they shot a marine that was already damaged and the acid pools created when marines die gave 1 damage to surrounding units would that make starcraft a worse spectator sport? No, of course not. That would make the game a bit harder to calculate for the players but the audience have no reason at all to know about such trivialities. The only thing they need to know is that the hydra shoots and deals damage, exactly how much damage it deals isn't important at all. Same with all of these spells, the audience only needs to know that the spells hurts the other guy in some way, usually it is obvious (damage and/or stuns in some way) and sometimes it is less so but knowing exactly what it does isn't necessary.
Maybe you want to follow games by immense yourself totally in them understanding every bit of how the players thought when they played the game, but that is not how most watch games. Also if you go by that logic Starcraft is even harder to follow since it doesn't matter if it is easy to understand how a siegetank works, it is extremely complicated to understand how all the buildorders and counter builds works. How do you understand what that building means when you don't have the techtree in your head? Means that most of the game is just boring shit with people raising structures that have no meaning to you. At least in moba games it is obvious what happens, some heroes are beating the shit out of some other heroes or at least scaring them away.
Your only case is when you assume that when they watch starcraft they don't need to understand anything to enjoy it while when they watch moba games they suddenly needs to understand exactly what goes through players minds! If watching explosions and things die in starcraft is enough, why wouldn't it be enough in a moba game? Because a hero can create more than one type of explosion which would confuse people, or what? People don't even know what the single explosion a siegetank in starcraft does then, why would they care if they don't know the difference between explosion A and explosion B a moba hero can make? I don't really see where your argument really is.
Or maybe your point is that there is 10 heroes in a clusterfuck? But the game doesn't start out with 10 heroes in a clusterfuck, you have 2v2 lanes at most with quite few abilities being cast since they are conserving mana. Just watching these short 5v5 fights is like throwing someone into the lategame of a big starcraft game where each player have 4 bases and 200/200 armies are clashing, that would be impossible to comprehend for anyone as well. Then it doesn't matter if it is easy to understand a hydra, it isn't easy to understand what happens when blob vs blob ensues and afterwards one blob is living while the other blob is not. Dota have the same buildup as starcraft, it is slow at first with very few abilities seen introducing more and more as the game goes on. After having watched the 20 minutes buildup I would be surprised if you couldn't understand at least what mostly happens in the 5v5 teamfights.
and now i watched the video: (keep in mind that this is constructive criticism not just blind shit talking, i have never seen a MOBA being played before this)
Maybe you would have understood anything if you had watched the cast from the beginning...
No. They don't need to know the basics. They don't need to know the advanced. They just need to be able to interpret what is going on.
A newcomer can watch a maxed battle where 7 tanks shoot, 30 marines shoot, 3 collossus shoot, etc and they will see 7 tanks shooting, 30 infantry shooting and 3 tall robots shooting and see the effects of their combat.
A newcomer watching late Dota2 is more like they can see 3wrp0esjgiprews54gjesr5pgesgjergehgeshgoersgeoughwoughwhg0wrhgopwrghorwghegoerghoegoegogbogbogboboubgouwrbgobg
It means literally nothing. You could change any of the visuals of dota2 to anything else and it would make equal sense. Like, literally anything. In starcraft 2, if a marine looked like a collossus and the tanks looked like grapefruits that randomy shot different colors of light then you could compare it to MOBA games when it comes to spectating.
I don't know if you've discovered some new graphics setting for sc2, but armies don't look like blobs.
Don't get me wrong, I like fantasy as much as the next person and it has it's place, but it DOES NOT make it easier to watch for a new person.
On June 15 2012 08:22 Klockan3 wrote: Maybe you would have understood anything if you had watched the cast from the beginning...
let's examine this for a moment:
the op wants to prove(?) that DOTA is a better "non-gamer" spectator "sport", specifically because this Tobi guy. right? (if i'm wrong, OP, than i apologize)
he wanted to show me a video of this caster guy at his best. he linked me to a particular moment in the video, so i assumed that that particular moment would give a "non-gamer" (to which i qualify because i never played any MOBAs and i suck at RTS) an instant attraction to the DOTA feel and to this caster. i mean, the whole point of this thing was not: "if you watch a lot of DOTA then you'll love this guy!" it was literally "if you don't watch any DOTA or video games, than you'll love this guy!" and what i got was something i couldn't understand at all, and while i guess that guy is a good caster, i can;'t really tell because i didn't understand anything. if that's because i didn't watch something the guy didn't tell me to watch, then doesn't that make my point rather than his?
i'm just saying that if someone who has never even heard of e-sports clicked on this thread and clicked on that video, they would instantly be like: "wtf is this? what the heck is going on?" which was the exact opposite of his point and the point of him putting the video up. people get excited about sports because they have a connection, not because some caster who has a connection is getting excited. sure, an animated caster can't hurt, but it can only help so much. the OP is way overestimating the value of an animated caster.
edit: this sounds too rough. a lot of different people really enjoy watching DOTA so it must be really exciting on a lot of different levels. im just trying to offer some counterpoints to some of the OPs points
I think its safe to say that Dota2 is far easier to introduce to newcomers who don't really play video games. Is it more exciting to watch? Probably not, peopel won't understand the basics of why heroes aren't just clashing into each other and why they do so much farming whereas in SC2 it makes sense when you explain to someone 'oh, you need more money to make a bigger army'. Dota2 is easier to follow, but at the same time really slow-paced with repetitive scenarios being shown again and again (farming creeps, the occasional gank) and to people who don't appreciate intricate micro and positioning / team-play its pretty boring. In SC2 yes its confusing, but also interesting to see all the different buildings and units being built for a newcomer. So, Dota2 easier to explain and introduce, but SC2 more interesting for people who are actually serious about finding an e-sport to watch and not just joining in for a few minutes.
On June 15 2012 08:44 EneMecH wrote: I don't know if you've discovered some new graphics setting for sc2, but armies don't look like blobs.
They do if you haven't played the game. Your brain have adapted to how marines, tanks and such looks so when it sees a blob it instantly picks out the marines, the tanks, the colossi, the zealots, the stalkers etc. But an untrained eye would just see that everything in that mass is moving and since the units overlap so you can't intuitively tell them appart you wouldn't see what is parts of what and such so the units blend together like a blob. This was one of the biggest complaints before people started to have experience with the game, since then people didn't undertstand that everything gets a ton clearer once you get used to a game so they thought that battles would be impossible to read.
On June 15 2012 08:44 EneMecH wrote: I don't know if you've discovered some new graphics setting for sc2, but armies don't look like blobs.
They do if you haven't played the game. Your brain have adapted to how marines, tanks and such looks so when it sees a blob it instantly picks out the marines, the tanks, the colossi, the zealots, the stalkers etc. But an untrained eye would just see that everything in that mass is moving and since the units overlap so you can't intuitively tell them appart you wouldn't see what is parts of what and such so the units blend together like a blob. This was one of the biggest complaints before people started to have experience with the game, since then people didn't undertstand that everything gets a ton clearer once you get used to a game so they thought that battles would be impossible to read.
It was a complaint in alpha builds with fake battles. Look, I'm only saying it because I am convinced it's true.... I've watched RTS games before. I've watched Moba games before. And like the guy earlier said, I can't fucking understand anything that goes on the screen and a guy shouting random words at me doesn't help. I know for a fact people watch sc2 who do not really play the game. I have not seen the same people for MOBA at all...
"The tank is sieged up and is now shelling that assimilator" and seeing it happen makes a lot more sense than moba. Sure, you might not know what the assimilator is exactly but you know its a building, it obviously matters, and the tank is shooting it from the high ground.
"Kurnac, OMG DAGGER BLINK if he gets eternal he will gank their solo carry" and seeing mostly random moving "creatures" and lights isn't the same.
I think people who aren't exposed to Starcraft mechanics would think the first 7 minutes of every Starcraft 2 game would be pretty boring without cheese or super early aggression.
EPT
