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I came here because Day[9] plugged TL. Back in the Beta. I was really into it at first, when the metagame didn't really exist and you could get exciting wins with a lot of 1 base pushes or something reaper cheeses and other ways to outmicro people.
Unfortunate that the strategy section here on TL was most of the time pushing for more bases, more macro more "standard"
I hate standard. Standard means to me "not unique". And as more and more pro games looked standard and the unique games became rarer, my interest waned.
Fortunately, TL is about more than just Starcraft. It is a big part, but it has so much more. The general forums, the funny threads, Dota 2 was picked up(the word standard is rarely even muttered there) and LoL and the TL Mafia subforum.
I love TL, even if I don't love SC2 anymore. A shame that things didn't quite go right.
tl;dr
I just want to say I always felt bad for not loving SC2 as much as I hoped I would. I am a bit happier now that I didn't force myself to stay. SC2 is better off with people that love the game from the bottom of their heart and luckily I can stay on TL and talk about other things I am still passionate about.
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Call me hipster or something but thats the reason Why i love stuff not so many others love. The passion is just more pure when shared with less.
Dont get me wrong. I still play and watch sc2 and dota. I'm just Not that pasionated anymore.
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France3195 Posts
5/5
These kind of blogs remind me why I feel at home on TL. Thank you Heyoka.
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Thank you Heyoka well said and thank you for reminding us. StarCraft 2 Fighting!!!! 
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The point made here is the same thing that caused me to stop playing and watching SC2. I simply don't feel the game in the same way that I felt Brood War and Dota is partially recreating. I really wanted eSports to grow huge, but to have a sport you need a game, and SC2 simply isn't that game for me. It simply isn't designed for fun, it's designed for competition.
So I left.
I uninstalled SC2, I stopped watching dailies, I stopped following tournaments and I didn't care about builds or trends anymore. Every single one of these things had grown stale and impotent with the release of Wings of Liberty. Everything I'd loved about the Brood War scene faded into a sort of android wild west, where every face was the same and the games were balanced on who pulled the trigger first. The saloons felt devoid of life, since everyone was crying the same thing, "ESPORTS! ESPORTS!", oblivious of the eSports we were losing. For me, TL.net became the most populated desert I have ever seen. Day[9] was trying to make good of Starcraft 2, but everyone was just one-base rushing. Why would we give all of that up? The 2012 awards speak the truth for those willing to hear: There is no "Most creative player" or "Most revolutionary player" awards. Chew on that. Properly chew that bit of information into smaller bits and properly digest it. What does that mean to you?
I still jump unto TL once or twice a month, but it's really just for nostalgia. The game is gone, lost in catering to "competitive" players and in rabid drama and eSports hyperbole. I play dota now. We, me and my friends, we love the game, because it is fun like Brood War was fun, because we don't get lost in competition and intimidating 'ladder anxiety'. Because the game feels right to play, like Brood War did.
Because that's what did it, wasn't it? Brood War felt really good to play. Even though you spent so much time learning to even control the game properly, it was all worth it. It was worth it because it took time and because when you did it right, it felt right.
Starcraft 2 failed to replicate that feeling and that was, in my opinion, why it will never be a true sequel to Brood War.
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You know, the points you make here really sunk in when I was watching the speedrunning community go at it during Awesome Games Done Quick. It occurred to me---what gave birth to speedrunning? It was people's love of the game. The same could, I figure, be said for Brood War---there are even some parallels, like optimizing routes to a certain point, building mechanics, and learning how to manipulate the game in ways that were perhaps unintended. I suppose that still happens but the roots have been displaced somehow---it isn't for the love of the game, as you said.
I still care about SC2 but my friends have mostly switched to DotA 2, which is much more accessible to them, and so that's what I play these days. This thread has made me much more conscious of how much I appreciate both games. So thanks for that.
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I can't really play MOBAs because there just isn't enough to do mechanically, lol. I'm a really mechanical player, so when I sit down to play a game of LoL or Dota2 with my father and his gang my fingers are going 500 mph, and there's nothing fucking happening -_-.
I am one of those players who wants more mechanical difficulty. I want more to do all the time, lol.
It is so satisfying to me, and SC2 lacks that.
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edit.
eh...
I am just a BW lover and SC2 hater but I delete what I wrote because I don't want to foul up your blog.
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Katowice25012 Posts
On January 15 2013 04:31 DerNebel wrote:
The point made here is the same thing that caused me to stop playing and watching SC2. I simply don't feel the game in the same way that I felt Brood War and Dota is partially recreating. I really wanted eSports to grow huge, but to have a sport you need a game, and SC2 simply isn't that game for me. It simply isn't designed for fun, it's designed for competition.
So I left.
People always make this sound like a terrible thing but I don't understand why. Esports is a fun hobby. If you're not having fun there is no reason to do it, go find something else that makes you happy. A community isn't very useful if it's full of people who aren't enjoying their time there.
Polygamy don't forget we have the TLS now! You can still stay in touch with BW at least in some small way. Also SSL!
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[QUOTE]On January 15 2013 10:30 heyoka wrote:
[QUOTE]On January 15 2013 04:31 DerNebel wrote:
Polygamy don't forget we have the TLS now! You can still stay in touch with BW at least in some small way. Also SSL![/QUOTE]
That's true and I do still like watching BW. I was just ready for something new too though. I was playing watching BW for ever ten years so the idea of a new or updated game was appealing. I just can't find my self enjoying death ball and hard counter play. I think SC2 could be great if a few units were replaced with something else. IE Coli, Marauder's concussive shell, broodlords and zerg larva saving.
On a positive note I think the Kespa maps are a step in the right direction.
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On January 12 2013 07:25 heyoka wrote:
SC2 is an amazing game. It offers competitive depth and allows for a variety of playstyles completely unmatched in any game (at least anything not named Brood War).
Do you really believe that?
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StarCraft II hasn't had that beautiful adolescence. The time when gamers obsess about the game not because of what they see on stage, but because of what they see in front of them. What they experience on the battlefield itself, the magnificent combination of planning and execution that make up a game. We need to make ESPORTS happen was the rally cry of 2010, and set the tone for the community since. Topics about the players, their style, and unique strategies are lost among a sea of discussion regarding the state of the industry and daily gossip.
I personally agree with this and I think a lot of people who transitioned from watching BW to SC2 feel the same. I don't think you can apply this to the game of SC2 itself though (however much I don't like the game haha). There are plenty of gamers who came into SC2 fresh and genuinely enjoyed the game, then came to communities like TL or reddit or even youtube to learn more about it, then discovered the esports side of it. For them there is the same kind of "adolescence" that people who first picked up SC1 one experienced. As a bitter BW dude I try as much as possible not to ruin it for those guys and let them enjoy their game from the same fresh perspective I had for SC1 (thankfully I still get to experience this feeling with games like LoL and hopefully can still feel the same with new games in the future).
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On January 12 2013 09:15 mizU wrote:
Loud minority, silent majority.
I still love SC2 <3
it's obviously a loud majority at this point.
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On January 15 2013 20:11 Animzor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2013 09:15 mizU wrote:
Loud minority, silent majority.
I still love SC2 <3 it's obviously a loud majority at this point.
Obviously? Citation needed fine sir.
On January 13 2013 08:23 heyoka wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2013 00:12 Surili wrote:I have to say that something has been nigling at me since reading this, that the negativity isn't all as bad as people say it is, that really there is a feedback loop that is making it worse than it is, like watching that grubby hype video that someone made the other day is awesome. Or that i can watch sase or grubby or tyler or axslav or incontrol's stream, and know who it is by the builds they are doing, or in the case of tyler and sase just the way they click on things. Their precision is very recognisable to me, thanks to streaming and analysing their replays, it isn't just true of BW, it is true of SC2 too if you really care  Mostly I hope this doesn't come off as feeding that loop. My goal when I sat down was to just write some stuff about how cool it is when people compete in games (mostly SC2) and it kind of took on a life of its own. I'm a simple man. I like games and want to share that people who also like games.
It doesn't come off that way, it seems honest and has depth. If everyone who complained about something actually went into detail about it then i wouldn't have a problem, and there would actually be come constructive stuff out of it. It is all this kneejerk feeling shit that puts me off.
Also, Happy Birthday.
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On January 15 2013 10:30 heyoka wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2013 04:31 DerNebel wrote:
The point made here is the same thing that caused me to stop playing and watching SC2. I simply don't feel the game in the same way that I felt Brood War and Dota is partially recreating. I really wanted eSports to grow huge, but to have a sport you need a game, and SC2 simply isn't that game for me. It simply isn't designed for fun, it's designed for competition.
So I left. People always make this sound like a terrible thing but I don't understand why. Esports is a fun hobby. If you're not having fun there is no reason to do it, go find something else that makes you happy. A community isn't very useful if it's full of people who aren't enjoying their time there. Polygamy don't forget we have the TLS now! You can still stay in touch with BW at least in some small way. Also SSL!
I have the feeling that a super competitive environment exhausts many people mentally because if you let go for a little too much time you fall behind very fast. People aren't necessarily bad at the game. I believe that many casual players have played the game more heavily for a shorter or longer period of time in which they were able to develop a decent level of skill.
Now most people can't be playing that much for longer period of time because other things in life don't allow that. If you stop playing the game you fall behind. I don't know how you can have fun with that. I don't want Starcraft to be a noob friendly game dear god no but maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if there were small tournaments for all levels of skill. Just for the fun of it.
The game i grew to love was Warcraft 3 before i played Starcraft 2. I think the following can be said about people who played broodwar as well: I got introduced to wc3 by a couple of friends at a time i didn't even know that something like esports exists. I didn't like it very much at the beginning but the second time i came back to look at it made me fall in love with the game. One of the important aspects is that we enjoyed the game for what it was (like you said it should be in your blog). Later we found out about esports and really started to develop as players (looking at pro level players) but we always wanted to get better for the single reason that is being the best in our little group. We played custom games nearly every evening for a few years and all in good fun. At the end (also during the time Sc2 came out) our level of play was really solid.
All that achieved with no stress at all.
That story perfectly describes what you mention in your blog. You have to grow with the game and love it because it's simply fun to play. The thing with Sc2 is that it got hyped so fast it's just unnatural... really. From the very beginning there were so many tournaments although people didn't even know if the game is going to be good for a longer period of time.
You get thrown into that super competitive environment. It feels like you have to accomplish something.
I achieved decent level of play in sc2 at the very start. It all got messed up because i don't have that much time to play anymore. For me it just isn't fun to play at a low level. It's all or nothing for me and since i dont have the time anymore i may as well let it be.
Starcraft 2 is a great game but i think with that urge to be the biggest esport in the industry the fun goes away for many people. People want to achieve something. Thats natural. So you get thrown into this competitive thing and if you don't make it you sort off burn out with no fun at all.
That's my point of few and my feeling about the situation (ok partly because we don't play as a group of friends anymore like we did in wc3) and i bet others made a similar experience.
Speaking of which, Day9's funday monday may well be important for the development of the game because it gives younger and newer players something fun instead of the pure urge to succeed. I had my "heroes" in wc3 which made the game so much fun for me that i grew to really love it. That is important!
The problem isn't the game itself... Sc2 is very good in my opinion!
Edit: I didn't read the whole thread before i posted but no i realize how many people feel the same. It's astounding...
Also my english isn't good enough to make it precise. I just delivered a wall of text and a story of mine but i guess you got the point =)
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Please, this is a great post that doesn't deserve to evolve into an another BW/SC2 fight.
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This was a very good read.
I watch Starcraft 2 every week-end. Personally, I love the KeSPA teams and players. I love Proleague. I really like big parts of this community... But I can't say that I like SC2 that much. All I like about it comes from BW. It is quite frustrating in a way.
So I guess that what I like, now, is really esports rather than Starcraft. Watching the players I like compete. I mean, if Jaedong started doing figure skating, I would start watching that too... But I wonder if I will ever see more in SC2, as a game, than the thing that killed my favorite past time.
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I have been playing Blizzard's RTS games since Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. Also Westwood's since Dune II, on an Amiga 500+, but that's a different story. I loved all of them, in their specific way. Warcraft I for "stop poking meeeee!", Warcraft II for those endless battles fought between me and my friends, Starcraft 1 and BW for being way ahead of its time, and WC3 RoC and TFT for having this beautiful campaign and, well, Orcs in multiplayer.
And I am loving SC2.
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Evocative and well thought out piece! You've reminded me of a time when I actually enjoyed laddering. Time to bring back that joy I think.
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EPT
