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Hello friends.
I initially set out to write a blog about how I think Starcraft is dying. As I got pretty far into writing the post which was becoming increasingly more depressing, I started thinking about the topic a bit more than ever really before and hit an abrupt stopping point which almost completely reversed my mindset of the entire situation. I realized how trivial it all sounded and pretty much scrapped probably 2 hours worth of writing after this sort of self revelation so to speak. The following hit me, which I'm going to transcribe into writing as best I can...Apologies for grammatical issues I need to fly as fast as possible before I lose train of thought.
I thought back to broodwar times when the community was MUCH much smaller than it is now. And yet how alive it felt. There was always so much energy and life despite there being so few events and so little prize money out there. The foreign scene was amazing despite the fact that there were probably only a dozen people or less who could even think about taking games off korean progamers. The people who were heavily invested in the broodwar scene were some of the most fascinating people I've known in any facet of my life. To have such a passion for a game and to have such a tight knit community form around such a game was unlike anything I'd seen before. To have an entire custom wiki solely for the game (liquipedia) and an entire database filled with game history, stats, links to replays and games and players (tlpd) was something far more special than anything I'd come across in my short gaming history before.
The community and this love for the game grew on me quickly and drew me in further. When I was surrounded by these people I could relate to so easily and as I made friends I began to realize the game hardly even mattered anymore. I had friends here that I've met through the game that will always be there regardless of what goes on in the world of Starcraft or ESPORTS. This will never die no matter what the next balance patch might entail or how the game might change. Sure the game is the core, but the people who let the game define them on such a shallow level are usually the people that come and go far too quickly to see and experience the true greatness of the community. One of the biggest issues with the early days of WoL were the hoards of casuals who would jump ship just as quickly as they boarded it. These people weren't true "life" they were simply a flash in the pan. The real fire grows over time. Throwing a few twigs on the fire might temporarily spark some large flames, but you need something that will do the real work over time and stick around for a lasting period of time, enough time to really make a difference in the long run.
These people who have been going around saying the game is dying or dead are people who have chosen to abandon the game. They're people who are choosing to leave for any number of reasons. Maybe they have burned bridges in the community and are choosing to get out. Maybe they were a former player who used to spend quite a lot of time trying to break into the scene and never really got there. Maybe they were a caster who never quite broke through and really got noticed. Maybe they're just a bitter fan who realized he would never get out of Gold and rage uninstalled the game and now spends his days talking about how terrible the metagame is, how infestors will always be completely broken and how there is no hope for the future. These people have made a choice, and now they may wish to push some sort of self justification for having left or ditched out of whatever they used to be invested in. They need a reason to justify their decision to quit and instead of finding fault within they need something to blame or point at.
The fact of it is there is always hope for the future. The game doesn't even really matter if you see through it and keep a positive outlook. Starcraft as an ESPORT has already succeeded and will continue to do so if people stay to see it through and help turn it into all it can be. Something like the collegiate starleague (CSL) is about so much more than just playing Starcraft. Sure it uses the platform of gaming and specifically Starcraft as the core of it's driving point but all of the underlying elements that come about through the playing of the game. Elements of teamwork, socialization around a common cause, camaraderie, finding success in something in life, applying yourself to achieve a goal in life. These are basic core life principles that transcend far beyond the confines of a mouse and keyboard. Teams and communities forming around the country at various colleges, all growing and building on these principles which at the end of the day means SO much more than just a silly game living or dying.
When you queue up on ladder, you may be there to play a game but you're also there to apply your mental and physical abilities to turn what your thinking into reality. What you get out of it is up to you. Some may see it as simply playing a video game, but others will argue it's so much more than that. Others will argue you are doing something that not just anyone else in this world can do. You're thinking at thousands of actions a second, and your hands are moving at hundreds of actions a minute to turn these thoughts into reality (assuming you have at least 100apm)
Perhaps those who say Starcraft is dying have not had much success recently or just simply stopped having fun playing. That's alright. Games and people are constantly changing, they have growth periods, they have highs and lows as with anything in life. fluctuation and change is natural. As old people leave new people will fill their places. As some players retire new ones are found. The lows in life only become failures if you quit and allow it to be the end, otherwise there will always be a future. There is always light at the end of the tunnel no matter how long that tunnel might seem. Through any pain in life there can be success with the proper mindset and actions you take that follow.
other games will rise and fall, ESPORTS will change as does regular sports or anything in life. Your interests may change, but overall in life these principles will always exist. No matter what game you choose to play, no matter what others might think of the game you play. Keep doing what you believe in and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. People who can't do something or think they might have failed at something will be the first ones to tell you that you can't do it. (I'm sure I'm stealing from a combination of movie quotes here) People who have given up on something will turn and try and get others to make the same decision to quit that they did. These people should be ignored. Successful people don't let others tell them where to go in life because they already know where they're going. Do what makes you happy and what you enjoy and don't spend your days trying to take it away from others.
Starcraft dying? Only if the community lets it. And this isn't a community that would just let something like that happen.
 
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This isn't the blog Plexa wanted. o; Man it's getting really old. PB you think BW is dead? There's your answer. It's only a decline and you're right. This community won't allow it to.
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Oh LuckyFool, you have put words where I needed them, but could never find them. I'd be lying to myself if I hadn't had once or twice thought, "maybe... maybe it's all going down from here", but you're right. Dammit you're right, it's only gone when we've chosen for it to be gone. And I'll be damned if I let something as shallow as a few opinions steer me from the game and community that I've grown to love over the years. There's too much awesome to toss it aside!
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You do know that Warcraft2, a game which was created 1995 still is being played online, right? I'm one of those people 
I guess it all comes down to on how you choose to define a online game as being dead.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Good read luckyfool. Thanks for this 
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Very nice blog, not what I was expecting but everything you wrote definitely resonates with me. I've been involved with my school's CSL team for almost 3 years and it's true that the game itself is not what matters most -- it's ultimately about the competition and the community. Our scene won't "die" because even if SC2 falls flat on its back as a viable competitive game (aka blizzard nukes the servers) then we will find another game to play. But for now SC2 has been good enough for us and HOTS is only showing improvement. I'm personally so excited to install the game on Tuesday and just practice all week for the CSL qualifier, I've even done all my work in advance so I can skip all my classes.
We're not oblivious to the flaws in the game, but we deal with them. The feeling of winning a CSL match (after spending friday+saturday night practicing) or laughing at one of Artosis' jokes during SOTG or playing Mafia after an MLG makes it worth it.
I'm sure as hell not going to quit anytime soon.
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The blog I spoke of last night had turned into such a convoluted mess I realized after taking a step back and asking myself what the larger picture really was, and what I really thought was going on...I realized my answer was 360 degrees different.
After getting over that mental roadblock this seemed to pop out of nowhere in less than half the time. Effortlessly too, Without having to make any edits or changes whatsoever. Can't remember EVER writing anything in recent times that came out as easily as this.
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Very interesting. I get what you're saying and I think it's true. The community would never just die and through that neither would the game.
Indeed I am one of the many who got relatively good playing sc2 ( and I loved playing so much) but eventually lost interest. I think the game is very stale right now, even top level games between my favorite players aren't that interesting anymore.
I won't just leave this community however since it's the best community I have ever seen. And maybe someday sc2 will peek my interests again and I'll get back into playing and discussing.
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In my opinion, the excuse of 'the community let the game died' is used simply because the people who love the game want to delay the inevitable death by gathering community support. Truth is, we cant do shit. I have been one of the most active poster in the sc2 strategy forum, most of my blogs at that time were mainly rotate around the meta game at top high master NA level and my prediction on the game future. But eventually i start to realize the truth: Blizzard is the one who is killing their own product. The initial paywall into starcraft2 has already set it back hugely compare to its direct competitors on the esport market. Regions like SEA, China have extremely limited access to the game due to the price compare to the low average income plus lack of infrastructure(sever, internet, PC, etc...). All the patches of the game are aimed toward higher tier computers and steadily increase the minimum requirement to run the game for players in these regions thus our community missed out on a huge talent pool.
Beside failing to attract new players to the game, blizzard paid little to non effort to keep existed players in the game in a long run. The initial BNet 2.0 is horrifying with the ininite famous quote "Do you really want chat channel?". Name change, clan tag, in game spectating and tournament support are pretty much non-existent. The first time the BNet got a huge improvement was about a year ago and all they did were move stuff around to get a new UI instead of actually solving the existed problem. Meanwhile, on the same time line, Valve and Riot constantly improving their system and steadily attract new players while making sure that the experience of current players live up to standard. Complain or critical bug or HACKERS(lol there is almost 0) on http://dev.dota2.com/ are solved in days, longest problem are solved within month while blizzard simply denying their players from a simple name change.
But all of those didnt make me lose hope in Blizzard. Until NASL Toronto, i still following the pro scene religiously with hopes that one day Blizzard would understand. Rumors was they are saving all the good stuff for Diablo 3 and HoTS, that they will be release the game when its done, that it will be something that i have never experience before. And then come Diablo 3 running on our infinite Bnet 2.0. Custom chat channel doesnt even exist while the default ones were being filled with hackers and spam bots. Their marketplace(which was rumored to be the Custom Maps Market place for HoTS) used SYSTEM CLOCK and filled with flaws compare to their previous World of Warcraft title. Until today, people still think that it was /r/diablo who killed their own game... Yeah right! If Blizzard could have done what Valve did, nothing would even happened from the first place.
I am holding my money right now. HoTS gona have to prove itself that it will be worth my time and money. Meanwhile I will stick with DotA2 and give my trust into the Icefrog i have known for almost 8 years. Fun fact: even though DotA2 is free, cosmetic items trading has earned me enough money to buy myself a nexus 7 to read ebook.
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Awesome blog luckyfool! You really hit on some great points! I feel like the people crying about the game dying won't be around long enough to try and support it and bring it out of any "decline." Heck starcraft is bigger now than it was in the past couple of years, so if we do lose a few fans because they have given up on the game then maybe we are better off without them
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On March 11 2013 16:35 solidbebe wrote:
Very interesting. I get what you're saying and I think it's true. The community would never just die and through that neither would the game.
Indeed I am one of the many who got relatively good playing sc2 ( and I loved playing so much) but eventually lost interest. I think the game is very stale right now, even top level games between my favorite players aren't that interesting anymore.
I won't just leave this community however since it's the best community I have ever seen. And maybe someday sc2 will peek my interests again and I'll get back into playing and discussing.
Well honestly if hots doesn't do it it'll be a long time (if ever) before sc2 will peek your interest again xD.
I was same way though wol got really stale, I pretty much stopped watching tournaments and looked at results. The only stream of wol I could ever bother watching was jaedong, otherwise I watched no wol streams.
Hots is looking really good (a lot more entertaining then wol was at the end that's for sure) and I have pretty high hopes for it. The fact blizzard has stated they are working with tournaments and updating map pool more (and if the image of the hots map pool is true it's a sick map pool). The games are more fun and hopefully if there is ever a turtle to deathball like bl/corr/infestor (like sky toss is looking right now in hots) it gets nerfed properly and all that.
I feel if blizzard doesn't drop the ball and let deathballs like bl/corr/infestor, sky toss, etc become pretty much standard then hots should be way more exciting then wol ever was. Here is to hoping!
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I got really invested into sc2, but I've waited 3 years for blizzard to fix fundamental issues with the gameplay.
So I am pretty mad about hots, it was a promise to fix everything that was wrong with wol and they only added more problems.
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Wow i must have misunderstood that completely or something, because after reading it twice most of what i get is :
- the bw community was freaking awesome ( i wasn't around back then but right the fu*k now i can tell you it's pretty friggin awesome with total badasses like largo or just really really nice guys with cool mustaches like bakuryu and sayle as our iconic chineseman caster )
- casuals stopped playing
- people who stopped playing ( but aren't casuals ) are either mad, bad or stopped having fun ( cf your whole paragraph about guy not getting out of gold ; caster not getting recognition etc etc )
- The community is what that's all about, and the game doesn't really matter ( that whole paragraph about the csl ; "The game doesn't even really matter" )
- And a whole lot of generic life philosophy ( "Games and people are constantly changing... bla bla bla " ; " other games will rise and fall, ESPORTS will change as does regular sports or anything in life ... bla bla bla " ; " Keep doing what you believe in and don't let anyone tell you otherwise ... bla bla bla ")
I'm sorry if i come off as negative or anything, as i'm genuinely trying to understand but, what is this blog about ?
Seems like you're just celebrating the community, somewhat belittling those who stopped playing, and completely putting the game aside as if that's completely irrelevant.
Telling people to simply enjoy the game is fine and all, but the very reason people whine / rage / complain, the very reason you see so many of those threads and blogs pop up ( " Terran too hard " ; " foreigners not good enough " ; " SC2 dying " ; " game not fun " ; " game mechanics bad, revert to bw style " etc etc etc ) is because people aren't really enjoying it, or aren't having fun " enough ". It doesn't necessarily means people don't get ANY enjoyment out of it, they might get SOME but not that much. The game might not be bad, but it might "not be good ENOUGH".
Now the community won't instantly disappear or anything, but the interest of people might shrink slowly. The game clearly did not live up to expectations. The people telling to " give it time " ( as in " you're right the game isn't very good right now but it will get better " ) have had 3 years, now what ?
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hots aint too shabby atm so here is to hoping :D
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Nice blog. The same goes for Broodwar now as well! Although the tone of the blog makes me wonder why you play a game that you don't seem to really like or care about as a game in itself.
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Well put, LuckyFool!
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so much passion Luckyfool! I also think the newer generation is a little bit more spoiled compared to the old school players, nowadays every kid has an iphone and more modern computers and people are whining about graphics, gameplay, balance in game etc. It's just utterly retarded and those kids deserve a spanking in their ass. Maturity is one of the keys to e-sports success and not complaining!
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To be honest (and I don't know if I should say this), I've never even seen a SC2 vod much less played the game.
While following the game development I was disappointed in a number of the game design things, but what really killed it for me was all the battle.net stuff in addition to those issues. So in other words, I was one of those people that made good on the not-buying-it-threat.
My current plan is to wait until all three titles are released and get a battle chest for $20 or so and have fun playing through the campaigns and having a fun and balanced game.
So in support of the OP, even though I've never seen a single SC2 game, I'm still on the forums and in the community. However, does that mean esports isn't dying for me, simply because I'm here? Well, from my perspective bw has fallen off the cliff and I have nothing interesting to watch anymore.
I do look forward to playing SC2, and I think it will be awesome when I do. But I think it will be more from consuming the product rather than spectating which I enjoyed from bw (but I guess who knows though until I try?).
As a side note, Diablo 3 has brought me lots of entertainment in the form of reading reviews on amazon, threads all over the internet, etc....lol. I don't plan on playing it ever though.
Anyway, I'll miss the 1v1 python obs games with my korean buddy on bnet back in the day, then when I got bored of that watching vods on tl.
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Best way to revive esports is to figure out how to sell poor gamers with little money more than 1 new keyboard every 4 years, and upgrading from mountain dew to Patrón.
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I find the game still interesting as a spectator, but only if I take rather long breaks from it, say 2-3 months and then go back to it. I think the main reason why my interest isnt constant is because the game changes so slowly, if I see 5 pvz's, chances are the next games I see in the upcoming months will be very similar to those 5, so it feels like watching reruns of those 5 games. Same goes for the other matchups. Maybe what I just said seems stupid to some of you, but thats how it feels to me.
Interestingly, compared to broodwar, these shifts in the meta are quite fast but the viewing experience isnt as exciting. Cant really pinpoint the reason for this, but my best guess is that this is due to oversaturation in the sc2 scene: I consume too much in a short period of time that I get tired of it, dunno if that makes sense. Another thing that really bugs me is the map pools, or rather the lack of map rotations, its always the same maps, when I see Entombed Valley, Daybreak or Antiga it makes me wanna pull me hair out. When ProLeague came out with new maps it reignited the same passion I had 2 years ago, I even started playing the game again.
Don't have any closing thoughts except that, in my personal experience what keeps me interested in something is constant changes.
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Starcraft is never going to die because Broodwar will never die, pretty simple.
Rightnow SC2 is filled with so many people who just ride the bandwagon wave. Once a new wave arrives we will see how many of them will remain in the scene. Maybe it will be many, maybe it will be few, we won't know until 3 years after LotV, which probably means 6 years from now.
Blizzard was smart, they hook up the players based on future expectations instead of the actual game. Now Blizzard just needs to find the most profitable timing to launch LotV and match the end of that wave with the beginning of their new game.
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On March 11 2013 16:15 Integra wrote:You do know that Warcraft2, a game which was created 1995 still is being played online, right? I'm one of those people I guess it all comes down to on how you choose to define a online game as being dead.
Amen brother.
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I basically played "dead" games all my life. Games that weren't accepted by fans of the prequel, games whose player count decline, games that are simply niche. Who cares as long as you have fun with the game? I must laugh when people genuinely fear that a Blizzard game is "dying". Its nothing compared to the player base of other games. Yes, prize money, prestige and viewer count could drop, but this isn't what I care for. A core that truly likes the game will stay independent of these things and a smaller community is not necessarily a worse one.
On the other hand, I don't understand the hate for the Destiny post and other people that utter pessimistic posts. Ignoring the attitude that dismiss the post solely because of personal reasons (or the tone), I think he has made valid points. Different than seemingly many others, I never percepted "Starcraft is dying" as a fear-mongering prophecy (for the reasons mentioned above), but as a warning and alarm bells that were justified at that time. HotS DID underwhelm at the beginning of the beta and Blizzard DID communicate very poorly at that time. They also really dropped the ball regarding custom games/UMS. Ignoring these warning signals because for some reason the community wants to purge all negativity would be detrimental to the game and the community, I feel.
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great read.
I myself only came in on teamliquid at around late 2010 but teamliquid showed me one verry important thing.
it is not about the game you are playing, but who you are sharing it with^^
I myself still think there is a legit chance that sc:bw might come back in korea, even thou that would take away sc2 i am fine with it. becouse 1 thing i know is when people truely love something, it is almost imposable to disapear from their heart.
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I think the term "dying" could easily be replaced by "maturing". The people who lost interest because the game is no longer new are gone. The people who have become convinced the game still has fundemental unfixable flaws are gone. The people who mostly sought the game as a social experience who had their friends quit are gone. The remaining people are the ones who still burn for the game, the community and the competitive atmosphere. This is what the BW community is/was. It is what lesser games will never have.
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The success/failure of the game ultimately at it's core comes down to the gameplay. There's some mysterious myth that it's the community, or this tournament, or that tournament.
If blizzard does not make the core game, in terms of balance, gameplay, user interface excellent then consumers will decide to stay or go on to other games/things.
Ofc the hardcore will stay regardless, but there can't be a blind eye, especially in terms of spectator/balance/e-sports-wise.
Basically...we cannot have another "broodlord+infestor for 1.5 yrs" killing the game.
If blizzard balances the game this time around, people will watch. The core gameplay has to be there.
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You know avilo I agree with you. When I set out to talk about this issue yesterday I actually dove into points very similar to that. As I went on though, I started to realize there's a bigger picture to it all that's easy to forget in the day to day struggles of balance, or bnet, or anything related to the core game. It's easy to spend our days worrying about crap that at the end of the day might not even exist a month or two months from now. It's easy to lose sight of what's really important and what we all really want to see.
There's always been a bigger picture, at least for as long as I've been around since 2006. People were hardly even concerned about ESPORTS at all during this time and yet we still grew around a game which was seemingly glitchy as hell and had so many rage inducing problems and bugs.
In some ways the community carries the game. Things like broodlord+infestor will only kill the game if people let it. Simply having awareness of a small problem like that can help find a solution, whether it needs to be blizzard to come in and make a balance change, or the community to innovate and take things into our own hands. I guarantee you if something was left "broken" long enough maps would change or somebody would do something to help remedy whatever is "wrong"
There were all kinds of issues with broodwar which were overcome. Sure most of them weren't balance related but when things like the blizzard ladder and servers turned into utter shit and/or hacked, pgtour and iccup came along. When hacks in general started getting crazy people coded antihack programs. When the observing experience was weak things like chaoslauncher showed up. These kinds of things which came through the community enhanced the "core" product to fit the needs of what the community had expected. There was just a higher level that the community desired out of the game and time wasn't constantly spent crying over small obstacles, action was taken.
Sure Blizzard has sc2 on lockdown much harder than broodwar. Which makes things like custom ladders next to impossible without breaking the law. Sure we will never get LAN mode or other things which would greatly enhance the core product. But these "small" speedbumps only stop the train if people allow them to. There seems to be a bigger picture of why some of us are here and that I feel is important to keep in mind moving forward regardless of what our struggles today or tomorrow may be.
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You just made my shitty day a lot better; thanks for that.
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On March 11 2013 16:30 LuckyFool wrote:
The blog I spoke of last night had turned into such a convoluted mess I realized after taking a step back and asking myself what the larger picture really was, and what I really thought was going on...I realized my answer was 360 degrees different.
After getting over that mental roadblock this seemed to pop out of nowhere in less than half the time. Effortlessly too, Without having to make any edits or changes whatsoever. Can't remember EVER writing anything in recent times that came out as easily as this.
Your comments in that blog really confused me, since it didn't seem like it was your voice from what I've read of yours, but this definitely clears things up.
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Bisutopia19190 Posts
On March 11 2013 16:30 LuckyFool wrote:
The blog I spoke of last night had turned into such a convoluted mess I realized after taking a step back and asking myself what the larger picture really was, and what I really thought was going on...I realized my answer was 360 degrees different.
After getting over that mental roadblock this seemed to pop out of nowhere in less than half the time. Effortlessly too, Without having to make any edits or changes whatsoever. Can't remember EVER writing anything in recent times that came out as easily as this.
For some of us it's really easy to see what you have just realized. But I understand that sometimes the road to get there can be a hard travel.
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its not about surviving, its about growing. some people actually want to make something out of this.
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this blog words my feelings quite well (even though i wasn't around during bw days).
Thanks for it
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On March 11 2013 20:09 FreakyDroid wrote:
I find the game still interesting as a spectator, but only if I take rather long breaks from it, say 2-3 months and then go back to it. I think the main reason why my interest isnt constant is because the game changes so slowly, if I see 5 pvz's, chances are the next games I see in the upcoming months will be very similar to those 5, so it feels like watching reruns of those 5 games. Same goes for the other matchups. Maybe what I just said seems stupid to some of you, but thats how it feels to me.
Interestingly, compared to broodwar, these shifts in the meta are quite fast but the viewing experience isnt as exciting. Cant really pinpoint the reason for this, but my best guess is that this is due to oversaturation in the sc2 scene: I consume too much in a short period of time that I get tired of it, dunno if that makes sense. Another thing that really bugs me is the map pools, or rather the lack of map rotations, its always the same maps, when I see Entombed Valley, Daybreak or Antiga it makes me wanna pull me hair out. When ProLeague came out with new maps it reignited the same passion I had 2 years ago, I even started playing the game again.
Don't have any closing thoughts except that, in my personal experience what keeps me interested in something is constant changes.
2011 SC2, the meta game was changing so rapidly. Most exciting time in WoL imo. I'm super excited for HotS because it's going to be like the magical 2011 WoL times
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On March 12 2013 07:52 MattBarry wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2013 20:09 FreakyDroid wrote:
I find the game still interesting as a spectator, but only if I take rather long breaks from it, say 2-3 months and then go back to it. I think the main reason why my interest isnt constant is because the game changes so slowly, if I see 5 pvz's, chances are the next games I see in the upcoming months will be very similar to those 5, so it feels like watching reruns of those 5 games. Same goes for the other matchups. Maybe what I just said seems stupid to some of you, but thats how it feels to me.
Interestingly, compared to broodwar, these shifts in the meta are quite fast but the viewing experience isnt as exciting. Cant really pinpoint the reason for this, but my best guess is that this is due to oversaturation in the sc2 scene: I consume too much in a short period of time that I get tired of it, dunno if that makes sense. Another thing that really bugs me is the map pools, or rather the lack of map rotations, its always the same maps, when I see Entombed Valley, Daybreak or Antiga it makes me wanna pull me hair out. When ProLeague came out with new maps it reignited the same passion I had 2 years ago, I even started playing the game again.
Don't have any closing thoughts except that, in my personal experience what keeps me interested in something is constant changes. 2011 SC2, the meta game was changing so rapidly. Most exciting time in WoL imo. I'm super excited for HotS because it's going to be like the magical 2011 WoL times
imo it'll be a lot better due to a better map pool and hopefully blizzard doesn't let any sort of composition (like bl/corr/infestor and how sky toss is looking in zvp) not be overpowered for to long. One thing that I feel really killed wol was the bl/corr/infestor composition in terms of enjoyment anyway. It wasn't dead, far from it but you could tell people were getting bored (especially playing as zerg got super boring since it was the only way to win consistently.)
Also to address Avilo's comment bl/corr/infestor wasn't a problem until may of 2012 (this is when the queen patch came and this is when zvt balance shifted from terran to zerg favored). All before that tvz was slightly terran favored almost the whole time (some parts being very terran favored as we all remember :D).
zvp it didn't start becoming so strong that they couldn't deal with it until about the same time as well, maybe a couple months later. Once all zergs started spreading bl's and stuff wasn't until about may-july of 2012 so didn't become a serious problem until then.
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Very nice writing, certainly very romantic.. However, won't SCII be dead as soon as Blizzard stops maintaining their servers? Broodwar, AoE2, and I believe CS would all be dead without private servers keeping them alive, since the official servers for those games have long stopped being maintained. And private servers are an impossibility with Star2.
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What you wrote about the game being the community and the beauty of the smallness and passion of the bw community reminded me of some thoughts I had last night while contemplating a blog I have to do for a uni subject.
I was thinking about how a lot of people are always excitedly looking forwards to a time when esports will be thriving, they'll be able to watch sc2 on tv channels and sc2/LoL etc etc will be considered sports up there with basketball, cricket and soccer and it will have such widespread popularity that little kids will grow up with it like they might with any other sport.
But I think this is unlikely in the extreme. And upon further thought, I don't think I even want this. There's something nice about a niche community and doing something and enjoying watching it that not everyone does, or even knows about.
Edit: good read. 5/5
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On March 11 2013 16:30 LuckyFool wrote:
The blog I spoke of last night had turned into such a convoluted mess I realized after taking a step back and asking myself what the larger picture really was, and what I really thought was going on...I realized my answer was 360 degrees different.
After getting over that mental roadblock this seemed to pop out of nowhere in less than half the time. Effortlessly too, Without having to make any edits or changes whatsoever. Can't remember EVER writing anything in recent times that came out as easily as this.
you know rob
turning 360 degrees in place just leaves you facing the same direction you were looking at originally
just sayin'
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Some people here are forgetting that all the private server things was made available through blizzard releasing a standalone version of their battlenet client so you could set a gaming server yourself.
I also read alot of misconception, as usual, about the so called "community".
The TL community began quite late... overall, and it for sure, didn't have anything to do with korean pro gaming on a professional level like they have the opportunity now.
Community in the eye of it's cult, korean starcraft pro gaming, never ever existed until recently.
What I want to say is that what keeps community alive isn't community, but exactly the topic its centered around.
Would Korean BW/SC2 pro gaming (under any of it's current form) be to vanish, frequentation on this site would be void in a very small ammount of time (providing no western scene survives, because as I see it, if the mecca of esports isn't able to sustain any SC rts pro ground, foreign scene, however big it can be atm, is still smaller and poorer and promised the same fate).
My narrow perspective on the matter, eventho ive been around since before anything remotely memorable, is that Blizzard pretty much fucked up everything and that the current persons in charge just suck for the task they had ahead if they wanted to get into esports.
I'm not saying pre 2000 blizzard workers were better or whatever, or that the persons in charge are total morons, I'm just saying that the situation was complicated enough regarding esports matter, to at least make blizzard reconsider their global approach on the topic.
Now the issue with all this and that, is that their own approach on the esports matter, must influence the way they make their own product, however, they didn't / couldn't find the proper syntax to acclimate the korean neutered pro gaming existence to their own design needs.
That's pretty sad to some extent, but on the other hand I believe that this sort of task was right out of their reach from the very beginning.
However, all this doesn't mean there aren't any solution to these problems.
It's just it must be progaming making it's own game.
I believe mobas are the very first incarnation of those, though very rough and light years away from the refinement of a game like brood war.
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The fact of it is there is always hope for the future. The game doesn't even really matter if you see through it and keep a positive outlook. Starcraft as an ESPORT has already succeeded and will continue to do so if people stay to see it through and help turn it into all it can be. Something like the collegiate starleague (CSL) is about so much more than just playing Starcraft. Sure it uses the platform of gaming and specifically Starcraft as the core of it's driving point but all of the underlying elements that come about through the playing of the game. Elements of teamwork, socialization around a common cause, camaraderie, finding success in something in life, applying yourself to achieve a goal in life. These are basic core life principles that transcend far beyond the confines of a mouse and keyboard. Teams and communities forming around the country at various colleges, all growing and building on these principles which at the end of the day means SO much more than just a silly game living or dying.
Your post is kind of just a rhetorical speech though, because the same issues persist; you have just rephrased them.
For instance saying that SC2 as an esport only dies if we let it...well that's fine, I think everyone can agree on that. Now take the next logical question: What is keeping people from letting it die? All you say to this end is that "it won't happen", but its not so much an argument. It could easily be that people *will* stop caring about it based on how its designed, and that it will therefore die. You're just rephrasing the problem. So now the question is how do you entice people to keep playing?
You also say that SC2 is more than the game play, but about the interactions with the community and going to live events. Well that's fine...but why wouldn't people choose to play or watch a game that has both live events, interaction with the community, and solid game play? There are many games that offer interaction with a community, and in many cases they are quite intelligent (I do like Team Liquid forums, but honestly I love watching Day9 more than SC2 now, just based on his personality).
Similarly for the friends you've made in SC2 why can't you go to play other games? I mean this already happens in many cases, if you watch streams (i.e. Diablo 3, SimCity 5 co-op play, LoL, etc.) Same with the teams forming or going.
I think you give a positive message, but it seems like the only meaningful part of your message is that friendship and community are more important than the game. Then you're saying SC2 doesn't really matter, and you support us watching LoL or playing Diablo 3, or playing some role playing game as much as anything else. For that matter, including joining a chess club or a tennis club in this list would be equivalent in terms of what you are saying are crucial. If we keep going, what you're basically arguing for is that its good to socialize, which extends far beyond gaming and is almost the principal basis for enjoying life itself, which has nothing at all to do with e-sports!
So...I agree, but I feel your message is extremely generalizable, to the point where it has very little to do with gaming at all. The whole point here...is that we congregate, and talk to each other, around something we *enjoy* doing. Like everyone watching a movie they love, or playing a board game they love, or going biking on a coastline. That is the whole point of these discussions...that people want to experience a game like Starcraft that they all love to play together, but they're finding that they can't based on how its designed, and its a bit depressing. Telling them that that aspect is not important, or superficial, is like arguing that choosing the type of activity you do with your friends is irrelevant so long as socializing is involved. They are *both* important
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I think that a lot of the problems the SC scene faces in general are due to the fact that it is an extremely hard game to get into, requiring a lot of practice and knowledge, so it turns off new players.
Blizzard is starting to get to this point with the new vs. AI mode in HotS, but I still don't think that's enough to keep new players interested in playing.
Blizzard should either direct new players to Day9 dailies or Apollo's tutorials, or make something like those themselves; this would help guide new players since I have a feeling a lot of them don't know where to start.
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smaller but better community is the future. not bad.
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On March 12 2013 12:16 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2013 07:52 MattBarry wrote:On March 11 2013 20:09 FreakyDroid wrote:
I find the game still interesting as a spectator, but only if I take rather long breaks from it, say 2-3 months and then go back to it. I think the main reason why my interest isnt constant is because the game changes so slowly, if I see 5 pvz's, chances are the next games I see in the upcoming months will be very similar to those 5, so it feels like watching reruns of those 5 games. Same goes for the other matchups. Maybe what I just said seems stupid to some of you, but thats how it feels to me.
Interestingly, compared to broodwar, these shifts in the meta are quite fast but the viewing experience isnt as exciting. Cant really pinpoint the reason for this, but my best guess is that this is due to oversaturation in the sc2 scene: I consume too much in a short period of time that I get tired of it, dunno if that makes sense. Another thing that really bugs me is the map pools, or rather the lack of map rotations, its always the same maps, when I see Entombed Valley, Daybreak or Antiga it makes me wanna pull me hair out. When ProLeague came out with new maps it reignited the same passion I had 2 years ago, I even started playing the game again.
Don't have any closing thoughts except that, in my personal experience what keeps me interested in something is constant changes. 2011 SC2, the meta game was changing so rapidly. Most exciting time in WoL imo. I'm super excited for HotS because it's going to be like the magical 2011 WoL times imo it'll be a lot better due to a better map pool and hopefully blizzard doesn't let any sort of composition (like bl/corr/infestor and how sky toss is looking in zvp) not be overpowered for to long. One thing that I feel really killed wol was the bl/corr/infestor composition in terms of enjoyment anyway. It wasn't dead, far from it but you could tell people were getting bored (especially playing as zerg got super boring since it was the only way to win consistently.) Also to address Avilo's comment bl/corr/infestor wasn't a problem until may of 2012 (this is when the queen patch came and this is when zvt balance shifted from terran to zerg favored). All before that tvz was slightly terran favored almost the whole time (some parts being very terran favored as we all remember :D). zvp it didn't start becoming so strong that they couldn't deal with it until about the same time as well, maybe a couple months later. Once all zergs started spreading bl's and stuff wasn't until about may-july of 2012 so didn't become a serious problem until then.
The map pool and really a problem for late WoL and people do not focus on this enough. The fact that Daybreak is still on the ladder breaks my heart. The easy to take three bases seemed like it would lead to awesome games, but all it did was slow the game down to a crawl.
The worst part is the community is partly to blame, since we asked for larger maps and more macro games. Every time I saw a new map with comments like "OMG, how will I take a third base." I had hopes for more exciting early games. But sadly, those maps did not last.
I hope in HotS we respond to "OMG, how do I take a third base" with "I don't know, figure it out like everyone else".
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Of course the game will continue to be played as an esport for likely another 5 years. But the game that people imagined SC2 could be never materialized. In that sense, the hope that surrounded the game is dead. I would point to:
1.) The metagame has been stagnant for a year now. The small handful of new HOTS units will help for a moment, but there's no telling how many people have been put off for good.
2.) Koreans dominating foreign tournaments has dealt a fatal blow to foreign spectator interest in the game. Only hardcore players can follow the Korean personalities.
3.) A not insignificant part of the initial enthusiasm for SC2 was the dream it promised kids of being able to making a living playing video games. But with Koreans soaking up nearly all the major tournament prize money, foreigners have grown discouraged. I think it's been over a year since I've seen an "I want to take time off school to be a progamer" blog post.
4.) If Korean audiences had embraced the game as expected, then the game could've fallen back on that after foreign enthusiasm dried up. That never happened.
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On March 11 2013 15:59 LuckyFool wrote:
To have such a passion for a game and to have such a tight knit community form around such a game was unlike anything I'd seen before.
Today we have league of legends and dota2. Starcraft is so boring in comparaison. The game, even at pro-level, is a (1-2)-base push or they go in lategame and win with deathball.
The Esport is dying because the people just realise the reality.
+ Show Spoiler +I saw broodlord infestor during 2 y. Such a bad game.
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On March 13 2013 04:07 Gyro_SC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2013 15:59 LuckyFool wrote:
To have such a passion for a game and to have such a tight knit community form around such a game was unlike anything I'd seen before. Today we have league of legends and dota2. Starcraft is so boring in comparaison. The game, even at pro-level, is a (1-2)-base push or they go in lategame and win with deathball. The Esport is dying because the people just realise the reality.
Opinions. I've watched a lot of LoL and I'm a big fan, but nothing has ever come close to 2011 SC2. Every single tournament players would come with a new, sometimes completely game breaking outlook on a matchup, it was so fascinating to watch. Even early 2012 with the MKP and DRG rivalry was so exciting to watch. The queen patch completely stopped meta game development, I won't mention balance at all, but with e exception of a few timing pushes here and there, meta game development died for all vs. Z matchups because there was a single way for Zerg to win and god was it boring to do, watch, and play against.
If you really think BL/infestor was a thing for 2 years you have whatever the opposite of rose-tinted glasses is (shit-tinted glasses?)
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On March 13 2013 04:07 Gyro_SC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2013 15:59 LuckyFool wrote:
To have such a passion for a game and to have such a tight knit community form around such a game was unlike anything I'd seen before. Today we have league of legends and dota2. Starcraft is so boring in comparaison. The game, even at pro-level, is a (1-2)-base push or they go in lategame and win with deathball. The Esport is dying because the people just realise the reality. + Show Spoiler +I saw broodlord infestor during 2 y. Such a bad game.
Esports got a lot better when the community stopped listening to trolls who just saying the game is dying, over and over and over. We will be even better once those troll realize on one cares and they move on to bother another community.
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OP, while it's great that you have a positive outlook and have that "persistent pioneer" attitude injected into you by hollywood, some things just follow their own course regardless of what you or others do.
Did someone have to make the speech you just gave constantly to keep brood war alive? No. In fact, not much effort had to be made because the game was just well designed to the core, and people didn't have to strain to enjoy it. There was a natural passion there that didn't require bouts of motivation. We just enjoyed it effortlessly without having the community to coax us to enjoy it. The community that formed was simply a natural effect of people coming together who already liked the game before meeting one another.
On the other hand, something I've been noticing with starcraft 2, is that fans seem to constantly try to remind themselves how esports is "still alive" and need to constantly urge other to participate in the community to keep the enthusiasm up. I don't remember there ever being fears of "esports dying" when OSL and MSL were up and running. Right now, it all just seems like a lot of these people are desperately straining to get others to enjoy it just so they can enjoy it themselves. If the game was so fun to watch and play, why the hell does this need to happen? If you need others to be excited just to be excited yourself, then the issue is with the game itself, not the viewers. In the end, this is an escape for most people. If you have to strain to enjoy an "escape", then it kind of defeats its purpose doesn't it?
In all honesty, blog posts like these upset me because it just feeds my fear that esports really is dying because fans such as yourself feel the need to say this at all. We shouldn't turn the relationship between the game and its fans into one of those sad couples who have to strain to enjoy time together and constantly grasp for reasons why they should be with the other. Positivity becomes toxic if it smothers the truth and forces everyone involved to lead a delusional, quietly desperate existence.
Passion should be effortless, and the community shouldn't have to try so hard to help keep it alive. Just let HOTS esports run its natural course. If it's a good game, then there's nothing we have to do or worry about. Otherwise, just let it be and move on.
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edit:
EpiK, i agree with almost everything you said, but i dont think that these blogs popping up mean that sc2 is dying. sc2 may not be as good as scbw, and perhaps the people who complain about starcraft dying have a point. but even if things arent great, and people really do need to constantly talk and argue about keeping starcraft alive, but maybe it works.
the community tries hard to "keep sc2 alive" because we care about it, and thats something that will never lead to a "quietly desperate existence"
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One thing that'd make me happy with sc2 vanishing from the surface of earth, is that I wouldn't be forced to watch every single mediocre white player thinking he is good because... because I don't know, I mean for instance TLO, although looks like a nice guy, is the stereotype of the players I don't know want to hear about / watch that arrived with sc2.
edit : I found the word, I hate above all "community players/progamers".
I really do.
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On March 13 2013 06:20 EpiK wrote:
OP, while it's great that you have a positive outlook and have that "persistent pioneer" attitude injected into you by hollywood, some things just follow their own course regardless of what you or others do.
Did someone have to make the speech you just gave constantly to keep brood war alive? No. In fact, not much effort had to be made because the game was just well designed to the core, and people didn't have to strain to enjoy it. There was a natural passion there that didn't require bouts of motivation. We just enjoyed it effortlessly without having the community to coax us to enjoy it. The community that formed was simply a natural effect of people coming together who already liked the game before meeting one another.
On the other hand, something I've been noticing with starcraft 2, is that fans seem to constantly try to remind themselves how esports is "still alive" and need to constantly urge other to participate in the community to keep the enthusiasm up. I don't remember there ever being fears of "esports dying" when OSL and MSL were up and running. Right now, it all just seems like a lot of these people are desperately straining to get others to enjoy it just so they can enjoy it themselves. If the game was so fun to watch and play, why the hell does this need to happen? If you need others to be excited just to be excited yourself, then the issue is with the game itself, not the viewers. In the end, this is an escape for most people. If you have to strain to enjoy an "escape", then it kind of defeats its purpose doesn't it?
In all honesty, blog posts like these upset me because it just feeds my fear that esports really is dying because fans such as yourself feel the need to say this at all. We shouldn't turn the relationship between the game and its fans into one of those sad couples who have to strain to enjoy time together and constantly grasp for reasons why they should be with the other. Positivity becomes toxic if it smothers the truth and forces everyone involved to lead a delusional, quietly desperate existence.
Passion should be effortless, and the community shouldn't have to try so hard to help keep it alive. Just let HOTS esports run its natural course. If it's a good game, then there's nothing we have to do or worry about. Otherwise, just let it be and move on.
While I agree with you regarding the BW/SC2 dynamic, I think the big point of the blog post is that some people truly do not have to strain to "enjoy SC2". Meanwhile we are here belittling and dragging down their enjoyment by constantly whining about how much things suck in SC2.
I too hate it when people make "Support ESPORTS/Fight for ESPORTS" posts. But this one is more of a: If you are starting to lose enjoyment in watching esports, don't ruin it for the rest of them. Even if you feel they are blissfully ignorant and should be educated about how much better it "used to be".
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On March 12 2013 20:04 d3_crescentia wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2013 16:30 LuckyFool wrote:
The blog I spoke of last night had turned into such a convoluted mess I realized after taking a step back and asking myself what the larger picture really was, and what I really thought was going on...I realized my answer was 360 degrees different.
After getting over that mental roadblock this seemed to pop out of nowhere in less than half the time. Effortlessly too, Without having to make any edits or changes whatsoever. Can't remember EVER writing anything in recent times that came out as easily as this. you know rob turning 360 degrees in place just leaves you facing the same direction you were looking at originally just sayin'
Not if you're a USB cable
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On March 13 2013 23:06 LaLuSh wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2013 06:20 EpiK wrote:
OP, while it's great that you have a positive outlook and have that "persistent pioneer" attitude injected into you by hollywood, some things just follow their own course regardless of what you or others do.
Did someone have to make the speech you just gave constantly to keep brood war alive? No. In fact, not much effort had to be made because the game was just well designed to the core, and people didn't have to strain to enjoy it. There was a natural passion there that didn't require bouts of motivation. We just enjoyed it effortlessly without having the community to coax us to enjoy it. The community that formed was simply a natural effect of people coming together who already liked the game before meeting one another.
On the other hand, something I've been noticing with starcraft 2, is that fans seem to constantly try to remind themselves how esports is "still alive" and need to constantly urge other to participate in the community to keep the enthusiasm up. I don't remember there ever being fears of "esports dying" when OSL and MSL were up and running. Right now, it all just seems like a lot of these people are desperately straining to get others to enjoy it just so they can enjoy it themselves. If the game was so fun to watch and play, why the hell does this need to happen? If you need others to be excited just to be excited yourself, then the issue is with the game itself, not the viewers. In the end, this is an escape for most people. If you have to strain to enjoy an "escape", then it kind of defeats its purpose doesn't it?
In all honesty, blog posts like these upset me because it just feeds my fear that esports really is dying because fans such as yourself feel the need to say this at all. We shouldn't turn the relationship between the game and its fans into one of those sad couples who have to strain to enjoy time together and constantly grasp for reasons why they should be with the other. Positivity becomes toxic if it smothers the truth and forces everyone involved to lead a delusional, quietly desperate existence.
Passion should be effortless, and the community shouldn't have to try so hard to help keep it alive. Just let HOTS esports run its natural course. If it's a good game, then there's nothing we have to do or worry about. Otherwise, just let it be and move on.
While I agree with you regarding the BW/SC2 dynamic, I think the big point of the blog post is that some people truly do not have to strain to "enjoy SC2". Meanwhile we are here belittling and dragging down their enjoyment by constantly whining about how much things suck in SC2. I too hate it when people make "Support ESPORTS/Fight for ESPORTS" posts. But this one is more of a: If you are starting to lose enjoyment in watching esports, don't ruin it for the rest of them. Even if you feel they are blissfully ignorant and should be educated about how much better it "used to be".
It takes special kind of arrogance to tell someone that what they are enjoying is terrible and the way things used to be were much better. It is something that people would never do an in-person setting, but feel the need to do in online communities. I have two friends to love LoL over all other games and I don't try to tell them how much better Dota2 is.
One of the biggest burdens for SC2 has been the old BW followers who feel the need to constantly drag down the community by "reminding" everyone that SC2 is "worse" than BW. There are plenty of members of TL who just love to watch SC2, including myself. I don't really care to compair the two games, much like I don't compair many game with others that are 10 years older. BW is not my game and I don't need someone dropping in a side comment about BW in the middle of an announcment thread.
Right now, EG-TL just announced that they are working with Coach Park in PL. And like sun, a small group of BW fans have jumped into that thread saying that its terrible that EG "stole" Park. What should be exciting, fun and great for one group of people is being dragged down by another. Its like if they can't have the Starcraft they want, no one can.
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On March 14 2013 01:56 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2013 23:06 LaLuSh wrote:On March 13 2013 06:20 EpiK wrote:
OP, while it's great that you have a positive outlook and have that "persistent pioneer" attitude injected into you by hollywood, some things just follow their own course regardless of what you or others do.
Did someone have to make the speech you just gave constantly to keep brood war alive? No. In fact, not much effort had to be made because the game was just well designed to the core, and people didn't have to strain to enjoy it. There was a natural passion there that didn't require bouts of motivation. We just enjoyed it effortlessly without having the community to coax us to enjoy it. The community that formed was simply a natural effect of people coming together who already liked the game before meeting one another.
On the other hand, something I've been noticing with starcraft 2, is that fans seem to constantly try to remind themselves how esports is "still alive" and need to constantly urge other to participate in the community to keep the enthusiasm up. I don't remember there ever being fears of "esports dying" when OSL and MSL were up and running. Right now, it all just seems like a lot of these people are desperately straining to get others to enjoy it just so they can enjoy it themselves. If the game was so fun to watch and play, why the hell does this need to happen? If you need others to be excited just to be excited yourself, then the issue is with the game itself, not the viewers. In the end, this is an escape for most people. If you have to strain to enjoy an "escape", then it kind of defeats its purpose doesn't it?
In all honesty, blog posts like these upset me because it just feeds my fear that esports really is dying because fans such as yourself feel the need to say this at all. We shouldn't turn the relationship between the game and its fans into one of those sad couples who have to strain to enjoy time together and constantly grasp for reasons why they should be with the other. Positivity becomes toxic if it smothers the truth and forces everyone involved to lead a delusional, quietly desperate existence.
Passion should be effortless, and the community shouldn't have to try so hard to help keep it alive. Just let HOTS esports run its natural course. If it's a good game, then there's nothing we have to do or worry about. Otherwise, just let it be and move on.
While I agree with you regarding the BW/SC2 dynamic, I think the big point of the blog post is that some people truly do not have to strain to "enjoy SC2". Meanwhile we are here belittling and dragging down their enjoyment by constantly whining about how much things suck in SC2. I too hate it when people make "Support ESPORTS/Fight for ESPORTS" posts. But this one is more of a: If you are starting to lose enjoyment in watching esports, don't ruin it for the rest of them. Even if you feel they are blissfully ignorant and should be educated about how much better it "used to be". It takes special kind of arrogance to tell someone that what they are enjoying is terrible and the way things used to be were much better. It is something that people would never do an in-person setting, but feel the need to do in online communities. I have two friends to love LoL over all other games and I don't try to tell them how much better Dota2 is. One of the biggest burdens for SC2 has been the old BW followers who feel the need to constantly drag down the community by "reminding" everyone that SC2 is "worse" than BW. There are plenty of members of TL who just love to watch SC2, including myself. I don't really care to compair the two games, much like I don't compair many game with others that are 10 years older. BW is not my game and I don't need someone dropping in a side comment about BW in the middle of an announcment thread. Right now, EG-TL just announced that they are working with Coach Park in PL. And like sun, a small group of BW fans have jumped into that thread saying that its terrible that EG "stole" Park. What should be exciting, fun and great for one group of people is being dragged down by another. Its like if they can't have the Starcraft they want, no one can.
I often bash on sc2 but what you're describing is the attitude of internet fanboys.
I see BW as a form of art, whereas I see sc2 as a plain video game.
That's the only reason.
I for one, on the other hand, hope everyone in pro gaming can make a living out of it and I think EG-TL hiring sk coach is a pretty fucking legendary move.
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EPT
