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I started to play SC2 because I thought Broodwar was an awesome game, I didn't like War3 but LOVED the custom maps (yeah, DotA too, but also all the Tower Defenses, Enfos, Tech Wars, Black Road...), and to a huge degree it was the War3 Editor that got me excited for Starcraft 2.
Then I watched Husky and HDStarcraft during the beta. And I fell in love with the game.
When I got Starcraft 2: WoL (at first the beta, then the game itself), I couldn't let my hands of it. I loved every part of it and especially the multiplayer. Outsmarting an opponent, outcontrolling him and all the competetive motivation to play it over and over again. I was quite good at that time already (always in the highest league that existed, platinum, diamond, masters).
Then I got into watching tournaments, or, mostly the GSL. Everything was so awesome. And through all of that love for the game, I started posting on Teamliquid. Like everyone, I started out a little whiney about my race (those freaking Colossi and how the fuck can you say the game is balanced when Terrans just have to split to counter banelings with marines? BANELINGS MUST RAPE MARINES!!!!!!!) but I focused a lot on strategy discussion.
That's the part I love the most about Starcraft. Developing that longterm strategy for your race, which should never ever lose if you execute it right. Using the proper units, rather than using units properly. Getting ahead, step by step. Using your brain to adapt to everything all the time, over and over again. Solving that puzzle of playing a certain match, game and game again.
But that wasn't the end of my ever-developing lovestory with this game. More and more I started to shift my interest towards unit control. Not because I love it when things function better, but because I found out that I can optimize my gameplan by optimizing my gameplay. When my 4 starting zerglings can counter his 4 starting zerglings, he is forced to build 6zerglings early on, which means I have an extra drone... An extra drone isn't enough you think? An extra drone is the whole world! I should not lose if I get an extra drone and play perfectly in a mirror match!
It was an amazing time. Was? No, it is an amazing time for me! The gameplay is ever developing and it's just so much fun watching my favorite players (TLO, to name one) revolutionize their - our I should say - gameplay over and over again.
I guess that's also a reason why I love patches (and all the balance discussions) so much. A change is the most exciting thing in the world, because then I'm allowed to figure out something new. Well, a straight up nerf is obviously not so exciting. But the new fungal growth in HotS? Absolutly amazing, I got a range+1 buff! Yeah, that projectile is a nerf, but it's basically a whole new spell, even if it has only one tiny little up- and else only downsides. I can start learning it anew!
Now, why did I write this? I don't know. Maybe I'm just bored. Maybe I'm getting a little bit pissed about all the people on Teamliquid that hate this game so much for not being Broodwar. Maybe I want to counteract all those "MOBA vs RTS", "Starcraft is dying" and "this game has a shit design" discussion a little bit. I don't know. But I will try to figure it out, just like I'm trying to figure out this beauty of a game.
 
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You brought a smile and a feeling of satisfaction to me. Starcraft II is a great game.
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This blog made me really happy
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nice 
i also really like how patches change everything, in WC3 when TFT (i know is not a patch) came out, the tavern gave us a lot of new insane heros to play, adding a tons of new things to the game.
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On August 09 2013 23:41 Big J wrote:
Now, why did I write this? I don't know. Maybe I'm just bored. Maybe I'm getting a little bit pissed about all the people on Teamliquid that hate this game so much for not being Broodwar.
Why would you be pissed about that?
I can't ignore the fact that Broodwar died largely because of SC2, a game which I'm getting increasingly bored with. I mean, I'm sure for people like yourself who like the game, it's easy to say "if you don't like it, don't play it", but for people like me, SC2 barged in with its big retarded face and it murdered BW, my little beloved baby.
You could argue that BW was aging and it was going to die anyway, or you could argue that there's still a little fringe scene, and that could be enough for some people. But that doesn't help me, really. SCBW died for SC2 and I personally don't like it. Perhaps it's misguided of people to harp on SC2 for not being BW, but it seems people need to direct their unhappiness at something, and SC2 is our only target.
And I've tried so hard to like SC2, to get it to replace BW for me. I don't think I'm one of those people who particularly want SC2 to mirror BW, although those people exist. But the game bores me, it just does. I've watched countless hours of streaming and tournaments, trying desperately to be passionate about a game again. I gave it a fair shot.
I don't really post about how much I'm disappointed with SC2 anymore (except here). But there, many of people are like myself. Ignore them. You don't have to read every post, and more importantly you don't have to take any of it personally. Why do you care if other people don't like what you like?
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+1
I love Brood War, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to make this the best it can be and enjoy it as much as possible and balance patches are actually one way of achieving a switch in the metagame or opening new opportunities/styles of play.
A lot of the time, we'd be "whinging" for balance here or there because we want lots of options to be viable but defence against them to not be too much harder, so that all races have great options and have ways (hopefully multiple) of defending those different options. We want exciting gameplay and good game design and a lot of "complaints" are actually just trying to improve that.
Often I would want a nerf to something actually (people get caught up on the whole D3 style "We must all be gods! Buff ALL THE THINGS"), but the idea is always that if whatever nerf caused a race to be a bit too weak in some regard, you buff some other aspect (or maybe apply a different nerf to one or both of the other races) to in order to maintain balance, but with overall better and more enjoyable, rewarding and appropriately challenging gameplay.
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Thanks for writing this. Whenever something slightly negative happens in this community, it's always, SC2 IZ DYIN, and it annoys the shit out of me. Why can't we just enjoy the second most popular pro game in the world. Sc2 had it's rise, then it died down a bit, but the numbers are still high and it's great to see this much success.
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I'm really glad to see people who are actually into SC2 for the same reason I am: it's a huge puzzle that's fun to figure out. So many people get lost in the details of "unit counters" and "imbalance" that they completely forget about that whole "strategy" thing. Coming up with a play style (or adapting someone else's play style) and figuring out that puzzle of getting it to actually work against so many other styles is something that SC2 honestly excels far more than people give it credit for. Even the dullest of strategic matchups are still rich with high-impact details.
I guess if you can't see that bigger picture you can't really get excited by those details since you can't see how far reaching the effects are.
Cheers to enjoying what you do instead of whining about what you (or others) don't do 
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Big J, thanks for writing this up. I am as tired as you are of the SC2 is dying crap and armchair business experts. We need more focus on the game and less focus on the business non-sense and blaming blizzard for every tiny conflict. You only need to go to the Dota 2 section to see how it could be if the whiners were just shot down the instant they started bitching.
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Kudos, Big J. I really enjoyed reading this blog. Strangely enough, I've been thinking of doing something similar for a little while in taking a shot at the incessant whining. Especially at a time when the game, to my mind, is better than it has been for a long time and is flowering into a range different play styles and viable strategies (especially where Protoss is concerned).
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Thanks for all the nice replies!
@Djzapz: I get pissed about it, because you can't lead any discussion about anything in this game anymore. Be it balance, players, tournaments, maps... even strategy. Everytime someone will come in and start replying with "sadly SC2's design...".
Well, OK, if your opinion is that Dustin Browder personally hates carriers then that should be your opinion. Now can we please get back to discussing whether they are useful against swarm hosts or not? And no, just because you don't like the swarm host either, I don't think the best solution to PvZ lategame is to whine about their design, so can we please get back to the threads purpose?
(though admittetly everybody - at least I - can get carried away in those discussions. But there are just so many people around who just come into threads to derail everything towards how-they-would-design-SC2)
Edit: also sorry about your dog 
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On August 10 2013 21:44 Big J wrote:Thanks for all the nice replies! @Djzapz: I get pissed about it, because you can't lead any discussion about anything in this game anymore. Be it balance, players, tournaments, maps... even strategy. Everytime someone will come in and start replying with "sadly SC2's design...". Well, OK, if your opinion is that Dustin Browder personally hates carriers then that should be your opinion. Now can we please get back to discussing whether they are useful against swarm hosts or not? And no, just because you don't like the swarm host either, I don't think the best solution to PvZ lategame is to whine about their design, so can we please get back to the threads purpose?(though admittetly everybody - at least I - can get carried away in those discussions. But there are just so many people around who just come into threads to derail everything towards how-they-would-design-SC2) Edit: also sorry about your dog
Ah yes, I guess I was locked in the mindset that people make their own threads to complain or give their 2cents in threads appropriately. I guess angry people derailing threads to complain is annoying.
And thank you
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If people truly loved broodwar as much as they say they would all be playing it. People don't stop playing a game they love because there is no money left in it, people just jump on the broodwar bandwagon, without actually knowing the game.
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On August 11 2013 00:34 9-BiT wrote:
If people truly loved broodwar as much as they say they would all be playing it. Back when they play the lack of organized play for foreigners didn't stop them. People don't stop playing a game they love because there is no money left in it, people just jump on the broodwar bandwagon.
The pro scene which is now dead was great to watch though, and that's gone.
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On August 11 2013 00:58 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 00:34 9-BiT wrote:
If people truly loved broodwar as much as they say they would all be playing it. Back when they play the lack of organized play for foreigners didn't stop them. People don't stop playing a game they love because there is no money left in it, people just jump on the broodwar bandwagon. The pro scene which is now dead was great to watch though, and that's gone.
The "pro scene" as in people making their fortunes playing video games is dead sure, but SOSPA and TLS are still fairly high level tournaments that are going on, the foreign and korean servers are still active, you can find people to play if you want to, there is a 24/7 top streaming service, and people would get over the fact that there isn't as many tournaments and play the game they love. The only people who aren't doing that justifiably are top level pros, who are going where the money is. But I have a feeling a lot of kespa pros will be retiring soon, and we will be seeing them back at afreeca for your enjoyment.
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On August 11 2013 03:02 9-BiT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 00:58 Djzapz wrote:On August 11 2013 00:34 9-BiT wrote:
If people truly loved broodwar as much as they say they would all be playing it. Back when they play the lack of organized play for foreigners didn't stop them. People don't stop playing a game they love because there is no money left in it, people just jump on the broodwar bandwagon. The pro scene which is now dead was great to watch though, and that's gone. The "pro scene" as in people making their fortunes playing video games is dead sure, but SOSPA and TLS are still fairly high level tournaments that are going on, the foreign and korean servers are still active, you can find people to play if you want to, there is a 24/7 top streaming service, and people would get over the fact that there isn't as many tournaments and play the game they love. The only people who aren't doing that justifiably are top level pros, who are going where the money is. But I have a feeling a lot of kespa pros will be retiring soon, and we will be seeing them back at afreeca for your enjoyment.
Well sure there's a fringe scene, but it's nothing like MSL, OSL and Proleague, with Flash, Jaedong, Bisu and all the other guys. That's not going to be replaced with SOSPA and TLS for me.
Sure, I could go play, too... but frankly I always preferred to watch SCBW. High level SCBW, with the bonjwas and all that stuff which made me wake up at 3AM to catch epic games.
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On August 11 2013 03:08 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2013 03:02 9-BiT wrote:On August 11 2013 00:58 Djzapz wrote:On August 11 2013 00:34 9-BiT wrote:
If people truly loved broodwar as much as they say they would all be playing it. Back when they play the lack of organized play for foreigners didn't stop them. People don't stop playing a game they love because there is no money left in it, people just jump on the broodwar bandwagon. The pro scene which is now dead was great to watch though, and that's gone. The "pro scene" as in people making their fortunes playing video games is dead sure, but SOSPA and TLS are still fairly high level tournaments that are going on, the foreign and korean servers are still active, you can find people to play if you want to, there is a 24/7 top streaming service, and people would get over the fact that there isn't as many tournaments and play the game they love. The only people who aren't doing that justifiably are top level pros, who are going where the money is. But I have a feeling a lot of kespa pros will be retiring soon, and we will be seeing them back at afreeca for your enjoyment. Well sure there's a fringe scene, but it's nothing like MSL, OSL and Proleague, with Flash, Jaedong, Bisu and all the other guys. That's not going to be replaced with SOSPA and TLS for me. Sure, I could go play, too... but frankly I always preferred to watch SCBW. High level SCBW, with the bonjwas and all that stuff which made me wake up at 3AM to catch epic games.
What I'm saying is that if you truly loved the game because you think it's a better game you would be playing it. If you preferred watching it, sure, it's not nearly as good now, but if you are arguing that the game is more fun and a better game to play, you should be playing it.
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EPT
