I wonder if he feels the same now.... although to be fair the Dawn of War community was very immature and the game had massive balance issues that most Starcraft players just wouldn't comprehend.
Holy cow, I didn't know David Kim was a member of Agesanctuary/RTS-Sanctuary =o
I think we all hate the game on some days. We stick around because we love it on more days than we hate it though <3 I just wish Blizzard would listen. Being that kind of non-responsive elitist organisation is a thing of the past and will only hurt them as a brand in the long run. I used to be so excited for every god damn blizzard title from the early 2000's but now I haven't even looked at the new WoW or D3 expansion. I don't have faith in them as a company anymore.
This is why I love valve as a company. TF2 is a game I play competitively and enjoy a great deal. 7 years into release, valve is still releasing content updates for this game. Yes, Brood War was updated but the last balance patch was 1.08. What kept BW going was the new maps, tournaments and players. In TF2, we're still seeing massive item changes to help out not only the competitive scene, but the casual scene as well.
In Fully Charged, a competitive TF2 podcast I listen to, the speakers often discuss various parts of the game which valve could help out in. Valve often adds in these features almost immediately if its simple enough. One competitive map, Granary, had a slight mirroring problem. Very minor but after having it brought to their attention, they immediately patched it in the next update, though it didn't affect any player but the most competitive.
Last year in the middle months or so, Valve got a visit from some of the Fully Charged Podcast group and discussed the game. This included some small issues with maps, minor balance stuff but also about Valve implemented competitive matchmaking within the game itself. Instead of avoiding the question, they were quite straightforward, saying that Valve was focused on updates that would help the majority of TF2 players, not the minority of competitive players. Despite this, they still implemented almost all of the small little bug fixes and changes that the community wanted as soon as feedback was recieved.
Team Fortress is also an extremely user-based product. Almost every new item these days is made by users in steam workshop. New maps are made by users and made official by Valve. New weapons are made by taking the old weapons people didn't use and giving them a fun new spin. Everything Valve does is based off of their users. In comparison, Blizzard shows little interest (in my humble opinion) of the community's real interests. Yes, they will throw us a bone with balance patches but they don't truly understand dynamics that would make the game so much better. We needed the entire community raging about the warhound in beta for them to get rid of it. Lurkers have not been added despite near unanimous agreement that they would improve the game. Despite numerous articles on negative mechanics of the game (no move-shooting, attack animation delay on air units, lack of map control units), Blizzard refuses to acknowledge some of the problems with the core aspects of the game and simply stand pat with a few buffs and nerfs to existing units here and there.
Now, I understand that the way Valve works and Blizzard works are quite different. Valve is a smaller and much more effecient company, and Blizzard I assume is more corporate and covered with layers of bureaucacy. However, if they try to work towards Valve's model and instead of only making small balance changes to the game, listen and UNDERSTAND some of the arguments for altogether different units and game mechanics, I think it would be a big step forward for Starcraft in general.
On January 08 2014 09:46 kimaphan wrote: David Kim has mentioned this before in interviews, but I can confirm that he does talk directly with a lot of pro-gamers and coaches on a regular basis. It's just one of many ways the team gathers information about game balance to figure out next steps. Some of that includes ladder and pro-match statistics, and watching and discussing pro-level games and tournaments constantly. David doesn't spend a ton of time engaging directly on the public forums because his focus is on the game. We have a community team that's dedicated to reporting feedback, which includes gathering it publicly when we publish proposed changes and test maps on PTR. They read the forums every day.
The interaction takes place more than you all realize and with many professional players who are highly skilled and have a history of providing useful feedback. It's not possible for the team to interact with every professional player in the scene, nor is it productive or efficient to crowdsource the process from start to finish. But I assure you discussions take place every time before we make a change, even if it's something small as a forum post on a hypothetical change.
If this is true then I'm sure you've gotten tons of feedback with concerned fans that will never see Bisu play SC2 again? Does your post confirm that LoTV will indeed make Sair/DT a viable SC2 strategy and the zealots will have the "Leg Enhancements" upgrade researchable at the Twilight Council? If so, I can't wait for the expansion!
Here's a picture of Bisu. I recommend this one be printed out and go in your wallet in place of your children's photos. They'll understand.
You really does that a lot do you ?
EDIT : Fuck me lol you did it a SECOND time ... You sir have problems...
I dont understand why Blizzard dont create an official fork of this game, with a different rule set, and different units. They could use units that never made it into the game and remove some that cause issues.
If they made it free to play it could be a permanent beta until it was at the point of being ready to be released for E-Sports.
Most of units are already there so cost wise it would take to much manpower to maintain. This way radical changes could be made and tested thoroughly
On January 08 2014 09:46 kimaphan wrote: David Kim has mentioned this before in interviews, but I can confirm that he does talk directly with a lot of pro-gamers and coaches on a regular basis. It's just one of many ways the team gathers information about game balance to figure out next steps. Some of that includes ladder and pro-match statistics, and watching and discussing pro-level games and tournaments constantly. David doesn't spend a ton of time engaging directly on the public forums because his focus is on the game. We have a community team that's dedicated to reporting feedback, which includes gathering it publicly when we publish proposed changes and test maps on PTR. They read the forums every day. The interaction takes place more than you all realize and with many professional players who are highly skilled and have a history of providing useful feedback. It's not possible for the team to interact with every professional player in the scene, nor is it productive or efficient to crowdsource the process from start to finish. But I assure you discussions take place every time before we make a change, even if it's something small as a forum post on a hypothetical change.
I'd like to hear about some names, if possible... the only notable name I've ever heard was Sen about two years ago and he said he was quite disappointed of the discussion (as if it could be surprising, given the linguistic barrier - but that's just a personal opinion). The only other 'interaction' I recall was Nestea during the famous Nestea VS MVP at Blizzcon (the series with the famous "ghost counter everything" match, if someone remembers), where Nestea stated that the game was definitely imbalanced in the pre match interview only not to be translated by the official translator, who said something more politically correct. And again, I don't think that David has heard anything since the translator said something completely different.
To this day I don't recall a single progamer beside Sen who has stated something along the likes of "I spoke with David Kim, it was incredibly useful/reassuring/depressing/whatsoever becaseu X or Y". Nor do I recall any mapmaker stating anything similar, and given that Blizzard maps are usually my insta ban on the ladder I don't think it will happen in the near future.
Ret is optimistic, and so I want to be... but I'm sceptic because I think that the only concern about Blizzard is about the upper structure of the game (sponsors/tournaments/interaction with personalities like Day9, who are more about putting a good show and be politically correct rather than anything else), as we can see with the constant Blizzard showing up when needed. The moment you showed up during the WCS NA qualifiers of two days ago was extremely needed and I'm really grateful for that. But beside the upper structures, it doesn't look like Blizzard does even want to come close to the real core of the game (mapmakers, Lalush's points that have been dismissed with a couple of sentences, implementation of features that are not a facebook integration). Up until now, I don't think Blizzard will touch HotS in a significative way until Legacy of the Void.
On January 08 2014 20:00 Topdoller wrote: I dont understand why Blizzard dont create an official fork of this game, with a different rule set, and different units. They could use units that never made it into the game and remove some that cause issues.
If they made it free to play it could be a permanent beta until it was at the point of being ready to be released for E-Sports.
Most of units are already there so cost wise it would take to much manpower to maintain. This way radical changes could be made and tested thoroughly
Here's an idea for the community. Make that fork yourselves then talk tournament organizers not involved with WCS that hosting paid tournaments for it would be a good idea. That would cause people to flock to it and gain the mod interest.
2.1 is literally giving you the tools necessary to do this. A SC2 fork released as a constantly reviewed Extension Mod with say... a patch every week or so would be incredible.
But honestly the closest we've come is Starbow and OneGoal.
On January 08 2014 20:00 Topdoller wrote: I dont understand why Blizzard dont create an official fork of this game, with a different rule set, and different units. They could use units that never made it into the game and remove some that cause issues.
If they made it free to play it could be a permanent beta until it was at the point of being ready to be released for E-Sports.
Most of units are already there so cost wise it would take to much manpower to maintain. This way radical changes could be made and tested thoroughly
Here's an idea for the community. Make that fork yourselves then talk tournament organizers not involved with WCS that hosting paid tournaments for it would be a good idea. That would cause people to flock to it and gain the mod interest.
2.1 is literally giving you the tools necessary to do this. A SC2 fork released as a constantly reviewed Extension Mod with say... a patch every week or so would be incredible.
But honestly the closest we've come is Starbow and OneGoal.
Please, the community has tried to make changes of their own but nothing gets done without Blizzard. You may not know it, but a very long time ago, I think mid 2012 a map maker and former mod Barrin, made a very long and detailed Thread about the fundamental differences in economies between BW and SC2, how the 3 bases to max out model of SC2 was promoting the creation of deathballs and uninteresting gameplay, and he made a set of new maps with 6 minerals and 2 gas.
The thread got like 100 pages worth of discussions on the matter and even spawned a small tournament with Ganzi and Rainbow involved. Guess what happened, nothing that's what. People don't have the leverage to get anything done on their own. You can't pitch this sort of idea to a organization like DH, MLG or ESL, because they need to see some return on investment, for hosting your tournament/version of the game, that you can't guarantee. And few people have the capital to run a tournament of their own for a idea that might not even work out in the end.
So stop with that nonsense, the only way we can get things done is with Blizzard's help, at least as far as the SC2 scene goes.
This is why Ret is so disappointed, I for one also echo is sentiments, I love this game, I love playing it and, with the limited opportunities I get, I love competing in it. But at the same time, whenever you see a game like RorO vs Stats or Hydra vs Reality, you can't help but feel a huge sense of frustration build inside knowing that the game has such an ugly side to it and that there is nothing you can do about it, despite all your best wishes.
And it frustrates us to no end since what we've talked about are fundamental problems brought up ever since WoL beta, and nothing concrete has been done about it, only band aid fixes that end up causing other problems down the road. Worst still is when Blizzard out of the blue releases a patch like the Queen or Oracle patch, where even the pro gamers are sure its a bad idea, but they still go trough with it. Feels like having salt rubbed into the wounds, makes you question at times not only if they are even in contact with pros but if they even care about their and the rest of the community's opinions.
I'm glad to see Ret is still happy with the game and he still has a positive outlook on this whole situation. I hope he is right and that things will also change for the better in terms of SC2 design and balance.
SC2 is a waste. The only selling value are the graphics and ex-BW/WC3 pros playing it now. Though I agree on the issues on WC3, I do love it more than SC2. Dont know why, but SC2 gives a bad taste in my mouth.
On January 08 2014 06:52 ninazerg wrote: I really REALLY don't understand why all the old top foreigners don't come back and play BroodWar... SC2 isn't going to get any better. If you don't love the game by now, you're not gonna wake up tomorrow and go "Wow, this game is great today!". Yeah, they could move to some shitty MOBA game, because there is a bit of money in that arena, but BroodWar is where the love is.
I couldnt agree more... but i guess its all about the money.
This reminds me of a christian quoting the bible to an unbeliever who thinks the bible was just written by humans
lol
Edit: With the intention of proving that the bible is divine
Hehe yeah, maybe not the most rhetorical thing But if he watches it without ani-sc2 bias, and with a genuine rts interest, I hoped it could be kinda persuasive ^^
On January 08 2014 06:52 ninazerg wrote: I really REALLY don't understand why all the old top foreigners don't come back and play BroodWar... SC2 isn't going to get any better. If you don't love the game by now, you're not gonna wake up tomorrow and go "Wow, this game is great today!". Yeah, they could move to some shitty MOBA game, because there is a bit of money in that arena, but BroodWar is where the love is.
I couldnt agree more... but i guess its all about the money.
At the end of the day, love doesn't pay the bills. I do genuinely believe that a lot of pro gamers still love SC2, but I equally believe that they at times can get very frustrated with it and they wish their voices where heard and something be done. If they didn't love it this much a lot more would have quit and switched by now.
On January 08 2014 06:11 Liquid`Ret wrote: I talk on skype everyday with friends and other progamers about the things that are silly about the game. For hours and hours we theorize about what could be better how, balance whining barely comes into it, as long as noone just lost a game.
What is keeping you and other pro's from having a debate about this? If you can already point out what you think needs to change then we are a good step in the way of fixing it.
To be a bit more blunt.
If I went to the doctor and said: "It hurts". How easy would it be for the doctor to guess what is wrong if thats all I tell him?
If I on the other hand go: "My foot hurt, yesterday I tripped and there was a snap sound from one of my toes." I think its pretty easy to tell that it have broken a toe, and we can then quickly check that out first.
So spill your guts. What have you been theorizing about that go make SC2 a better game? Blizzard can't guess what you want to have fixed. I do agree though that Blizzard could still improve on the 2 way communication.
When MSL, OSL, BW Proleague died and StarCraft I teams disbanded/migrated to other games a part of me died.
To topic, I don't think MBS, smartcasting, unlimited selections are bad or need to be banned in order to create a good RTS like Broodwar. It just takes another approach.
SC2 is like Matrix II or any other sequel of a great movie, it cannot help itself, it cannot surpass it's predecessor and will fade in memory. You cannot create a game where you want to have a part of old game but also want to have new features and new gameplay. It's a failing approach.
What is the problem of SC2? SC2 doesn't produce enough interesting, thrilling games(put any adjective you like) compared to Broodwar. Broodwar produced a lot of different exciting game not only on pro level, but also on D- Iccup Level. Rather we could say the games were all different throughout all D-C-B-A-pro levels, but many of them where interesting.
You see a BW noob can post a blog with FFA or 4v4 game which was super fun... and he wouldn't even have to play 10 games to pick a good one.
Everyone scared of Deathballs and bs like that? Wtf, just create more units with AOE, and there will be instanly more small scale fights and artilery usage. Anyone played KKND2? I mean that game wasn't balanced at all, but it just wasn't easy to win by mass units + attack move.. why? Your units would have got owned by AOE damage, hell even turrets had great AOE damage = gg 50 stacked flying mutas raping bases.
something like this might be worth temporarily messing around with..
There are a million ways to discuss changes or patches, there is no one solution readily available - what matters is that there are plenty of people out there willing to give feedback and want to see changes for the better, we need to find a way to cooperate with blizzard and see if we can make a positive influence on where the game is going.
The idea in that link is a very good - basically it's showing how mapmakers can create maps in such a way that six bases with 12-14 workers would be exponentially better than three bases with 24-28 workers. This is an idea that needs no additional support from Blizzard that they would be forced to incorporate into their own maps if tournaments and players began to adopt - just like Blizzard cut out (mostly) their gold mineral bases when the community began playing on modified versions without them.
Right now, there's not much incentive (for a Protoss let's say) to mass expand when they have a lead - or to continue to try and compound their map control with more bases. In fact, it can detrimental to do such because now you just have more bases to defend and more surface area to be harassed/attacked. If there was a real economic benefit to doing so I think this would open up the game to more guerrilla tactics in order to win/get advantages and there would be less deathballs.
EPT
