"In the Starcraft universe, I'm glad knowing that Blizzard screwed themselves
along the years and have become more of a parasite on their own game Starcraft Brood War.
A game that they tried to kill as a sacrifice on the altar of Blizzard's greed and control
without enough vision behind other than: give me your money you stupid client.
I control tournaments any way I want and you will like it ! "
Blizzard you have created most of the games I loved in my life but there's only two I paid for:
"Starcraft Brood War " and "Starcraft 2" .
A year after I had my first job, six years into my nineteen years of
love relationship with Starcraft I wanted to buy a legitimate copy of the game
because I could finally afford games, but Starcraft 2 was announced so I waited.
I bought Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty at least one year before I had a computer good enough to play it on.
And here we are today:me despising the company that made a game that has influenced
and changed my life longer than any woman I've loved so far and Blizzard a money making machine
that screwed themselves out of the Starcraft Universe that they created.
I've received an email from Blizzard asking me to support the current SC 2 scene by purchasing the
war chest.
Some more context: I have purchased each "Zerg" war chest since you started.Not the full one because the value was not there for me.
I didn't buy the last one yet, though I might buy it before Blizzcon.
If you want me to keep "supporting" (read: give Blizzard my money so that Blizzard can decide who gets what )
the SC 2 scene, I have some requests:
Some are suggestions, some are mandatory, you do you and I'll decide how I spend my money.
I hate it when :
- commentators tell me what to think:Fuck you, I have a brain and I use it
- too often commentators interrupt each other under the fake pretense of excitement.
- Commentators try to speak as fast or faster than the game is happening.It's beyond stupid.My eyes can see
a lot faster and send a lot more information than a commentator can transmit with words
- to me commentators are annoying as hell when they advise the players. Everybody watching, including the commentators
knows that the players even the weakest ones are a lot better than the casters. Anyone playing the game has a win /loss
ratio around 50 %. And that means even with their best strategies no one is entitled to absolute opinions.
The only acceptable absolutes are the tournament results.
I dislike:
- the lack of respect directed visibly to anyone making the sc 2 scene possible: free viewers, paying subscribers ,
people making to make the event possible (observer,admins,camera men and so on)
- the hyped introduction at the beginning of each game.Players should be announced all the same way, on an official tone.
- sloppy observing. A good observer has a huge impact on the quality of the stream. I am kind of surprised that
by now the new maps don't have strategic camera placement easily available for the observer.
Besides not being able to provide predictable experiences, the lack of observing is one of the main reasons
I don't watch community organised matches.
- when casters reference too much another game rather than the one that is happening.
I don't care that's what the in between breaks can be used for, comparing strategies of the same player against different opponents. With everyone talking so fast casters sometimes repeat the same information at least 5 times in one hour.
I like to see:
- smug casters when the race they are byassed towards wins in a "cheesy" manner. Be a bit byassed towards a race. That's awesome.Have one favorite player per tournament.
- casters understanding they are not the show but they are part of an orchestra.The game is the show .
I am not naive enough to expect that my message will make a significant impact.
However when I'm writing this, it's my birth day and my interactions with incontrol, on this site have reduced the amount of money I put into the SC 2 scene by a lot and I want to be able to say to myself later that I did as much as I could.
We'll see.
For anyone reading this far, I don't plan to read the comments to my post directed at me.
I don't care .
But if you also have a message for Blizzard related to SC you're welcome to use this thread and let them know what's on your mind.
Blizzard if you want more of my money to go directly to you, how about you look into these things:
- a randomized through my owned caster voices button. Because if I have to manually select all the time
which voice pack plays , why the fuck would I buy more announcers ?
- an APM graph added at the end of my games because I want to see that
- a graph with my MMR over time , that I can look at anytime I want
- After a game if I want to check my opponent's info, how about the first screen I see is his current rank
and division because that's all I really care about.
- can you not raise my MMR if the game ends in less than "15" (just a suggestion) sec and no damage is done ?
One more thing : I know this is hard but for 5 $ / month I would ladder in a Starcraft Universe where various factions
battle for supremacy.
And at the end of the year the result is decided by the total amount of MMR the respective faction owns at the end
of each season from its active players.
Factions can be official SC 2 teams, private or public clans, any active player should be able to create one.
When a player joins a faction you loose the default one that means nothing that we have in play right now.
Blizzard if you take nothing else from this: there is at least one person willing to "suport" the scene more.
I just happen to have expectation from the services I pay for and no one but me decides how I spend my money.
At least that's the illusion of control I think I have.
All the best in your future endeavors !
A fan of your games but a hardened critic of your business model ,