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I disagree with people saying that to be exciting the strategies need to be new and fresh. Take a look at football, soccer, tennis, any professional sport, they do NOT have new strategies every time they play, in fact they do the same things game in and game out and people STILL find it interesting. The real interest comes from seeing sports people do things that normal people CAN'T do, seeing soccer players make amazing kicks and saves, tennis players serving at ridiculous speeds etc. etc.
The link with eSports here is the amazing multi-task and macro of today's progamers. It's not like you see professional sports teams running unorthodox strategies, because the meta-game (in most any game you care to mention) is so heavily defined and there's pretty much nothing short of total upheaval that could shake this up.
I'm sure in the first few years after soccer was 'invented' there were plenty of crazy strategies, but these games didn't become mainstream or well recognised until well after the meta-game had settled down, whereas starcraft is only just reaching that point (it's still not quite there), it was thrust into the spotlight a year or two after it came out and the game was and is still relatively not well understood. I think gamers and fans got used to this constant meta-game shift and came to expect it, but now it's not happening as the game's basically been figured out they're having problems adapting.
I also think fans found these constant shifts exciting because new strategies, build orders and unit compositions are highly visible, while things like macro and multitask are hard to quantify. In soccer you literally see the goalkeeper pull off an amazing save, you see his whole body work in tandem to do something no normal human being could do, but in starcraft you don't see the progamer constantly flicking back and forth between macro and micro, how fast they actually play, what they are ACTUALLY doing. Instead you see the outcomes of these actions, which doesn't seem that amazing to casual fans because they don't understand the amazing skill it takes to do what they are doing because they've never tried it themselves, whereas in a sport they see a sportsperson do something and immediately know "there's no way I would be able to do something like that" and are impressed.
I believe this could be remedied by showing FPViews more often and commentators emphasising just how hard it is to do what the progamers are doing.
Edit: Editted for formatting and less tl;dr-ness
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wow thats really sad about starcraft
do u think boxer and tasteless are tomodachi (friends) ? like i can imagine them having some bento (lunch) together after a long hard day fighting frieza and playin starcraft xD
seriously tasteless is so bick i hope gom comes back some day
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China will own the world in SC2
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Needs more FBH ceremonies.
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Kespa killed everything obviously.
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Well it was a bit expected. When you see repetitive shows bringing back old progamers in a desperate attempt to attract fans, the end result is mostly a pathetic show with people that we love totally out of shape getting savaged, and it's normal. This is a proof of a lack of creativity. Kespa acted a bit like things were already granted. But if it was really the case you wouldn't need to call back Chrh or H.O.T-Forever.
Now I'm not sure about the replays guilty thing.
I believe the pro maps are mainly the problem. When you see the maps today like Fighting Spirit, what's up with it? Maps don't really give us a damn difficulty or challenge, it's all about defending and expanding. The only ones that really made it throw since 2001, are the 1v1 maps, and thanks to blue storm, destination. There is almost no cliff at all, no more island maps, because a legend said it was an advantage for protoss. Now you have almost every time an easy b3 to take, there is no more maps with lack of mineral or gas on b2. What kind of gameplay at the end do you expect? Flash's gameplay, ok it's perfect to see, but it doesn't show that much entertainment since the winner just run over his opponent 90% of the time.
Now take a look at maps like "Jungle Story" "Neo Blaze" "New No Way Out" or even "Showdown", these are maps that produce creativity. What kind of ultra macro oriented gameplay can you make on these?
We shouldn't pay so much attention to replays or players getting boring through time, but mostly to the ones that make the playground.
And today playground is a bit shitty. Macro oriented game isn't funny at all, and it doesn't really prove that much things expect that you are good in macro management.
And i really hate this bad tendency that grew through years to degrade players that apparently can win only with what so called "cheese". These are strategies. There is no standard game-play, true win or fake win. Now it's just about the ego, and it's leading Starcraft nowhere.
thanks for reading.
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On December 15 2009 04:01 ondik wrote:
The replay bashing is right but you have to see also the other side of the coin - thanks to replays the skill level development is SO MUCH higher than it would be without them.
yeah but so what? It's not like advancement in medicine where absolute increase in skill actually pays off. In competitive games its all relative, I'd rather sacrifice some overall-skill level for more intense games and fun with more varied depth in skill level
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On December 15 2009 15:50 nataziel wrote:
I disagree with people saying that to be exciting the strategies need to be new and fresh. Take a look at football, soccer, tennis, any professional sport, they do NOT have new strategies every time they play, in fact they do the same things game in and game out and people STILL find it interesting. The real interest comes from seeing sports people do things that normal people CAN'T do, seeing soccer players make amazing kicks and saves, tennis players serving at ridiculous speeds etc. etc.
The link with eSports here is the amazing multi-task and macro of today's progamers. It's not like you see professional sports teams running unorthodox strategies, because the meta-game (in most any game you care to mention) is so heavily defined and there's pretty much nothing short of total upheaval that could shake this up.
I'm sure in the first few years after soccer was 'invented' there were plenty of crazy strategies, but these games didn't become mainstream or well recognised until well after the meta-game had settled down, whereas starcraft is only just reaching that point (it's still not quite there), it was thrust into the spotlight a year or two after it came out and the game was and is still relatively not well understood. I think gamers and fans got used to this constant meta-game shift and came to expect it, but now it's not happening as the game's basically been figured out they're having problems adapting.
I also think fans found these constant shifts exciting because new strategies, build orders and unit compositions are highly visible, while things like macro and multitask are hard to quantify. In soccer you literally see the goalkeeper pull off an amazing save, you see his whole body work in tandem to do something no normal human being could do, but in starcraft you don't see the progamer constantly flicking back and forth between macro and micro, how fast they actually play, what they are ACTUALLY doing. Instead you see the outcomes of these actions, which doesn't seem that amazing to casual fans because they don't understand the amazing skill it takes to do what they are doing because they've never tried it themselves, whereas in a sport they see a sportsperson do something and immediately know "there's no way I would be able to do something like that" and are impressed.
I believe this could be remedied by showing FPViews more often and commentators emphasising just how hard it is to do what the progamers are doing.
Edit: Editted for formatting and less tl;dr-ness
points made.
But you see, seeing physical sports doing amazing feat gives me orgasm.
I won't say amazing macro give me any. So E-sport can't truly classify as sport because the pure mechanic aspect is not as orgasmistic as you claim.
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Hopefully TL won't die...
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On December 15 2009 04:24 John49ers wrote:
Real talk Boxer. I can't help but feel a little down after reading this. IMO a good start would be to hire Artosis and Tasteless and others qualified as full time commentators for proleauge and individual leagues.
i agree 100% and i can't understand why they haven't done this yet
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i agree 100% and i can't understand why they haven't done this yet
Well pretty simple, I think most of the biggest sponsor are firm working mainly in Korea, meaning they have almost nothing to gain short term with appealing to nerd foreign fans.
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On December 15 2009 17:20 evanthebouncy! wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 15:50 nataziel wrote:
I disagree with people saying that to be exciting the strategies need to be new and fresh. Take a look at football, soccer, tennis, any professional sport, they do NOT have new strategies every time they play, in fact they do the same things game in and game out and people STILL find it interesting. The real interest comes from seeing sports people do things that normal people CAN'T do, seeing soccer players make amazing kicks and saves, tennis players serving at ridiculous speeds etc. etc.
The link with eSports here is the amazing multi-task and macro of today's progamers. It's not like you see professional sports teams running unorthodox strategies, because the meta-game (in most any game you care to mention) is so heavily defined and there's pretty much nothing short of total upheaval that could shake this up.
I'm sure in the first few years after soccer was 'invented' there were plenty of crazy strategies, but these games didn't become mainstream or well recognised until well after the meta-game had settled down, whereas starcraft is only just reaching that point (it's still not quite there), it was thrust into the spotlight a year or two after it came out and the game was and is still relatively not well understood. I think gamers and fans got used to this constant meta-game shift and came to expect it, but now it's not happening as the game's basically been figured out they're having problems adapting.
I also think fans found these constant shifts exciting because new strategies, build orders and unit compositions are highly visible, while things like macro and multitask are hard to quantify. In soccer you literally see the goalkeeper pull off an amazing save, you see his whole body work in tandem to do something no normal human being could do, but in starcraft you don't see the progamer constantly flicking back and forth between macro and micro, how fast they actually play, what they are ACTUALLY doing. Instead you see the outcomes of these actions, which doesn't seem that amazing to casual fans because they don't understand the amazing skill it takes to do what they are doing because they've never tried it themselves, whereas in a sport they see a sportsperson do something and immediately know "there's no way I would be able to do something like that" and are impressed.
I believe this could be remedied by showing FPViews more often and commentators emphasising just how hard it is to do what the progamers are doing.
Edit: Editted for formatting and less tl;dr-ness points made. But you see, seeing physical sports doing amazing feat gives me orgasm. I won't say amazing macro give me any. So E-sport can't truly classify as sport because the pure mechanic aspect is not as orgasmistic as you claim.
Comparing sports to e-sports is like comparing apples to oranges.
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And i really hate this bad tendency that grew through years to degrade players that apparently can win only with what so called "cheese". These are strategies. There is no standard gameplay, true win or fake win. Now it's just about the ego, and it's leading starcraft nowhere.
I completely agree with everything you said.
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This:
On December 15 2009 05:59 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I think that:
1- It's good that e-sport is still "small" and remains like that. Bigger it will be, more standardized and rationnal/safe will be the players. Money has killed many many sports. Look at fencing. It was so exciting fourty years ago, and now it sucks hard and deep.
2- Boxer is sour. I love this guy, but it sounds like "I'm not good anymore, so I find a reason: it's because everything sucks". Seing Flash or Stork is as entertaining than seing Boxer or Nada six years ago. The fact that standart play has become more and more refined makes the game more subtle. Ok. Before you had crazy stuff happening all the time. But now, you can see 15 seconds timing difference having a huge impact, and for hardcore fans, that's damn exciting too.
I don't know...
and... this:
On December 15 2009 06:16 0neder wrote:
Ok, sorry for double post, but I thought of some ideas off the top of my head.
1 - Remove the race restrictions in ProLeague. Less emphasis on fairness and more emphasis on drama. Team Branding will become synonomous with race mixtures - more personality. What if one team's starting lineup was all Zerg? All Terran? We already have this to a lesser degree with some teams, like famous SKT1 Terrans. Capitalize on it.
2 - Set up an official international web site in partnership with Blizzard that will bring the gap between the game players / enthusiasts / customizers and the casual fans. Viewing, news, public forums for both ends of the spectrum? Maybe this is what the browser form of Battle.net should be?
3 - Keep entrance free or minimal, but add concessions and amenities to enhance the experience.
4 - Permanent, durable seating for higher comfort and perceived value.
5 - Wider variety of matches besides 1v1 standard. Include UMS games, fun twists, 2v2s, FFAs, etc. More team maps. What if they had 4v4s - entire teams vs each other?
6 - Let players type for pete's sake. This could be linked to a dialogue text easily visible by viewers. Humor is something broadcast SC needs more of.
7 - Let Starcraft 2 replace SC1 with better graphics and friendlier viewing features.
These pretty much sum up what I think about this. Boxer is one man, and he can only see so much, so maybe his perspective is limited on this, even though he's the man that started it all. I'd like to see more 2:2, and perhaps some professional UMS/3:3/4:4.
We need more 2:2 maps like Empathy or Iron Curtain. (But really, we just need 2:2 back in Proleague or something.)
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On December 15 2009 15:50 nataziel wrote:
I disagree with people saying that to be exciting the strategies need to be new and fresh. Take a look at football, soccer, tennis, any professional sport, they do NOT have new strategies every time they play, in fact they do the same things game in and game out and people STILL find it interesting. The real interest comes from seeing sports people do things that normal people CAN'T do, seeing soccer players make amazing kicks and saves, tennis players serving at ridiculous speeds etc. etc.
Exactly.
The difference is that you actually see the tennis player all the time. Computer games can easily become too unpersonal for a bystander, especially if you don't know anything about the players.
And in all honesty there is usually quite a boring and slow part of early SC nowadays which isn't that exciting.
SC needs high APM and the able to multitask like a monster, because those things make people go "whoa!". A slower game will die within a short period of time unfortunately
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comparing esport with soccer is ridiculous
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On December 15 2009 06:07 0neder wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2009 05:59 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Before you had crazy stuff happening all the time. But now, you can see 15 seconds timing difference having a huge impact, and for hardcore fans, that's damn exciting too.
This is the point. Catering to the hardcore fans will not grow pro gaming. It is catering to the casual fan and the non-fan while maintaining intrest of the hardcore fan that will grow pro gaming. Blue Oceans, boys. Maybe I should design a business plan for E-Sports... That would be fun.
I started watching Starcraft two years ago. I found it amazing, although they were not going for probe rush / one base battlecruisers / broodling attack every game. The game today is not boring.
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I think Proleauge format is one of the main problems (aside from their *stadiums*).
It's not delivering enough exciting matches or at least not enough matches between players people really want to see. If I see SKT1 vs KT or OZ I want to actually see Bisu/Flash/Jaedong duking it out between each other, I don't want to see JD/Bisu/Flash rape some scrub, compared to them and their proleauge performance, and then maybe have the luck that they face each other in an Ace match... If their coaches don't send Killer or some other WTF player...
My rules would *force* positions on players:
Players with best records would allways play game 3.
Second best players would always play game 1.
Third-Players would allways play Game 2.
The losers would play Game 4.
ACE match would have to be someone who played in the 4 games before.
Maps would be random and not known before.
If you got 2 players with the same record your free to position them as you want, your opponent won't know who he will face before the actual game. First 3 games of each new season the positions would be determined by Kespa-Rank and the proleauge record is resetted as far as positioning goes.
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On December 15 2009 20:11 emucxg wrote:
comparing esport with soccer is ridiculous
How so? I'm just saying that on a physical level, casual fans can't understand how hard what progamers are doing is because they can't actually see them doing it. This is why it's a lot harder to get into and understand a game of starcraft than an actual physical contest like soccer or any other physical sport you can mention, not to also mention the tactics and mindgames that go into every strategy, the existence of concepts like timing windows and such.
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Yeah, it was great when Boxer would drop a tank on a little ledge and call it a "strategy". Or micro 6 marines after a drop for 5 minutes without paying any attention to macro. That sure was exciting!
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EPT
