On August 24 2010 01:32 daz wrote: Sc2 right now is way easier for new and shitty players then sc1. In sc2 you can compete with decent players after having played only a couple weeks, where in bw it would take like 6 months to a year.
You're just using a different standard for what being "decent" is. Is it being a D player in iCCup / 500 level diamond? C player in iCCup / 800 level diamond? B player in iCCup / 1000 level diamond?
As long as you're not using double standards for what being 'decent' means, I don't think it is significantly easier or harder to reach a certain skill level in either game. Of course, if you define a 'decent' BW player as someone who's a C rank in iCCup, and a 'decent' SC2 player as someone in a Gold division or better... then yeah, reaching that skill level is easier in SC2.
First off let me say that I love BW, I still watch OSL, MSL and SPL because they are fun, exciting and show technical play. BW is a very technical game that requires a tremendous amount of focus and knowledge as well as considerable hand speed. Hell, I played 1600 games of BW from August 2009 to May 2010 training specifically to play in CSL, BW consumed an eighth of my time (3 hours a day)!
However, this thread is filled with a lot of assumptions and comments that don't really make sense to me. I am not trying to flame or be mean in the way I address these issues so please excuse my frustrations.
A) there is this feeling that somehow SC2 is easier than SC1. I arguably think this is literally the worst notion ever! The reason that people lose to players with lower apm/skill/whatever-you-want-to-point-at is because they don't understand the game as well! In PvP I would regularly lose to my practice partner with 120 apm against my 180 because he understood the game and had a better sense of strategy and timings for BW. So if you hop on to SC2 and lose a game to some slow person who has played more than you, that is a result of their greater knowledge of the game! Now admittedly, SC2 is more user friendly with easier control group settings, left hand keyboard hotkey placement, and logical worker rally points BUT I have yet to see ANYONE play the game at a perfect level... not even the glorious Nada (see his show-matches against TLO). So this notion that "oh SC2 is easy because people beat me who aren't as fast or haven't played as much SC1 as me" is complete and total bunk because I am pretty damn sure we have all been beaten by someone who is slower or less mechanical but has great game sense and strategy!
B) The idea that the Koreans aren't accepting SC2 because they "know" BW is superior is also pure insanity! Have you all ever heard of oGs!? Great ex-BW players are immediately hopping on board with SC2! The release of SC2 was a HUGE deal in Korea and the only reason that BW still has such a large market is because of KESPA's stranglehold on the industry in Korea! Beyond that the new GSL league forming IN KOREA (a little over a month after SC2 was released) is on a scale unprecedented in size, prize pool and international participation! If anything, SC2 is growing at a rate that makes BW seem silly.
C) Imbalance in SC2 is also a point I have to laugh at. The game has been officially released for less than a month and many of you posters are saying "IT WILL NEVER BE ANYTHING BECAUSE IT IS DESIGNED POORLY". HELLO!? Were you there for pre-Bw SC1!!!???? Are you even aware of the insanity of your statement!? The perfection of balance in BW took YEARS of both map developers, game designers and creative players working at a fast pace! Look at SC2 right now and compare it to the point at which SC1 was released and you will see that SC2 is clearly at a level of balance VASTLY superior to SC1! Additionally, the idea that T is so strong that all you need to do is mass early units is complete and utter stupidity! Look at the IEM tournament and you will see that 2 of the top four players were Zerg! Literally HALF the zerg in the tournament wound up finishing in the top four! Beyond that, does anyone remember when Bisu initially developed his Dt/Sair build and demolished Z causing a Revolution in the PvZ matchup? Because I am pretty sure that during the first few months of that, P had unbelievable win rates against Z that would dwarf the current SLIGHT favor in SC2 TvZ.
Now, I bet some of you are absolutely livid at this post, at me, and at SC2 right about now BUT I want to leave you with one final thing. I love BW and I even go on once or twice a week to practice my BOs, get in a game or two, and practice my full hand extensions. The game is amazing, fabulous and will go down as THE RTS of ALL time (no SC2 if no SC1). But, putting your head in the sand and not even trying to understand SC2 and the implications for it's rise to power as an E-Sports machine is literally betraying the work of OUR heroes like Boxer, Iloveoov, and all the other great BW players who worked harder than anyone amongst us to make E-Sports into what it is in Korea and what it can potentially be with the release of SC2.
First off let me say that I love BW, I still watch OSL, MSL and SPL because they are fun, exciting and show technical play. BW is a very technical game that requires a tremendous amount of focus and knowledge as well as considerable hand speed. Hell, I played 1600 games of BW from August 2009 to May 2010 training specifically to play in CSL, BW consumed an eighth of my time (3 hours a day)!
However, this thread is filled with a lot of assumptions and comments that don't really make sense to me. I am not trying to flame or be mean in the way I address these issues so please excuse my frustrations.
A) there is this feeling that somehow SC2 is easier than SC1. I arguably think this is literally the worst notion ever! The reason that people lose to players with lower apm/skill/whatever-you-want-to-point-at is because they don't understand the game as well! In PvP I would regularly lose to my practice partner with 120 apm against my 180 because he understood the game and had a better sense of strategy and timings for BW. So if you hop on to SC2 and lose a game to some slow person who has played more than you, that is a result of their greater knowledge of the game! Now admittedly, SC2 is more user friendly with easier control group settings, left hand keyboard hotkey placement, and logical worker rally points BUT I have yet to see ANYONE play the game at a perfect level... not even the glorious Nada (see his show-matches against TLO). So this notion that "oh SC2 is easy because people beat me who aren't as fast or haven't played as much SC1 as me" is complete and total bunk because I am pretty damn sure we have all been beaten by someone who is slower or less mechanical but has great game sense and strategy!
B) The idea that the Koreans aren't accepting SC2 because they "know" BW is superior is also pure insanity! Have you all ever heard of oGs!? Great ex-BW players are immediately hopping on board with SC2! The release of SC2 was a HUGE deal in Korea and the only reason that BW still has such a large market is because of KESPA's stranglehold on the industry in Korea! Beyond that the new GSL league forming IN KOREA (a little over a month after SC2 was released) is on a scale unprecedented in size, prize pool and international participation! If anything, SC2 is growing at a rate that makes BW seem silly.
C) Imbalance in SC2 is also a point I have to laugh at. The game has been officially released for less than a month and many of you posters are saying "IT WILL NEVER BE ANYTHING BECAUSE IT IS DESIGNED POORLY". HELLO!? Were you there for pre-Bw SC1!!!???? Are you even aware of the insanity of your statement!? The perfection of balance in BW took YEARS of both map developers, game designers and creative players working at a fast pace! Look at SC2 right now and compare it to the point at which SC1 was released and you will see that SC2 is clearly at a level of balance VASTLY superior to SC1! Additionally, the idea that T is so strong that all you need to do is mass early units is complete and utter stupidity! Look at the IEM tournament and you will see that 2 of the top four players were Zerg! Literally HALF the zerg in the tournament wound up finishing in the top four! Beyond that, does anyone remember when Bisu initially developed his Dt/Sair build and demolished Z causing a Revolution in the PvZ matchup? Because I am pretty sure that during the first few months of that, P had unbelievable win rates against Z that would dwarf the current SLIGHT favor in SC2 TvZ.
Now, I bet some of you are absolutely livid at this post, at me, and at SC2 right about now BUT I want to leave you with one final thing. I love BW and I even go on once or twice a week to practice my BOs, get in a game or two, and practice my full hand extensions. The game is amazing, fabulous and will go down as THE RTS of ALL time (no SC2 if no SC1). But, putting your head in the sand and not even trying to understand SC2 and the implications for it's rise to power as an E-Sports machine is literally betraying the work of OUR heroes like Boxer, Iloveoov, and all the other great BW players who worked harder than anyone amongst us to make E-Sports into what it is in Korea and what it can potentially be with the release of SC2.
<3
my god I can TASTE the passion in this post haha
well put, but honestly... can this stupid thread stop popping up? I think the topic is really stupid. Flash and JD are tearing up the BW scene and anyone missing out is like missing out the best ice cream in history. Sure you might prefer popsicles instead but damn, that ice cream ^^
i know right, i get a little overzealous ive been watching it! can't wait for MSL Finals!!!! also Flash: "LOLOLOL WOOPS" Jd: "keke donglings y0" gotta love it!
I don't think anybody is calling it easier just because they lost to someone with lower apm, 'cause that would be plain retarded. People call it easier because there's less things to do than in BW due to the new AI doing a lot of things for you, resulting in less tasks to multi-task with (lol). Theoretically this would mean that SC2 has a lower skill ceiling than BW, and while yes nobody has perfected the game in all of its out-for-one-month glory it would take considerably less time for play to close in on "perfection" because of this.
No clue about your second point, haven't followed.
"IT WILL NEVER BE ANYTHING BECAUSE IT IS DESIGNED POORLY". HELLO!? Were you there for pre-Bw SC1!!!????
My comment was about design flaws from viewer's point of view. It's not about imbalance but about how the game looks to the viewier. In BW every unit counts. you can see every probe dying/fighting when 2/3 zerglings are harassing, you can see the difference between 5 drones surviving vs 6drones surviving. In big battles you hear every shot of the tank and you see how positioning of units is important. You can literally see what every unit is doing and how it affects the battle. In sc2 it's just ball on ball madness most of the time with shitload of workers on each base. If it weren't for a bar with unit count it would be difficult to grasp what's going on. Battles are fast encounters of balls. In BW you often have sieged tanks defending their position for several minutes while other players tries drops or surround. I am not sure if Blizzard is willing to fix sound but it's another big issue from viewer's point of view. You can't deny BW sounds 100x better...
I tried SC2, but I can't get into it. I feel that if I liked SC2, I would have liked most of the other RTS released these last 10 years (SupCom, DoW, CoH...). But I didn't, so I didn't like SC2 either.
It lacks the thing that I like the most of SCBW: Simplicity. Everything is so simple and plain, yet so engaging. Just mirror goon+zealot micro is so intense, without charges or blinks. SC2 has a ton of complications (just like all these new RTS), abilities, etc. Graphics are way more clogged and units and battles harder to understand. And we're at the first expansion. I can't even imagine what SC2's 3rd expansion will look like.
I think I'll never replace BW as the RTS for me.
About the rage towards SC2: I'm angry at SC2 because:
1) Lots and lots of people were willing to pick SC2 over SC1 no matter it's quality, just because it's newer. And if you say "we know it's a quality competitive title!" you're lying. Nobody knows that until the game is half-mastered and all of it's expansions released. And even before the beta many people wanted SC2 to replace SCBW.
2) Blizzard trying to force the SC2-> SC1 transition by claiming copyright rights over SC1 (that I hope will never fully happen).
3) One of my favourite websites, a SCBW pro-scene site, became more of a SC2-Activision Blizzard fan-site.
1) Far too many particle effects - covers up all your units, makes it impossible to spectate easily 2) Little awesome control (muta micro, goon vs zeals, MM vs lurker/ling/filer, etc), all the control in SC2 is just flanking (which is made less important by autosurround) and kiting. 3) Spells are far less "imba" in SC2: see storms, plaguu, swarm, irradiate, and so on, compared to fungal growth, seeker missile, SC2 storm. They're all far less game changing than the SC1 spells - meaning it's far harder to come back from a disadvantage. 4) Continuing that, easier macro means it's incredibly hard to outmacro your opponents - I can do near-perfect macro as Z, whereas I'd be hard-pushed to keep under 500 minerals in SC1. This means that, again, it's much harder to come back from a disadvantage. 5) In addition, the removal of "defenders advantage" (ie, miss-chance up hill) also pushes this - firstly, it makes it much harder to come back if your opponent attempts to make a large attack on your base, and in addition, reduces the potential for strategic placement of units - tanks on high ground were incredibly effective, likewise with other units. This gives another incentive to move out of your base - controlling the highground allows you to defend your other bases whilst harrassing because you'll need less units to defend from backstabs. 6) Blizzard are trying to force the game into ESPORTS ESPORTS ESPORTS, instead of focusing on gameplay. 7) Zerg design is just boring - where's the fun? Mass roaches, mass lings, neither are particularly fun to play with, whereas T get reapers, mauraders (lol, slow), hellions, vikings and so on and P get blink stalkers, chargelots, sentries, collosi - units which take an ounce of thought to use, whereas z units are basically designed to a-move and get back to macro. Banelings are the only particularly "skillful" zerg unit to use, although really, they're the poor zerg's reaver. 8) They didn't implement SC1 models into the editor, despite promising. 9) SC2 is popular because of it's brand fame, and people have blind faith in it because they've seen "ESPORTS!" in action, and want in on a piece of the cash and fame themselves. 10) Ball vs ball combat. How interesting to watch.
On August 24 2010 02:37 MagnusHyperion wrote: The game is amazing, fabulous and will go down as THE RTS of ALL time (no SC2 if no SC1). But, putting your head in the sand and not even trying to understand SC2 and the implications for it's rise to power as an E-Sports machine is literally betraying the work of OUR heroes like Boxer, Iloveoov, and all the other great BW players who worked harder than anyone amongst us to make E-Sports into what it is in Korea and what it can potentially be with the release of SC2. <3
This is where you lost all credibility as a BW player to me. It's quite obvious from this paragraph that you want BW to die, to be replaced. And if you've read all the replies in this thread, you'd notice that most of the people here don't CARE about SC2. They don't care about it's supposed imbalance, it's easiness or whatever. So your overly passionate post about those individuals who actually bring out those points to "prove" that BW is better than SC2 in some way is quite pointless.
The thing is, we were quite happy with our BW and we would continue to be happy about it and most of us would see SC2 as 'just another game', until SC2 started to directly interfere with BW's future (Blizzard being greedy etc.). And saying we are 'betraying' the work of Boxer and co. is, for the lack of better word, quite rude to say to us. Those people worked hard because they loved the game, not because they saw a future of ESPORTs in it. I don't know how much you are familiar with an early history of BW, but things back then were happening simply because of one reason. The passion for game, passion for BW. And the things that are happening right now are happening for the passion for "ESPORTs", or more correctly, passion to try to make money out of it. And this makes me sick. Now I know we're living in "real" world and all... but do you really think those players that formed houses where they can play BW all day long cared about money? Of course not, and whole ESPORTs/SC2 seems to be centered around that, not around the game.
And I'll finish my post with a quote from Boxer's biography - Crazy As Me:
After my encounter with Starcraft, my head was filled completely with the game, whether I was sitting or standing. I looked up the terminologies of Starcraft such as ‘zealot’ with the English-Korean dictionary that I had never used, and I fell completely into its world, saying things like, ‘Need more minerals’ when lunchtime drew near.
On August 24 2010 04:59 Garrl wrote: I dislike SC2 because:
1) Far too many particle effects - covers up all your units, makes it impossible to spectate easily 2) Little awesome control (muta micro, goon vs zeals, MM vs lurker/ling/filer, etc), all the control in SC2 is just flanking (which is made less important by autosurround) and kiting. 3) Spells are far less "imba" in SC2: see storms, plaguu, swarm, irradiate, and so on, compared to fungal growth, seeker missile, SC2 storm. They're all far less game changing than the SC1 spells - meaning it's far harder to come back from a disadvantage. 4) Continuing that, easier macro means it's incredibly hard to outmacro your opponents - I can do near-perfect macro as Z, whereas I'd be hard-pushed to keep under 500 minerals in SC1. This means that, again, it's much harder to come back from a disadvantage. 5) In addition, the removal of "defenders advantage" (ie, miss-chance up hill) also pushes this - firstly, it makes it much harder to come back if your opponent attempts to make a large attack on your base, and in addition, reduces the potential for strategic placement of units - tanks on high ground were incredibly effective, likewise with other units. This gives another incentive to move out of your base - controlling the highground allows you to defend your other bases whilst harrassing because you'll need less units to defend from backstabs. 6) Blizzard are trying to force the game into ESPORTS ESPORTS ESPORTS, instead of focusing on gameplay. 7) Zerg design is just boring - where's the fun? Mass roaches, mass lings, neither are particularly fun to play with, whereas T get reapers, mauraders (lol, slow), hellions, vikings and so on and P get blink stalkers, chargelots, sentries, collosi - units which take an ounce of thought to use, whereas z units are basically designed to a-move and get back to macro. Banelings are the only particularly "skillful" zerg unit to use, although really, they're the poor zerg's reaver. 8) They didn't implement SC1 models into the editor, despite promising. 9) SC2 is popular because of it's brand fame, and people have blind faith in it because they've seen "ESPORTS!" in action, and want in on a piece of the cash and fame themselves. 10) Ball vs ball combat. How interesting to watch.
i think this nails a lot of the things that make SC2 not as fun as BW for me, nice post :D
also I'd like to mention that the map design in SC2 sorta sucks IMO. really small maps make it that much easier to immediately kill the opponent after winning a battle (which leads to about 80% of all games ending after the 1st battle), and the design of naturals on most maps (or well all that aren't lost temple) make it way too hard to expand early leading to all sorts of lame 1-base vs 1-base games 2/3 of the time. I've had the most fun on SC2 playing games with my friends on the remake of fighting spirit lol (although I haven't played SC2 in a few weeks).
1) Far too many particle effects - covers up all your units, makes it impossible to spectate easily 2) Little awesome control (muta micro, goon vs zeals, MM vs lurker/ling/filer, etc), all the control in SC2 is just flanking (which is made less important by autosurround) and kiting. 3) Spells are far less "imba" in SC2: see storms, plaguu, swarm, irradiate, and so on, compared to fungal growth, seeker missile, SC2 storm. They're all far less game changing than the SC1 spells - meaning it's far harder to come back from a disadvantage. 4) Continuing that, easier macro means it's incredibly hard to outmacro your opponents - I can do near-perfect macro as Z, whereas I'd be hard-pushed to keep under 500 minerals in SC1. This means that, again, it's much harder to come back from a disadvantage. 5) In addition, the removal of "defenders advantage" (ie, miss-chance up hill) also pushes this - firstly, it makes it much harder to come back if your opponent attempts to make a large attack on your base, and in addition, reduces the potential for strategic placement of units - tanks on high ground were incredibly effective, likewise with other units. This gives another incentive to move out of your base - controlling the highground allows you to defend your other bases whilst harrassing because you'll need less units to defend from backstabs. 6) Blizzard are trying to force the game into ESPORTS ESPORTS ESPORTS, instead of focusing on gameplay. 7) Zerg design is just boring - where's the fun? Mass roaches, mass lings, neither are particularly fun to play with, whereas T get reapers, mauraders (lol, slow), hellions, vikings and so on and P get blink stalkers, chargelots, sentries, collosi - units which take an ounce of thought to use, whereas z units are basically designed to a-move and get back to macro. Banelings are the only particularly "skillful" zerg unit to use, although really, they're the poor zerg's reaver. 8) They didn't implement SC1 models into the editor, despite promising. 9) SC2 is popular because of it's brand fame, and people have blind faith in it because they've seen "ESPORTS!" in action, and want in on a piece of the cash and fame themselves. 10) Ball vs ball combat. How interesting to watch.
Good post. About your specific points:
2) MM vs. lurker/ling/defiler is your strongest example. Dark Swarm is a very powerful spell, which requires micro to use properly, but your opponent can also micro against it, making for a very fun and dynamic interaction; the closest you get in SC2 is running a unit away when it's targetted by the Raven's Seeker Missile, which is... well, boring by comparison. 3) Asymmetrical combat is good. It's one of the reasons why SC and BW were so fun in the first place. And yet, SC2 brought the 3 races together a lot more than I would've liked. You get players like -orb- who do marvelous things with Sentries and Force Fields, but for the most part, blob vs. blob is far too common. It's very rare to see tactically genius play turn battles and games around. 7) Agreed. I find Zerg to be an uninspiring and badly designed race.
For these reasons, I guess BW is altogether a superior game from a spectator's point of view, graphics aside.
One more point you didn't touch: No LAN. Don't know how many of you saw the IEM games, but there was this one game - IdrA vs. Sarens on Delta Quadrant, iirc - where the game had to be paused for like 5 mins. due to horrible server lag. There were also complaints about command lag by the players. What the hell, Blizzard? If that's not an eSPORTS killer, I don't know what is; and this is not the first tournament that's suffered from this problem.
A big counterpoint to all this, is that SC2 is prettier- which is actually really important as far as a spectator sport is concerned.
I play SC2 because BW's UI is just way too outdated for a casual player like me. However, I can't get into SC2's tournament scene at all. The skill level is just way too low right now compared to BW. Even Hyuk's skill is bonjwa level compared to the top SC2 players.
I tried watching some top level games. It's just way too easy for both players to get to 200/200 and they still dance around each other while their min/gas count easily goes into the thousands. It's almost like war3 with the dumb defender's advantages. I saw a Dimaga game where his opponent hit 10k minerals.
On August 24 2010 04:59 Garrl wrote: I dislike SC2 because:
1) Far too many particle effects - covers up all your units, makes it impossible to spectate easily 2) Little awesome control (muta micro, goon vs zeals, MM vs lurker/ling/filer, etc), all the control in SC2 is just flanking (which is made less important by autosurround) and kiting. 3) Spells are far less "imba" in SC2: see storms, plaguu, swarm, irradiate, and so on, compared to fungal growth, seeker missile, SC2 storm. They're all far less game changing than the SC1 spells - meaning it's far harder to come back from a disadvantage. 4) Continuing that, easier macro means it's incredibly hard to outmacro your opponents - I can do near-perfect macro as Z, whereas I'd be hard-pushed to keep under 500 minerals in SC1. This means that, again, it's much harder to come back from a disadvantage. 5) In addition, the removal of "defenders advantage" (ie, miss-chance up hill) also pushes this - firstly, it makes it much harder to come back if your opponent attempts to make a large attack on your base, and in addition, reduces the potential for strategic placement of units - tanks on high ground were incredibly effective, likewise with other units. This gives another incentive to move out of your base - controlling the highground allows you to defend your other bases whilst harrassing because you'll need less units to defend from backstabs. 6) Blizzard are trying to force the game into ESPORTS ESPORTS ESPORTS, instead of focusing on gameplay. 7) Zerg design is just boring - where's the fun? Mass roaches, mass lings, neither are particularly fun to play with, whereas T get reapers, mauraders (lol, slow), hellions, vikings and so on and P get blink stalkers, chargelots, sentries, collosi - units which take an ounce of thought to use, whereas z units are basically designed to a-move and get back to macro. Banelings are the only particularly "skillful" zerg unit to use, although really, they're the poor zerg's reaver. 8) They didn't implement SC1 models into the editor, despite promising. 9) SC2 is popular because of it's brand fame, and people have blind faith in it because they've seen "ESPORTS!" in action, and want in on a piece of the cash and fame themselves. 10) Ball vs ball combat. How interesting to watch.
On August 23 2010 11:28 Zato-1 wrote: but as far as playing the games? Starcraft 2 is not an easier game (by its very definition, it can't be; in player vs. player combat, difficulty depends on the skill of your opponent), but it's certainly more user-friendly, which I appreciate greatly.
You are not presented the same tools as in SC:BW, therefore you can't make a comparison of one to another. SC2 is plainly a different game and its easier. Why is it easier? You're given more sophisticated tools to work with. If you possess more sophisticated tools, you will have a less difficult task ahead of you when you are faced with a situation you must respond to. That's trying to compare old to new when you're working with not only a completely different set of tools, but also a completely different environment to use them in. Also based on this quote, everyone who plays SC2 is a fraction of the skill required of top BW players since even the best of the SC2 players aren't even close to the top BW players. That's not coming out of my mind, you just implied that. I'm just agreeing with it.
On August 24 2010 05:45 andrewlt wrote: I play SC2 because BW's UI is just way too outdated for a casual player like me. However, I can't get into SC2's tournament scene at all. The skill level is just way too low right now compared to BW. Even Hyuk's skill is bonjwa level compared to the top SC2 players.
I tried watching some top level games. It's just way too easy for both players to get to 200/200 and they still dance around each other while their min/gas count easily goes into the thousands. It's almost like war3 with the dumb defender's advantages. I saw a Dimaga game where his opponent hit 10k minerals.
yea the "pro" scene (not sure if we should call it pro since im not sure how many of these guys are professionals outside of idra (aka it's their main source of income) of SC2 is pretty garbage to me right now. most pro players just seem to do really cheesy all-ins and play just absolutely retarded. If even I can see how stupid a lot of the decisions these players make are, then the pro scene sucks. maybe in a year it will be better but I think the top SC2 player right now is only kinda better than me. Like I think I can take a few games off of the top SC2 player right now. that's a horrible pro scene.
On August 24 2010 05:45 andrewlt wrote: I play SC2 because BW's UI is just way too outdated for a casual player like me. However, I can't get into SC2's tournament scene at all. The skill level is just way too low right now compared to BW. Even Hyuk's skill is bonjwa level compared to the top SC2 players.
I tried watching some top level games. It's just way too easy for both players to get to 200/200 and they still dance around each other while their min/gas count easily goes into the thousands. It's almost like war3 with the dumb defender's advantages. I saw a Dimaga game where his opponent hit 10k minerals.
yea the "pro" scene (not sure if we should call it pro since im not sure how many of these guys are professionals outside of idra (aka it's their main source of income) of SC2 is pretty garbage to me right now. most pro players just seem to do really cheesy all-ins and play just absolutely retarded. If even I can see how stupid a lot of the decisions these players make are, then the pro scene sucks. maybe in a year it will be better but I think the top SC2 player right now is only kinda better than me. Like I think I can take a few games off of the top SC2 player right now. that's a horrible pro scene.
Time for Rekrul to do a SC2 version of foreigners suck?
I'm still holding out hope though that SC2 can become a great game, and Blizzard is not too stubborn to make some important changes. As it stands now, the game is not good enough. I see the potential for SC2 to be so good if Blizzard would just add/remove/change some stuff but it's not there yet.
On August 24 2010 00:20 911insidejob wrote: yeah BW is dying i think. The problem is that it was an imba game, terran was the weakest race with the lowest win percentage. now in sc2 the game is actually balanced so why continue to play an imba game as BW is?
your user name makes that statement that much less believable.
But yeah on topic: I think broodwar is gonna last until the end of the 2010-2011 proleague season before we start seeing more dramatic drops in BW players, because once the pro scene for BW is finished, I doubt that people will stay with BW for too long. =\
Actually, what makes his statement much less believable is the fact that he's a D- troglodyte who slithered from that cesspit which is the iccup forums.
Also, ppl who are quitting BW because of some fad are just stupid. The hype will be over in a while and ppl will go back to BW, imo.
Funny how he said that SC2 is a "balanced" game though..
On August 24 2010 04:22 shalafi wrote: 3) One of my favourite websites, a SCBW pro-scene site, became more of a SC2-Activision Blizzard fan-site.
This is still frustrating as hell. Of course, a lot of the folks pushing amateur SC2 over professional BW were pushing amateur BW over professional BW.
Apparently, speaking English is more important than speaking Starcraft.
On August 24 2010 05:45 andrewlt wrote: I play SC2 because BW's UI is just way too outdated for a casual player like me. However, I can't get into SC2's tournament scene at all. The skill level is just way too low right now compared to BW. Even Hyuk's skill is bonjwa level compared to the top SC2 players.
I tried watching some top level games. It's just way too easy for both players to get to 200/200 and they still dance around each other while their min/gas count easily goes into the thousands. It's almost like war3 with the dumb defender's advantages. I saw a Dimaga game where his opponent hit 10k minerals.
I guess you don't know much about WC3 then. Where timing pushes and tower rushing are your bread and butter. You really can't play a defensive game in high level WC3 (unless you're playing HU, but even then it's very hard to pull off as playing defensive game means giving away the initiative and map control, which usually leads to disaster).
Here's an example of defensive play in WC3. Still pretty entertaining if you ask me.
1) Far too many particle effects - covers up all your units, makes it impossible to spectate easily 2) Little awesome control (muta micro, goon vs zeals, MM vs lurker/ling/filer, etc), all the control in SC2 is just flanking (which is made less important by autosurround) and kiting. 3) Spells are far less "imba" in SC2: see storms, plaguu, swarm, irradiate, and so on, compared to fungal growth, seeker missile, SC2 storm. They're all far less game changing than the SC1 spells - meaning it's far harder to come back from a disadvantage. 4) Continuing that, easier macro means it's incredibly hard to outmacro your opponents - I can do near-perfect macro as Z, whereas I'd be hard-pushed to keep under 500 minerals in SC1. This means that, again, it's much harder to come back from a disadvantage. 5) In addition, the removal of "defenders advantage" (ie, miss-chance up hill) also pushes this - firstly, it makes it much harder to come back if your opponent attempts to make a large attack on your base, and in addition, reduces the potential for strategic placement of units - tanks on high ground were incredibly effective, likewise with other units. This gives another incentive to move out of your base - controlling the highground allows you to defend your other bases whilst harrassing because you'll need less units to defend from backstabs. 6) Blizzard are trying to force the game into ESPORTS ESPORTS ESPORTS, instead of focusing on gameplay. 7) Zerg design is just boring - where's the fun? Mass roaches, mass lings, neither are particularly fun to play with, whereas T get reapers, mauraders (lol, slow), hellions, vikings and so on and P get blink stalkers, chargelots, sentries, collosi - units which take an ounce of thought to use, whereas z units are basically designed to a-move and get back to macro. Banelings are the only particularly "skillful" zerg unit to use, although really, they're the poor zerg's reaver. 8) They didn't implement SC1 models into the editor, despite promising. 9) SC2 is popular because of it's brand fame, and people have blind faith in it because they've seen "ESPORTS!" in action, and want in on a piece of the cash and fame themselves. 10) Ball vs ball combat. How interesting to watch.
Good post. About your specific points:
2) MM vs. lurker/ling/defiler is your strongest example. Dark Swarm is a very powerful spell, which requires micro to use properly, but your opponent can also micro against it, making for a very fun and dynamic interaction; the closest you get in SC2 is running a unit away when it's targetted by the Raven's Seeker Missile, which is... well, boring by comparison. 3) Asymmetrical combat is good. It's one of the reasons why SC and BW were so fun in the first place. And yet, SC2 brought the 3 races together a lot more than I would've liked. You get players like -orb- who do marvelous things with Sentries and Force Fields, but for the most part, blob vs. blob is far too common. It's very rare to see tactically genius play turn battles and games around. 7) Agreed. I find Zerg to be an uninspiring and badly designed race.
For these reasons, I guess BW is altogether a superior game from a spectator's point of view, graphics aside.
One more point you didn't touch: No LAN. Don't know how many of you saw the IEM games, but there was this one game - IdrA vs. Sarens on Delta Quadrant, iirc - where the game had to be paused for like 5 mins. due to horrible server lag. There were also complaints about command lag by the players. What the hell, Blizzard? If that's not an eSPORTS killer, I don't know what is; and this is not the first tournament that's suffered from this problem.
A big counterpoint to all this, is that SC2 is prettier- which is actually really important as far as a spectator sport is concerned.
Just read Garrl's post. Very matter-of-fact, and I agree with it completely.
Wanted to add to the "no LAN"-point -- it's completely ridiculous that everything has to go through their server. The five minute pause is one thing, but how about Nada getting disced vs littleguy or w/e his name is? His strategy had been revealed and they had to restart the whole match. In the end Nada lost, iirc.. they want to be a part of ESPORTS!!11ONEONE and they expect this kind of shit to be OK in money tournaments??
Also, SC2 might be "prettier", but I don't see how that is important in a "spectator sport"? If I want to see something "pretty", I'll go look at the fucking Mona Lisa.. if I want to see skill in an RTS game, I'll turn on the 2004 EVER OSL Finals. Aesthetics is not what makes a competitive sport great for the spectator; the proficiency of the competitors involved does.
EPT
