EPTThe Problem With Esports - Page 6
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Geniuszerg
Canada454 Posts
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
Sports are played in real life. Video games are not. You play video games through an engine that has specific limitations. If new things are invented, your engine can't handle them or incorporate them into the game. This requires games to have sequels, or else they will get incredibly dull. All sports have evolved immensely, but they're still being played with the same basic "engine", if you want to compare them to a video game. In 50 years, when we can all play video games and control things with our minds and do crazy shit in a virtual world, it would be incredibly archaic and basically a waste of time to use so much effort on an interface that's incredibly old even for today's standards. These are the kinds of problems e-sports face. The problem with your reasoning is that you've equated "getting back into an established scene" (aka playing on iccup) with "being accessible to casuals". A random basketball player can't just go play in the top gym league in the city, which is essentially what iccup is. That doesn't mean basketball isn't accessible to casuals though. Learning the rather intuitive basics of playing any sport is much, much easier than learning the basics of BW, especially in our culture. BW has an incredibly outdated interface that makes everything a complete pain in the ass. 99% of people would play it and immediately quit upon seeing how difficult it is to do the simplest tasks when compared to any other current-day game. This is the kind of inaccessibility that BW has. | ||
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roadrunner_sc
United States1220 Posts
On September 30 2010 14:46 Stratos_speAr wrote: The problem that we have with comparing e-sports to sports is the medium in which the event is played. Sports are played in real life. Video games are not. You play video games through an engine that has specific limitations. If new things are invented, your engine can't handle them or incorporate them into the game. This requires games to have sequels, or else they will get incredibly dull. All sports have evolved immensely, but they're still being played with the same basic "engine", if you want to compare them to a video game. In 50 years, when we can all play video games and control things with our minds and do crazy shit in a virtual world, it would be incredibly archaic and basically a waste of time to use so much effort on an interface that's incredibly old even for today's standards. These are the kinds of problems e-sports face. I can see what you're saying. Part of the appeal of sports originates from its constant evolution. Things are much more dynamic in the real world. Football plays evolve. Team dynamics evolve. Personal skills evolve( technique, shooting % , etc etc). Technology evolves ( better ratchets, running shoes). Best yet, how each game turn out can be completely unexpected, teams/underdogs often amazing plays that upset the most expert of predictions. What I want to challenge is that, despite being restricted to a set engine, bw has incredible depth, which more than compensates for its limitations. This depth is profound enough that, for a decade now, players have been continuously discovering and redefining aspects of this engine, significantly changing the game in ways similar to other sports. Forget the countless strategies, differing timings and counters over the years. Forget the ever changing map pools that alters the racial balance. The greatest part about BW is the emergence of new players that completely revolutionize how we understand and approach the game. Who, just when they seem invincible, are countered and completely crushed by the next guy. Is this the same dynamic nature we see in "real-life" sports? Instead of better plays, we have more complex strategies and more precise timings. Instead of personal skills, we have sharper mechanics and better macro. Even in terms of technological change, I can argue that incorporating underused units like valks in tvz ( queens vice versa), signifies modern day improvements in the game. And old-school players can still upset newer players through mind games, better strategies, and simple pure grit. I consider their comebacks no less epic than any other sport. Anyway, sport or not, since its inception as a new spectator "sport," bw has shown enough evolutions that not only match, but eclipse many other competitive games I've see. I'm not so worried about players losing innovation ( they never have in the past), nor any particular players "solving" the game ( Flash will slow down one day, everyone does). If marketing schemes and outside politics doesn't kill this e-sport, the bw league itself isn't going to die out. | ||
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Raz0r
United States287 Posts
On September 30 2010 08:58 TOloseGT wrote: This is like finding an answer to why people prefer soccer to american football. You can't quantify how "fun" watching a game is because it's completely personal preference. Saying something is "more developed" means nothing. Why does SC2 have to repeat the relative success of BW? There is nothing wrong with SC2 being another fun RTS game that countless people love playing. E-Sports do survive outside Korea, albeit in a different fashion. It's the competitive scene that makes e-Sports, not the games involved. Where is your gamer camaraderie? ppl want sc2 to be as good as bw if its gonna replace it. if it is crap, then they just killed bw for no reason. | ||
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pieisamazing
United States1234 Posts
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sluggaslamoo
Australia4494 Posts
On September 30 2010 14:46 Stratos_speAr wrote: The problem that we have with comparing e-sports to sports is the medium in which the event is played. Sports are played in real life. Video games are not. You play video games through an engine that has specific limitations. If new things are invented, your engine can't handle them or incorporate them into the game. This requires games to have sequels, or else they will get incredibly dull. All sports have evolved immensely, but they're still being played with the same basic "engine", if you want to compare them to a video game. In 50 years, when we can all play video games and control things with our minds and do crazy shit in a virtual world, it would be incredibly archaic and basically a waste of time to use so much effort on an interface that's incredibly old even for today's standards. These are the kinds of problems e-sports face. Learning the rather intuitive basics of playing any sport is much, much easier than learning the basics of BW, especially in our culture. BW has an incredibly outdated interface that makes everything a complete pain in the ass. 99% of people would play it and immediately quit upon seeing how difficult it is to do the simplest tasks when compared to any other current-day game. This is the kind of inaccessibility that BW has. Real life has limitations too, we have gravity for a start, we also have worse clarity and the race differentials are mostly based on country of origin and nothing substantial. BW has a much larger amount of metrics in which to measure a players ability other than the scoreboard, as well as 2 alien races, and a bunch of other things not worth arguing about. The interface doesn't affect spectators, only the players. And honestly, you are talking about something that is > 50 years away and may never happen (there was a time people thought we'd all be living in outer space by the year 2000), yet people are considering phasing out BW now. I actually think the SC2 interface is the worst piece of crap ever made. It honestly drives me insane, because it is so easy to accidentally re-assign control groups, move the camera where you don't want it to go, because of all the shitty buttons that popup on the screen. You can't even box without clicking a button that will slowly and agonisingly move your camera to the last created unit. Learning the basics of BW is easier than all sports, you just have to use a mouse and click, and its pretty hard to fuck up. Now compare that to dribbling a basketball. Attacking is simple, box units, click where to attack. Compare that to getting a ball in the hoop, pretty surprising how the basics of starcraft have a 100% success rate for absolute nooby to any basics in basketball. Its just that everyone who plays BW right now is so good, nothing to do with the basics. If as many people played BW as did with any other major sport, we wouldn't have a problem with entry level as there would be enough crap people to beat so you don't feel overwhelmed. If only hardcores played SC2 like with BW, we would have the exact same problem with SC2. BW is a much simpler game to SC2 because there is a lot less to think about and ways to do things. Theres no macro mechanics so you don't autowin if you happen to know it and your opponent doesn't, only 1 gas, you don't have MBS so from the very beginning you are making units the right way. MBS and automining only makes the game easier, if you are the only one that can do it, and nobody else, therefore it doesn't actually make entry any easier. Low dps/defensive units/strong static defence so you can defend easily, T1 units from all races are viable through late game, deciding which units to make is simple (e.g zerg make hydras/lings, protoss makes zealots/dragoons, terran tanks/marines) as these units are viable against almost anything. Where as in SC2 you can win by just being lucky, this can't happen in BW because the easiest units to make can defend any other easy to make units. For example, marines can beat dragoons, lings can beat zealots, these matchups go both ways though making it down to macro and unit control. In SC2, there are completely hard counters which appear very early in the game, making matchups in the beginner level at-least very unstable. | ||
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sCCrooked
Korea (South)1306 Posts
On September 30 2010 15:55 Raz0r wrote: ppl want sc2 to be as good as bw if its gonna replace it. if it is crap, then they just killed bw for no reason. Sorry I dunno why this made me think of this but... http://www.entertonement.com/clips/gjxxrmqddg--35 What significant sponsors have switched sides from BW to SC2 excluding its parent companies? If there are any, I'm unaware of their existence. Stop arguing that SC2 is like vanilla SC. Just by uttering that argument, you therefore adhere to the belief that you are all jumping on board A HIGHLY IMBALANCED AND INCOMPLETE GAME. That, is bloody retarded no matter how you look at it. That's not even me insulting SC2 (I find it fun too). That's just me making you realize what the hell YOU were saying. Lastly, those that still can't see the similarities between esports and normal sports... I refer you to my lengthy post on the 2nd page of this thread. | ||
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Yodo
Russian Federation327 Posts
So, you say that SC2 has no impact on SCBW? Thats totally wrong. Its not all about sponsors, you know. Anyway I dont see how your post correlate with quoted text. Ppl used to do retarded things, even if SC2 will sucks, it can easily success SCBW due to PR, money, superior aesthetic and blizzard's lobby. | ||
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IceCube
Croatia1403 Posts
What I think about BW and Esports and games as sports in general is that it could take a while to become real Esport scene outside of Korea but heck one day when it comes true, I'll gladly say I played the game that opened that door (BW). | ||
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sCCrooked
Korea (South)1306 Posts
On September 30 2010 18:09 Yodo wrote: 2 Diminotoor So, you say that SC2 has no impact on SCBW? Thats totally wrong. Its not all about sponsors, you know. Anyway I dont see how your post correlate with quoted text. Ppl used to do retarded things, even if SC2 will sucks, it can easily success SCBW due to PR, money, superior aesthetic and blizzard's lobby. I don't even begin to understand where or how many times you went wrong in your reading comprehension to come up with this for a response. The quote made me think of what was in the link. The rest of the post is clearly just general responses not to that quoted text. I guess by not clicking the link, you didn't "get it". The rest of my response shall be a list of itemized one-liners since I can completely shut all your arguments down with 1 simple phrase each: -Progaming is all about sponsors and financial backing for the cultural demand. -The money existing in SC2's pool right now has been injected from the parent companies. -SC2 is only aesthetically superior to uneducated people who don't understand what it should've been. -Blizzard's lobby is looking so bad for them that Proleague and the Starleagues are continuing. | ||
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Yodo
Russian Federation327 Posts
Also, current players can become worried about their future and quit SC (Effort). | ||
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funnybananaman
United States830 Posts
The problem with your reasoning is that you've equated "getting back into an established scene" (aka playing on iccup) with "being accessible to casuals". A random basketball player can't just go play in the top gym league in the city, which is essentially what iccup is. That doesn't mean basketball isn't accessible to casuals though. I can't find the original quote but to whoever said this: I think it would be more like a random basketball player in the ONLY organized gym league in the city that has divisions for players that are very bad and very good. As opposed with playing streetball with random ppl fucking around at the local park. And as i said in the OP its easily accessible to casual players you just have to put in a little effort and want to learn a couple things. Like chess. | ||
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StarSense
206 Posts
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GoTuNk!
Chile4591 Posts
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aimaimaim
Philippines2167 Posts
On September 30 2010 18:39 Yodo wrote: Lack of new players is quite possible - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=153299 Also, current players can become worried about their future and quit SC (Effort). nip picking effort .. so ill nip pick JD and Stork who have "renewed" and set their goals higher for the coming season also, like what some old timers who post in these website that have been following the scene for YEARS said, every off-season, the pro-scene has these kinds of issue (people leaving, etc.,) .. its normal .. and courage is but a small part of it .. also, some people might have the idea that they think that if less people join courage, they will have better chance of winning .. and also, there were fresh draftees so again, not a really big deal or having the lack of new players is out of the picture regarding the future of BW as a bona fide e-sport .. | ||
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ooni
Australia1498 Posts
On September 30 2010 03:43 Bwenjarin Raffrack wrote: Thanks for the thread, OP. The problem I have with the new SC2 crowd that make light of Brood War is that they have no idea what it has really accomplished, or what ESPORTS really is. I think what we need to do is clarify once and for all what BW fans mean by ESPORTS. ESPORTS isn't about having tournaments or whose (prize pool) is bigger. ESPORTS is playing video games competitively on television. ESPORTS is being government-sanctioned and culturally-approved. ESPORTS is filling stadiums with thousands of people. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/9XQZm.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/0t7WU.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/Nx8J1.jpg) ESPORTS is a three-year-old girl being your biggest fan. + Show Spoiler + ESPORTS is growing up to be just like your hero. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/svLA1.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/yTwNY.jpg) ESPORTS is a shitty TV drama being made about your lifestyle. + Show Spoiler + ESPORTS is fangirls praying for you in the audience. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/1dccw.jpg) ESPORTS is celebrating your victory after the big game. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/rFtp0.gif) ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/pMw7e.gif) ESPORTS is having major pimp cred when you win. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/rkYG4.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/K9dCg.jpg) ESPORTS is being sexy for your fans. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/C5aVC.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/fGv3k.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/pgNLS.jpg) ESPORTS is being a rock star. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/yovYs.jpg) ESPORTS is idolizing and arguing about your favorite players even when you don't understand a word they say. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/P3QM4.jpg) Is SC2 a successful ESPORT already? Is it going to supplant BW as the ESPORT? Do you think we'll have ESPORTS in the West? Do you think ESPORTS in Korea is irrelevant? Be sure you know what you're talking about before you answer. Edit: Added more. I seriously have tears in my eyes even the 'ESPORTS is being sexy for your fans.' pic Basketball or any other sports are very easy to learn but it is the skill ceiling that is high. BW is hard to learn and ceiling skill maybe higher due to importance of reaction speed. SC2 is better than BW in terms of introducing the game to new players. People who have commented on SC2 ceiling, well they don't know that how high the ceiling is. High level players are still winning tournaments and seen some great micros. Is it pretty look at? Yes. Now, is it pretty to look at as a spectator sport? No. Because it 'feels' easy. This is the problem is the learning curve. SC2 has the feeling (could be an illusion, don't know) that with a decent chunk time you could get better. With SC1, you reach a point where you go, even you think to yourself, Am I really getting better? (much like basketball or other sports). Then you look at the person next to you and realise they are better and it's possible. That's what makes a sport, a sport, looking at the very peak of current human ability, doing the impossible. So the question lies will SC2 ever reach that level? Will it makes someone say, WOW that's seems 'impossible' to do and they are doing it. Only time will tell (not betting my one dollar on it though). | ||
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PetitCrabe
Canada410 Posts
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rasers
Sweden691 Posts
they have a 10 year RTS top level background while SC:BW had what? hmmmmmmmmm nothing. so no wonder they are better nowadays then 10 years ago. | ||
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segfix
United States32 Posts
On October 01 2010 01:53 PetitCrabe wrote: are people so insecure they need to bash a game that just came out 3 frigging months ago? I've been following BW pro scene for 2-3 years now and i find it awesome even though i have never played BW except for turret defense... now i play SC2 and follow its scene too and i do see that the SC2 pros are not comparable to the pros of SC1 but they are hell lot better than the pros of SCBW 3 months after it was released... let the pros find good strats for SC2, wait for 2 expansions and at least 5-10 balance patch before saying SC2 sucks... So you're saying SC2 sucks but it doesn't suck because it won't suck in a few years? Well, tell me when it stops sucking. Until then, I'll stick with nonsucky BW. | ||
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TurtleBay
United States4 Posts
The funny thing about the people who say Blizzard shouldn't have made SC2 is that Brood Wars itself is a sequel and was not vanilla SC. When Brood Wars came out, vanilla SC multiplayer pretty much died. Basically, Blizzard has every right to make SC2, the players have ever right to choose what version of SC they play and the chips will fall where they may (Brood Wars may continue to be a popular Korean esport or the scene may move on). Chess is also mentioned. The game was developed near the year 500. En passant, the two square first move for pawns and castling were all not added until around 1400. While not Chess 2, when people find a way to make games better, they evolve. Computers are changing at a very fast rate compared to board game technology, so naturally computer games evolve more quickly than board games. | ||
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