So, this topic is primarily for discussion. It's late here, and I feel the need to write this thread before I go to sleep, hence I won't mass link everything, but the content will be here.
Here's my thoughts, that I also encourage discussion on. There are somewhat foreign progamers, given that there is actually monetary success available in the foreign SC:BW scene. Players like Sziky, Ace, Heme (retired) who have all earned a respective amount of cash flow over the past 4 months or so. My thoughts on this derived from not only their continued success in anything they participate in, much like a progamer would have, but that after I tallied their numbers and how much time they actually put into creating them, they're very successful.
Ace: Total earnings over the past 4 months: Defiler Tournaments: #8 3rd place: $10 #9 2nd place: $20 #14 2nd place: $20 #17 1st place: $40 16 Man Invitational: $20 AoV ISL: $250 Potentially $375 from Kaal's ISL2 Total: $360 Potential Total: $735
With Kaal's International StarLeague ending in 2 weeks, both of these players are very likely going to take at least half of the $1500 prize pool, so you can potentially add that to their sums. More specifically, Sziky has been the favorite to win the entire tournament since the get-go, which would place his earnings from that tournament at $750.
I actually did not look up Heme, but I know he won much more tournaments, including I think $200-250 in mine alone, and a lot of the Defiler tournaments. However, I'm positive that he earned more than Sziky and Ace, and possibly their totals combined.
Granted the above information, I realize this boils down to roughly $50 per week. But the strongest players left playing BW do not live in idealistic economies. I'm not saying $50/wk is a lot, but it is something. Notice, Sziky has only participated in _some_ Defiler tournaments, at his leisure, and Ace has participated in a total of 6 (2 where he didn't place in the prize pool). Heme was the only active player who constantly took money from prize pools. With that, BW is really a dying game, there is no rebuttal against it. While it's a perfect game, the most balanced in online gaming history, and that of which created e-sports, I would venture to say that if you averaged out top players individual earnings only outside of Korea before SC2's release over a long span, that there would be some very similar results.
This bring me to my next point: I'm really at a crossroads with my thoughts on upcoming gamers outside of Korea. I'm very well intune with the scene outside of Korea, and I can honestly say as the ex-leader of the best clan outside of Korea, and the biggest tournament organizer, that I see no new talent. This is primarily where I want the discussion on, because other than players like Michael and SneazeL... I see relatively no one. The only up and coming names currently are just old names that weren't good enough to be acknowledged before SC2's release.
I'm not trying to take any credit away from these players, in specific I'm referencing players like fLip and KiDCaNaDa. My point is this: where is the new blood? I see a lot of newbies who have come to BW, but failed to develop greatly given the lack of a vast community support. I've seen mid-range players stay mid-range, but I have seen maybe three players go from average to commendable. I must be missing something, someone has have gotten to slip right past my radar.
In conclusion, I'd like to see who other TL users think are up and comers, or players that are already here that maybe I don't value as highly as I should.
Don't forget Bibiane in there too! He's just as good as Michael imo.
Sadly, amateur BW has really taken a hit since SC2's release. There are few to no players that are completely new blood and thriving. iCCup itself doesn't have anyone higher than maybe a 1300-ish fish rank. Even the new Koreans we're seeing are actually fish/brainclan transfers that feel they can't be with the 1600-2100 point players, and so they choose to excel in the small pond that is iCCup.
I hope others can produce some more names that aren't KR server transfers/old names that only can get higher ranks because all the old pros left, making it easier.
Unfortunately, I haven't stayed up to date with foreign bw players, something I used to spend a lot of time on. What I can comment on though is the abscence of new blood. I disagree that there is a lot of money to be made outside of Korea for bw and I think that it's not tempoary. I think we will see a constant rise and fall of new players (ie: people coming from sc2 and then some not liking it (very rare for them not to).. But overall, I think really none of any new players will be able to compete and it will become more of a hobby and not a source of income nearly as much... When if you look at it, is that completely bad? I think people confuse players playing the game (Starcraft in general) as a job making it a "professional sport" with "demotivation" in alot of cases To be honest. While it should be recognized as a profession(which it obviously is) I feel that for a player to think of the game only as a job and a source of income, is a completely negative but seemingly common attitude... It basically throws out the entire mental aspect going into the game that is extremely important. I'm writing this on my itouch and extremely tired, so I may need to revise this but I honestly think that the source of income outside of Korea has nearly completely transferred over to sc2 but what has remained is pretty good. A tight-knit community who plays because of their passion is not a bad thing to have. There will definitely be players like you mention rise up, but these are all people hve been involved in brood war for a while in almost every case.
On September 26 2011 17:08 sCCrooked wrote: Don't forget Bibiane in there too!
Bibiane's TvZ in fact did impress me. But afaik he's a one matchup player? Meaning that he only excels in one match up. However, so did Heme actually...
I don't really follow foreign BW so I don't know really know anyone that might be an up and coming top foreigner. However, I think the problem is related to the fact that people are pretty casual these days and play for the social aspects.
Most people don't want to get on Fish because they don't like laddering and would rather play with friends or can't communicate with the Koreans. The newer players switching from SC2 to Broodwar might be turned away by the difficulty of Fish server and/or the inactivity of ICCup.
There just isn't much to motivate someone to grind out tons of ladder games and improve their play these days.
Although I'm not really good, I was laddering on Fish/Brainclan a LOT to get better but then basically quit for League of Legends
Oh, an out of date Liquipedia and no other good resources for modern builds or maps could be another contributing factor.
Well when iccup was more active I was trying to improve(somewhere around ISL1, like the start of it). Yea C/C+ toss looking for some good clan or players willing to help me since I had no idea what to do anymore to get better. And I played a ton. So first I tried to join some good clans. Forget it, unless you're B- or higher, GTFO. Then the top players even in those top clans play today more casually. And tbh most of these b+/a- players play like shit(I say it not as good player, just as spectator that watched ton ton of replays/foreigner tours in 2008/2009). They play like C/C+ Fish. They are nowhere near top korean amateur level. Remember when iccup was full of B teamers and some progamers? Full of korean amateurs? That were some fun times to ladder right? Well they are gone so your B/B+/A- rank that you have to grind vs your friends is that much less worth. And when I first saw ISL player list I was like who the fuck are these people lol. I've only known polish/or old gosus that play from time to time that participated. Another thing iccup is dead. It's like that bad. It's dead. 1 month into the season and there's 4 B players? PFT. < Now I wrote for good 5 minutes why's that but I deleted this part to don't get ip banned again >
There's ton of people on C/C+ on iccup(D/D+ fish) that have no real way of improving once their reach that limit. There are no people to help them. There will be no new players. There's no platform to improve. No CLANs like before. Scene is split. Maybe if everyone was like yea let's do it together and shit you know on 1 server, let's bring competitive play back into it. Let's make laddering more attractive and shit. And top players are not very helpful with the scene at all. Like maybe KC was a bit. They are not doing anything to make people come over to BW other then play tours. Ok maybe stream 2-3 hours once or twice in a week(And that's like what? 4-5 of them). I don't see them writing strategy guides. I don't see them releasing replay packs. Anything. So yea I edited it for like 30 minutes and had to delete 50% of it because there was ton of more shit. Maybe I'll write about that stuff in some counterarguments.
I think a lot of it may have to be with how the bw community works outside of Korea.
I think you know that over the last few months there has been tons of drama and a lot of things going on that prevents new blood from coming in and discourages new people to try things out. The lack of a community feeling is something that can be shown often in posts from both sides. Its like trying to trying to walk between a dmz (in this case the dmz being tl).
Making the entire community closer and have the feeling of being apart of something. Which would mean everyone has to rally together and make that happen.
Things don't get better when for a newbie player. They are toled to go to fish and brain. Where they get smashed over and over again. Its never encouraging to see yourself to get beaten like that over and over again. and then the only other place where noobies can play together or with somewhat similar level players is iccup. Which is often discouraged as a place to play on by some people in the community.
I think nymph's 2nd paragraph is also very correct. Its not like it was. there are not any fun casual clans like there were before. there are a bunch of Korean clans like that. Where its a bunch of people who play together and have fun playing together. and end up forming a clan, or just hanging out in the same channel. This makes it fun, regardless wether you're winning or losing. You get to have fun with your firends on bnet. This is not the case with the foreign scene anymore. This doesn't happen, you only have competitve clans now for the most part. There is not much of a fun aspect outside of the auctual playing. Unless you have the motivation to play (be it friend, winning tournaments) you won't play.
TBH, I don't think there's enough incentive for people to practice as hard as it takes to be that extremely good. SC2 has the power of big corporations to push SC2 globally. We as a community really don't have that power, and if we do then we would have to be pretty epic at marketing to pull off any big exposure for BW.
Many people who see it and play it do enjoy it. But not enough people are exposed to it- it doesn't have that critical mass in the gaming community. Ever heard of 1000 fan theory? The idea that if you have 1000 REAL fans (to BW that would be people who play the game very regularly, watch all of the tournament streams, possibly chip in the odd dollar), then things will snowball, and certainly remain at a good level. I think we're too confined to TeamLiquid as a BW community, with all the same people.
Seems I'm talking myself round here. You have to remember that 99.999% of people on this planet have never played BW. To them it is still entirely 100% fresh. To them it is not dying, it is not something they stopped doing ages ago, it's not something they moved on from. The way to get people playing is simply to get a greater fanbase. TeamLiquid is not the place to acquire one, it is simply a place for the community to congregate. So think, where else can we go? Where else can we push our events, guides, streams, all this stuff. Where else can we advertise our game? And then, how do we make it attractive? If we can successfully answer these, then I think we could do a lot better.
SC BW was never about the money. It's basically bragging rights because it's the most hardcore game in existence. I don't think there are many up and coming people.
On September 26 2011 18:41 ImbaTosS wrote: TBH, I don't think there's enough incentive for people to practice as hard as it takes to be that extremely good. SC2 has the power of big corporations to push SC2 globally. We as a community really don't have that power, and if we do then we would have to be pretty epic at marketing to pull off any big exposure for BW.
Many people who see it and play it do enjoy it. But not enough people are exposed to it- it doesn't have that critical mass in the gaming community. Ever heard of 1000 fan theory? The idea that if you have 1000 REAL fans (to BW that would be people who play the game very regularly, watch all of the tournament streams, possibly chip in the odd dollar), then things will snowball, and certainly remain at a good level. I think we're too confined to TeamLiquid as a BW community, with all the same people.
Seems I'm talking myself round here. You have to remember that 99.999% of people on this planet have never played BW. To them it is still entirely 100% fresh. To them it is not dying, it is not something they stopped doing ages ago, it's not something they moved on from. The way to get people playing is simply to get a greater fanbase. TeamLiquid is not the place to acquire one, it is simply a place for the community to congregate. So think, where else can we go? Where else can we push our events, guides, streams, all this stuff. Where else can we advertise our game? And then, how do we make it attractive? If we can successfully answer these, then I think we could do a lot better.
Actually most people know about both starcraft1 and starcraft2. Most people also like better graphics and HD video and more prize money. There really is not enough incentive to go for sc1 when you can just go straight to sc2.
It would probably take an average person 1 year's practice to get to C level on iccup, 2 years to get to B and probably 3-4 years to get to A level if he hasn't given up already, and then they are still no where near the level of the korean enthusiasts averaging 350apm trying to get a shot at the offline qualifiers with 1/500 odds.
The only way would be white guys only tournaments for people to even scratch the lottery ticket, and then there's not enough money for anyone to even give a shit. Working at mcdonalds would yield more money and more free time.
SC1 is just a hardcore time sucking black hole that no one outside the SCBW community gives a shit about.
On September 26 2011 18:41 ImbaTosS wrote: TBH, I don't think there's enough incentive for people to practice as hard as it takes to be that extremely good. SC2 has the power of big corporations to push SC2 globally. We as a community really don't have that power, and if we do then we would have to be pretty epic at marketing to pull off any big exposure for BW.
Many people who see it and play it do enjoy it. But not enough people are exposed to it- it doesn't have that critical mass in the gaming community. Ever heard of 1000 fan theory? The idea that if you have 1000 REAL fans (to BW that would be people who play the game very regularly, watch all of the tournament streams, possibly chip in the odd dollar), then things will snowball, and certainly remain at a good level. I think we're too confined to TeamLiquid as a BW community, with all the same people.
Seems I'm talking myself round here. You have to remember that 99.999% of people on this planet have never played BW. To them it is still entirely 100% fresh. To them it is not dying, it is not something they stopped doing ages ago, it's not something they moved on from. The way to get people playing is simply to get a greater fanbase. TeamLiquid is not the place to acquire one, it is simply a place for the community to congregate. So think, where else can we go? Where else can we push our events, guides, streams, all this stuff. Where else can we advertise our game? And then, how do we make it attractive? If we can successfully answer these, then I think we could do a lot better.
Actually most people know about both starcraft1 and starcraft2. Most people also like better graphics and HD video and more prize money. There really is not enough incentive to go for sc1 when you can just go straight to sc2.
It would probably take an average person 1 year's practice to get to C level on iccup, 2 years to get to B and probably 3-4 years to get to A level if he hasn't given up already, and then they are still no where near the level of the korean enthusiasts averaging 350apm trying to get a shot at the offline qualifiers with 1/500 odds.
The only way would be white guys only tournaments for people to even scratch the lottery ticket, and then there's not enough money for anyone to even give a shit. Working at mcdonalds would yield more money and more free time.
SC1 is just a hardcore time sucking black hole that no one outside the SCBW community gives a shit about.
Wow, um, have you never enjoyed a game of BW in your life? Or a game of anything- have you ever played football (soccer), or gone for a game of squash (racketball) with some friends, or even gone for a swim lol, and thought "why am I doing this? I'll never be an olympic swimmer". You fixated on minutiae, and drew the wrong conclusions from my reasoning.
I love playing BW in my free time, and being a valuable part of my team. I'm not gonna win any money or great accolades, but being a tiny cog in a great machine is good enough for me as far as a casual hobby goes. Like when I play football. Player of the season at Totnes and Dartington. I bet you never heard of that club eh, but fuck it felt good to win that award. FYI, it was a free beer from a bunch of friends whom i would never have otherwise met, and were genuinely grateful to me for being part of their team.
Extrapolate to BW.
EDIT: the more I think about it the more absurd your argument is. I'm honestly not meaning to be rude here. I played guitar pretty much for 10 years before I though about being professional, and working to attain mastery.
I think any talk about a "foreign BW scene" ended with TSL2. I appreciate the effort with ISL1 and 2 but under no circumstances did the quality of games compare to TSL1 and 2. The roster of capable foreigners almost disappeared after SC2.
Also, monetary success is an illusion. What happens when Defiler Tours end? Will there be an ISL3? Probably; but after that? There is no stability and no continuity in the foreign BW scene. And either way, the money at stake is just not enough to talk about "monetary success".
The "foreign progamers" are just casual players, who play in casual tournaments with small cash prizes. And even so, there are a lot of players not showing up, walkovers, postponed games, awful games, cheating, lag issues, more cheating, etc.
On September 26 2011 18:41 ImbaTosS wrote: TBH, I don't think there's enough incentive for people to practice as hard as it takes to be that extremely good. SC2 has the power of big corporations to push SC2 globally. We as a community really don't have that power, and if we do then we would have to be pretty epic at marketing to pull off any big exposure for BW.
Many people who see it and play it do enjoy it. But not enough people are exposed to it- it doesn't have that critical mass in the gaming community. Ever heard of 1000 fan theory? The idea that if you have 1000 REAL fans (to BW that would be people who play the game very regularly, watch all of the tournament streams, possibly chip in the odd dollar), then things will snowball, and certainly remain at a good level. I think we're too confined to TeamLiquid as a BW community, with all the same people.
Seems I'm talking myself round here. You have to remember that 99.999% of people on this planet have never played BW. To them it is still entirely 100% fresh. To them it is not dying, it is not something they stopped doing ages ago, it's not something they moved on from. The way to get people playing is simply to get a greater fanbase. TeamLiquid is not the place to acquire one, it is simply a place for the community to congregate. So think, where else can we go? Where else can we push our events, guides, streams, all this stuff. Where else can we advertise our game? And then, how do we make it attractive? If we can successfully answer these, then I think we could do a lot better.
Actually most people know about both starcraft1 and starcraft2. Most people also like better graphics and HD video and more prize money. There really is not enough incentive to go for sc1 when you can just go straight to sc2.
It would probably take an average person 1 year's practice to get to C level on iccup, 2 years to get to B and probably 3-4 years to get to A level if he hasn't given up already, and then they are still no where near the level of the korean enthusiasts averaging 350apm trying to get a shot at the offline qualifiers with 1/500 odds.
The only way would be white guys only tournaments for people to even scratch the lottery ticket, and then there's not enough money for anyone to even give a shit. Working at mcdonalds would yield more money and more free time.
SC1 is just a hardcore time sucking black hole that no one outside the SCBW community gives a shit about.
Wow, um, have you never enjoyed a game of BW in your life? Or a game of anything- have you ever played football (soccer), or gone for a game of squash (racketball) with some friends, or even gone for a swim lol, and thought "why am I doing this? I'll never be an olympic swimmer". You fixated on minutiae, and drew the wrong conclusions from my reasoning.
I love playing BW in my free time, and being a valuable part of my team. I'm not gonna win any money or great accolades, but being a tiny cog in a great machine is good enough for me as far as a casual hobby goes. Like when I play football. Player of the season at Totnes and Dartington. I bet you never heard of that club eh, but fuck it felt good to win that award. FYI, it was a free beer from a bunch of friends whom i would never have otherwise met, and were genuinely grateful to me for being part of their team.
Extrapolate to BW.
EDIT: the more I think about it the more absurd your argument is. I'm honestly not meaning to be rude here. I played guitar pretty much for 10 years before I though about being professional, and working to attain mastery.
Actually I love BW and play it regularly with a friend (alffla who's on gfx team) and I have only tried sc2 a few times but lost interest very quickly. I think I came off as a jerk so I'm going to rephrase what I said.
There is very little incentive now for any foreigners (white guys) to be "up and coming". As much as I love BW to bits and would like it to be mandatory syllabus worldwide, it is a dying game just like the female partners in The Fountain were dying. The pain, longing and frustration expressed by hugh jackman in that movie is how I feel about BW's inevitable premature death.
Sc2 may be a fun game, but in reality it could have been Command and Conquer: Space Wars or something for all I know. It has more or less nothing to do with the core gameplay that made SCBW what it is.
Yes there are probably some people out there still playing BW, but the intensity and frequency is declining much too fast. It is such a phenomenal game being eclipsed by something that's just wearing its name.
To me, BW isn't dead before nobody plays on fish, brain or iccup. there will be tournaments, they'll be smaller. But, they'll be there, BW won't die, it will decrease.
Will, not, die. The competitive scene is small but it's there and if it isn't there and you want to have one I can't see how difficult it can be to arrange clanwars
Try broodwar's release date(too ugly for modern kids), skill ceiling (too hard for - everyone), active foreign users (can't even play for fun to start your passion) and expected earnings (-.-)...
On September 26 2011 22:09 niteReloaded wrote: Are you missing something? hmmmmmmm
Try broodwar's release date(too ugly for modern kids), skill ceiling (too hard for - everyone), active foreign users (can't even play for fun to start your passion) and expected earnings (-.-)...
Gaah, you're still looking at it wrong. This is the problem. I have to go to a class, I'll get a proper response down once I'm back.
On September 26 2011 18:04 Nymph wrote: They play like C/C+ Fish. They are nowhere near top korean amateur level. Remember when iccup was full of B teamers and some progamers? Full of korean amateurs? That were some fun times to ladder right? Well they are gone so your B/B+/A- rank that you have to grind vs your friends is that much less worth.
There's ton of people on C/C+ on iccup(D/D+ fish) that have no real way of improving once their reach that limit. There are no people to help them. There will be no new players. There's no platform to improve. No CLANs like before. Scene is split. Maybe if everyone was like yea let's do it together and shit you know on 1 server, let's bring competitive play back into it. Let's make laddering more attractive and shit. And top players are not very helpful with the scene at all.
I'm not sure I'd flatter them with a C/C+ fish. The absolute best of the best on iCCup can barely even reach the bottom rungs of C-/C much less compete with anyone in the Bs, As, or S ranks. A C+ fish would constitute a 1400 or higher. I don't know any foreigner that's ever managed to maintain a constantly-laddering average of that level. The highest I've ever seen as a legitimate "I don't just quit after getting lucky on my record" foreign player on fish has been 1200-1300 and not able to even maintain a strong 1300 average. This is also literally less than 5 people in the world (non-Korean).
Also I agree almost entirely with your second paragraph. Its incredibly accurate as to the specific reasons WHY no new blood is showing up. Its simple! ALL OUR TEACHERS LEFT. Not only did they leave, but when they left, everything collapsed behind them. There is an incredible slew of people on iCCup who are perpetually stuck at C/C+/B- in the limbo area (1100 fish or so) where we're too good to play vs any new people or clans, but we're still way too under-skilled vs those who consider themselves the new "top" foreign players.
**EDIT**
I've made a new blog for discussion of possible revival techniques for the scene. Please join in the discussion/suggestions in the thread. Thank you.
On September 26 2011 22:09 niteReloaded wrote: Are you missing something? hmmmmmmm
Try broodwar's release date(too ugly for modern kids), skill ceiling (too hard for - everyone), active foreign users (can't even play for fun to start your passion) and expected earnings (-.-)...
Gaah, you're still looking at it wrong. This is the problem. I have to go to a class, I'll get a proper response down once I'm back.
Problem is you are being to Idealistic here.
Just let me explain plz:
BW is a HARD game. In order to enjoy it you need to understand it, and in order to understand it you need to have at least some basic skill. A newbie getting into BW will just get stomped hard and wont be able to develop that basic skill before he gets frustrated. So he will quit the game before he actually understands how good the game is.
Why does this happens?
PPL this days don't think that a "hard challenge" is the same as "fun". Most ppl just play because they like to feel they are better than somebody, (friends or online players) That is what they see as "fun" these days. And SC2 and most modern games allow you to feel that you are not only better than your friends, they also show you that you are better than a whole bunch of ppl with their ranking sistem. I mean how many #1 rank are there in sc2? THOUSANDS.
Facebook games prove my point. I doesn't actually matter how shity and simple a game is. If people can look into a ranking and compare themselves with other ppl. They will feel they are better than other ppl and have "fun"
Problem with BW is that no ranking can make up for the huge learning curve that it requires. As somebody said just changing your letter in ICCUP can take you months.
Imagine that you are a new player with the "Im better than someone = fun" mentality. And a friend gets you into BW. You will need a lot of time before you can even take a gamer from your friend. And online ppl will just mercilessly trash you. You will quit before you understand how awesome is this game.
My solution!!!!
Yeah, I don't like to come up with problems and then leave them unsolved. Thats not BWish.
So the problem is not changing ppls attitude. That would also be idealist. We need to be pragmatic here. So lets change our focus.
How do we make ppl understand how awesome is this game before they lose interest?
I have stated that we can't do this from the competitive way. So instead of trying to make them play the game with guides and coaching to make their learning faster I propose....
Lets get them to WATCH the game.
Yeah that's it.
Watching BW professional scene is waaaaaaaaayy better than watching SC2 pro scene.
I play SC2 and BW. I like to play BW over SC2 just because I understand the game. As I said this is not the case with a newbie. The game is too complex.
But watching BW requires no skill, just basic understanding. And watching BW alone can be a source of better understanding of the game. That will help ppl realize that this game is awesome and it doesn't need modern graphics to be awesome.
Example: Korean girls.
Don't tell me all the girls that scream at pro matches are good BW players. But they all understand the game ENOUGH to have REAL FUN watching it.
If we get ppl to watch BW pro scene they will want to play the game just to have some of that REAL FUN. Their attitude will change to that of a guy that watches Kobe Bryan playing basketball and then goes to the court to play for fun. Even if he sucks at basketball.
How to do this?
Before SC2 beta got out. There was a project on TeamLiquid. I think it was called "Guide for new ppl to watch BW pro games" or something like that. The goal was to explain the basics of the game so that ppl will understand what they are seeing.
Needless to say it was cancelled when SC2 beta came out.
But we can take this project in our own hands.
The basic principle is that it's easier for somebody to learn enough to enjoy watching the game then learning enough to understand the game playing it.
Once they see the Pro scene they will learn to play by themselves. Or maybe they will just watch it. But that is already good for the community. More ppl watching BW pro scene should be our goals.
If we are ambitious enough we can aim to get a lot of ppl and be noticed as a potential market by kespa. (Yeah lets be optimistic ok?) That way maybe even pro scene will grow larger that it already is.
This is the good part:
You ImbaToss can do it. You made the guide for players switching from SC2. You and the pillars of our community can get on this project and make it true. (I can help off course if you need me.)
But please listen to me and lets try to get ppl into BW the easier way.
BW FOREVER!!!
TL:DR Awww hell no, plz ImbaToss read it all. I really put some effort writing this.
What you said is absolutely true. Kids these days don't want to get "good" at a game. Games like Halflife DM, CS 1.6, quake, SSBM, SF (not sure which version but I know one of them is the undisputed esports version) and sc1 are the "old style hardcore" games that will never be recreated again in the future (at least doesn't look like it now).
New games have "fun" as their highest priority. Look at any new FPS. Getting hit all you have to do is hide for a while and your health will recover. Gone are the days of 100hp.
Not going to get into why sc2 is crap.
I have a few friends that are avid watchers of SCBW but they NEVER play. They play sc2 and watch sc1. They all agree that sc2 games right now are kindergarten level sticks and stones. They don't play SCBW because they know what level it should be played at and just get frustrated with themselves when they can't find the apm to perform. They are just intimidated to play and instead just rape noobs on sc2.
Getting people to watch SCBW would definitely mean more SCBW watchers but not necessarily more players. Playing still requires you to practice enough so that things like building pylons become subconscious and muscle memory.
It's just a natural process I guess. Sc1 was meant to burn bright and die.
I really don't know much of what the foreign BW scene was like before sc2 came out... but perhaps it seems that there aren't as many up and coming players nont only becase there are in general less players active... but also because since the scene is so much smaller then it previously was... its harder for any sort of talent to come up seemingly from nowhere.
On September 26 2011 22:09 niteReloaded wrote: Are you missing something? hmmmmmmm
Try broodwar's release date(too ugly for modern kids), skill ceiling (too hard for - everyone), active foreign users (can't even play for fun to start your passion) and expected earnings (-.-)...
Gaah, you're still looking at it wrong. This is the problem. I have to go to a class, I'll get a proper response down once I'm back.
Problem is you are being to Idealistic here.
Just let me explain plz:
BW is a HARD game. In order to enjoy it you need to understand it, and in order to understand it you need to have at least some basic skill. A newbie getting into BW will just get stomped hard and wont be able to develop that basic skill before he gets frustrated. So he will quit the game before he actually understands how good the game is.
Why does this happens?
PPL this days don't think that a "hard challenge" is the same as "fun". Most ppl just play because they like to feel they are better than somebody, (friends or online players) That is what they see as "fun" these days. And SC2 and most modern games allow you to feel that you are not only better than your friends, they also show you that you are better than a whole bunch of ppl with their ranking sistem. I mean how many #1 rank are there in sc2? THOUSANDS.
Facebook games prove my point. I doesn't actually matter how shity and simple a game is. If people can look into a ranking and compare themselves with other ppl. They will feel they are better than other ppl and have "fun"
Problem with BW is that no ranking can make up for the huge learning curve that it requires. As somebody said just changing your letter in ICCUP can take you months.
Imagine that you are a new player with the "Im better than someone = fun" mentality. And a friend gets you into BW. You will need a lot of time before you can even take a gamer from your friend. And online ppl will just mercilessly trash you. You will quit before you understand how awesome is this game.
My solution!!!!
Yeah, I don't like to come up with problems and then leave them unsolved. Thats not BWish.
So the problem is not changing ppls attitude. That would also be idealist. We need to be pragmatic here. So lets change our focus.
How do we make ppl understand how awesome is this game before they lose interest?
I have stated that we can't do this from the competitive way. So instead of trying to make them play the game with guides and coaching to make their learning faster I propose....
Lets get them to WATCH the game.
Yeah that's it.
Watching BW professional scene is waaaaaaaaayy better than watching SC2 pro scene.
I play SC2 and BW. I like to play BW over SC2 just because I understand the game. As I said this is not the case with a newbie. The game is too complex.
But watching BW requires no skill, just basic understanding. And watching BW alone can be a source of better understanding of the game. That will help ppl realize that this game is awesome and it doesn't need modern graphics to be awesome.
Example: Korean girls.
Don't tell me all the girls that scream at pro matches are good BW players. But they all understand the game ENOUGH to have REAL FUN watching it.
If we get ppl to watch BW pro scene they will want to play the game just to have some of that REAL FUN. Their attitude will change to that of a guy that watches Kobe Bryan playing basketball and then goes to the court to play for fun. Even if he sucks at basketball.
How to do this?
Before SC2 beta got out. There was a project on TeamLiquid. I think it was called "Guide for new ppl to watch BW pro games" or something like that. The goal was to explain the basics of the game so that ppl will understand what they are seeing.
Needless to say it was cancelled when SC2 beta came out.
But we can take this project in our own hands.
The basic principle is that it's easier for somebody to learn enough to enjoy watching the game then learning enough to understand the game playing it.
Once they see the Pro scene they will learn to play by themselves. Or maybe they will just watch it. But that is already good for the community. More ppl watching BW pro scene should be our goals.
If we are ambitious enough we can aim to get a lot of ppl and be noticed as a potential market by kespa. (Yeah lets be optimistic ok?) That way maybe even pro scene will grow larger that it already is.
This is the good part:
You ImbaToss can do it. You made the guide for players switching from SC2. You and the pillars of our community can get on this project and make it true. (I can help off course if you need me.)
But please listen to me and lets try to get ppl into BW the easier way.
BW FOREVER!!!
TL:DR Awww hell no, plz ImbaToss read it all. I really put some effort writing this.
Hey Cocky,
I think a better thing that would help new people start watching BW would be English casting, instead of a guide. When I'm watching BW and a friend wanders into my room, they can get interested only because I'm casually explaining what everything means, and why the crowd is tense, or why people just cheered. It's more accessible than reading a guide.
I know Sayle casts (or used to cast, haven't checked in awhile) BW pro games, but he's only one guy and his exposure is limited to BW forums on TL.net. Plus (and don't take this the wrong way, I think Sayle is a hero to the BW community for his marathon casts and I always enjoy them) his casts aren't as professional as you see on SC2.
I wonder (aloud) if trying to put forth a more professional cast system with better advertising would be a better route, if that's possible or worthwhile.
On September 27 2011 00:37 pyrogenetix wrote: re: 00Zarathustra not going to quote your text.
What you said is absolutely true. Kids these days don't want to get "good" at a game. Games like Halflife DM, CS 1.6, quake, SSBM, SF (not sure which version but I know one of them is the undisputed esports version) and sc1 are the "old style hardcore" games that will never be recreated again in the future (at least doesn't look like it now).
New games have "fun" as their highest priority. Look at any new FPS. Getting hit all you have to do is hide for a while and your health will recover. Gone are the days of 100hp.
Not going to get into why sc2 is crap.
I have a few friends that are avid watchers of SCBW but they NEVER play. They play sc2 and watch sc1. They all agree that sc2 games right now are kindergarten level sticks and stones. They don't play SCBW because they know what level it should be played at and just get frustrated with themselves when they can't find the apm to perform. They are just intimidated to play and instead just rape noobs on sc2.
Getting people to watch SCBW would definitely mean more SCBW watchers but not necessarily more players. Playing still requires you to practice enough so that things like building pylons become subconscious and muscle memory.
It's just a natural process I guess. Sc1 was meant to burn bright and die.
I disagree.
As ImbaToss said you guys are missing the point.
We want ppl to play BW because the LIKE the game. If ppl don't play because it requires lot of skill to be good, is because they are playing with the "I want to be better than you" attitude. If they get to actually LIKE this game as much as we do. They will even enjoy losing (like we do) because it will be just a challenge and a fun thing to do.
Most ppl don't get to the point of liking this game as much as we do because its a very complex game. They just don't see all the complexity.
My point is:
The faster and easiest way to understand the complexity(and awesomeness) of this game is watching BW.
I was D+ high for 8 years but i kept playing just because i loved this game and BW pro scene was the reason I loved this game. I couldn't play nearly as good as them. But just knowing that playing THAT AWESOMELY GOOD was possible kept me motivated. I'm C+ know and I think the gap is even bigger than before and I love it.
Also people are not giving solutions. They just come here and say it's not possible.
That is not BWish!!!
EDIT: DUNCAN.MC I really like your idea. When Tasteless, Artosis, Chill, Day9 got into casting. BW foreign scene interest rose. Maybe we need to step up with the casting. But the guide will be useful too. I mean Tasteless was considered a great caster because the way he explained the games made ppl that never played BW understand what was happening, and that made them realize the awesomeness they had in front of their eyes.
I think the problem has three main components: (a) Teams won't even talk to you unless you have accounts at above the B- rank or have an AKA people already know (Even if you have plenty of C+ accounts with good records).
(b) Its virtually impossible to improve on iCCup. This is because its full of players who play maps that operate outside of the META game (Destination, Python, Bluestorm, HBR, to some extent FS, etc...) and most of the players don't even have well defined strategies. Its rare to even find a player who knows a proper SCV or Probe scout timing (Even in the C and B ranks), let alone a player who plays within the entire meta game. This causes players attempting to develop mechanics to eventually get frustrated and resort to cheese.
(c) Its difficult to practice on Korean servers because of the language barriers. And a lot of lower level Koreans have the exact problems as iccup I described in part (b).
Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
There's a curious air of positive thinking coming over this thread (if you dig deep enough).
00Zarathustra, I see your point that people need to be interested in watching it. I think you have a very valid point there. The idea that if we reach out on various communities, not just Teamliquid, with projects to get people watching and understanding BW, is a strong one. Then even if one in 50 people who watch our professional styled, beginner-friendly commentaries actually log on and play the game *which is ***FREE*** by the way, we will still be bringing one hell of a lot of fresh blood in.
And I'm not talking in a hyper competitive sense here, which is where a lot of misconception is occuring in this thread. I'm talking building from the roots again, just having a growing number of people who enjoy playing! Not who want to be professionals. People who want to play in Division Z of Clanleague some day and possibly beat some other D rank team, and would feel good doing so.
So ummm, yeah. Another problem we face is that people talk a lot and don't like to act. I will start considering this project, and if I can think of an overall structure to make it viable (production values, sites to promote and discuss on, people who could help push the game for us), and critically whether I have enough time or not because my schedule is slammed at the moment, then this could be a go-er.
EDIT: Tryumm- in response to point A), you've clearly never come to talk to team AoV. Op AoV, Team AoV on ICCup, and I am EleGant[AoV].
On September 27 2011 02:38 keiraknightlee wrote: Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
Yes, but they aren't used anymore. Circuit Breakers, Empire of the sun, La Mancha, Monte Christo, Carrierfinder, that's were the metagame is. (Can't believe I just used that shitty word.)
On September 27 2011 02:38 keiraknightlee wrote: Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
Maybe you should actually try playing on them then.
On September 27 2011 02:55 Sentenal wrote: Maybe I'm missing something, but how is MAYBE making $800 over 4 months "monetary success" or a "respective amount of cash flow"?
People all over the world do things which are done professionally, not because they want to make a living out of it, but because they love it. Huge numbers of people. I find that kind of thinking so unproductive, and obtuse. People categorise an "esport". And then that's it. There is one model. One reason to play, and that's being a progamer, which is total rubbish.
Hey ImbaToss I'm willing to help as much as I can if you take this project.
I would do it myself but I live in Bolivia aka my internet sux. xD even uploading a video would take hours and I don't want to even talk about streaming. xD
But outside from streaming or making videos I can help in anything you want. The project needs a leader and I think you are the best one for this. And if you think you are not, Im sure you know who would be the best for the job.
On September 27 2011 02:55 Sentenal wrote: Maybe I'm missing something, but how is MAYBE making $800 over 4 months "monetary success" or a "respective amount of cash flow"?
People all over the world do things which are done professionally, not because they want to make a living out of it, but because they love it. Huge numbers of people. I find that kind of thinking so unproductive, and obtuse. People categorise an "esport". And then that's it. There is one model. One reason to play, and that's being a progamer, which is total rubbish.
I don't see how that has anything to do with what I just said. OP is trying to make out a relatively small amount of money made in BW to be something more than it is. MAYBE $800 over 4 months is $200 a month? And quiet possible could be half that if a few tournaments don't go as planned? Don't quit your day job, folks. Doing something for fun, and because you love it is one thing. But you can't make a living off the foreign BW scene, and think that you can is just crazy.
All the people that are complaining about the $ amount refuses to remember how small the foreigner scene/TL was prior to SC2 oO. Its not like Idra was rolling in da chedda back then either, he was the top foreigner and all he got was free food/housing from CJ.
On September 27 2011 02:55 Sentenal wrote: Maybe I'm missing something, but how is MAYBE making $800 over 4 months "monetary success" or a "respective amount of cash flow"?
People all over the world do things which are done professionally, not because they want to make a living out of it, but because they love it. Huge numbers of people. I find that kind of thinking so unproductive, and obtuse. People categorise an "esport". And then that's it. There is one model. One reason to play, and that's being a progamer, which is total rubbish.
No one is licking stamps for fun. No one is labeling cans for fun.
People are doing stuff for fun if its FUN.
Playing StarCraft IS fun.
Getting GOOD at Starcraft is NOT fun. It's fucking copy&paste from the pros, no room for creative thinking except at teeny tiniest little things at the absolute top level of play.
So, to be an "up and comer" in BroodWar, you basically have to be a pretty stiff person with extremely low criteria for determining what's fun.
It's not even about fun for all people. It's about competition for some. There's NONE in foreign BroodWar. Noone is serious about it. So the only satisfaction you could get would be beating people who actually have a life while your holy "up and comin-ness" spams BroodWar for 6+ hours a day.
Give it up ImbaToss, reality is proving you wrong and even theory can't come up with solid ground reasons for the emergence of new blood for BroodWar.
On September 27 2011 02:55 Sentenal wrote: Maybe I'm missing something, but how is MAYBE making $800 over 4 months "monetary success" or a "respective amount of cash flow"?
People all over the world do things which are done professionally, not because they want to make a living out of it, but because they love it. Huge numbers of people. I find that kind of thinking so unproductive, and obtuse. People categorise an "esport". And then that's it. There is one model. One reason to play, and that's being a progamer, which is total rubbish.
No one is licking stamps for fun. No one is labeling cans for fun.
People are doing stuff for fun if its FUN.
Playing StarCraft IS fun.
Getting GOOD at Starcraft is NOT fun. It's fucking copy&paste from the pros, no room for creative thinking except at teeny tiniest little things at the absolute top level of play.
So, to be an "up and comer" in BroodWar, you basically have to be a pretty stiff person with extremely low criteria for determining what's fun.
It's not even about fun for all people. It's about competition for some. There's NONE in foreign BroodWar. Noone is serious about it. So the only satisfaction you could get would be beating people who actually have a life while your holy "up and comin-ness" spams BroodWar for 6+ hours a day.
Give it up ImbaToss, reality is proving you wrong and even theory can't come up with solid ground reasons for the emergence of new blood for BroodWar.
Your signature says otherwise. Don't give up, ImbaToss!
On September 27 2011 02:55 Sentenal wrote: Maybe I'm missing something, but how is MAYBE making $800 over 4 months "monetary success" or a "respective amount of cash flow"?
People all over the world do things which are done professionally, not because they want to make a living out of it, but because they love it. Huge numbers of people. I find that kind of thinking so unproductive, and obtuse. People categorise an "esport". And then that's it. There is one model. One reason to play, and that's being a progamer, which is total rubbish.
No one is licking stamps for fun. No one is labeling cans for fun.
People are doing stuff for fun if its FUN.
Playing StarCraft IS fun.
Getting GOOD at Starcraft is NOT fun. It's fucking copy&paste from the pros, no room for creative thinking except at teeny tiniest little things at the absolute top level of play.
So, to be an "up and comer" in BroodWar, you basically have to be a pretty stiff person with extremely low criteria for determining what's fun.
It's not even about fun for all people. It's about competition for some. There's NONE in foreign BroodWar. Noone is serious about it. So the only satisfaction you could get would be beating people who actually have a life while your holy "up and comin-ness" spams BroodWar for 6+ hours a day.
Give it up ImbaToss, reality is proving you wrong and even theory can't come up with solid ground reasons for the emergence of new blood for BroodWar.
All reality is proving is that what I would like to happen hasn't been done yet. And also that there are more than enough people happy to say "Urrrr it's all fucked, and also it's rubbish playing, and also even if there were something to be done I probably wouldn't do it".
You compare playing this game to LICKING STAMPS?? You are just mind-blowing. Wow. Just... my god, what did you even come here for?
You just insulted me, and pretty much all the people in the BW forum with your few choice statements. Wanna do something for what you love, or are you truly a spectator to life? I'm not really one for doing nothing but jumping on the back of other people's achievements. It's not the path to satisfaction, or happiness, or meaningful longevity.
It's not even about fun for all people. It's about competition for some.
If they can't have fun while competing then they should just stop doing it. It's just the neurotic "I wanna be better than you in something" kinda attitude.
Elegant want to draw more ppl into the community so they can have this level of FUN. Because BW would be even more enjoyable if there were more ppl in the community.
Moving to Fish was a good idea obviously for a lot of reasons but there's a lot of people in limbo now on iccup. And the gap from like C to high B is seemingly impassable without some serious determination and persistence. Not to say it was ever easy but i reckon with more players around with no language barrier, more clans around and generally just more people it was quicker to learn.
Btw it's retarded to say you MUST copy builds to get good, when it comes to the foreign scene. You'd think that myth would die out ages about with players like F91 and his showmatch against IdrA. Smashing a B-team total 'safe' player with creativity. If you are smart tactically/strategically or just work on pure mechanics you can still be creative (although in some matchups more than others of course). The game is varied enough to allow though, it's an injustice to suggest otherwise. Foreigners are not going to die like Koreans could possibly because of a build being seconds off or diverting from the standard, there's clearly a lot of leeway for individual ideas.
And i don't think Game is trying to say the money is worth any more than it is. Where does he exaggerate at all? The topic is hardly even positive when it's saying there's no new blood so how the fuck would you get the impression he's trying to make out things are better than reality. He's just giving us the figures (which tbh i thought would be less) and a viewpoint.
To be honest in my opinion i don't have a problem with the scenes size right now.. in a way the small size gives more of a sense of community and you learn about everyone better, it has a few little benefits in things like that. I think due to the time since SC2 release there will be a lull in new blood appearing at C/B level, as that is when new players would have probably started their journey to those levels but instead play SC2. However i honestly think that will change as you could see just by threads on here; more and more taking a fair bit of interest in BW retroactively. I think a slow but steady growth is in order as the allure of SC2 wears thin and people return or gain an interest. It's not like we can lose more people at this point is it really? If you've not switched by now then your mind seems pretty clear about what you prefer.
Having an authoritative guide or something on what server people should use and just an overall general advisory would go some way to helping this. We need something to point people to that easily answers the questions we see over and over.
The reason why there are no new up and coming players is simple. The foreigner scene is filled with veterans who have played for years. I used to play WC3 and Red Alert 2 casually, and those scenes weren't that much different from the current foreigner BW scene. Sometimes you see new players, but most of the players are more or less veterans.
BW is not broadcasted the same way as in Korea. In Korea you have 13 year olds talking about the game in school. Some kids even watch the games with their parents. When it comes to the foreigner scene there is no such thing as a younger generation of players, so you never see any up and coming players who can challenge the veterans. That's the main reason. I think that the high skill cap is another reason.
On September 26 2011 19:04 Maenander wrote: Has Koll stopped playing? Or does he simply not participate in tournaments?
LRM)Kolll? The guy who's played in every tournament outside of Korea over the past year? Nope, not retired. Too lazy to link, check AoV iCCup Starleague, Justin.tv King of the Hill, Twitch.tv King of the Hill, LRM) $75 Island Tournament, Second LRM) $75 Island Tournament, Ribbon Classic, and Kaal's International StarLeague. Can't think of others off the top of my head.
On September 27 2011 05:07 ninini wrote: BW is not broadcasted the same way as in Korea. In Korea you have 13 year olds talking about the game in school. Some kids even watch the games with their parents.
I talk about BW with the kid I sit next to in Police-Community Relations class that I have in 2 hours. He's an ex-BW player that's transitioned into SC2. Although I'm 23 and not 13.
On September 27 2011 02:55 Sentenal wrote: Maybe I'm missing something, but how is MAYBE making $800 over 4 months "monetary success" or a "respective amount of cash flow"?
People all over the world do things which are done professionally, not because they want to make a living out of it, but because they love it. Huge numbers of people. I find that kind of thinking so unproductive, and obtuse. People categorise an "esport". And then that's it. There is one model. One reason to play, and that's being a progamer, which is total rubbish.
No one is licking stamps for fun. No one is labeling cans for fun.
People are doing stuff for fun if its FUN.
Playing StarCraft IS fun.
Getting GOOD at Starcraft is NOT fun. It's fucking copy&paste from the pros, no room for creative thinking except at teeny tiniest little things at the absolute top level of play.
So, to be an "up and comer" in BroodWar, you basically have to be a pretty stiff person with extremely low criteria for determining what's fun.
It's not even about fun for all people. It's about competition for some. There's NONE in foreign BroodWar. Noone is serious about it. So the only satisfaction you could get would be beating people who actually have a life while your holy "up and comin-ness" spams BroodWar for 6+ hours a day.
Give it up ImbaToss, reality is proving you wrong and even theory can't come up with solid ground reasons for the emergence of new blood for BroodWar.
All reality is proving is that what I would like to happen hasn't been done yet. And also that there are more than enough people happy to say "Urrrr it's all fucked, and also it's rubbish playing, and also even if there were something to be done I probably wouldn't do it".
Yes. It would take a very special individual to actually pursue a path of getting good at Brood War. It just isn't viable in today's world. The game is mapped out, you could almost say solved. You'd have to be almost crazy to go full-time SC outside of Korea.
You compare playing this game to LICKING STAMPS?? You are just mind-blowing. Wow. Just... my god, what did you even come here for?
I said playing starcraft is fun, but getting GOOD in starcraft is NOT! (I'm not even saying getting BETTER is not fun, because it is! But getting GOOD - Korean-level-Good - is pretty much dry practice day, in day out. Almost noone to talk to about the game if you're not Korean doesn't help either.)
You just insulted me, and pretty much all the people in the BW forum with your few choice statements. Wanna do something for what you love, or are you truly a spectator to life? I'm not really one for doing nothing but jumping on the back of other people's achievements. It's not the path to satisfaction, or happiness, or meaningful longevity.
I didn't insult you, but if you prefer to look at it that way, do as you wish.
May I expand this argument by asking you to do the following:
Imagine somehow a potential up-and-comer emerges in the foreign scene. Please let your imagination go wild and write a few sentences on how exactly would this individual function. Where does he live, what's his personality like, how are his parents, what are his passions. What are his aspirations, motivations, goals etc. Is he a happy person or does he have a 'hole in the soul' he's trying to fix; does he have friends, does he need friends, what keeps him going?
Write a shortened biography of his. Make up conditions needed for this person to actually become good in BroodWar. But it has to be believable.
I guess my point is that it would take a reincarnation of Buddha(like, a perfect human being) with an ingrained burning passion exclusively for StarCraft to actually fulfill your dream.
P.S. Even tho I play and follow almost exclusively SC2 now; I played and followed BW scene for about last 5-6 years.
I have read through this thread's discussion and there have been a lot of overly optimistic post and many overly pessimistic posts. Now, here we are, near the end of ISL2, I can tell you for a fact, the foreign scene is not dead. How can it be when there are still people dedicating 40+ hours a week to playing with others dedicating even more time to organize stuff. You can argue that its dying and when it will die or you can just accept the fact that the game will die eventually, however you can't argue that the game is dead, because that's false.
Now that we've gotten past that, I'd agree that BW is declining, however this is entirely the community inflicting this upon itself. The Brood War community is large enough to kick itself back into shape, however it doesn't have the strength. People refuse to believe that there is any hope in Brood War and yes, this is true, however why is it true? It's true because you make it true. Why are there no up comers? There are none because anyone you ask would say there is no point getting good at BW. They would say, the community is dying without realizing, they're the ones who are killing the community. And that is what I mean by there is no strength in the community. In order for Brood War to live on in the foreign community, you need strength within the community, people need to believe that the community can expand to former glory or even bigger, if this isn't achieved, there is no doubt, Brood War will come to a speedy end for foreigners.
Alright, so I have to go meet up with someone, however I will post again to explain what could be done to increase the size of foreign bw. And you guys gotta quit being so negative, ESPECIALLY people who don't even play bw, don't come here and try to say bw is dead, if it was dead, we wouldn't be able to log on and find games to play and there wouldn't be a major starleague going. There won't be any up and coming talent till people understand what is written in this post and act accordingly, of course this is not the only factor hence, I'll be posting again later. ^^
On September 27 2011 05:45 niteReloaded wrote: P.S. Even tho I play and follow almost exclusively SC2 now; I played and followed BW scene for about last 5-6 years.
Well this would explain your pessimistic view on BW, you've already given up so you'll try to get people to follow you in your decision like most would, not to mention people look a hell of a lot better when they're proven right, in this case, you're actually contributing to the death of Brood War and then later you'll say "I told you so". It's like getting on shore saying "man the boat's going to sink" and then splashing water into it.
In the current ISL I liked Plumbum's play. Some of it was not very conventional but when he had to macro war someone he did a pretty good job at it.
As for the potential new talent, it is hard to tell with a limited scene, but if you keep on hosting these tournaments you will eventually see someone who will bring something special to the foreigner scene.
I played SC/BW in the early days of 98-01 and then off and on casually and it was nothing compared to todays "amateurs". I don't care if the skill level is not at the Korean level or not, it is nice to see foreigners still competing and enjoying the game. Right now I am deciding between working on BW or SC2. SC2 has the bigger scene, but BW has the nostalgic feeling to it, if I spend enough time on either game I should be able to kick start myself to playing the game decently again.
I think I have gotten spoiled by the SC2 matchmaking system, due to the fact I hate trying to find games these days and would rather hit one button and be matched up against someone who is close to my skill rating.
BW will have it's players and like it has been said the game will only be dead when no one plays anymore. Thank you BW community for keeping the tournaments still going.
edit: Oh and you can also think of things in this perspective. SC2 is the stepping stone to BW, as more people play SC2 and hear about the fabled BW they might want to take up the challenge and see how well they do. Blizzard did include BW in all of the SC2 Collectors editions afterall.
i think its amusing to me because the sc2 scene is plateauing and people are still talkinga bout bw. its been 13 years. i stopped when sc2 beta came out. time to move on. sc2 is the future like it or not. bw may have a niche community but its going to have to die sooner or later.
same with sc2. it will have to die sooner or later. cept its life span is rightnow.
with that said...this threadmakes me wanna go on bnet and get some ww2 die or some bgh going on.
About the subject of newcomers, I feel that there is not enough prize pool to encourage foreign growth. A foreigner by now have pretty much no chance of ever making it onto a real korean proteam. There is also no way to be a full time gamer with SCBW. So all that is left is "semi-competitive casual gamers" who plays a few hours a day which won't make true legends(or hell even foreign legends like white-ra or draco).
On September 27 2011 06:14 Phanekim wrote: i think its amusing to me because the sc2 scene is plateauing and people are still talkinga bout bw. its been 13 years. i stopped when sc2 beta came out. time to move on. sc2 is the future like it or not. bw may have a niche community but its going to have to die sooner or later.
same with sc2. it will have to die sooner or later. cept its life span is rightnow.
with that said...this threadmakes me wanna go on bnet and get some ww2 die or some bgh going on.
Read the bolded part. You realize your entire post contradicts itself, yes? :/
On September 27 2011 05:45 niteReloaded wrote: P.S. Even tho I play and follow almost exclusively SC2 now; I played and followed BW scene for about last 5-6 years.
Well this would explain your pessimistic view on BW, you've already given up so you'll try to get people to follow you in your decision like most would, not to mention people look a hell of a lot better when they're proven right, in this case, you're actually contributing to the death of Brood War and then later you'll say "I told you so". It's like getting on shore saying "man the boat's going to sink" and then splashing water into it.
You're right.
I've noticed the dominos starting to fall. They don't have to all fall IF enough energy is invested to stop it, but, again, without conscious efforts, they will fall.
I feel it's unnatural to try to force something to come back to it's peak again. Noone forced BW to grow in the begginning, it just happened. It seems like it's the natural cycle. I mean, similar things happen in economy, cycles. Not even the biggest experts today can successfully stop these cycles, noone has the recipe to kickstart the economy and many have tried.
- - - Also, @ImbaToss, after I read all the posts, I see that we are arguing different things. You were just trying to prove your point for any new player that starts playing BW. I was talking about serious players with aspirations for highest ranks.
So yeah, it's perfectly possible to start and have success with an initiative that would aim to introduce people to BW.
I agree with most of what have been said here, even though it's sad to hear. I could give you my viewpoint. I began playing bw maybe 2 years ago ( ? ) lurking TL for strats while being bashed in D-. This is fun to a certain point but it was really hard to make any friends because yes, the community isn't exactly strong. So when I finally reached D again and even a bit D+ I quit because the game was more like single player. That took me almost 500 games and I invested a lot of time in something I couldn't really have that much fun from.
In my case I think I would have stayed if either I had a team/friends or there were at least any events to attend. I think there are like low level tournaments on iccup but I can't remember, and it's hard to get to know people as well. What would be needed is indeed a platform. These forums could probably be enough for that but I rarely see anything else than pros or tournaments being discussed. Newcomers don't know anything about them and would have a hard time talking about it no? Ooh and all the "bw are dying threads". Compare this to the general forum where anyone can post because the threads are a lot more casual.
I think it's too hard to actually do anything if you are new. You suck at the game, you have no friends and it's hard making either better. There was something else I wanted to write but I'm to tired to remember, sorry.
There's no need to revitalize or jumpstart the scene. Just start playing and show your friends. It's what I did at my high school, and I got like 5-6 people to actively play with me. We basically played weekly throughout the summer. They won't try to get good at it, but they'll watch Pro-BW with me now, and it provides me incentive to keep getting good.
Edit after previewing: ^^^Read the guy's post above me. LEARN FROM HIM! You will understand why I say this when you read the rest of my post.
People, let's think about what is happening here. We have some people who are taking an initiative, actually thinking about lifting a hand to get BW back on track a little bit, and you are telling them, no, it isn't possible, BW is dying. Seriously. Who are you to try and stifle some of the few who actually have the guts to stand up and do something about this game? I'm not trying to force you to believe in BW any more, but I don't understand why you are trying to stomp on ideas that are trying to help it. And if you're trolling, this is neither the time, nor the place.
Anyway, my rant is over. Now I can actually say something useful (I hope).
What I have gathered from Imbatoss' and Zarathrustra's posts, we are trying to get newer players into the game. This is indeed possible, I can attest to it happening on a small scale. I am from SC2GG (small casual community), and over the summer we tried to get some new players in. We managed to get about 15 people to join, (this in a community of less than 100 people, understand), some of whom had never played even the BW campaign. This was mainly from one commentator with about 2k subscribers, who we "advertised" with. So it is possible. How to get this on a large scale is the problem now.
One way is word of mouth. Obviously the slowest and maybe least rewarding, but every little bit helps. Like Game and the ex-BW player in his class. Stuff like that. Every new player is a small victory.
Zarathrustra's idea is probably the most likely for success, if more people watch BW they will play it, if only a little. The thing is, I don't think very many people will become "hooked" by this unless there is English commentary. Once they are in, they will watch Korean VODs as readily, but we need English commentary as a "hook". I only know of two commentators who do progaming regularly, Nukethestars and DejaVu119 (Sayle doesn't cast pro BW, does he?). This is a problem. We need more commentators. I had actually planned on commentating Proleague matches this season, but due to a heavy workload I am going to be reduced to probably following a single player. But this kind of thing is what we need more of.
An idea I had is about these BarCraft things we keep hearing about. I mean, you have people across the world gathering in bars, sometimes 100+ people in a bar, cheering on some SC2 players when they could be watching BW progames which are in much more than my own opinion far better. We need to get in on those if we can. There's probably people here who have friends who go to those. Go with them, I know it will be torture ( ), do something. Or if you don't have friends, go and make friends and eventually get around to the subject of BW. "Hey guys, have any of you ever seen this guy named Flash play?" You get the picture. I know this is a long stretch, but hell if I care.
Anyway, Imbatoss or whoever else does something, anything, let me know. I'll do my best to help out. Let's try to keep the better side of this discussion rolling.
I just want to say the incenvites things. To be REALLY good (think b teamer) you need to play 4-5 hours every day for a long time and be very talented. The thing is, we all have some sort of life to attend, given bw is not profitable.
If I lived in korea, was younger and didn't have the same obligations I would have honestly try pursing progaming. However as of now, I can't really get games on iccup. I just play fish from time to time, usually on their sleep time so they have to play foreigners to find other "C" players .
On September 27 2011 07:37 TuElite wrote: [x] 4 months [x] 800$ [ ] earned a respective amount of cash flow
Given the circumstances... these guys don't sit here and play BW. I've had Sziky and Ace and Heme etc just not show up for tournaments, and they haven't played in every defiler. The fact is, if they did, they would've placed in the top 3 in all of them respectively, and probably tripled the income from SC:BW. So for it to be a casual income in their respectively economically grave stricken countries.
On September 27 2011 08:35 Memnon wrote: One way is word of mouth. Obviously the slowest and maybe least rewarding, but every little bit helps. Like Game and the ex-BW player in his class. Stuff like that. Every new player is a small victory.
I think you not only made me acknowledge by misunderstandings, but also made a great point in such a small amount of text. Only after reading that, I swear to god, I must be retarded because this just struck me as a concrete idea, did I realize that I'm just not satisfied with the current level because I saw BW in its prime. I'm really a dinosaur now I'm the old man in the family that talks about how great the country was and has more invaluable knowledge. This is not a good thing for me, because I have a huge zest for foreign BW still, as you might be able to tell. And then yes, every new player is a huge victory for foreign BW even if they aren't that great.
When I was actively playing iccup ladder I used to check every matchlist of foreigners and I found that there are no new players. Most who appeared new, were smurfs of older players. Also it's really hard to determine if new players display potential due to the exponentially rapid decay of skill and activity on the server. i.e; exploited[aov] reached B+ with very limited ability and only 2match-ups (no PvZ).
As for current SC:BW progamers, the only dominant player is sziky (recently he only lost few defiler games to scan).
Guys, you know reddit? With just 50 upvotes in an hour or so you can move a post to the front page. We should institute a program to upvote as much BW content onto reddit as possible. I'm sure we can manage 50 upvotes...
That's the most obvious advertising channel I can think of.
Anyone here who has tried to get their friends to play a few games of BW will definitely have run into this problem:
1) Why do you bother with this old game that has shitty graphics? 2) Why are you playing a game that needs so much attention and movement?
I trained a guy before, and I actually thought I was going to fulfill one of my dreams of actually getting one person into decent sc. We practiced up to 20 hours a week for 4 months. His apm got to around 150 and then one day he just gave up and went back to playing DOTA.
Wow, you actually trained someone? That's great imho. The only IRL people I could ever play BW with were two of my classmates at uni. One of them stopped playing after getting decent D rank only playing TvZ and it has been a long time since I saw my zerg practice partner due to me getting sick for a prolonged time period... We were both D+ rank then and would have loved for someone to give us advice
A.) A pretty high barrier of entry. There are an actually decent amount of tournaments, all things considered, but they're all for the tippy-top people. There are a lot of "Bronze-only" SC2 tournaments allowing everyone to get involved, but this is a hard idea to port to BW because smurfing is so much easier.
B.) A general sense of doom and gloom in the BW community. While understandable, this is off-putting to a lot of potential new fans. About half of the conversation about BW is about how dead it is because now only one television channel is dedicated to it ;_;.
C.) BW treating SC2 fans as a scourge, rather than a base of potential new BW fans. While again understandable (there are a lot of SC2 trolls), it's counter-productive in the long run. r/starcraft is starting to have more and more BW content, and the BW special of State of the Game might have helped, but we're not really capitalizing on it very well.
I've been trying to think of a way to make a BW tournament that would be appealing to SC2 fans, such as by commissioning BW ports of SC2 maps for a tournament, or perhaps doing an SC2:BW tournament, SC2 bronzes only. Something like that. I think the BW community needs to take it upon themselves to save BW.
I would not blame it on the success of SC2 in the foreign scene. It's not affecting Korea at all, and "I'm going to start playing BW and make monis" was never a sensible thing for a foreigner to say; you play it because it's fun.
Reading this thread, I cant help but thinking that trying to get people to watch BW games will be really good in bringing in new people. Organising streams/shows with good commentary, promote it outside of TL to other sites like reddit, gosugamer, etc. First thing first is to increase the viewer base of BW, people will decide whether they want to play the game. Like Ribbon said, we can get people from sc2 to watch/get interested in BW. Get a mutual/2-way relationship with sc2. BW itself is fun to watch, though its graphics will look weird on big monitors that most people that plays sc2 has.
I have in fact manage to get 4 friends to watch and BW with me and they love it. Personally, I am trying to get better so I'll be able to compete and be very good it. So its not like there is no one that's trying to be good at this game.
BTW Sayle, if you're reading this, I wanna say, good job yo~! One of my friends regularly tunes into your stream and told me that he likes your commentary, so please dont think that your effort and hardwork is wasted
On September 27 2011 02:49 ImbaTosS wrote: The idea that if we reach out on various communities, not just Teamliquid, with projects to get people watching and understanding BW, is a strong one. Then even if one in 50 people who watch our professional styled, beginner-friendly commentaries actually log on and play the game *which is ***FREE*** by the way, we will still be bringing one hell of a lot of fresh blood in.
We should definitely do something to draw in fresh blood. Tournaments and money prizes help, but they are entirely directed at players who are already in the scene and are already good. So here's what I think we should do:
STEP 1: Get a motto, and logo and a project manager / leader. Broodwar was launched on 30 November 1998. That's 13 years of Broodwar in 2 months. It's a sign already, so we can start with that. STEP 2: Make an article about how good BW was / still is. Link epic moments, epic matches, epic commentaries, anything that would help the cause. End with an open invitation for an official event; something like "BW revival". STEP 3: Find one volunteer from as many countries as possible and get the article translated in every language. Each volunteer should post the article on local gaming / computer forums. STEP 4: Wait for the word to spread around. STEP 5: Stream an official event with showmatches, micro-battles, vanilla Starcraft, Sayle, etc (a lottery maybe lol) at a previously set date. STEP 6: Profit.
On September 27 2011 02:49 ImbaTosS wrote: The idea that if we reach out on various communities, not just Teamliquid, with projects to get people watching and understanding BW, is a strong one. Then even if one in 50 people who watch our professional styled, beginner-friendly commentaries actually log on and play the game *which is ***FREE*** by the way, we will still be bringing one hell of a lot of fresh blood in.
We should definitely do something to draw in fresh blood. Tournaments and money prizes help, but they are entirely directed at players who are already in the scene and are already good. So here's what I think we should do:
STEP 1: Get a motto, and logo and a project manager / leader. Broodwar was launched on 30 November 1998. That's 13 years of Broodwar in 2 months. It's a sign already, so we can start with that. STEP 2: Make an article about how good BW was / still is. Link epic moments, epic matches, epic commentaries, anything that would help the cause. End with an open invitation for an official event; something like "BW revival". STEP 3: Find one volunteer from as many countries as possible and get the article translated in every language. Each volunteer should post the article on local gaming / computer forums. STEP 4: Wait for the word to spread around. STEP 5: Stream an official event with showmatches, micro-battles, vanilla Starcraft, Sayle, etc (a lottery maybe lol) at a previously set date. STEP 6: Profit.
I would volunteer to spread stream links, time, articles, news and whatever to local Malaysian forums
A) Your community treats the SC2 community like shit, you're not making any friends. B) You guys may love the Korean commentators but if you want new blood you need good, active english commentators. C) Streamers, you need more/better featured streamers. I don't mean quality of play because lets be honest I sure as hell can't tell the difference between a B and a B+ player; I mean streamers who are entertaining / engaging ala Destiny. D) A way to play BW with people of equal skill level (automated matchmaking, sustained smurf removal efforts, reworking the tier system (expand D into more then +/-, it's the vast majority of the player base so why waste so many tiers into seperating such the rest (a small % of the player base)). E) Community, partially addressed in A) but also you guys need leaders with charisma. People like Day[9], DjWheat who generate content and gives the community something to rally around, it's far to split right now. F) Far too much of the BW base on TL is focused on Korea, sure they might be the best but if you want new blood then you need devote a lot of attention to incredibly low level play. D only tournaments, high skill level players who spend time coaching/explaining/writing guides and so on. G) An entry point; for SC2 I can simply point people at Day[9] as an entry point to the scene. Who can you point prospective BW people at? H) A condensed scene, ICCup, fish, brain what? Way to split, you need a good mass of new newbies who can all play with each other if you want to drive interest. Pick one and rally around it, you won't get enough new blood to fill three things. H) A hook, why should I swap over? I already have more content then I could ever watch in the SC2 scene and as much as you guys like to circle jerk each other with how much better BW is then SC2 guess what? If you aren't already a BW fan then that's not a very convincing reason to watch. Give people reasons, make (english) hi-light reels, make articles that showcase fun/exciting BW games (contact whoever wrote the Savior article and beg them to write for you, that was one damned good read), throw noob only events.
Anyway that needs hand holding to such an extent to get interested in something is probably not even going to retain interest anyway. If you can't put any effort in at all then this isn't going to be for you.
G) An entry point; for SC2 I can simply point people at Day[9] as an entry point to the scene. Who can you point prospective BW people at?
I would first point to Day[9]'s BW the dailies which are awesome~
BTW, Nony/Tyler, Chill, Stylish, ret and many other foreign 'progamers' have made FPVOD's of them teaching how to play BW...Maybe it's time to list them out again in a new thread for people to see.
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: SC2 player here.
My issues with watching BW are;
A) Your community treats the SC2 community like shit, you're not making any friends. B) You guys may love the Korean commentators but if you want new blood you need good, active english commentators. C) Streamers, you need more/better featured streamers. I don't mean quality of play because lets be honest I sure as hell can't tell the difference between a B and a B+ player; I mean streamers who are entertaining / engaging ala Destiny. D) A way to play BW with people of equal skill level (automated matchmaking, sustained smurf removal efforts, reworking the tier system (expand D into more then +/-, it's the vast majority of the player base so why waste so many tiers into seperating such the rest (a small % of the player base)). E) Community, partially addressed in A) but also you guys need leaders with charisma. People like Day[9], DjWheat who generate content and gives the community something to rally around, it's far to split right now. F) Far too much of the BW base on TL is focused on Korea, sure they might be the best but if you want new blood then you need devote a lot of attention to incredibly low level play. D only tournaments, high skill level players who spend time coaching/explaining/writing guides and so on. G) An entry point; for SC2 I can simply point people at Day[9] as an entry point to the scene. Who can you point prospective BW people at? H) A condensed scene, ICCup, fish, brain what? Way to split, you need a good mass of new newbies who can all play with each other if you want to drive interest. Pick one and rally around it, you won't get enough new blood to fill three things. H) A hook, why should I swap over? I already have more content then I could ever watch in the SC2 scene and as much as you guys like to circle jerk each other with how much better BW is then SC2 guess what? If you aren't already a BW fan then that's not a very convincing reason to watch. Give people reasons, make (english) hi-light reels, make articles that showcase fun/exciting BW games (contact whoever wrote the Savior article and beg them to write for you, that was one damned good read), throw noob only events.
Lets respond to these one by one shall we.
A) We don't treat the sc2 community like anything. we ignore it. Its people who come in here and troll the bw forums insulting our game. We get defensive and then attack back. Generally its the sc2 community that treats us like shit.
B) We have matches that are casted all the time by people like Sayle, crooked (don't know if still active) and a few more. For live events we have had people do english streams, to be unsucessful.
C) we have many great streamers. Just because you cannot tell between B- and B+. That is something that you need to learn about. and auctally pay attention to each player and you can clearly see the differnces.
D) no automatchmaking in the bw client. The current system works fine and during the right times you can find a game pretty easily. the letter system has been around for ages. It won't change. and tbh I'm glad it won't. Its not like sc2 where a new league comes out every month or two with a new shiny icon and what blizzard describes as "shiny and pretty colours,".
E) we have had a lot of things happen here and there. with projects being taken up by a lot of players to make things happen. Right now the community itself is rather divided so uniting the community would have to happen before this would ever happen
F) This has been done countless times and auctally is done many times a month with iccup, and people here also writing guides. Auctally i've seen almost 10-15 since thebeginning of the year.
G) Day[9] did 100+ BW dailies. so we often tell people to check out his bw dailies. other than that we have a ton of vods and such out by sayle. and a few by imbatoss.
H) sc2 doesn't even have a condensed scene lol. 5 different regions if I remember correctly. we have 4 if you count bnet as one. for lower level players, iccup has always been where to go. with fish and brian being for more experinced players.
H2) bw doesn't have things that make pretty colours and make big booms like sc2. Simply speaking. If you want to play a better, more polished game that is perfectly balanced with such a large amount of depth. Play bw.
If you want to play a game that has pretty colours and units that make pretty lazers that go BOOM. If you want to play a game that gets changed every month or two. If you want to play a game with very little depth. Then play sc2. We can't change the game for anyone. Nor do I think we would want to.
If you want articles. we have new articles springing up all the time. Just people don't notice them. Not our fault that people ignore all bw articles for the sc2 ones.
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: SC2 player here.
My issues with watching BW are;
A) Your community treats the SC2 community like shit, you're not making any friends. B) You guys may love the Korean commentators but if you want new blood you need good, active english commentators. C) Streamers, you need more/better featured streamers. I don't mean quality of play because lets be honest I sure as hell can't tell the difference between a B and a B+ player; I mean streamers who are entertaining / engaging ala Destiny. D) A way to play BW with people of equal skill level (automated matchmaking, sustained smurf removal efforts, reworking the tier system (expand D into more then +/-, it's the vast majority of the player base so why waste so many tiers into seperating such the rest (a small % of the player base)). E) Community, partially addressed in A) but also you guys need leaders with charisma. People like Day[9], DjWheat who generate content and gives the community something to rally around, it's far to split right now. F) Far too much of the BW base on TL is focused on Korea, sure they might be the best but if you want new blood then you need devote a lot of attention to incredibly low level play. D only tournaments, high skill level players who spend time coaching/explaining/writing guides and so on. G) An entry point; for SC2 I can simply point people at Day[9] as an entry point to the scene. Who can you point prospective BW people at? H) A condensed scene, ICCup, fish, brain what? Way to split, you need a good mass of new newbies who can all play with each other if you want to drive interest. Pick one and rally around it, you won't get enough new blood to fill three things. H) A hook, why should I swap over? I already have more content then I could ever watch in the SC2 scene and as much as you guys like to circle jerk each other with how much better BW is then SC2 guess what? If you aren't already a BW fan then that's not a very convincing reason to watch. Give people reasons, make (english) hi-light reels, make articles that showcase fun/exciting BW games (contact whoever wrote the Savior article and beg them to write for you, that was one damned good read), throw noob only events.
A) Yes. Ribbon is struggling desperately with this. B) Sayle, NukeTheStars, especially the latter one has given more than enough Progaming content for Newcomers to watch. C) Ez, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=181497 D)The ICCup Admins sometimes show strange behaviour. Maybe, with much goodwill...? E) Day[9] Podcasts. F) The skill level in BW is so high that even D players are devoted nerds (sry). We have got enough guides and such things. G)Pimpest Plays
H) Every foreigner who wants to play seriousely starts on ICCup. Fish is a bit more high level, so no problem here. Same with Brain. I) Here, enter the hall of truth. You will be thankful for all eternity: http://www.teamliquid.net/tlfe/
I had written a big and long response to the lettered bullets but masterbreti already pretty much nailed it. One more time for the record too, 99% of the time its us defending SC2 trollers' attacks and not the other way around. There are, of course, isolated incidents, but as a generalization, I feel this is an accurate statement.
I'm still active for iCCup tournaments (have yet to really kick off this season) and will be casting other independent tournaments in the coming new year (Stay posted for updates on this!!). We have a good bit of new content on the table for next year I think everyone will enjoy.
We really can't help you if you just plain don't look anything up. Judging from your attitude, it looks like you never really had it in your head to give bw any chance in the first place. We won't be able to change that.
On September 27 2011 23:52 sCCrooked wrote: I had written a big and long response to the lettered bullets but masterbreti already pretty much nailed it. One more time for the record too, 99% of the time its us defending SC2 trollers' attacks and not the other way around. There are, of course, isolated incidents, but as a generalization, I feel this is an accurate statement.
I'm still active for iCCup tournaments (have yet to really kick off this season) and will be casting other independent tournaments in the coming new year (Stay posted for updates on this!!). We have a good bit of new content on the table for next year I think everyone will enjoy.
We really can't help you if you just plain don't look anything up. Judging from your attitude, it looks like you never really had it in your head to give bw any chance in the first place. We won't be able to change that.
Don't forget to spread news of any BW events and the streams to websites other than TL and reddit~!
On September 27 2011 23:52 sCCrooked wrote: I had written a big and long response to the lettered bullets but masterbreti already pretty much nailed it. One more time for the record too, 99% of the time its us defending SC2 trollers' attacks and not the other way around. There are, of course, isolated incidents, but as a generalization, I feel this is an accurate statement.
I'm still active for iCCup tournaments (have yet to really kick off this season) and will be casting other independent tournaments in the coming new year (Stay posted for updates on this!!). We have a good bit of new content on the table for next year I think everyone will enjoy.
We really can't help you if you just plain don't look anything up. Judging from your attitude, it looks like you never really had it in your head to give bw any chance in the first place. We won't be able to change that.
Ya people that troll the broodwar forums like Ribbon try to convince us that bw people go into the sc2 forums to troll all day every day. If you ever bother to look at the posting history of the trolls in the sc2 forum they dont even post in any of the bw sections lol.
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: SC2 player here.
My issues with watching BW are;
A) Your community treats the SC2 community like shit, you're not making any friends. B) You guys may love the Korean commentators but if you want new blood you need good, active english commentators. C) Streamers, you need more/better featured streamers. I don't mean quality of play because lets be honest I sure as hell can't tell the difference between a B and a B+ player; I mean streamers who are entertaining / engaging ala Destiny. D) A way to play BW with people of equal skill level (automated matchmaking, sustained smurf removal efforts, reworking the tier system (expand D into more then +/-, it's the vast majority of the player base so why waste so many tiers into seperating such the rest (a small % of the player base)). E) Community, partially addressed in A) but also you guys need leaders with charisma. People like Day[9], DjWheat who generate content and gives the community something to rally around, it's far to split right now. F) Far too much of the BW base on TL is focused on Korea, sure they might be the best but if you want new blood then you need devote a lot of attention to incredibly low level play. D only tournaments, high skill level players who spend time coaching/explaining/writing guides and so on. G) An entry point; for SC2 I can simply point people at Day[9] as an entry point to the scene. Who can you point prospective BW people at? H) A condensed scene, ICCup, fish, brain what? Way to split, you need a good mass of new newbies who can all play with each other if you want to drive interest. Pick one and rally around it, you won't get enough new blood to fill three things. H) A hook, why should I swap over? I already have more content then I could ever watch in the SC2 scene and as much as you guys like to circle jerk each other with how much better BW is then SC2 guess what? If you aren't already a BW fan then that's not a very convincing reason to watch. Give people reasons, make (english) hi-light reels, make articles that showcase fun/exciting BW games (contact whoever wrote the Savior article and beg them to write for you, that was one damned good read), throw noob only events.
Lets respond to these one by one shall we.
A) We don't treat the sc2 community like anything. we ignore it. Its people who come in here and troll the bw forums insulting our game. We get defensive and then attack back. Generally its the sc2 community that treats us like shit.
Lots of BW trolls pop into the SC2 forums now and then, just as SC2 trolls pop into the BW forum. Most of the BW trolls are concern trolls, while the SC2 trolls are 'LOL SC2 REPLACING BW LOLOLOLOL". Neither are indicative of their communities.
B) We have matches that are casted all the time by people like Sayle, crooked (don't know if still active) and a few more. For live events we have had people do english streams, to be unsucessful.
I can't believe you forgot Nukethestars.
C) we have many great streamers. Just because you cannot tell between B- and B+. That is something that you need to learn about. and auctally pay attention to each player and you can clearly see the differnces.
While I'm getting a slight whiff of troll from theButtonmen, it's true that BW could really use a good face of the community type person. There are people who don't like SC2 much who like day[9]. We need one of those from BW
D) no automatchmaking in the bw client. The current system works fine and during the right times you can find a game pretty easily. the letter system has been around for ages. It won't change. and tbh I'm glad it won't. Its not like sc2 where a new league comes out every month or two with a new shiny icon and what blizzard describes as "shiny and pretty colours,".
I don't know what you're talking about with the bolded stuff. If you can't open your ports for whatever reason, though, it is fucking impossible to join a game in ICCUP, and it's generally a smurf at the low levels. Nothing in the universe is more irritating then spending 40 minutes trying to find a game only to get rushed. I speak from experience. Really nothing we can do there, though.
E) we have had a lot of things happen here and there. with projects being taken up by a lot of players to make things happen. Right now the community itself is rather divided so uniting the community would have to happen before this would ever happen
The BW community is too busy feeling sorry for itself to do anything productive, useful, or fun. Excepting Game and the sponsors, the BW community is pretty useless at helping BW.
F) This has been done countless times and auctally is done many times a month with iccup, and people here also writing guides. Auctally i've seen almost 10-15 since thebeginning of the year.
You've seen low-level BW tournaments? Links? I'm honestly interested.
G) Day[9] did 100+ BW dailies. so we often tell people to check out his bw dailies. other than that we have a ton of vods and such out by sayle. and a few by imbatoss.
We can always use more people, though.
H) sc2 doesn't even have a condensed scene lol. 5 different regions if I remember correctly. we have 4 if you count bnet as one. for lower level players, iccup has always been where to go. with fish and brian being for more experinced players.
I'm not actually arguing with you, and have no objections to this point. I just didn't want to skip it because I'm responding to everything else .
H2) bw doesn't have things that make pretty colours and make big booms like sc2. Simply speaking. If you want to play a better, more polished game that is perfectly balanced with such a large amount of depth. Play bw.
If you want to play a game that has pretty colours and units that make pretty lazers that go BOOM. If you want to play a game that gets changed every month or two. If you want to play a game with very little depth. Then play sc2. We can't change the game for anyone. Nor do I think we would want to.
See, this attitude isn't helping BW. At all. "Because SC2 is for inbred retards" doesn't convince SC2 players to play BW, it convinces them not to because the community presents itself as a bunch of hipsters.
If you want articles. we have new articles springing up all the time. Just people don't notice them. Not our fault that people ignore all bw articles for the sc2 ones.
Pimpest play videos are probably the best ads for BW viewership (if maybe not playing it) there are. This is the kind of thing BW fans need to make and post to Reddit and stuff.
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: SC2 player here.
My issues with watching BW are;
A) Your community treats the SC2 community like shit, you're not making any friends.
Some do. But look around and see if some of the hostility is undeserved? A lot of the SC2 "bashing" arises from SC2-only people jumping in various BW-related topics and saying BW is dead or that they hope BW dies or that BW top talent should transfer to SC2. I agree that there needs to be less hostility, but it's a mutual duty for both scenes to curb their own impulses.
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: B) You guys may love the Korean commentators but if you want new blood you need good, active english commentators.
I think this is true... to a certain extent. When I first started watching BW, I had already played the game for a while so even though I couldn't understand the commentary, it didn't matter that much. Later on, I grew used to, and even loved the excitement the Korean commentators could bring to the match (and the depth, when the VODs get translated by some BW saints like Smix et al).
However, I also saw how well Tasteless, Artosis, Husky, and Day[9] were able to bring in casuals, or non RTS-gamers into the scene. The mix of humor and commentary really works on the international audience. The problem so far has been depth, and you only get that when progamers like Idra, Tyler, MC commentate a few matches. Until SC2 reaches the point that balance isn't the primary issue, that's how far the regular commentators can really go. Since BW is such a mature game, I think the SC2 approach won't really work. BW newbies will really need to do their research to follow such a complex game.
Consequently, BW newbies have to embrace a "no work, no eat" attitude. That was certainly my attitude when I first started watching full-time BW in 2009.
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: C) Streamers, you need more/better featured streamers. I don't mean quality of play because lets be honest I sure as hell can't tell the difference between a B and a B+ player; I mean streamers who are entertaining / engaging ala Destiny.
SC2 stole the really cool streamers. Classic example? + Show Spoiler +
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: D) A way to play BW with people of equal skill level (automated matchmaking, sustained smurf removal efforts, reworking the tier system (expand D into more then +/-, it's the vast majority of the player base so why waste so many tiers into seperating such the rest (a small % of the player base)).
There are quite a number of threads addressing this already. Just search for it.
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: E) Community, partially addressed in A) but also you guys need leaders with charisma. People like Day[9], DjWheat who generate content and gives the community something to rally around, it's far to split right now.
Again, SC2 took the best people. Some are still around like Nukethestars, Sayle, etc., but they are few and far between. This isn't an easy thing to ask because it takes up so much time. Day[9] was such a champ for his BW dailies. I doubt anyone could replace that level of dedication. We can hope, though.
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: F) Far too much of the BW base on TL is focused on Korea, sure they might be the best but if you want new blood then you need devote a lot of attention to incredibly low level play. D only tournaments, high skill level players who spend time coaching/explaining/writing guides and so on.
Lotsa posts on this already. I get the feeling you want BW newbies to be spoon-fed stuff? Ok fine, then show me the money, because in all honesty BW is all about learning on your own, through experience, through patience, and a clear love for the game. Without those traits, even someone spoon-fed every single build order, coached 24/7 by an English-speaking Flash, and who's playing every day would be nothing more than another casual following a trendy game.
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: G) An entry point; for SC2 I can simply point people at Day[9] as an entry point to the scene. Who can you point prospective BW people at?
Day[9].
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: H) A condensed scene, ICCup, fish, brain what? Way to split, you need a good mass of new newbies who can all play with each other if you want to drive interest. Pick one and rally around it, you won't get enough new blood to fill three things.
Agree fully. However, Fish and Brain are mostly Korean so every newbie is encouraged to go to ICCUP (heck, you can even try Garena!).
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: H) A hook, why should I swap over? I already have more content then I could ever watch in the SC2 scene and as much as you guys like to circle jerk each other with how much better BW is then SC2 guess what? If you aren't already a BW fan then that's not a very convincing reason to watch. Give people reasons, make (english) hi-light reels, make articles that showcase fun/exciting BW games (contact whoever wrote the Savior article and beg them to write for you, that was one damned good read), throw noob only events.
Why? That's a silly question to ask. We don't know. We can't tell you. It can be many things, it can be one thing, but it's up to YOU, the viewer, the (potential) fan, to decide what makes the swap worthwhile. Life is full of choices to make. You've all seen the content the BW fans produce in terms of articles, videos, and comics. You've seen the translated VODs, Hyungjoon's show, MBC Attack, Old Boy, and everything coming out of Korea that has been processed so that foreigners can enjoy it. You've read the Savior article (c'mon Ver, part 2 please!), the regular previews and postviews, the hype articles, the Team Liquid Final Edits (which is probably the greatest set of essays one could ever read on progaming)... you've seen the LRs, the sick, sick games, the insane skill level of the players, the passion of the fans, the scream of the commentators.
I throw that silly question back at you. Why not? For God's sake, why the hell not???
I've been trying to get some of my sc2 friends to play some BW (they watch OSL and stuff when I give them link to streams and they seem to enjoy the gameplay and everything) and they have no problems with graphics and that the game is old since we have been playing old games like dota and cs for many years. But their problem is that the mechanics is just so hard if you come from SC2.
The UI and mechanics is just so comfortable in that game and you can rely on like 3-4 hotkeys and not even have under 100 apm to actually win on a high level (by ladder standard). Imagine to come to BW where you don't have enough hotkeys and you have to remake your hotkeys thru the game all the time and you can't select more than 12 units etc. That scares alot of potential new comers to BW away I think. And there is not much to do about that. :/
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: SC2 player here.
My issues with watching BW are;
A) Your community treats the SC2 community like shit, you're not making any friends. B) You guys may love the Korean commentators but if you want new blood you need good, active english commentators. C) Streamers, you need more/better featured streamers. I don't mean quality of play because lets be honest I sure as hell can't tell the difference between a B and a B+ player; I mean streamers who are entertaining / engaging ala Destiny. D) A way to play BW with people of equal skill level (automated matchmaking, sustained smurf removal efforts, reworking the tier system (expand D into more then +/-, it's the vast majority of the player base so why waste so many tiers into seperating such the rest (a small % of the player base)). E) Community, partially addressed in A) but also you guys need leaders with charisma. People like Day[9], DjWheat who generate content and gives the community something to rally around, it's far to split right now. F) Far too much of the BW base on TL is focused on Korea, sure they might be the best but if you want new blood then you need devote a lot of attention to incredibly low level play. D only tournaments, high skill level players who spend time coaching/explaining/writing guides and so on. G) An entry point; for SC2 I can simply point people at Day[9] as an entry point to the scene. Who can you point prospective BW people at? H) A condensed scene, ICCup, fish, brain what? Way to split, you need a good mass of new newbies who can all play with each other if you want to drive interest. Pick one and rally around it, you won't get enough new blood to fill three things. H) A hook, why should I swap over? I already have more content then I could ever watch in the SC2 scene and as much as you guys like to circle jerk each other with how much better BW is then SC2 guess what? If you aren't already a BW fan then that's not a very convincing reason to watch. Give people reasons, make (english) hi-light reels, make articles that showcase fun/exciting BW games (contact whoever wrote the Savior article and beg them to write for you, that was one damned good read), throw noob only events.
Lets respond to these one by one shall we.
A) We don't treat the sc2 community like anything. we ignore it. Its people who come in here and troll the bw forums insulting our game. We get defensive and then attack back. Generally its the sc2 community that treats us like shit.
Lots of BW trolls pop into the SC2 forums now and then, just as SC2 trolls pop into the BW forum. Most of the BW trolls are concern trolls, while the SC2 trolls are 'LOL SC2 REPLACING BW LOLOLOLOL". Neither are indicative of their communities.
B) We have matches that are casted all the time by people like Sayle, crooked (don't know if still active) and a few more. For live events we have had people do english streams, to be unsucessful.
C) we have many great streamers. Just because you cannot tell between B- and B+. That is something that you need to learn about. and auctally pay attention to each player and you can clearly see the differnces.
While I'm getting a slight whiff of troll from theButtonmen, it's true that BW could really use a good face of the community type person. There are people who don't like SC2 much who like day[9]. We need one of those from BW
D) no automatchmaking in the bw client. The current system works fine and during the right times you can find a game pretty easily. the letter system has been around for ages. It won't change. and tbh I'm glad it won't. Its not like sc2 where a new league comes out every month or two with a new shiny icon and what blizzard describes as "shiny and pretty colours,".
I don't know what you're talking about with the bolded stuff. If you can't open your ports for whatever reason, though, it is fucking impossible to join a game in ICCUP, and it's generally a smurf at the low levels. Nothing in the universe is more irritating then spending 40 minutes trying to find a game only to get rushed. I speak from experience. Really nothing we can do there, though.
E) we have had a lot of things happen here and there. with projects being taken up by a lot of players to make things happen. Right now the community itself is rather divided so uniting the community would have to happen before this would ever happen
The BW community is too busy feeling sorry for itself to do anything productive, useful, or fun. Excepting Game and the sponsors, the BW community is pretty useless at helping BW.
F) This has been done countless times and auctally is done many times a month with iccup, and people here also writing guides. Auctally i've seen almost 10-15 since thebeginning of the year.
You've seen low-level BW tournaments? Links? I'm honestly interested.
G) Day[9] did 100+ BW dailies. so we often tell people to check out his bw dailies. other than that we have a ton of vods and such out by sayle. and a few by imbatoss.
H) sc2 doesn't even have a condensed scene lol. 5 different regions if I remember correctly. we have 4 if you count bnet as one. for lower level players, iccup has always been where to go. with fish and brian being for more experinced players.
I'm not actually arguing with you, and have no objections to this point. I just didn't want to skip it because I'm responding to everything else .
H2) bw doesn't have things that make pretty colours and make big booms like sc2. Simply speaking. If you want to play a better, more polished game that is perfectly balanced with such a large amount of depth. Play bw.
If you want to play a game that has pretty colours and units that make pretty lazers that go BOOM. If you want to play a game that gets changed every month or two. If you want to play a game with very little depth. Then play sc2. We can't change the game for anyone. Nor do I think we would want to.
See, this attitude isn't helping BW. At all. "Because SC2 is for inbred retards" doesn't convince SC2 players to play BW, it convinces them not to because the community presents itself as a bunch of hipsters.
If you want articles. we have new articles springing up all the time. Just people don't notice them. Not our fault that people ignore all bw articles for the sc2 ones.
Pimpest play videos are probably the best ads for BW viewership (if maybe not playing it) there are. This is the kind of thing BW fans need to make and post to Reddit and stuff.
If it was so impossible to join games, I'm wondering how people join my games in under 5 minutes when I host. This is at D/D+/C- though, higher up sure it's hard to find games. Also op teamliquid has a fair number of people, when it's not busy being AFK.
Also, good job in not acknowledging all the hard work of people who write the featured news after every proleague round, all the people who translate interviews and also all the people who keep us up to date on BW happenings like Ryo (Have you read his MBC blogs?). You are also forgetting motrika's dedication to uploading vods on youtube.
On September 28 2011 00:25 Termit wrote: I've been trying to get some of my sc2 friends to play some BW (they watch OSL and stuff when I give them link to streams and they seem to enjoy the gameplay and everything) and they have no problems with graphics and that the game is old since we have been playing old games like dota and cs for many years. But their problem is that the mechanics is just so hard if you come from SC2.
The UI and mechanics is just so comfortable in that game and you can rely on like 3-4 hotkeys and not even have under 100 apm to actually win on a high level (by ladder standard). Imagine to come to BW where you don't have enough hotkeys and you have to remake your hotkeys thru the game all the time and you can't select more than 12 units etc. That scares alot of potential new comers to BW away I think. And there is not much to do about that. :/
I maintain it's a community thing. There needs to be more stuff for low-level players to do, and then they'll play more and improve naturally. If you want to play Brood War even at a D-on-ICCUP level, you need to study and grind and do a lot of stuff that honestly isn't very fun. It's really hard to enjoy BW if you're not good at it. It's hard to get good at it if you don't enjoy it.
But I think the solution is to just make it more fun. Get a weekly Big Game Hunters 2v2v2v2 going. I'd play that. Get a monday funday thing going. We need a way for low-level players to dick around, find out that the game is fun, and then try to improve.
I don't think "Brood War" as a game is inaccessible, but I do think "competitive 1v1 Brood War" is pretty hard to get into from scratch. A noncompetitive entry point can go a long way. The Island Map tournaments are good. The Ribbon Classic was good (ego trip!), the tournament I'm sponsoring next month maybe less so, but the one after that will be sufficiently silly.
It just needs and entry point and constant exposure in other scenes, like r/starcraft and even r/gaming, among others.
On September 27 2011 22:43 TheButtonmen wrote: SC2 player here.
My issues with watching BW are;
A) Your community treats the SC2 community like shit, you're not making any friends. B) You guys may love the Korean commentators but if you want new blood you need good, active english commentators. C) Streamers, you need more/better featured streamers. I don't mean quality of play because lets be honest I sure as hell can't tell the difference between a B and a B+ player; I mean streamers who are entertaining / engaging ala Destiny. D) A way to play BW with people of equal skill level (automated matchmaking, sustained smurf removal efforts, reworking the tier system (expand D into more then +/-, it's the vast majority of the player base so why waste so many tiers into seperating such the rest (a small % of the player base)). E) Community, partially addressed in A) but also you guys need leaders with charisma. People like Day[9], DjWheat who generate content and gives the community something to rally around, it's far to split right now. F) Far too much of the BW base on TL is focused on Korea, sure they might be the best but if you want new blood then you need devote a lot of attention to incredibly low level play. D only tournaments, high skill level players who spend time coaching/explaining/writing guides and so on. G) An entry point; for SC2 I can simply point people at Day[9] as an entry point to the scene. Who can you point prospective BW people at? H) A condensed scene, ICCup, fish, brain what? Way to split, you need a good mass of new newbies who can all play with each other if you want to drive interest. Pick one and rally around it, you won't get enough new blood to fill three things. H) A hook, why should I swap over? I already have more content then I could ever watch in the SC2 scene and as much as you guys like to circle jerk each other with how much better BW is then SC2 guess what? If you aren't already a BW fan then that's not a very convincing reason to watch. Give people reasons, make (english) hi-light reels, make articles that showcase fun/exciting BW games (contact whoever wrote the Savior article and beg them to write for you, that was one damned good read), throw noob only events.
Lets respond to these one by one shall we.
A) We don't treat the sc2 community like anything. we ignore it. Its people who come in here and troll the bw forums insulting our game. We get defensive and then attack back. Generally its the sc2 community that treats us like shit.
Lots of BW trolls pop into the SC2 forums now and then, just as SC2 trolls pop into the BW forum. Most of the BW trolls are concern trolls, while the SC2 trolls are 'LOL SC2 REPLACING BW LOLOLOLOL". Neither are indicative of their communities.
B) We have matches that are casted all the time by people like Sayle, crooked (don't know if still active) and a few more. For live events we have had people do english streams, to be unsucessful.
C) we have many great streamers. Just because you cannot tell between B- and B+. That is something that you need to learn about. and auctally pay attention to each player and you can clearly see the differnces.
While I'm getting a slight whiff of troll from theButtonmen, it's true that BW could really use a good face of the community type person. There are people who don't like SC2 much who like day[9]. We need one of those from BW
D) no automatchmaking in the bw client. The current system works fine and during the right times you can find a game pretty easily. the letter system has been around for ages. It won't change. and tbh I'm glad it won't. Its not like sc2 where a new league comes out every month or two with a new shiny icon and what blizzard describes as "shiny and pretty colours,".
I don't know what you're talking about with the bolded stuff. If you can't open your ports for whatever reason, though, it is fucking impossible to join a game in ICCUP, and it's generally a smurf at the low levels. Nothing in the universe is more irritating then spending 40 minutes trying to find a game only to get rushed. I speak from experience. Really nothing we can do there, though.
E) we have had a lot of things happen here and there. with projects being taken up by a lot of players to make things happen. Right now the community itself is rather divided so uniting the community would have to happen before this would ever happen
The BW community is too busy feeling sorry for itself to do anything productive, useful, or fun. Excepting Game and the sponsors, the BW community is pretty useless at helping BW.
F) This has been done countless times and auctally is done many times a month with iccup, and people here also writing guides. Auctally i've seen almost 10-15 since thebeginning of the year.
You've seen low-level BW tournaments? Links? I'm honestly interested.
G) Day[9] did 100+ BW dailies. so we often tell people to check out his bw dailies. other than that we have a ton of vods and such out by sayle. and a few by imbatoss.
H) sc2 doesn't even have a condensed scene lol. 5 different regions if I remember correctly. we have 4 if you count bnet as one. for lower level players, iccup has always been where to go. with fish and brian being for more experinced players.
I'm not actually arguing with you, and have no objections to this point. I just didn't want to skip it because I'm responding to everything else .
H2) bw doesn't have things that make pretty colours and make big booms like sc2. Simply speaking. If you want to play a better, more polished game that is perfectly balanced with such a large amount of depth. Play bw.
If you want to play a game that has pretty colours and units that make pretty lazers that go BOOM. If you want to play a game that gets changed every month or two. If you want to play a game with very little depth. Then play sc2. We can't change the game for anyone. Nor do I think we would want to.
See, this attitude isn't helping BW. At all. "Because SC2 is for inbred retards" doesn't convince SC2 players to play BW, it convinces them not to because the community presents itself as a bunch of hipsters.
If you want articles. we have new articles springing up all the time. Just people don't notice them. Not our fault that people ignore all bw articles for the sc2 ones.
Pimpest play videos are probably the best ads for BW viewership (if maybe not playing it) there are. This is the kind of thing BW fans need to make and post to Reddit and stuff.
If it was so impossible to join games, I'm wondering how people join my games in under 5 minutes when I host.
Because, especially at the low levels, there are 30 people trying to join games for everyone who can create one ;_;
On September 28 2011 00:38 Ribbon wrote: I maintain it's a community thing. There needs to be more stuff for low-level players to do, and then they'll play more and improve naturally. If you want to play Brood War even at a D-on-ICCUP level, you need to study and grind and do a lot of stuff that honestly isn't very fun. It's really hard to enjoy BW if you're not good at it. It's hard to get good at it if you don't enjoy it.
But I think the solution is to just make it more fun. Get a weekly Big Game Hunters 2v2v2v2 going. I'd play that. Get a monday funday thing going. We need a way for low-level players to dick around, find out that the game is fun, and then try to improve.
I don't think "Brood War" as a game is inaccessible, but I do think "competitive 1v1 Brood War" is pretty hard to get into from scratch. A noncompetitive entry point can go a long way. The Island Map tournaments are good. The Ribbon Classic was good (ego trip!), the tournament I'm sponsoring next month maybe less so, but the one after that will be sufficiently silly.
It just needs and entry point and constant exposure in other scenes, like r/starcraft and even r/gaming, among others.
I feel like this is the best idea. Get noobs to have fun just playing the game, and some of them will eventually want to become competitive. Especially if you help them along by getting them into watching pro BW. Think this doesn't work? Ask any competitive player. I think 99% will tell you that this is how they got into competitive BW.
Because, especially at the low levels, there are 30 people trying to join games for everyone who can create one ;_;
I feel like there is a lot more people on iccup than are in communities like this one. People that are just floating around. We should try to rope these people into a community environment.
Ribbon. I'm not going to quote you entire thing but Just two things.
When you metion asking for articles. Check out all the articles done for OSL's, MSL's, PL's in the last few months by people here on TL. the final edits and that jazz is a ton of content out there already. So content is there.
on the question of low level tournaments. ICCup does a few per season. they are not heavly promoted or advertised. so it does in the long run make them pretty hard to find and auctally particpate in.
On September 27 2011 02:38 keiraknightlee wrote: Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
Maybe you should actually try playing on them then.
Modern play really translates well into Python.
Yeah forge fast expanding PvZ works really well on Python's huge choke points that need 3 buildings to wall. So does protecting a fast third with just Dragoons against the meta game 4 Vulture harass after a cc barracks....are you kidding me when you say Python supports standard play?
On September 27 2011 02:38 keiraknightlee wrote: Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
Maybe you should actually try playing on them then.
Modern play really translates well into Python.
Yeah forge fast expanding PvZ works really well on Python's huge choke points that need 3 buildings to wall. So does protecting a fast third with just Dragoons against the meta game 4 Vulture harass after a cc barracks....are you kidding me when you say Python supports standard play?
I forge expand on Python all the time. Totally doable. And yeah I can defend my third with dragoons. I choose my third. Python was a pro map when Bisu was owning.
I also wish ICCUP used more up to date maps, but your arguments just sound like a SC2 player whining.
On September 27 2011 02:38 keiraknightlee wrote: Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
Maybe you should actually try playing on them then.
Modern play really translates well into Python.
Yeah forge fast expanding PvZ works really well on Python's huge choke points that need 3 buildings to wall. So does protecting a fast third with just Dragoons against the meta game 4 Vulture harass after a cc barracks....are you kidding me when you say Python supports standard play?
On September 28 2011 11:43 masterbreti wrote: Ribbon. I'm not going to quote you entire thing but Just two things.
When you metion asking for articles. Check out all the articles done for OSL's, MSL's, PL's in the last few months by people here on TL. the final edits and that jazz is a ton of content out there already. So content is there.
Ah. I actually do read those, but for some reason I didn't think of them. I don't know if I consider those good advertisement...though I did just five minutes ago get a NASL pass on an article's recommendation, so maybe it is :/
on the question of low level tournaments. ICCup does a few per season. they are not heavly promoted or advertised. so it does in the long run make them pretty hard to find and auctally particpate in.
I've been wanting to do one. How do they deal with smurfs, though? I feel like that'd be a big problem.
On September 27 2011 02:38 keiraknightlee wrote: Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
Maybe you should actually try playing on them then.
Modern play really translates well into Python.
Yeah forge fast expanding PvZ works really well on Python's huge choke points that need 3 buildings to wall. So does protecting a fast third with just Dragoons against the meta game 4 Vulture harass after a cc barracks....are you kidding me when you say Python supports standard play?
I forge expand on Python all the time. Totally doable. And yeah I can defend my third with dragoons. I choose my third. Python was a pro map when Bisu was owning.
I also wish ICCUP used more up to date maps, but your arguments just sound like a SC2 player whining.
Send me a replay of you defending your third with 3 Dragoons on a huge chokepoint against 4 Vultures without losing your Probes against a Bunker CC. Most Terrans on iCCup don't even use this build, and the ones that do typically don't even know this elementary timing. Against a Bunker CC the Protoss gets their third off of 4 Dragoons. The Protoss will have 6 Dragoons total when the Terran Vultures come out. This means only 3 will be defending each base. And since there isn't a choke point going into the expansions, the Protoss can't take this fast of an expansion. If the Protoss expands to another main base, its too difficult to defend the third against a mid game push...and therefore the Protoss is at a significant disadvantage. Since Python was a professional map a long time ago, the META game has changed a lot. Python forces players to go fast Reavers PvT, which is currently obsolete against professionals. The only Reaver builds you see in progaming today is midgame Reaver builds.
Also, if you watch B.Net attack you will notice the professionals often times 1 base on python. And when they do FE, there walls are normally terrible. You can't get a 3-4 hex wall on Python like you can virtually any other map. Python is not a safe map to Forge FE against Zerg. The entire point of a forge fast expand is it allows the Protoss to stop any all in the Zerg can possibly come up with (Unlike a scouted 1 base build).
On September 27 2011 02:38 keiraknightlee wrote: Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
Maybe you should actually try playing on them then.
Modern play really translates well into Python.
Yeah forge fast expanding PvZ works really well on Python's huge choke points that need 3 buildings to wall. So does protecting a fast third with just Dragoons against the meta game 4 Vulture harass after a cc barracks....are you kidding me when you say Python supports standard play?
I forge expand on Python all the time. Totally doable. And yeah I can defend my third with dragoons. I choose my third. Python was a pro map when Bisu was owning.
I also wish ICCUP used more up to date maps, but your arguments just sound like a SC2 player whining.
Send me a replay of you defending your third with 3 Dragoons on a huge chokepoint against 4 Vultures without losing your Probes against a Bunker CC. Most Terrans on iCCup don't even use this build, and the ones that do typically don't even know this elementary timing. Against a Bunker CC the Protoss gets their third off of 4 Dragoons. The Protoss will have 6 Dragoons total when the Terran Vultures come out. This means only 3 will be defending each base. And since there isn't a choke point going into the expansions, the Protoss can't take this fast of an expansion. If the Protoss expands to another main base, its too difficult to defend the third against a mid game push...and therefore the Protoss is at a significant disadvantage. Since Python was a professional map a long time ago, the META game has changed a lot. Python forces players to go fast Reavers PvT, which is currently obsolete against professionals. The only Reaver builds you see in progaming today is midgame Reaver builds.
Also, if you watch B.Net attack you will notice the professionals often times 1 base on python. And when they do FE, there walls are normally terrible. You can't get a 3-4 hex wall on Python like you can virtually any other map. Python is not a safe map to Forge FE against Zerg. The entire point of a forge fast expand is it allows the Protoss to stop any all in the Zerg can possibly come up with (Unlike a scouted 1 base build).
For the purposes of ANY player who games on iCCup, their skill level really isn't good enough for any of Python's little imbalances to take effect. I mean, if you're not confident in your PvZ and can't forge FE on Python or if you think that its just not possible, learn some one base play. As for PvT, T has a lower win rate than P in foreign games, Zerg is only VERY slightly favored in both match ups. So, being as all the matchups are close to 50/50 on Python, dunno what this stuff about imba is...
On September 27 2011 02:38 keiraknightlee wrote: Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
Maybe you should actually try playing on them then.
Modern play really translates well into Python.
Yeah forge fast expanding PvZ works really well on Python's huge choke points that need 3 buildings to wall. So does protecting a fast third with just Dragoons against the meta game 4 Vulture harass after a cc barracks....are you kidding me when you say Python supports standard play?
I forge expand on Python all the time. Totally doable. And yeah I can defend my third with dragoons. I choose my third. Python was a pro map when Bisu was owning.
I also wish ICCUP used more up to date maps, but your arguments just sound like a SC2 player whining.
Send me a replay of you defending your third with 3 Dragoons on a huge chokepoint against 4 Vultures without losing your Probes against a Bunker CC. Most Terrans on iCCup don't even use this build, and the ones that do typically don't even know this elementary timing. Against a Bunker CC the Protoss gets their third off of 4 Dragoons. The Protoss will have 6 Dragoons total when the Terran Vultures come out. This means only 3 will be defending each base. And since there isn't a choke point going into the expansions, the Protoss can't take this fast of an expansion. If the Protoss expands to another main base, its too difficult to defend the third against a mid game push...and therefore the Protoss is at a significant disadvantage. Since Python was a professional map a long time ago, the META game has changed a lot. Python forces players to go fast Reavers PvT, which is currently obsolete against professionals. The only Reaver builds you see in progaming today is midgame Reaver builds.
Also, if you watch B.Net attack you will notice the professionals often times 1 base on python. And when they do FE, there walls are normally terrible. You can't get a 3-4 hex wall on Python like you can virtually any other map. Python is not a safe map to Forge FE against Zerg. The entire point of a forge fast expand is it allows the Protoss to stop any all in the Zerg can possibly come up with (Unlike a scouted 1 base build).
For the purposes of ANY player who games on iCCup, their skill level really isn't good enough for any of Python's little imbalances to take effect. I mean, if you're not confident in your PvZ and can't forge FE on Python or if you think that its just not possible, learn some one base play. As for PvT, T has a lower win rate than P in foreign games, Zerg is only VERY slightly favored in both match ups. So, being as all the matchups are close to 50/50 on Python, dunno what this stuff about imba is...
My initial point stands. If you read my initial post in this thread you will see I attribute the low skill (relative to korean professionals) of foreigners and up and comers to playing old maps. You basically pointed out the reason foreign players aren't proficient in executing meta game builds and have mechanical weaknesses in their builds. They are playing on maps that are not suitable to sustain the meta game. The very fact foreigners are practicing old maps, in my opinion, is one of many reasons most foreigners don't even know what the meta game is or how it works. I also attributed frustration due to getting cheesed or facing aggressive builds to the reasons a lot of foreigners don't start using the meta game builds. Another major reason might be because these players don't watch Korean professional games. Or if they do watch them, they don't watch the games very carefully.
And sure, Python probably isn't imbalanced with players using strategies that are similar to what was used back when Python was a popular map. However, if those players tried to execute the current meta game on Python, the map statistics would be imbalanced.
On September 27 2011 02:38 keiraknightlee wrote: Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
Maybe you should actually try playing on them then.
Modern play really translates well into Python.
Yeah forge fast expanding PvZ works really well on Python's huge choke points that need 3 buildings to wall. So does protecting a fast third with just Dragoons against the meta game 4 Vulture harass after a cc barracks....are you kidding me when you say Python supports standard play?
I forge expand on Python all the time. Totally doable. And yeah I can defend my third with dragoons. I choose my third. Python was a pro map when Bisu was owning.
I also wish ICCUP used more up to date maps, but your arguments just sound like a SC2 player whining.
Send me a replay of you defending your third with 3 Dragoons on a huge chokepoint against 4 Vultures without losing your Probes against a Bunker CC. Most Terrans on iCCup don't even use this build, and the ones that do typically don't even know this elementary timing. Against a Bunker CC the Protoss gets their third off of 4 Dragoons. The Protoss will have 6 Dragoons total when the Terran Vultures come out. This means only 3 will be defending each base. And since there isn't a choke point going into the expansions, the Protoss can't take this fast of an expansion. If the Protoss expands to another main base, its too difficult to defend the third against a mid game push...and therefore the Protoss is at a significant disadvantage. Since Python was a professional map a long time ago, the META game has changed a lot. Python forces players to go fast Reavers PvT, which is currently obsolete against professionals. The only Reaver builds you see in progaming today is midgame Reaver builds.
Also, if you watch B.Net attack you will notice the professionals often times 1 base on python. And when they do FE, there walls are normally terrible. You can't get a 3-4 hex wall on Python like you can virtually any other map. Python is not a safe map to Forge FE against Zerg. The entire point of a forge fast expand is it allows the Protoss to stop any all in the Zerg can possibly come up with (Unlike a scouted 1 base build).
For the purposes of ANY player who games on iCCup, their skill level really isn't good enough for any of Python's little imbalances to take effect. I mean, if you're not confident in your PvZ and can't forge FE on Python or if you think that its just not possible, learn some one base play. As for PvT, T has a lower win rate than P in foreign games, Zerg is only VERY slightly favored in both match ups. So, being as all the matchups are close to 50/50 on Python, dunno what this stuff about imba is...
My initial point stands. If you read my initial post in this thread you will see I attribute the low skill (relative to korean professionals) of foreigners and up and comers to playing old maps. You basically pointed out the reason foreign players aren't proficient in executing meta game builds and have mechanical weaknesses in their builds. They are playing on maps that are not suitable to sustain the meta game. The very fact foreigners are practicing old maps, in my opinion, is one of many reasons most foreigners don't even know what the meta game is or how it works. I also attributed frustration due to getting cheesed or facing aggressive builds to the reasons a lot of foreigners don't start using the meta game builds. Another major reason might be because these players don't watch Korean professional games. Or if they do watch them, they don't watch the games very carefully.
And sure, Python probably isn't imbalanced with players using strategies that are similar to what was used back when Python was a popular map. However, if those players tried to execute the current meta game on Python, the map statistics would be imbalanced.
Wouldn't that just mean they're playing poorly?
I imagine the difference in skill between Korean pros and foreigners is
A.) Korean pros practice 14 hours a day, and get paid for it. B.) Korean pros have some of the best coaches in the world personally helping them C.) Korean pros live in Korea so they're surrounded by super-high-level players to bounce ideas off.
Foreign players, to be comparable, need
A.) The ability to play full time without starving to death because you have no dollars to buy burritos with. B.) Other high-level players they can talk with a lot. C.) High level players physically nearby (I think this might be less important in BW compared to certain other games I follow, but still)
I don't know if we can realistically do anything about point C, but point A can be helped by sponsoring more tournaments. Even $20 tournaments go a long way if a different person does one every day on top of the bigger ones.
Edit: And watching streams, of course, but a small hardcore fanbase like BW's needs to take more direct action to keep the scene alive
On September 27 2011 02:38 keiraknightlee wrote: Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
Maybe you should actually try playing on them then.
Modern play really translates well into Python.
Yeah forge fast expanding PvZ works really well on Python's huge choke points that need 3 buildings to wall. So does protecting a fast third with just Dragoons against the meta game 4 Vulture harass after a cc barracks....are you kidding me when you say Python supports standard play?
I forge expand on Python all the time. Totally doable. And yeah I can defend my third with dragoons. I choose my third. Python was a pro map when Bisu was owning.
I also wish ICCUP used more up to date maps, but your arguments just sound like a SC2 player whining.
Send me a replay of you defending your third with 3 Dragoons on a huge chokepoint against 4 Vultures without losing your Probes against a Bunker CC. Most Terrans on iCCup don't even use this build, and the ones that do typically don't even know this elementary timing. Against a Bunker CC the Protoss gets their third off of 4 Dragoons. The Protoss will have 6 Dragoons total when the Terran Vultures come out. This means only 3 will be defending each base. And since there isn't a choke point going into the expansions, the Protoss can't take this fast of an expansion. If the Protoss expands to another main base, its too difficult to defend the third against a mid game push...and therefore the Protoss is at a significant disadvantage. Since Python was a professional map a long time ago, the META game has changed a lot. Python forces players to go fast Reavers PvT, which is currently obsolete against professionals. The only Reaver builds you see in progaming today is midgame Reaver builds.
Also, if you watch B.Net attack you will notice the professionals often times 1 base on python. And when they do FE, there walls are normally terrible. You can't get a 3-4 hex wall on Python like you can virtually any other map. Python is not a safe map to Forge FE against Zerg. The entire point of a forge fast expand is it allows the Protoss to stop any all in the Zerg can possibly come up with (Unlike a scouted 1 base build).
For the purposes of ANY player who games on iCCup, their skill level really isn't good enough for any of Python's little imbalances to take effect. I mean, if you're not confident in your PvZ and can't forge FE on Python or if you think that its just not possible, learn some one base play. As for PvT, T has a lower win rate than P in foreign games, Zerg is only VERY slightly favored in both match ups. So, being as all the matchups are close to 50/50 on Python, dunno what this stuff about imba is...
My initial point stands. If you read my initial post in this thread you will see I attribute the low skill (relative to korean professionals) of foreigners and up and comers to playing old maps. You basically pointed out the reason foreign players aren't proficient in executing meta game builds and have mechanical weaknesses in their builds. They are playing on maps that are not suitable to sustain the meta game. The very fact foreigners are practicing old maps, in my opinion, is one of many reasons most foreigners don't even know what the meta game is or how it works. I also attributed frustration due to getting cheesed or facing aggressive builds to the reasons a lot of foreigners don't start using the meta game builds. Another major reason might be because these players don't watch Korean professional games. Or if they do watch them, they don't watch the games very carefully.
And sure, Python probably isn't imbalanced with players using strategies that are similar to what was used back when Python was a popular map. However, if those players tried to execute the current meta game on Python, the map statistics would be imbalanced.
Wouldn't that just mean they're playing poorly?
I imagine the difference in skill between Korean pros and foreigners is
A.) Korean pros practice 14 hours a day, and get paid for it. B.) Korean pros have some of the best coaches in the world personally helping them C.) Korean pros live in Korea so they're surrounded by super-high-level players to bounce ideas off.
Foreign players, to be comparable, need
A.) The ability to play full time without starving to death because you have no dollars to buy burritos with. B.) Other high-level players they can talk with a lot. C.) High level players physically nearby (I think this might be less important in BW compared to certain other games I follow, but still)
I don't know if we can realistically do anything about point C, but point A can be helped by sponsoring more tournaments. Even $20 tournaments go a long way if a different person does one every day on top of the bigger ones.
Edit: And watching streams, of course, but a small hardcore fanbase like BW's needs to take more direct action to keep the scene alive
I think foreigners could be doing a lot better than they are presently. Obviously playing all day isn't optimal for most people. But with the availability of VODs, it really isn't that hard to learn the current meta game if you watch the VODs carefully. And with technology such as instant messaging, ventrillo, skype, etc...I don't see why distance would be such a problem. Maybe time zones could be an issue for some people, but this really isn't that big of a problem in my opinion. I agree with your part (B), however. But I believe that's more of a side effect than a cause of the problem. Something that could help your problem in part (B) would be if the higher level clans were not so closed minded in giving people opportunities for trying out for their team.
On September 28 2011 11:43 masterbreti wrote: Ribbon. I'm not going to quote you entire thing but Just two things.
When you metion asking for articles. Check out all the articles done for OSL's, MSL's, PL's in the last few months by people here on TL. the final edits and that jazz is a ton of content out there already. So content is there.
Ah. I actually do read those, but for some reason I didn't think of them. I don't know if I consider those good advertisement...though I did just five minutes ago get a NASL pass on an article's recommendation, so maybe it is :/
on the question of low level tournaments. ICCup does a few per season. they are not heavly promoted or advertised. so it does in the long run make them pretty hard to find and auctally particpate in.
I've been wanting to do one. How do they deal with smurfs, though? I feel like that'd be a big problem.
in short. They don't. but they try.
in long. There have been umerious compaint about smurfing in these tourneys. Basically admins can't do anything until its proved they are smurfs. Which eaither means admiting it or by using a replay of the match. also doing some sort of ip tracking system, where the ip's of the entrants are compared to the amount of active players.
afaik nothing solid has been figured out. But I hope they are still trying to solve that issue.
On September 27 2011 02:38 keiraknightlee wrote: Maps like Destination, Python, FS, etc. (basically most of the maps used in iccup) are pro maps, they have been used in Proleague, OSL, MSL, so they are very well balanced. I don't know what you mean when you say the maps are outside the meta game.
Maybe you should actually try playing on them then.
Modern play really translates well into Python.
Yeah forge fast expanding PvZ works really well on Python's huge choke points that need 3 buildings to wall. So does protecting a fast third with just Dragoons against the meta game 4 Vulture harass after a cc barracks....are you kidding me when you say Python supports standard play?
I forge expand on Python all the time. Totally doable. And yeah I can defend my third with dragoons. I choose my third. Python was a pro map when Bisu was owning.
I also wish ICCUP used more up to date maps, but your arguments just sound like a SC2 player whining.
Send me a replay of you defending your third with 3 Dragoons on a huge chokepoint against 4 Vultures without losing your Probes against a Bunker CC. Most Terrans on iCCup don't even use this build, and the ones that do typically don't even know this elementary timing. Against a Bunker CC the Protoss gets their third off of 4 Dragoons. The Protoss will have 6 Dragoons total when the Terran Vultures come out. This means only 3 will be defending each base. And since there isn't a choke point going into the expansions, the Protoss can't take this fast of an expansion. If the Protoss expands to another main base, its too difficult to defend the third against a mid game push...and therefore the Protoss is at a significant disadvantage. Since Python was a professional map a long time ago, the META game has changed a lot. Python forces players to go fast Reavers PvT, which is currently obsolete against professionals. The only Reaver builds you see in progaming today is midgame Reaver builds.
Also, if you watch B.Net attack you will notice the professionals often times 1 base on python. And when they do FE, there walls are normally terrible. You can't get a 3-4 hex wall on Python like you can virtually any other map. Python is not a safe map to Forge FE against Zerg. The entire point of a forge fast expand is it allows the Protoss to stop any all in the Zerg can possibly come up with (Unlike a scouted 1 base build).
For the purposes of ANY player who games on iCCup, their skill level really isn't good enough for any of Python's little imbalances to take effect. I mean, if you're not confident in your PvZ and can't forge FE on Python or if you think that its just not possible, learn some one base play. As for PvT, T has a lower win rate than P in foreign games, Zerg is only VERY slightly favored in both match ups. So, being as all the matchups are close to 50/50 on Python, dunno what this stuff about imba is...
My initial point stands. If you read my initial post in this thread you will see I attribute the low skill (relative to korean professionals) of foreigners and up and comers to playing old maps. You basically pointed out the reason foreign players aren't proficient in executing meta game builds and have mechanical weaknesses in their builds. They are playing on maps that are not suitable to sustain the meta game. The very fact foreigners are practicing old maps, in my opinion, is one of many reasons most foreigners don't even know what the meta game is or how it works. I also attributed frustration due to getting cheesed or facing aggressive builds to the reasons a lot of foreigners don't start using the meta game builds. Another major reason might be because these players don't watch Korean professional games. Or if they do watch them, they don't watch the games very carefully.
And sure, Python probably isn't imbalanced with players using strategies that are similar to what was used back when Python was a popular map. However, if those players tried to execute the current meta game on Python, the map statistics would be imbalanced.
Wouldn't that just mean they're playing poorly?
I imagine the difference in skill between Korean pros and foreigners is
A.) Korean pros practice 14 hours a day, and get paid for it. B.) Korean pros have some of the best coaches in the world personally helping them C.) Korean pros live in Korea so they're surrounded by super-high-level players to bounce ideas off.
Foreign players, to be comparable, need
A.) The ability to play full time without starving to death because you have no dollars to buy burritos with. B.) Other high-level players they can talk with a lot. C.) High level players physically nearby (I think this might be less important in BW compared to certain other games I follow, but still)
I don't know if we can realistically do anything about point C, but point A can be helped by sponsoring more tournaments. Even $20 tournaments go a long way if a different person does one every day on top of the bigger ones.
Edit: And watching streams, of course, but a small hardcore fanbase like BW's needs to take more direct action to keep the scene alive
I think foreigners could be doing a lot better than they are presently. Obviously playing all day isn't optimal for most people. But with the availability of VODs, it really isn't that hard to learn the current meta game if you watch the VODs carefully. And with technology such as instant messaging, ventrillo, skype, etc...I don't see why distance would be such a problem. Maybe time zones could be an issue for some people, but this really isn't that big of a problem in my opinion. I agree with your part (B), however. But I believe that's more of a side effect than a cause of the problem. Something that could help your problem in part (B) would be if the higher level clans were not so closed minded in giving people opportunities for trying out for their team.
I think distance is important because you're around fellow pros all the time. If distance wasn't important, BW pros wouldn't be crammed into small rooms and SC2 pros with Korean accounts wouldn't say physically moving to Korea was so vital and so much better than just playing on the KR server.
I'm wondering if it'd be productive to the scene to sponsor an SC2 tournament and a BW tournament (and an SC2:BW tournament?) at the same time on the same stream. Like, 2 BW games, 2 SC2 games, 2 BW games, etc on the same stream (this may need to be pre-recorded, at least until the later rounds), so then people watching the SC2 tournament would be exposed to BW (and the reverse ). Good idea? Bad idea? I'm going to be able to sponsor more tournaments now that my student loans are paid off, but I want to do more than "just another tournament".
After reading the whole thread, it seems to me that people want the best and most dedicated noobies only, not the spoon-fed sc2 "brats" as they say to come to BW and play full-time. Yet in the same thread, they are disappointed at the number of new BW players. You can't have super dedicated newbs in droves anymore, it just won't happen.
EPT
Sziky:
Heme, but I know he won much more tournaments, including I think $200-250 in mine alone, and a lot of the Defiler tournaments. However, I'm positive that he earned more than Sziky and Ace, and possibly their totals combined.
SneazeL... I see relatively no one. The only up and coming names currently are just old names that weren't good enough to be acknowledged before SC2's release. 
