Can broodwar make a comeback like Ages of Empires?

On February 21 2016 18:10 chrisolo wrote:
I dont know if AoE2 still has a eSport scene like BW does, but I am 99% sure it ain't as big as the eSport scene from BW is.

On February 21 2016 18:23 Nazara wrote:
BW HD, support for higher resolutions, better looking sprites etc.

On February 21 2016 18:23 Nazara wrote:
Anti-hack/Warden for ladder games.

On February 21 2016 18:21 Probemicro wrote:


competitive AoE2 players don't play AoE2 HD

On February 21 2016 18:41 sabas123 wrote:
I don't see a reason why people would want to go back to bw just for the UMS, Its fun but aren't there better alternatives for that?

On February 21 2016 18:10 chrisolo wrote:
I dont know if AoE2 still has a eSport scene like BW does, but I am 99% sure it ain't as big as the eSport scene from BW is.

On February 21 2016 18:43 HaN- wrote:
Blizzard is supposedly working on a revamp of BW and its other classics games.

http://blizzardwatch.com/2015/11/04/blizzard-updating-warcraft-iii-diablo-ii-and-starcraft-in-hd/

On February 21 2016 18:43 HaN- wrote:
Blizzard is supposedly working on a revamp of BW and its other classics games.

http://blizzardwatch.com/2015/11/04/blizzard-updating-warcraft-iii-diablo-ii-and-starcraft-in-hd/

On February 21 2016 18:23 Nazara wrote:
BW HD, support for higher resolutions, better looking sprites etc.
Anti-hack/Warden for ladder games.
Win 7-10 color bug fixes.

And watch BW coming back.

On February 22 2016 04:34 purakushi wrote:Plus fixing the network code. Lots of issues with not being able to host games. Needing third party plug in for LAN latency and ports.

It's like the difference between Diablo II and III, where I consider II to be more atmospheric and enjoyable in case I just want to immerse myself in a video game world.

On February 22 2016 04:21 Jealous wrote:

This. This is the path BW should/could take.

Brood War's popularity comes from its 1v1 scene, not UMS. It's a highly competitive game and if that's not something you're interested in, then you can find UMS on GameRanger/East/whatever. The revival of the game is dependent on its competitive scene, just like Melee. No one cares about players who do story mode or minigames or something, in the sense that those players don't really contribute much to the scene. Same with BW/UMS.

Project Melee, although nixed now, was what could be a parallel to BW HD in some ways, and probably did bring some players to regular BW. Like said above about AoE2 vs. HD, HD brought in new players and the classic is still where the true competition lies. If something like that happens for BW, I'd be happy to see people enter the scene because they were given a more aesthetically pleasing game to get hooked with, and then decided to become competitive and came to the original. But, purists and people who already value competition will probably just stick to the classic. Not to say that I won't try the HD just out of curiosity,

On February 22 2016 13:40 cncbmb wrote:


:O

I didn't realize alot of people felt the same way. I've been getting into Melee and AoE2 a ton this year and they seemed so vibrant, all sorts of youtube channels popping up and there seemed like alot of energy in the Genesis 3 melee tourney videos.

and then I look at BW US East and all the UMS have died. Used be tons of Strip Megan Fox, Lotr, helms deep, diplo etc on US BW East. And my favorite game, competitive WW2 Allied Final/TTT and WW1 5.1 or WW1 Diamond. Two years before SC2 came out there still all sorts of great WW2 BW UMS then it just kaputtzz... like one game on US BW east now and you get swarmed by hackers.

On February 22 2016 13:46 Probemicro wrote:


if you learn a little korean, you can play UMS in korean fish server.
they have tons of games, WW/snipers/TD/helm deep etc there. new maps being made in 2016, like this year's popular One Punch Man tower defense map. BW revival is pretty much a korean thing, it just looks dead because you are stuck in US East,

On February 22 2016 16:32 iamho wrote:The biggest concern with a BW HD is that all the mechanics may not be able to be replicated exactly, and many people may stick with the old game splitting the community which is sort of what happened with AoE2.

On February 22 2016 21:25 lestye wrote: you'd lose a vast, vast majority of the casual outside-of-Korea playerbase when they see you cant rally your workers to mineral patches like you can in SC2/WC3/other RTSes. They'd dismiss that as archaic, boring, etc and never touch it again.

On February 22 2016 13:40 cncbmb wrote:


:O

I didn't realize alot of people felt the same way. I've been getting into Melee and AoE2 a ton this year and they seemed so vibrant, all sorts of youtube channels popping up and there seemed like alot of energy in the Genesis 3 melee tourney videos.

and then I look at BW US East and all the UMS have died. Used be tons of Strip Megan Fox, Lotr, helms deep, diplo etc on US BW East. And my favorite game, competitive WW2 Allied Final/TTT and WW1 5.1 or WW1 Diamond. Two years before SC2 came out there still all sorts of great WW2 BW UMS then it just kaputtzz... like one game on US BW east now and you get swarmed by hackers.

On February 22 2016 21:10 c3rberUs wrote:
The biggest obstacle to an openSC:BW is Blizzard because they can easily shut it down.

In theory, if BW gets an update, it would generate some buzz but for resurgence to take place, it needs to be modernized for today's platforms (networking and compatibility) and gamers (graphics retouch.)

On February 22 2016 23:36 BLinD-RawR wrote:
I thought that was strip idra?

On February 21 2016 18:43 HaN- wrote:
Blizzard is supposedly working on a revamp of BW and its other classics games.

http://blizzardwatch.com/2015/11/04/blizzard-updating-warcraft-iii-diablo-ii-and-starcraft-in-hd/

On February 23 2016 01:36 palexhur wrote:
I have followed both scenes for years, AoE2 is never going to have the size of BW in Korea, but for several years the "foreign"scene has been healthier and bigger than BW, AoE: HD has brought many new players to the scene, but more important viewers to the competitive part of the game which is played in Voobly (with the original Conquerors). Those saying that AoE2 is more casual than BW, it is not, gl going into AoE2 and being able to reach a decent rate, much harder to be a 2k player (top experts are 2.6k+ Elo, you begin with 1.6k, like chess), of course is casual in campaign, or if you play NR40 min, but that happens in every game with custom scenarios, or when theres a bunch of noobies who dont care about ratings and that stuff. What AoE2 promotes more than BW is team gameplay in casual and competitive games, and the game is slower the first minutes. BW HD being made in a good way has not negative things for this community.

On February 22 2016 21:10 c3rberUs wrote:
The biggest obstacle to an openSC:BW is Blizzard because they can easily shut it down.

In theory, if BW gets an update, it would generate some buzz but for resurgence to take place, it needs to be modernized for today's platforms (networking and compatibility) and gamers (graphics retouch.)

On February 23 2016 12:09 Jealous wrote:


According to ICCup ladder list, there have been over 15000 players to log on this season:

http://iccup.com/en/ladder/1x1/page331.html

If we are very conservative and say that every player has a smurf account, we still end up with 7000+ unique players just this season.

This doesn't include fish, which is much, much more active. Or other UDP-simulating programs such as GameRanger, Evolve, Garena, and Hamachi. On the lowside, I would conservatively say the sum of their active player bases is 1000.

This also does not include all of the people who play in Korean netcafes. There is of course going to be a lot of overlap between the various venues, but even if we divide by 2 or 3 (saying that every person plays using 2 or 3 of these services), the numbers are still tremendous and much higher than AoE (from what was said in this thread).

On February 22 2016 18:47 molotow[eef] wrote:
A good thing in keeping UMS gaming alive would have been not abandaning/ ragequitting on the last living east UMS-community for pretty tiny reason and then delete fb/mobilenumber ^^
I'd imagine ww2 is now gone for good. Not a single capable player is still putting effort into it + your ragequit made bobo, god bless him, overthink his life, he now flew to myamar searching for a nice and caring wife. Also why you never accept my calls? ;-)

On February 21 2016 22:51 _Animus_ wrote:
Bw comunity is too conservative for changes into the game, wich is hindrance i feel. For instance that wc3 mod was looking good for me, but when i go into thread and see what people think it was full of shit. Its like Bw people want to force everyone to stay in prehistoric era because touching bw is herecy, when acutally there are people who will enjoy these changes.

I know bw cant make such comeback in one area, the playerpool. On Garena AOE server i saw 10 000 players online and it was not in peak time, dont remember if its AOE 1 or 2 but that was really shoking. If you go in Gameranger server u see a similar picture, no idea about other servers. And Having to see 300+/400 players on iccup peak time makes me ask myself why is that? Probably because game is too complicated and deep to just play without puting too much effort. But that depth is what makes it interesting for me at least. If the game can become more user friendly, or have separate section of server for casual low level players and gets enough advertising it can grow significantly i think. Because if you are not from these who followed esports scene and just go back to the game for fun and get raped 5 times in a row u probably just quit forever.

One more thing, CnCnet servers (Cncnet is provider of online play for the classic CnC games CnC1 ,2, RA 1, 2, Dune 2000) have more RA1 players than Bw almost all the time, which is weird in my oppinion, because all games are just tank spam arena fights and i get bored after playing just a few games.

On February 24 2016 08:31 Zera wrote:



infinity selection of mutas! What a lovely feature, especially in ZvT!

MBS and >12 unit selection would just make the game completely different. It would not longer be a BW.

On February 24 2016 09:55 Jealous wrote:I think it's safe to say that this is an unpopular opinion in the BW scene. At least, I don't like it one bit.

As Zera said, it would completely change the game. There would be no point in having it be "BW" anymore. You could name it Prometheus RTS or something. Or StarCraft 3: Return of the Broods. It wouldn't be "BW HD." It would be "BW4Noobs." Infinite Muta stack would certainly be a problem, even though Irradiate and Corsair would wreck balls of that size just as well if not better, but it would be much harder to achieve the tech necessary (Irradiate) or the number of Corsair (because Scourge would still kill them), especially at the casual level that you seem to be catering to. Many people know how to Mutalisk micro because it's a simple and popular concept, and plenty of UMS have been made for it. Not nearly as many people know how to survive Mutalisk harass and get Irradiate fast enough to not get picked apart.

However, that is not to say that Mutalisk micro somehow made the game unplayable. You say that you "never really liked what the discovery of this 'bug' did to the game," but I cannot agree with that. It forced other races to cope, match-ups to change, strategies to develop, meta to evolve, players to get better. Mutalisk stack micro is, in my opinion, one of the first tenets of "modern" play. Can you really say that you like the play that was shown by progamers in 2005 and prior vs. now? Sure, there were still great games, and they were still really good players. However, the skill level now is far higher. This brings me to my next point: MBS and Automine effectively remove many of what I would call "skill checks" from the game. A "skill check" is something like, "can you control a diverse Terran mech army while laying mines?" If YES then you've passed the test, and you can push. If NO, then you've failed and lost your push and you have to get better at controlling your army. By removing these skill checks, we are lowering the required skill to play the game, and thus the skill ceiling. Many people had claimed that the presence of these ease-of-use tools, as well as SmartCasting and others, would make StarCraft 2 "more strategic," than Brood War because people wouldn't have to devote so much time to the mechanical stuff. As far as I know, there has been no conclusive evidence of this. All that it's done is make the game less demanding. I would not want to lower the ceiling just to raise the floor for popularity's sake.

There are many other problems with implementing MBC/Automine in BW. Instead of continuing to list them, I'll just reiterate that implementing them would make the game not BW anymore, so there would be no point in doing it for BW revival's sake.

On February 22 2016 23:04 Endymion wrote:


ah yes, strip megan fox, the apex of broodwar ums

On February 24 2016 20:31 Endymion wrote:
it's definitely not artificial, it's another part of what makes broodwar such a strategically demanding game, because you have to manage yourself as well as the game..

On February 24 2016 21:32 Zera wrote:Macro and army management are one of the main parts of a game that distinguishe players, we can't just simplify it to zero.

On February 24 2016 14:52 Jealous wrote:You're right in that the game could be even more demanding in this regard. If I remember correctly, WarCraft I had a group selection limit of 4 and no hotkeys. WarCraft II had group selection limit of 9. However, I feel that StarCraft hit that sweet spot where there is just enough dividing your attention without being ridiculous and not simplified enough for you to be able to do everything with two hotkeys. Because of this balance, we can appreciate a player's macro in Brood War in the lategame with awe, because we know the effort they went through in order to achieve it, or a player's army movement, or their ability to Storm perfectly during an engagement, so on and so forth. It is because those tasks are mechanically trying that their achievement can be appreciated, their exceptional execution lauded. No one bats an eyelid when someone moves a massive ball around the map in StarCraft II, or when they have perfect macro off 16 Warp Gates in different bases.

As for your last question, I think that the answer is highly subjective. The amount of people that switched fully from BW to SC2 AND vice versa are testament to that.

The reason is that every time people make Brood War in a new engine, they fail to maintain important unite behaviours and other features.

On February 24 2016 14:52 Jealous wrote:

The underlying reason why all of these constraints can qualify as a skill check is because they cost you an invisible resource: attention. The way that you spend less of this resource is speed, and the way you spend it more efficiently is multitasking, as you said. There come moments in a game where most of us who are not 300 APM Pro Koreans, and even them at times, are forced to decide between making workers + sending them to mine, making units, microing an army, scouting, etc. If you have all of your Nexii as 0 and you can do 0pppppp whenever you feel like it, all of your Gateways as 9 and do 9zzzzzddddddtttkk and rally them all with one click, then how is your attention being divided? You don't even have to look away from your army for that, ignoring of course the possibility that the enemy is doing some two-pronged attack.

If we oversimplify the game, it won't force you to make decisions like "is this battle important enough that I have to focus on microing perfectly without smartcast and unlimited group hotkeys, or can I go back to my base and do some production real quick." I think it's safe to say we've all had those engagements where we think everything will be okay if we look away for a second, so we go to our production facilities and make a new round of units, maybe set rally. Then you look back at your army and it's toast because you underestimated your opponent's force, or he got the first round of spells/abilities off before you did. Or, two Protoss armies collide, and one player heard the attack notification and decided to finish his macro round because he figured he has the bigger army while the other sent the first volley of Storms, killing essential High Templar, which led him to steamroll the opponent. One person correctly assessed the situation, while the other did not - that is skill.

You're right in that the game could be even more demanding in this regard. If I remember correctly, WarCraft I had a group selection limit of 4 and no hotkeys. WarCraft II had group selection limit of 9. However, I feel that StarCraft hit that sweet spot where there is just enough dividing your attention without being ridiculous and not simplified enough for you to be able to do everything with two hotkeys. Because of this balance, we can appreciate a player's macro in Brood War in the lategame with awe, because we know the effort they went through in order to achieve it, or a player's army movement, or their ability to Storm perfectly during an engagement, so on and so forth. It is because those tasks are mechanically trying that their achievement can be appreciated, their exceptional execution lauded. No one bats an eyelid when someone moves a massive ball around the map in StarCraft II, or when they have perfect macro off 16 Warp Gates in different bases.

As for your last question, I think that the answer is highly subjective. The amount of people that switched fully from BW to SC2 AND vice versa are testament to that.



I touched upon some of what you said above, but to go more in detail, I think that if BWHD had the same game engine in a superior online gaming service, a lot of people would at least try it out. Switching fully would be a subjective course, like switching from BW to SC2 was for many players. It would also depend on what the major competitions, like the various Korean tournaments, decided to do and what the Afreeca streamers decided to stick to. You make assertions like you know it to be a fact, and drop the overused "elitist" term like you see the hypothetical future, when in reality it is impossible to put an entire gaming population under the same blanket. That's pretty damn ignorant.*

Automine/MBS is definitely not a tiny change. That is a huge change. It changes the way the game is played.

I don't think anyone loves the game because there are none of these control features. They love the game in spite of it not having them and think it's superior to games that do have them. However, all of the things that you list "but because of..." would probably be diluted if the same ease-of-use controls were implemented in Brood War.

EDIT: *I guess it makes sense, seeing as you haven't posted in a Brood War thread in at least a year, and I just didn't bother to look further into your history to see if you've ever posted in Brood War at all:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/search.php?q=&t=c&f=-1&u=404AlphaSquad&gb=date

You probably don't read that many of them either, so how are you to know? Like the great TL poster WhuazGoodNjaggah once said, you're "throwing stones at something you don't understand."

On February 24 2016 22:52 ProMeTheus112 wrote:

You made fair points about attention. In my opinion BW would still be highly demanding in that attention resource management with automine and MBS, because there are a ton more things to do. I mean, MBS makes a significant difference to that, but automine doesn't really, so I understand this argument for MBS (only by testing would we know how demanding BW would be in attention resource management with MBS, in my opinion it would still be very demanding in a smarter way : it's not like we spend 20% of the time in game producing units, and it's not like there aren't a ton of other things to do and even I think things we actually don't do at all because there is too much to do :D it's good to relieve that, especially for the less hardcore players, but actually for everyone, imo), but not for automine : it's clear to me automine would not impact this significantly. Can't put MBS and automine in the same box, I guess.

As for SC2, I think reasons why player have left have more to do with the bad pathing or the design of units etc etc. That's why I left (very fast), definitely not because of MBS or automine

On February 25 2016 00:29 duke91 wrote:
The mechanics should be untouched. End of discussion. Any dumbing down would make take away the longevity of the BW scene. What Blizzard can do is create a working B.net, maybe with matchmaking. Since this seems trivially easy to do, but Blizzard haven't done it, one can conclude that Blizzard simply doesn't care about BW. Many incidence in the past confirmed this narrative. Most patches in the past seemed rather as PR gags to promote the narrative of blizzard caring so much about even their old games.

On February 25 2016 00:29 duke91 wrote:If you implement infinite unit selection, its only going to be deathball vs deathball. Not these fine tactical plays, but rather back and forth who can outmuscle who better. It's not chess anymore but tug war. What is left is, as for SC2, the strategical component which is emphasized because everything else doesn't matter as much in winning the game.

On February 25 2016 00:29 duke91 wrote:
If you take away high skill ceiling from BW, you will eventually end up with SC2 which first bores the viewer due to every game feeling the same. Also it will bore the players since every game feels the same and also that you cannot distinguish oneselve from 'lesser' players as much, since strategy will be emphasized, which is often determined in the very early game in as such is very random.

On February 25 2016 00:29 duke91 wrote:Don't get me wrong, someone who played BW for a long time would never ever want MBS, automine etc ever, and I don't get the feeling that you have played BW enough. Simplifying the game in mechanics would not create a game which outlives every other game.

The mechanics should be untouched. End of discussion.

On February 25 2016 00:29 duke91 wrote:What Blizzard can do is create a working B.net, maybe with matchmaking. Since this seems trivially easy to do, but Blizzard haven't done it, one can conclude that Blizzard simply doesn't care about BW. Many incidence in the past confirmed this narrative. Most patches in the past seemed rather as PR gags to promote the narrative of blizzard caring so much about even their old games.

On February 25 2016 01:14 travis wrote:
If sc2 dies and bw really resurges, I will watch it as much as I watch sc2 right now.

But I know in my heart that I will never play it again. I am too competitive, I would feel bad being subpar, and it would be too difficult for me to get very very good at it again. The game is too hard and I am too old with too much "life" going on :/


My life has been filled with both bw and sc2, and I would have to say that I think BW is the superior game to play but I find sc2 to be the superior game to watch. Just in my opinion.

On February 25 2016 03:34 Cele wrote:
an important point in this discussion to me is that we can't rely on wishful thinking too much. Whether you think BW just needs a graphic update or whether you think MBS and automine should be included doesn't affect that Blizzard will not put the necessary efforts into the development of a new competitive gaming platform/overhaul for BW.

Why do i say that with certainty? As some have pointed out above, Blizzard cares for their financial surplus in sales and will stop supporting non f2p models rigorously when they don't sell anymore. We have seen that in BW and many other games alike. Now, they may (big question mark) be interested in releasing a graphic overhaul along those points discussed by Clonester, but they will not provide and maintain a valid online platform for it. By that i mean a battle net interface with decent support like modern Launcher, integrated community bugfixes, tournaments, support and hack-free ladder. They are not going to do that simply because it's not worth the investment to maintain this environment for the amount of copies they'd sell.

I don't think that'd help. Brood War is notoriously spaghetti code.

On February 24 2016 09:11 ProMeTheus112 wrote:

^^
originaly, mutas were not supposed to be able to clump in one spot and remain like this while attacking.. and nobody was doing that for a good bunch of years and the game was great
personally, I never really liked what the discovery of this "bug" did to the game I would vote for putting it out in all honesty

On February 25 2016 17:28 lestye wrote:


Oh god. Yes you can argue it's a clever use of game mechanics, but its not like the game was designed around such mechanics being used. It was something that looks funky and was unintended, but they kept it in the game because of your first point, it became important for game balance.

On February 25 2016 17:28 lestye wrote:


Oh god. Yes you can argue it's a clever use of game mechanics, but its not like the game was designed around such mechanics being used. It was something that looks funky and was unintended, but they kept it in the game because of your first point, it became important for game balance.

On February 26 2016 07:14 Charoisaur wrote:

which balance issues did AOE3 have?

On February 24 2016 09:11 ProMeTheus112 wrote:

^^
originaly, mutas were not supposed to be able to clump in one spot and remain like this while attacking.. and nobody was doing that for a good bunch of years and the game was great
personally, I never really liked what the discovery of this "bug" did to the game I would vote for putting it out in all honesty

On February 26 2016 08:27 f10eqq wrote:


Wasn't JulyZerg stacking mutas by spam clicking them on minerals before the stack bug was discovered though?

On February 25 2016 19:09 lestye wrote:

Units clumping up like that is completely unintentional and not designed to be used that way. Just because it follows the programmed rules, doesn't mean it's not a bug. Programming oversights to how something is "supposed" to be designed on how a variety of gameplay mechanics interact with eachother are bugs.

On February 28 2016 03:29 cncbmb wrote:
Alright that fourth game I mentioned was a troll joke but I feel it is somewhat true regardless but I think alot of people think the same way

Melee > Brawl
BW > SC2
AoE2 > AoE3

On February 27 2016 07:08 Jealous wrote:

I'm not certain as to the veracity of the statement either, but I do know that JulyZerg didn't invent stacking. He just showcased its potential in progaming first, against Hwasin.

Stacking Mutas on minerals is valid if you stack them often, as in you stack, attack an SCV, stack, attack, etc. However, in my personal opinion, I find it unlikely that it was done this way at any point before this game, because this is the game that changed modern Zerg play:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XESrk5z6iAc

If there is a counter-example, please provide BTW f10eqq, I've been asking if you want to be in the line-up for ASL in Skype chat but you haven't said anything ): We're in the finals now, would be nice to hear from you!

On February 28 2016 03:29 cncbmb wrote:
When blizzard chose not to keep the same voice actor for Kerrigan for sc2/swapped it for some pretty blonde I had a bad feeling that they wouldn't be able to capture that same feeling I got playing the BW campaign. Wish they had just done another expansion / same engine for BW and Wc3

On March 02 2016 01:35 okum wrote:

Don't forget Jim Raynor's anabolic injections. In SC1, he looks like a shaggy space cowboy, kind of resembling a plausible human being. In SC2, he looks like Hulk.

On March 02 2016 20:50 ProMeTheus112 wrote:
I still can't believe the circle jump in Quake was not intended by the developpers o_o I mean is it a mechanic that was already in Q2 unintentionally, and then they re-added it in Q3? Same or different? It feels like such a great feature of the game because it's well balanced with all its aspects and actually adds a lot of depth I can't believe it's not intentional in Q3.

On March 03 2016 22:41 ProMeTheus112 wrote:
it's interesting that SF move cancels were originally an unintentional glitch in SF2 I didn't know that

I don't think it's necessarily hard to modify things in the game, depending on what it is. The easiest way to increase resolution in a 2D game is to increase field of vision, but then things can be too small. Blizz couldnt modify resolution or stash size in D2? That can't be difficult, and they've done both in the Median ultimative mod for D2. Did blizz say they were trying to increase stash size in D2 but failed???

Imo, for making a "HD" version of BW, the best course without reusing any 3D prerenders (not all sprites in BW are 3D prerenders are they?? doesn't look like it to me) would be just retouching them by hand, which to me seems like a OK amount of work for a re-release that players would pay for, and gives much better result than upscaling. The sprites are not very big so good pixel art should do the job for say double resolution max, and then just allow different screen ratios to stretch FOV a little? Interestingly, there could be some nice work done to make terrain look nicer, and maybe some new tilesets MBS or automine, if they wanted to implement something like that even just as options, I don't think that's very difficult at all, few days work or weeks at most?? Routines already exist in the game for these functionalities just have to bridge them to work with buildings and rally points.