To preface this topic: This subject has been looming in my mind for the past month now, and I have a lot of frustration built up over how StarCraft: Remastered released and the subsequent months that transpired. To prevent this topic from straying from the main point, I will try to be as impartial as I can. I am also crossposting this between Blizzard Forums and Teamliquid as the Blizz devs have said that they do not check other forms of StarCraft discussion as much as their own forums.
2017 is now coming to a close. We are now on patch 1.20 of StarCraft: Remastered. 1.16.1 and the private servers and third party programs that flourished under it are now mostly gone. If you want to play StarCraft, you now have one real option, and that is play on Blizzard servers with what features SC:R provide you. Herein lies the big problem.. not only does 1.20 provide less features than 1.16.1 did, but some key features that were advertised with SC:R still have not been released or do not work as intended. The features I talk about are:
Matchmaking - Matchmaking, although a welcome addition to the old archaic method of finding opponents via lobby, is still shoddy at best. Better than at launch where results were actually completely DISCARDED and matches constantly got canceled, a large portion of players are still struggling to use the main feature of SC:R. I cannot speak for the Korean community, but a lot of foreign players have voiced their frustrations with the latency issues that surround the matchmaking system. Some players have even outright quit because of this issue.
iNcontroL - Mana - Morrow -
Leaderboards - Another feature that has been advertised on the starcraft.com website for SC:R is something that is even worse off than matchmaking and may be the worst feature in the game. People are still getting double MMR gains/losses, matches not recording, inaccurate display of MMR (I personally cannot see my MMR and haven't been since release), friend ranks do not get displayed for some people, and sometimes the leaderboards just flat out don't load at all. Did I mention season 1 hasn't started yet and we're approaching 90+ days since release? Blizzard has mentioned that once leaderboard/matchmaking issues are fixed, that "We will be resetting the Season when these issues are resolved". This announcement was made on August 16th, two days after release. It is now November 11th and we are still in a limbo test season. Reference: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/starcraft/topic/20758537891
Other than the fact that the current profile lacks over 50% of the features teased in the screenshots that Blizzard provided, the current profile's features don't even work for the most part. See my MMR in my screenshot? That is not my MMR. Starlog.gg says my MMR is actually currently sitting at 2066 at the time I took this screenshot at. The history tab does not display all my games I have played, as well as having matches not being clickable so you can't actually see any info on previous matches with the exception of the very last match you played. Also, viewing other player profiles is really hit or miss on whether they ever load.
Misc 1.16.1 Features - Through third party launchers, 1.16.1 offered: A better observer/replay tool that had unit counts, notification/lobby sounds, working friends list and working chat commands, lobby ping, lag detector, first person replays, EUD enabled with a strong Use Map Settings community, download status, and a ton more.
Now to hammer my point home: The thing that makes this situation all the more frustrating is what we learned at Blizzcon just a few days ago. According to a post made on the broodwar subreddit of someone who attended the event, they claim to have talked to the classic games team of Blizzard who revealed some unsettling information. "The team is small. Sounded like they had maybe 15 developers on the classic team and only a few seem to even still be working on remastered. Which makes the patches they have released very impressive imo". Although speculative, if true; this is nothing less than a slap in the face to the StarCraft community that they reduced the team while the game is nothing more than a glorified dump in .exe format with more glaring issues than Charlie Sheen. Rumors and conversations have been running that Blizzard's classic team has mostly moved on to WarCraft 3 Remastered, but there is no way to know for sure if this is true at the current time. I have also heard fucked up shit like Grant Davies is being chained up in Blizzard's basement as the sole developer working on StarCraft; Remastered and all the sewage pipes are directly aimed above him as the exit points. Kind of makes it feel a little odd that this all transpired and Blizzard still had the gall to tell us they did this "for the love of the community" when we are still not getting what we actually paid for.
Now for the positive stuff. The whole point of this topic is not to take a huge shit on Blizzard, but rather, how we can bridge the gap of shortcomings from their end. If you're new to this community, StarCraft: Brood War has been notorious for a lot of things. Match fixing, hitting kids in front of their mothers, developing useful skills toi have, and most importantly: we have a strong community of members who have a deep passion for this game. StarCraft: Brood War has survived many many years due to a strong Korean pro scene, but also due to an incredibly resilient and talented pool of contributors. The amount of servers, websites, and third party tools developed for this game may be one of the largest out of any game in existence. For servers, we've lived through PGTour, WGTour, Carrier, ICCup, Fish, Brain, Netwars, Shieldbattery, and more. As for third party programs? I feel like it would be a disservice to start listing them as there is way too many that have left a very large imprint on the game itself that I would feel bad if I forgot any.
I know most people are familiar with this stuff, but for those who aren't, here are some projects that were under way before StarCraft: Remastered was announced:
Shieldbattery - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/508993-shieldbattery-bw-revitalized-for-modern-mortals A server that was going to modernize StarCraft before Remastered was announced. Still a work in progress, Shieldbattery had the ability to bypass StarCraft lobbies and a server entirely and would launch you into a StarCraft game in seconds from your browser. It included window mode, improved latency, and as in the process of developing matchmaking.
OpenBW - http://www.openbw.com/project/ This project was beyond amazing. "This is a complete recreation of a game engine. It is fully compatible with Brood War. Including every single feature, bug, and pathfinding quirk. The engine is written in c++ and the source will be publicly available." from this engine branched many amazing things. You could watch replays in your browser with OpenBW with a simple click. They provided BW AI support (if you don't know about the StarCraft AI scene, check it out. It is one of the most underrepresented but most intriguing things. ( http://www.starcraftai.com/wiki/Main_Page ; https://sscaitournament.com/ ) OpenBW also started on StarCraft: HD a few weeks before SC:R was announced (and has since halted progress). Their beginning work was really promising though, and can be seen on their website.
Starloghttps://starlog.gg/en/ This is unlike the previous two, as it did not exist before SC:R, but it is now a vital 3rd party tool. This website gives us extremely interesting information and logs match histories to fulfill the gap that Blizzard has left us with their own incomplete profiles and match histories. I religiously use this website when laddering to check on my progress. I feel this is the type of initiative we need to take - to complete the missing parts of the game that Blizzard has released.
So in conclusion and summary, I hope this post enlightens people who are not aware of the current state of StarCraft: Remastered, and I hope it inspires people that we cannot wait any longer and must take the reigns for ourselves. I think it is time to sort of face the music and realize that what progress is done on SC:R is going to be extremely slow, and we cannot wait up for it. I do not blame the dev team, but this is the situation we find ourselves in. Ty2's father had a stroke.
Game desperately needs an influx of new blood, players in their teens to early 20s.Problem is people who grew up with the game are now late 20s to late 30s and have FT job, wife kids mortgage etc.So their activity is less.But with blizzard making SC2 free to play i imagine the kids will go there unless their PC is garbage.
what if it was blizzards plan all along was to release remastered for a low price to make some quick cash off of all of us and many others, then release a half baked buggy mess in order to kill the game off in hopes that those bw players will quit the game and move on to more profitable blizzard games in the future, i know it sounds absurd but i have been playing bw alot less lately and i woundnt be surprised if this was so some sick twisted marketing plan lol
On November 11 2017 07:37 -Debaser- wrote: They launched a buggy mess. They honestly should have pushed back release date instead of releasing game in beta.
No, it was perfectly playable. Unless you need a mouse sensitivity of 2.3132142 and a ping of 23. Oh by the way, people are playing pubg, not Starcraft
if you want new people coming to the game, you gotta make it nice and comfortable to play, not a buggy mess if I ran away from it I'm sure many new people might come to it and leave pretty fast cause they get much more quality out of interfaces of other games, and just insufficient quality from this unfinished and half destroyed interface which is probably exactly what the higher ups at blizzard want
now I read the post above mine (castleemg) and I see he's saying the same thing, you know what that's probably the truth
also at this point I wouldn't mind if heyjoray gets temp banned lol
On November 11 2017 07:50 ProMeTheus112 wrote: if you want new people coming to the game, you gotta make it nice and comfortable to play, not a buggy mess if I ran away from it I'm sure many new people might come to it and leave pretty fast cause they get much more quality out of interfaces of other games, and just insufficient quality from this unfinished and half destroyed interface which is probably exactly what the higher ups at blizzard want
now I read the post above mine (castleemg) and I see he's saying the same thing, you know what that's probably the truth
also at this point I wouldn't mind if heyjoray gets temp banned lol
also thx OP for writing this
I think they are still shitting on the League of Legends browser. How is that game popular?
On November 11 2017 07:42 castleeMg wrote: what if it was blizzards plan all along was to release remastered for a low price to make some quick cash off of all of us and many others, then release a half baked buggy mess in order to kill the game off in hopes that those bw players will quit the game and move on to more profitable blizzard games in the future, i know it sounds absurd but i have been playing bw alot less lately and i woundnt be surprised if this was so some sick twisted marketing plan lol
On November 11 2017 07:50 ProMeTheus112 wrote: if you want new people coming to the game, you gotta make it nice and comfortable to play, not a buggy mess if I ran away from it I'm sure many new people might come to it and leave pretty fast cause they get much more quality out of interfaces of other games, and just insufficient quality from this unfinished and half destroyed interface which is probably exactly what the higher ups at blizzard want
now I read the post above mine (castleemg) and I see he's saying the same thing, you know what that's probably the truth
also at this point I wouldn't mind if heyjoray gets temp banned lol
also thx OP for writing this
I was (still am) a passionate brood war player, yet I haven't touched the game since the release in August. I'm quite busy in real life right now, but the reason I don't play is because I don't want to frustrate myself with the poor experience that is starcraft remastered.
I pray every day people would just return to 1.16 iCCup/Fish.
Should we make a Facebook Page asking for help and calling the atention of higher blizzard boss ?,not gonna like is a bad product,is not finished,they killed fish brain and i guess iccup is in target,but iccup is pretty much dead already,my guess is that they have 2-3 programmers,and they have no idea of how to fix the problems,idk maybe some emergency mission from blizzard could actually help us,cuz right now remastered smells scam.
Nice thread, catch it while reading the ASL finals one, nice.
Really the profile website somebody should saved it and upload it as i am sure it will be deleted, it is improbable that we will get our replays in the profile... i mean Remastered is running a server that logs you out every second to save server time?, and they also cant and wont let you "auto loging" so imagine that.
Another thing is what is strongly think, at the end we got robbed yes... no doubt about it, the product is nice, it works a bit, but is like a slap in the face to one of the most important game sin history, something tells me tho that ACTIVITION is waiting for bad reviews to appear somewhere so they are clean and safe and wont do nothing, and because they game is so small they are sincerilly pissing on it. They have NO respect for one of the most important games in history, i am sure ACTIVITION would not even endevour on Remastering Starcraft if they knew things would have end up being so bad for their wallet. I hate ACTIVITION so much, they are the cancer of the gamming industry, even EA takes care its own games better.
But we will get all this stuff one way or the other, someone will create an amazing launcher when a final version comes around "1.21",i am sure that after 1.21 thats it... we wont have a significant patch for at least half a year or more, so when 1.21 comes we will get wathever it comes with it and thats it, 1.22 can probably never happen. The cool thing is that all the deelopers can work on remastered now and make a nice launcher with plugings, mods etc... cant wait for what the community has to offer.
Another thing that i am sure we will get is a Dedicated server solution of some kind from Blizzard, Warcraft III & Diablo II are P2P working also, i am not sure if they are willing to have bad feedback from all the sides, they will eventually get to much bad feedback and will have to open the pocket for dedicated servers. This does not necesarily means changing the netcode, a lot of other solutions like running the game in a server and clients being like terminals is one...
On March 29 2017 09:40 ninazerg wrote: thanks Blizzard. Thanks for the 1.18 patch that makes StarCraft free even though it was technically already free.
Blizzard neglected the game, and pirate servers appeared to fill the voids that Blizzard left as their legacy. The good thing about third-party servers is that Blizzard has no control over them. The community can manage its own shit without having to asking some corporate entity if it's okay. The whole thing is a response to the waning popularity of SC2, and the revival of Brood War. Even with the demise of the SSL, thousands of viewers in Korea have watched StarCraft being streamed by former pros, and the ASL popped up.
This is a simple numbers game: the SC2 stream numbers are very telling, and Blizzard wants to squeeze some extra jizz out of that delicious e-sports cock in Korea before it dies out again, so... sudden interest in Brood War! If they can't create a new game that isn't garbage, why not take control of an already existing product? It's clear to me that Blizzard wants to have a level of control over the Fish server, and wants to kill off the Brood War section of iCCup by introducing a ladder. I shudder to think what kind of ladder Blizzard is prepared to administrate, considering how ill-prepared and short-sighted they have been in recent years. Who's going to handle ladder reports? Who's going to watch ladder replays to make sure there is no cheating going on? Who's going to ban abusers from the ladder?
On November 11 2017 07:42 castleeMg wrote: what if it was blizzards plan all along was to release remastered for a low price to make some quick cash off of all of us and many others, then release a half baked buggy mess in order to kill the game off in hopes that those bw players will quit the game and move on to more profitable blizzard games in the future, i know it sounds absurd but i have been playing bw alot less lately and i woundnt be surprised if this was so some sick twisted marketing plan lol
the tiny amount of revenue and even smaller profit isn't worth the decline in reputation. this is a company that cancels games 5 years into development if the quality is not there.
i say this game means so little to Blizz that it fell between the cracks.... and that's why it sucks. ATVI is too busy with multibillion dollar projects to worry about a $15 game that can't even sell 1 million units. not 1 single activity, engagement, sales, or profit metric was released by ATVI about SCR. The thing bombed financially.
On November 11 2017 09:36 hyfrehyfre wrote: I hate ACTIVITION so much, they are the cancer of the gamming industry, even EA takes care its own games better.
EA continues to expand the C&C universe to untold levels of incredible success.
You listed a bunch of grievances and hardly said anything about what we can do to improve the community. I for one love the HD mode and the matchmaking. I can get matched with someone with similar level in less than 30 seconds? That's a dream that no other 3rd party could do on this scale. I got tired of waiting for 3rd party programs that promised such features but never could show it.
And how is it a slap in the face of the bw community? Yes, the team may be small but at least there is a team that made SC:R. They didn't have to make SC:R for us, and I trust blizz's hiring process to pick the cream of the crop to get things fixed. It's also funny how people are quick to generalize the entire blizz company, saying that their a bunch of money grubbing corporate hooligans who are running BW into the ground. Really? The entire BW got a huge boost when SC:R was revealed and blizzard went all out with the announcement and premiere. That tournament with Boxer, Flash, JD, and BIsu was legit and thanks to blizzard. Hell, they offered JD and Bisu $25,000 just to play a Bo5 at Blizzcon. Just for the fans (it even had a fan vote).
"what if it was blizzards plan all along was to release remastered for a low price to make some quick cash off of all of us and many others, then release a half baked buggy mess in order to kill the game off in hopes that those bw players will quit the game and move on to more profitable blizzard games in the future, i know it sounds absurd but i have been playing bw alot less lately and i woundnt be surprised if this was so some sick twisted marketing plan lol."
This is complete bullshit.
However, I do agree that SC:R still needs a lot of work and that posts like this are necessary to gain blizz's attention. I trust that blizz will not leave their game in this condition. The devs have been making videos talking about the problems and how they intend to fix them. That shows they are willing and doing what they can.
The lag issues keep me from playing the game. In at least 7 of 10 games, there are unbearable spikes for me. I did not experience those before SC:R. The battle.net also is a joke right now. Flist doesn't really work, whispering to multiple people at the same time is tedious and there are no clan / tournament features at all. I really hope they keep working on the game, otherwise it's one of the biggest disappointments in years for me.
To be honest, the fans are only a very little part of it without professional infrastructure. Without progamers and the progaming infratructure, the fans may as well no exist and Starcraft will be equally non-existent.
BUT with progaming infrastructure to inspire fans, to see the peak level of Starcraft being played, and motivation to attract new blood, the fans become an enormous multiplier of success!
tlds: Only fans, NO. Only progamers, NO. Progamer and Fans, FUCK YES!!!
On November 11 2017 08:50 B-royal wrote: I pray every day people would just return to 1.16 iCCup/Fish.
I hoped for broodwar remastered since the announcement of SC2. I did stick to playing on Iccup on and off, also watched all the SSL's and most of the higher tier BW content. Then came the rumours, and soon after that, finally the announcement Broodwar remastered came! I was so happy. I even forgot my principle not to pre-order a game and paid for it in advance. But when it was released, I was quite disappointed. I felt like I paid money to sign up for beta testing. Now I've totally given up on playing bw. No returning to iCCup, just random koreans there.. At least there's ASL.
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: You listed a bunch of grievances and hardly said anything about what we can do to improve the community.
The topic is titled "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft". Not "Here is some suggestions I have to improve the community". There is no topic like this on the forum currently, and I think the current state of StarCraft: Remastered warrants a discussion, thus I contributed it. I'm willing to help improve the community and brainstorm.
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: I for one love the HD mode and the matchmaking. I can get matched with someone with similar level in less than 30 seconds? That's a dream that no other 3rd party could do on this scale. I got tired of waiting for 3rd party programs that promised such features but never could show it.
Shieldbattery is, to my knowledge, the only server who advertised matchmaking and it was never given a chance as SC:R was announced and released before it even went out of closed beta. As someone who played almost exclusively on Shieldbattery, I can say that it was a fantastic project. I have no recollection of any other server offering matchmaking, so I find your statements somewhat misinformed and disrespectful if you are actually referencing to Shieldbattery as a 3rd party program that "promised such features but could never show it" when Blizzard actively fucked over the devs by giving them patch 1.17 so the server could update accordingly for when the release came and then Mike Morhaime goes on stage to announce patch 1.18 (which was never given to SB) effectively stunting it (and 1.20 more or less putting it into its current inactive state). I'm not going to speculate and make wild claims- I do not know if Shieldbattery could ever host and maintain a matchmaking system to the extent that Blizzard does, but I think it is important to acknowledge that Shieldbattery accomplished a large portion of what it set out to do as a project.
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: And how is it a slap in the face of the bw community? Yes, the team may be small but at least there is a team that made SC:R. They didn't have to make SC:R for us, and I trust blizz's hiring process to pick the cream of the crop to get things fixed. It's also funny how people are quick to generalize the entire blizz company, saying that their a bunch of money grubbing corporate hooligans who are running BW into the ground.
I am the type of person who likes getting what they paid for, so I think considering it a slap in the face is about accurate. Your justification for the current state of the game is "They didn't have to make SC:R for us" is so ridiculous that I am actually confused if it is legitimate or some really odd attempt at being facetious. What does that have to do with anything?
Not a single fucking thing. So because someone made a product, they are no longer to be judged or should be shown leniency when they take your money and do not deliver on promises they make? Maybe you're happy with the product, and that is completely fine. If the glaring issues that seem to affect the majority of the playerbase aren't affecting you, whatever dude. I'm not here to shit on you or convince you to hate StarCraft: Remastered. We're on a StarCraft forum after all, so that seems quite ludicrous. I don't want people to dislike the current state of StarCraft or raise pitchforks at Blizzard. The whole point of this topic is to discuss what we can do to improve it. The points I listed in the original post was not to change anyone's opinion because I can guarantee you it isn't fucking news to the vast majority of people who read this topic.
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: Really? The entire BW got a huge boost when SC:R was revealed and blizzard went all out with the announcement and premiere. That tournament with Boxer, Flash, JD, and BIsu was legit and thanks to blizzard. Hell, they offered JD and Bisu $25,000 just to play a Bo5 at Blizzcon. Just for the fans (it even had a fan vote).
Who knew releasing a remastered edition would boost the player base? Okay we get it, cool. Blizzard, out of the kindness of their gracious hearts, reached out and set aside a dev team to release StarCraft: Remastered out of love for the community. Here is a reality check for you: They didn't stuff cash into those players pockets because they thought it was nice of them to do so. It was an investment. Maybe you could explain to us why Blizzard charged Afreeca a $100,000 licensing fee to host ASL 4? (Source: www.teamliquid.net). It was rumored that the reason why Afreeca could not come to licensing agreements with allowing Twitch or Youtube to stream the 4th ASL is because of the steep licensing fee cost Blizzard imposed on them. Or how about the fact that it is highly speculated that the majority of the team who worked on StarCraft: Remastered are already onto another project, being WarCraft 3: Remastered, despite the fact that we were reassured that there would be an active team continuing support and development after SC:R's release (Technically they didn't lie, but the truth is that it is was reduced to what seems to be 2 or 3 people). If things aren't starting to click in your head that the decisions made at Blizzard are beginning to look like they are putting money before community, logic may be lost on you.
Because you have said so much odd stuff (no offense) my post has probably come across as crass. So, to clarify and summarize, I realize this post comes across as anti-Blizzard but that is not my intention. I realize that Blizzard is a company first, and their main goal is to be profitable. That isn't lost on me, and I fully respect that and their right to charge, license, and maintain their game how they please. However, I think it is never okay to settle for less than what a developer promises you. Take one look at No Man's Sky and see the events that transpired in that case. They were intentionally vague about their game details, even going so far as to outright lie about features their game would have. This caused one of the biggest backlashes in video gaming history. I feel it is almost an injustice to compare StarCraft: Remastered to No Man's Sky release because StarCraft: Remastered is still a great game and delivered on the majority of things they advertised, but I'm going to go the extra few miles so you can maybe understand why it isn't okay to lie to customers. Can you actually with a straight face tell someone that No Man's Sky release was fine because "They didn't have to make the game" after people spent $60 on what they believed was an advertised space exploration game that had multiplayer, active space travel, and the allure of finding the 'center of the universe' when in actuality it was as if some developers turned Spore into a pretty game and then added elements of Minecraft, Eve Online, and a baby taking a nasty shit in his diaper and mixing it in a blender along with a few tabs of mescaline? Cause most people were under the impression that when they bought StarCraft: Remastered, they too would have gotten what was advertised. No, it is not near the disaster that No Man's Sky was, but you're dense as fuck if you think it was anything less than dishonesty what we received.
I wanted to keep playing BW (especially because of the Zotac tourneys) but i had to stop just because of how shitty my experience was. Bnet/the ladder has a isolated SC2 feel to it, the NA servers are split up and there's no centralized chat channels.
No 2v2 ladder also takes away a big part of the social aspect of BW. The friend list is terrible, you can't add EU players (if you're an NA player, vice versa) unless you change your bnet region via the launcher. Even when you do that you can only see your friends on w/e region you're logged into.. which only adds to the isolated gaming experience.
The ladder is either fine or extremely laggy, it's hit or miss depending on the hours you play on. I'm not willing to spend my time playing in laggy games 30-40% of the time tho.
On top of all that the new fixes/patches are being released way slower now. People have been telling the devs about the chat bug for months now and they still haven't fixed it. How do they expect to fix all the issues BW has when it's taking them this long to fix a simple chat bug?
On November 11 2017 19:56 TT1 wrote: I wanted to keep playing BW (especially because of the Zotac tourneys) but i had to stop just because of how shitty my experience was. Bnet/the ladder has a isolated SC2 feel to it, the NA servers are split up and there's no centralized chat channels.
No 2v2 ladder also takes away a big part of the social aspect of BW. The friend list is terrible, you can't add EU players (if you're an NA player, vice versa) unless you change your bnet region via the launcher. Even when you do that you can only see your friends on w/e region you're logged into.. which only adds to the isolated gaming experience.
The ladder is either fine or extremely laggy, it's hit or miss depending on the hours you play on. I'm not willing to spend my time playing in laggy games 30-40% of the time tho.
On top of all that the new fixes/patches are being released way slower now. People have been telling the devs about the chat bug for months now and they still haven't fixed it. How do they expect to fix all the issues BW has when it's taking them this long to fix a simple chat bug?
Ugh... yeah that chat bug is so annoying.
I can't understand why they fragmented the friend's list and chat channel by region. Channels and friends list should be global, as should custom games. In the game lobby it should give you a ping preview so you can see if they game will likely be playable or not.
there's honestly not much that can be done. blizzard needs to either fix the client, or someone needs to step up and release another private server. you can also still just play on iccup which has a substantial population.
First of all I want to say very much agree with points made by the op. Faust is right on almost all points he made. Perhaps you got a little heated in his arguments and did not always hit the right Tone, but his analysis is spot on. I have bought Starcraft remastered only a week ago and I'm already being fed up by all the Bugs. To me it does realistically not matter if visit intentionally screwed up this game or if it's just a matter of lacking resources and production and Maintenance. As far as maintenance goes, I did not remember it beforehand that does it would be interested in maintaining the server on a high standard.
Now that he raised the question of what we can do to improve the Starcraft remastered experience. The answer is relatively simple. Ac community has no control over Starcraft remastered service and software and we can't expect Blizzard to fix things in a timely fashion the only alternative is to take care of our problems on our own like we did in the past. that of course means using third party servers and software helping encoding the necessary tools, and being active in the administration of a third party service. I would like to mention year that unlike stated above IC Cup is not a server of the past but still running. Yes it's full of Koreans and the coding is a mess, but at least it's working. Other options may be available while Shield battery open Bw. Problem with that is that you to be high amount of players on the official servers these projects are going very slow or are not being pushed forward. In order for that to change it would be mandatory for players to switch over to the third party service in a leap of good faith beforehand and work with devs together to make the necessary improvements.
I will restrict my pointer on a Iccup as I can only talk about it with certainty as a former admin. In general I see Iccup is open to the idea of improving the Starcraft Server, but will not put paid programmers to work on it and is not open to the idea of changing the base code of the server architecture. The servers are working fine for Dota, where the main focus is.
Tl;dr: if we want to improve the Starcraft remastered experience we will have to do it on our own using third party service and software. There's a couple of possible Solutions, ICC seems logical as an already established server, but there's a lot of technical difficulties.
On November 11 2017 20:33 Endymion wrote: there's honestly not much that can be done. blizzard needs to either fix the client, or someone needs to step up and release another private server. you can also still just play on iccup which has a substantial population.
One of the primary reasons why I made this topic is to show support to 3rd party developers and sort of have a community consensus that this is what we want (to move in the direction of embracing non-Blizzard services). It might be a long shot, but deep down I want the Shieldbattery devs to continue working on their server. With the closure of Fish and Brain, I'm sure the chances of a 3rd party server arising is slim to none, but it is something I really hope for nonetheless.
Also, I really have nothing to offer in regards to programming skills, so I feel extremely out of my element to really talk about anything pertaining to developing 3rd party launchers-- but I would be super interested to hear the input of people like tec27, mca64, masterofchaos, and iCCup/wLauncher devs who worked on adding in lan latency to their launchers/programs if there is anything feasible or possible that can be done from their position regarding improving latency for the average player.
One more point to bring up that I think is super important though is that we're already actively doing what I have presented in this topic. One of the biggest improvisations the StarCraft community has made is now almost every tournament organizer has set up a discord because of the chat bugs that plague Battle.net channels. We're actively doing things to improve StarCraft due to the shortcomings. Also, I sort of want to steer this topic conversation more in the direction of improving rather than being upset with the product we got. I think the vast majority of us are on the same page, and it is mostly out of our control - so we should try to find out what things ARE in our control.
I feel the only thing we can do as foreigners is to all move back to ICCup or all help ShieldBattery become the next experience... (The only real issue I had with ShieldBattery is that you you can't seem to get the same mouse feel what you're used to in 1.16.1) Also exile all Latin American players. They should get their own private server, it legit would solve 80% of all lag bullshit instantly.
If you don't live in Korea you'll never get to experience the right training conditions. You're also continuously finding yourself dealing with lag and an insane amount of beta bugs that don't get addressed.
I gotta say Castle's post - due to how frustrating it is to play on battle.net - really did ring in my mind.
for me, shieldbattery has never felt right. something just feels off in game, but i love the out of game concept/architecture. i'm optimistic that eventually another 1.16.1 server will pop up similar to fish. isn't it impossible to emulate the new patch server architecture though?? i thought that the new client was meant to be way more "secure," so we can expect to never have a private remastered server
Blizzard is trash. They half assed the release of SCR and somehow manage to make the game worse. anywho,blizzard is the only entity that can improve starcraft, not the community.
Can someone give me a valid explanation about why Blizz dont fix for exemple "chat bug" ? I have no background in programming but isnt it the easier kind of thing to fix ? In every other program with a chat included I never had any problem whisping, managing friends, sending commands etc... Why SCR have this problem? Shouldnt it be EXTREMELY easy and fast to fix ? Please explain to me.
On November 11 2017 22:00 AManHasNoName wrote: I feel like the obvious and simple solution is for someone to develop an RTS that's better than BW.
I mean, how has nobody thought of this yet?
the problem is that bw is an extremely good game, probably the best game ever made... furthermore, there aren't a lot of modern gamers that enjoy hardcore RTS like broodwar, so there's not much money in it (be it a perception in the industry or actual truth, it doesn't make a difference to publishers).
so combine these 2 facts and we're kinda stuck with the game for the foreseeable future
@golgotha why are you defending blizzard so much when it is clear there is ongoing problems that should have been solved. I've played overwatch and that online experience is very smooth and nearly flaw free so I know blizzard is very capable of making a smooth online experience, so what's the excuse here? Ive watched the developer updates and they seem to direct their attention to minor things thst arnt really an issue (dynamic lighting??) And almost ignore the screaming issues like matchmaking being broken. Also I don't believe you even play on the sc:r ladder very much to have such a positive outlook on where remastered is at. I know my posts in this thread didn't really contribute to trying make scr better because I believe now it's in blizzards hands, they have 99% of the player base on their servers and unless there's a huge community shift to a private server with a solid ladder then we r forced to deal with what we have
On November 12 2017 00:10 castleeMg wrote: @golgotha why are you defending blizzard so much when it is clear there is ongoing problems that should have been solved. I've played overwatch and that online experience is very smooth and nearly flaw free so I know blizzard is very capable of making a smooth online experience, so what's the excuse here? Ive watched the developer updates and they seem to direct their attention to minor things thst arnt really an issue (dynamic lighting??) And almost ignore the screaming issues like matchmaking being broken. Also I don't believe you even play on the sc:r ladder very much to have such a positive outlook on where remastered is at. I know my posts in this thread didn't really contribute to trying make scr better because I believe now it's in blizzards hands, they had 99% of the player base on their servers and unless there's a huge community shift to a private server with a solid ladder then we r forced to deal with what we have
TBH I think a big part of the problem is that all of the intelligent discussion from competitive players happens on TL. While all the super casual UMS players are the ones posting on the battle.net forums and getting the devs attention.
I bet the guy who pitched remastered promised the project could be done with a low cost skeleton crew and a short dev time. Which is why this game was not delayed 6 months when it's obvious it needed it badly.
The rumor that the classic team has mostly switched to WC3:R doesn't surprise me. It's obvious blizzard has very little passion for this project and have completely lost what made them great in the late 90s.
On November 11 2017 22:00 AManHasNoName wrote: I feel like the obvious and simple solution is for someone to develop an RTS that's better than BW.
I mean, how has nobody thought of this yet?
the problem is that bw is an extremely good game, probably the best game ever made... furthermore, there aren't a lot of modern gamers that enjoy hardcore RTS like broodwar, so there's not much money in it (be it a perception in the industry or actual truth, it doesn't make a difference to publishers).
so combine these 2 facts and we're kinda stuck with the game for the foreseeable future
It's impossible to 'remake brood war' because a huge part of why it is so good is that you've seen almost two decades of strategic evolution take place. You can't 'design' the intricacies between forge fe and gateway expand into sair dt or speedzealot templar vs 3-6 hatch spire or hydra. You can't design 1 rax expand into +1 5 rax vs 3 hatch spire into lurker into 3 gas hive defiler into mech switch. These strategical and tactical evolutions took place a decade after the last balance patch. I'm pretty certain they never even intended for 'mech' to be how people approach the tvp matchup.
Personally I don't fully share in the negativity many of you seem to express. I'm enjoying brood war more than ever. The foreign tournament scene is in the best state it's ever been - there are more well organized tournaments running on a weekly basis than has ever been the case in the past. There's constant content. The ladder is flawed, indeed, but I can get a game against a player on my level after searching for 40 seconds. That has literally never before been the case, did not apply to WGtour, did not apply to PGTour, did not apply to ICCUP, did not apply to cloudladder, cloria, old bnet ladder, or any other previous incarnation. I understand that this experience is different for people who lag with koreans though - to me, it's pretty much always playable. I think it sucks that they don't let me race pick in accordance with what my opponent chose - but this is pretty much my only real grievance, and while quite some nonkorean players are race pickers, we're definitely a minority.
The lack of chat channels and social bnet experience and horrible friend list, that was a big issue, but then there's discord, which in pretty much every way far superior. Old bnet channels were limited to 40 people and they were totally exclusive. Only 8 people could be in a game together and nobody streamed - it frequently happened that someone, the least popular basically, ended up being sidelined.
I understand that specifically, players who love laddering, have a high enough mmr to only be matched against koreans, and who lag when playing vs koreans, think the current situation sucks. That group I'm deeply sympathetic towards, because for those, remastered might have just ruined the bw experience. However, I think this is a pretty small group of people, and I think they generally had to spend quite some time looking for games on any ladder that has been going for the past 6 years - they shouldn't really have been able to play fish, and iccup wasn't active for the A- + segment. For pretty much everybody else, the current bw experience should be as good as it has ever been and I can't help but feel that people are viewing the past a bit through rose tinted glasses.
This doesn't actually excuse the poor job blizzard has done and that they sold us a beta product as a so-called improvement of a totally fully evolved one. Also sucks that shieldbattery kinda got the wind knocked out of their sails, because that was an amazingly well done product.
i'm not saying that publishers have to make a perfect game, but even pushing the genre forward takes an exorbitant amount of risk. what i'm talking about is making small changes to the formula, like UI changes or unit archetype additions, all of which have a big chance of just falling flat on their face.
if you look at FPS, in recent years a lot of them have started adding additional movement mechanics like in titanfall and cod AW. while they're similar to what people could do in quake, it's still innovation in that it hasn't been done in that way before.. for RTS, something similar would be MBS or unlimited unit select, or automating (or deautomating) the genre further). RTS takes so much time to develop though (on a meta game scale), and it takes so long to develop as a player in RTS, that people are just largely unwilling to take anything seriously that isn't bw.. personally, i don't want to put 20 years into a game that i don't find as good/fun as what i already have. that's not to say that i'm not willing to try new RTS, but they need to really captivate me if i'm going to take it seriously at all. look at recent games like act of aggression, grey goo, and warhammer 40k DoW3. they all innovated in some way, but they were all massive commercial failures for one reason or another.
even the game with the most potential, day9's rts atlas, ended up sinking and not being able to tread water next to broodwar. it requires the stars to align with a great development team, community feedback, community support, and money, even just to push the genre forward at all.
with regard to your comments about high level players being annoyed by korean lag on ladder: i think you'll only find that this problem will become more exasperated as the foreign base shrinks to what it was before SCR dropped in the first place and the koreans become a larger proportion even at the casual level.
On November 12 2017 01:59 Liquid`Drone wrote: I understand that specifically, players who love laddering, have a high enough mmr to only be matched against koreans, and who lag when playing vs koreans, think the current situation sucks. That group I'm deeply sympathetic towards, because for those, remastered might have just ruined the bw experience. However, I think this is a pretty small group of people, and I think they generally had to spend quite some time looking for games on any ladder that has been going for the past 6 years - they shouldn't really have been able to play fish, and iccup wasn't active for the A- + segment. For pretty much everybody else, the current bw experience should be as good as it has ever been and I can't help but feel that people are viewing the past a bit through rose tinted glasses.
In Europe on 1900 or 2000 you already start getting Koreans constantly, unless you hit 2 hours window in the evening when there are more Europeans laddering. But it is some kind of bull**** that I am forced to play at specific time. 1900 mmr is not A- or A+ segment. It is D+ or C- segment and I didn't have problems playing or finding games on iccup considering I could host games. This ladder is ruining experience for me, and if you want community to actually grow, you have to fix these kind of issues. Otherwise all ladders except for Korean will be dead soon.
On November 12 2017 01:59 Liquid`Drone wrote: I understand that specifically, players who love laddering, have a high enough mmr to only be matched against koreans, and who lag when playing vs koreans, think the current situation sucks. That group I'm deeply sympathetic towards, because for those, remastered might have just ruined the bw experience. However, I think this is a pretty small group of people, and I think they generally had to spend quite some time looking for games on any ladder that has been going for the past 6 years - they shouldn't really have been able to play fish, and iccup wasn't active for the A- + segment. For pretty much everybody else, the current bw experience should be as good as it has ever been and I can't help but feel that people are viewing the past a bit through rose tinted glasses.
In Europe on 1900 or 2000 you already start getting Koreans constantly, unless you hit 2 hours window in the evening when there are more Europeans laddering. But it is some kind of bull**** that I am forced to play at specific time. 1900 mmr is not A- or A+ segment. It is D+ or C- segment and I didn't have problems playing or finding games on iccup considering I could host games. This ladder is ruining experience for me, and if you want community to actually grow, you have to fix these kind of issues. Otherwise all ladders except for Korean will be dead soon.
That's valid, didn't know people matched up with only koreans that early - when I laddered up my account I mostly had nonkorean opponents until I reached 2200-2300 or so.
I think specific complains about not having properly addressed ladder-lag are on point in general, and seeing as how that's one of the main selling points behind SC:R, this point of criticism is totally valid. But I also think there are aspects of the brood war experience that are better than it's ever been in the past, in particular related to playing tournaments and following the non-korean scene.
its not rose tinted glasses to consider that the older builds had a much more efficient interface which always allowed me to play the game more smoothly and get games going better and communicating with others better. It's a vital difference that we can play on public servers again (or ones that nobody needs to search online to even find out about), but can you remember when we were playing on public servers before we needed better ladders AND had the better interface? of course the game ALSO was more popular because it was newer or a lot less old, but the current quality of it definitely makes a difference in how popular it is NOW since some of us who still love playing the game are put off by it enough to want to stay away from it which means the growth and health of the playerbase is stunted so again I'm happy to have a auto matchmaking I wish it worked properly and better though (otherwise i prefer custom game ladder yeah.. if it can count games properly and not put ppl in stupid lag situation or make you wait 3000s for no reason and u cant ladder then), the damage to the game is real, and discord does not replace bnet chat because it is outside the game anyway just like IRC was only a good solution for gamers playing games that did not have a quality chat interface similar to bnet.. So yeah the chat issues are a big deal for sure man, I can tell, I got a lot less fun games done with bnet friends since SC:R released than I did during 1.17-1.18 cause the chat was still working then right besides screw it I paid for the game to be improved not otherwise I just want it to work good and nice no screwing with game-registering stats errors discs no profile saving and the chat, ya I paid for it to work sry they said so they said the chat would work as far as I know lol not acceptable, not acceptable
It's easy to gather up a list of all the problems with Starcraft: Remastered and blame Blizzard for everything that is wrong with the Starcraft community. Or... To word it more accurately what community? What community is Blizzard killing exactly?
When you look at the state of Starcraft today, there is a large Korean community (and pro scene), then there are about 10 International communities, each with a handful of members. If you want to fix the problems the Starcraft community faces, they're not primarily based on the technology. Yes, there are a bunch of problems with the technology, but all of these problems can be worked around if all of the other factors around it are fun and conducive to growth. There's a lack of collaboration in every facet of the International "community" today. Some examples:
1) For tournament organizers - Most organizers / organizations are completely opposed to working together, you see this in the mass of clan leagues that came out one after the other with very few of the organizations actually willing to join forces to work together. It spans to individual events as well, rather than working together to offer one refined product, everyone is content on generating their own, less complete, and less profitable (viewership wise) events.
Larger organizations are even more focused on pushing their brand than the individual tour organizers, so much that they prefer to have 5 invites in an 8 player event because they think these invites are more popular than people who would otherwise qualify. There's also the issue of organizations making decisions that are outright bad, not advertising properly, not getting the most out of their sponsorship $$.
2) Community websites and sub communities - Viewership on teamliquid for International starcraft has never been so low, events that would reliably fetch anywhere from 30-100K thread views now get 5000? The community just isn't here anymore, Netwars hosts their own community, Defiler.ru hosts their own community, ingame.de, French BW has their own discord. Interaction between all of these communities used to be centered on TL, that no longer seems to exist.
3) Casters - This is very much like my tournament organizer thing, but casters also are generally very interested in progressing their own brand. It's very difficult to get casters do do events on an organization's channel and usually, the only organizations that get this from the casters are the large ones (which probably won't stick around after they see the numbers coming out of their first events).
4) Players & community - All players want their participation in events to be effortless (which is fair). What is a lot harder for me to justify is the lack of interest in doing anything (no matter how small) in order to help events grow. It seems that people will only do something if it makes absolute sense to them.
- Players and teams stop showing up once they start losing in events - There is 0 willingness for most people to upvote stuff on reddit (we need all the viewers we can bring in) - Asking players to take 5 minutes to register on a sponsor's site is too much to ask - There is a clan ladder that exists, a bunch of teams that were currently participating in Clan Leagues were invited, 2 joined
I understand that I'm mostly bringing up problems here and not solutions, but you can see that the problem Brood War faces is very much a people problem, not a technology problem. I think everyone who wants Brood War to live needs to start thinking why, not what. If there's no common goal, if people don't agree on what drives their passion (or that there is passion, not enough people will take initiative to drive success).
On November 12 2017 02:24 Netto. wrote: In Europe on 1900 or 2000 you already start getting Koreans constantly, unless you hit 2 hours window in the evening when there are more Europeans laddering. But it is some kind of bull**** that I am forced to play at specific time. 1900 mmr is not A- or A+ segment. It is D+ or C- segment and I didn't have problems playing or finding games on iccup considering I could host games. This ladder is ruining experience for me, and if you want community to actually grow, you have to fix these kind of issues. Otherwise all ladders except for Korean will be dead soon.
>1900-2000 >D+-C- come the fuck on, D+ of what year? Because I checked my iccup replays from 2009 and 2010 and D+ is 60-80 raw APM, right now that's 1000-1100 MMR.
I have an answer for you: Boycott the Blizzard servers and play on (support) servers like iCCup and ShieldBattery that deliver a quality experience. This should be done until they actually fulfill the promises they made months ago for a remastered product, that is, matchmaking, a global ladder, leaderboards, functional chat, profiles, etc. I haven't purchased the game (and will not), but from what I've read in various threads it sounds like they committed fraud and should be punished for it.
All of you should take matters into your own hands rather than complaining on forums or waiting for other people to fix things. Choose to play on iCCup with your friends. Even if it's not very populated at the moment, if some of you start playing there, then others will follow.
I'd like to know some metrics on current players vs players prior to remastered, but I guess that won't be available because so many people were playing on non-official servers before. It seems to me that there are three types of players, none of whom Blizzard successfully impressed or retained with the buggy launch of RM: those who kept playing throughout the dark ages, those who quit with the advent of SCII but wanted to come back due to the hype of RM, and those who had never played but were interested due to BW's reputation in conjunction with the RM launch. So far, the only non-buggy aspect of RM in my experience is the graphics. A graphical update is nice (although I still prefer many of the previous animations and models), but I think such updates would be most important to brand new players who would have difficulty adjusting to "old" graphics. For the ongoing and returning players, I posit that what was most appealing about RM were all the features ancillary to the new graphics: matchmaking, profiles, the opportunity to play with and reconnect with old friends. Blizz fucked all that stuff up, but did a pretty good job updating the graphical aspects of the game. For many of the old guard, the advent of Remastered has been an almost entirely negative experience; the game worked just fine before, and now all sorts of things are broken. The only upside is updated graphics, which many people did not really care about.
As TT1 said, the complete fuckup of the social aspects of BW really drags this game down. I only recently figured out how this bnet regional bullshit works; I had no idea that it was such a clusterfuck until recently, because up until RM I never had any interaction with the stupid bnet app. I think it's absurd that I have a completely segregated EU and Americas friend list and that I can't see friends from both regions at once. In the old days, prior to RM and the integration of this real ID regions crap, if your friend was logged into their account on USW and you were on USE you wouldn't see them—but as soon as you logged onto USW, you could. Now, today, you have to actually exit BW, relaunch BW in the proper region, and re-log onto Bnet to see those friends on your in-game friend list. And if you want to see them on your out-of-game friend list as well, you have to exit the entire Bnet app and change the regions at log in.
From what I understand this is purposeful, and has been this way for years now across all of Blizzard's various post-introduction-of-the-bnet-app-games. It's insane to me that Blizzard wants this to be how it works. I get the idea of regional servers for playing the game, but that there is no global friend list is ridiculous. What a waste of time and effort and just a huge, unnecessary pain in the ass for players who have friends in different regions. Does it make any sense that my friend in the EU region can log onto USW and whisper me and we can play BW together in the same game, but neither of us can actually friend add one another or see one another on our friend lists unless one of us changes our game-launch or bnet-app launch region? It's crazy. If I want to know if my EU friends are on I have to guess and /whereis them, or go through a huge rigamarole to check the EU friend list; then, if they aren't, I have to once more re-log and change my regions at launch to get back to my Americas friend list. This makes no sense at all given that we can be logged into different regions yet play in the same game on the same server without needing to change regions. So our different regions are irrelevant for playing together but results in us being unable to communicate? That's so dumb, backwards, and counterintuitive.
Also, /r and /w still don't work after a few minutes in game, necessitating a complete relog of the b.net app to fix.
The chat problems and friend list problems really bog down the enjoyment of the game. I mean, the lag is terrible too (far worse than it ever was in the last 17 years that I've played this game), but please for god's sake fix the chat and friend list problems. And if you can't, let us go back to the old bnet friend list of 25 people that you could /f m and have big group chats with, instead of this horrible player-by-player-in-separate-chat-windows, regionally segregated system that exists now. I think that these modern developers really underestimate the appeal of that old /f m thing. All 25 of my friends would be friends with one another and I remember we would all just communicate via /f m. Apps like the bnet app and the steam app really killed that type social interaction in the games (in the case of steam, going from WC3 bnet /f m and /f l to the Dota 2 steam chat system).
There are sooooo many cool features that could be implemented in BW to make the experience far better and more in line with those provided in modern games. Things like being able to view live matches in-client, find and rate other players' and pros' replays, far more interactive and informative profiles, etc. etc. But those things have to come after the absolute most basic functions, which still don't work, things like chat, matchmaking, and friends lists.
All that being said, I still play BW like every day. So...
On November 12 2017 01:59 Liquid`Drone wrote: I understand that specifically, players who love laddering, have a high enough mmr to only be matched against koreans, and who lag when playing vs koreans, think the current situation sucks. That group I'm deeply sympathetic towards, because for those, remastered might have just ruined the bw experience. However, I think this is a pretty small group of people, and I think they generally had to spend quite some time looking for games on any ladder that has been going for the past 6 years - they shouldn't really have been able to play fish, and iccup wasn't active for the A- + segment. For pretty much everybody else, the current bw experience should be as good as it has ever been and I can't help but feel that people are viewing the past a bit through rose tinted glasses.
In Europe on 1900 or 2000 you already start getting Koreans constantly, unless you hit 2 hours window in the evening when there are more Europeans laddering. But it is some kind of bull**** that I am forced to play at specific time. 1900 mmr is not A- or A+ segment. It is D+ or C- segment and I didn't have problems playing or finding games on iccup considering I could host games. This ladder is ruining experience for me, and if you want community to actually grow, you have to fix these kind of issues. Otherwise all ladders except for Korean will be dead soon.
On November 12 2017 02:24 Netto. wrote: In Europe on 1900 or 2000 you already start getting Koreans constantly, unless you hit 2 hours window in the evening when there are more Europeans laddering. But it is some kind of bull**** that I am forced to play at specific time. 1900 mmr is not A- or A+ segment. It is D+ or C- segment and I didn't have problems playing or finding games on iccup considering I could host games. This ladder is ruining experience for me, and if you want community to actually grow, you have to fix these kind of issues. Otherwise all ladders except for Korean will be dead soon.
>1900-2000 >D+-C- come the fuck on, D+ of what year? Because I checked my iccup replays from 2009 and 2010 and D+ is 60-80 raw APM, right now that's 1000-1100 MMR.
Yeah, well it is 7 years difference between 2017 and 2010 you know? Right before remastered came out I was around C- on iccup, and recently hit 2000 mmr on ladder. In 2016 and 2017 level of play of D and C ranks players on Iccup was higher then in 2010.
You are talking about D+ like that's a low skill level. Iccup in 2016 was a hardcore place. Casual players left BW/iccup when SC2 came out, there are a bunch of new players on ladder right now who picked up the game. I agree that 2000 is not a A level, but its certainly not a D+ for PLAYERS NOW.
Of course when I talk about level of play by using rank letters, I have in mind skill level of players right before remastered came out. So D+ or C- players right before remastered are or should be (in my opinion) around 1900 mmr. Totally new people to the game, or total casuals like you said are obviously lower in ranking and I believe that lag problem don't affect them really. I am saying that you don't have to be pro to have difficulty laddering. 1900 or 2000 mmr is not a huge accomplishment, but already at this point most of games are vs Koreans and it simply is not fun. It just feels like I would be forced to play on fish year ago where I would be lagging and I would not be welcome, while I could simply stick to playing iccup.
At the moment of this post there are 442 accounts(! not players, accounts) on EU that are 2000 MMR or higher. What tf do you guys want? If you are whining that you can play for 2 hours a day, guess what, blizzard turns off global MM and you won't get a game or you will play same player over and over(and that opens doors to ladder abuse).
Man I wish Valve had somehow been in charge of SC:R. Dota2 is an example of having respect for the original game and trying earnestly to improve upon it. What "Blizzard" has done to BW is truly a joke.
A lot of people came back to SC:R through word of mouth. I got a few friends coming back. But the new b.net is simply broken, friend lists don't work, notifications when friends join game don't work, /where command doesn't work in game and lobbies, messaging is super buggy, making it very difficult to play with your friends. At first they thought the graphics were awesome, and a few days later they went "wtf this SC:R sucks" and returned to whatever game they were playing at the moment.
Lag is a huge issue for competitive gaming, that's true but we need to a large number of players if we want to maintain a vibrant community.
This was not meant to be a honeypot thread. Damn you!
On November 12 2017 00:10 castleeMg wrote: Ive watched the developer updates and they seem to direct their attention to minor things thst arnt really an issue (dynamic lighting??) And almost ignore the screaming issues like matchmaking being broken.
I completely agree with this. The situation is very incommodious from a customer standpoint. I feel like it isn't justified that I should demand or have expectations of a development team that produced a game and to know better than they do as to what deserves priority. At the same time, I am of the opinion that they ARE making the wrong decisions despite that, because I feel that the main features of the game are not what was advertised. However, now that we understand the size of the current StarCraft: Remastered development team, I do not know how such a small team can tackle such a monumental task-- and it is not their fault. I know I've said things in an argumentative tone throughout this thread, but I do respect and am thankful for the work and effort that people like Grant Davies do.
I imagine that if by happenstance a developer came into this thread, they would feel upset. The posts I made, although after rereading them after a few days and still agreeing with their points, were also made in a period of anger and sleep deprivation. I wish I had the chance to reword some of my points in a manner that didn't take out my emotions on the people who are now stuck working on (what is, in my opinion) a sinking ship. I am not a bureaucrat or business mogul so I can't even begin to pretend to understand what decisions came from an upper management team that was completely out of control for the development team, but if you're reading this Grant Davies or guy number #2 that is working on SC:R- I am legitimately thankful for the work you guys do, and I am not being facetious.
I guess this topic is somewhat in vain, but I still feel like this has a place for discussion on the forums. I think if I were to ask the developers something, it would be timeframes for features that I feel should have been present on release (season 1 of ladder, working leaderboards/profiles). I know the answer is probably something that would frustrate me, and potentially even make me quit the game, but I think it is super important for the community to know. I truly did have the intention to make this topic to discuss and brainstorm ideas as well as take an initiative. I am not going to lie and say the responses surprise me, but they have really hurt my enthusiasm. Seeing TT1 say he is quitting and making a post about it on the blizzard forums really hit my morale, because TT1 was someone I chatted with almost daily for months leading up to the StarCraft: Remastered release. When the game did come out, I lost contact with him mostly, but I saw that he was legitimately helpful in his criticism. He provided helpful and informative threads on the blizzard forums, and tried to contribute a lot towards bringing awareness to bugs and issues with the game to the developers.
Seeing him go out is not really something that makes me feel good. And many others are following his way.
Btw for people who haven't seen the developer update series, check them out - despite the state of the game, these type of videos are what we need. We may not agree with a lot of what has transpired, but we cannot put the blame on the development team as I am sure they had no true hand in the release date, as well as the current team size. We should encourage Grant Davies to keep making these videos, and let them know what we want to see in them.
I dont think we have any say on how much people stay or leave. That was something blizzard was in charge of, we had a ton of new blood when remaster was released but as we all know blizzard ruined the release date with endless bugs and latency issues. That clearly scared off all the players. Same reason I personally don't play as much anymore.
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: You listed a bunch of grievances and hardly said anything about what we can do to improve the community.
The topic is titled "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft". Not "Here is some suggestions I have to improve the community". There is no topic like this on the forum currently, and I think the current state of StarCraft: Remastered warrants a discussion, thus I contributed it. I'm willing to help improve the community and brainstorm.
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: I for one love the HD mode and the matchmaking. I can get matched with someone with similar level in less than 30 seconds? That's a dream that no other 3rd party could do on this scale. I got tired of waiting for 3rd party programs that promised such features but never could show it.
Shieldbattery is, to my knowledge, the only server who advertised matchmaking and it was never given a chance as SC:R was announced and released before it even went out of closed beta. As someone who played almost exclusively on Shieldbattery, I can say that it was a fantastic project. I have no recollection of any other server offering matchmaking, so I find your statements somewhat misinformed and disrespectful if you are actually referencing to Shieldbattery as a 3rd party program that "promised such features but could never show it" when Blizzard actively fucked over the devs by giving them patch 1.17 so the server could update accordingly for when the release came and then Mike Morhaime goes on stage to announce patch 1.18 (which was never given to SB) effectively stunting it (and 1.20 more or less putting it into its current inactive state). I'm not going to speculate and make wild claims- I do not know if Shieldbattery could ever host and maintain a matchmaking system to the extent that Blizzard does, but I think it is important to acknowledge that Shieldbattery accomplished a large portion of what it set out to do as a project.
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: And how is it a slap in the face of the bw community? Yes, the team may be small but at least there is a team that made SC:R. They didn't have to make SC:R for us, and I trust blizz's hiring process to pick the cream of the crop to get things fixed. It's also funny how people are quick to generalize the entire blizz company, saying that their a bunch of money grubbing corporate hooligans who are running BW into the ground.
I am the type of person who likes getting what they paid for, so I think considering it a slap in the face is about accurate. Your justification for the current state of the game is "They didn't have to make SC:R for us" is so ridiculous that I am actually confused if it is legitimate or some really odd attempt at being facetious. What does that have to do with anything?
Not a single fucking thing. So because someone made a product, they are no longer to be judged or should be shown leniency when they take your money and do not deliver on promises they make? Maybe you're happy with the product, and that is completely fine. If the glaring issues that seem to affect the majority of the playerbase aren't affecting you, whatever dude. I'm not here to shit on you or convince you to hate StarCraft: Remastered. We're on a StarCraft forum after all, so that seems quite ludicrous. I don't want people to dislike the current state of StarCraft or raise pitchforks at Blizzard. The whole point of this topic is to discuss what we can do to improve it. The points I listed in the original post was not to change anyone's opinion because I can guarantee you it isn't fucking news to the vast majority of people who read this topic.
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: Really? The entire BW got a huge boost when SC:R was revealed and blizzard went all out with the announcement and premiere. That tournament with Boxer, Flash, JD, and BIsu was legit and thanks to blizzard. Hell, they offered JD and Bisu $25,000 just to play a Bo5 at Blizzcon. Just for the fans (it even had a fan vote).
Who knew releasing a remastered edition would boost the player base? Okay we get it, cool. Blizzard, out of the kindness of their gracious hearts, reached out and set aside a dev team to release StarCraft: Remastered out of love for the community. Here is a reality check for you: They didn't stuff cash into those players pockets because they thought it was nice of them to do so. It was an investment. Maybe you could explain to us why Blizzard charged Afreeca a $100,000 licensing fee to host ASL 4? (Source: www.teamliquid.net). It was rumored that the reason why Afreeca could not come to licensing agreements with allowing Twitch or Youtube to stream the 4th ASL is because of the steep licensing fee cost Blizzard imposed on them. Or how about the fact that it is highly speculated that the majority of the team who worked on StarCraft: Remastered are already onto another project, being WarCraft 3: Remastered, despite the fact that we were reassured that there would be an active team continuing support and development after SC:R's release (Technically they didn't lie, but the truth is that it is was reduced to what seems to be 2 or 3 people). If things aren't starting to click in your head that the decisions made at Blizzard are beginning to look like they are putting money before community, logic may be lost on you.
Because you have said so much odd stuff (no offense) my post has probably come across as crass. So, to clarify and summarize, I realize this post comes across as anti-Blizzard but that is not my intention. I realize that Blizzard is a company first, and their main goal is to be profitable. That isn't lost on me, and I fully respect that and their right to charge, license, and maintain their game how they please. However, I think it is never okay to settle for less than what a developer promises you. Take one look at No Man's Sky and see the events that transpired in that case. They were intentionally vague about their game details, even going so far as to outright lie about features their game would have. This caused one of the biggest backlashes in video gaming history. I feel it is almost an injustice to compare StarCraft: Remastered to No Man's Sky release because StarCraft: Remastered is still a great game and delivered on the majority of things they advertised, but I'm going to go the extra few miles so you can maybe understand why it isn't okay to lie to customers. Can you actually with a straight face tell someone that No Man's Sky release was fine because "They didn't have to make the game" after people spent $60 on what they believed was an advertised space exploration game that had multiplayer, active space travel, and the allure of finding the 'center of the universe' when in actuality it was as if some developers turned Spore into a pretty game and then added elements of Minecraft, Eve Online, and a baby taking a nasty shit in his diaper and mixing it in a blender along with a few tabs of mescaline? Cause most people were under the impression that when they bought StarCraft: Remastered, they too would have gotten what was advertised. No, it is not near the disaster that No Man's Sky was, but you're dense as fuck if you think it was anything less than dishonesty what we received.
Lmao. You take things so personally. You say that you understand the profit driven nature of Blizzard, but you still whine like a bitch. Stop acting like a victim who is embroiled in some non-existent conspiracy against you. Such narrative only distracts us from the tangible problems facing the game. It does nothing for discussion and it honestly reeks of someone who blows things out of proportion. There is no need to push your "blizzard is dishonest" agenda and get your panties in a bunch. Blizzard did not release SC:R to tank our community or destroy your precious SB. They didn't release it to symbolically slap you in your face or disrespect you. Blizz saw a business incentive in remastering SC:R and they did it to the extent in which they deemed appropriate. As much as you would like to believe, Blizzard isn't trying to fuck you over by working on WC3 instead of SC:R, it's a business decision. So chill out. What did you exactly expect? Blizzard to maintain the same number devs for a 20 year old game? That Blizzard had some obligation to save SB and other servers? SB doesn't need our or Blizzard's pity for it to do well. If SB can provide a better product, it will keep rocking. It doesn't need you to go into some hysteria that Blizz purposely screwed them.
No shit there are technical problems with SC:R, but what does your trivial speculation and distrust of Blizzard have anything to do with fixing bugs? I have a shitton of complaints against SC:R but I ain't gonna sit there and cry blizzard is "disrespecting" me. Is everything a slap in the face to you, are you so easily hurt? But I guess you gotta relieve your pent up angst somewhere, so good luck on your crusade.
Moving on.
Meanwhile, we as a community can continue to send in bug reports (https://us.battle.net/forums/en/starcraft/22814093/) to Blizzard and objectively tell them that SC:R needs a lot of work.
In my personal experience playing in Korea, the matchmaking has worked extremely well. I get games within 30 seconds and there is no lag since I am always playing against Koreans. My MMR is at 1200 and I always play against people who are near 1200. However, playing custom games with people from different continents, I do get lag from time to time and have to increase the latency. Thus, I understand people's pain if they have to constantly play people from other continents and face lag. That sucks and I hope they can fix that.
The biggest issue I have with SC:R is the damn UI. It's slow, buggy, and inconsistent. Stats aren't immediately processed and when they are, they are sometimes cloned and/or incorrect.
Not sure how they can fix the lag, since playing against someone halfway across the world with differences in ISP quality, is always tricky. Perhaps they can not make MM global? That would mean longer queues for some people and larger discrepancies in MMR, but for the sake of lag, it might be worth a try.
I believe that blizzard can make things better because they have always come through. SC:R has only been out for a couple of months and the devs have made things better since JD hasn't been crying as much about the lag =P
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: You listed a bunch of grievances and hardly said anything about what we can do to improve the community.
The topic is titled "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft". Not "Here is some suggestions I have to improve the community". There is no topic like this on the forum currently, and I think the current state of StarCraft: Remastered warrants a discussion, thus I contributed it. I'm willing to help improve the community and brainstorm.
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: I for one love the HD mode and the matchmaking. I can get matched with someone with similar level in less than 30 seconds? That's a dream that no other 3rd party could do on this scale. I got tired of waiting for 3rd party programs that promised such features but never could show it.
Shieldbattery is, to my knowledge, the only server who advertised matchmaking and it was never given a chance as SC:R was announced and released before it even went out of closed beta. As someone who played almost exclusively on Shieldbattery, I can say that it was a fantastic project. I have no recollection of any other server offering matchmaking, so I find your statements somewhat misinformed and disrespectful if you are actually referencing to Shieldbattery as a 3rd party program that "promised such features but could never show it" when Blizzard actively fucked over the devs by giving them patch 1.17 so the server could update accordingly for when the release came and then Mike Morhaime goes on stage to announce patch 1.18 (which was never given to SB) effectively stunting it (and 1.20 more or less putting it into its current inactive state). I'm not going to speculate and make wild claims- I do not know if Shieldbattery could ever host and maintain a matchmaking system to the extent that Blizzard does, but I think it is important to acknowledge that Shieldbattery accomplished a large portion of what it set out to do as a project.
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: And how is it a slap in the face of the bw community? Yes, the team may be small but at least there is a team that made SC:R. They didn't have to make SC:R for us, and I trust blizz's hiring process to pick the cream of the crop to get things fixed. It's also funny how people are quick to generalize the entire blizz company, saying that their a bunch of money grubbing corporate hooligans who are running BW into the ground.
I am the type of person who likes getting what they paid for, so I think considering it a slap in the face is about accurate. Your justification for the current state of the game is "They didn't have to make SC:R for us" is so ridiculous that I am actually confused if it is legitimate or some really odd attempt at being facetious. What does that have to do with anything?
Not a single fucking thing. So because someone made a product, they are no longer to be judged or should be shown leniency when they take your money and do not deliver on promises they make? Maybe you're happy with the product, and that is completely fine. If the glaring issues that seem to affect the majority of the playerbase aren't affecting you, whatever dude. I'm not here to shit on you or convince you to hate StarCraft: Remastered. We're on a StarCraft forum after all, so that seems quite ludicrous. I don't want people to dislike the current state of StarCraft or raise pitchforks at Blizzard. The whole point of this topic is to discuss what we can do to improve it. The points I listed in the original post was not to change anyone's opinion because I can guarantee you it isn't fucking news to the vast majority of people who read this topic.
On November 11 2017 15:59 Golgotha wrote: Really? The entire BW got a huge boost when SC:R was revealed and blizzard went all out with the announcement and premiere. That tournament with Boxer, Flash, JD, and BIsu was legit and thanks to blizzard. Hell, they offered JD and Bisu $25,000 just to play a Bo5 at Blizzcon. Just for the fans (it even had a fan vote).
Who knew releasing a remastered edition would boost the player base? Okay we get it, cool. Blizzard, out of the kindness of their gracious hearts, reached out and set aside a dev team to release StarCraft: Remastered out of love for the community. Here is a reality check for you: They didn't stuff cash into those players pockets because they thought it was nice of them to do so. It was an investment. Maybe you could explain to us why Blizzard charged Afreeca a $100,000 licensing fee to host ASL 4? (Source: www.teamliquid.net). It was rumored that the reason why Afreeca could not come to licensing agreements with allowing Twitch or Youtube to stream the 4th ASL is because of the steep licensing fee cost Blizzard imposed on them. Or how about the fact that it is highly speculated that the majority of the team who worked on StarCraft: Remastered are already onto another project, being WarCraft 3: Remastered, despite the fact that we were reassured that there would be an active team continuing support and development after SC:R's release (Technically they didn't lie, but the truth is that it is was reduced to what seems to be 2 or 3 people). If things aren't starting to click in your head that the decisions made at Blizzard are beginning to look like they are putting money before community, logic may be lost on you.
Because you have said so much odd stuff (no offense) my post has probably come across as crass. So, to clarify and summarize, I realize this post comes across as anti-Blizzard but that is not my intention. I realize that Blizzard is a company first, and their main goal is to be profitable. That isn't lost on me, and I fully respect that and their right to charge, license, and maintain their game how they please. However, I think it is never okay to settle for less than what a developer promises you. Take one look at No Man's Sky and see the events that transpired in that case. They were intentionally vague about their game details, even going so far as to outright lie about features their game would have. This caused one of the biggest backlashes in video gaming history. I feel it is almost an injustice to compare StarCraft: Remastered to No Man's Sky release because StarCraft: Remastered is still a great game and delivered on the majority of things they advertised, but I'm going to go the extra few miles so you can maybe understand why it isn't okay to lie to customers. Can you actually with a straight face tell someone that No Man's Sky release was fine because "They didn't have to make the game" after people spent $60 on what they believed was an advertised space exploration game that had multiplayer, active space travel, and the allure of finding the 'center of the universe' when in actuality it was as if some developers turned Spore into a pretty game and then added elements of Minecraft, Eve Online, and a baby taking a nasty shit in his diaper and mixing it in a blender along with a few tabs of mescaline? Cause most people were under the impression that when they bought StarCraft: Remastered, they too would have gotten what was advertised. No, it is not near the disaster that No Man's Sky was, but you're dense as fuck if you think it was anything less than dishonesty what we received.
Lmao. You take things so personally. You say that you understand the profit driven nature of Blizzard, but you still whine like a bitch. Stop acting like a victim who is embroiled in some non-existent conspiracy against you. Such narrative only distracts us from the tangible problems facing the game. It does nothing for discussion and it honestly reeks of someone who blows things out of proportion. There is no need to push your "blizzard is dishonest" agenda and get your panties in a bunch. Blizzard did not release SC:R to tank our community or destroy your precious SB. They didn't release it to symbolically slap you in your face or disrespect you. Blizz saw a business incentive in remastering SC:R and they did it to the extent in which they deemed appropriate. As much as you would like to believe, Blizzard isn't trying to fuck you over by working on WC3 instead of SC:R, it's a business decision. So chill out. What did you exactly expect? Blizzard to maintain the same number devs for a 20 year old game? That Blizzard had some obligation to save SB and other servers? SB doesn't need our or Blizzard's pity for it to do well. If SB can provide a better product, it will keep rocking. It doesn't need you to go into some hysteria that Blizz purposely screwed them.
No shit there are technical problems with SC:R, but what does your trivial speculation and distrust of Blizzard have anything to do with fixing bugs? I have a shitton of complaints against SC:R but I ain't gonna sit there and cry blizzard is "disrespecting" me. Is everything a slap in the face to you, are you so easily hurt? But I guess you gotta relieve your pent up angst somewhere, so good luck on your crusade.
Moving on.
Meanwhile, we as a community can continue to send in bug reports (https://us.battle.net/forums/en/starcraft/22814093/) to Blizzard and objectively tell them that SC:R needs a lot of work.
In my personal experience playing in Korea, the matchmaking has worked extremely well. I get games within 30 seconds and there is no lag since I am always playing against Koreans. My MMR is at 1200 and I always play against people who are near 1200. However, playing custom games with people from different continents, I do get lag from time to time and have to increase the latency. Thus, I understand people's pain if they have to constantly play people from other continents and face lag. That sucks and I hope they can fix that.
The biggest issue I have with SC:R is the damn UI. It's slow, buggy, and inconsistent. Stats aren't immediately processed and when they are, they are sometimes cloned and/or incorrect.
Not sure how they can fix the lag, since playing against someone halfway across the world with differences in ISP quality, is always tricky. Perhaps they can not make MM global? That would mean longer queues for some people and larger discrepancies in MMR, but for the sake of lag, it might be worth a try.
I believe that blizzard can make things better because they have always come through. SC:R has only been out for a couple of months and the devs have made things better since JD hasn't been crying as much about the lag =P
This, IMO, is a very healthy and realistic perspective on the situation. I agree with you pretty much entirely!
I give them credit for drastically improving mouse cursor, aside of that, we lost iccup and fish in the process and that is a big blow to the community, players are now all dispersed. The battle.net // ladder experience is of lower quality plain and simple. I guess this is an opinion from a westerner perspective because it seems Korean are having a good time due to their high number of players.
golgotha you are crazy lol, calling xpressing unhappiness with a product (or business) "whining like a bitch"? i mean if anything it looks like you are easily hurt by some opinions, then is this you "whining" even harder? etc
On November 12 2017 16:15 Golgotha wrote: Lmao. You take things so personally. You say that you understand the profit driven nature of Blizzard, but you still whine like a bitch. Stop acting like a victim who is embroiled in some non-existent conspiracy against you. Such narrative only distracts us from the tangible problems facing the game. It does nothing for discussion and it honestly reeks of someone who blows things out of proportion. There is no need to push your "blizzard is dishonest" agenda and get your panties in a bunch. Blizzard did not release SC:R to tank our community or destroy your precious SB. They didn't release it to symbolically slap you in your face or disrespect you. Blizz saw a business incentive in remastering SC:R and they did it to the extent in which they deemed appropriate. As much as you would like to believe, Blizzard isn't trying to fuck you over by working on WC3 instead of SC:R, it's a business decision. So chill out. What did you exactly expect? Blizzard to maintain the same number devs for a 20 year old game? That Blizzard had some obligation to save SB and other servers? SB doesn't need our or Blizzard's pity for it to do well. If SB can provide a better product, it will keep rocking. It doesn't need you to go into some hysteria that Blizz purposely screwed them.
I actually don't even want to bother with reading the rest of your post after this quoted section because it is like you're not actually reading my posts at all, which leads to a pointless discussion. Almost everything you said is completely inaccurate to the point that you're literally contradicting things I've said by 100%.
Here is what I mean. You say in the above paragraph: " As much as you would like to believe, Blizzard isn't trying to fuck you over by working on WC3 instead of SC:R, it's a business decision. So chill out"
My post literally two posts above yours says: " I am not a bureaucrat or business mogul so I can't even begin to pretend to understand what decisions came from an upper management team that was completely out of control for the development team, but if you're reading this Grant Davies or guy number #2 that is working on SC:R- I am legitimately thankful for the work you guys do, and I am not being facetious. "
On top of explicitly stating I'm not business savvy, I also pretty much admit I have no expertise in those decisions or who in the chain of command make them. In fact, if you read the post at all, the whole tone was apologetic and being thankful for the development team. I'm not shifting blame on anyone. Do I feel like I didn't get what I paid for? Yeah. But to say I'm pushing a narrative when my posts have been more supportive of the community makes me question if you're somehow not reading the majority of my posts for some really peculiar reason.
Also, another really strange quote of yours that is literally 100% inaccurate is: "Blizzard did not release SC:R to tank our community or destroy your precious SB", "That Blizzard had some obligation to save SB and other servers? SB doesn't need our or Blizzard's pity for it to do well. If SB can provide a better product, it will keep rocking. It doesn't need you to go into some hysteria that Blizz purposely screwed them."
Literally nowhere did I ever imply anything you said there. How do you expect me to respond to this, honestly? I never implied at ALL that Blizzard had an obligation to save private servers. Nor did I imply Blizzard released SC:R to tank a private server (that wasn't even out yet to the public even, lol...). Literally the only thing I said that comes even close to claim is when I've said, "Blizzard actively fucked over the devs by giving them patch 1.17 so the server could update accordingly for when the release came and then Mike Morhaime goes on stage to announce patch 1.18 (which was never given to SB)". This is, to the best of my knowledge, factually true- and if you're going to tell me that Blizzard didn't fuck them over by giving them the wrong patch, then I do not know how to reason with you. To clarify here, and let me make this extremely simple so you don't mishear me: I never implied or endorsed the fact that Blizzard had an obligation to give them a patch at all. They didn't give a patch to ICCup at all as far as I know. The part I'm upset about is they did give them a patch, but it was a WRONG patch. So they actively wanted to help them or involve them in some way with the community if they supplied a patch for them, but when it was an unreleased patch that would never see the light of day, you just gave a small dev team a lot of dead time writing code around it. That is generally considered rude and I think most people would say that situation classifies as "being fucked over".
Also, if we're keeping track, I've:
Suggested we be more vocal about what we want to see in the developer's updates with the current lead developer of StarCraft: Remastered and supplied links to said developer's updates for people who were unaware of them.
Pushed for community support to encourage 3rd party developers to continue working on projects they have worked on pre-1.18.
Provided discussion questions such as asking people who have previously developed latency plug-ins or 3rd party tools if there is anything they could do on their end in a form of a launcher or otherwise that could contribute to helping the average user's experience.
If you also read on, you'll see that I'm being more positive in my subsequent posts after OP. I'm not pushing some agenda or going on an anti-Blizzard tirade. It is extreme hypocrisy when you accuse me of supplying no suggestions while doing none yourself (and I've now had multiple suggestions). And it is even more odd that you accuse me of whining and having some victim complex narrative when you've been more negative in this thread than I have. Also, apparently not only can you not resist the urge to call people a bitch within three sentences of responding; you also seem to not even make it a paragraph in without having more than 50% of your post be so incredibly inaccurate that it is actually almost impossible to respond to because it feels like we're in two completely different conversations. Like imagine, this is me pointing out that almost everything you said was completely inaccurate one paragraph into your post (and like the other 50% was insulting me, go figure that someone who has 2 out of their 3 first starting sentences to be insults don't have anything worthwhile to say anyways). I can only imagine what else you wrote, but until you actually start reading my posts I can't really be bugged to waste time reading yours.
Sticky someplace with discords info, like there is on reddit/broodwar.There was a discord for brand new players but not sure how active it is now.May be worthwhile putting a channel in busier discord just for new players.
Goal should be to hook new players on the game so they will be more willing to move to iccup / SB in 2-3 years when bnet goes down the tubes.Moving to iccup now just splits the small playerbase further and scares off the newbs who won't want to play 4:3 and will wonder why there are less players on bnet.
On November 12 2017 19:47 iFU.pauline wrote: I give them credit for drastically improving mouse cursor, aside of that, we lost iccup and fish in the process and that is a big blow to the community, players are now all dispersed. The battle.net // ladder experience is of lower quality plain and simple. I guess this is an opinion from a westerner perspective because it seems Korean are having a good time due to their high number of players.
we haven't lost ICCup. Log on and play some games now, if you feel like it.
I think he`s right: we basically lost it, since it`s became a desert - even by one month after SC:R. I can`t haphazard a guess how many players left there though, but I guess not that many. Everyone who was willing or wanted to stay with the StarCraft comminity was "forced" to switch over to BW:R because the sheer number of the players migrated there. I can`t understand this though, since from the open beta it was pretty obvious that SC:R has a poor quality, yet, the major switch happened nonetheless, because of hype, because shortsightedness of the majority. Everyone who voiced the concerns were ignored. The issues we`re having now are consequences of the community`s own fault.
How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages :-).
I enjoy it. I didn't play SC for 8 years, SC:R brought me back. Now I'm a BW noobie with 1800 MMR. What can we do as a community? Host tournaments, participate in tournaments, create interesting coverage and content and promote it. Thus bringing more people in -> more people -> better ladder
Honestly, we just need to extract the good parts of the new graphics from SC:R, get the OpenBW guys to fix the crappy parts of the new graphics, make the SB guys create a version 1.16 with the new fx version, and then just mass-migrate to SB. Easy peasy, problem solved!
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages :-).
I enjoy it. I didn't play SC for 8 years, SC:R brought me back. Now I'm a BW noobie with 1800 MMR. What can we do as a community? Host tournaments, participate in tournaments, create interesting coverage and content and promote it. Thus bringing more people in -> more people -> better ladder
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages :-).
I enjoy it. I didn't play SC for 8 years, SC:R brought me back. Now I'm a BW noobie with 1800 MMR. What can we do as a community? Host tournaments, participate in tournaments, create interesting coverage and content and promote it. Thus bringing more people in -> more people -> better ladder
This is the best comment so far
Why would we want to host tournaments for a game that wasn't even properly released/properly maintained? Nearly all the old players that came back have already left due to blizzards inability to deliver/maintain a quality product. They basically said f*ck you to everyone and expect the fanbase to act like mindless drones and accept it. I regret purchasing SC:R even though I love SC.
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages
Its the only thing that people do around here. Just whining and bitching about SC:R and blizzards secret agenda to ruin their favorite game. Its what you get after 19 years of inbred jokes and circle-jerking each others importance in a niche RTS forum of an even more niche game on the decline. There is bound to be some illusion of grandeur for most, even though nobody actually cares about them.
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages
Its the only thing that people do around here. Just whining and bitching about SC:R and blizzards secret agenda to ruin their favorite game. Its what you get after 19 years of inbred jokes and circle-jerking each others importance in a niche RTS forum of an even more niche game on the decline. There is bound to be some illusion of grandeur for most, even though nobody actually cares about them.
Every single long time BW player has a right to be pissed off. They effectively killed off all the old servers and released a sub-par product. BW was fine for years and then blizzard had to do their thing and they turned it into a pile of shit.
I don't like how they changed the menu, I've been a long-time customer, there are too many problems with it, the fish was burnt, the side dish tasted like it was microwaved, and the fact they've mislabeled their organic bread felt like they disrespect their customers. I feel like I didn't get my money's worth.
Tony's Kitchen apologist
Stop whining like a bitch, lmao. In my experience this is the best meal I've ever had since 1998. So what if they reduced the quality for higher profit. Tony's Kitchen saw a business incentive in remastering their menu.
No shit there are technical problems with the new menu, but what does your trivial speculation and distrust of Tony's Kitchen and their mislabeled ingredients have anything to do with fixing problems? What did you exactly expect? Tony's Kitchen to maintain the same level of quality for a 20 year old restaurant? I have a shitton of complaints against the new meals but I ain't gonna sit there and cry Tony's Kitchen is "disrespecting" me. Is everything a slap in the face to you, are you so easily hurt? But I guess you gotta relieve your pent up angst somewhere, so good luck on your crusade.
On November 13 2017 03:51 Lazare1969 wrote: Tony's Kitchen former fan
I don't like how they changed the menu, I've been a long-time customer, there are too many problems with it, the fish was burnt, the side dish tasted like it was microwaved, and the fact they've mislabeled their organic bread felt like they disrespect their customers. I feel like I didn't get my money's worth.
Tony's Kitchen apologist
Stop whining like a bitch, lmao. In my experience this is the best meal I've ever had since 1998. So what if they reduced the quality for higher profit. Tony's Kitchen saw a business incentive in remastering their menu.
No shit there are technical problems with the new menu, but what does your trivial speculation and distrust of Tony's Kitchen and their mislabeled ingredients have anything to do with fixing problems? What did you exactly expect? Tony's Kitchen to maintain the same level of quality for a 20 year old restaurant? I have a shitton of complaints against the new meals but I ain't gonna sit there and cry Tony's Kitchen is "disrespecting" me. Is everything a slap in the face to you, are you so easily hurt? But I guess you gotta relieve your pent up angst somewhere, so good luck on your crusade.
They made promises and failed to deliver. The ladder is unplayable for me. I have every right to be pissed off. What did I expect? I expected the "remaster" to be an improved version. Playability is marginally worse. It's the most important part of the game. Who gives a shit if they gave it a facelift if it isn't running properly. Easily hurt? They failed to deliver bud. Sorry but i'm not just gonna bend over and take up the poop shoot. The problems are on BLIZZARD'S END. There is nothing this community can or should do at this point to make up for blizzard's incompetence. It's up to BLIZZARD to make things right, not the community. Oh, Also, I don't care what you would do, We aren't the same type of people(I'm not an armchair though you seem comfortable being one).
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages :-).
I enjoy it. I didn't play SC for 8 years, SC:R brought me back. Now I'm a BW noobie with 1800 MMR. What can we do as a community? Host tournaments, participate in tournaments, create interesting coverage and content and promote it. Thus bringing more people in -> more people -> better ladder
This is the best comment so far
Why would we want to host tournaments for a game that wasn't even properly released/properly maintained? Nearly all the old players that came back have already left due to blizzards inability to deliver/maintain a quality product. They basically said f*ck you to everyone and expect the fanbase to act like mindless drones and accept it. I regret purchasing SC:R even though I love SC.
Amount of nonkorean tournaments has exploded in 2017 following the release of SC:R. In all of 2016 you had like, the teamliquid legacy starleague, the crispy cup, and some netwars tourney. Maybe some defiler.ru tourneys but it seems like they weren't that active in 2016. In the past 6 months, we started off with a bunch of haveatyou tourneys, then the filthy cup came along, then ESL started hosting weekly tourneys, clan SK has been hosting like 2-3 per week, (I think like 40 tourneys total by now), TLOpens are going, the italian ESports was the tournament on european soil with the highest prize pool ever, Zotac Cup in the US is the biggest we've seen for like a decade and yesterday's qualifier had viewer numbers peaking around 2500, Clash for Char is running every week and is super entertaining, RUS Brain Cup has started, [ReD] invitationals are running.. there are like four different team leagues that have been started/restarted (PATL, Gambit Cup, SK Team League, BWCL). I genuinely believe that for people outside korea who want to play or watch tournaments, the past 6 months has literally been the best period of the past 19 years - and I was active during every 'golden era' of the past. Player numbers have dwindled a bit for several of these, but I think viewership numbers are fairly consistent, and I have a couple friends who never really played bw but who started watching tournament streams and think it's amazingly entertaining.
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages :-).
I enjoy it. I didn't play SC for 8 years, SC:R brought me back. Now I'm a BW noobie with 1800 MMR. What can we do as a community? Host tournaments, participate in tournaments, create interesting coverage and content and promote it. Thus bringing more people in -> more people -> better ladder
This is the best comment so far
Why would we want to host tournaments for a game that wasn't even properly released/properly maintained? Nearly all the old players that came back have already left due to blizzards inability to deliver/maintain a quality product. They basically said f*ck you to everyone and expect the fanbase to act like mindless drones and accept it. I regret purchasing SC:R even though I love SC.
Amount of nonkorean tournaments has exploded in 2017 following the release of SC:R. In all of 2016 you had like, the teamliquid legacy starleague, the crispy cup, and some netwars tourney. Maybe some defiler.ru tourneys but it seems like they weren't that active in 2016. In the past 6 months, we started off with a bunch of haveatyou tourneys, then the filthy cup came along, then ESL started hosting weekly tourneys, clan SK has been hosting like 2-3 per week, (I think like 40 tourneys total by now), TLOpens are going, the italian ESports was the tournament on european soil with the highest prize pool ever, Zotac Cup in the US is the biggest we've seen for like a decade and yesterday's qualifier had viewer numbers peaking around 2500, Clash for Char is running every week and is super entertaining, there are like four different team leagues that have been started/restarted (PATL, Gambit Cup, SK Team League, BWCL). I genuinely believe that for people outside korea who want to play or watch tournaments, the past 6 months has literally been the best period of the past 19 years - and I was active during every 'golden era' of the past. Player numbers have dwindled a bit for several of these, but I think viewership numbers are fairly consistent, and I have a couple friends who never really played bw but who started watching tournament streams and think it's amazingly entertaining.
I was also active during the golden era, it was better then for sure. We had actual lans/wcg etc. Also, at least the game was playable back then. Nowadays the ladder lags like hell and apparently users on TL will shame you if you speak up about it lol. It's like the very opposite of "community" lol. Oh how times have changed. It is not wise to turn a blind eye to the elephant when it's staring at you in the face. The game needs serious fixing.
WCG was literally one tournament per year. That was amazing for sure though, no argument there. And I'm sure there are some regions where the LAN scene was thriving and that that is missing now - I myself attended a lot of lan parties between 1998 and 2001, but that's not at all applicable to a global scene. The current tournament frequency however gives us something like 200+ online tournaments with prize money per year, not including team leagues. It's never been even close to that in the past.
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages
Its the only thing that people do around here. Just whining and bitching about SC:R and blizzards secret agenda to ruin their favorite game. Its what you get after 19 years of inbred jokes and circle-jerking each others importance in a niche RTS forum of an even more niche game on the decline. There is bound to be some illusion of grandeur for most, even though nobody actually cares about them.
Every single long time BW player has a right to be pissed off. They effectively killed off all the old servers and released a sub-par product. BW was fine for years and then blizzard had to do their thing and they turned it into a pile of shit.
what server did they shut down and what proof do you have of it?
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages
Its the only thing that people do around here. Just whining and bitching about SC:R and blizzards secret agenda to ruin their favorite game. Its what you get after 19 years of inbred jokes and circle-jerking each others importance in a niche RTS forum of an even more niche game on the decline. There is bound to be some illusion of grandeur for most, even though nobody actually cares about them.
Every single long time BW player has a right to be pissed off. They effectively killed off all the old servers and released a sub-par product. BW was fine for years and then blizzard had to do their thing and they turned it into a pile of shit.
what server did they shut down and what proof do you have of it?
lol do you understand the word "effectively?" I'm a fan of SC:R, but he's completely right about that.
Hi! I know i'm new around this scene but I used to be in the StarCraft 2 and Heroes of the Storm scenes for a long time and grew quite a reputation in both of them. I'm close friends with a lot of people at Blizzard, esports in general, and the like and have a few ideas the community can use to help build our relationship with Blizzard to be a better one.
tldr; CONTENT.
- Podcasts Blizzard actually loves well rounded, likable people in a podcast talking about their games. From the higher-ups to the engineers and CM's, they love a place they can go and listen to people talk about their game. I used to be part of a podcast for Heroes of the Storm where we picked apart and talked about every little thing that was going on in the game. Blizz especially used to love us for our patchnotes overviews because we gave very honest feedback on things. I used to honestly think Blizz hated us because how much we would openly criticize their decisions, but upon meeting their engineers themselves, I found out they loved the critical thinking aspect.
- More Player Interviews Player interviews put into videos or large well published segments is another thing that, if promoted correctly, is something people will look at and get info from. Right now aside from korean players no one outside of those of us who watch tons of tournaments know who the stars of NA/SA/EU are. If we make more videos involving these players and put them in public places like bnet forums and reddit, and also talk about them more, it'll help get things across like TT1 not wanting to play anymore.
- BNet posts. I don't know if you all saw, but someone cornered engineers at BlizzCon and the engineer said they only pay attention to BNet forum posts (lol?) because they don't know where else to look. I think we need to work on that sort of thing.
I'm a TO/Commentator/personality willing to help, but we all have to realize we can't do this relying on a small amount of people. The community has to start putting out a lot of content to show Blizz we are: invested, interested, and not just a bunch of people on a forum complaining
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages
Its the only thing that people do around here. Just whining and bitching about SC:R and blizzards secret agenda to ruin their favorite game. Its what you get after 19 years of inbred jokes and circle-jerking each others importance in a niche RTS forum of an even more niche game on the decline. There is bound to be some illusion of grandeur for most, even though nobody actually cares about them.
Every single long time BW player has a right to be pissed off. They effectively killed off all the old servers and released a sub-par product. BW was fine for years and then blizzard had to do their thing and they turned it into a pile of shit.
what server did they shut down and what proof do you have of it?
Brain server, fish server, all the servers from back in the day... It's no secret at all.
On November 13 2017 04:42 Liquid`Drone wrote: WCG was literally one tournament per year. That was amazing for sure though, no argument there. And I'm sure there are some regions where the LAN scene was thriving and that that is missing now - I myself attended a lot of lan parties between 1998 and 2001, but that's not at all applicable to a global scene. The current tournament frequency however gives us something like 200+ online tournaments with prize money per year, not including team leagues. It's never been even close to that in the past.
WCG actually meant something. It was THE tournament that was open to the world. We don't have anything close to that anymore and haven't for years. I think it's accurate to say the majority of us played mainly for the prestige/glory back in the day. The online tournaments with prize money is great, i'm not knocking it at all, however, there isn't a tournament open to the world(that also wouldn't have insane lag issues because blizzard makes bad development decisions) that carries the same level of meaning/prestige. I resent blizzard for what they've done. They should have just left BW alone.
I participated in WCG 2004, and it was probably my greatest brood war experience. And no, we haven't had anything like it for years. But the italian esports tourney and the Zotac tournament in the US are actually the closest things we've had for a decade - both tournaments throwing more money to the nonkorean community than any WCG cept 2003 ever did (not factoring in travel costs). I'm saying that SC:R has made the nonkorean tournament scene significantly better and indisputably so than it has been since SC2 was released, so since 2009 or whatever. And with the exception of WCG, 2001-2009 were also much worse than it is right now. And both as a player and a spectator, I'd rather have 4 tournaments per week with average prize pools of $100 than 1 tournament per year with $35000 for the top 3 (where koreans won between $20000 the entire prize pool every single year). In addition, it wasn't even possible to really follow the tourneys back then, some players would smuggle out replays, but there was no live broadcast..
in terms of streaming and "viewership" we're really in a different age now, but if there is some more watching and a lot less playing that's not really a good thing and there is less playing because the game is less comfortable to play because of the much too low quality of the online interface despite the public server thing which is huge tourneys tend to be quite closed, I rarely participate
and this level of quality by the way IS really low. it's so bad it makes the 90s look like the future or smtg "harder better faster stronger" when we're freaking 20 years away from that. How does technology go backwards and you sell a remaster of the game that steps so far back as to fail working properly or consistantly in so many critical, yet basic elements of interface? of course we have every right to be pissed for that considering what the point of making SC:R was in the first place and that... we paid for it's gotten to a point where in 2017, some companies make it look like interfaces are advanced or modern by adding a bunch of superficial aspects and actually limiting the functionalities to a bare minimum. So you end up with something that looks modern, but is actually pretty basic shit. And then you have another layer of shit with even what's actually implemented doesn't even work consistently or is unable to respond at a normal speed or both, so that the functionalities that do remain end up being a lot less efficient anyway. What a time to be a gamer.
On November 13 2017 00:03 ReachTheSky wrote: The community tried to make it great with our own servers etc. Blizzard took that all away and re-released a sub-par game. Do not support blizzard.
Bro, you do realize that those servers would have all gone to shit whether or not blizz had initial problems with SC:R release? If SC:R was perfect, those servers would have all gone down the drain. So how can you say that blizzard "took them away"? Those servers ONLY survived (they actually kicked ass for a long time) because Blizzard couldn't provide a better product.
But now think, what does it say when a "dishonest" and buggy SC:R has single-handedly taken away the majority of the playerbase of all those servers and brought them to Bnet? It means blizz has provided something that those servers cannot and people like it. There haven't been this many people playing BW since the old days. That's a fact. Yes, SC:R has actually brought a lot more people back in and made it easier for people to play. What the community tried to do on their own for many years was great, but SC:R has made a tremendous impact as well and in a very short amount of time. They accomplished what the third party servers were trying to do and gave us HD as well (which is something no server was close to doing). I am not sure how that is splitting/dispersing the community. Imo, it actually brought everyone together under a single server.
Yes, SC:R has a long way to go to be up to Blizz quality standards and what they released should definitely raise outcries. But to blindly say that this is all because of some maleficence on blizzard's part and that SC:R is a complete dud is farcical behavior. It does nothing for progressive discussion and only pits us against each other. I understand that some people have a deep mistrust of Blizzard and we won't ever agree, but ONE thing that we can surely agree and do together is to complain and constantly badger Blizzard about fixing the goddamn bugs, lag, lack of features, etc.
Support doesn't simply mean giving $$$ and playing the game. Support can be telling Blizzard what is wrong with the game and what they need to fix. Tangible things that the devs actually have the power to work on. You ain't going anywhere if you're trying to mend Blizzard's "greedy" or "dishonest" culture, the devs can't do shit about that. But they can fix the freaking UI and so let's give them hell until they do. This is a great time to support blizzard in this manner, it's not a time to give up and quit.
On November 13 2017 00:03 ReachTheSky wrote: The community tried to make it great with our own servers etc. Blizzard took that all away and re-released a sub-par game. Do not support blizzard.
Bro, you do realize that those servers would have all gone to shit whether or not blizz had initial problems with SC:R release? If SC:R was perfect, those servers would have all gone down the drain. So how can you say that blizzard "took them away"? Those servers ONLY survived (they actually kicked ass for a long time) because Blizzard couldn't provide a better product.
But now think, what does it say when a "dishonest" and buggy SC:R has single-handedly taken away the majority of the playerbase of all those servers and brought them to Bnet? It means blizz has provided something that those servers cannot and people like it. There haven't been this many people playing BW since the old days. That's a fact. Yes, SC:R has actually brought a lot more people back in and made it easier for people to play. What the community tried to do on their own for many years was great, but SC:R has made a tremendous impact as well and in a very short amount of time. They accomplished what the third party servers were trying to do and gave us HD as well (which is something no server was close to doing). I am not sure how that is splitting/dispersing the community. Imo, it actually brought everyone together under a single server.
Yes, SC:R has a long way to go to be up to Blizz quality standards and what they released should definitely raise outcries. But to blindly say that this is all because of some maleficence on blizzard's part and that SC:R is a complete dud is farcical behavior. It does nothing for progressive discussion and only pits us against each other. I understand that some people have a deep mistrust of Blizzard and we won't ever agree, but ONE thing that we can surely agree and do together is to complain and constantly badger Blizzard about fixing the goddamn bugs, lag, lack of features, etc.
Support doesn't simply mean giving $$$ and playing the game. Support can be telling Blizzard what is wrong with the game and what they need to fix. Tangible things that the devs actually have the power to work on. You ain't going anywhere if you're trying to mend Blizzard's "greedy" or "dishonest" culture, the devs can't do shit about that. But they can fix the freaking UI and so let's give them hell until they do. This is a great time to support blizzard in this manner, it's not a time to give up and quit.
Blizzard has known about bugs and the shitty ladder problem for quite some time now, they haven't bothered to fix it. I'm beginning to think they don't care.
On November 13 2017 00:03 ReachTheSky wrote: The community tried to make it great with our own servers etc. Blizzard took that all away and re-released a sub-par game. Do not support blizzard.
Bro, you do realize that those servers would have all gone to shit whether or not blizz had initial problems with SC:R release? If SC:R was perfect, those servers would have all gone down the drain. So how can you say that blizzard "took them away"? Those servers ONLY survived (they actually kicked ass for a long time) because Blizzard couldn't provide a better product.
But now think, what does it say when a "dishonest" and buggy SC:R has single-handedly taken away the majority of the playerbase of all those servers and brought them to Bnet? It means blizz has provided something that those servers cannot and people like it. There haven't been this many people playing BW since the old days. That's a fact. Yes, SC:R has actually brought a lot more people back in and made it easier for people to play. What the community tried to do on their own for many years was great, but SC:R has made a tremendous impact as well and in a very short amount of time. They accomplished what the third party servers were trying to do and gave us HD as well (which is something no server was close to doing). I am not sure how that is splitting/dispersing the community. Imo, it actually brought everyone together under a single server.
Yes, SC:R has a long way to go to be up to Blizz quality standards and what they released should definitely raise outcries. But to blindly say that this is all because of some maleficence on blizzard's part and that SC:R is a complete dud is farcical behavior. It does nothing for progressive discussion and only pits us against each other. I understand that some people have a deep mistrust of Blizzard and we won't ever agree, but ONE thing that we can surely agree and do together is to complain and constantly badger Blizzard about fixing the goddamn bugs, lag, lack of features, etc.
Support doesn't simply mean giving $$$ and playing the game. Support can be telling Blizzard what is wrong with the game and what they need to fix. Tangible things that the devs actually have the power to work on. You ain't going anywhere if you're trying to mend Blizzard's "greedy" or "dishonest" culture, the devs can't do shit about that. But they can fix the freaking UI and so let's give them hell until they do. This is a great time to support blizzard in this manner, it's not a time to give up and quit.
no i don't realize or think that.. i think that fish would be alive and well if it wasn't for scr, and i could actually still play broodwar without having to resort to iccup..
i also don't see this "blizzard stamp of quality" that you keep alluding to, because i haven't seen a quality product from blizzard in about a decade. maybe i'm bitter because of the battered housewife relationship that was SC2 with its players, but i will believe absolutely none of blizzard's promises until they're in client and running for like a month.
On November 13 2017 14:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I participated in WCG 2004, and it was probably my greatest brood war experience. And no, we haven't had anything like it for years. But the italian esports tourney and the Zotac tournament in the US are actually the closest things we've had for a decade - both tournaments throwing more money to the nonkorean community than any WCG cept 2003 ever did (not factoring in travel costs). I'm saying that SC:R has made the nonkorean tournament scene significantly better and indisputably so than it has been since SC2 was released, so since 2009 or whatever. And with the exception of WCG, 2001-2009 were also much worse than it is right now. And both as a player and a spectator, I'd rather have 4 tournaments per week with average prize pools of $100 than 1 tournament per year with $35000 for the top 3 (where koreans won between $20000 the entire prize pool every single year). In addition, it wasn't even possible to really follow the tourneys back then, some players would smuggle out replays, but there was no live broadcast..
You make it seem like the scene is growing, but it's actually the opposite. Here are the latest attendance numbers from the TL opens. This is just numbers from the TL opens, i'm sure other tournaments have taken a huge hit as well. It also only says how many registered, the number of players who attended is more than likely lower. I believe this 66%+ decline is largely due to blizzards inability to address issues with their game.
On November 13 2017 12:34 SchAmToo wrote: tldr; CONTENT.
I think podcasts are an awesome idea. They sort of became an integral part of competitive video game scenes and I think having one for StarCraft: Remastered would be excellent. Completely agree with interviews as well. I didn't really put a ton of thought or consideration towards building the community in social ways such as these. I think it makes a lot of sense, to be honest. I am also in agreement with Eriador's posts about there being a ton of opportunities and tournaments at the moment. It was something I even mentioned on my stream earlier that it is absolutely insane that Zotac is sponsoring a $20,000 tournament for the Americas when there isn't a ton of hard competition.
There are now four clan leagues that I know of (SKTL, PATL, Gambit Cup, BWCL) as well as tournaments on a semi-regular basis (Clash for Char, Have At You, TLOpen, Zotac, ESL Weeklys, and a healthy dose of showmatches and invitationals). Even Ty2 has said in the SCC discord how action packed his weekend was. He participated in 4 events on Sunday alone, with a total of 14 matches. I think it is great how many opportunities we have, and I think podcasts, interviews, etc. would be an awesome addition to our already steady tournaments and events. Having something more personal and bringing personalities into the scene would be awesome. I miss the old foreign days when there were friendly and not-so friendly rivalries between players. As for Ty2/Eon/Trutacz/Bonyth/Dewalt/Dandy/Terror, I think it'd be awesome to hear some of their input on the matches they play and on their opponents because at the moment, these guys clash every week, and the only real dilemma is if trutacz and eonzerg can find their "g" key when they lose.
the hype of remastered made a huge comeback for tournaments and leagues and big prize pools,and the stage of the game is killing it fast aswell.and it is pretty sad cuz starcraft broodwar is the best game u can find.
yeah same here i quit ladder a few weeks ago because i only que up with koreans, and it's very laggy. I played only against europeans on iccup with no more than 60 seconds wait-time per game, and iccup had a possibility for re-matching the same player (going bo7 or something).
One thing I don't get here is do people really have to play ladder? Why not just host custom games like we did on iCCUP. I'm considering doing that just so I can play more maps.
Sigh, I thought this would be a nice thread... "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft?"
What can you do as a community to improve StarCraft? Just as anyone can do with anything. Change your attitudes, get rid of the toxic people who can't. Do the best that you can with what you have and be honest with yourself. Be positive, make videos, get involved with tournaments, organize a LAN, report game bugs, use social media or [insert any of the countless of ways to talk to people on the internet] to find more people to play with, write some builds or articles, be welcoming to other people (especially new players).
All of you seem more than passionate enough to make any of those happen if you really wanted to improve StarCraft and help it last another 20+ years, yet here it is, another thread filled with arguments about how SC:R/Blizzard/Activision destroyed blah blah blah. SC:R happened, the team is small (and was always going to be small, even I know that and I hardly know anything about this stuff), fish doesn't exist anymore, things aren't perfect, there are bugs, BW is free now, things aren't exactly the same as they used to be. Great. Things change. Get over it. Move on.
Go do something meaningful. I know you're capable of it, and if you want things to get better, you have to do something about it. You, there, reading this, have to make something happen if you want things to improve.
If your response to any of that is "why should I __ for a game that sucks", "why would we __ for a company that screwed us over", "this community doesn't deserve __", then leave. You obviously don't want anything to do with any of this unless it involves you acting like a fountain of hatred and bullshit. If you don't like the new menu, the staff, nor the new furnishings, (and you have nothing positive to say nor give that doesn't involve the aforementioned fountain,) then stop eating at fuckin' Tony's Kitchen. At this point, ol' Tony could care less about your business anyway.
For everyone else, do what you can. A helluva lot of you genuinely love the game, and you particular passionate, positive, and supremely knowledgable people are the greatest thing any community can ever have. You are the only reason I even wonder about watching BW these days with everything else going on in my life, or keep looking at these threads. You are what get new people hooked and involved. You help make peoples' lives better in a way that nobody and nothing else in the entire universe can. If you have the means, then go make something. If not, well, really it just comes down to doing your best, being the best version of yourself that you can be.
Or, if you don't believe me, then by all means continue making posts like half of the ones in this thread and see how that keeps going for all of you. It's your place after all, I'm just some random kid who's been walking by Tony's Kitchen on the way home every weekend since first grade, watching how it's changed over the years.
On November 13 2017 23:20 Qikz wrote: One thing I don't get here is do people really have to play ladder? Why not just host custom games like we did on iCCUP. I'm considering doing that just so I can play more maps.
Because 99% of people who join such custom games are very low level pleyers or new players and it is difficult to get a decent level game there at some point. On iccup at least you immediately had displayed rank of player who joined your lobby.
nah blunderfulguy, not free, you're not making a point also expressing disatisfaction might get blizzard to move their ass instead of accepting getting screwed over and it possibly just staying that way, which is why your suggestion to "get rid" of those who won't "move on" is ridiculous that's what you get, not gonna do fake positivity
On November 13 2017 23:20 Qikz wrote: One thing I don't get here is do people really have to play ladder? Why not just host custom games like we did on iCCUP. I'm considering doing that just so I can play more maps.
whisper and friends list doesn't work, how are you meant to tell people the game name lol
On November 13 2017 23:20 Qikz wrote: One thing I don't get here is do people really have to play ladder? Why not just host custom games like we did on iCCUP. I'm considering doing that just so I can play more maps.
There is a big difference between hosting customs games on ICCUP compared to the offcial servers because they divided the foreign scene by still having 4 servers (+1 for Korea) for whatever reason. So only a fraction of foreign players can even see and join your game, making even matches very unlikely.
I feel like we as a community could be a better job keeping resources fresh. Seasonal practice partner threads or maybe some division between low/high mmr players would help. Lots of people posting on BW subreddit (which is barely used to begin with) looking for pp that don't post here. I think it's too intimidating posting next to a 2300 multiseason iccup veteran.
BW Is a solved game with a lot of questions sufficiently answered to anyone with that can google search site:TL, and I accept that. Just feels like there isn't much in the way of fresh clan/practice partner resources despite the fact that a new client launched. Need a new player experience remaster from the scene itself.
On November 13 2017 14:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I participated in WCG 2004, and it was probably my greatest brood war experience. And no, we haven't had anything like it for years. But the italian esports tourney and the Zotac tournament in the US are actually the closest things we've had for a decade - both tournaments throwing more money to the nonkorean community than any WCG cept 2003 ever did (not factoring in travel costs). I'm saying that SC:R has made the nonkorean tournament scene significantly better and indisputably so than it has been since SC2 was released, so since 2009 or whatever. And with the exception of WCG, 2001-2009 were also much worse than it is right now. And both as a player and a spectator, I'd rather have 4 tournaments per week with average prize pools of $100 than 1 tournament per year with $35000 for the top 3 (where koreans won between $20000 the entire prize pool every single year). In addition, it wasn't even possible to really follow the tourneys back then, some players would smuggle out replays, but there was no live broadcast..
You make it seem like the scene is growing, but it's actually the opposite. Here are the latest attendance numbers from the TL opens. This is just numbers from the TL opens, i'm sure other tournaments have taken a huge hit as well. It also only says how many registered, the number of players who attended is more than likely lower. I believe this 66%+ decline is largely due to blizzards inability to address issues with their game.
On November 13 2017 23:20 Qikz wrote: One thing I don't get here is do people really have to play ladder? Why not just host custom games like we did on iCCUP. I'm considering doing that just so I can play more maps.
There is a big difference between hosting customs games on ICCUP compared to the offcial servers because they divided the foreign scene by still having 4 servers (+1 for Korea) for whatever reason. So only a fraction of foreign players can even see and join your game, making even matches very unlikely.
That is a very fair point.
Do you think all of us banding together and picking one gateway to go on would help?
On November 13 2017 23:20 Qikz wrote: One thing I don't get here is do people really have to play ladder? Why not just host custom games like we did on iCCUP. I'm considering doing that just so I can play more maps.
There is a big difference between hosting customs games on ICCUP compared to the offcial servers because they divided the foreign scene by still having 4 servers (+1 for Korea) for whatever reason. So only a fraction of foreign players can even see and join your game, making even matches very unlikely.
You`re absolutly right from that perspective, however on the other hand, If ithere was only one server, that would mean that every game apart from 1v1s would be unplayable because of korean and peruvian lag.
On November 13 2017 23:20 Qikz wrote: One thing I don't get here is do people really have to play ladder? Why not just host custom games like we did on iCCUP. I'm considering doing that just so I can play more maps.
There is a big difference between hosting customs games on ICCUP compared to the offcial servers because they divided the foreign scene by still having 4 servers (+1 for Korea) for whatever reason. So only a fraction of foreign players can even see and join your game, making even matches very unlikely.
That is a very fair point.
Do you think all of us banding together and picking one gateway to go on would help?
Probably, it would also help ums players. At the moment at least on the Europe server ums games almost don't seem to exist. But it is hard to reach all players, I don't think the majority of the players read TL or the Blizzard forums.
On November 13 2017 23:20 Qikz wrote: One thing I don't get here is do people really have to play ladder? Why not just host custom games like we did on iCCUP. I'm considering doing that just so I can play more maps.
There is a big difference between hosting customs games on ICCUP compared to the offcial servers because they divided the foreign scene by still having 4 servers (+1 for Korea) for whatever reason. So only a fraction of foreign players can even see and join your game, making even matches very unlikely.
You`re absolutly right from that perspective, however on the other hand, If ithere was only one server, that would mean that every game apart from 1v1s would be unplayable because of korean and peruvian lag.
Well Koreans have their own server of course and I would happily live with the occasional laggy game vs a Peruvian but more games in general including ums in return vs only laggy games vs Koreans on a ladder which doesn't seem to check if the connection between the players is good and just reduces the turn rate if it is not instead of searching for an alternative.
On November 13 2017 14:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I participated in WCG 2004, and it was probably my greatest brood war experience. And no, we haven't had anything like it for years. But the italian esports tourney and the Zotac tournament in the US are actually the closest things we've had for a decade - both tournaments throwing more money to the nonkorean community than any WCG cept 2003 ever did (not factoring in travel costs). I'm saying that SC:R has made the nonkorean tournament scene significantly better and indisputably so than it has been since SC2 was released, so since 2009 or whatever. And with the exception of WCG, 2001-2009 were also much worse than it is right now. And both as a player and a spectator, I'd rather have 4 tournaments per week with average prize pools of $100 than 1 tournament per year with $35000 for the top 3 (where koreans won between $20000 the entire prize pool every single year). In addition, it wasn't even possible to really follow the tourneys back then, some players would smuggle out replays, but there was no live broadcast..
You make it seem like the scene is growing, but it's actually the opposite. Here are the latest attendance numbers from the TL opens. This is just numbers from the TL opens, i'm sure other tournaments have taken a huge hit as well. It also only says how many registered, the number of players who attended is more than likely lower. I believe this 66%+ decline is largely due to blizzards inability to address issues with their game.
Less people are going to sign-up if they realize there's no chance of them winning, or even coming close.
This data + the fact that ladder is unplayable supports my narrative. Your narrative just makes players sound like losers who don't try, it's a competitive game, that's what were here for. I don't think what you are saying is realistic in anyway. It's not like the koreans were allowed to play in them and then the foreigners bounced lol.
On November 13 2017 14:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I participated in WCG 2004, and it was probably my greatest brood war experience. And no, we haven't had anything like it for years. But the italian esports tourney and the Zotac tournament in the US are actually the closest things we've had for a decade - both tournaments throwing more money to the nonkorean community than any WCG cept 2003 ever did (not factoring in travel costs). I'm saying that SC:R has made the nonkorean tournament scene significantly better and indisputably so than it has been since SC2 was released, so since 2009 or whatever. And with the exception of WCG, 2001-2009 were also much worse than it is right now. And both as a player and a spectator, I'd rather have 4 tournaments per week with average prize pools of $100 than 1 tournament per year with $35000 for the top 3 (where koreans won between $20000 the entire prize pool every single year). In addition, it wasn't even possible to really follow the tourneys back then, some players would smuggle out replays, but there was no live broadcast..
You make it seem like the scene is growing, but it's actually the opposite. Here are the latest attendance numbers from the TL opens. This is just numbers from the TL opens, i'm sure other tournaments have taken a huge hit as well. It also only says how many registered, the number of players who attended is more than likely lower. I believe this 66%+ decline is largely due to blizzards inability to address issues with their game.
Less people are going to sign-up if they realize there's no chance of them winning, or even coming close.
This data + the fact that ladder is unplayable supports my narrative. Your narrative just makes players sound like losers who don't try, it's a competitive game, that's what were here for. I don't think what you are saying is realistic in anyway. It's not like the koreans were allowed to play in them and then the foreigners bounced lol.
Tournaments go through spurts of lots of people signing up and not. Sometimes it's just organic, sometimes it means changes need to be done to the tournament. It's all weird and beyond me. Have At You grew and shrunk a lot in it's 12 runs, same with filthycup
On November 13 2017 14:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I participated in WCG 2004, and it was probably my greatest brood war experience. And no, we haven't had anything like it for years. But the italian esports tourney and the Zotac tournament in the US are actually the closest things we've had for a decade - both tournaments throwing more money to the nonkorean community than any WCG cept 2003 ever did (not factoring in travel costs). I'm saying that SC:R has made the nonkorean tournament scene significantly better and indisputably so than it has been since SC2 was released, so since 2009 or whatever. And with the exception of WCG, 2001-2009 were also much worse than it is right now. And both as a player and a spectator, I'd rather have 4 tournaments per week with average prize pools of $100 than 1 tournament per year with $35000 for the top 3 (where koreans won between $20000 the entire prize pool every single year). In addition, it wasn't even possible to really follow the tourneys back then, some players would smuggle out replays, but there was no live broadcast..
You make it seem like the scene is growing, but it's actually the opposite. Here are the latest attendance numbers from the TL opens. This is just numbers from the TL opens, i'm sure other tournaments have taken a huge hit as well. It also only says how many registered, the number of players who attended is more than likely lower. I believe this 66%+ decline is largely due to blizzards inability to address issues with their game.
Less people are going to sign-up if they realize there's no chance of them winning, or even coming close.
This data + the fact that ladder is unplayable supports my narrative. Your narrative just makes players sound like losers who don't try, it's a competitive game, that's what were here for. I don't think what you are saying is realistic in anyway. It's not like the koreans were allowed to play in them and then the foreigners bounced lol.
Tournaments go through spurts of lots of people signing up and not. Sometimes it's just organic, sometimes it means changes need to be done to the tournament. It's all weird and beyond me. Have At You grew and shrunk a lot in it's 12 runs, same with filthycup
People stopped playing because they can't practice on ladder at the highest levels due to insane lag.
On November 13 2017 14:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I participated in WCG 2004, and it was probably my greatest brood war experience. And no, we haven't had anything like it for years. But the italian esports tourney and the Zotac tournament in the US are actually the closest things we've had for a decade - both tournaments throwing more money to the nonkorean community than any WCG cept 2003 ever did (not factoring in travel costs). I'm saying that SC:R has made the nonkorean tournament scene significantly better and indisputably so than it has been since SC2 was released, so since 2009 or whatever. And with the exception of WCG, 2001-2009 were also much worse than it is right now. And both as a player and a spectator, I'd rather have 4 tournaments per week with average prize pools of $100 than 1 tournament per year with $35000 for the top 3 (where koreans won between $20000 the entire prize pool every single year). In addition, it wasn't even possible to really follow the tourneys back then, some players would smuggle out replays, but there was no live broadcast..
You make it seem like the scene is growing, but it's actually the opposite. Here are the latest attendance numbers from the TL opens. This is just numbers from the TL opens, i'm sure other tournaments have taken a huge hit as well. It also only says how many registered, the number of players who attended is more than likely lower. I believe this 66%+ decline is largely due to blizzards inability to address issues with their game.
Less people are going to sign-up if they realize there's no chance of them winning, or even coming close.
This data + the fact that ladder is unplayable supports my narrative. Your narrative just makes players sound like losers who don't try, it's a competitive game, that's what were here for. I don't think what you are saying is realistic in anyway. It's not like the koreans were allowed to play in them and then the foreigners bounced lol.
Tournaments go through spurts of lots of people signing up and not. Sometimes it's just organic, sometimes it means changes need to be done to the tournament. It's all weird and beyond me. Have At You grew and shrunk a lot in it's 12 runs, same with filthycup
People stopped playing because they can't practice on ladder at the highest levels due to insane lag.
How's the lag any different from iCCup/Fish? If you're good enough, it was impossible to find games on iCCup anyway, so players went to Fish and played Koreans. Playing Koreans on ladder feels exactly the same to me as playing with them on Fish. There's some lag, but there always was.
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages
Its the only thing that people do around here. Just whining and bitching about SC:R and blizzards secret agenda to ruin their favorite game. Its what you get after 19 years of inbred jokes and circle-jerking each others importance in a niche RTS forum of an even more niche game on the decline. There is bound to be some illusion of grandeur for most, even though nobody actually cares about them.
Every single long time BW player has a right to be pissed off. They effectively killed off all the old servers and released a sub-par product. BW was fine for years and then blizzard had to do their thing and they turned it into a pile of shit.
what server did they shut down and what proof do you have of it?
Brain server, fish server, all the servers from back in the day... It's no secret at all.
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages
Its the only thing that people do around here. Just whining and bitching about SC:R and blizzards secret agenda to ruin their favorite game. Its what you get after 19 years of inbred jokes and circle-jerking each others importance in a niche RTS forum of an even more niche game on the decline. There is bound to be some illusion of grandeur for most, even though nobody actually cares about them.
Every single long time BW player has a right to be pissed off. They effectively killed off all the old servers and released a sub-par product. BW was fine for years and then blizzard had to do their thing and they turned it into a pile of shit.
what server did they shut down and what proof do you have of it?
Brain server, fish server, all the servers from back in the day... It's no secret at all.
so there is no evidence. great.
Dude there was a thread within the last 30 days of blizzard shutting down a server lol. If you want to see evidence go look for it, I don't have time to do YOUR research for you. Don't be lazy.
On November 13 2017 14:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I participated in WCG 2004, and it was probably my greatest brood war experience. And no, we haven't had anything like it for years. But the italian esports tourney and the Zotac tournament in the US are actually the closest things we've had for a decade - both tournaments throwing more money to the nonkorean community than any WCG cept 2003 ever did (not factoring in travel costs). I'm saying that SC:R has made the nonkorean tournament scene significantly better and indisputably so than it has been since SC2 was released, so since 2009 or whatever. And with the exception of WCG, 2001-2009 were also much worse than it is right now. And both as a player and a spectator, I'd rather have 4 tournaments per week with average prize pools of $100 than 1 tournament per year with $35000 for the top 3 (where koreans won between $20000 the entire prize pool every single year). In addition, it wasn't even possible to really follow the tourneys back then, some players would smuggle out replays, but there was no live broadcast..
You make it seem like the scene is growing, but it's actually the opposite. Here are the latest attendance numbers from the TL opens. This is just numbers from the TL opens, i'm sure other tournaments have taken a huge hit as well. It also only says how many registered, the number of players who attended is more than likely lower. I believe this 66%+ decline is largely due to blizzards inability to address issues with their game.
Less people are going to sign-up if they realize there's no chance of them winning, or even coming close.
This data + the fact that ladder is unplayable supports my narrative. Your narrative just makes players sound like losers who don't try, it's a competitive game, that's what were here for. I don't think what you are saying is realistic in anyway. It's not like the koreans were allowed to play in them and then the foreigners bounced lol.
Tournaments go through spurts of lots of people signing up and not. Sometimes it's just organic, sometimes it means changes need to be done to the tournament. It's all weird and beyond me. Have At You grew and shrunk a lot in it's 12 runs, same with filthycup
People stopped playing because they can't practice on ladder at the highest levels due to insane lag.
How's the lag any different from iCCup/Fish? If you're good enough, it was impossible to find games on iCCup anyway, so players went to Fish and played Koreans. Playing Koreans on ladder feels exactly the same to me as playing with them on Fish. There's some lag, but there always was.
For me Fish was actually unplayable, I would just immediately get banned from every game, and if the game actually started, my opponent would then just leave. And while there was a period where the ladder was lagging in a way that was also largely unplayable, the few games I've played with koreans recently have been fairly lag and problem-free.
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages
Its the only thing that people do around here. Just whining and bitching about SC:R and blizzards secret agenda to ruin their favorite game. Its what you get after 19 years of inbred jokes and circle-jerking each others importance in a niche RTS forum of an even more niche game on the decline. There is bound to be some illusion of grandeur for most, even though nobody actually cares about them.
Every single long time BW player has a right to be pissed off. They effectively killed off all the old servers and released a sub-par product. BW was fine for years and then blizzard had to do their thing and they turned it into a pile of shit.
what server did they shut down and what proof do you have of it?
Brain server, fish server, all the servers from back in the day... It's no secret at all.
so there is no evidence. great.
Dude there was a thread within the last 30 days of blizzard shutting down a server lol. If you want to see evidence go look for it, I don't have time to do YOUR research for you. Don't be lazy.
The burden of proof if on whoever is making the claim. I saw that thread, it didnt say blizzard did anything:
On November 14 2017 06:52 SchAmToo wrote: Alright, if I make a SC:R Podcast, who should I have involved?
We'll chat about tournaments, current game-meta, and of course complain about SC:R bugs/problems. Probably weekly for an hour or two each time.
Tbh I think having other casters on as core members make a lot of sense, since all the big casters in the SC:R community atm are charismatic and good at carrying on conversations. And as for common guests, I would like to see people like Bonyth/Eon/Trutacz/Dandy/Dewalt/Terror/Ty2 etc. but also think it would be super cool to have Scan on also so we can hear about the Korean StarCraft: Remastered community. I feel so unaware and out of the loop with what koreans are doing between ASLs and just how everything is over there.
Also: Bisudagger, FlashFTW, EsportsJohn are people that would be good on the show as well. Teamliquid article writers would be a nice addition as well, so they could talk about their article pieces. They always put a ton of work into the ASL reviews and previews and I think it'd be cool to hear them talk about their opinions since a lot of them are so knowledgeable.
On November 13 2017 14:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I participated in WCG 2004, and it was probably my greatest brood war experience. And no, we haven't had anything like it for years. But the italian esports tourney and the Zotac tournament in the US are actually the closest things we've had for a decade - both tournaments throwing more money to the nonkorean community than any WCG cept 2003 ever did (not factoring in travel costs). I'm saying that SC:R has made the nonkorean tournament scene significantly better and indisputably so than it has been since SC2 was released, so since 2009 or whatever. And with the exception of WCG, 2001-2009 were also much worse than it is right now. And both as a player and a spectator, I'd rather have 4 tournaments per week with average prize pools of $100 than 1 tournament per year with $35000 for the top 3 (where koreans won between $20000 the entire prize pool every single year). In addition, it wasn't even possible to really follow the tourneys back then, some players would smuggle out replays, but there was no live broadcast..
You make it seem like the scene is growing, but it's actually the opposite. Here are the latest attendance numbers from the TL opens. This is just numbers from the TL opens, i'm sure other tournaments have taken a huge hit as well. It also only says how many registered, the number of players who attended is more than likely lower. I believe this 66%+ decline is largely due to blizzards inability to address issues with their game.
Less people are going to sign-up if they realize there's no chance of them winning, or even coming close.
This data + the fact that ladder is unplayable supports my narrative. Your narrative just makes players sound like losers who don't try, it's a competitive game, that's what were here for. I don't think what you are saying is realistic in anyway. It's not like the koreans were allowed to play in them and then the foreigners bounced lol.
First of all, let's say for the sake of argument, that all the players were huge, insecure losers. Whether they are losers or not does lend or detract to the legitimacy of my argument. If you want to talk about "the facts", you're not even considering things like stream viewers as a metric for 'success'. You're not considering that a lot of players who signed up for the ro258 tour were like D-C rank iCCup. I actually know a bunch of them, so don't talk to me about a narrative. The tournament typically goes on for 6 hours, which is a lot of time to commit. Some good players have even said that they think it goes on too long, and is exhausting.
Second, I'm not calling players 'losers'. You're putting words in my mouth, and if you think I'm suggesting that, you're fucking wrong. I actually signed up to help run the TL Open tours as an admin, and volunteered my time for free because I love the game and I want to help the players. I wouldn't do that if I thought they were a bunch of losers. What's happening is not a sign of anything other than tournament fatigue. If you looked past tournaments, you'd see the trend of a lot of people signing up for the first one, and then a drop-off in sign-ups in later tournaments.
Most people who are around sub-2000 mmr would rather watch and enjoy it that way. Some sign up and then get knocked out of the tour right away by the good players.
On November 13 2017 14:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I participated in WCG 2004, and it was probably my greatest brood war experience. And no, we haven't had anything like it for years. But the italian esports tourney and the Zotac tournament in the US are actually the closest things we've had for a decade - both tournaments throwing more money to the nonkorean community than any WCG cept 2003 ever did (not factoring in travel costs). I'm saying that SC:R has made the nonkorean tournament scene significantly better and indisputably so than it has been since SC2 was released, so since 2009 or whatever. And with the exception of WCG, 2001-2009 were also much worse than it is right now. And both as a player and a spectator, I'd rather have 4 tournaments per week with average prize pools of $100 than 1 tournament per year with $35000 for the top 3 (where koreans won between $20000 the entire prize pool every single year). In addition, it wasn't even possible to really follow the tourneys back then, some players would smuggle out replays, but there was no live broadcast..
You make it seem like the scene is growing, but it's actually the opposite. Here are the latest attendance numbers from the TL opens. This is just numbers from the TL opens, i'm sure other tournaments have taken a huge hit as well. It also only says how many registered, the number of players who attended is more than likely lower. I believe this 66%+ decline is largely due to blizzards inability to address issues with their game.
Less people are going to sign-up if they realize there's no chance of them winning, or even coming close.
This data + the fact that ladder is unplayable supports my narrative. Your narrative just makes players sound like losers who don't try, it's a competitive game, that's what were here for. I don't think what you are saying is realistic in anyway. It's not like the koreans were allowed to play in them and then the foreigners bounced lol.
Tournaments go through spurts of lots of people signing up and not. Sometimes it's just organic, sometimes it means changes need to be done to the tournament. It's all weird and beyond me. Have At You grew and shrunk a lot in it's 12 runs, same with filthycup
People stopped playing because they can't practice on ladder at the highest levels due to insane lag.
If you play against people from all around the world, you're going to run into lag. Welcome to the miracle of the internet.
On November 13 2017 14:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I participated in WCG 2004, and it was probably my greatest brood war experience. And no, we haven't had anything like it for years. But the italian esports tourney and the Zotac tournament in the US are actually the closest things we've had for a decade - both tournaments throwing more money to the nonkorean community than any WCG cept 2003 ever did (not factoring in travel costs). I'm saying that SC:R has made the nonkorean tournament scene significantly better and indisputably so than it has been since SC2 was released, so since 2009 or whatever. And with the exception of WCG, 2001-2009 were also much worse than it is right now. And both as a player and a spectator, I'd rather have 4 tournaments per week with average prize pools of $100 than 1 tournament per year with $35000 for the top 3 (where koreans won between $20000 the entire prize pool every single year). In addition, it wasn't even possible to really follow the tourneys back then, some players would smuggle out replays, but there was no live broadcast..
You make it seem like the scene is growing, but it's actually the opposite. Here are the latest attendance numbers from the TL opens. This is just numbers from the TL opens, i'm sure other tournaments have taken a huge hit as well. It also only says how many registered, the number of players who attended is more than likely lower. I believe this 66%+ decline is largely due to blizzards inability to address issues with their game.
Less people are going to sign-up if they realize there's no chance of them winning, or even coming close.
This data + the fact that ladder is unplayable supports my narrative. Your narrative just makes players sound like losers who don't try, it's a competitive game, that's what were here for. I don't think what you are saying is realistic in anyway. It's not like the koreans were allowed to play in them and then the foreigners bounced lol.
Tournaments go through spurts of lots of people signing up and not. Sometimes it's just organic, sometimes it means changes need to be done to the tournament. It's all weird and beyond me. Have At You grew and shrunk a lot in it's 12 runs, same with filthycup
People stopped playing because they can't practice on ladder at the highest levels due to insane lag.
How's the lag any different from iCCup/Fish? If you're good enough, it was impossible to find games on iCCup anyway, so players went to Fish and played Koreans. Playing Koreans on ladder feels exactly the same to me as playing with them on Fish. There's some lag, but there always was.
It's not the same at all for most people because the system pairs you with any Korean, regardless of whether the game will lag or not. In the old system you can decide to only play games versus Koreans you don't lag with, and finally if the game lags horribly during the first 2 minutes, you had the option to leave.
Most people were blinded by the superficial appeal of a match making algorithm/server. Too bad you lose almost all control, which is something high level players need the most as they are the ones willing to spend some extra time to set games up, and when they find someone suitable, play a series instead of just a single game.
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages
Its the only thing that people do around here. Just whining and bitching about SC:R and blizzards secret agenda to ruin their favorite game. Its what you get after 19 years of inbred jokes and circle-jerking each others importance in a niche RTS forum of an even more niche game on the decline. There is bound to be some illusion of grandeur for most, even though nobody actually cares about them.
Every single long time BW player has a right to be pissed off. They effectively killed off all the old servers and released a sub-par product. BW was fine for years and then blizzard had to do their thing and they turned it into a pile of shit.
what server did they shut down and what proof do you have of it?
Brain server, fish server, all the servers from back in the day... It's no secret at all.
so there is no evidence. great.
Dude there was a thread within the last 30 days of blizzard shutting down a server lol. If you want to see evidence go look for it, I don't have time to do YOUR research for you. Don't be lazy.
Dont dude me. You are the lazy fuck if you just read the first post of a thread and consider that as evidence. I visit tl regularly and if proof isnt posted here i doubt it is on another english website.
I saw that thread from radiofish and, it didnt have any evidence of blizzard being behind it. It just looks to me people here want to believe like its blizzards doing without any evidence. Blizzard is just guilty as charged. lol.
So i ask again, is there any conclusive evidence that blizzard is behind the shutdowns of fish, brain etc. Probably not. But people here dont care about truth and more about jumping on the blizzard hate bandwagon like you.
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages
Its the only thing that people do around here. Just whining and bitching about SC:R and blizzards secret agenda to ruin their favorite game. Its what you get after 19 years of inbred jokes and circle-jerking each others importance in a niche RTS forum of an even more niche game on the decline. There is bound to be some illusion of grandeur for most, even though nobody actually cares about them.
Every single long time BW player has a right to be pissed off. They effectively killed off all the old servers and released a sub-par product. BW was fine for years and then blizzard had to do their thing and they turned it into a pile of shit.
what server did they shut down and what proof do you have of it?
Brain server, fish server, all the servers from back in the day... It's no secret at all.
so there is no evidence. great.
Dude there was a thread within the last 30 days of blizzard shutting down a server lol. If you want to see evidence go look for it, I don't have time to do YOUR research for you. Don't be lazy.
Dont dude me. You are the lazy fuck if you just read the first post of a thread and consider that as evidence.
please excuse us, your majesty, but the incoming ban is long overdue.
the lag on remastered is much much worse than fish was... laddering on fish i would maybe get 1/100 or 1/200 games where the opponent would just leave from lag, where as like every game on remastered ladder feels like i'm playing in downtown lima on a toaster
On November 12 2017 22:42 Dantak wrote: How "What can we as a community do to improve StarCraft" turned into "What's bad with SC:R" in 3 pages
Its the only thing that people do around here. Just whining and bitching about SC:R and blizzards secret agenda to ruin their favorite game. Its what you get after 19 years of inbred jokes and circle-jerking each others importance in a niche RTS forum of an even more niche game on the decline. There is bound to be some illusion of grandeur for most, even though nobody actually cares about them.
Every single long time BW player has a right to be pissed off. They effectively killed off all the old servers and released a sub-par product. BW was fine for years and then blizzard had to do their thing and they turned it into a pile of shit.
what server did they shut down and what proof do you have of it?
Brain server, fish server, all the servers from back in the day... It's no secret at all.
so there is no evidence. great.
Dude there was a thread within the last 30 days of blizzard shutting down a server lol. If you want to see evidence go look for it, I don't have time to do YOUR research for you. Don't be lazy.
There's no evidence that Blizzard was directly responsible for the closure of Brain server.
I do definitely think that we in the next couple of years will need to come up with our own solutions to problems Blizz will aparrently not solve for us...but
We also need to figure out how to get a younger generation, even a smaller one, into the best computer game ever made. At least it is free now, but most younglings are attracted by the flashy BS of LoL. If only a fraction could see the greatness that is BW...how can we show them?
On November 15 2017 02:31 killanator wrote: I do definitely think that we in the next couple of years will need to come up with our own solutions to problems Blizz will aparrently not solve for us...but
We also need to figure out how to get a younger generation, even a smaller one, into the best computer game ever made. At least it is free now, but most younglings are attracted by the flashy BS of LoL. If only a fraction could see the greatness that is BW...how can we show them?
Have kids. Raise them on Starcraft. Do your part and either start knocking women up or getting knocked up, whichever your human anatomy is capable of. My 6 month old has already had the privilege of watching Bisu get curb stomped by Flash and Bag'O'Builds.
On November 15 2017 02:20 PorkSoda wrote: There's no evidence that Blizzard was directly responsible for the closure of Brain server.
SC:R is released in August, Fish and Brain close two months later. Both servers were running for almost 10 years. I guess you could stretch the phrase "directly responsible", but I think most people can see where the responsibility lies.
Now people are saying this may have been the last ASL... I see a pattern, we have 3 great ASL, then SC:R is released.
Am I incorrect in that not only did those servers lag less, but they also had ways to allow both Mouse Click + Keyboard Press to not interfere with each other. Or at least let the mod not be banned on those servers? I miss being able to do that in ICCUP.
On November 15 2017 02:20 PorkSoda wrote: There's no evidence that Blizzard was directly responsible for the closure of Brain server.
SC:R is released in August, Fish and Brain close two months later. Both servers were running for almost 10 years. I guess you could stretch the phrase "directly responsible", but I think most people can see where the responsibility lies.
Now people are saying this may have been the last ASL... I see a pattern, we have 3 great ASL, then SC:R is released.
Blizz can be held responsible for what happened to fish if what fishradio said can be trusted. But the Korean government is specifically targeting private gaming servers. Both fish and brain would have been vulnerable to closure legislation against these types of servers went into effect this year. It's likely that neither would have survived because they were both well known.
One of the most important aspects of BW which has suffered quite a bit (and there's been very little discussion about this) since the release of SCR is the social aspect of the game.
1) The foreign scene has been split into 3 different servers and imo we don't have the player base to support 3 servers worth of pub games (team games/ums's etc.). This is a non issue for koreans because they have a centralized server and a massive player base.
Having a consolidated server like ICCup did wonders for the foreign scene because it connected everyone and gave people a sense of community. It allowed them to have an active scene for 6-7 years post SC2 which is quite a feat for a 20 year old game with no dev support. What makes BW such a fun game is being able to join channels like ladder 1x1 or ladder 2x2 (on ICCup) and chatting with other players (as well as being able to play pub games etc.).
Sadly the player base is now split into 3 servers, can you imagine being a new player and trying to host or play a UMS game? It takes so long to find enough players to start a game, i don't think that's the type of 1st time experience we want newer BW players to have.
When someone logs into b.net they just sit in their regional channel, why can't we update the default channels (better options, maybe give it a new look) under the channel section to enhance the users social experience?
With the new ladder system coming out wouldn't it be neat to have different chat channels for w/e ladder rank you are (and lock the channels in order to incentivize people to rank up, make it feel like an achievement) in order to help players find other people to talk to and friend add? That's just 1 example of what we could be doing to help players connect with one another.
Tie the matchmaking system to a ladder channel, this would make laddering a more enjoyable (and less isolating) experience.
2) Segregated regional friend list. Not being able to stay in touch with your friends from EU (or your NA friends if you're European) is another big blow to the social aspect of the game. The BW scene is a niche community so a lot of the players have known each other for a long time. NA players have a lot of EU/KR friends and vice versa.
Not being able to stay in touch with your cross region friends via bnet makes for a more isolating gaming experience. We also lost cool features like friend notifications, whenever someone used to come online or join a game bnet would give you a notification.
I love the new friend tab and having the ability to follow friends into a game but those old features made you feel more connected to your friends. Friend message (/f m) was another really useful feature but i remember reading that the dev team was working on bringing it back, i'm not 100% sure about that tho.
Those are just a few things that i wanted to bring to light. In my opinion the social experience of a player is what ties him to a game so we should always look for ways of improving it.
On November 15 2017 09:21 dM-White wrote: I tried to made a response also from my poor english hahaha, good topic TT1
understood you perfectly, give yourself some more credit . thx for the contribution <3
All we want its our game to be enjoyable as it was before ... , i think that blizz need to delete scr from the blizz launcher and just make one server for us (west-east-europe) im so convinced that is the main problem with chat and old friends commands.... the fcking bnet2.0
On November 15 2017 09:21 dM-White wrote: I tried to made a response also from my poor english hahaha, good topic TT1
understood you perfectly, give yourself some more credit . thx for the contribution <3
All we want its our game to be enjoyable as it was before ... , i think that blizz need to delete scr from the blizz launcher and just make one server for us (west-east-europe) im so convinced that is the main problem with chat and old friends commands.... the fcking bnet2.0
Well i dont think having SCR on the launcher is bad, it helps promotes the game and makes it more accessible for everyone. What's bad is the restriction it has, namely the region only friend add.
Well i dont think having SCR on the launcher is bad, it helps promotes the game and makes it more accessible for everyone. What's bad is the restriction it has, namely the region only friend add.
Yeah its helps to promote the game, but the restriction applys for all the games in the launcher, when u change the region its warning you that you cant see your friends on other gateways so its bad for us, i dont know how they can fix it, its a problem that it doesnt belong to sc:r dev team, its a major issue and i think that will not get solved in the "short term".
Maybe they can do a non-korean server just as in the beta there was a taiwan server if i remember correctly.... maybe they can just "hide" the west-east-europe gateways idk... just sayin that can help a lot the foreigner scene, clans and the whole community.
On November 15 2017 09:21 dM-White wrote: I tried to made a response also from my poor english hahaha, good topic TT1
understood you perfectly, give yourself some more credit . thx for the contribution <3
All we want its our game to be enjoyable as it was before ... , i think that blizz need to delete scr from the blizz launcher and just make one server for us (west-east-europe) im so convinced that is the main problem with chat and old friends commands.... the fcking bnet2.0
Well i dont think having SCR on the launcher is bad, it helps promotes the game and makes it more accessible for everyone. What's bad is the restriction it has, namely the region only friend add.
Unfortunately I think thats a Battle.net problem and not a Classics team issue. I can't see that being fixed in the next like....3 years seeing how long it took to get Appear as offline.
The main problem from me as a low level player is that I have to wait too damn long to get a game started, be it UMS or a 1v1 on a map that is not FS or CB. This is down to 2 reasons:
1) Not enough new blood in the game. I guess all 12 or 13 year olds looking for an RTS will automatically choose SC2 not only because of the graphics, but also because Blizzard only markets SC2. We need to advertise this game more. Maybe multi-game tournament sites like ZOTAC should advertise its BW tournaments during other tournaments.
2) The old timers are more comfortable being spectators. More people watch rather than play. Yesterday Day9 was streaming to about 3k ppl while the non-Asian servers had way less than that. I think streamers should try to occasionally play games with their viewers to get them off twitch and into bnet. No amount of guides and teaching will substitute for a couple of hours playing the game.
The servers should go away minus a korea/asia option and everyone else. Make that EU/uswest/useast or whichever one it is and dont allow people to join the others.
Does anyone remember way back in the day before the gateway launcher? Where i think you were assigned automatically to servers based on the users? I think Europe was Telia or something. There were even server picking programs to download to always end up on a specific server.
On November 16 2017 02:00 GTR wrote: it was based on the best ping that you had to one of the four servers.
telia is a swedish ISP that was just hosting the european server, like AT&T for the US servers. i forgot which ISP hosted the asia server.
i remember though once the gateway list came out, all the koreans played on us west only because it was the first on the list lol
I think att was west only. I thought useast was like exodus or something.
Being a kid it was so frustrating trying to play with friends when wed end up on different servers. This is 56k era. Id be on AIM trying to message them and wonder why we couldnt whisper each other.
Would it be technically correct to classify SCR as a faulty product? It doesn't work properly at all. If so, Would this be grounds for a class action lawsuit against blizzard?
On November 16 2017 04:42 ReachTheSky wrote: Would it be technically correct to classify SCR as a faulty product? It doesn't work properly at all. If so, Would this be grounds for a class action lawsuit against blizzard?
if no man's sky didn't prompt a class action lawsuit then there's no way that this would prompt one
On November 16 2017 04:42 ReachTheSky wrote: Would it be technically correct to classify SCR as a faulty product? It doesn't work properly at all. If so, Would this be grounds for a class action lawsuit against blizzard?
Have you considered the MMO-Champion forum? You are just as irrational and delusional with the right portion of nostalgic populism. By the way: The old Brood War was absolutely unplayable
On November 16 2017 04:42 ReachTheSky wrote: Would it be technically correct to classify SCR as a faulty product? It doesn't work properly at all. If so, Would this be grounds for a class action lawsuit against blizzard?
Have you considered the MMO-Champion forum? You are just as irrational and delusional with the right portion of nostalgic populism. By the way: The old Brood War was absolutely unplayable
On November 16 2017 04:42 ReachTheSky wrote: Would it be technically correct to classify SCR as a faulty product? It doesn't work properly at all. If so, Would this be grounds for a class action lawsuit against blizzard?
Have you considered the MMO-Champion forum? You are just as irrational and delusional with the right portion of nostalgic populism. By the way: The old Brood War was absolutely unplayable
On November 16 2017 04:42 ReachTheSky wrote: Would it be technically correct to classify SCR as a faulty product? It doesn't work properly at all. If so, Would this be grounds for a class action lawsuit against blizzard?
Have you considered the MMO-Champion forum? You are just as irrational and delusional with the right portion of nostalgic populism. By the way: The old Brood War was absolutely unplayable
that's BS, maybe you didnt even play it
Yeah, thats why it needed third party software which had to fix a dozen problems. And even then people lagged
On November 16 2017 04:42 ReachTheSky wrote: Would it be technically correct to classify SCR as a faulty product? It doesn't work properly at all. If so, Would this be grounds for a class action lawsuit against blizzard?
Have you considered the MMO-Champion forum? You are just as irrational and delusional with the right portion of nostalgic populism. By the way: The old Brood War was absolutely unplayable
On November 17 2017 04:01 ProMeTheus112 wrote: nah man, we didn't always play it using addons, they just added things you are dishonest and aggressive^^ i really dislike you, I hope you get banned
On November 17 2017 04:01 ProMeTheus112 wrote: nah man, we didn't always play it using addons, they just added things you are dishonest and aggressive^^ i really dislike you, I hope you get banned
On November 17 2017 05:07 Cele wrote: I hope moderation will take a closer look at this thread. General attitude here has been not very charming last couple of pages.
The attitude seems to be fine, ReachTheSky is going on his nostalgia rampage on several pages. Seems to be cool with the mod team
On November 17 2017 05:07 Cele wrote: I hope moderation will take a closer look at this thread. General attitude here has been not very charming last couple of pages.
On November 17 2017 05:07 Cele wrote: I hope moderation will take a closer look at this thread. General attitude here has been not very charming last couple of pages.
I entirely agree... However, I think this thread is doomed to fail because I don't think the real problem has been identified. Starcraft: Brood War has been nearly unplayable for most people and inaccessible to new players for the past 7+ years.
Yet, the community was far more lively and united in one location back in 2011-2014. There was a better atmosphere among players, there was a lot more emotion (sometimes leading to the craziest drama)... But the scene was alive.
It's just impossible that a few glitches in the new software completely killed the game and everyone's spirits. Brood War had so many other problems back in the day, but the players and the avid followers were happy to work around them. It's not the perfect user interface and chat functions that make a game... It's the small things. Viewers can be captivated by a single caster. An organizer can be kept interested just by the dedicated and the heart of a few players. Players are motivated by the quality of the games and the interactions with their opponents and fans. None of these can be built into a chat engine, none of them are native features of matchmaking.
On November 17 2017 05:07 Cele wrote: I hope moderation will take a closer look at this thread. General attitude here has been not very charming last couple of pages.
I entirely agree... However, I think this thread is doomed to fail because I don't think the real problem has been identified. Starcraft: Brood War has been nearly unplayable for most people and inaccessible to new players for the past 7+ years.
Yet, the community was far more lively and united in one location back in 2011-2014. There was a better atmosphere among players, there was a lot more emotion (sometimes leading to the craziest drama)... But the scene was alive.
It's just impossible that a few glitches in the new software completely killed the game and everyone's spirits. Brood War had so many other problems back in the day, but the players and the avid followers were happy to work around them. It's not the perfect user interface and chat functions that make a game... It's the small things. Viewers can be captivated by a single caster. An organizer can be kept interested just by the dedicated and the heart of a few players. Players are motivated by the quality of the games and the interactions with their opponents and fans. None of these can be built into a chat engine, none of them are native features of matchmaking.
There is still this sort of enthusiasm though...day9's lets learn series gets tens of thousands of views on youtube and that doesn't count twitch...ASL was pretty highly watched, hopefully that can go higher if they also broadcast it on Twitch to reach a larger audience.
I don't think its just accessibility and ease that makes a game popular, if that were the case HotS would be bigger than LoL...I think people like to feel that there is a depth of mechanics and skill ceiling. More people need to be able to see this about BW, I don't think people would be put off by its interface and older 2D graphics (though very nice looking now thanks to RM) if they knew how great of a game it is at its highest level, and even just a joy to play at its lowest level (where I am lol)
On November 17 2017 05:07 Cele wrote: I hope moderation will take a closer look at this thread. General attitude here has been not very charming last couple of pages.
I entirely agree... However, I think this thread is doomed to fail because I don't think the real problem has been identified. Starcraft: Brood War has been nearly unplayable for most people and inaccessible to new players for the past 7+ years.
Yet, the community was far more lively and united in one location back in 2011-2014. There was a better atmosphere among players, there was a lot more emotion (sometimes leading to the craziest drama)... But the scene was alive.
It's just impossible that a few glitches in the new software completely killed the game and everyone's spirits. Brood War had so many other problems back in the day, but the players and the avid followers were happy to work around them. It's not the perfect user interface and chat functions that make a game... It's the small things. Viewers can be captivated by a single caster. An organizer can be kept interested just by the dedicated and the heart of a few players. Players are motivated by the quality of the games and the interactions with their opponents and fans. None of these can be built into a chat engine, none of them are native features of matchmaking.
I guess it depends on on how you define alive. I think in terms of viewership and most important in terms of players on the server we are having more players now than in those days that you just mentioned.
Sometimes I share your feeling that the “spirit“ of the fans has been going down, but it's really hard to tell right? Because it's a very subjective point of view and depends a lot on our experiences etc. However that's not really the point of this topic so I'm not gonna delve further into it.
I think it's fair to say that the current infrastructure of battle.net does not promote an environment that is helpful to alleviate the concerns voiced by you. And that's really all we can expect blizzard to do, to provide the right environment for this community flourish again.
@ artanis: wouldn't want you to get banned either :-)
On November 17 2017 05:07 Cele wrote: I hope moderation will take a closer look at this thread. General attitude here has been not very charming last couple of pages.
I entirely agree... However, I think this thread is doomed to fail because I don't think the real problem has been identified. Starcraft: Brood War has been nearly unplayable for most people and inaccessible to new players for the past 7+ years.
Yet, the community was far more lively and united in one location back in 2011-2014. There was a better atmosphere among players, there was a lot more emotion (sometimes leading to the craziest drama)... But the scene was alive.
It's just impossible that a few glitches in the new software completely killed the game and everyone's spirits. Brood War had so many other problems back in the day, but the players and the avid followers were happy to work around them. It's not the perfect user interface and chat functions that make a game... It's the small things. Viewers can be captivated by a single caster. An organizer can be kept interested just by the dedicated and the heart of a few players. Players are motivated by the quality of the games and the interactions with their opponents and fans. None of these can be built into a chat engine, none of them are native features of matchmaking.
There is still this sort of enthusiasm though...day9's lets learn series gets tens of thousands of views on youtube and that doesn't count twitch...ASL was pretty highly watched, hopefully that can go higher if they also broadcast it on Twitch to reach a larger audience.
I don't think its just accessibility and ease that makes a game popular, if that were the case HotS would be bigger than LoL...I think people like to feel that there is a depth of mechanics and skill ceiling. More people need to be able to see this about BW, I don't think people would be put off by its interface and older 2D graphics (though very nice looking now thanks to RM) if they knew how great of a game it is at its highest level, and even just a joy to play at its lowest level (where I am lol)
You make great points, but I don't see either of those contributing enormously to the foreign BW scene. Neither the ASL nor Day9's series make the game that much more enjoyable for top level foreigners to play.
TBH, Day9 could stream himself playing solitaire and he would draw in the same viewership. It would be super cool if Day9 were more involved in the scene, but his stuff isn't even advertised on TL. At the moment, he is mainly creating content for his following, not for the foreign BW scene.
On November 17 2017 05:07 Cele wrote: I hope moderation will take a closer look at this thread. General attitude here has been not very charming last couple of pages.
I entirely agree... However, I think this thread is doomed to fail because I don't think the real problem has been identified. Starcraft: Brood War has been nearly unplayable for most people and inaccessible to new players for the past 7+ years.
Yet, the community was far more lively and united in one location back in 2011-2014. There was a better atmosphere among players, there was a lot more emotion (sometimes leading to the craziest drama)... But the scene was alive.
It's just impossible that a few glitches in the new software completely killed the game and everyone's spirits. Brood War had so many other problems back in the day, but the players and the avid followers were happy to work around them. It's not the perfect user interface and chat functions that make a game... It's the small things. Viewers can be captivated by a single caster. An organizer can be kept interested just by the dedicated and the heart of a few players. Players are motivated by the quality of the games and the interactions with their opponents and fans. None of these can be built into a chat engine, none of them are native features of matchmaking.
I guess it depends on on how you define alive. I think in terms of viewership and most important in terms of players on the server we are having more players now than in those days that you just mentioned.
Sometimes I share your feeling that the “spirit“ of the fans has been going down, but it's really hard to tell right? Because it's a very subjective point of view and depends a lot on our experiences etc. However that's not really the point of this topic so I'm not gonna delve further into it.
I think it's fair to say that the current infrastructure of battle.net does not promote an environment that is helpful to alleviate the concerns voiced by you. And that's really all we can expect blizzard to do, to provide the right environment for this community flourish again.
@ artanis: wouldn't want you to get banned either :-)
Yes, it is hard to measure, and it's important to not look at the past with rose colored glasses. I think in this case however, there are a couple ways in which the past was measurably better.
The TL thread viewership and participation (especially for tournaments) is way down from those days.
Players who used to be super motivated are now simply defeated, it's depressing to talk to some of the guys who've held the scene up for a long time.
There's no conflicts driven by passion in today's Brood War scene (and I mean real conflict - there are some who troll 619 or comment about Koreans in foreign events, but generally speaking, people seem to be more indifferent).
All of the above are measurable changes that are strictly negative (regardless of how much people disliked the drama back in the day, at least everyone gave a damn).
On November 17 2017 05:07 Cele wrote: I hope moderation will take a closer look at this thread. General attitude here has been not very charming last couple of pages.
I entirely agree... However, I think this thread is doomed to fail because I don't think the real problem has been identified. Starcraft: Brood War has been nearly unplayable for most people and inaccessible to new players for the past 7+ years.
Yet, the community was far more lively and united in one location back in 2011-2014. There was a better atmosphere among players, there was a lot more emotion (sometimes leading to the craziest drama)... But the scene was alive.
It's just impossible that a few glitches in the new software completely killed the game and everyone's spirits. Brood War had so many other problems back in the day, but the players and the avid followers were happy to work around them. It's not the perfect user interface and chat functions that make a game... It's the small things. Viewers can be captivated by a single caster. An organizer can be kept interested just by the dedicated and the heart of a few players. Players are motivated by the quality of the games and the interactions with their opponents and fans. None of these can be built into a chat engine, none of them are native features of matchmaking.
There is still this sort of enthusiasm though...day9's lets learn series gets tens of thousands of views on youtube and that doesn't count twitch...ASL was pretty highly watched, hopefully that can go higher if they also broadcast it on Twitch to reach a larger audience.
I don't think its just accessibility and ease that makes a game popular, if that were the case HotS would be bigger than LoL...I think people like to feel that there is a depth of mechanics and skill ceiling. More people need to be able to see this about BW, I don't think people would be put off by its interface and older 2D graphics (though very nice looking now thanks to RM) if they knew how great of a game it is at its highest level, and even just a joy to play at its lowest level (where I am lol)
I I think that stream numbers are very much overrated in this regard. When I was on staff for ICC and in charge of the media section i observed the influence of big Events on activity on the server. Much to my initial surprise there hardly was any. For instance when tasteless and artosis started casting ASL again everybody was pretty hyped about it. But it affected activity a lot less than expected.
Today I think that open tournaments, team leagues, newbie training programs another things are much more important when it comes to increasing activity and participation.
Of course big events a good advertisement for the game but what does it help everybody's watching the Stream but nobody's playing?
I've been wanting to jump into this thread for a couple of days but haven't found the time. There are some interesting points that deserve more info, so here goes (in no particular order):
* The OP concerns: first, I'd say those tweets referenced are from September and to be fair we've done a lot of work on MM latency since the launch in mid-August, including the DTR system, and both feedback and data has been very positive. We see around 1% of games are running in the lowest turn rate due to latency, and almost 85% in the highest now. This is not to say that there isn't more work to be done on the MM - we have more plans (including the diagnostic tool) and we'll keep focusing on the games that are performing poorly.
The reddit thread referenced should be taken with a large grain of salt. There is quite a lot of lost in translation moments in that thread for whatever reason. For example, I can say that our engineering team is the same size as it has always been. Sure, the art team is not doing a huge amount of SCR any more, but that's expected given that the art is done apart of tweaks. So *overall* the SCR team is smaller now, but on the engineering side (which is what matters for all of these issues) we're technically larger since a couple of senior engineers have been added to the Classic server team, one of which will spend the bulk of his time on SCR. There are no plans to disband the SCR team or anything of that nature. We're still here, we're still working on the game every single day. And even though we may not have played the game every day for the last 20 years like some folks here, I promise you that we treasure the game just as much, and want to see it as the best product it can be.
* Replays on profile - we're working on this right now.
* Chat bug - we rolled out a change to the spam filtering algorithm yesterday. I've asked for feedback on the Blizzard forum, if anyone sees it still occurring. There are no reports of it still being active right now.
* /f m for Blizzard friends - this is going through QA right now. It should be coming soon.
* Friends following ("abc has entered StarCraft, left StarCraft, entered game xyz") for Blizzard friends - this is also going through QA right now.
* Battlenet UI responsiveness. We're reworking the technical side of the UI to improve responsiveness. We have a small change coming very soon, and a much larger change which we're working on at the moment.
* "Patches are coming slower now". We're on patch 11 in around 13 weeks.
* Regional social (friends/chat). Unfortunately, at this stage, this is how all Blizzard services work (in the same way as gateways), so our hands are tied on this one for now. All I can say is that we've raised the topic internally at Blizzard to the relevant teams so they're aware of our suggestions.
* Our priorities in general: I've talked about this on the Blizzard forums, but StarCraft is many things to many people. They often have competing priorities. Some people hate that we worked to reduce the realtime lighting requirements; other people love it. Some people don't care about EUD at all; other people only ever played SC with EUD. Some people are still impacted by MM latency; other people say it's perfectly fine now. We try to service all groups and not leave anyone out. We receive feedback and requests from many different sources and it's impossible to work on everything at once. So we triage. And I understand that it's frustrating when we're not servicing the issue that's most important to you. I also know that we don't always get it right. Sometimes we've gotten the priorities wrong, and one thing we're doing to improve on that is expanding our network of reliable community sources and to open direct communication lines with them.
* On timeframes: we generally don't talk specifically about timeframes, because once a date is out there it becomes an iron clad guarantee, which can be tough to deliver on all the time given the nature of game dev.
* We did not coerce/force other servers to shutdown. We have a lot of respect for the work that Fish did over the years for the BW community.
* On global MM generally: there are some routes that are particularly bad - EU to Korea for example. The route between those regions is so bad that internet traffic tends to route the other way around the world, which is not ideal for low latency. So this leads to 2 obvious questions:
* Why global MM and not regional? As you guys know, SC is somewhat unique in that a large portion of the playerbase is in one region, and the playerbase in general is not in the scale of the Hearthstones of this world. Regional MM outside of Korea would have meant very long queue times. We already see some complaints for queue times - they would be far longer under a regional MM. In short, queue times and latency are in direct competition with each other.
Also, in another sense, the MM is kind of regional - in the sense that the MM will try very hard to match you with someone close to your MMR and close to you geographically. If you're getting matched on the other side of the world, it means there was no one else closer in a reasonable MMR range, and additionally that the MM predicted no one suitable would be available in the near future. In short, if you're matched with someone a long way away, without a global MM there would be no match at all.
* Why not rewrite the net code to a client-server model and host the servers ourselves? We looked at this early on, but the SC code contains certain interdependencies. Changing one system can potentially impact another. Changing something as fundamental as the network layer carried a significant risk of changing the way SC played, which was a dealbreaker for us. Our general policy was to leave the core of SC alone, and make changes around it, so as not to break or change the delicate genius of the game. We're doing some preliminary investigative work towards a system that may have a somewhat similar effect to this without affecting the SC net code directly.
Building a global MM was a much more difficult undertaking than a regional one, but we believe it's the right one for SC globally. Maybe, ultimately, we'll have to surrender on one or both of the above, but we've made good strides on improving the MM latency since launch, and we're rolling out new improvements all the time. We still have some rabbits left in the hat, and I believe we should run them down before we jump to a last resort.
Wow, this has been quite the long post, but hopefully it gives at least some context to the decisions we're making, and some level of confidence that we're working hard on making SCR the game that you all (and we) want it to be, regardless of where you stand on it right now. As always, your feedback is extremely helpful and I appreciate the time you guys take to talk to us and make this an awesome gaming community.
First off I want to thank you a ton for reading the thread and taking the time to respond here. It does mean a lot to me and I'm sure to the die-hard Brood War community as well. Also, I want to apologize for my initial negative tone in the OP and following subsequent post proceeding it. The last few pages of the topic have been a bit more negative (I'm sure my original post is a contributing factor to that though) but you registering on teamliquid to reply is an awesome turn of events.
On November 17 2017 12:08 GrantTheAnt wrote: * The OP concerns: first, I'd say those tweets referenced are from September and to be fair we've done a lot of work on MM latency since the launch in mid-August, including the DTR system, and both feedback and data has been very positive. We see around 1% of games are running in the lowest turn rate due to latency, and almost 85% in the highest now. This is not to say that there isn't more work to be done on the MM - we have more plans (including the diagnostic tool) and we'll keep focusing on the games that are performing poorly.
This is true, they are outdated tweets and I didn't mean to use them as driving home points in pro player dissatisfaction. In retrospect, they were definitely not a completely accurate portrayal of how the majority of professional players feel I'm sure, so it was not an intelligent way to display my opinion. However, I do want to say that I know some of the players whose tweets I posted still have the same feelings regarding their experience with latency and matchmaking and have played SC:R less as a contributing factor. Also, this data is interesting and something that definitely sheds light on us. Something I would like to point out though is I believe the large majority of people playing on the highest turn-rates are Koreans. As someone from USA, I feel like my latency experience is not too uncommon and I have played two games last night where I believe were on turn-rate 4, despite it being a 1% chance.
You are the person with the data, and I am not really sure what the solution is when the majority of the playerbase is Korean (and I'm sure they are very satisfied with the dynamic turn rate, as it was a good QoL improvement). I guess all I'm saying here is I hope you don't forget about us foreigners and you do realize that even if the majority of the playerbase (Koreans) are not experiencing these issues, I feel as if a large portion of non-Koreans are.
The reddit thread referenced should be taken with a large grain of salt. There is quite a lot of lost in translation moments in that thread for whatever reason. For example, I can say that our engineering team is the same size as it has always been. Sure, the art team is not doing a huge amount of SCR any more, but that's expected given that the art is done apart of tweaks. So *overall* the SCR team is smaller now, but on the engineering side (which is what matters for all of these issues) we're technically larger since a couple of senior engineers have been added to the Classic server team, one of which will spend the bulk of his time on SCR. There are no plans to disband the SCR team or anything of that nature. We're still here, we're still working on the game every single day. And even though we may not have played the game every day for the last 20 years like some folks here, I promise you that we treasure the game just as much, and want to see it as the best product it can be.
Thank you for this. It was not my intention at all to spread false information, and for that I apologize.
* Replays on profile - we're working on this right now.
* Chat bug - we rolled out a change to the spam filtering algorithm yesterday. I've asked for feedback on the Blizzard forum, if anyone sees it still occurring. There are no reports of it still being active right now.
* /f m for Blizzard friends - this is going through QA right now. It should be coming soon.
* Friends following ("abc has entered StarCraft, left StarCraft, entered game xyz") for Blizzard friends - this is also going through QA right now.
* Battlenet UI responsiveness. We're reworking the technical side of the UI to improve responsiveness. We have a small change coming very soon, and a much larger change which we're working on at the moment.
* "Patches are coming slower now". We're on patch 11 in around 13 weeks.
* Regional social (friends/chat). Unfortunately, at this stage, this is how all Blizzard services work (in the same way as gateways), so our hands are tied on this one for now. All I can say is that we've raised the topic internally at Blizzard to the relevant teams so they're aware of our suggestions.
This is all fantastic news.
* Our priorities in general: I've talked about this on the Blizzard forums, but StarCraft is many things to many people. They often have competing priorities. Some people hate that we worked to reduce the realtime lighting requirements; other people love it. Some people don't care about EUD at all; other people only ever played SC with EUD. Some people are still impacted by MM latency; other people say it's perfectly fine now. We try to service all groups and not leave anyone out. We receive feedback and requests from many different sources and it's impossible to work on everything at once. So we triage. And I understand that it's frustrating when we're not servicing the issue that's most important to you. I also know that we don't always get it right. Sometimes we've gotten the priorities wrong, and one thing we're doing to improve on that is expanding our network of reliable community sources and to open direct communication lines with them.
This is true - I think I even mentioned in a previous post that I legitimately have no idea what the majority of the player base wants. In my personal view, I just found it upsetting that reducing requirements for a visual enhancement feature took precedence when a chat bug was so prevalent that it actually made running tournaments a huge difficulty. A lot of tournament organizers have resorted to using discord to mediate and organize tournaments because of this (CFC, TLOpen, Zotac, PATL, and more). That is on top of the fact that it is actually difficult in itself to even hold a conversation on battle.net channels.
I'm not really trying to shit on you here, this is just my personal opinion on the matter and it could be in the minority for all I know.
* On timeframes: we generally don't talk specifically about timeframes, because once a date is out there it becomes an iron clad guarantee, which can be tough to deliver on all the time given the nature of game dev.
Don't worry buddy, we're all familiar with Blizzard and their timeframes. + Show Spoiler +
* On global MM generally: there are some routes that are particularly bad - EU to Korea for example. The route between those regions is so bad that internet traffic tends to route the other way around the world, which is not ideal for low latency. So this leads to 2 obvious questions:
* Why global MM and not regional? As you guys know, SC is somewhat unique in that a large portion of the playerbase is in one region, and the playerbase in general is not in the scale of the Hearthstones of this world. Regional MM outside of Korea would have meant very long queue times. We already see some complaints for queue times - they would be far longer under a regional MM. In short, queue times and latency are in direct competition with each other.
Also, in another sense, the MM is kind of regional - in the sense that the MM will try very hard to match you with someone close to your MMR and close to you geographically. If you're getting matched on the other side of the world, it means there was no one else closer in a reasonable MMR range, and additionally that the MM predicted no one suitable would be available in the near future. In short, if you're matched with someone a long way away, without a global MM there would be no match at all.
* Why not rewrite the net code to a client-server model and host the servers ourselves? We looked at this early on, but the SC code contains certain interdependencies. Changing one system can potentially impact another. Changing something as fundamental as the network layer carried a significant risk of changing the way SC played, which was a dealbreaker for us. Our general policy was to leave the core of SC alone, and make changes around it, so as not to break or change the delicate genius of the game. We're doing some preliminary investigative work towards a system that may have a somewhat similar effect to this without affecting the SC net code directly.
Building a global MM was a much more difficult undertaking than a regional one, but we believe it's the right one for SC globally. Maybe, ultimately, we'll have to surrender on one or both of the above, but we've made good strides on improving the MM latency since launch, and we're rolling out new improvements all the time. We still have some rabbits left in the hat, and I believe we should run them down before we jump to a last resort.
Wow, this has been quite the long post, but hopefully it gives at least some context to the decisions we're making, and some level of confidence that we're working hard on making SCR the game that you all (and we) want it to be, regardless of where you stand on it right now. As always, your feedback is extremely helpful and I appreciate the time you guys take to talk to us and make this an awesome gaming community.
This is interesting, thank you for sharing this information. I hope you continue to stick around and post in this thread a bit, because a lot of what you said has been super enlightening and has changed my personal opinion on some of the issues that I was either wrong about, or did not have complete information about.
Can we talk about how stupid it is to split the US player pool between two regions? Even EU should probably be combined so the custom game list and channels aren't completely dead. Or how about easy changes like updating the map pool to non-retarded maps instead of Nostalgia and Arcadia. Some things are always completely ignored.
On November 17 2017 12:08 GrantTheAnt wrote: I've been wanting to jump into this thread for a couple of days but haven't found the time. There are some interesting points that deserve more info, so here goes (in no particular order):
* The OP concerns: first, I'd say those tweets referenced are from September and to be fair we've done a lot of work on MM latency since the launch in mid-August, including the DTR system, and both feedback and data has been very positive. We see around 1% of games are running in the lowest turn rate due to latency, and almost 85% in the highest now. This is not to say that there isn't more work to be done on the MM - we have more plans (including the diagnostic tool) and we'll keep focusing on the games that are performing poorly.
The reddit thread referenced should be taken with a large grain of salt. There is quite a lot of lost in translation moments in that thread for whatever reason. For example, I can say that our engineering team is the same size as it has always been. Sure, the art team is not doing a huge amount of SCR any more, but that's expected given that the art is done apart of tweaks. So *overall* the SCR team is smaller now, but on the engineering side (which is what matters for all of these issues) we're technically larger since a couple of senior engineers have been added to the Classic server team, one of which will spend the bulk of his time on SCR. There are no plans to disband the SCR team or anything of that nature. We're still here, we're still working on the game every single day. And even though we may not have played the game every day for the last 20 years like some folks here, I promise you that we treasure the game just as much, and want to see it as the best product it can be.
* Replays on profile - we're working on this right now.
* Chat bug - we rolled out a change to the spam filtering algorithm yesterday. I've asked for feedback on the Blizzard forum, if anyone sees it still occurring. There are no reports of it still being active right now.
* /f m for Blizzard friends - this is going through QA right now. It should be coming soon.
* Friends following ("abc has entered StarCraft, left StarCraft, entered game xyz") for Blizzard friends - this is also going through QA right now.
* Battlenet UI responsiveness. We're reworking the technical side of the UI to improve responsiveness. We have a small change coming very soon, and a much larger change which we're working on at the moment.
* "Patches are coming slower now". We're on patch 11 in around 13 weeks.
* Regional social (friends/chat). Unfortunately, at this stage, this is how all Blizzard services work (in the same way as gateways), so our hands are tied on this one for now. All I can say is that we've raised the topic internally at Blizzard to the relevant teams so they're aware of our suggestions.
* Our priorities in general: I've talked about this on the Blizzard forums, but StarCraft is many things to many people. They often have competing priorities. Some people hate that we worked to reduce the realtime lighting requirements; other people love it. Some people don't care about EUD at all; other people only ever played SC with EUD. Some people are still impacted by MM latency; other people say it's perfectly fine now. We try to service all groups and not leave anyone out. We receive feedback and requests from many different sources and it's impossible to work on everything at once. So we triage. And I understand that it's frustrating when we're not servicing the issue that's most important to you. I also know that we don't always get it right. Sometimes we've gotten the priorities wrong, and one thing we're doing to improve on that is expanding our network of reliable community sources and to open direct communication lines with them.
* On timeframes: we generally don't talk specifically about timeframes, because once a date is out there it becomes an iron clad guarantee, which can be tough to deliver on all the time given the nature of game dev.
* We did not coerce/force other servers to shutdown. We have a lot of respect for the work that Fish did over the years for the BW community.
* On global MM generally: there are some routes that are particularly bad - EU to Korea for example. The route between those regions is so bad that internet traffic tends to route the other way around the world, which is not ideal for low latency. So this leads to 2 obvious questions:
* Why global MM and not regional? As you guys know, SC is somewhat unique in that a large portion of the playerbase is in one region, and the playerbase in general is not in the scale of the Hearthstones of this world. Regional MM outside of Korea would have meant very long queue times. We already see some complaints for queue times - they would be far longer under a regional MM. In short, queue times and latency are in direct competition with each other.
Also, in another sense, the MM is kind of regional - in the sense that the MM will try very hard to match you with someone close to your MMR and close to you geographically. If you're getting matched on the other side of the world, it means there was no one else closer in a reasonable MMR range, and additionally that the MM predicted no one suitable would be available in the near future. In short, if you're matched with someone a long way away, without a global MM there would be no match at all.
* Why not rewrite the net code to a client-server model and host the servers ourselves? We looked at this early on, but the SC code contains certain interdependencies. Changing one system can potentially impact another. Changing something as fundamental as the network layer carried a significant risk of changing the way SC played, which was a dealbreaker for us. Our general policy was to leave the core of SC alone, and make changes around it, so as not to break or change the delicate genius of the game. We're doing some preliminary investigative work towards a system that may have a somewhat similar effect to this without affecting the SC net code directly.
Building a global MM was a much more difficult undertaking than a regional one, but we believe it's the right one for SC globally. Maybe, ultimately, we'll have to surrender on one or both of the above, but we've made good strides on improving the MM latency since launch, and we're rolling out new improvements all the time. We still have some rabbits left in the hat, and I believe we should run them down before we jump to a last resort.
Wow, this has been quite the long post, but hopefully it gives at least some context to the decisions we're making, and some level of confidence that we're working hard on making SCR the game that you all (and we) want it to be, regardless of where you stand on it right now. As always, your feedback is extremely helpful and I appreciate the time you guys take to talk to us and make this an awesome gaming community.
Thanks for posting bro. It takes balls to post here and you could have just ignored it. I've been really impressed with the dev updates and how you guys keep pushing out patches. You also don't shy away from addressing the major concerns and are honest about them.
I also agree that global is the way to go and it would be better to try and fix the latency rather than bail now and go regional (the queues and MM would be irregular due to extremely low pop in EU and U.S.).
Thanks again for this, the community truly appreciates it and will support y'all.
I logged into my account that I have not touched in years, just to say 'thank you' to Grant here. I hope you read this Grant. We do appreciate everything that you have done for SC:R. I feel my $15 was well spent. The fact that you took the time to post about your actual intentions for the game is very encouraging and I commend you for it. Some of the posts here come from a negative place, but it is simply because, I think, the love that people have for this game is just that strong. Sometimes it manifests in the strangest ways.
I personally, am having a blast playing Starcraft again. Although there are a few minor bugs and some issues yet to deal with... I am looking forward to seeing them fixed.
As to what we can do as a community to improve Starcraft? Something that seemed to work in the past was having a channel dedicated to Teamliquid on West. I remember it was a pretty happening channel back in the day. There were usually people afking there and it even had a bot. It felt nice to have a place to go when you logged in, even if everyone was afk. Sometimes on Friday nights you would get lucky and there would be people willing to play UMS maps, Big Game Hunters or whatever. It was also just a nice way to meet people, especially if you were new and didn't quite know how to traverse the dark world of Bnet. Someone would have to host the bot, though.
On November 17 2017 05:07 Cele wrote: I hope moderation will take a closer look at this thread. General attitude here has been not very charming last couple of pages.
I entirely agree... However, I think this thread is doomed to fail because I don't think the real problem has been identified. Starcraft: Brood War has been nearly unplayable for most people and inaccessible to new players for the past 7+ years.
Yet, the community was far more lively and united in one location back in 2011-2014. There was a better atmosphere among players, there was a lot more emotion (sometimes leading to the craziest drama)... But the scene was alive.
It's just impossible that a few glitches in the new software completely killed the game and everyone's spirits. Brood War had so many other problems back in the day, but the players and the avid followers were happy to work around them. It's not the perfect user interface and chat functions that make a game... It's the small things. Viewers can be captivated by a single caster. An organizer can be kept interested just by the dedicated and the heart of a few players. Players are motivated by the quality of the games and the interactions with their opponents and fans. None of these can be built into a chat engine, none of them are native features of matchmaking.
There is still this sort of enthusiasm though...day9's lets learn series gets tens of thousands of views on youtube and that doesn't count twitch...ASL was pretty highly watched, hopefully that can go higher if they also broadcast it on Twitch to reach a larger audience.
I don't think its just accessibility and ease that makes a game popular, if that were the case HotS would be bigger than LoL...I think people like to feel that there is a depth of mechanics and skill ceiling. More people need to be able to see this about BW, I don't think people would be put off by its interface and older 2D graphics (though very nice looking now thanks to RM) if they knew how great of a game it is at its highest level, and even just a joy to play at its lowest level (where I am lol)
I I think that stream numbers are very much overrated in this regard. When I was on staff for ICC and in charge of the media section i observed the influence of big Events on activity on the server. Much to my initial surprise there hardly was any. For instance when tasteless and artosis started casting ASL again everybody was pretty hyped about it. But it affected activity a lot less than expected.
Today I think that open tournaments, team leagues, newbie training programs another things are much more important when it comes to increasing activity and participation.
Of course big events a good advertisement for the game but what does it help everybody's watching the Stream but nobody's playing?
I agree with everything you say. But I think big events that are well watched are important to always exist in this day and age. Someone who plays LoL who wants a competitive game to play needs to be convinced that BW will scratch that competitive itch, and having visible well watched events is part of that.
thx Grant for all the good info I think you understand, it's hard to accept so many issues with the game when we pay for it to be improved and it stays like this after release. But, I see you care and are really trying to make it right. Also ofc we can make the difference between the company and the people working at the company.
I have not seen you yet acknowledge another issue which is very important to me, which is that ladder should register games properly. Unless it has already been fixed, this and the chat bugs are making me stay away from the game as it was just much more efficient (and fun) when there were no such issues. I am not satisfied with a game being released in such a state, much less a remaster of Starcraft.
Regarding global MM, I am still not sure that the approach is correct for this reason : because of the dynamics and populations, MMR values are different from one region to another. This means once a European player has reached a certain MMR playing against mostly EUR players, then they get matched against KOR players which have a different skill value at that MMR. This is when these EUR players start climbing in MMR a lot, which makes it much less likely to get matched against other EUR players who have a different MMR but close skill level. Or vice versa.
It is hard to understand why we still have regional gateways (and chat) but global MM.
I have had little issues with lag myself but that's because I stopped playing before I really got to play a lot of games against koreans since I got rly rly annoyed by the ladder failing to register games properly all the time. It's not fun, not fair, not good when you get ghost losses and wins all over the place every day. And when you can't talk to your friends to play fun games either on top of that. And when every interface takes seconds to respond or don't respond at all.
So, again thank you for the informative update, I see you are doing your best, can't wait to play my #1 fav game again.
PS: need to be able to reset stats since they are messed up since the system doesn't register games properly. Also, something should be done to establish a map pool rotation. Maps should rotate at the very least every few months like every 3 months at a minimum yo. So you shouldn't wait very much longer for that at all. This goes a few steps further by raising the question of which maps can make it to the pool, if part of the pool rotates every time or all of it, and how new maps made by people from the community or pro circuits or whatnot may be included. These questions should have been raised before release or immediately after, which we always did, and still haven't got any action or response taken by the company. Most of us hate blizzard by now, but we don't hate you ^^
PS2: regarding my hope to get banned comment, I think I mostly wrote it out of anger. I don't really like bans and warns and closing+burying threads on TL. whatever. Everybody can have their own opinion ofc, when I can see someone is clearly trying to annoy others by stating "SCR is perfectly playable" and "old BW was unplayable", that makes me tick, I wanna tell that guy or just tell others I think he's dishonest, but its probably not a good approach at all to ban or suggest ban....
PS3: a suggestion for doing justice to SD graphics which I think SCR should definitely do. Just make it switch the resolution back to something that draws SD graphics well like 1.18 did. You cant display SD graphics properly with such upscaling. If the F5 key switching seemlessly between SD and HD has to go for that, it's worth it for sure. If extra work for adapting interfaces, is what's got to be done then, please do. Most games can do that easily including Warcraft 3. The current free to play build should also obviously display these SD graphics just as well.
On November 17 2017 13:23 Sero wrote: Can we talk about how stupid it is to split the US player pool between two regions? Even EU should probably be combined so the custom game list and channels aren't completely dead. Or how about easy changes like updating the map pool to non-retarded maps instead of Nostalgia and Arcadia. Some things are always completely ignored.
Yeah, I don't get why the US is split from east to west. It would make more sense to have North America and South America servers respectively.
Unfortunately for maps, there's never going to be a consensus on what makes a "good map" among foreigners, because so many people fall into these categories:
1 - "I play OLD SCHOOL MAPS like Lost Temple, because I'm so old school. Give me Gorky Island in the map pool."
2 - "Fighting Spirit is overplayed, so I automatically hate it and any map like it."
3 - "I hate maps with back-door mineral expansions because I'm so bad at StarCraft that I can't handle my opponent getting a third base."
4 - "I hate all old-school maps, and I want all maps to be exactly the same and modern."
5 - "I LIKE ISLAND MAPS AND BLIZZARD MAPS. GO FFA ON OBRITAL DEATH?"
On November 17 2017 13:23 Sero wrote: Can we talk about how stupid it is to split the US player pool between two regions? Even EU should probably be combined so the custom game list and channels aren't completely dead. Or how about easy changes like updating the map pool to non-retarded maps instead of Nostalgia and Arcadia. Some things are always completely ignored.
Yeah, I don't get why the US is split from east to west. It would make more sense to have North America and South America servers respectively.
Unfortunately for maps, there's never going to be a consensus on what makes a "good map" among foreigners, because so many people fall into these categories:
1 - "I play OLD SCHOOL MAPS like Lost Temple, because I'm so old school. Give me Gorky Island in the map pool."
2 - "Fighting Spirit is overplayed, so I automatically hate it and any map like it."
3 - "I hate maps with back-door mineral expansions because I'm so bad at StarCraft that I can't handle my opponent getting a third base."
4 - "I hate all old-school maps, and I want all maps to be exactly the same and modern."
5 - "I LIKE ISLAND MAPS AND BLIZZARD MAPS. GO FFA ON OBRITAL DEATH?"
On November 17 2017 12:08 GrantTheAnt wrote: I've been wanting to jump into this thread for a couple of days but haven't found the time. There are some interesting points that deserve more info, so here goes (in no particular order):
* The OP concerns: first, I'd say those tweets referenced are from September and to be fair we've done a lot of work on MM latency since the launch in mid-August, including the DTR system, and both feedback and data has been very positive. We see around 1% of games are running in the lowest turn rate due to latency, and almost 85% in the highest now. This is not to say that there isn't more work to be done on the MM - we have more plans (including the diagnostic tool) and we'll keep focusing on the games that are performing poorly.
The reddit thread referenced should be taken with a large grain of salt. There is quite a lot of lost in translation moments in that thread for whatever reason. For example, I can say that our engineering team is the same size as it has always been. Sure, the art team is not doing a huge amount of SCR any more, but that's expected given that the art is done apart of tweaks. So *overall* the SCR team is smaller now, but on the engineering side (which is what matters for all of these issues) we're technically larger since a couple of senior engineers have been added to the Classic server team, one of which will spend the bulk of his time on SCR. There are no plans to disband the SCR team or anything of that nature. We're still here, we're still working on the game every single day. And even though we may not have played the game every day for the last 20 years like some folks here, I promise you that we treasure the game just as much, and want to see it as the best product it can be.
* Replays on profile - we're working on this right now.
* Chat bug - we rolled out a change to the spam filtering algorithm yesterday. I've asked for feedback on the Blizzard forum, if anyone sees it still occurring. There are no reports of it still being active right now.
* /f m for Blizzard friends - this is going through QA right now. It should be coming soon.
* Friends following ("abc has entered StarCraft, left StarCraft, entered game xyz") for Blizzard friends - this is also going through QA right now.
* Battlenet UI responsiveness. We're reworking the technical side of the UI to improve responsiveness. We have a small change coming very soon, and a much larger change which we're working on at the moment.
* "Patches are coming slower now". We're on patch 11 in around 13 weeks.
* Regional social (friends/chat). Unfortunately, at this stage, this is how all Blizzard services work (in the same way as gateways), so our hands are tied on this one for now. All I can say is that we've raised the topic internally at Blizzard to the relevant teams so they're aware of our suggestions.
* Our priorities in general: I've talked about this on the Blizzard forums, but StarCraft is many things to many people. They often have competing priorities. Some people hate that we worked to reduce the realtime lighting requirements; other people love it. Some people don't care about EUD at all; other people only ever played SC with EUD. Some people are still impacted by MM latency; other people say it's perfectly fine now. We try to service all groups and not leave anyone out. We receive feedback and requests from many different sources and it's impossible to work on everything at once. So we triage. And I understand that it's frustrating when we're not servicing the issue that's most important to you. I also know that we don't always get it right. Sometimes we've gotten the priorities wrong, and one thing we're doing to improve on that is expanding our network of reliable community sources and to open direct communication lines with them.
* On timeframes: we generally don't talk specifically about timeframes, because once a date is out there it becomes an iron clad guarantee, which can be tough to deliver on all the time given the nature of game dev.
* We did not coerce/force other servers to shutdown. We have a lot of respect for the work that Fish did over the years for the BW community.
* On global MM generally: there are some routes that are particularly bad - EU to Korea for example. The route between those regions is so bad that internet traffic tends to route the other way around the world, which is not ideal for low latency. So this leads to 2 obvious questions:
* Why global MM and not regional? As you guys know, SC is somewhat unique in that a large portion of the playerbase is in one region, and the playerbase in general is not in the scale of the Hearthstones of this world. Regional MM outside of Korea would have meant very long queue times. We already see some complaints for queue times - they would be far longer under a regional MM. In short, queue times and latency are in direct competition with each other.
Also, in another sense, the MM is kind of regional - in the sense that the MM will try very hard to match you with someone close to your MMR and close to you geographically. If you're getting matched on the other side of the world, it means there was no one else closer in a reasonable MMR range, and additionally that the MM predicted no one suitable would be available in the near future. In short, if you're matched with someone a long way away, without a global MM there would be no match at all.
* Why not rewrite the net code to a client-server model and host the servers ourselves? We looked at this early on, but the SC code contains certain interdependencies. Changing one system can potentially impact another. Changing something as fundamental as the network layer carried a significant risk of changing the way SC played, which was a dealbreaker for us. Our general policy was to leave the core of SC alone, and make changes around it, so as not to break or change the delicate genius of the game. We're doing some preliminary investigative work towards a system that may have a somewhat similar effect to this without affecting the SC net code directly.
Building a global MM was a much more difficult undertaking than a regional one, but we believe it's the right one for SC globally. Maybe, ultimately, we'll have to surrender on one or both of the above, but we've made good strides on improving the MM latency since launch, and we're rolling out new improvements all the time. We still have some rabbits left in the hat, and I believe we should run them down before we jump to a last resort.
Wow, this has been quite the long post, but hopefully it gives at least some context to the decisions we're making, and some level of confidence that we're working hard on making SCR the game that you all (and we) want it to be, regardless of where you stand on it right now. As always, your feedback is extremely helpful and I appreciate the time you guys take to talk to us and make this an awesome gaming community.
This is a fantastic and informative post. Thank you so much for coming here and providing so much detailed information. It's a huge show of how much you and the rest of the dev team love this game that you're willing to not only post this on a third party forum, but also provide such in depth information.
Things like this make me feel incredibly justified for defending your team the way I have and has strengthened my stance even further.
Please know that everything you do is appreciated by us!
Edit: I also wanted to mention that the new Turn Rate change announcement in game is amazing! It's great to see the DTR in action. I've discovered that the majority of my games against Koreans are being played at TR14 (w/ low latency and no lag) which I find phenomenal!
On November 17 2017 20:40 Qikz wrote: I would love for the ability to host any map for matchmaking as a custom game, that way we could play the maps we want to.
I used to enjoy iCCUP becuse I'd host and learn a different map every single week. It was great.
The way you propose for ppl to host ladder games means we are back to blizzard-approved map pool (to exclude ppl hosting somehow rigged maps) which is exactly how blizzard SC ladder functioned in 1999. And some ppl would take offense to that and call that a step-back.
On November 17 2017 20:40 Qikz wrote: I would love for the ability to host any map for matchmaking as a custom game, that way we could play the maps we want to.
I used to enjoy iCCUP becuse I'd host and learn a different map every single week. It was great.
The way you propose for ppl to host ladder games means we are back to blizzard-approved map pool (to exclude ppl hosting somehow rigged maps) which is exactly how blizzard SC ladder functioned in 1999. And some ppl would take offense to that and call that a step-back.
True, but as evidenced by this thread, some subset of people are going to take offense and complain about absolutely anything Blizzard does.
It would be cool to see some sort of "map of the week" addition, however they implement it. I am very excited to get a new map pool. FS and CB are great, but the more variety the better!
On November 17 2017 20:40 Qikz wrote: I would love for the ability to host any map for matchmaking as a custom game, that way we could play the maps we want to.
I used to enjoy iCCUP becuse I'd host and learn a different map every single week. It was great.
The way you propose for ppl to host ladder games means we are back to blizzard-approved map pool (to exclude ppl hosting somehow rigged maps) which is exactly how blizzard SC ladder functioned in 1999. And some ppl would take offense to that and call that a step-back.
True, but as evidenced by this thread, some subset of people are going to take offense and complain about absolutely anything Blizzard does!
I just hope you don't mean this as opposed to not complaining about anything at all.........
open bw is amazing and i've no idea why people don't move over to that instead of being constantly slapped in the face by blizzard when it comes to bw.
On November 17 2017 20:40 Qikz wrote: I would love for the ability to host any map for matchmaking as a custom game, that way we could play the maps we want to.
I used to enjoy iCCUP becuse I'd host and learn a different map every single week. It was great.
The way you propose for ppl to host ladder games means we are back to blizzard-approved map pool (to exclude ppl hosting somehow rigged maps) which is exactly how blizzard SC ladder functioned in 1999. And some ppl would take offense to that and call that a step-back.
True, but as evidenced by this thread, some subset of people are going to take offense and complain about absolutely anything Blizzard does.
It would be cool to see some sort of "map of the week" addition, however they implement it. I am very excited to get a new map pool. FS and CB are great, but the more variety the better!
there's hardly a thing blizzard did well. my personal opinion is that they haven't released a good game since first WoW.
I think it's odd that we haven't seen any dev post regarding the mmr postgame window. Takes 15-20 seconds sometimes just to get MMR data for your matches, sometimes it just doesn't even load. Pretty unreasonable in this day and age. I'm sure it's doing some kind of fancy handshake/query but the time spent is absurd.
Every streamer I watch goes about this pretty much the same way: get out of game->wait for mmr screen to populate->still waiting->hover over cancel, nah I'll just wait->still waiting->50/50 either close window at this point or keep waiting til it finally loads
Feels extremely unpolished. Perhaps it performs better in KR since that's where it appears to be centralized but from the US it's pretty annoying.
On November 17 2017 23:32 esdf wrote: there's hardly a thing blizzard did well. my personal opinion is that they haven't released a good game since first WoW.
that's agreed exactly, that's also when they merged with activision some time after wow was gradually destroyed over each expansion sc2 is way inferior to sc1 and not exactly a good game, D3 way inferior to D2 and also not really good, same goes for social interfaces, etc i dont rly want to comment on hearthstone or overwatch, i just don't even want to try them
On November 17 2017 23:32 esdf wrote: open bw is amazing and i've no idea why people don't move over to that instead of being constantly slapped in the face by blizzard when it comes to bw.
On November 17 2017 23:21 AManHasNoName wrote:
On November 17 2017 22:28 chuDr3t4 wrote:
On November 17 2017 20:40 Qikz wrote: I would love for the ability to host any map for matchmaking as a custom game, that way we could play the maps we want to.
I used to enjoy iCCUP becuse I'd host and learn a different map every single week. It was great.
The way you propose for ppl to host ladder games means we are back to blizzard-approved map pool (to exclude ppl hosting somehow rigged maps) which is exactly how blizzard SC ladder functioned in 1999. And some ppl would take offense to that and call that a step-back.
True, but as evidenced by this thread, some subset of people are going to take offense and complain about absolutely anything Blizzard does.
It would be cool to see some sort of "map of the week" addition, however they implement it. I am very excited to get a new map pool. FS and CB are great, but the more variety the better!
there's hardly a thing blizzard did well. my personal opinion is that they haven't released a good game since first WoW.
that's agreed exactly, that's also when they merged with activision some time after wow was gradually destroyed over each expansion sc2 is way inferior to sc1, D3 way inferior to D2, same goes for social interfaces, etc
I don't really mind mechanics being inferior or anything if that allowed me to have more fun. But it's just that the fun factor for me isn't there with each of their newer games, they (over)simplify everything while not adding anything new in terms of mechancis that's worth dumping hours and hours in to the game. Idk, maybe I'm old, but for me the most fun thing about games I played was that sense of achievement I got after beating someone/something.
People are saying blizzard torched EA with that sc2 f2p trailer, but imo there's not much of a difference between the companies. It's just a race to get highest profits with minimum effort, i.e. moneygrab. latest proof: sc:r and diablo3 necromancer. After paying 2x$60 for d3 (core+exp) you were expected to pay another $15 for a single character. holy sh*t.
On November 17 2017 23:32 esdf wrote: open bw is amazing and i've no idea why people don't move over to that instead of being constantly slapped in the face by blizzard when it comes to bw.
On November 17 2017 20:40 Qikz wrote: I would love for the ability to host any map for matchmaking as a custom game, that way we could play the maps we want to.
I used to enjoy iCCUP becuse I'd host and learn a different map every single week. It was great.
The way you propose for ppl to host ladder games means we are back to blizzard-approved map pool (to exclude ppl hosting somehow rigged maps) which is exactly how blizzard SC ladder functioned in 1999. And some ppl would take offense to that and call that a step-back.
True, but as evidenced by this thread, some subset of people are going to take offense and complain about absolutely anything Blizzard does.
It would be cool to see some sort of "map of the week" addition, however they implement it. I am very excited to get a new map pool. FS and CB are great, but the more variety the better!
there's hardly a thing blizzard did well. my personal opinion is that they haven't released a good game since first WoW.
Starcraft Remastered is official, which gives it a lot of legitimacy. Starcraft being a good game was an accident; Blizzard certainly never envisioned it as a global esport when it was first released. People just assume that because Starcraft was good, that Blizzard knew what they were doing.
They don't. They really don't. They're good developers, but not infallible.
On November 17 2017 20:40 Qikz wrote: I would love for the ability to host any map for matchmaking as a custom game, that way we could play the maps we want to.
I used to enjoy iCCUP becuse I'd host and learn a different map every single week. It was great.
The way you propose for ppl to host ladder games means we are back to blizzard-approved map pool (to exclude ppl hosting somehow rigged maps) which is exactly how blizzard SC ladder functioned in 1999. And some ppl would take offense to that and call that a step-back.
True, but as evidenced by this thread, some subset of people are going to take offense and complain about absolutely anything Blizzard does!
I just hope you don't mean this as opposed to not complaining about anything at all.........
Well, yes and no. I don't think that "complaining" in general is useful to anyone.
I do think that providing well thought out feedback is very beneficial.
My opinion is that in this thread there are a lot of "gut reactions," outdated opinions (aka people formed an opinion on something and haven't given it another shot after patches etc), and complaints without actionable feedback or that don't take into consideration WHY something might be a certain way or be taking a while to be resolved.
Well I dont agree with you at all, complaints are a way to make your voice heard as a customer and to state your expectations, and a way to take a stance against a company that may be trying yet again to screw you over. It doesn't matter if we are not all giving feedback in the same way and 100% positivity is a very weak way of taking a stance against a company as greedy as blizzard. I sure hope you won't just keep bulking all negativity into uninformed whatever. If anything being positive all the time can be pretty damn uninformed too.
I'm sorry but I don't have to be ok with the state the game is that was sold to me. I am very informed about the whole situation and I am not just going to keep giving sheepy positive feedback, I'll be negative and even harsh if that's what I feel I'm getting from the company actions.
Besides it did make me stop playing the game as well as others, so obviously there is nothing very positive about the situation to players like me. You can't just tell players like me that we should just change our mind, accept it and play when we don't want that. If you don't like a game and you think it's bad you might just call it what it is.
One thing I dislike and many others too is guys who just like to be all honey sugar positive to the devs cause they like to get attention from that - as you know commonly called "white knights". Pose as the good nice guys when they're just being the opposite. Me and others have to take flak from guys like you because we care about the game and we'll make it known. In the meantime others are taking the easy counter stance to just make us look bad but we're the ones taking more risk^^ and we, or some of us, might just do this for the love of the game, so you should perhaps have some respect for that. We could be wrong about the company intents, or we could not be wrong. I know trends where I've seen them for years now, and I can tell you blizzard has been on its way to just turn games into cash cows and dilute qualities over time by switching them around and never giving satisfaction.
Let's not be naïve, crooked businesses are a thing, and you're not gonna get much done if you are too afraid of complaints and criticism.
Even if your boss is screwing around with you you better know not to just accept it and make a stand to it if you want to do things different^^ I think blizzard is a pretty disgusting business, and I won't refrain to say it when I think so.
Just had an idea. You know how when you log into b.net, you go to channel like "Brood War KOR-1" or smth. We could improve on that.
Imagine getting put in a channel based on region and mmr.
For example, "Brood War EU 2500+" channel would have players from EU with high mmr together, so if you lag on ranked, you could still have an opportunity to find good games in the channel and maybe make new friends.
Of course meanwhile players could do it themselves, but i think it's hard to inform everybody, and of course there would be lots of lower mmr players trolling.
Another idea, a private teamliquid korean proxy sponsored by donations?
Edit: I also wanted to mention that the new Turn Rate change announcement in game is amazing! It's great to see the DTR in action. I've discovered that the majority of my games against Koreans are being played at TR14 (w/ low latency and no lag) which I find phenomenal!
Cool I found out that I am playing against Koreans on TR6 high or sometimes even extra high latency. I think I was better not knowing this ^^
On November 17 2017 21:52 Kare wrote: MM is unplayable for me.
Not gonna pretend to have a good solution for it, but I won't play until it becomes playable obviously.
That's all I can say.
This isn't very helpful feedback. Why exactly is it unplayable? They can't help if they don't know what your problem is.
Oh, so is there some SC:R devs on this thread collecting information or player issues?
Yeah actually Grant has just recently posted on the thread one of the engineers. To be fair it's the devs job to find problems and not have them in the game in the first place too. But whatever.
On November 18 2017 01:21 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Well I dont agree with you at all, complaints are a way to make your voice heard as a customer and to state your expectations, and a way to take a stance against a company that may be trying yet again to screw you over. It doesn't matter if we are not all giving feedback in the same way and 100% positivity is a very weak way of taking a stance against a company as greedy as blizzard. I sure hope you won't just keep bulking all negativity into uninformed whatever. If anything being positive all the time can be pretty damn uninformed too.
I'm sorry but I don't have to be ok with the state the game is that was sold to me. I am very informed about the whole situation and I am not just going to keep giving sheepy positive feedback, I'll be negative and even harsh if that's what I feel I'm getting from the company actions.
Besides it did make me stop playing the game as well as others, so obviously there is nothing very positive about the situation to players like me. You can't just tell players like me that we should just change our mind, accept it and play when we don't want that. If you don't like a game and you think it's bad you might just call it what it is.
One thing I dislike and many others too is guys who just like to be all honey sugar positive to the devs cause they like to get attention from that - as you know commonly called "white knights". Pose as the good nice guys when they're just being the opposite. Me and others have to take flak from guys like you because we care about the game and we'll make it known. In the meantime others are taking the easy counter stance to just make us look bad but we're the ones taking more risk^^ and we, or some of us, might just do this for the love of the game, so you should perhaps have some respect for that. We could be wrong about the company intents, or we could not be wrong. I know trends where I've seen them for years now, and I can tell you blizzard has been on its way to just turn games into cash cows and dilute qualities over time by switching them around and never giving satisfaction.
Let's not be naïve, crooked businesses are a thing, and you're not gonna get much done if you are too afraid of complaints and criticism.
Even if your boss is screwing around with you you better know not to just accept it and make a stand to it if you want to do things different^^ I think blizzard is a pretty disgusting business, and I won't refrain to say it when I think so.
If this was a response to me then you either didn't read my post or didn't understand what I was saying.
Either way, I certainly feel bad for people like you. But, my personal experience with remastered has been excellent. Although, to be fair, my happiness is mostly related to having matchmaking that works, being able to play against Koreans and just generally being able to play Starcraft in a very accessible way. I've put in a bit over 1000 games since release and a very minimal amount have had the fun diminished because of lag, despite playing the majority of my games against KR opponents.
I do feel for those of you in Europe who are not able to play with the KR players without lots of lag, I hope there's something Blizzard can do to resolve that. Though, network routing is something that's largely out of their control.
On November 18 2017 01:53 ProMeTheus112 wrote: To be fair it's the devs job to find problems and not have them in the game in the first place too. But whatever.
This is a statement that only one who has never worked on or near software development could make.
On November 17 2017 21:52 Kare wrote: MM is unplayable for me.
Not gonna pretend to have a good solution for it, but I won't play until it becomes playable obviously.
That's all I can say.
This isn't very helpful feedback. Why exactly is it unplayable? They can't help if they don't know what your problem is.
Oh, so is there some SC:R devs on this thread collecting information or player issues?
Yeah actually Grant has just recently posted on the thread one of the engineers. To be fair it's the devs job to find problems and not have them in the game in the first place too. But whatever.
Well it's good that devs are engaging with the community. I wouldn't mind checking out progress this weekend. Have a fever and will be most likely inside all the time.. Last time I played was in September I believe, and many promised features were broken, or simply not in the game.
Yeah well I have had more issues than the lag to KR situation. But that too is a problem. Maybe some people are actually experiencing interfaces that actually work. Don't you get the matches registering wrong for example ? (ghost wins and losses?) or chat that won't work and you can't whisper ppl back and stuff? that's the kind of thing that I don't accept, and other stuff like unresponsive profile interfaces that bug out and restart etc etc happens constantly its just a bad heavy experience.
On November 18 2017 01:53 ProMeTheus112 wrote: To be fair it's the devs job to find problems and not have them in the game in the first place too. But whatever.
This is a statement that only one who has never worked on or near software development could make.
Nah actually I have done a bit of that in a way studied in that field, it doesn't matter though. Its the game company's job to go through enough QA that the product is polished before release. You don't have to agree to that if you don't want to I guess lol I'm not saying there is no discovering problems after and users reporting that, ofc yes, its just the level of quality you expect at first is for things to work, and then ofc as a dev you gotta test everything everywhere to make sure well everything appears to work very well everywhere before you ship it, before you sell it. of course How well you do this or not kinda determines how good a game company you are and the level of quality you are known to put out. of course
On November 18 2017 01:21 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Well I dont agree with you at all, complaints are a way to make your voice heard as a customer and to state your expectations, and a way to take a stance against a company that may be trying yet again to screw you over. It doesn't matter if we are not all giving feedback in the same way and 100% positivity is a very weak way of taking a stance against a company as greedy as blizzard. I sure hope you won't just keep bulking all negativity into uninformed whatever. If anything being positive all the time can be pretty damn uninformed too.
I'm sorry but I don't have to be ok with the state the game is that was sold to me. I am very informed about the whole situation and I am not just going to keep giving sheepy positive feedback, I'll be negative and even harsh if that's what I feel I'm getting from the company actions.
Besides it did make me stop playing the game as well as others, so obviously there is nothing very positive about the situation to players like me. You can't just tell players like me that we should just change our mind, accept it and play when we don't want that. If you don't like a game and you think it's bad you might just call it what it is.
One thing I dislike and many others too is guys who just like to be all honey sugar positive to the devs cause they like to get attention from that - as you know commonly called "white knights". Pose as the good nice guys when they're just being the opposite. Me and others have to take flak from guys like you because we care about the game and we'll make it known. In the meantime others are taking the easy counter stance to just make us look bad but we're the ones taking more risk^^ and we, or some of us, might just do this for the love of the game, so you should perhaps have some respect for that. We could be wrong about the company intents, or we could not be wrong. I know trends where I've seen them for years now, and I can tell you blizzard has been on its way to just turn games into cash cows and dilute qualities over time by switching them around and never giving satisfaction.
Let's not be naïve, crooked businesses are a thing, and you're not gonna get much done if you are too afraid of complaints and criticism.
Even if your boss is screwing around with you you better know not to just accept it and make a stand to it if you want to do things different^^ I think blizzard is a pretty disgusting business, and I won't refrain to say it when I think so.
ProMeTheus112, we aren't trying to white knight this situation. I completely agree that we can't be afraid of raising concerns or worship everything that blizzard does. That actually fucks us over and stymies progress.
I just find that the "fuck blizzard" attitude also does nothing. There's so much hate thrown around, blaming blizzard for splitting the community, ruining the BW scene, and not caring about the issues. People were so quick to throw SC:R under the bus because of a reddit post saying that the SC:R dev team got cut down.
In my opinion, this kind of attitude is as equally naive as looking at blizzard with rose tinted glasses. There is very little fruit that comes from both approaches, and it waylays efforts for constructive discussion.
Not saying that you are doing this, but some folks here tend to take things too far. I do respect your passion for the game and I also want blizzard to fix the problems you highlighted. In all my posts, I have not stinted from speaking about the problems and I have encouraged others to do the same. Thus, I find it erroneous that you would simply dismiss us as white knighters who are trying to get attention as "nice guys". We might be losers, but not quite as far as that.
On November 18 2017 02:02 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Yeah well I have had more issues than the lag to KR situation. But that too is a problem. Maybe some people are actually experiencing interfaces that actually work. Don't you get the matches registering wrong for example ? (ghost wins and losses?) or chat that won't work and you can't whisper ppl back and stuff? that's the kind of thing that I don't accept, and other stuff like unresponsive profile interfaces that bug out and restart etc etc happens constantly its just a bad heavy experience.
I did get ghost wins/losses for the first month or so the game was out. On every single game I got them. Since about early October I haven't seen those any more.
The things that bother me are:
-After a match it takes a solid 2 minutes or more for my rating change to be displayed. I don't even bother waiting for it anymore, but it's definitely something I'd like to know. -The new Chat UI/look. I have massive nostalgia for the old chat UI, it worked great and I loved interacting with people on it. This new one feels too much like SC2 to me (aka social isolation). -The default TR for custom games is set to 12 which means that everyone creates public games on TR12, which makes finding non-laggy 3v3/4v4 games difficult. (This is how I try to introduce my friends to the game) -Matchmaking doesn't let me race pick, or avoid ZvZ so I play a billion ZvZ games every day. (mostly just a personal problem haha) -Not being able to view history of players I've played against. The match history only shows details for the most recent game.
I'm sure the chat bug is extremely annoying, I don't do enough in chat for it to have affected me, but that's probably the biggest issue currently (and has reportedly been addressed in this most recent patch)
The issues I have with the game are relatively minor and things that I hope are ironed out in time. But, they are also things I'm not overly concerned with to the point that it is detrimental to my experience.
I'd also like to clarify that I am NOT saying that there are no valid concerns in this thread or that people should just accept the product we've been given.
On November 18 2017 01:21 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Well I dont agree with you at all, complaints are a way to make your voice heard as a customer and to state your expectations, and a way to take a stance against a company that may be trying yet again to screw you over. It doesn't matter if we are not all giving feedback in the same way and 100% positivity is a very weak way of taking a stance against a company as greedy as blizzard. I sure hope you won't just keep bulking all negativity into uninformed whatever. If anything being positive all the time can be pretty damn uninformed too.
I'm sorry but I don't have to be ok with the state the game is that was sold to me. I am very informed about the whole situation and I am not just going to keep giving sheepy positive feedback, I'll be negative and even harsh if that's what I feel I'm getting from the company actions.
Besides it did make me stop playing the game as well as others, so obviously there is nothing very positive about the situation to players like me. You can't just tell players like me that we should just change our mind, accept it and play when we don't want that. If you don't like a game and you think it's bad you might just call it what it is.
One thing I dislike and many others too is guys who just like to be all honey sugar positive to the devs cause they like to get attention from that - as you know commonly called "white knights". Pose as the good nice guys when they're just being the opposite. Me and others have to take flak from guys like you because we care about the game and we'll make it known. In the meantime others are taking the easy counter stance to just make us look bad but we're the ones taking more risk^^ and we, or some of us, might just do this for the love of the game, so you should perhaps have some respect for that. We could be wrong about the company intents, or we could not be wrong. I know trends where I've seen them for years now, and I can tell you blizzard has been on its way to just turn games into cash cows and dilute qualities over time by switching them around and never giving satisfaction.
Let's not be naïve, crooked businesses are a thing, and you're not gonna get much done if you are too afraid of complaints and criticism.
Even if your boss is screwing around with you you better know not to just accept it and make a stand to it if you want to do things different^^ I think blizzard is a pretty disgusting business, and I won't refrain to say it when I think so.
ProMeTheus112, we aren't trying to white knight this situation. I completely agree that we can't be afraid of raising concerns or worship everything that blizzard does. That actually fucks us over and stymies progress.
I just find that the "fuck blizzard" attitude also does nothing. There's so much hate thrown around, blaming blizzard for splitting the community, ruining the BW scene, and not caring about the issues. People were so quick to throw SC:R under the bus because of a reddit post saying that the SC:R dev team got cut down.
In my opinion, this kind of attitude is as equally naive as looking at blizzard with rose tinted glasses. There is very little fruit that comes from both approaches, and it waylays efforts for constructive discussion.
Not saying that you are doing this, but some folks here tend to take things too far. I do respect your passion for the game and I also want blizzard to fix the problems you highlighted. In all my posts, I have not stinted from speaking about the problems and I have encouraged others to do the same. Thus, I find it erroneous that you would simply dismiss us as white knighters who are trying to get attention as "nice guys". We might be losers, but not quite as far as that.
Definitely agree with this and thanks for clarifying. This is indeed the perspective I was looking to endorse, just worded much more eloquently haha.
Not directed at blizzard specifically, but I think the main problem that the gaming community faces is the lack of understanding how games are coded and software is created.
On November 18 2017 01:53 ProMeTheus112 wrote: To be fair it's the devs job to find problems and not have them in the game in the first place too. But whatever.
This is a statement that only one who has never worked on or near software development could make.
Eh I think it's totally fair to say SC:R was released in below-acceptable state in terms of features and bugs.
What we should be cautious about is criticizing the speed at which issues are being addressed, because we have barely any insight into the process. That said, creating a general sense of urgency for Blizzard through sustained constructive criticism is part of the community's job.
On November 17 2017 12:08 GrantTheAnt wrote: I've been wanting to jump into this thread for a couple of days but haven't found the time. There are some interesting points that deserve more info, so here goes (in no particular order):
* The OP concerns: first, I'd say those tweets referenced are from September and to be fair we've done a lot of work on MM latency since the launch in mid-August, including the DTR system, and both feedback and data has been very positive. We see around 1% of games are running in the lowest turn rate due to latency, and almost 85% in the highest now. This is not to say that there isn't more work to be done on the MM - we have more plans (including the diagnostic tool) and we'll keep focusing on the games that are performing poorly.
The reddit thread referenced should be taken with a large grain of salt. There is quite a lot of lost in translation moments in that thread for whatever reason. For example, I can say that our engineering team is the same size as it has always been. Sure, the art team is not doing a huge amount of SCR any more, but that's expected given that the art is done apart of tweaks. So *overall* the SCR team is smaller now, but on the engineering side (which is what matters for all of these issues) we're technically larger since a couple of senior engineers have been added to the Classic server team, one of which will spend the bulk of his time on SCR. There are no plans to disband the SCR team or anything of that nature. We're still here, we're still working on the game every single day. And even though we may not have played the game every day for the last 20 years like some folks here, I promise you that we treasure the game just as much, and want to see it as the best product it can be.
* Replays on profile - we're working on this right now.
* Chat bug - we rolled out a change to the spam filtering algorithm yesterday. I've asked for feedback on the Blizzard forum, if anyone sees it still occurring. There are no reports of it still being active right now.
* /f m for Blizzard friends - this is going through QA right now. It should be coming soon.
* Friends following ("abc has entered StarCraft, left StarCraft, entered game xyz") for Blizzard friends - this is also going through QA right now.
* Battlenet UI responsiveness. We're reworking the technical side of the UI to improve responsiveness. We have a small change coming very soon, and a much larger change which we're working on at the moment.
* "Patches are coming slower now". We're on patch 11 in around 13 weeks.
* Regional social (friends/chat). Unfortunately, at this stage, this is how all Blizzard services work (in the same way as gateways), so our hands are tied on this one for now. All I can say is that we've raised the topic internally at Blizzard to the relevant teams so they're aware of our suggestions.
* Our priorities in general: I've talked about this on the Blizzard forums, but StarCraft is many things to many people. They often have competing priorities. Some people hate that we worked to reduce the realtime lighting requirements; other people love it. Some people don't care about EUD at all; other people only ever played SC with EUD. Some people are still impacted by MM latency; other people say it's perfectly fine now. We try to service all groups and not leave anyone out. We receive feedback and requests from many different sources and it's impossible to work on everything at once. So we triage. And I understand that it's frustrating when we're not servicing the issue that's most important to you. I also know that we don't always get it right. Sometimes we've gotten the priorities wrong, and one thing we're doing to improve on that is expanding our network of reliable community sources and to open direct communication lines with them.
* On timeframes: we generally don't talk specifically about timeframes, because once a date is out there it becomes an iron clad guarantee, which can be tough to deliver on all the time given the nature of game dev.
* We did not coerce/force other servers to shutdown. We have a lot of respect for the work that Fish did over the years for the BW community.
* On global MM generally: there are some routes that are particularly bad - EU to Korea for example. The route between those regions is so bad that internet traffic tends to route the other way around the world, which is not ideal for low latency. So this leads to 2 obvious questions:
* Why global MM and not regional? As you guys know, SC is somewhat unique in that a large portion of the playerbase is in one region, and the playerbase in general is not in the scale of the Hearthstones of this world. Regional MM outside of Korea would have meant very long queue times. We already see some complaints for queue times - they would be far longer under a regional MM. In short, queue times and latency are in direct competition with each other.
Also, in another sense, the MM is kind of regional - in the sense that the MM will try very hard to match you with someone close to your MMR and close to you geographically. If you're getting matched on the other side of the world, it means there was no one else closer in a reasonable MMR range, and additionally that the MM predicted no one suitable would be available in the near future. In short, if you're matched with someone a long way away, without a global MM there would be no match at all.
* Why not rewrite the net code to a client-server model and host the servers ourselves? We looked at this early on, but the SC code contains certain interdependencies. Changing one system can potentially impact another. Changing something as fundamental as the network layer carried a significant risk of changing the way SC played, which was a dealbreaker for us. Our general policy was to leave the core of SC alone, and make changes around it, so as not to break or change the delicate genius of the game. We're doing some preliminary investigative work towards a system that may have a somewhat similar effect to this without affecting the SC net code directly.
Building a global MM was a much more difficult undertaking than a regional one, but we believe it's the right one for SC globally. Maybe, ultimately, we'll have to surrender on one or both of the above, but we've made good strides on improving the MM latency since launch, and we're rolling out new improvements all the time. We still have some rabbits left in the hat, and I believe we should run them down before we jump to a last resort.
Wow, this has been quite the long post, but hopefully it gives at least some context to the decisions we're making, and some level of confidence that we're working hard on making SCR the game that you all (and we) want it to be, regardless of where you stand on it right now. As always, your feedback is extremely helpful and I appreciate the time you guys take to talk to us and make this an awesome gaming community.
Wow, Faust got absolutely obliterated. Lay off the Benadryl for a while bud LMAO XD
Petition to rename Grant's account name to GrantTheGOAT
On November 18 2017 02:02 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Yeah well I have had more issues than the lag to KR situation. But that too is a problem. Maybe some people are actually experiencing interfaces that actually work. Don't you get the matches registering wrong for example ? (ghost wins and losses?) or chat that won't work and you can't whisper ppl back and stuff? that's the kind of thing that I don't accept, and other stuff like unresponsive profile interfaces that bug out and restart etc etc happens constantly its just a bad heavy experience.
I did get ghost wins/losses for the first month or so the game was out. On every single game I got them. Since about early October I haven't seen those any more.
The things that bother me are:
-After a match it takes a solid 2 minutes or more for my rating change to be displayed. I don't even bother waiting for it anymore, but it's definitely something I'd like to know. -The new Chat UI/look. I have massive nostalgia for the old chat UI, it worked great and I loved interacting with people on it. This new one feels too much like SC2 to me (aka social isolation). -The default TR for custom games is set to 12 which means that everyone creates public games on TR12, which makes finding non-laggy 3v3/4v4 games difficult. (This is how I try to introduce my friends to the game) -Matchmaking doesn't let me race pick, or avoid ZvZ so I play a billion ZvZ games every day. (mostly just a personal problem haha) -Not being able to view history of players I've played against. The match history only shows details for the most recent game.
I'm sure the chat bug is extremely annoying, I don't do enough in chat for it to have affected me, but that's probably the biggest issue currently (and has reportedly been addressed in this most recent patch)
The issues I have with the game are relatively minor and things that I hope are ironed out in time. But, they are also things I'm not overly concerned with to the point that it is detrimental to my experience.
I'd also like to clarify that I am NOT saying that there are no valid concerns in this thread or that people should just accept the product we've been given.
Not directed at blizzard specifically, but I think the main problem that the gaming community faces from the gaming corporations is the emphasis on profit rather than releasing games which are complete and without additional DLC or microtransactions.
I hope that every company in the gaming industry that is "profit driven" goes bankrupt in the long-term due to excessive profits in the short-term especially in the form of lost fans and lost viewership on twitch.tv (or afreeca) because gamers are very loyal to companies that release great games.
Whenever these gaming companies learn to do what the community wants, that will finally be when we are able to make them serve the best interests of the gaming community rather than serving the needs of their executives and shareholders.
Until then, it's back to the drawing board!
It's silly to assume that companies wont be profit driven. The purpose of a company is to acquire capital. We can hope that marketing high quality products that deliver to the games community is the optimal way to make profit because it will produce the most amount of paying costumers in the long term, if it is than eventually companies will realize this and behave the way the gaming community would hope for. To be fair I think blizzard is still quite reasonable in balancing their need for profitability with producing quality products unlike many other large studios, the fact that blizzard will outright cancel games if they are not up to their standard demonstrates this, Blizzard is a company that values it's reputation and community. I don't think that selling skins in sc2 detracts from this point, although I am upset with the sorry state of SC-R matchmaking at launch I feel like this significantly hampered what could have been a large injection of new players into the broodwar scene.
On November 18 2017 02:02 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Yeah well I have had more issues than the lag to KR situation. But that too is a problem. Maybe some people are actually experiencing interfaces that actually work. Don't you get the matches registering wrong for example ? (ghost wins and losses?) or chat that won't work and you can't whisper ppl back and stuff? that's the kind of thing that I don't accept, and other stuff like unresponsive profile interfaces that bug out and restart etc etc happens constantly its just a bad heavy experience.
I haven't had ghosting wins/losses since September. If you are getting it still, well I imagine Blizzard isn't aware because there was a patch where it was stated this is fixed and I know it was fixed for me anyway. Don't chat people on there so I can't comment on that.
On November 18 2017 02:02 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Yeah well I have had more issues than the lag to KR situation. But that too is a problem. Maybe some people are actually experiencing interfaces that actually work. Don't you get the matches registering wrong for example ? (ghost wins and losses?) or chat that won't work and you can't whisper ppl back and stuff? that's the kind of thing that I don't accept, and other stuff like unresponsive profile interfaces that bug out and restart etc etc happens constantly its just a bad heavy experience.
I haven't had ghosting wins/losses since September. If you are getting it still, well I imagine Blizzard isn't aware because there was a patch where it was stated this is fixed and I know it was fixed for me anyway. Don't chat people on there so I can't comment on that.
Sometimes it take 5-10 minutes to update your wins and score but they are being properly recorded as far as I know.
On November 18 2017 01:53 ProMeTheus112 wrote: To be fair it's the devs job to find problems and not have them in the game in the first place too. But whatever.
This is a statement that only one who has never worked on or near software development could make.
Eh I think it's totally fair to say SC:R was released in below-acceptable state in terms of features and bugs.
What we should be cautious about is criticizing the speed at which issues are being addressed, because we have barely any insight into the process. That said, creating a general sense of urgency for Blizzard through sustained constructive criticism is part of the community's job.
Why though? I buy a product that is objectively crap and I shouldn't be able to voice my disugst at the speed? They added stuff which never were a problem and I should be just fine and patient?
If this was a non-profit organization it might be different. I really see no point whatsoever to be patient with Blizzard. If this was any other product or any other company, they'd rightfully get a ton of shit flung at them.
On November 18 2017 01:53 ProMeTheus112 wrote: To be fair it's the devs job to find problems and not have them in the game in the first place too. But whatever.
This is a statement that only one who has never worked on or near software development could make.
Eh I think it's totally fair to say SC:R was released in below-acceptable state in terms of features and bugs.
What we should be cautious about is criticizing the speed at which issues are being addressed, because we have barely any insight into the process. That said, creating a general sense of urgency for Blizzard through sustained constructive criticism is part of the community's job.
Not really, the bugs in Brood War are features. They had to port all of them over to Remastered, mix the new battle.net system with the old. Which has to fuck over the chat quite badly. There is a interesting line: "We looked at this early on, but the SC code contains certain interdependencies. Changing one system can potentially impact another. Changing something as fundamental as the network layer carried a significant risk of changing the way SC played, which was a dealbreaker for us. ". And thats exactly the problem. Every change would made you guys cry. No changes = No improvements. So they had to release an outdated product with fresh paint. But people also make it much worse as it is
If your wins and losses aren't being recorded, you should delete account and remake. You lose all your previous games but your problem should be fixed. Source: Happened to me, and I contacted Blizzard for support, this is what they told me to do, and ti worked.
didn't read all comments, but I want 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 ladder. Also, Grade rank system. it has been more than 3 months, and blizzard should reset the season asap because no one really plays ladder games above 2800++. 3 months of data should be totally enough to make a grade rank system by now.
since this ladder system keeps going on, expro on afreeca platform pretty much play games with their other streamers(spon-matches), and that shit pretty much separate the community. I, as a top level amateur player, feel like too isolated, and i don't get much of practice(korean twitch viewers hate afreeca btw). Ladder games are really meaningless since those expros don't play ladder games.
this current sc:r system pretty much made me to somewhat move to PUBG and enjoy my life.
Unfortunately I am probably moving on from the game and community after this weekend. I truly hope to come back when things are smoothed over, but currently this remains to be one of my worst video game experiences ever. I've learned quite a bit from this topic: I've gained a lot more respect for the development team, have better insight into the bugs that plague SC:R, and learned about how other people in the community feel regarding the same issues as I do- whether they agree or disagree. As much as StarCraft has been an integral part of my life, I'm just not happy with StarCraft: Remastered and after a lot of thinking the past two days, I've decided that instead of being upset, I should find other games that make me happy.
To give a brief summary of my decision: I am a long time StarCraft player since 2006 (or maybe even before, I can't remember) and recently came back when I was told about Shieldbattery from a longtime friend. This was in September 2016 that I resumed playing from a long break. From September 2016 to January 2017 I played a ton - thousands of games. Between Shieldbattery, ICCup, and Fish, I estimate I played close to over 2,000 games at least in that three month period. According to the auto save folder from Shieldbattery (which came out in an update a month after I started playing in my most active month, so this doesn't even hold all my games on the server) I have 1,182 replay files. I can't even remember all my smurfs I played on ICCup, and Fish no longer exists, so you'll just have to believe me that I played a ton on those servers too. + Show Spoiler +
Now to my current experience - according to my StarCraft: Remastered profiles, I have 1069 ladder games combined between them all. That is an average of 11 ladder games a day since release, and this is not counting the hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of UMS I have played. Basically, I have played a fucking ton of StarCraft before and after Remastered release, is the point I'm trying to make here. I don't know how, I don't know why, but Remastered has been a completely worse experience for me than 1.16.1 when it comes to latency, and this is coming from someone who played easily a 1,000+ games on a Korean server, and a server with a large South American/Eastern European population pre 1.18.
And here is the kicker - nothing changed on my part. Same computer, same router, same internet. I do constant ping checks during my games and my ping is always very good. I do not lag on any other online games, and have no troubles with my internet connection minus rare moments when I stream. Hours before the most recent patch (1.20.10) I played on what felt like two turn rate 4 games in a row, but have no way to actually confirm it. I thought whatever, I'll call it a night and try again tomorrow. Well, after playing 4 games literally hours ago, I had two games convert themselves to turn rate 6 and it was all in all a miserable experience. It also doesn't help that it seems to downgrade the turn rate, but never increase it.
I checked my ping during the games (this is how I always do it, I just make a large number of pings to google to see if I'm spiking or having any packet loss) and it was as good as it always is, which made the situation even more frustrating.
Unfortunately enough is enough for me. This post is not meant to make any claims for anyone other than my own experience. Despite saying I am trying to steer negativity away from this thread, I really can't help but post with my feelings on my sleeve because I've been passionate about this community and game since I was a young kid. So this is not a post to really convince anyone or sway opinions, nor do I think most people actually care if I quit (I was not a notable foreigner by any means). I just want to share my experience as some others have in this thread. As much as I want to help and continue thoughtful discussion as was my original intention of this thread, I really can't dig up any motivation whatsoever when the game is in an unplayable state for me that is completely out of my hands.
On November 18 2017 13:07 SCC-Faust wrote: Unfortunately I am probably moving on from the game and community after this weekend. I truly hope to come back when things are smoothed over, but currently this remains to be one of my worst video game experiences ever. I've learned quite a bit from this topic: I've gained a lot more respect for the development team, have better insight into the bugs that plague SC:R, and learned about how other people in the community feel regarding the same issues as I do- whether they agree or disagree. As much as StarCraft has been an integral part of my life, I'm just not happy with StarCraft: Remastered and after a lot of thinking the past two days, I've decided that instead of being upset, I should find other games that make me happy.
To give a brief summary of my decision: I am a long time StarCraft player since 2006 (or maybe even before, I can't remember) and recently came back when I was told about Shieldbattery from a longtime friend. This was in September 2016 that I resumed playing from a long break. From September 2016 to January 2017 I played a ton - thousands of games. Between Shieldbattery, ICCup, and Fish, I estimate I played close to over 2,000 games at least in that three month period. According to the auto save folder from Shieldbattery (which came out in an update a month after I started playing in my most active month, so this doesn't even hold all my games on the server) I have 1,182 replay files. I can't even remember all my smurfs I played on ICCup, and Fish no longer exists, so you'll just have to believe me that I played a ton on those servers too. + Show Spoiler +
Now to my current experience - according to my StarCraft: Remastered profiles, I have 1069 ladder games combined between them all. That is an average of 11 ladder games a day since release, and this is not counting the hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of UMS I have played. Basically, I have played a fucking ton of StarCraft before and after Remastered release, is the point I'm trying to make here. I don't know how, I don't know why, but Remastered has been a completely worse experience for me than 1.16.1 when it comes to latency, and this is coming from someone who played easily a 1,000+ games on a Korean server, and a server with a large South American/Eastern European population pre 1.18.
And here is the kicker - nothing changed on my part. Same computer, same router, same internet. I do constant ping checks during my games and my ping is always very good. I do not lag on any other online games, and have no troubles with my internet connection minus rare moments when I stream. Hours before the most recent patch (1.20.10) I played on what felt like two turn rate 4 games in a row, but have no way to actually confirm it. I thought whatever, I'll call it a night and try again tomorrow. Well, after playing 4 games literally hours ago, I had two games convert themselves to turn rate 6 and it was all in all a miserable experience. It also doesn't help that it seems to downgrade the turn rate, but never increase it.
I checked my ping during the games (this is how I always do it, I just make a large number of pings to google to see if I'm spiking or having any packet loss) and it was as good as it always is, which made the situation even more frustrating.
Unfortunately enough is enough for me. This post is not meant to make any claims for anyone other than my own experience. Despite saying I am trying to steer negativity away from this thread, I really can't help but post with my feelings on my sleeve because I've been passionate about this community and game since I was a young kid. So this is not a post to really convince anyone or sway opinions, nor do I think most people actually care if I quit (I was not a notable foreigner by any means). I just want to share my experience as some others have in this thread. As much as I want to help and continue thoughtful discussion as was my original intention of this thread, I really can't dig up any motivation whatsoever when the game is in an unplayable state for me that is completely out of my hands.
Sorry to see you go But, if SC:R is causing you that much stress I'd definitely say it's for the best to give it a break for some time. I hope to see you back in the future though!
Just for clarity, pinging Google isn't actually a good test for something like this. The connection being p2p means that you're going to be connecting to people all over the world, so you'd need to find out where they are from and at the very least ping somewhere in that country. (Packet loss is often something that happens on one of the hops along the way from one location to another, so you'd need to emulate the route your connection would take. And, have your opponent do the same)
On November 18 2017 10:01 LaStScan wrote: didn't read all comments, but I want 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 ladder. Also, Grade rank system. it has been more than 3 months, and blizzard should reset the season asap because no one really plays ladder games above 2800++. 3 months of data should be totally enough to make a grade rank system by now.
since this ladder system keeps going on, expro on afreeca platform pretty much play games with their other streamers(spon-matches), and that shit pretty much separate the community. I, as a top level amateur player, feel like too isolated, and i don't get much of practice(korean twitch viewers hate afreeca btw). Ladder games are really meaningless since those expros don't play ladder games.
this current sc:r system pretty much made me to somewhat move to PUBG and enjoy my life.
What do you think a ladder reset is gonna do for the pros who are already rank 1-15? They are going to be 1-15 again
On November 18 2017 10:01 LaStScan wrote: didn't read all comments, but I want 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 ladder. Also, Grade rank system. it has been more than 3 months, and blizzard should reset the season asap because no one really plays ladder games above 2800++. 3 months of data should be totally enough to make a grade rank system by now.
since this ladder system keeps going on, expro on afreeca platform pretty much play games with their other streamers(spon-matches), and that shit pretty much separate the community. I, as a top level amateur player, feel like too isolated, and i don't get much of practice(korean twitch viewers hate afreeca btw). Ladder games are really meaningless since those expros don't play ladder games.
this current sc:r system pretty much made me to somewhat move to PUBG and enjoy my life.
What do you think a ladder reset is gonna do for the pros who are already rank 1-15? They are going to be 1-15 again
They'll have to play games to get there though. So he'll have some time to play against them
wait a minute, the game now changes turnrate by itself? so the worst nightmare of having a random observer in an old obs map changing the latency, because he feels like making himself get hated by everybody is a good idea, is now an unavoidable feature? this is for ladder games only or all games?. this has to be reverted immediately.
On November 18 2017 14:11 Bakuryu wrote: wait a minute, the game now changes turnrate by itself? so the worst nightmare of having a random observer in an old obs map changing the latency, because he feels like making himself get hated by everybody is a good idea, is now an unavoidable feature? this is for ladder games only or all games?. this has to be reverted immediately.
It's for ladder games only.
Edit: It's also been in place for a few weeks now, They just made a change that it announces when it makes a change.
After reading this entire thread, and as coming from my perspective as a software developer, I can say this.
The community is really healthy right now. We have true fans of the game complaining because they are passionate about it. The fact that they complain shows that they care.
We have developers of the game chiming in to explain things in a detailed manner (software development is hard boys). The fact that they come here means they care.
The saddest thing for a game is when no one says anything. Silence. Posts from a year ago with no response. No one cares to play and no one cares to fix.
Look at the game from a 10000 ft perspective and appreciate that this game is still alive after 20+ years and appreciate that.
I have the same gut feeling as SCC-Faust regarding the lag. During 1.16 I was able to play vs most Koreans on high latency and #L2. Now I have to play the majority of ladder games with what feels like 0.5s delay.
The release of SC:R basically screwed the long-time foreign players the hardest. For most of them, everything was working fine when Blizzard didn't give a shit. But now because they have enough skill they only get matched against Koreans after 10-15 games on ladder and then will never play a lag free game on low latency again. Custom games are not an option either because barely anyone will see it with the multiple servers. Basically, I don't play much ladder anymore aside from the occasional 1-2 games to see if something changed. And even though I don't care about it much, not having a 2v2 ladder anymore compared to all those years before is also a negative point.
Regarding the ladder they really should check the connection before game and not just increase the latency until there is no lag and the turn rate should at maximum be reduced to 8 in ladder games. Turn rates below that don't even allow for basic micro anymore plus whatever Blizzard screwed up with the input registering like a control group getting overwritten if you select it to fast after assigning another one gets worse.
What I am really angry about is the guy who apparently thought it was okay to release this bug of art prematurely. Granted, the lag issues would have come up even with a later release, because you need a larger player pool for that, but all the problems regarding the bnet interface are really inexcusable. Releasing a game without a working chat or basic commands like /friend or /where and having to wait 20s to get your match results?
I guess Blizzards strategy nowadays is to make the beta testers pay for beta testing.
imo the higher ups at blizzard likely want us to stop playing SC:R and buy hearthstone/overwatch etc and go into microtransactions, also for the players of these other games to just quickly buy SC:R and then go back to microtransaction super overpriced games they don't care about starcraft they also don't care about making great games that you play for a long time at the top quality from the start etc they also want to shut down public chat spaces as much as they can so that we have less space and opportunity to criticize them, thats why they say no to lobbys when asked at blizzcon and present their new social schematics that don't really offer anything compared to proper chat, and why they avoided as much as possible including proper chat into each of their games since they merged with activision that is the reason for the dumbed down social features and mandatory blizzard adware and everything else the company was screwed by deals made between mike morhaime and robert kotick for their profit and the shareholders. These two guys are probably 100% selfish, and liars.
Just yesterday I played a ladder game vs a guy from Estonia. During the course of the game The Turn rate was first adjusted to 14 and then reduced in a couple of minutes to 8,then 6 and even 4. I live in Germany, so it's not that far. I never had the kind of problem on ICC, shieldbattery or fish.
But what annoys me the most is how bad the game runs on low end Computers. My PC is Pretty old, but still good bit better than the minimum requirements. I can't play the game in HD. And the SD graphics are appalling. It's very upsetting to play the game with graphics that are officially worse than the original one. When I switch to HD interface gets laggy. So for me I paid €15, which is not a lot granted, and effectively its a downgrade.
Honestly I don't believe that Blizzard was unable to emulate the SD graphics one to one. Certainly there were some problems, but I imagine the sd graphics where a 0 priority.
I hope the Blizzard fixes it, so I can at least play the game in the proper SD graphics.
Only reason I'd ever buy Remastered is if it supported 16-9 with old graphics. Playing 16-9 with Michael Bay explosions and neon light buildings - no thank you.
To me 16-9 only in HD seems like strategical decision to get more serious streamers and casters play HD for the benefit of having 16-9. A feature to help promote their new product, because flashy graphics is obviously much more appealing to younger players than old, SD graphics. Which is super ironic to me considering how bad the neon light pre-order skins look. Total marketing fail right there imo. The neon lights still affect tournaments nowadays, so bad impressions that don't help sells of the product continue. You just cannot tell me with a straight face that the majority will see that and think: "Omg, those graphics are so good, I need to have that game!". TL;DR: The HD graphics honestly don't look bad, but the skins are a huge fail. From a business point of view I cannot even begin to understand it.
Something relatively important that I haven't seen mentioned is that the HD makes it impossible to target units at the edge of the map (perhaps that's only an obs-mode issue though.)
adjusting tr during the game is nice, but i would not like to see it to go down more than tr8. :/ i want blizzard to maximum lowest tr in ladder game should be 8.
On November 19 2017 05:12 LaStScan wrote: adjusting tr during the game is nice, but i would not like to see it to go down more than tr8. :/ i want blizzard to maximum lowest tr in ladder game should be 8.
Agree with this. Games below tr8 are not even worth playing. Also something that I thought existed (or this may be from a dream) is during 1.18 beta you could actually put a latency restriction on games you hosted. Why is this not a thing for ranked? I know that developers have to choose between queue times and an acceptable form of latency and that players will be on either side of the fence here on which is more important to them - so why not add a feature that allows people to compromise on what they want more? Also, I feel like this issue is kind of misrepresented... I really do not believe for a moment that the majority of the community cares more about queue times than getting in games that are actually playable.
tr8+high already feels like original bnet latency. That`s ridicoulus. They promised some patches, they delivered, now the UI is complete garbage, laggy, shitty, when I hit a button it registers like I`m pressing alt, when I`m not, and so on. I completely agree with Cryoc.
Thanks for the support guys, we really appreciate it.
Some answers to a couple of other questions I've noticed:
Why not merge gateways (specifically USE, USW)? This was another thing we considered right at the start of designing out the integration with modern Battle.net. Here are a couple of things to consider immediately:
1. What if my name is on USE but not USW? What if someone else has my name on USW? The obvious answer is to internally prefix/suffix my name, but remember, whatever the final name is needs to fit within the restrictions of names in the old chat server. So if my name has already used the maximum bytes available, what then? And yes, we could rewrite or augment the chat server to remove such old restrictions, but that is quite the undertaking and it also hits on point #2 below. Another option would be to force me to rename my profile on next login, but that's not a great user experience (who gets to keep their name, and who has to rename?).
2. It's easy to forget that the original chat server is shared between 4 other games. Whatever solution we come up would very likely require every game to be patched. A couple of those we've patched in the last couple of years, so it's not unreasonable that we could patch them, but there are other cases where we really haven't looked at the source code in a very long time. Even getting to the point of releasing any kind of patch on each of those is a serious time investment with substantial risk.
TLDR - although we agreed there were compelling reasons to merge USE & USW, the additional risk and time investment was pushing us well above what was already a very complicated and intricate subproject. So we decided to table the idea and circle back to it when we felt we could tackle it.
"After a match it takes a solid 2 minutes or more for my rating change to be displayed. I don't even bother waiting for it anymore, but it's definitely something I'd like to know."
I think you're referring to the toast post-game screen here. This is part of the Battle.net UI responsiveness that we're working on optimizing right now. We'll have a small improvement coming soon (which should impact on this screen), but a larger change is in the works too.
Finally, Faust, I am surprised to hear that you're experiencing more latency than you ever used to, assuming you're playing the same custom games. Once you're in game, assuming the host does not require a proxy server, there is no server involved and it's a direct connection between you and your opponent (for 1v1). None of that code has changed in any material way, so it really should be the same experience as ever. Our network diag tool will show you if you need proxy server assistance when hosting games (coming soon). Since your setup hasn't changed, I wouldn't expect that to be the case. Once that's released, I'll be interested to hear the results and see if we can get to a better place with your latency woes.
As AManHasNoName mentioned, pinging google.com isn't a conclusive test. It does show that the network at your end is in good shape - you're not slowing it down by software/hardware/config like running over wifi, etc. - and also that your ISP is good. What really matters is your connection to the host player (or if you're the host, all the other players and observers), which comes down to the state of their network plus the physical routing between you (which unfortunately can be non-obvious, particularly in regions with many different countries).
Why not merge gateways (specifically USE, USW)? This was another thing we considered right at the start of designing out the integration with modern Battle.net. Here are a couple of things to consider immediately:
1. What if my name is on USE but not USW? What if someone else has my name on USW? The obvious answer is to internally prefix/suffix my name, but remember, whatever the final name is needs to fit within the restrictions of names in the old chat server. So if my name has already used the maximum bytes available, what then? And yes, we could rewrite or augment the chat server to remove such old restrictions, but that is quite the undertaking and it also hits on point #2 below. Another option would be to force me to rename my profile on next login, but that's not a great user experience (who gets to keep their name, and who has to rename?).
TLDR - although we agreed there were compelling reasons to merge USE & USW, the additional risk and time investment was pushing us well above what was already a very complicated and intricate subproject. So we decided to table the idea and circle back to it when we felt we could tackle it.
Re-name US West "South America" and US east "North America"
Thank you for your continued contribution. I would like to highlight one particular comment here:
Another option would be to force me to rename my profile on next login, but that's not a great user experience (who gets to keep their name, and who has to rename?).
Please believe me when I say this: any user experience regarding name changing and the like would be FAR offset by the ability to get more games, see more games available, interact with your friends, and basically play more and easier.
Right now, poor US East is basically unplayable. There's nothing there. Having just checked, there were FIVE games up, and all were random UMS games. NO melee game options being made to join. Creating a game resulted in no joiners, and this was at 2PM (Mountain) on a Saturday afternoon Instead of having people continue to try and login there and look for anything to do but be greeted by a ghost town, people would love to actually have fun.
If this fix is low effort, it would improve experience significantly for little cost and allow you to partially check off a tick on your list.
1. I would apply the following: whoever created his account first gets to keep the name, the other player has to rename.
2. The reason why many people have a much poorer experience in terms of latency/lag is because now you can and are forced to play anyone out of the entire player pool. This was never the case. If you had a bad experience with a player or a country you would be much more vigilant in the future of playing with him or people of that country again.
Not only that, but you also had the option of leaving without penalty during the first 2 minutes of the game if for whatever reason the game was lagging.
As far as I understand, now there is no such thing. You can play anyone regardless of the connection state between you and your opponent, and you don't have the luxury of leaving during the first 2 minutes without it negatively affecting your stats.
I have super nice ids on both US East and West (tOss etc.) and i wouldn't mind losing them in order to merge the servers and have a more active game. Our goal should be to unite the community as much as possible, that'll increase the longevity of the game. Honestly i'd merge EU/East/West into 1 server.
"2. The reason why many people have a much poorer experience in terms of latency/lag is because now you can and are forced to play anyone out of the entire player pool. This was never the case." It was never the case because you simply picked your opponent in the past. And you knew your opponents anyway. There were still problems. There is a sad reality: There arent many high level foreigner. When i logged on Shield Battery or ICCUP and opend D- Games, people like SCC-Faust joined the game, pretending that he is new to the game. Which is clearly not the case. And the amount of Smurfs on iccup just prove one thing: People on top are bored. They either cant find equal skilled opponents. Or they dont want to play them because its alot of stress
On November 19 2017 07:43 Heyjoray wrote: When i logged on Shield Battery or ICCUP and opend D- Games, people like SCC-Faust joined the game, pretending that he is new to the game. Which is clearly not the case. And the amount of Smurfs on iccup just prove one thing: People on top are bored. They either cant find equal skilled opponents. Or they dont want to play them because its alot of stress
On November 19 2017 07:43 Heyjoray wrote: When i logged on Shield Battery or ICCUP and opend D- Games, people like SCC-Faust joined the game, pretending that he is new to the game. Which is clearly not the case. And the amount of Smurfs on iccup just prove one thing: People on top are bored. They either cant find equal skilled opponents. Or they dont want to play them because its alot of stress
To me, SC:R has been aweful and not only because of Blizzard.
Blizzard has his share of responsability with the lag in game, no 2vs2 ladder, no EUD ums... And it's probably the main issu for all of us.
But we also have a responsaibility as the foreign community. As a competitive player it was really painful to stay motivated to practice, those tournaments (except TL OPEN) are poorly administrated. We have like 30 competitive players and you make your tournament on invite ? What's the reasoning ? Inviting and allowing koreans to play in EVERY tournaments is also so dumb, we can't play vs them, there are too much lags and it's not even fun to watch a stomp in each final. When are you guys going to listen to players ? As a result, almost a lot of players stopped playing : ret, trutacz, adel, sarens, myself ...
So yea blizzard needs to fix this lag and add a 2vs2 ladder as soon as possible but we can easily improve the situation. Atleast for the players in tournaments and viewers.
On November 19 2017 07:43 Heyjoray wrote: When i logged on Shield Battery or ICCUP and opend D- Games, people like SCC-Faust joined the game, pretending that he is new to the game. Which is clearly not the case. And the amount of Smurfs on iccup just prove one thing: People on top are bored. They either cant find equal skilled opponents. Or they dont want to play them because its alot of stress
I've been playing my ladder games on turn rate 6 since the patch hit, even against people who are within 50-60 mile from me. In fact, I played against few people who are in same region as me (guys from 1-2 hour drive from my city to being in same state) and they were all "adjusted" to turn rate of 6 eventually in the beginning of the game.
Maybe its because I can see the turn rate now, but it feels like lag has gotten even worse than before. Its beyond frustrating when you consistently play against delay and have insane input delay every time you play. It saps any motivation to play out of you.
It doesnt really matter if opponent is 50 mile from you or 500 mile from you or 1000 mile from you. They all eventually get lowered to turn rate of 6.
Not having all the features from the teaser from pre-release is one thing, but being unable to play without lag months into release is really disappointing. Never imagined when i was switching over from sc2 that being able to play 1v1 without problem would be the #1 concern this much into release. It feels like im playing in an even worse australian server in sc2 every single game.
Then theres whole problem with 2v2 or more needing extra high latency to even be playable in, even if everyone in the room is from same city.
I would have thought remastered game included a remastered online experience that is befitting of a 2017 released game, but it still feels like 1998 with 90s internet connection to boot, on a modern machine.
The latency is so fucking bad. If the game is supposed to match you against people with whom you have a good connection, it's failing miserably. Almost every one of my games lags when they didn't on Fish server, and I could play any random Korean, so it feels like it's seeking out shit connections if anything.
Hey Grant! So cool that you are engaging with the community here on TL! That is really impressive, heartwarming, and promising at the same time.
Merging the servers is an absolute must. Let me come up with an analogy: if you had to choose between shooting a person or making him/her loose his/her favourite ring, what would you do? You'd make them loose the ring. Do not kill people / activity, make 'em loose id-s instead
Also, if it's too integrated into global blizzard battle.net system, just make everybody play on 1 server instead of actually merging them. Just remove two of eu/east/west options from the client to connect to, rename it only on the client side, there, problem fixed.
This "issue" of there being a US West and US East on games like War2 Battle Net Edition and thats why you can't merge servers is pretty lame.There is a korea server for Starcraft : Brood War that is not available for Warcraft 2 or Diablo yes? So just make an 'American' server for BW and leave the other games how they are.The advantages of pooling the playerbase outweigh the disadvantage of not being able to whisper/chat someone playing War3, which if they're using the blizzard app is no longer an issue anyway.
I also like the idea of one server and a huge lobby. When you log in you can choose the EU lobby, Global lobby (default), America lobby, Asia lobby, or Korea lobby (korea can have their own server though). You can set which one is your default as well. Have the games filter by latency or location, so you can always find relevant games. Have flags that show your location as well. Then everyone can be together.
And I think all of us would give up our precious ids if we could merge some of the servers. And keeping Korea separate is okay since they have a huge pop.
I'm sure this is easier said than done but I just wanted to agree with the server merge.
On November 19 2017 06:26 GrantTheAnt wrote: Thanks for the support guys, we really appreciate it.
Some answers to a couple of other questions I've noticed:
Why not merge gateways (specifically USE, USW)? This was another thing we considered right at the start of designing out the integration with modern Battle.net. Here are a couple of things to consider immediately:
1. What if my name is on USE but not USW? What if someone else has my name on USW? The obvious answer is to internally prefix/suffix my name, but remember, whatever the final name is needs to fit within the restrictions of names in the old chat server. So if my name has already used the maximum bytes available, what then? And yes, we could rewrite or augment the chat server to remove such old restrictions, but that is quite the undertaking and it also hits on point #2 below. Another option would be to force me to rename my profile on next login, but that's not a great user experience (who gets to keep their name, and who has to rename?).
2. It's easy to forget that the original chat server is shared between 4 other games. Whatever solution we come up would very likely require every game to be patched. A couple of those we've patched in the last couple of years, so it's not unreasonable that we could patch them, but there are other cases where we really haven't looked at the source code in a very long time. Even getting to the point of releasing any kind of patch on each of those is a serious time investment with substantial risk.
TLDR - although we agreed there were compelling reasons to merge USE & USW, the additional risk and time investment was pushing us well above what was already a very complicated and intricate subproject. So we decided to table the idea and circle back to it when we felt we could tackle it.
"After a match it takes a solid 2 minutes or more for my rating change to be displayed. I don't even bother waiting for it anymore, but it's definitely something I'd like to know."
I think you're referring to the toast post-game screen here. This is part of the Battle.net UI responsiveness that we're working on optimizing right now. We'll have a small improvement coming soon (which should impact on this screen), but a larger change is in the works too.
Finally, Faust, I am surprised to hear that you're experiencing more latency than you ever used to, assuming you're playing the same custom games. Once you're in game, assuming the host does not require a proxy server, there is no server involved and it's a direct connection between you and your opponent (for 1v1). None of that code has changed in any material way, so it really should be the same experience as ever. Our network diag tool will show you if you need proxy server assistance when hosting games (coming soon). Since your setup hasn't changed, I wouldn't expect that to be the case. Once that's released, I'll be interested to hear the results and see if we can get to a better place with your latency woes.
As AManHasNoName mentioned, pinging google.com isn't a conclusive test. It does show that the network at your end is in good shape - you're not slowing it down by software/hardware/config like running over wifi, etc. - and also that your ISP is good. What really matters is your connection to the host player (or if you're the host, all the other players and observers), which comes down to the state of their network plus the physical routing between you (which unfortunately can be non-obvious, particularly in regions with many different countries).
can you please comment on: performance issues for low-end PC's, current state of SD graphics and if the dev team has any intention to rework the SD graphics? thanks.
main points i would like to bring up here are:
- the launcher and whole bnet interface run very bad on low-end Computers, it takes ages for the launcher to start, the interface reacts very slow. I and many other players experience a good deal of hardware lag just using the launcher and bnet interface, unresponsiveness, CTD, etc.
- SD graphics are objectively worse than 1.6. SD graphics, it's very unenjoyable to play with them. SD does not support widescreen options. Users experience hardware lag ingame when using HD graphics that make competetive play impossible.
Cele, perhaps it helps if you add -launch to your Starcraft.exe shortcut. It allows you to skip the bnet app bs. Right click your shortcut - properties - now make target look like below and hit apply.
...\Starcraft.exe -launch
(However you will still need to Login before you can access Battle.Net®.)
On Win10 Starcraft.exe sits 'on top' of your desktop. It makes alt-tabbing not possible if you're only running Starcaft. You can get access to your taskbar by hitting Winkey+E, but even then I haven't found a way to access my desktop while runing Starcraft. It's very annoying. I hope that can be addressed in the future as well. (I'm talking about SC:BW, not SC:R if that matters)
On November 20 2017 01:35 Peeano wrote: Cele, perhaps it helps if you add -launch to your Starcraft.exe shortcut. It allows you to skip the bnet app bs. Right click your shortcut - properties - now make target look like below and hit apply.
...\Starcraft.exe -launch
(However you will still need to Login before you can access Battle.Net®.)
On Win10 Starcraft.exe sits 'on top' of your desktop. It makes alt-tabbing not possible if you're only running Starcaft. You can get access to your taskbar by hitting Winkey+E, but even then I haven't found a way to access my desktop while runing Starcraft. It's very annoying. I hope that can be addressed in the future as well. (I'm talking about SC:BW, not SC:R if that matters)
that's a nice tip thx, but if i get u right i still need to launch the app anyway in order to play on bnet? In that case, it doesn't make a difference for me. I don't play offline at all atm.
Or can i log in via the login screen on the bnet interface ingame?
Oh my god it's working, thx so much Peeano! Oh my god im so happy i don't have to deal with that launcher anymore, you won't believe xD Thx a lot really mate! Hahaha!
Yeah I've streamed StarCraft the past two days. I dunno if something changed, or what, but I had good experiences with latency. Still some tr 6 games, but a huge improvement from the past two weeks of playing.
On November 21 2017 15:51 SCC-Faust wrote: Yeah I've streamed StarCraft the past two days. I dunno if something changed, or what, but I had good experiences with latency. Still some tr 6 games, but a huge improvement from the past two weeks of playing.
still getting god awful turn rate 6 here. Never a ladder game without it.
What works for me when in SC, the way that I "tab out" is I have some other window open, like Explorer. If I have something else open, then there's something else to alt-tab to. If there's nothing else open, it just doesn't work and you're stuck with SC.
Also, if you have 2 monitors, the alt-tabbing becomes easier since you can alt-tab to the other monitor, but the only way to actually get your taskbar on top of SC is to have an open thing on the same monitor as SC - otherwise, it'll still lay on top of your taskbar.
I think Blizzard if they want to improve SCR, they have to cooperate with ESL, IEM or some big organizate in worldwide to put SCR in. This the completely plan to grow up the tournament, leage system, some pro team will open SCR and the community will grow up.
On November 21 2017 18:31 Radivel-X17 wrote: @Cele
What works for me when in SC, the way that I "tab out" is I have some other window open, like Explorer. If I have something else open, then there's something else to alt-tab to. If there's nothing else open, it just doesn't work and you're stuck with SC.
Also, if you have 2 monitors, the alt-tabbing becomes easier since you can alt-tab to the other monitor, but the only way to actually get your taskbar on top of SC is to have an open thing on the same monitor as SC - otherwise, it'll still lay on top of your taskbar.
Yeah, you can open things with win+1/2/3/4 or win+E for explorer then alt-tab to that, it's annoying but it works
imo, its ridiculous we are still having basic 1v1 problems in a game 3 months into release, not to mention other miscellaneous issues such as not having most of features from pre-release teasers, eud, lag in multiple-people room, broken whispering system, ect.
On November 22 2017 13:04 jinjin5000 wrote: imo, its ridiculous we are still having basic 1v1 problems in a game 3 months into release, not to mention other miscellaneous issues such as not having most of features from pre-release teasers, eud, lag in multiple-people room, broken whispering system, ect.
On November 22 2017 13:04 jinjin5000 wrote: imo, its ridiculous we are still having basic 1v1 problems in a game 3 months into release, not to mention other miscellaneous issues such as not having most of features from pre-release teasers, eud, lag in multiple-people room, broken whispering system, ect.
The price you have to pay for a reawankened mummy
The game had less technical difficulties when it was community-driven, and these people had less resources available than Blizzard did. That's not a pay-off, that's just incompetence from Blizzard's part. This is the price the community pays for Blizzard wanting their cut within in industry, and as someone who's entire post history shows zero indications of somebody who was ever involved as a member of the Brood War community, I realize you find it quite difficult to empathize.
Go beat your drum elsewhere, because obviously you do not speak for the Brood War community.
On November 22 2017 13:04 jinjin5000 wrote: imo, its ridiculous we are still having basic 1v1 problems in a game 3 months into release, not to mention other miscellaneous issues such as not having most of features from pre-release teasers, eud, lag in multiple-people room, broken whispering system, ect.
The price you have to pay for a reawankened mummy
The troll is back, you dont feel tired about trolling BW forums, or you just cant live without dreaming with the mummy?
On November 22 2017 13:04 jinjin5000 wrote: imo, its ridiculous we are still having basic 1v1 problems in a game 3 months into release, not to mention other miscellaneous issues such as not having most of features from pre-release teasers, eud, lag in multiple-people room, broken whispering system, ect.
The price you have to pay for a reawankened mummy
The game had less technical difficulties when it was community-driven, and these people had less resources available than Blizzard did. That's not a pay-off, that's just incompetence from Blizzard's part. This is the price the community pays for Blizzard wanting their cut within in industry, and as someone who's entire post history shows zero indications of somebody who was ever involved as a member of the Brood War community, I realize you find it quite difficult to empathize.
Go beat your drum elsewhere, because obviously you do not speak for the Brood War community.
The community upgraded the graphic, integrated the game into the "New" battle.net system + matchmaking as well, right?
On November 22 2017 13:04 jinjin5000 wrote: imo, its ridiculous we are still having basic 1v1 problems in a game 3 months into release, not to mention other miscellaneous issues such as not having most of features from pre-release teasers, eud, lag in multiple-people room, broken whispering system, ect.
The price you have to pay for a reawankened mummy
The game had less technical difficulties when it was community-driven, and these people had less resources available than Blizzard did. That's not a pay-off, that's just incompetence from Blizzard's part. This is the price the community pays for Blizzard wanting their cut within in industry, and as someone who's entire post history shows zero indications of somebody who was ever involved as a member of the Brood War community, I realize you find it quite difficult to empathize.
Go beat your drum elsewhere, because obviously you do not speak for the Brood War community.
The community upgraded the graphic, integrated the game into the "New" battle.net system + matchmaking as well, right?
SC:R is not really what i thought it would be, blizzard failed miserably since they clearly didnt put any effort into this
Slow with the updates, didnt listen to the players, no teamplay ladder, slow UI , slow profiles, everything's slow
Massive lag in ranked and i get matched with 90% koreans on ladder (and im only 2100mmr atm) This made me stop playing the game entirely and its kinda sad that 3 months ago there were 10+ friends online playing Now its maybe 2 and everyone else pretty much gave up
Blizzard should have just delayed the release untill they got it finished (which seems to be never). They never delivered the team match making they promised. The game was no where near playable in the first weeks after releasing it. I don't understand what was the point of the beta testing period when they clearly didnt listen to the players.
edit: Just saw Qikz post and realized that there was an actual Blizzard employee reading the thread, now I feel bad for the way I was expressing myself. I'm sure developers worked hard and I've seen so much improvement since the release. But I also think that release dates should not be set in advance if there is no guarantee of the functionality by then. Or at least game should not be sold for money in that case.
On November 22 2017 18:44 elKa-ThE-FeArEd wrote: SC:R is not really what i thought it would be, blizzard failed miserably since they clearly didnt put any effort into this
Slow with the updates, didnt listen to the players, no teamplay ladder, slow UI , slow profiles, everything's slow
Massive lag in ranked and i get matched with 90% koreans on ladder (and im only 2100mmr atm) This made me stop playing the game entirely and its kinda sad that 3 months ago there were 10+ friends online playing Now its maybe 2 and everyone else pretty much gave up
Given the fact you seem to have ignored everything Blizzard have wrote in this thread then I think it's safe to say that you're ignoring everything that's going on and just want to complain. :/
The thing is blizzard can lie and mislead even its own employees.
Seriously the least that blizzard could do is actually publicly apologize for having released the "remaster" in such a poor state and for being so slow in delivering the expected quality etc
That may not be up to Grant to just do that on his own of course. But blizzard is not grant, and grant is not blizzard.
just wanted to add another thing, why has the map pool for ladder not changed since launch? and a few of those maps like nostolgia, arcadia and python are sometimes fun but questionable for being in the ladder pool in the first place...
On November 23 2017 08:09 castleeMg wrote: just wanted to add another thing, why has the map pool for ladder not changed since launch? and a few of those maps like nostolgia, arcadia and python are sometimes fun but questionable for being in the ladder pool in the first place...
I'd assume it is because we are still in a "test season" (I know, I know, on our way to 4 months since release), which isn't really a good excuse, but I assume it is the reason. I am in full agreement with you.
few problems.there is not purpose in playing games at TR6,sometimes games are not even lagging but few packet loss = going straight to TR6.i think AUTO TR need a cap like 10 max. for 1v1 matchmaking,for team games i recommend TR 8. also whats wrong with matchmaking putting you to play vs the same oponent over and over even with changing ids and using differents MMR.this is not normal,i dont wanna play the same oponent more than 4-5 times,fix this,put a cap,is not fun,on fish server i used to play so many different players,how comes a global matchmaking is putting me to play against the same 2 players for hours.if you tell me the game is dead and we are actually the only 3 players ,oh well time to shutup.
I saw a large post on the Overwatch subreddit about feedback about Doomfist's bugs and it kind of inspired me to rewrite the OP to have a less negative tone and be more presentable. Gonna prob do it after the holidays.
On November 23 2017 10:19 SCC-Faust wrote: I saw a large post on the Overwatch subreddit about feedback about Doomfist's bugs and it kind of inspired me to rewrite the OP to have a less negative tone and be more presentable. Gonna prob do it after the holidays.
I don't even find it to be that negative... it looks like thoughtful, constructive criticism to me. There's legitimate reasons to be frustrated, and it's pretty cool that you got a dev to respond here. Anyway just my two cents...
On November 22 2017 18:44 elKa-ThE-FeArEd wrote: SC:R is not really what i thought it would be, blizzard failed miserably since they clearly didnt put any effort into this
Slow with the updates, didnt listen to the players, no teamplay ladder, slow UI , slow profiles, everything's slow
Massive lag in ranked and i get matched with 90% koreans on ladder (and im only 2100mmr atm) This made me stop playing the game entirely and its kinda sad that 3 months ago there were 10+ friends online playing Now its maybe 2 and everyone else pretty much gave up
Given the fact you seem to have ignored everything Blizzard have wrote in this thread then I think it's safe to say that you're ignoring everything that's going on and just want to complain. :/
No i have not read through all this thread and i didn't see that there was an blizzard employee here
THOUGH its already way to late, the hype of SC:R is already gone
I've played this game on and off since the launch 98 til 09, picked it up now with SC:R
Sad to say that most of my mates already got tired of all bugs
On November 23 2017 10:19 SCC-Faust wrote: I saw a large post on the Overwatch subreddit about feedback about Doomfist's bugs and it kind of inspired me to rewrite the OP to have a less negative tone and be more presentable. Gonna prob do it after the holidays.
I don't even find it to be that negative... it looks like thoughtful, constructive criticism to me. There's legitimate reasons to be frustrated, and it's pretty cool that you got a dev to respond here. Anyway just my two cents...
True, I agree some of my points still stand, although there have been some points that have been proved to be inaccurate and I don't want people to get the wrong impression (ie. Grant Davies said that it is untrue that the dev team has reduced in size). Also I don't want this to sort of be a honeypot thread for people getting warned/banned, so I kind of want to rearrange how I word things in a way where I can still showcase my points, but not make it as aggressive.
On November 23 2017 10:19 SCC-Faust wrote: I saw a large post on the Overwatch subreddit about feedback about Doomfist's bugs and it kind of inspired me to rewrite the OP to have a less negative tone and be more presentable. Gonna prob do it after the holidays.
I don't even find it to be that negative... it looks like thoughtful, constructive criticism to me. There's legitimate reasons to be frustrated, and it's pretty cool that you got a dev to respond here. Anyway just my two cents...
True, I agree some of my points still stand, although there have been some points that have been proved to be inaccurate and I don't want people to get the wrong impression (ie. Grant Davies said that it is untrue that the dev team has reduced in size). Also I don't want this to sort of be a honeypot thread for people getting warned/banned, so I kind of want to rearrange how I word things in a way where I can still showcase my points, but not make it as aggressive.
I would recommend having a copy of the original post for reference/posterity in spoliers above your edited OP. Also can we have a sticky on this thread and use it as the central feedback post for all issues experienced in Remaster?.
I'd be very happy with that as long as you can turn it off. I don't want to see every single bit of what's going on unless I'm watching a replay to study.
On November 24 2017 20:30 Qikz wrote: I'd be very happy with that as long as you can turn it off. I don't want to see every single bit of what's going on unless I'm watching a replay to study.
ofc is only for replays and learning purposes.and better way to find replays in your folder.
I think a solution to ladder anxiety should be implemented. Like counting points only when the player wins and not changing when he or she loses, so the ladder is bassed In who has accumulated more victories in the season and not getting people to be afraid to lose. That can be implemented to both SC:R and SC2.
On November 24 2017 21:08 allhenryros wrote: I think a solution to ladder anxiety should be implemented. Like counting points only when the player wins and not changing when he or she loses, so the ladder is bassed In who has accumulated more victories in the season and not getting people to be afraid to lose. That can be implemented to both SC:R and SC2.
errr look thats the opposite of what i want of a ladder, because any system that makes an imbalance between win and loss encourages grinding and makes the ladder inefficient and tedious as a tool for getting better (and getting matched well and playing better more fun games) like, preferably, even no win streak bonus, no motw bonus, etc, only based on ladder points and equal win/loss at equal rating, why not equal win/loss at non equal ratings too just smaller than if equal ratings and I say this while I'm never at the top of ladder
On November 24 2017 21:08 allhenryros wrote: I think a solution to ladder anxiety should be implemented. Like counting points only when the player wins and not changing when he or she loses, so the ladder is bassed In who has accumulated more victories in the season and not getting people to be afraid to lose. That can be implemented to both SC:R and SC2.
what about the lower ranked/rated players who want to play evenly matched games?
On November 24 2017 21:08 allhenryros wrote: I think a solution to ladder anxiety should be implemented. Like counting points only when the player wins and not changing when he or she loses, so the ladder is bassed In who has accumulated more victories in the season and not getting people to be afraid to lose. That can be implemented to both SC:R and SC2.
Lol nah. Maybe people with ladder anxiety can get over the fact that it takes practice to improve rather than have fear of their fragile ego being burst when they realize they're going to get stomped. If it is that hard for you to hit the queue button and causes you actual anxiety, find another hobby, because video games shouldn't give you anxiety. They should be a form of enjoyment.
If we want to request changes so our feelings don't get hurt, can I request removing all chat from ladder matches? About 1 in 10 of my games is a Korean saying something along the lines of "your mother fuck" because I am not Korean myself and the game slowly ticks down the turn rate every 15 seconds. That is def my favorite part of SC:R.
On November 24 2017 21:08 allhenryros wrote: I think a solution to ladder anxiety should be implemented. Like counting points only when the player wins and not changing when he or she loses, so the ladder is bassed In who has accumulated more victories in the season and not getting people to be afraid to lose. That can be implemented to both SC:R and SC2.
I've just started playing ladder, im 5 or 6 games in, all losses. Just gotta learn to embrace the suck and hope I get better. It's not like losing puts me in a bad mood, I still enjoy playing.
just wanted to chime in about ladder anxiety, i know this is getting away from the forum topic but ive seen ladder anxiety posts before and ive ignored them but they bug me and heres why... if you want to play starcraft in a competitive atmosphere, just play the fuckin game, watch and analyze replays when you lose and try to get better. we're all trying to get better every time we play the game, thats why starcraft is so beautiful, because theres always something to improve and perfect. i know its just a game and its intended to be "fun" but for lots of people like the high pressure, lightning quick reactions are what makes it fun and if you can't handle the fact that you're losing ladder points then you need to mentally toughen up or quit playing ladder.. just my 2 cents
On November 25 2017 07:03 castleeMg wrote: just wanted to chime in about ladder anxiety, i know this is getting away from the forum topic but ive seen ladder anxiety posts before and ive ignored them but they bug me and heres why... if you want to play starcraft in a competitive atmosphere, just play the fuckin game, watch and analyze replays when you lose and try to get better. we're all trying to get better every time we play the game, thats why starcraft is so beautiful, because theres always something to improve and perfect. i know its just a game and its intended to be "fun" but for lots of people the high pressure, lightning quick reactions are what makes it fun and if you can't handle the fact that you're losing ladder points then you need to mentally toughen up or quit playing ladder.. just my 2 cents
While we're on this tangent... lemme add my speal I dislike this idea of "man up or quit" solutions. Or rather, you could phrase it better. I used to have heavy ladder anxiety, in both Starcraft series. Why do so many people get ladder anxiety? Ladder anxiety literally comes from the desire to improve, to get better. The fact that there are so clean cut methods of showcasing skill creates the situation where you don't look upon your improvements in every game- instead you focus on how much your MMR changed and where that puts you in the leaderboard.
Starcraft 2 is a great example because there are leagues in addition to MMR. You may have gotten from Bronze to Silver, but you still worry about every loss because in the grand scheme of things, you aren't even halfway good. You try to get better using guides, build orders, watching replays, etc; but you aren't doing it for the sake of getting better, or to have fun- you're getting better because you want to be ranked higher. The more fixed you get on those shiny borders, the less you come to enjoy the game, which eventually leads to you taking every mistake you make to heart and beating yourself up over it. Again, its not the lack of watching replays that gets people. I used to replay that fight I overextended countless times, checking upgrades and production at the same time, comparing APMs, EPMs, things I could have done better. The more I replayed, the more I became unsure of my skills, and the things I found that I would have to fix became too many. Even in the winning games, I would find stuff to berate me over: I didn't hit that 2/2 timing crisply enough, I made too many turrets, etc; Do you see the problem? I was trying to be a professional gamer that had 300+APM when I was a gold league scrub with 90APM.
With those mindsets, watching and analyzing replays don't matter, because as soon as I load up that ladder game, I get tunnel vision, playing everything way too safe, stalling games I could have ended 10 minutes ago because I was in doubt of my plays. And inevitably, many of those games lead to the opponent coming back. And I beat myself up because it was a very winnable game. Its a never ending cycle. I was D in Fish ladder, and was/is diamond in SC2, but I only began to enjoy the two games very recently.
During the break, I branched out, played many other games, and found myself enjoying it so much. Why? It was, I realized, because I wasn't caring as much about losing. Sure, I did rank in LoL, but rather than focusing on Bronze/Silver/Gold, I was focusing on my improvements. I lost, but I didn't care because I played a better game then before. I stopped analyzing LoL replays, because I decided to focus on one thing at a time, easy things. I would buy more wards, maybe, and place them in useful places. I looked up a guide on where to place wards, but that was the most research I did. I never looked at any replays because I didn't need to recap myself- warding was my focus, so of course I kept tabs on how I warded. I think having friends who pointed out how better I became was big help as well.
I came back to SC2 this season with the decision to play random. I didn't like playing Terran sometimes, but I would keep playing Terran only because I didn't want to pick up a new race and get owned. Random is truly fun, and I don't care about hitting all the chrono timings, proxying a building so the unit gets out at exactly x minutes, etc. I just do what I want and build what I think will be useful in the situation. I actually think my Terran play improved, because I am much more flexible now, with the ability to hit timings thanks to all my previous research. I consistently defeat mid-Master league players with my Terran- something unthinkable before the break. Best of all, all of it is no stress. I have my own builds, maybe I'll watch replays once in a while and compare them to see which one has better optimization- but I don't think experimenting unoptimized build orders are a waste of time anymore. Every game, including the ones I lose by making dumb mistakes, are fun.
So TL:DR- Did I man up? Not really. Stop thinking about your MMR. Have fun where you are. Focus on improving one thing at a time that you are really irked about - thats motivation to fix, not anxiety that you might repeat the same mistake. Why worry about mistakes if they don't show? Its challenging enough fixing the ones that do. Make sure you play the game to have fun, not to raise the stupid MMR.
Also, try really dumb builds in your league- in SCBW I personally love fast upgrading 3/3 speedlots while typing in LOTV cinematic lines. I get a lot of BMs (to the point where I just block them the first sign of whining), but I also hear compliments and some good laughs from both sides regardless of it working or not.
On November 25 2017 07:03 castleeMg wrote: just wanted to chime in about ladder anxiety, i know this is getting away from the forum topic but ive seen ladder anxiety posts before and ive ignored them but they bug me and heres why... if you want to play starcraft in a competitive atmosphere, just play the fuckin game, watch and analyze replays when you lose and try to get better. we're all trying to get better every time we play the game, thats why starcraft is so beautiful, because theres always something to improve and perfect. i know its just a game and its intended to be "fun" but for lots of people the high pressure, lightning quick reactions are what makes it fun and if you can't handle the fact that you're losing ladder points then you need to mentally toughen up or quit playing ladder.. just my 2 cents
While we're on this tangent... lemme add my speal I dislike this idea of "man up or quit" solutions. Or rather, you could phrase it better. I used to have heavy ladder anxiety, in both Starcraft series. Why do so many people get ladder anxiety? Ladder anxiety literally comes from the desire to improve, to get better. The fact that there are so clean cut methods of showcasing skill creates the situation where you don't look upon your improvements in every game- instead you focus on how much your MMR changed and where that puts you in the leaderboard.
Starcraft 2 is a great example because there are leagues in addition to MMR. You may have gotten from Bronze to Silver, but you still worry about every loss because in the grand scheme of things, you aren't even halfway good. You try to get better using guides, build orders, watching replays, etc; but you aren't doing it for the sake of getting better, or to have fun- you're getting better because you want to be ranked higher. The more fixed you get on those shiny borders, the less you come to enjoy the game, which eventually leads to you taking every mistake you make to heart and beating yourself up over it. Again, its not the lack of watching replays that gets people. I used to replay that fight I overextended countless times, checking upgrades and production at the same time, comparing APMs, EPMs, things I could have done better. The more I replayed, the more I became unsure of my skills, and the things I found that I would have to fix became too many. Even in the winning games, I would find stuff to berate me over: I didn't hit that 2/2 timing crisply enough, I made too many turrets, etc; Do you see the problem? I was trying to be a professional gamer that had 300+APM when I was a gold league scrub with 90APM.
With those mindsets, watching and analyzing replays don't matter, because as soon as I load up that ladder game, I get tunnel vision, playing everything way too safe, stalling games I could have ended 10 minutes ago because I was in doubt of my plays. And inevitably, many of those games lead to the opponent coming back. And I beat myself up because it was a very winnable game. Its a never ending cycle. I was D in Fish ladder, and was/is diamond in SC2, but I only began to enjoy the two games very recently.
During the break, I branched out, played many other games, and found myself enjoying it so much. Why? It was, I realized, because I wasn't caring as much about losing. Sure, I did rank in LoL, but rather than focusing on Bronze/Silver/Gold, I was focusing on my improvements. I lost, but I didn't care because I played a better game then before. I stopped analyzing LoL replays, because I decided to focus on one thing at a time, easy things. I would buy more wards, maybe, and place them in useful places. I looked up a guide on where to place wards, but that was the most research I did. I never looked at any replays because I didn't need to recap myself- warding was my focus, so of course I kept tabs on how I warded. I think having friends who pointed out how better I became was big help as well.
I came back to SC2 this season with the decision to play random. I didn't like playing Terran sometimes, but I would keep playing Terran only because I didn't want to pick up a new race and get owned. Random is truly fun, and I don't care about hitting all the chrono timings, proxying a building so the unit gets out at exactly x minutes, etc. I just do what I want and build what I think will be useful in the situation. I actually think my Terran play improved, because I am much more flexible now, with the ability to hit timings thanks to all my previous research. I consistently defeat mid-Master league players with my Terran- something unthinkable before the break. Best of all, all of it is no stress. I have my own builds, maybe I'll watch replays once in a while and compare them to see which one has better optimization- but I don't think experimenting unoptimized build orders are a waste of time anymore. Every game, including the ones I lose by making dumb mistakes, are fun.
So TL:DR- Did I man up? Not really. Stop thinking about your MMR. Have fun where you are. Focus on improving one thing at a time that you are really irked about - thats motivation to fix, not anxiety that you might repeat the same mistake. Why worry about mistakes if they don't show? Its challenging enough fixing the ones that do. Make sure you play the game to have fun, not to raise the stupid MMR.
Also, try really dumb builds in your league- in SCBW I personally love fast upgrading 3/3 speedlots while typing in LOTV cinematic lines. I get a lot of BMs (to the point where I just block them the first sign of whining), but I also hear compliments and some good laughs from both sides regardless of it working or not.
Just to put in my final 2 cents about ladder anxiety, I totally agree with what you say. I played iccup back in 09-10, and best I ever got was hovering at D, I had terrible ladder anxiety in those days and in SC2. Since RM, I have come back to BW, and I continually have been playing ladder (or hunters, whatever I want to) and losing and playing badly a lot, but I haven't lost my enjoyment even though I generally lose.
I have looked at it like the way I look at golf. If you're not a golfer, hopefully you can still understand this analogy. As a whole, I am terrible at golf. I don't get good scores, and if I focused on getting a good score, I would be miserable every time and have no fun. But what I can do is make a good shot here and there, maybe a good drive or good pitch, and maybe even get a birdie once in a while. I still get a shit score at the end of the day but I relish those good moments.
I have taken this viewpoint into my starcraft playing. Maybe I didn't win, and overall I never play well. I will never be very good at this game. But I can focus on that one fight where I did well, good micro at certain points, a good drop I did, good storms, maybe just even had fun building my base. And even if I generally lose, I win once in a while to. Just learn to relish the smaller moments in the game where you might do certain things well. Eventually you will probably get better, but don't play with the goal of getting better. Play with the goal of finding smaller things that you enjoy. If you don't enjoy smaller things like that, you probably don't enjoy the game, especially if your only goal is to be good when you are not.
I had ladder anxiety when I deluded myself into thinking I was good. As soon as I approached the game knowing I am bad and need to play a lot of games to get better, the feeling instantly vanished.
I solved ladder anxiety by having multiple accounts. My highest account is just there so I can quote my current rating, while the account I currently use can drop as low as it wants to. I can approach it as just a practice account even though it's ranked.
I think they made BW free to justify SC2 being free. SCR is intentionally bugged kill of BW so that they can promote SC2 in korea. Cant explain otherwise how a Billion dollar company couldnt do what some random korean dude can in terms of not programming shit. Thoughts?
On November 24 2017 21:08 allhenryros wrote: I think a solution to ladder anxiety should be implemented. Like counting points only when the player wins and not changing when he or she loses, so the ladder is bassed In who has accumulated more victories in the season and not getting people to be afraid to lose. That can be implemented to both SC:R and SC2.
errr look thats the opposite of what i want of a ladder, because any system that makes an imbalance between win and loss encourages grinding and makes the ladder inefficient and tedious as a tool for getting better (and getting matched well and playing better more fun games) like, preferably, even no win streak bonus, no motw bonus, etc, only based on ladder points and equal win/loss at equal rating, why not equal win/loss at non equal ratings too just smaller than if equal ratings and I say this while I'm never at the top of ladder
100% agree. we don't need blizz throwing us virtual points to placate our fragility. I don't even see how that would alleviate ladder anxiety. It's a superficial band aid for people who probably won't even stick with the game. hell, I actually like BW because losing is brutal and that's what makes that one win worthwhile.
The best way to alleviate ladder anxiety is to have an effective MM system that helps you a fair chance to win at least half your games. Please don't inflate points. The BW crowd don't need that, we know the ass reaming we are getting ourselves into.
On November 25 2017 13:57 duke91 wrote: I think they made BW free to justify SC2 being free. SCR is intentionally bugged kill of BW so that they can promote SC2 in korea. Cant explain otherwise how a Billion dollar company couldnt do what some random korean dude can in terms of not programming shit. Thoughts?
Just no. Intentionally bugged to promote SC2 in Korea? Come on man.
I visit Korea every year and more people are now playing BW in Lan Cafes due to SC: Remastered. I hardly see any SC2 games here, but I see a lot more SC:R ladder, UMS, and fastest. The lan cafes (PC bangs) all have huge posters promoting SC:R as well. It's a good time to play BW in Korea.
On November 25 2017 13:57 duke91 wrote: I think they made BW free to justify SC2 being free. SCR is intentionally bugged kill of BW so that they can promote SC2 in korea. Cant explain otherwise how a Billion dollar company couldnt do what some random korean dude can in terms of not programming shit. Thoughts?
SCR is not BW ! Saying so is like killing of the game.
On November 25 2017 15:14 Golgotha wrote: Just no. Intentionally bugged to promote SC2 in Korea? Come on man.
I visit Korea every year and more people are now playing BW in Lan Cafes due to SC: Remastered. I hardly see any SC2 games here, but I see a lot more SC:R ladder, UMS, and fastest. The lan cafes (PC bangs) all have huge posters promoting SC:R as well. It's a good time to play BW in Korea.
Quite honestly, Blizzard have bigger fish to fry with their main product Overwatch lagging behind in popularity behind titles such as PUBG, or League of Legends at the moment. Brood War is the least of Blizzard's worries at the moment, and their lack of competency reflects their stance on the matter. It's like an abusive step-father harping on about necessary structure for the family, and how hard it is for him to sustain financial stability. Nefarious intentions be damned, if Blizzard is going to be involved within the Brood War scene to this degree, the least the community can ask for is some semblance of competency without being hen pecked by non-Brood War community members and corporate shills.
Further more, there's no need to pretend that Starcraft Remastered has somehow revitalized Brood War's popularity in Korea to whole new levels. That's just factually incorrect, and all you needed to do was check out the numbers after searching on Google for all of ten seconds.
Brood War was always had a following in Korea, whether Blizzard was being involved or not. It's always been good to watch and play Brood War, and it would be great if Blizzard didn't fuck that experience up, whether it is through their greed or incompetence. I really couldn't give two shits about Blizzard's intentions as long as the Brood War scene benefits from it. Right now you are suggesting a benefit that clearly does not seem to exist.
On November 25 2017 15:14 Golgotha wrote: Just no. Intentionally bugged to promote SC2 in Korea? Come on man.
I visit Korea every year and more people are now playing BW in Lan Cafes due to SC: Remastered. I hardly see any SC2 games here, but I see a lot more SC:R ladder, UMS, and fastest. The lan cafes (PC bangs) all have huge posters promoting SC:R as well. It's a good time to play BW in Korea.
Quite honestly, Blizzard have bigger fish to fry with their main product Overwatch lagging behind in popularity behind titles such as PUBG, or League of Legends at the moment. Brood War is the least of Blizzard's worries at the moment, and their lack of competency reflects their stance on the matter. It's like an abusive step-father harping on about necessary structure for the family, and how hard it is for him to sustain financial stability. Nefarious intentions be damned, if Blizzard is going to be involved within the Brood War scene to this degree, the least the community can ask for is some semblance of competency without being hen pecked by non-Brood War community members and corporate shills.
Further more, there's no need to pretend that Starcraft Remastered has somehow revitalized Brood War's popularity in Korea to whole new levels. That's just factually incorrect, and all you needed to do was check out the numbers after searching on Google for all of ten seconds.
Brood War was always had a following in Korea, whether Blizzard was being involved or not. It's always been good to watch and play Brood War, and it would be great if Blizzard didn't fuck that experience up, whether it is through their greed or incompetence. I really couldn't care two shits about Blizzard's intentions as long as the Brood War scene benefits from it. Right now you are suggesting a benefit that clearly does not seem to exist.
Lol don't get me wrong, I ain't saying that it's some kind of atmosphere rise. I ain't saying that SC:R revitalized the scene, that's arguable. I made those points because some people think that blizzard is conspiring against the BW scene and trying to bring about its downfall. What I'm saying is that Blizz didn't intentionally bug SC:R so that it could promote the sc2 scene in korea. Not sure how else to put it without people thinking I am suggesting something else.
Well imo what goes in as evidence of letmelose's point is that blizzard knows how to get things right when making a game, and they haven't done that for SC:R. It's not impossible that the higher ups/executives/whatyouwanna call it, the bosses at actiblizz have purposely put SC:R in the opposite of the situation that normally gets them to make a game work perfect. Announcing a release date and sticking to it before they had even implemented solutions to the intended features and the expectations of the community is the type of stuff they know not to do. There is also not much of an excuse for not being able to provide a fully working system for counting games for example, or a working chat, since all of their games could always easily do that. Some of these things are probably quite the easy fixes relatively and quite core to the experience and were apparently given a very low priority possibly by putting a low number of crew on a rather high pressure to work on other stuff pointed to as high priority which potentially take a lot more work while they're not what we all need or want as high priority at all (such as the 2GB optimisation thing for lightning graphics). How the hell do you get that done over months after release but not a working game registering server or chat or simple 2D interfaces that can't load in less than 5 seconds right?
So, it's not the crew that is working on the game, it's more in the way that their bosses tell them to work on the game, or not, corresponding to the value this has for the fans and the longevity of the game.
And they have an agenda for this if they're greedy enough to want to make us more likely to move on to their other more pricy "modern" money grinding games. Which they certainly have seemed to be for a while. So yeah I'm not inside blizzard HQ checking that stuff out but that's the perception I'm receiving from this business for quite some years yeah, pretty confirmed imo lol.
Like the overall strategy for SC:R from a business standpoint seems to be, let's make a bunch of money and try to regrab a bit of reputation for not seemingly trying to pretend that BW doesn't exist anymore, but let's put it in a awkward situation so that there is in the long run more incentive to play these other games which are linked to all of its players in the launcher adware and just work a lot better where it counts and from which we are grinding a lot more money continuously by design. That's the call that the bosses of actiblizz can make/arrange and for those who profit from it, shareholders of the company, not the employees working on the game. + Show Spoiler +
It almost looks as an attempt to insinuate to people who try it now and didn't play it before "hey this is an old game, it still works weird like that you may think its because its old, so maybe just play more recent games buy more games the new stuff coming out go go" lol is that a stretch? maybe, maybe not, I've seen blizzard take this type of attitude with "you think you want it, but you don't" stuff
On November 25 2017 07:03 castleeMg wrote: just wanted to chime in about ladder anxiety, i know this is getting away from the forum topic but ive seen ladder anxiety posts before and ive ignored them but they bug me and heres why... if you want to play starcraft in a competitive atmosphere, just play the fuckin game, watch and analyze replays when you lose and try to get better. we're all trying to get better every time we play the game, thats why starcraft is so beautiful, because theres always something to improve and perfect. i know its just a game and its intended to be "fun" but for lots of people the high pressure, lightning quick reactions are what makes it fun and if you can't handle the fact that you're losing ladder points then you need to mentally toughen up or quit playing ladder.. just my 2 cents
While we're on this tangent... lemme add my speal I dislike this idea of "man up or quit" solutions. Or rather, you could phrase it better. I used to have heavy ladder anxiety, in both Starcraft series. Why do so many people get ladder anxiety? Ladder anxiety literally comes from the desire to improve, to get better. The fact that there are so clean cut methods of showcasing skill creates the situation where you don't look upon your improvements in every game- instead you focus on how much your MMR changed and where that puts you in the leaderboard.
Starcraft 2 is a great example because there are leagues in addition to MMR. You may have gotten from Bronze to Silver, but you still worry about every loss because in the grand scheme of things, you aren't even halfway good. You try to get better using guides, build orders, watching replays, etc; but you aren't doing it for the sake of getting better, or to have fun- you're getting better because you want to be ranked higher. The more fixed you get on those shiny borders, the less you come to enjoy the game, which eventually leads to you taking every mistake you make to heart and beating yourself up over it. Again, its not the lack of watching replays that gets people. I used to replay that fight I overextended countless times, checking upgrades and production at the same time, comparing APMs, EPMs, things I could have done better. The more I replayed, the more I became unsure of my skills, and the things I found that I would have to fix became too many. Even in the winning games, I would find stuff to berate me over: I didn't hit that 2/2 timing crisply enough, I made too many turrets, etc; Do you see the problem? I was trying to be a professional gamer that had 300+APM when I was a gold league scrub with 90APM.
With those mindsets, watching and analyzing replays don't matter, because as soon as I load up that ladder game, I get tunnel vision, playing everything way too safe, stalling games I could have ended 10 minutes ago because I was in doubt of my plays. And inevitably, many of those games lead to the opponent coming back. And I beat myself up because it was a very winnable game. Its a never ending cycle. I was D in Fish ladder, and was/is diamond in SC2, but I only began to enjoy the two games very recently.
During the break, I branched out, played many other games, and found myself enjoying it so much. Why? It was, I realized, because I wasn't caring as much about losing. Sure, I did rank in LoL, but rather than focusing on Bronze/Silver/Gold, I was focusing on my improvements. I lost, but I didn't care because I played a better game then before. I stopped analyzing LoL replays, because I decided to focus on one thing at a time, easy things. I would buy more wards, maybe, and place them in useful places. I looked up a guide on where to place wards, but that was the most research I did. I never looked at any replays because I didn't need to recap myself- warding was my focus, so of course I kept tabs on how I warded. I think having friends who pointed out how better I became was big help as well.
I came back to SC2 this season with the decision to play random. I didn't like playing Terran sometimes, but I would keep playing Terran only because I didn't want to pick up a new race and get owned. Random is truly fun, and I don't care about hitting all the chrono timings, proxying a building so the unit gets out at exactly x minutes, etc. I just do what I want and build what I think will be useful in the situation. I actually think my Terran play improved, because I am much more flexible now, with the ability to hit timings thanks to all my previous research. I consistently defeat mid-Master league players with my Terran- something unthinkable before the break. Best of all, all of it is no stress. I have my own builds, maybe I'll watch replays once in a while and compare them to see which one has better optimization- but I don't think experimenting unoptimized build orders are a waste of time anymore. Every game, including the ones I lose by making dumb mistakes, are fun.
So TL:DR- Did I man up? Not really. Stop thinking about your MMR. Have fun where you are. Focus on improving one thing at a time that you are really irked about - thats motivation to fix, not anxiety that you might repeat the same mistake. Why worry about mistakes if they don't show? Its challenging enough fixing the ones that do. Make sure you play the game to have fun, not to raise the stupid MMR.
Also, try really dumb builds in your league- in SCBW I personally love fast upgrading 3/3 speedlots while typing in LOTV cinematic lines. I get a lot of BMs (to the point where I just block them the first sign of whining), but I also hear compliments and some good laughs from both sides regardless of it working or not.
Just to put in my final 2 cents about ladder anxiety, I totally agree with what you say. I played iccup back in 09-10, and best I ever got was hovering at D, I had terrible ladder anxiety in those days and in SC2. Since RM, I have come back to BW, and I continually have been playing ladder (or hunters, whatever I want to) and losing and playing badly a lot, but I haven't lost my enjoyment even though I generally lose.
I have looked at it like the way I look at golf. If you're not a golfer, hopefully you can still understand this analogy. As a whole, I am terrible at golf. I don't get good scores, and if I focused on getting a good score, I would be miserable every time and have no fun. But what I can do is make a good shot here and there, maybe a good drive or good pitch, and maybe even get a birdie once in a while. I still get a shit score at the end of the day but I relish those good moments.
I have taken this viewpoint into my starcraft playing. Maybe I didn't win, and overall I never play well. I will never be very good at this game. But I can focus on that one fight where I did well, good micro at certain points, a good drop I did, good storms, maybe just even had fun building my base. And even if I generally lose, I win once in a while to. Just learn to relish the smaller moments in the game where you might do certain things well. Eventually you will probably get better, but don't play with the goal of getting better. Play with the goal of finding smaller things that you enjoy. If you don't enjoy smaller things like that, you probably don't enjoy the game, especially if your only goal is to be good when you are not.
In my city, some grandpas and elderly men are playing football in the park every Sunday. Of course, they do it for fun. Now imagine, if they tried hard to "get better" to play like the pros, etc. From my observation, people are anxious and have 0 fun because they try to copy pros. They only enjoy the "perfect" games with shiny timings, standart unit compositions, etc. Of course, such games are almost non-existent even amongst actual pros... leave alone the amateurs. The perfectionism, I think, is the root of ladder anxiety. Now, Imagine those football-grandpas actually trying to get good and pay like professional soccer players... Ridiculous
Some problems can't be fixed without a bigger player base. The game lags if two players on different continents play each other or if one plays still on a potato. Other problems will take time to fix. Read and watch developer vods/interviews, they are aware of the issues, explain why the problems exist and how they try to solve them.
How can anyone say blizzard does this for money? How does that make sense? SC generates no money! Remaster is a passion project!
Bw is not popular outside of korea. Even in korea the younger generation doesn't pick up bw. The unpopularity has nothing to do with lag, interface or anything else than the gameplay. It is too frustrating for normal players.
If you don't like SC:R, play the free version. The old version of bw is still supported. But guys don't make up conspiracy theories that blizzard tries to kill sc/bw to promote sc2. It makes no sense financially, from a marketing point of view and logically. What would they gain? Nothing!
well the unpopularity does have to do with lag and interface since some of us most passionate bw players have been quitting to play the game for those reasons lol
and these problems are induced or worsened by the way the system is laid out
On November 25 2017 23:20 ProMeTheus112 wrote: well the unpopularity does have to do with lag and interface since some of us most passionate bw players have been quitting to play the game for those reasons lol
We don't need the old players who were always passionate about bw. We need new players in millions to become popular.
Just asking: Does the old version lag too? Can't you play on ICCup? Aren't there still private servers?
EDIT: In my time bw games were always laggy (every second, third game was laggy). And games vs koreans and us west were unplayable (1-2 sec lag, timeout).
On November 25 2017 23:20 ProMeTheus112 wrote: well the unpopularity does have to do with lag and interface since some of us most passionate bw players have been quitting to play the game for those reasons lol
We don't need the old players who were always passionate about bw. We need new players in millions to become popular.
Just asking: Does the old version lag too? Can't you play on ICCup? Aren't there still private servers?
So you want millions new players and don't care for the passionate players but you say the game is too frustrating for normal players.
The old version works quite a lot better as I'm sure you know. I think you know that ICCup is still online. There exist private servers. So ? You must be implying that I should not write my opinion and just go play there. But I could do either of these, or both, or none, as I wish^^
On November 25 2017 23:24 todespolka wrote: games vs koreans and us west were unplayable (1-2 sec lag, timeout).
ya you see that's why like I said problems induced or worsened by way SC:R system is laid out, one example of it basically this is a way of laying out a system that specifically worsens the issues you may have with pear to pear network thing instead of making a system that specifically improves the advantages you may have with pear to pear network thing... lol tie it all to korea where the game cannot ungrow and this creates an environment where it is bad to get good or rank higher if you are not where the game is already grown. perfect^^ status quo check, go buy hearthstone thx
On November 25 2017 23:20 ProMeTheus112 wrote: well the unpopularity does have to do with lag and interface since some of us most passionate bw players have been quitting to play the game for those reasons lol
We don't need the old players who were always passionate about bw. We need new players in millions to become popular.
Just asking: Does the old version lag too? Can't you play on ICCup? Aren't there still private servers?
EDIT: In my time bw games were always laggy (every second, third game was laggy). And games vs koreans and us west were unplayable (1-2 sec lag, timeout).
No one ever thought BW was going to become massively popular with the release of SC:R, not even Blizzard. You're off-kilter here and completely missing the point regardless.
Also pre-SC:R lag was not nearly as bad for several reasons. Most aren't Blizzard's fault. Foreigners mostly played against foreigners. If you used a lan latency launcher along with your opponent (chaos, mca64, iccup launcher, etc.) and you still experienced lag frequently, chances are you're the person with the shit internet connection and somehow were the last person to get the memo, cause you are by far in the minority. If you just loaded up StarCraft as a new player and tried to play games on the public servers, I don't blame you though for experiencing lag. That is one thing StarCraft: Remastered has done right; removing the difficult entry barrier to play the game. Not everyone knew that you needed 3rd party programs to play the game with lan latency. Brood War is unfortunately one of the most unwelcoming games for people to get into. The mechanics are hard, the design is a bit archaic, and the amount of knowledge you need just to win your first game sets the bar higher than any game I know. These are also on top of the fact that you had to know that the most populous servers weren't even public ones at the later parts of the games history on top of realizing about the 3rd party launchers, etc.
However, as I said previously, my lag with Koreans was not this bad pre-SC:R. I played hundreds of games on Fish in preparation for the release of Remastered, and I can say without a doubt that it was way less laggy than it is in its current state (and I am ballparking that about 90%+ of my opponents are Korean on ladder atm). I agree with Drone, but I really have no solution or guess here why that is.
Something that interests me though is the numbers letmelose provided - with BW becoming less and less populous, yet Grant has said since the release the numbers have only been growing. Does that mean that there was less than 2.8% of people playing BW on August 2017 and then somehow magically climbed up to 2.8% in this current month?
The weird thing is that the amount of lag I have with koreans seems so inconsistent, and I don't think it's because of my own connection. I used to be able to play TR12 high latency with koreans, which is totally playable. But yesterday I played like 10 games and most of them eventually got reduced to TR6, which is not playable at all.
I also noticed that every game gradually got the TR reduced - but it never happened that the TR was increased. It's a very bad solution if temporary lag automatically reduces the TR and it's not corrected afterwards.
On November 25 2017 23:20 ProMeTheus112 wrote: well the unpopularity does have to do with lag and interface since some of us most passionate bw players have been quitting to play the game for those reasons lol
We don't need the old players who were always passionate about bw. We need new players in millions to become popular.
Just asking: Does the old version lag too? Can't you play on ICCup? Aren't there still private servers?
So you want millions new players and don't care for the passionate players but you say the game is too frustrating for normal players.
The old version works quite a lot better as I'm sure you know. I think you know that ICCup is still online. There exist private servers. So ? You must be implying that I should not write my opinion and just go play there. But I could do either of these, or both, or none, as I wish^^
No, you misunderstood me. It is one thing to complain, give feedback and it is another to bitch, start conspiracy theories, falsehoods and other bullshit.
It makes no sense for blizzard to destroy bw, because it is such a small part of their business. I would even argue that SC:R is a passion project, at most a marketing project and that blizzard remasters bw because they like the game. Is that impossible? Do all big companies need to be evil?
I asked about the old version, because if the old version still functions, then there is no reason to quit the game.
Regarding popularity I wanted to say that bw was never popular outside of korea to begin with and that it is certainly not popular enough today to justify a big developer team and maybe not big enough to solve global lag issues, skill issues in small regions and other issues. SC/BW is a very good game, but the PvP is enjoyed only by a fraction of people. This is fine! Not every game has to attract the masses, but people have to stop with the demand that blizzard has to support bw the same way they support overwatch, hearthstone and world of warcraft.
Blizzard doesn't make shit off sc1 so why would they even bother? I never expected anything at all from Blizzard after sc2 was released and it proved to be a total shit show. The fact that they even made remastered is a bit strange to me.
I suggest we stop whining and bickering and start a fund. We all have full time jobs now so if everyone can donate whatever they can, we can give this to shieldbattery or whichever developers out there as a sort of "donation" or "encouragement".
The funds would be collected and supervised by 3 or more persons. A range of surveys/polls made to see what features need to be developed and then a discussion with the developers on a feasible timeline and delivery date with agreed upon updates and bugfixes.
Seriously if we cannot band together and even do this then just give up. No petition or facebook group or boycotting is going to make Blizzard give half a fuck. There is no incentive in sight for them. No revenue generating in game features, not enough users to justify ads, and no audience for competitions. It is the greatest game of all time and it will slowly die with a whimper.
On November 25 2017 23:20 ProMeTheus112 wrote: well the unpopularity does have to do with lag and interface since some of us most passionate bw players have been quitting to play the game for those reasons lol
We don't need the old players who were always passionate about bw. We need new players in millions to become popular.
Just asking: Does the old version lag too? Can't you play on ICCup? Aren't there still private servers?
So you want millions new players and don't care for the passionate players but you say the game is too frustrating for normal players.
The old version works quite a lot better as I'm sure you know. I think you know that ICCup is still online. There exist private servers. So ? You must be implying that I should not write my opinion and just go play there. But I could do either of these, or both, or none, as I wish^^
No, you misunderstood me. It is one thing to complain, give feedback and it is another to bitch, start conspiracy theories, falsehoods and other bullshit.
It makes no sense for blizzard to destroy bw, because it is such a small part of their business. I would even argue that SC:R is a passion project, at most a marketing project and that blizzard remasters bw because they like the game. Is that impossible? Do all big companies need to be evil?
I asked about the old version, because if the old version still functions, then there is no reason to quit the game.
Regarding popularity I wanted to say that bw was never popular outside of korea to begin with and that it is certainly not popular enough today to justify a big developer team and maybe not big enough to solve global lag issues, skill issues in small regions and other issues. SC/BW is a very good game, but the PvP is enjoyed only by a fraction of people. This is fine! Not every game has to attract the masses, but people have to stop with the demand that blizzard has to support bw the same way they support overwatch, hearthstone and world of warcraft.
if they were not going to make a proper job of implementing their global ladder system for example (thats only one of the issues in SC:R), then they should not have gone that direction in the first place if it doesn't work, don't leave it broke for months as you release the game, right?
you can have your own opinion on how messed up or not blizzard is, i have my own and I'll say it when i wanna its not about bitching like i dont enjoy it i just want the game FIXED NOW and even yesterday
I would like to say that even acknowledging that blizzard has made some pretty grievous mistakes with this whole SC:R project, people who seriously think they did it because they deliberately wanted to destroy the bw scene to make the last remains of the player pool go to other, more profitable blizzard games, need to get their heads checked. That theory is flat out idiotic.
recuperate the classic communities into the activision era games where they may keep paying for content constantly yeah it's profit, double profit, sell SC:R, go buy packs, play all the games, don't stick to one perfect game cause its not there yeah companies do that, they basically dilute their products into many variations that are all low quality and rather expensive so that you think you need to buy all of them instead of sticking to the original efficient cheap solution, for example the fuck has actiblizz been doing all this time and is just still going on and they cashed on it
On November 26 2017 00:21 Liquid`Drone wrote: I would like to say that even acknowledging that blizzard has made some pretty grievous mistakes with this whole SC:R project, people who seriously think they did it because they deliberately wanted to destroy the bw scene to make the last remains of the player pool go to other, more profitable blizzard games, need to get their heads checked. That theory is flat out idiotic.
yup. those are the kind of theories found in blizzard forums and youtube comments. not on a community like TL. plus, it ain't gonna fix the lag.
On November 26 2017 00:04 SCC-Faust wrote: Something that interests me though is the numbers letmelose provided - with BW becoming less and less populous, yet Grant has said since the release the numbers have only been growing. Does that mean that there was less than 2.8% of people playing BW on August 2017 and then somehow magically climbed up to 2.8% in this current month?
3.27% is the number taken from July 2017, when Starcraft Remastered was unavailable. There indeed was an increase of sorts right after Starcraft Remastered was released, but I don't think any sane person would look at the numbers right now and conclude that the numbers have only been growing. This is the result of artificial hype and false promises without any actual substance: an initial increase in interest followed by months of frustration and the inevitable fallout that comes with it.
It truly does not matter what Blizzard's intentions are, if the end result is not beneficial for Brood War. It's literally the only thing that matters unless your priorities have Brood War further down the ladder. All companies steal ideas, endorse inhuman working conditions, do shady lobbying, evade taxes, and those at the top don't get to be there without being involved in some shady business. I really couldn't give a flying fuck about Blizzard and what their intentions are. Starcraft Remastered has been an abject failure and I wish Blizzard was never there to take notice of the short revival that Brood War had in terms of popularity and force us to endure months of their suckage.
If Blizzard was half as competent at aiding the Brood War scene as they are with everything else, all these posts of frustration that involves posting personal anecdotes of being forced to deal with technical issues that were not there before Blizzard's involvement, or blaming Blizzard of having nefarious intentions would not exist. That should be the focal issue from which everything stems from.
Blizzard could have the best of intentions at heart, but they sure have a funny way of showing it.
It's obvious Blizzard is not just failing here, but they have failed. They needed more/better resources from the very beginning. Their launch deadline was stupidly early. I feel like it's going to be next to impossible to still get good profit from this project (or they already managed to get their mark). The resources they're using, tells me they aren't happy with their product yet, but they also make me believe they're accepting their losses. When you have other really successful games anyway as a CEO I would give little shit about SC:R.
I do have faith in SC:R development crew skills and determination, but at this rate it's likely to take at least a year to get to something as good as the community based 1.16.1 was. But we need to go beyond that, because why else would you want to play SC:R? I think we can all agree fixing lag their top priority to increase the user experience asap. Fixing ladder matching and creating a proper friend list are close seconds.
Most users here want to be able to continue watching casted tournaments, for that alone we'd need a proper working game and interface so we can even get highly competitive driven players like Ret interested enough to play this. I'm not saying our current top players aren't competitive. But it's not very inviting to play the most competitive game of all time, with all the current issues. Neither was it with the community based 1.16.1. Port forwarding and ip conflicts and lag always have been hell... I really fear for Starcraft to become what Warcraft 2 is now. It's like ICCup but at an even smaller scale.
Right now my question is how can we keep users interested long enough for Blizzard to make SC:R a proper working product? I think it's super vital for our community to stay strong. Can we realistically count on SC:R dev's team to deliver? I really want to believe so.
If anything Brood War is losing players to PUBG in Korea not other Blizzard games. The conspiracy that Blizzard is trying to force the remaining players onto other Blizzard games doesn't make much sense. The more simple explanation is just that they released a product too early with too many bugs / too little understanding of the community.
Although I agree that it might've been released prematurely and that there's been an abundance of flaws, I also don't think it helps at all to get too angry and shout about how incompetent and stupid Blizzard is. Nor all these conspiracy theories.
If I was to answer the questions in the headline of the thread, I'd say that what we as a community can do to improve Starcraft is a balance between two things. Supporting the people working on fixing our problems, and to keep informing them about what's problematic.
I honestly feel the Blizzard staff seems to genuinely care about fixing the problems. There also seems to be a lot of problems with connecting/implimenting BW into the Launcher thingy. A problem I don't think f.ex. iCCup has, as they can make a launcher specific to BW, rather than juggle old codes with new ones. However, this is an impression, rather than something factual I can find links to. But that's beside the point. The point is, I truly believe that even though earning money is at the core of making games and Remastering and such, they really want to do well.
I decide to trust their intentions. Not just because I truly do, but also because if I don't, then I don't trust we'll get help. If I don't trust that, then why am I even playing Remastered and wasting my time and energy on whining online about something that will never get fixed? I'd just stick to iCCup then.
I also think it's nice to give some encouragement, although I've failed at this point as I'm mostly a silent gamer on these matters. I tend to think that the problems will be adressed and fixed in time and then I keep on with my daily life. They won't know that I trust them and appreciate their work. Nor will they know about the problems I have. Both are faults of mine that I myself need to address.
That leads to the next point. Even though I find it foolish to be overly hateful and demanding, it is important to inform the staff of the problems we're experiencing. And to keep informing them that we're still experiencing it. Keep up some pressure. I myself haven't helped here, and that is something I think I should start doing. Although there's very little I don't like about it. I love that I can just click a button and get games, that I don't need to forward my ports, that the game has been revitalized in the foreign scene - there's so many things I think is great! And it doesn't bother me at all that the games don't get updated until it's gone a while. Nor does it bother me that I have to wait - what - FIVE seconds to see my profile? Holy shit, ain't nobody got time for that! This ain't Reddit.
But I do find my enjoyment is somewhat decreased when I can't play. For instance when the ladder searches for a game, finds one, the screen gets up but only my nick shows. And then it goes back to 0 seconds in searching for a new game. And after that's happened 3-4 times I figure "ok, might as well do something else". I'd probably get a game if I waited more, and when I really want to play I'll wait. But it's still a fault that could do with some fixing. So shame on me for not writing in, rather than being a lazy, happy gamer.
So the bottom line is that even though I agree that it's bad that such a faulty game was released and that it should've been far more worked out before relase - I don't think it serves anyone to turn to such anger and impatience. The situation is what it is. There's no changing that now. If someone hits you with a car and you get chained to a wheelchair, you will only hurt yourself in the end if you become bitter and always angry at the car driver. It won't help anyone. It'll just make everyone have sucky lives.
Likewise, it doesn't help anyone that people keep regurgitating the same hatred and frustration over Blizzard. It's okay to be angry, but move the fuck on. Keep sending in feedback that the game doesn't work as it should, but phrase it in a constructive manner. "I can't get a game because the search function goes in a loop", "I can't play due to unbearable lag", "I waste too much time when I want to look at other peoples' profiles". Keep it up!
I agree that it's bad, but if you want something improved, you need to do your part to. Even if it's unfair. Don't be an ass, even if the situation stinks.
If you don't like SC:R, play the free version. The old version of bw is still supported. But guys don't make up conspiracy theories that blizzard tries to kill sc/bw to promote sc2. It makes no sense financially, from a marketing point of view and logically. What would they gain? Nothing!
No the old version has basically been killed, along with the servers to play it on. I don't believe this was an attempt to push SC2, but it is obvious that Blizzard saw something to gain by forcing all the Korean PC bangs to switch to SC:R, as well as charging huge licensing fees for tournaments like ASL. They saw that BW was having a revival with old pros switching back, and ASL 1-3, so they wanted their piece of the pie as the IP owners of BW. But the release of SC:R has been strikingly like that of SC2; huge hype followed by huge disappointment, and then players/sponsors leaving the scene. Sick of people defending Blizzard for this shameless money grab at the expense of Korean professional BW.
If you don't like SC:R, play the free version. The old version of bw is still supported. But guys don't make up conspiracy theories that blizzard tries to kill sc/bw to promote sc2. It makes no sense financially, from a marketing point of view and logically. What would they gain? Nothing!
No the old version has basically been killed, along with the servers to play it on. I don't believe this was an attempt to push SC2, but it is obvious that Blizzard saw something to gain by forcing all the Korean PC bangs to switch to SC:R, as well as charging huge licensing fees for tournaments like ASL. They saw that BW was having a revival with old pros switching back, and ASL 1-3, so they wanted their piece of the pie as the IP owners of BW. But the release of SC:R has been strikingly like that of SC2; huge hype followed by huge disappointment, and then players/sponsors leaving the scene. Sick of people defending Blizzard for this shameless money grab at the expense of Korean professional BW.
I'm pretty sure this project has been in the works longer than ASL1-3 seasons. I've heard rumors of it for a while.
I also think you're all just unaware of how much Mike Morhaime just loves StarCraft. I would not doubt at all that 90% of the reason this game happened is because Mike just wanted to see more Brood War.
Are you jimmyjraynor's alt accout or something? You just happen to have insider's knowledge of activision blizzard, and the rest of us are are fools for not seeing it.
How is it so impossible to look at all of the evidence out there and think for a second that Blizzard isn't out to destroy your life by intentionally ruining your game? How is it so impossible to believe that Mike Morhaime and the entire Classic Games team respect the games being worked on or that they care about the people playing those games? How is it so impossible to understand that negativity, hatred, and logic jumps are the complete opposite of what you should be doing to bolster the community and help improve the game you supposedly love so much?
I get that people will always "love to hate" but I don't see how Blizzard, the team working on SCR, or the players who support SCR are the villains to be hated. And there's enough horseshit in the world as it is, why let others get away with stoking those flames here?
As for rumors of when the project started, I heard rumors about it starting before ASL. I hardly know jack, yet I also heard those rumors, I'm pretty sure it isn't "insider information". Heck, a friend of mine who hadn't played StarCraft since Heart of the Swarm came out heard the same murmuring from a different place. If you didn't hear the rumors or can't believe people at Blizzard have either wanted to do this for years or understood that their players have wanted this to happen for years, then fine, just don't keep reinforcing fabricated narratives with more conjecture.
I have these... thoughts. Really strong thoughts. Thoughts someone has after they get SCV stack rushed... and thoughts that someone has after 5 TR6 games in a row. Someone who has thoughts, the thoughy thoughts, of the distinct thought kind... when someone has to sit through a disconnect screen after being told something about my mother followd by korean... but I will not disclose these thoughts, oh no sir. Instead I will say I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.
Also I have this conspiracy that you guys are shitting up this thread with conspiracy talk to get this topic locked.
Q. 스타크래프트가 리마스터 버전이 나오면서 뜰 것 같은 기대가 컸어요. 그런데 오히려 인기가 줄어들었다는 말이 많이 나오고 있습니다.
Q: There was a lot of excitement about remastered and its implication on growing the scene. But instead, theres a lot of talk on the popularity decreasing instead.
솔직히, 저는 리마스터 이전으로 돌아가고 싶어요. 그때는 아프리카tv BJ들이 모두 흥했거든요. 함께 팀 배틀을 활발하게 진행할 수 있었죠. 제 방송은 이전이나 지금이나 똑같아요. 그런데, 리마스터가 나오면서 서버가 불안해지기 시작했어요. 팀 배틀 진행을 못하면서 힘들어진 BJ들이 많더라고요. 그 분들한테는 팀 배틀에서 몇 번의 승리가 굉장히 중요하거든요. 한 2-3달 동안 팀 배틀을 서버 때문에 못하게 되니까 방송을 제대로 못하게 되는 경우가 생겼습니다.
Flash: To be completely honest, I want to go back to time before remaster release. Then, all the Afreeca BJs were lively. It was possible to do team battles lively then. My stream on other hand, has been the same as then and now. However, the servers began to be unstable as remaster came out. There was also lot of BJs who were in difficult situation due to not being able to continue on with the team battles. To those people, wins in team battles were very important. Since they were not able to do team battle for around 2-3 months due to server instability, there were lot of cases where they were not able to broadcast due to it.
현재 서버 문제는 해결됐어요. 그런데 당시 여파가 지금까지 이어지는 분들이 있더라고요. 예전에는 다 같이 잘 됐다면, 지금은 특정 방으로 시청자들이 몰리는 현상이 나타났죠. 물론, 블리자드의 사정도 있겠지만, 너무 늦게 해결된 게 아닌가... 스타크래프트를 좋아하는 팬으로서 리마스터에 정말 큰 기대를 했는데 아쉬움이 컸습니다. 그래도 요새 다시 팀 배틀이 활성화되면서 다시 살아나는 분위기가 형성됐어요.
Flash: As for now, server problems are solved. But the aftermath from then could be felt until now. Before, everyone did well, but now, the viewers tend to congregate into a specific stream instead. Well, Blizzard has their own reasons, but I feel like that it was solved too late… As a fan of StarCraft, I looked forward to remaster a lot, but there was a big disappointment. But even then, the team battles revived a bit nowadays, and there is an atmosphere of revival.
Interview had other points such as big talk about the issue of Tesagi and how it boomed into bw scene when sea won vs bisu 3:0. Will touch it later if nobody touches it but i have finals week.
team battles are sort of like clan wars, with multiple people obsing in 1 room full of clan members. Included teams such as Moo, Neox, ect. The lagging of the room with multiple people is rather bigger issue than people give credit for, as well as breaking clan system and clan rooms. (Rather minor, but still takes away part of customization)
Yeah, same thoughts as Flash. In 2002 Blizzard released this game called Warcraft 3 and it had 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, FFA matchmaking right out of the box, no lag. It had a much better custom game system than Starcraft Broodwar (up until 2009 when host bots ruined everything and Blizzard neglected to do anything). Fast forward to 2017 and their updated Starcraft game has only 1v1 matchmaking and it has lag issues. IMO they should've released 2v2 and 3v3 matchmaking even if it was only turn rate 4. Unlike Starcraft 2, Broodwar is actually a fun casual team game.
On November 27 2017 16:46 Lazare1969 wrote: Yeah, same thoughts as Flash. In 2002 Blizzard released this game called Warcraft 3 and it had 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, FFA matchmaking right out of the box, no lag. It had a much better custom game system than Starcraft Broodwar (up until 2009 when host bots ruined everything and Blizzard neglected to do anything). Fast forward to 2017 and their updated Starcraft game has only 1v1 matchmaking and it has lag issues. IMO they should've released 2v2 and 3v3 matchmaking even if it was only turn rate 4. Unlike Starcraft 2, Broodwar is actually a fun casual team game.
would disagree on unlike SC2 part. Blizzard did tremendous job on promoting coop and other modes.
But SCR doesnt even have stable way to get multiple people in custom game without lagging to hell.
On November 27 2017 16:46 Lazare1969 wrote: Yeah, same thoughts as Flash. In 2002 Blizzard released this game called Warcraft 3 and it had 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, FFA matchmaking right out of the box, no lag. It had a much better custom game system than Starcraft Broodwar (up until 2009 when host bots ruined everything and Blizzard neglected to do anything). Fast forward to 2017 and their updated Starcraft game has only 1v1 matchmaking and it has lag issues. IMO they should've released 2v2 and 3v3 matchmaking even if it was only turn rate 4. Unlike Starcraft 2, Broodwar is actually a fun casual team game.
Warcraft 3 HAD lag.You would get default 200 ping no matter who you are playing against.
On November 27 2017 16:46 Lazare1969 wrote: Yeah, same thoughts as Flash. In 2002 Blizzard released this game called Warcraft 3 and it had 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, FFA matchmaking right out of the box, no lag. It had a much better custom game system than Starcraft Broodwar (up until 2009 when host bots ruined everything and Blizzard neglected to do anything). Fast forward to 2017 and their updated Starcraft game has only 1v1 matchmaking and it has lag issues. IMO they should've released 2v2 and 3v3 matchmaking even if it was only turn rate 4. Unlike Starcraft 2, Broodwar is actually a fun casual team game.
would disagree on unlike SC2 part. Blizzard did tremendous job on promoting coop and other modes.
But SCR doesnt even have stable way to get multiple people in custom game without lagging to hell.
Even just playing a 3v3 hunters game with having no lag is a 1 in 10 occurence.
On November 27 2017 16:46 Lazare1969 wrote: Yeah, same thoughts as Flash. In 2002 Blizzard released this game called Warcraft 3 and it had 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, FFA matchmaking right out of the box, no lag. It had a much better custom game system than Starcraft Broodwar (up until 2009 when host bots ruined everything and Blizzard neglected to do anything). Fast forward to 2017 and their updated Starcraft game has only 1v1 matchmaking and it has lag issues. IMO they should've released 2v2 and 3v3 matchmaking even if it was only turn rate 4. Unlike Starcraft 2, Broodwar is actually a fun casual team game.
would disagree on unlike SC2 part. Blizzard did tremendous job on promoting coop and other modes.
But SCR doesnt even have stable way to get multiple people in custom game without lagging to hell.
SC2 Launch had hardly any good games to easily get into. Even months after the only 2 good UMS maps were StarBattles and Nexus Wars (Desert Strike too iirc came a little later).
3v3 BGH style maps existed, but again the biggest problem with the OG Client until they came up with CoOp mode was 0 easy way to just relax between matches.
On November 27 2017 16:46 Lazare1969 wrote: Yeah, same thoughts as Flash. In 2002 Blizzard released this game called Warcraft 3 and it had 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, FFA matchmaking right out of the box, no lag. It had a much better custom game system than Starcraft Broodwar (up until 2009 when host bots ruined everything and Blizzard neglected to do anything). Fast forward to 2017 and their updated Starcraft game has only 1v1 matchmaking and it has lag issues. IMO they should've released 2v2 and 3v3 matchmaking even if it was only turn rate 4. Unlike Starcraft 2, Broodwar is actually a fun casual team game.
would disagree on unlike SC2 part. Blizzard did tremendous job on promoting coop and other modes.
But SCR doesnt even have stable way to get multiple people in custom game without lagging to hell.
SC2 Launch had hardly any good games to easily get into. Even months after the only 2 good UMS maps were StarBattles and Nexus Wars (Desert Strike too iirc came a little later).
3v3 BGH style maps existed, but again the biggest problem with the OG Client until they came up with CoOp mode was 0 easy way to just relax between matches.
wow i had so much fun playing Star Battle back in like 2012
the issue is that the game is old as hell. everyone around and active are guys who played together back in the day,and is in their mid/late 20's and 30's. and the kids who try to play this game dont get helped nor do they stay motivated when theyre losing so much because its so difficult. i cant see how it can grow if no one can find the fun aspect of the game tbh. Old SC has a lot of depth.
On November 28 2017 10:23 TheShuttleGuy wrote: the issue is that the game is old as hell. everyone around and active are guys who played together back in the day,and is in their mid/late 20's and 30's. and the kids who try to play this game dont get helped nor do they stay motivated when theyre losing so much because its so difficult. i cant see how it can grow if no one can find the fun aspect of the game tbh. Old SC has a lot of depth.
3v3 and UMS and stuff man. it's hella fun for everyone how many people got into the game that way? for the first few months I played online probably more than 70% of my games were 3vs3. Even now I still love playing 3vs3. I mean not right now you know what I mean lal
On November 27 2017 16:46 Lazare1969 wrote: Yeah, same thoughts as Flash. In 2002 Blizzard released this game called Warcraft 3 and it had 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, FFA matchmaking right out of the box, no lag. It had a much better custom game system than Starcraft Broodwar (up until 2009 when host bots ruined everything and Blizzard neglected to do anything). Fast forward to 2017 and their updated Starcraft game has only 1v1 matchmaking and it has lag issues. IMO they should've released 2v2 and 3v3 matchmaking even if it was only turn rate 4. Unlike Starcraft 2, Broodwar is actually a fun casual team game.
Warcraft 3 HAD lag.You would get default 200 ping no matter who you are playing against.
yeah this is difference between peer to peer and server system i think, server advantage is I guess it can almost halve the ping between two distant locations if it's right in the middle (?), but it will increase ping for players who are in close locations but far from the server so in warcraft 3, you would never have as low a ping as your low ping games of bw. However very laggy situations were maybe a bit more rare (?) it did still happen anyway basically with peer to peer you can improve the advantage of peer to peer by looking for close players and block the disadvantage by avoiding to play vs far players. Although in some cases you could still have good enough ping against far players ofc, just not quite guaranteed. Basically then you want to be able to cancel a laggy game after it started without win/loss, and have even that not happen too often (say less than 10% or 5% is cool right?). So for example players who do a lot of 3v3 games need the quality fast interfaces/chat stuff and quality connection and lobby, so that it's easy making a game/joining it fast, starting or restarting fast, and not need to restart often, then lot of fun gogo ggggg when this works well most of the time 4vs4 is also a thing and fun to do^^ imo 2vs2 is a game where you depend so much more on your ally, and your decisions depend so much on your ally, that's where it's harder to play good games without a ladder, but for 3vs3 for me I would not see a point of playing ladder rather than custom, I tried it in other games like WC3 and SC2, well they also don't have quite the quality of bw for 3vs3, but I just love custom game 3v3/4v4 everyone just messing around and you can play some of the same people again remaking, rejoining, switching teammates around whatever its good ♥♦♣♠
ps: btw easy way to be able to cancel a ladder game is add a "ask for draw" button, if opponent accept game draws gg. accept by typing /draw or smtg you can't missclick lol
On November 28 2017 10:23 TheShuttleGuy wrote: the issue is that the game is old as hell. everyone around and active are guys who played together back in the day,and is in their mid/late 20's and 30's. and the kids who try to play this game dont get helped nor do they stay motivated when theyre losing so much because its so difficult. i cant see how it can grow if no one can find the fun aspect of the game tbh. Old SC has a lot of depth.
It's 100x easier to learn now than 5-10 years ago with all the streams and guides. Newer players get a lot of help.
On November 28 2017 10:23 TheShuttleGuy wrote: the issue is that the game is old as hell. everyone around and active are guys who played together back in the day,and is in their mid/late 20's and 30's. and the kids who try to play this game dont get helped nor do they stay motivated when theyre losing so much because its so difficult. i cant see how it can grow if no one can find the fun aspect of the game tbh. Old SC has a lot of depth.
It's 100x easier to learn now than 5-10 years ago with all the streams and guides. Newer players get a lot of help.
That doesn't mean anything.. there are newer and easier games. We can rub our old backs and go "well back in our day..." but unfortunately bw is still one of the most challenging games to be half decent at. So challenging, in fact, that there are people who have been playing for over 10 years without ever playing anything other than UMS.
BW is hard to get good at. It is not hard to enjoy. Who likes the game will keep playing UMS, team games, or 1v1 against players of similar skill level or against friends. There is plenty of ways to enjoy BW even if you play badly. If someone only wants to quickly get very good at something without any serious effort, then he/she will have more fun playing easier or casual games. Some people, like me, like challenges and are highly competetive, so I enjoy playing BW and I am grateful that it still exists.
And objectively speaking it is easier to learn the game now then it was before.
Not sure if it is mentioned yet but the communities attitude towards other players and other games needs to improve. Would greatly improve the community.
On November 29 2017 06:14 Lazare1969 wrote: this is what the team ladder map pool should be:
2v2 Fighting Spirit Circuit Breakers Gladiator Neo Requiem The Hunters
3v3 The Hunters
4v4 The Hunters
after the hunters python is the most popular 2v2 map
isn't it the most vetoed map in current ladder?
Sure, but not for 2v2.
Also, I think The Huntress wouldn't be bad to add to the 3v3 mappool. Hell, I'd add BGH and FPM as well, but give the option to 100% veto those maps. There are a ton of players for those two maps, as well as a ton of players who refuse to play them. Make separate ladders if needed--I personally wouldn't give a shit if they included money map MMR on the same ranking as low money MMR, but I know there are alot of whiney purists out there who would complain about it. I just want a system that matches me and my teammates up vs other teams on whatever map we want to play at a given time.
On November 29 2017 06:14 Lazare1969 wrote: this is what the team ladder map pool should be:
2v2 Fighting Spirit Circuit Breakers Gladiator Neo Requiem The Hunters
3v3 The Hunters
4v4 The Hunters
after the hunters python is the most popular 2v2 map
isn't it the most vetoed map in current ladder?
Sure, but not for 2v2.
Also, I think The Huntress wouldn't be bad to add to the 3v3 mappool. Hell, I'd add BGH and FPM as well, but give the option to 100% veto those maps. There are a ton of players for those two maps, as well as a ton of players who refuse to play them. Make separate ladders if needed--I personally wouldn't give a shit if they included money map MMR on the same ranking as low money MMR, but I know there are alot of whiney purists out there who would complain about it. I just want a system that matches me and my teammates up vs other teams on whatever map we want to play at a given time.
i don't think money maps belong in ladder. there's plenty of it in custom games anyway.
On November 29 2017 06:14 Lazare1969 wrote: this is what the team ladder map pool should be:
2v2 Fighting Spirit Circuit Breakers Gladiator Neo Requiem The Hunters
3v3 The Hunters
4v4 The Hunters
after the hunters python is the most popular 2v2 map
isn't it the most vetoed map in current ladder?
Sure, but not for 2v2.
Also, I think The Huntress wouldn't be bad to add to the 3v3 mappool. Hell, I'd add BGH and FPM as well, but give the option to 100% veto those maps. There are a ton of players for those two maps, as well as a ton of players who refuse to play them. Make separate ladders if needed--I personally wouldn't give a shit if they included money map MMR on the same ranking as low money MMR, but I know there are alot of whiney purists out there who would complain about it. I just want a system that matches me and my teammates up vs other teams on whatever map we want to play at a given time.
i don't think money maps belong in ladder. there's plenty of it in custom games anyway.
On November 29 2017 06:14 Lazare1969 wrote: this is what the team ladder map pool should be:
2v2 Fighting Spirit Circuit Breakers Gladiator Neo Requiem The Hunters
3v3 The Hunters
4v4 The Hunters
after the hunters python is the most popular 2v2 map
isn't it the most vetoed map in current ladder?
Sure, but not for 2v2.
Also, I think The Huntress wouldn't be bad to add to the 3v3 mappool. Hell, I'd add BGH and FPM as well, but give the option to 100% veto those maps. There are a ton of players for those two maps, as well as a ton of players who refuse to play them. Make separate ladders if needed--I personally wouldn't give a shit if they included money map MMR on the same ranking as low money MMR, but I know there are alot of whiney purists out there who would complain about it. I just want a system that matches me and my teammates up vs other teams on whatever map we want to play at a given time.
100% need to be The Huntress instead of Hunters. so much better
i wish shared bases would be a possibility for the teamladder, but I guess there would be too much criticism from BW veterans if that ever was an option in ladder.
On November 29 2017 13:30 404AlphaSquad wrote: i wish shared bases would be a possibility for the teamladder, but I guess there would be too much criticism from BW veterans if that ever was an option in ladder.
Guess I am a BW veteran (started playing in 1999, took many breaks of course since but always came back). Played SC2 from 2012 to 2014 and if there's one thing I found much better on SC2 compared to BW, it was team games and that is mostly because of the maps (and shared bases).
On November 29 2017 13:30 404AlphaSquad wrote: i wish shared bases would be a possibility for the teamladder, but I guess there would be too much criticism from BW veterans if that ever was an option in ladder.
Guess I am a BW veteran (started playing in 1999, took many breaks of course since but always came back). Played SC2 from 2012 to 2014 and if there's one thing I found much better on SC2 compared to BW, it was team games and that is mostly because of the maps (and shared bases).
I just already see the comments about catering to noob players with shared bases. But then again, teamgames were already frowned upon as too casual, so maybe nobody will care.
I've noticed something that is actually pretty sad. On my old laptop and my old desktop, BW would run without any lag or mouse delay. But I recently tried SC:R on my old machines, and there is definitely slowdown. Even with SD mode. Mouse isn't as responsive and smooth as the game progresses. It's a bit better with SD mode, but not by much. Both my old machines have Intel HD graphics. Kinda sucks for those with old machines since even an Intel HD with i5 core can't run SC:R optimally.
Note: there is performance lag online AND offline (singleplayer).
If anyone here wants to directly improve SC:R, it looks like their team is hiring:
Do I know any software engineers looking to come to Blizzard? My team is hiring! Pros - you'd be working on games like StarCraft: Remastered! Cons - I may well be your manager.
Holy crap this is excellent news. I'll be the guy they hang in the basement and hit with a bat like I'm some sort of piñata but instead of candy coming out it'll just be blood and tears. But seriously, this is hyping me up. Also didn't mca eat a ban from this thread LOL?
On December 02 2017 04:50 SchAmToo wrote: "C/C++ required."
Oh dear god no. But, hopefully they get some more resources! I know some engineers have already been pulled off SC:R.
Isn't that just half true? As in the people who were pulled off were more about the artistic stuff, while they've never pulled off any on the engineering stuff?
All will be well, i've spoken a lot with Grant and i can tell that he genuinely wants to improve the game. The guy's super passionate about what he does. We're in good hands, i'm sure he's doing the best he can do with the ressources available to him.
On December 02 2017 17:49 TT1 wrote: All will be well, i've spoken a lot with Grant and i can tell that he genuinely wants to improve the game. The guy's super passionate about what he does. We're in good hands, i'm sure he's doing the best he can do with the ressources available to him.
can u tell him to put a cap to the tr no dropping lower than tr10 or 8? they basically only heard people asking for alerts like your friend has left from starcraft.honestly i hate that spam.but i care about ladder,also new maps are needed.changing the way replays are saved is also very important.it is very confusing and scary to me that the last patch fixed a problem reported recently,but ignoring real problems and sugestions made long ago.who knows maybe is about the person who reports the problem.
On December 02 2017 17:49 TT1 wrote: All will be well, i've spoken a lot with Grant and i can tell that he genuinely wants to improve the game. The guy's super passionate about what he does. We're in good hands, i'm sure he's doing the best he can do with the ressources available to him.
can u tell him to put a cap to the tr no dropping lower than tr10 or 8? they basically only heard people asking for alerts like your friend has left from starcraft.honestly i hate that spam.but i care about ladder,also new maps are needed.changing the way replays are saved is also very important.it is very confusing and scary to me that the last patch fixed a problem reported recently,but ignoring real problems and sugestions made long ago.who knows maybe is about the person who reports the problem.
We already spoke about a new map pool and capping the TR to 8, among several other things. Re-naming reps didn't cross my mind tho, he reads TL so i'm sure he'll take note of it. Should be something easy to fix.
On December 01 2017 19:56 Sayle wrote: If anyone here wants to directly improve SC:R, it looks like their team is hiring:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Do I know any software engineers looking to come to Blizzard? My team is hiring! Pros - you'd be working on games like StarCraft: Remastered! Cons - I may well be your manager.</p>— Grant Davies (@GrantTheAnt) <a href="https://twitter.com/GrantTheAnt/status/936496872096645120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 1, 2017</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Nice to see Blizzard is still investing on SC:R. I really hope they get someone who is not only familiar with the game, but also with the community.
On December 03 2017 10:25 xboi209 wrote: I didn't expect remastered to be so problematic, I find this whole situation quite sad
It's not as problematic as this thread might lead one to believe. This is kind of a venting thread, and some of the things discussed in here have been resolved since their posting.
Just wanted to point this out, cause I know a lot of people considering playing SC:R might be looking through this thread and get scared away. But, there is definitely a future for SC:R and it's still really fun in its current state
On December 04 2017 17:11 s_k_911 wrote: doulbe click observer
can open 4 observer seats?
agreed! also consider possibility of more observer slots if needed? cause now when you want more observers you have to use a UMS with obs slots, and then you get divided chat in game between observer slots of SC:R and obs slots of UMS maps. up to 10 obs slots depending on number of player slots on the map? that way max number of slots is the same, should fit in the interface since it can fill space not filled by "missing" player slots..
Yeah I remember having lots of fun, social games with lots of people obsing, where you could chat with everyone, especially in the early game. That contributes to a really nice atmosphere, and when things would get busy, the obs' would just go on ally chat. Observert chat to everyone should definitely be toggleable, and hopefully it is coming back in a coming patch.
On December 11 2017 19:26 fazek42 wrote: Yeah I remember having lots of fun, social games with lots of people obsing, where you could chat with everyone, especially in the early game. That contributes to a really nice atmosphere, and when things would get busy, the obs' would just go on ally chat. Observert chat to everyone should definitely be toggleable, and hopefully it is coming back in a coming patch.
It's definitely a double-edged sword though. Should be off by default if implemented. Getting spammed and begging "ac on" got old in the lift CC on LT days.
On December 11 2017 19:26 fazek42 wrote: Yeah I remember having lots of fun, social games with lots of people obsing, where you could chat with everyone, especially in the early game. That contributes to a really nice atmosphere, and when things would get busy, the obs' would just go on ally chat. Observert chat to everyone should definitely be toggleable, and hopefully it is coming back in a coming patch.
On December 11 2017 19:26 fazek42 wrote: Yeah I remember having lots of fun, social games with lots of people obsing, where you could chat with everyone, especially in the early game. That contributes to a really nice atmosphere, and when things would get busy, the obs' would just go on ally chat. Observert chat to everyone should definitely be toggleable, and hopefully it is coming back in a coming patch.
It's definitely a double-edged sword though. Should be off by default if implemented. Getting spammed and begging "ac on" got old in the lift CC on LT days.
Heh, true. Should be something the players can toggle, whether or not they wanna see obs chat. If you are playing some serious 1v1 it can be annoying, but if you are having fun in some not so serious matches, it's kind of vital for a fun atmosphere.
On December 11 2017 19:26 fazek42 wrote: Yeah I remember having lots of fun, social games with lots of people obsing, where you could chat with everyone, especially in the early game. That contributes to a really nice atmosphere, and when things would get busy, the obs' would just go on ally chat. Observert chat to everyone should definitely be toggleable, and hopefully it is coming back in a coming patch.
hmm why no just use observer map?
True, but than you don't get the new fancy ob features!