EPTSo, pre-replay days you had folks like Tillerman and Maynard. Not long into SC, Grrr... started to take over. You had Elky and some Koreans starting to rise, too.
Boxer took the game over, with other greats like YellOw.
Some others started to gain prominence into Boxer's reign - xellos, reach, etc.
Nada started to go on a heater, and his macro was changing the game. Guys like iloveoov were also on fire during Nada's reign.
The Bisu/Jaedong/Flash/Stork's of the world were after my time, some of them I was a little familiar with, but they hadn't reached their prime.
I know little about their time period (I have pieced together though that sometime around 2008 is when the map style started to get really different sometimes - the very wide ramps, etc. I guess using that map creation hacked client where you can create features or place things where they shouldn't be, to use map design for creativity but also to iron out imbalances; I still never got fully out of my Lost Temple phase, myself) in the Kespa-era, but I understand Bisu/Jaedong/Flash were amazing, and Flash is widely considered the best ever. It's hard for me not to say Boxer 1, Nada 2, but, I can't fairly judge anyone after Nada's prime.
So, I take it broodwar just kind of continued on, as it had been, OSL/MSL type tournies, koreans dominating, etc. That era is fog of war for me, but when SC2 came out and beyond, is just a blackout. So, SC 2 gets released, I am guessing some players who were active in BW - pro, strong foriegner, or casual, switched to SC2?
Did the BW pro scene change? Disappear, etc?
Then Kespa crumbled near this time frame, is my impression. Match-fixing scandal, I think. I've been trying hard to get a good gauge on this type of info and not just post asking, but it's been hard to piece everything together.
Now, let's skip to present for a moment. I've never played SC2, and had never seen it. I just very recently saw some games and got a bit of a feel for it. It was a big surprise to me to see that some of the very top players, or arguably best (clem, serral, for example) are foriegners, much less even just having foriegn pros at all. The 12 workers, revealed fog of war style map, 2-player start positions, and a ton of automated things like workers rallying directly to minerals, and being able to hotkey multiple production buildings at once, and all of those types of things took me by surprise. It also really shocked me that it was still receiving balance patches, and that the community argued about balance. I recall balance complaints about BW being substantially less common, and the last balance patch was what, 2001?
Anyway, despite having not seen a BW game for about 5 years when SC2 came out, I was instinctively opposed to the game being made at all. It felt bad to me, because BW already seemed like such a high quality game, and that still was being played professionally, and had a big following. It seemed so unnecessary. In retrospect, I'm less stubborn. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that SC2 is still around, and still has an active pro scene. I'm under the impression that the game is at it's current skill/level of play peak, but the scale and frequency of pro tournies, and player count is no longer at it's prime. The lingo surprised me, too - bonjwa was a new term for me that hadn't been around. And gosu, hasu, chobo, "foriegner" for non-korean, etc. seem vastly less prevalent.
More pleasantly surprising to me was to find out that now only is BW still being played, but it has a bigger player base than SC2. I think that it is highly concentrated within the Korean demographic, though?
Anyway, when I see people talk about BW, I often see the post-Kespa era completely excluded. Or, there is this frequent distinction between kespa-era and post-kespa.
So here is what I am most curious about. Where is BW at, on the pro level? I see that there is an annual ASL, I take it that this is the equivalent now of OnGameNet Star League and such. I think Afreeca TV that it airs on, is a streaming channel, not cable?
It also looks like there is a gap between the OSL/MSL days, and when ASL started, by a good 4 or so years?
Was there a dark age of BW (after kespa, until ASL), or did it continually have a big scene?
I know almost nothing about e-sports, I just knew WCG had other games along with broodwar, and that broodwar's scene was sort of the origin of e-sports. This is why it surprises me when I hear some people refer to 2006-2010-ish as kinda the golden era of BW, or when it was it's biggest. For a game that was sooo popular, and so good, and even had massive live audiences, tens of thousands, to watch 2 guys play a computer game in space suits lol, and it was popular on tv, and via VODs around the world; it seems crazy to think it got even bigger. Did it really, or is part of that, more like, the Bisu/Jaedong/Flash era was so amazing skill wise, that it built on and improved from the garmito's, chojja's, foru's, etc. of the world.
Oh, did anyone surpass Mondragon as best forigner? Did any ever make it into the pro ranks like in the Elky days, or even close? I guess an astrix for androide, hah, we didn't get to see him enough. And I think a chinese player or 2, as well. (EDIT: PJ was the main chinese player I was thinking of)
Finally, so, post-Kespa. What's the deal? Is the game more grass roots than before, or just as big? I see these new (or post-kespa) top players like Light, Soma, and Snow. I'm wondering, is this the highest level of play BW has ever seen, right now? Or has it been out SO long, that despite evolution over time, etc. there are players from the past who were so good, and the game was figured out for so long, that they were better then, than the best players now?
I'm sure eras can be hard to compare in some cases, and if we're talking about greatest versus best. Also, is the game just different? Like, do you still have the vast majority of pros almost exclusively play LAN games against their pro team mates in their pro house, and then show up to the offline tournies? I get the feeling that stuff might be different now. And if so, maybe people are practising less, not obligated to do so, etc. So maybe towards the end of the Kespa era was the skill peak, due to more polish, practice, etc?
I caught a few artosis casts from very recent (it was very cool to see he is still around, and tasteless, too; is Day still around, tasteless' brother? shouts to both of them) and the maps were sooo different, and the play style was sooo different. I did see snow's reaver micro, and wtf. my benchmark for reaver micro was reach. It's safe to say that snow elevated it... And I can't imagine it was elevated to that level or beyond during the kespa era - but that's just one specific metric. Seeing dark archons actually being used was interesting, and seeing tons of queens was also very interesting. A lot less firebat use.
It's funny, because in 2005, a lot of people thought bw had been largely 'figured out'. It makes sense that the meta-game continues to evolve and change. I'm sure in some ways, in terms of meta-game optimization, some newer players could beat a top pro in a time machine from the past, just by having a broader awareness of many factors. Basically, is the highest level of BW now, superior to BW at all other eras? Was there a time period post-kespa, before now, that it was higher? Was the Kespa Flash era the highest level ever?
And were the best mechanical players in the past, but now the game has just continued to be figured out and optimized sooo much, that builds and strats are alone making the present era the highest level?
Sorry for the novel, I'm hoping a few posters can pitch in just a little bit of insight, perspective, or opinion, about any of the things I touched on.
Murph
EDIT: I specify very abbreviated, because I am not trying to take up a ton of someone's time. If someone wants to share more, the more the merrier, I'll be more than happy to read anything anyone has to share. Thanks fellas.
