It's sad. What does SC have to recommend it? Not the graphics. We know that. It's the competitiveness, balance, and degree of skill required.

In a way the decline of SC mirrors the decline of another game (series) I play and love, Unreal Tournament. Quake players may hate on UT, but we are in the same boat: no one plays those games anymore. It's all Halo and Call of Duty and Gears of War and stuff. None of the insane fast twitch shooters.

I still play UT1 (a game from '99) regularly and love it. I play with a group of guys who recognize how fun it is. We also play SC. Those are our two main games. Games that can survive that long have to have something going for them we reason (and we enjoy the heck out of them). It's sad for me to see that what they have going for them is not enough to overcome peoples' infatuation with graphics.

Even worse though is that it is not enough to keep them hanging on in the mainstream among gamers whose tastes have shifted. UT3 has the newer graphics but no one plays it, as they are interested in fundamentally different types of action games. I am slightly worried that SC2 may be the same way, a graphically updated version of a type of game that has fallen out of favor among the masses. If all the things are done that TL feels are necessary to keep it true to BW my fear is that this will disqualify it from widespread interest (at least in the multiplayer realm) due to a consolized generation of gamers, the same way UT3 failed to garner any interest.

Coulthard

Greece3359 Posts

November 18 2008 02:17 GMT

#23

People used to make posts like this in 2004-05 but it seems to me that starcraft is still alive,cls keep running,we got a ladder with 1000+ users online,events like esl,tsl,pgl I think sc is fine.So what if old div4 teams can advance to div2 or div1,people imrove.The only thing thats dying big time are the lans.

LxRogue

United States1415 Posts

November 18 2008 02:28 GMT

#24

SC has been "dying" for more than 5 years. At least that what all these posts would have you believe.

I sure hope it keeps dying, iCCup is awesome, and the korean scene is more active then ever before.

StylishVODs

Sweden5331 Posts

November 18 2008 02:44 GMT

#25

as long as people love watching starcraft and playing startcraft i can't see it dying anytime soon, however depressing that dreamhack doesnt include sc anymore.
korean teams are beginning to recruit foreigners that has got to be good!

Murlox

France1699 Posts

November 18 2008 02:48 GMT

#26

\m/etallica

meegrean

Thailand7699 Posts

November 18 2008 02:51 GMT

#27

When I log on to Iccup, I don't exactly feel like foreign Starcraft is dying. There are still plenty of noobs who want to learn how to play Starcraft.

For me, I don't really care about competition in the foreign scene. I only want to watch the best vs the best and they could only be found in South Korea. Community grudge matches are also fun to watch too, but that's an exception.

Xeris

Iran17695 Posts

November 18 2008 02:54 GMT

#28

On November 18 2008 11:51 meegrean wrote:
When I log on to Iccup, I don't exactly feel like foreign Starcraft is dying. There are still plenty of noobs who want to learn how to play Starcraft.

For me, I don't really care about competition in the foreign scene. I only want to watch the best vs the best and they could only be found in South Korea. Community grudge matches are also fun to watch too, but that's an exception.

My whole point is that I'm talking about the foreign competitive scene, I'm not talking about pro-gaming in Korea, or the game in general.

Foreign Competitive Scene = Dying , rest of Starcraft = alive.

tonight

United States11130 Posts

November 18 2008 02:55 GMT

#29

SC2 will be just like when war3 came out. When war3 came out the SC community took a big hit losing a lot of players to that game and now the same thing will happen, but in the end I think it will kill off SC all together.

Durak

Canada3684 Posts

November 18 2008 03:00 GMT

#30

If TSL can find sponsorship, foreign competitive scene has hope. I think the costs are lower for running TSL than WCG (and it's better).

I'd better pick up my game if I only have 3-4 months left. A+ here I come.

CommanderFluffy

Taiwan1059 Posts

November 18 2008 03:53 GMT

#31

as long as there are still people willing to play BW i will play it too.

well written xeris.

thunk

United States6233 Posts

November 18 2008 03:54 GMT

#32

If ICCUP continues to run as well as it does, SC won't die. And people have written for a long time now and I won't stop playing until a better game takes its place.

Pads

England3228 Posts

November 18 2008 04:02 GMT

#33

Broodwar would probably be alot more fun if we all just said fuckit to europe, west etc and everyone piled into iccup. It's a much better server! it has lan latencty, a ladder, anti hacks and a website made for the server. It won't happen but would make alot of sense.

Skew

United States1019 Posts

November 18 2008 04:05 GMT

#34

I guess there has to be one of these retarded posts every now and then to get me to come out from under the rock...

SC isn't dying anymore than it was since a long time ago. WCG has always blown, no body has ever cared that much about WGTour (and some of these other random sites, but I still respect their staff greatly for their effort), sponsors aren't coming or going any differently than they always have for the past 5 years, and the most important things that have happened in awhile (and are still here to stay) are ICCup and TSL. So TBH, as a player and observer, SC has only gotten better in my time.

Secondly, you just disrespected so many great new age players by making up some random stupid group of 'top foreigners' lead by IefNaij???? What? If you're going to make a list and want people to not hate you for it, it better not be this fucking terrible. And that was really, really terrible. The sad part about it is a huge majority of players in question probably don't read here (or wouldn't post if they did), so it'll just float around mind-fucking everyone who doesn't know any better. Give credit where it's due or shut the hell up when you don't know. Tired of seeing this crap go unchecked.

Lastly, Media is the #1 US team hands down. We could have played D O fucking W for the past 3 years, never playing a game of SC, still come back and destroy any other US team without a mouse. Our team accomplishments are based on the people who make up the team, not some random league finish with no prize. Don't fucking disrespect a nation's leading players and team just to make yourself seem cool. You just lost a lot of credibility with a lot of top players. Hope it was worth it.

L4D out in like 1 hour so I'm off to party woooooooooo!

SkepTicAL

Canada872 Posts

November 18 2008 04:11 GMT

#35

SKEW[MEDIA] DOESN'T APPROVE? WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GONNA DO NOW?!?!

Sadist

United States7205 Posts

November 18 2008 04:14 GMT

#36

bw outside of korea will be around as long as it is in WCG

SK.Testie

Canada11084 Posts

November 18 2008 04:19 GMT

#37

Coincidentally, Media is the only US team.

Xeris

Iran17695 Posts

November 18 2008 04:28 GMT

#38

On November 18 2008 13:05 Skew wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +

No offense but what about my list is wrong? What foreigners have accomplished more than Strelok, IefNaij, White-Ra, Nony, Idra, DinOt, Dreiven, etc? I don't know about you but when I think of "top players" - I think of people who actually accomplish a lot. You can be the best player and reach A+ on ladder and dominate everyone in practice games, etc, but if you don't translate that over to winning clanwars or tournaments, then what do you really have? Nothing... Also in my list I'm not referring to Chinese players (since they have their own progaming they aren't included).

Again when I'm talking about teams, I'm not talking about the individual accomplishments of the players in the teams, I'm talking about the team accomplishments in team events (clan leagues, etc). You can have w/e opinion you want about that, but personally when thinking of a team, I put team league, etc accomplishments over the individual accomplishments of the players in that team. Agree or disagree, I don't really care - that isn't the point of this... and I also don't care about the mysterious "top players" I lost the respect of, boo hoo.

+ Show Spoiler +

my list of players isn't all-inclusive, there are others like Cloud, etc who deserve mention too, but whatever flame awway!

Play

Australia608 Posts

November 18 2008 04:44 GMT

#39

I can't really see how sc is dying... with things like the TSL (as you said), GomTV Intel Classic and Spirit tourney going on, + alot of amateur commentators with big fanbases introducing lots of newbies into the scene, you would think foreign starcraft is stronger than ever.

Xeris

Iran17695 Posts

November 18 2008 04:58 GMT

#40

- GomTV Intel Classic = not foreign
- Spirit = one time deal (over now)
- TSL = the only hope
- random amateur commentators = does nothing for FOREIGN COMPETITIVE SCENE... which is what I am talking about.

hope that helps.