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On June 17 2010 05:25 Misrah wrote:Thank you for bringing up this point. While you yourself are not interested in monetary gains- the company you will be working for is. and in the case of activision blizzard- the board of directors is very very concerned with making money. 
Board directors do not design.
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What's wrong with entertainment? When I started playing video games I didn't know of any competitive scene (and there probably wasn't one outside of certain arcades)
The main point I feel you're trying to make is that Starcraft 2 is not Starcraft 1. And you're pulling the video game industry under with you.
I am so much more familiar with the competitive CS scene and I heard the same BS when source came out. The game is different, deal with it. It's not Starcraft 1 anymore. You're free to play Starcraft 1.
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On June 17 2010 05:16 Jovian wrote:
....
An RTS can evolve where a FPS or "Sports" genre games cannot.
You have no clue what you're talking about, and you probably don't even understand how much of a role strategy and tactical discisions plays in Counter-Strike 1.6 on the highest level.
It is exactly like playing an RTS. You just don't respect that.
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On June 17 2010 05:23 Misrah wrote:
Nope just enjoying that people are up in arms about the truth.
Entertainment is big bucks, and all of you are buying into it. That is what my OP was- that is my opinion and i am sticking with it.
Oh, thank you for showing us the light then.
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I almost feel that this is a case similar to "fan of indie band not liking the band anymore, because they are now signed to a label".
Nothing really changed, but the number of fans have increased. For some people they don't feel as special anymore.
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On June 17 2010 05:27 Half wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2010 05:25 Misrah wrote:Thank you for bringing up this point. While you yourself are not interested in monetary gains- the company you will be working for is. and in the case of activision blizzard- the board of directors is very very concerned with making money. Board directors do not design.
You're fooling yourself if you think that they don't have a vested interest in how the game is being designed. They most CERTAINLY have a say in the matter. Don't be forcibly ignorant and row around on semantics.
They have an interest and they have weight to throw around. They don't design directly but indirectly they have more than enough clout to get things done.
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On June 17 2010 05:26 Manilix wrote:
So Misrah, just to clarify, is your problem with SC2 that it is "entertaining" or the fact the Blizz will make money on it ?
Both of which are highly dependent on one another.
My OP was about more than SC2 and Blizz- most probably did not care to read it.
But my problem right now is that games are not games anymore. they are simply entertainment. Games used to be challenging, and have clear lines of competitive skill. However now games are just made for the masses because it is easier and is more profitable. and it seems that i am the only person seeing this.
That annoys me- so i am letting my voice be heard here in the SC2 forum.
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Since when has video gaming not been a form of entertainment? Why did you buy Donkey Kong and a NES? So that you could become the world Donkey Kong master?
Why do you think masses of people in Korea who don't play SC themselves even BOTHER to watch SC tournaments? Because its fun to watch!
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On June 17 2010 05:17 Misrah wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2010 05:12 owenowens33 wrote:Game companies need to make a game that is fun to play, not hard to play. They need to make a game that is easy for players to pick up and they need gamers to feel good about themselves. So how does one do that? In short its making a game eaiser to play, and making sure there is a skill ceiling that is very attainable. Think of Super Smash Brothers Brawl compared to Super Smash Brothers Melee. Think of HALO compared to HALO3. Think of SCBW to SC2. Think of the Modern Warfare Series... WOW ext... all of these games have something in common- and that is a false sense of competition. As the new generation of games debut- they slowly and slowly lower the skill ceiling. Yet even when the skill ceiling is lowered, competitive gaming circuits still pick up games that are vastly inferior to others.
I actually agree 100% on this, especially with regards to Melee's de-evolution into Brawl. Those of you who may believe that Brawl is some sort of competitive fighter did not witness or experience the incredibly competitive Melee scene. And Misrah is right, Melee was never meant to be a truly competitive fighter (it was made by nintendo, I mean, come on), but it became one because the players in the community found various advanced techniques that completely obliterated the envisioned skill ceiling. Becoming a competitive Melee player was one of the most difficult things to achieve in my gaming career, and its up there with getting to C- on Iccup for BW. Then came the advent of Brawl. The sequel was highly anticipated by both the casual and the hardcore alike, until the hardcore realized that the game was being developing SOLELY for the casual market. The speed of the games was horribly nerfed. The advanced techniques that served as pillars for competitive Melee were instantly taken out and replaced with something no fighting game has even SEEN before: tripping, which randomly tripped players stunned them while running. It is hard to describe the transition from Brawl to Melee as anything but a complete abandonment of the hardcore gamer in favor of the massive, casual audience. And guess who won? Nintendo did. The game sold incredibly well; hell, IGN gave it a 9.5. But the release of Brawl introduced a gaping dichotomy in the Smash community, and most of the hardcore smash players continue to play Melee even now. The only losers in this equation are the hardcore gamers that did not receive a fully functioning sequel. Both the gaming companies and the casual gamers got exactly what they wanted. The pull is undeniable, even for a hardcore gamer. My roommate used to play Counter Strike with me; in fact, he was the one who got me into it. I used to be amazed at his skills, and I just get practicing because I wanted to be good at the game. And trust me, if you have ever played Counter Strike before, you know that the first couple of weeks you play that game you are going to get owned. Over and over again. But I persisted because the competitiveness of the game and its steep learning curve drove me to keep playing, rather than pushing me away because it was too hard. I am now much better than my roommate at CS and continue to play in CEVO CSS leagues. But the real point of the story is why my roommate stopped playing CS. He started to pick up other shooters like TF2, and eventually Modern Warfare. He started playing Modern Warfare and never looked back to CS because (he even said this to me) "I'm really good Modern Warfare, I love owning these kids". And so I started playing it, and within an hour I was getting the same KDR's as he was. It wasnt because I was some god like FPS gamer. It was simply because the guns have no recoil, the entire KDR is based upon Kill Streak rewards, and most of the community was 10-16 year old kids. It simply wasn't that compelling for me. But my roommate loved it. It was entertaining. However, MW2 came out and the community slowly got better and better. Soon my roommate hated the regular team deathmatch because he simply wasnt getting the KDR he wanted. So what did he do? Try and get better at the game so he could be more competitive? No. He now exclusively plays the Ground War playlist because "Its easier cause people who play Ground War are noobs". This is a classic example of someone who just wants to succeed, even if succeeding requires no effort. However, I have to disagree with the OP on one thing: I still believe in SC2. I know that there have been some mechanics that make the game easier for the casual (MBS, smart cast, automine), but there exists a large discrepancy between the good players and the great players of the game. The skill ceiling, as it stands right now, is undoubtedly lower than the SCBW, but I still believe that Blizzard knows that SC2 must appeal to the hardcore gaming base that has built the SC community. Have faith in Blizzard, they really do deliver quality games. Thank you for proving my point.
Starcraft is competitive. The pros play on a competitive level. A 6 year old (or a copper player) will be playing the game for entertainment. But they are playing the same game.
Starcraft BW was fine, SC2 will be fine. I think you are missing the point. It is obvious that there can be a game that is easy to pick up but hard to master. SSBM was a game like that, tailored for the casual, but the hardcore drove the metagame until it was highly competitive. What Misrah is saying is that gaming developers now are consciously trying to limit the competitiveness of a game in order to attract a larger casual audience and generate more profit. For example, imagine a company that comes up with the game of Soccer. Then the company comes up with Soccer 2.0, and builds into the game rules that are specifically designed to make the game non-competitive, such as no running, the goals are bigger, etc etc. Also, no pro goes out and challenges a 6 year to a soccer match, beats him badly, and then scars the kid for life. However, on an online platform, advanced gamers are matched up with noobs constantly; game companies are afraid of the noobs becoming wary of a game because he or she cannot play the game without being beaten badly by an experienced player online. wait someone actually agrees with me on the sc2 forum! hell ya!
I do agree with you on most of your points about gaming companies making their games easier for the reason of attracting a casual audience, but I also think that you are shooting yourself in the foot by trying to make this a technical debate. Its not about APM, or entertainment, or post counts. The fundamental point you should be driving is that there exists a casual market that is (usually) more profitable to develop for, and therefore it may affect (negatively) how most games that used to be tailored for the hardcore market are now made.
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On June 17 2010 05:26 Takkara wrote:
How about an additional hypothetical about "skill-ceilings":
What if SC1 is nowhere even close to the "ceiling" of skill of what you could accomplish. It takes so much APM and dexterity to work around the engine that what you do is incredibly impressive but nowhere near what the maximum capacity of the game is.
So, what if SC2 doesn't rail you against the ceiling but shifts the abilities along the continnum closer to the ceiling. So, yes, the average noob looks more skilled than they would in SC1, but the pro can still soar higher than them. In fact, the pro can use the additional APM that he's not using working around the SC1 interface to get an even more impressive command on his units.
Isn't the ultimate goal of gaming to have a true control over every unit individually? I mean, if you could do that, that would be the "ceiling" as I see it. The closer you get to that, the more you can control raiding parties, drops, expanding, harassing, attacking, flanking, etc all at the same time. In this way, it could be that removing some of the APM sinks of SC1 actually opens up an even more entertaining result. Or an equally entertaining result, or just an entertaining result.
In this way, sure SC2 is easier than SC1 in the ways that we used to regard as amazing the ways that pros managed the limitations of SC1, but SC2 could be amazing in entirely new ways and provide depth in entirely different ways.
Again, this is all hypothetical. I'm just throwing out a thought experiment moreso than passing judgement on the legacy of all of BW and the incredibly young SC2.
Show me an example where the average noob looks like a great player in a game, and the pro is so much better. please i would like to hear about this game. SSBM came close (in the first year of it's release)- but then the meta game was shifted by the competitive community and now that is not possible.
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Also I urge those who have been calling Misrah an idiot or a troll to read my original post, it may help some of you understand where he is coming from, even if in the end you still disagree with him.
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On June 17 2010 05:28 Alou wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2010 05:23 Misrah wrote:
Nope just enjoying that people are up in arms about the truth.
Entertainment is big bucks, and all of you are buying into it. That is what my OP was- that is my opinion and i am sticking with it. Oh, thank you for showing us the light then.
Sweet 2 people that agree with me!
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On June 17 2010 05:29 Misrah wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2010 05:26 Manilix wrote:
So Misrah, just to clarify, is your problem with SC2 that it is "entertaining" or the fact the Blizz will make money on it ?
Both of which are highly dependent on one another. My OP was about more than SC2 and Blizz- most probably did not care to read it. But my problem right now is that games are not games anymore. they are simply entertainment. Games used to be challenging, and have clear lines of competitive skill. However now games are just made for the masses because it is easier and is more profitable. and it seems that i am the only person seeing this. That annoys me- so i am letting my voice be heard here in the SC2 forum.
Well thats just BS my friend. I have been around sins the WAY early days. Running up a count of 28 old now. I have played on the pro scene of multiple games (inc CS 1.6) and nothing has changed.
What however has changed is how fast i learn new games now, based what i have done in previous games. But make no misstake, nony or Idea or any number of players will still own my ass head to head.
So saying the competetive aspect is gone is just not true
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On June 17 2010 05:32 owenowens33 wrote:
Also I urge those who have been calling Misrah an idiot or a troll to read my original post, it may help some of you understand where he is coming from, even if in the end you still disagree with him.
I don't understand how anyone would consider Misrah an idiot or a troll...his OP was a damn long post that should have been properly read and understood by most people. It made a frank sort of sense.
I don't agree entirely with everything he said but I certainly agree that the game industry is turning into an entertainment industry.
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While you present a valid text, your arguments does not imply the conclusion you are trying to make, and to be frank with you, this is just a load of crap coming from a person with obvious nostalgia.
I would like to point out the following paragraph: "I wanted to scream and yell at all of the game testers of this recent SC2 craze. Did you not all realize that they have not taken a single shred of your advice? Don't you all see that all of the hard work you put into 'imbalance' topics, or 'this seems weak' is ignored? Don't you understand that blizz and other game companies only want your opinion- so THEY KNOW HOW NOT TO MAKE THIS GAME! They never wanted a competitive game, they always wanted a popular game... ENTERTAINMENT Your constant nit picking and eager help, clearly showed blizz and other game companies how exactly not to make a game."
You do not present any examples of these imbalances, nor weak parts of the game. Then comes the really funny part: I have no idea how you can draw a conclusion like that based on your arguments, I actually laughed while I read it. Of course Blizzard wants to make a popular game, when a game is popular, it usually implies that the game is entertaining, great, you drew an obvious conclusion, but you fail to mention what makes a game competive, and why people want to get good at it.
To me it is obvious: the players like the game so much that they want to become good at it and beat the opponent as it provides ENTERTAINMENT to them. Why do you think people become progamers in the first place? Money?...
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On June 17 2010 05:33 Manilix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2010 05:29 Misrah wrote:On June 17 2010 05:26 Manilix wrote:
So Misrah, just to clarify, is your problem with SC2 that it is "entertaining" or the fact the Blizz will make money on it ?
Both of which are highly dependent on one another. My OP was about more than SC2 and Blizz- most probably did not care to read it. But my problem right now is that games are not games anymore. they are simply entertainment. Games used to be challenging, and have clear lines of competitive skill. However now games are just made for the masses because it is easier and is more profitable. and it seems that i am the only person seeing this. That annoys me- so i am letting my voice be heard here in the SC2 forum. Well thats just BS my friend. I have been around sins the WAY early days. Running up a count of 28 old now. I have played on the pro scene of multiple games (inc CS 1.6) and nothing has changed. What however has changed is how fast i learn new games now, based what i have done in previous games. But make no misstake, nony or Idea or any number of players will still own my ass head to head. So saying the competetive aspect is gone is just not true
The guy never said that there wasn't a skill gap between a pro player and new player.
What he did say is that the skill gap is easier to bridge. Whether that's true or not remains to be seen.
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On June 17 2010 05:12 owenowens33 wrote:Show nested quote +Thank you for proving my point.
Starcraft is competitive. The pros play on a competitive level. A 6 year old (or a copper player) will be playing the game for entertainment. But they are playing the same game.
Starcraft BW was fine, SC2 will be fine. I think you are missing the point. It is obvious that there can be a game that is easy to pick up but hard to master. SSBM was a game like that, tailored for the casual, but the hardcore drove the metagame until it was highly competitive. What Misrah is saying is that gaming developers now are consciously trying to limit the competitiveness of a game in order to attract a larger casual audience and generate more profit. For example, imagine a company that comes up with the game of Soccer. Then the company comes up with Soccer 2.0, and builds into the game rules that are specifically designed to make the game non-competitive, such as no running, the goals are bigger, etc etc.
How is starcraft 2 being designed to limit competition? Blizzard is trying to expand E-SPORTS.....
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On June 17 2010 05:21 Misrah wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2010 05:18 OpRaider wrote:On June 17 2010 05:15 Misrah wrote:On June 17 2010 05:10 Talic_Zealot wrote:
APM mattered so much in BW because of no worker / fight rally, no automine, no mbs, no unlimited selection.
Nony your a way better player than me- don't you think that if that was in SC1 that you and many other pro gamers would have hit the ceiling many many years ago?
You are proving yourself wrong. No worker / fight rally, no automine, no mbs, no unlimited selection are not at all the reasons starcraft is such a competitive game. Actually the fact that these exist in SC2 and still it is a very mechanically demanding game means that there will be even more things that you can do if you are good enough. SC2 is not mechanically demanding. You must be kidding me right? Many people share the sentiment that sc2 doesn't not require as much mechanical skill as sc1. But at least you have APM technology now... so i could be wrong. stop acting morally superior to everyone...by using this "APM technology" thing as your cover Morally superior- yep thats me. Keep bringing on the hate SC2 forum i have been waiting for this. Entertainment is the new wave of the future.
Uhhhhhh i think you need to chill out guy, your post is basically your opinion about how the gaming industry is changing, with frankly little to back up a lot of your statements but what ever your free to it, but don't say things like that, they just cause you to come off as a dick, undermining your point. Lets be a little more mature here....
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On June 17 2010 05:36 Jayme wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2010 05:33 Manilix wrote:On June 17 2010 05:29 Misrah wrote:On June 17 2010 05:26 Manilix wrote:
So Misrah, just to clarify, is your problem with SC2 that it is "entertaining" or the fact the Blizz will make money on it ?
Both of which are highly dependent on one another. My OP was about more than SC2 and Blizz- most probably did not care to read it. But my problem right now is that games are not games anymore. they are simply entertainment. Games used to be challenging, and have clear lines of competitive skill. However now games are just made for the masses because it is easier and is more profitable. and it seems that i am the only person seeing this. That annoys me- so i am letting my voice be heard here in the SC2 forum. Well thats just BS my friend. I have been around sins the WAY early days. Running up a count of 28 old now. I have played on the pro scene of multiple games (inc CS 1.6) and nothing has changed. What however has changed is how fast i learn new games now, based what i have done in previous games. But make no misstake, nony or Idea or any number of players will still own my ass head to head. So saying the competetive aspect is gone is just not true The guy never said that there wasn't a skill gap between a pro player and new player. What he did say is that the skill gap is easier to bridge. Whether that's true or not remains to be seen.
Oh i know, but i still fundementaly disagree with him, the gap is as large as it has ever been, there are just more players in games now. Which in turns means more people with more skill.
But as i said i my first post soooo many posts ago. I do agree with part of you OP. But i realise that it is mainly due to nostalgi, sad but true.
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On June 17 2010 05:34 Sakkosekken wrote:
While you present a valid text, your arguments does not imply the conclusion you are trying to make, and to be frank with you, this is just a load of crap coming from a person with obvious nostalgia.
I would like to point out the following paragraph: "I wanted to scream and yell at all of the game testers of this recent SC2 craze. Did you not all realize that they have not taken a single shred of your advice? Don't you all see that all of the hard work you put into 'imbalance' topics, or 'this seems weak' is ignored? Don't you understand that blizz and other game companies only want your opinion- so THEY KNOW HOW NOT TO MAKE THIS GAME! They never wanted a competitive game, they always wanted a popular game... ENTERTAINMENT Your constant nit picking and eager help, clearly showed blizz and other game companies how exactly not to make a game."
You do not present any examples of these imbalances, nor weak parts of the game. Then comes the really funny part: I have no idea how you can draw a conclusion like that based on your arguments, I actually laughed while I read it. Of course Blizzard wants to make a popular game, when a game is popular, it usually implies that the game is entertaining, great, you drew an obvious conclusion, but you fail to mention what makes a game competive, and why people want to get good at it.
To me it is obvious: the players like the game so much that they want to become good at it and beat the opponent as it provides ENTERTAINMENT to them. Why do you think people become progamers in the first place? Money?...
people become pro gamers for the dream and money of making a living playing video games.
I also am not here to talk about the merit of sc2 as a game, because i don't think its a game- but simply entertainment. If you have not already guessed i don't like sc2- but this is not what the OP is about.
I am simply trying to point out the fact that sc2 is not a competitive game, and in fact may of the very popular games released by game companies are not competitive. they have false competition, and are great entertainment.
Making a game that is entertaining, and will sell very well is great for game designers.
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EPT
