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On March 18 2008 19:47 InterWill wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2008 17:52 Centric wrote:On March 18 2008 16:59 FeArTeHsCoUrGe wrote:On March 18 2008 11:42 valiance. wrote:
MBS isn't necessarily going to make SC2 a less competitive game, it just changes what makes it starcraft-like. Warcraft 3 is plenty competitive, it just has a different micro:macro ratio than SC. So Blizz adding micro tasks to balance out macro might keep the overall difficulty and competitiveness of SC2 the same as SC1, but it's at the cost of making SC2 feel more like WC3.
That said, MBS is NOT being added in order to make SC2 a more competitive e-sport game, it's being added so SC2 will have some appeal beyond the sc1 e-sports community. The increase in micro is a direct response to the increased ease of macro introduced by MBS.
I'm unsure if SBS would be a good tradeoff for Blizz. I don't know if the public would buy into an SC2 with SBS, and I don't know if SC1 die hards and Koreans can make SC2 the success Blizz wants it to be. The group of hardcore fans will be essential to the success of SC2 in any case, but Blizz needs to reach beyond nostalgic SC1 fans coming back for SC2, and beyond TL fans and beyond Korean pro gamers, and beyond fans of the pro circuit, to people who HAVE NEVER HEARD of starcraft in their lives! If they are too timid in making SC2 different from its predecessor, it will NOT be as good as it could be. Only a revolutionary, godly game could live up to the legacy of SC1, and I think being locked into the thought patterns of SC1 will limit the ambitions of SC2.
That said, without balance, without a viable pro-scene, you end up with a game like DoW, which lives on fluff and fun, but is unplayable AS A GAME. That doesn't make DoW a bad game, it's fun, reviewers liked it, and it has a community that has stuck with it through x-pack after x-pack, but it's nowhere near what it could be. It's not a classic, because it's not a good, balanced, competitive game. It's the balance that bred the pro-scene and is the cornerstone of SC.
I'm just worried that Blizz will not be able to find a way to keep the starcraft feel AND the difficulty of SC1. Adding MBS but not adding micro keeps the SC feel, but also makes the game a lot easier. Adding micro just makes SC2 into WC4. SC2 will never feel exactly like SC1, but Blizz should make an effort to find new macro tasks to keep the difficulty AND feel of SC2 intact. I agree with this post. But I would like to add why SC2 would probably be better off with MBS. Warcraft III is a very successful strategy game that is played vigorously on the pro level, especially in Europe and China, the latter of which the pro scene has been on a rapid rise. The main reasons Warcraft III would not, or does not, appeal to certain players is due to Upkeep, Heroes, and items. MBS is not a factor here. Starcraft II will attact new players who want to play a true strategy game without the Upkeep, Heores, and Items. MBS will make their interface easier, they will adjust better, and Starcraft II with MBS will become just as big, if not bigger, than Warcraft II, since many pro players like Moon, etc, and most Warcraft III players will move onto Starcraft II. (The majority of people who stay will either be hardcore players, or Defense of the Ancients players); The only community that is criticizing MBS is us, the hardcore Starcraft fans. However, Starcraft II will be a very competitive game regardless of whether SC casuals, hardcores, and pros decide to move to it or not. This is because, as I mentioned before, a limited game like Warcraft III is still highly popular. New players will flood SC2, and new players will dominate it. SC2 is not SC1. Yes, they will be limiting a strategical element of SC2 - macro - but removing MBS would only cater to players of a 10 year old game, who ( when considering the amount of players of all RTS's and the amount of new players who will move to SC2) are and will be a very, very small minority in SC2. It would be very illogical for Blizzard to step back from MBS just to cater the crowd of a ten year old game. That would be similar to Java programmers reverting their code back to the binary 1's and 0's to cater to the old school hardcore programmers. New pro's will rise in SC2, and SC2 will be a success regardless of what the SC1 community demands of the game. You forget the fact that StarCraft has the most dominant e-sports scene out of any RTS ever created. I would argue that the fanbase (comprised mostly of Koreans) obliterates that of all other RTS scenes combined. You are right in the fact that new players will flood into SC2. Blizzard does not make crap games. It will receive top-notch ratings along with a large fan-base. However, the fact of the matter is we are not concerned with the game's popularity. We are concerned about how competitive SC2 will be, and how viable it will be as an e-sport. In other words, you are right in saying that SC2 will be popular, but you are wrong in saying that it will be competitive. And by competitive, I mean at the level it is today. You are missing the point. Casual players of a game, attracted by "popularity," do not spend ten years following a game, perfecting their strategy, and continuing to get better. SC1 has such depth due to this micro/macro trade-off that it has players who will play a ten-year old game with inferior features over the newer games of today. You are wrong in stating that the people who move from SC1 to SC2 will be a minority. I argue that they will be one of the largest factors in deciding whether anyone will play SC2 for ten years.
Our goal is not to beat WC3. We could do that on any given day. Our goal is to match SC1 in its success and longevity. We cannot do that with MBS. As I have said already, MBS removes a part of the game that is too valuable to remove - the macro-oriented part. Only in SC do people lose because they have micro-ed too long and forgotten to macro, and only in SC do people lose when they have macro-ed too much and left their units to die. In adding MBS, you gut the macro-portion of SC, and castrate much of the competitive potential SC2 has as an e-sport. Wait.. what? You're saying that StarCraft II's popularity very is dependent on how well it will manage to convert StarCraft: BroodWars players to the sequel? If every sequel is dependent on the following of the earlier entries in the series how do you explain the success of games like: StarCraft:Broodwars, Everquest, World of Warcraft, Counter Strike? And it's not like we haven't seen big evolutions from one sequel to another which were successfull: Quake 2 --> Quake 3 for example. Blizzard is generally good at pleasing their fans, but they make games for everyone - not just the rabid fanboys. Surely, their aim must be to cater not only to the hardcore fans but to new players alike. Hardcore fans are relatively easy to please. They would settle for, well, they would settle for StarCraft: Broodwars. New players, who tried the original but couldn't get into it, or who've never ever heard of StarCraft though.. they are harder to cater to.. and a MUCH larger group than the hardcore fanbase.
You are wrong; you are not reading my post. I am not speaking of the popularity of SC2 of a game I have not a doubt in my mind that SC2 will be a popular game, one that is "cool" with "awesome graphics" and "awesome new units and buildings" with a "cool storyline." I am speaking of the potential for long-time success as a competitive e-sport. A huge part of that involves getting the current pros to sign on and say that SC1 is a legitimate competitive game and also to get the fans to follow them. Did you miss the first sentence of my post where I iterate that SC1 has the most dominant e-sports scene (fanbase and players included) out of any RTS ever? It would be a massive blow to SC2 to have the pros claim that SC2 is too easy (which is exactly what they're doing now).
Another part of this longevity I speak of, of course, revolves around a fanbase which always does need new players and fresh blood. However, I am saying that the sacrifice of MBS is one that is too large to make to get new players to sign on. If MBS is the kill-all for them, I would argue that they are the type of casual gamers who will play the game for a while, then drop it when the next "cool" game comes out. That has no positive effect whatsoever on the longevity of SC2.
As someone has already mentioned, hardcore fans are hardly "easy to please." SC1 created what we believe to be the perfect balance between micro and macro, and we would like to maintain that balance. No other RTS on the planet has the type of balance we have achieved, and I don't think we should settle for less.
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On March 18 2008 16:36 Fen wrote:
Once again, we seem to come to the agreement that we need more macro tasks if MBS is to be implemented. I really do hope blizzard is working on this.
QFT
I would like to throw out points to agree on.
1. MBS doesn't affect the competativeness of the game, but it severly affects game feel and multi-tasking need, and as such is worthy of consideration.
2. Macro is important, and if MBS trivilizes macro, it should be scrapped.
3. Unforseen macro tasks could still be implemented preserving macro play / balance and MBS.
and finally
4. I posted that War 3 game. If you couldn't see the excitement you are DUMB DUMB DUMB
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As always I´d like to have your beta that lets you deduct that MBS lowers the quality of the game.
Or your research data that predicts consumer behavior according to game features.
It has been argued a lot but without facts it is just opinions and will simply be ignored/counterargued. It happend before.
Do players follow the pros? Do Pros follow the money/sponsors? At what point does a person become aware of a given "pro-scene" and how does that affect his behavior according to that game?
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I had played WC3 for two years but I still couldn't see the excitement. Most WC3 games have a "meh, even I could do that" feel to them. T_____T It's just not as aweseome when your units have 500 HP on average, are relatively slow, and the only thing you do in a game is micro. ;;
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On March 19 2008 02:35 Centric wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2008 19:47 InterWill wrote:On March 18 2008 17:52 Centric wrote:On March 18 2008 16:59 FeArTeHsCoUrGe wrote:On March 18 2008 11:42 valiance. wrote:
MBS isn't necessarily going to make SC2 a less competitive game, it just changes what makes it starcraft-like. Warcraft 3 is plenty competitive, it just has a different micro:macro ratio than SC. So Blizz adding micro tasks to balance out macro might keep the overall difficulty and competitiveness of SC2 the same as SC1, but it's at the cost of making SC2 feel more like WC3.
That said, MBS is NOT being added in order to make SC2 a more competitive e-sport game, it's being added so SC2 will have some appeal beyond the sc1 e-sports community. The increase in micro is a direct response to the increased ease of macro introduced by MBS.
I'm unsure if SBS would be a good tradeoff for Blizz. I don't know if the public would buy into an SC2 with SBS, and I don't know if SC1 die hards and Koreans can make SC2 the success Blizz wants it to be. The group of hardcore fans will be essential to the success of SC2 in any case, but Blizz needs to reach beyond nostalgic SC1 fans coming back for SC2, and beyond TL fans and beyond Korean pro gamers, and beyond fans of the pro circuit, to people who HAVE NEVER HEARD of starcraft in their lives! If they are too timid in making SC2 different from its predecessor, it will NOT be as good as it could be. Only a revolutionary, godly game could live up to the legacy of SC1, and I think being locked into the thought patterns of SC1 will limit the ambitions of SC2.
That said, without balance, without a viable pro-scene, you end up with a game like DoW, which lives on fluff and fun, but is unplayable AS A GAME. That doesn't make DoW a bad game, it's fun, reviewers liked it, and it has a community that has stuck with it through x-pack after x-pack, but it's nowhere near what it could be. It's not a classic, because it's not a good, balanced, competitive game. It's the balance that bred the pro-scene and is the cornerstone of SC.
I'm just worried that Blizz will not be able to find a way to keep the starcraft feel AND the difficulty of SC1. Adding MBS but not adding micro keeps the SC feel, but also makes the game a lot easier. Adding micro just makes SC2 into WC4. SC2 will never feel exactly like SC1, but Blizz should make an effort to find new macro tasks to keep the difficulty AND feel of SC2 intact. I agree with this post. But I would like to add why SC2 would probably be better off with MBS. Warcraft III is a very successful strategy game that is played vigorously on the pro level, especially in Europe and China, the latter of which the pro scene has been on a rapid rise. The main reasons Warcraft III would not, or does not, appeal to certain players is due to Upkeep, Heroes, and items. MBS is not a factor here. Starcraft II will attact new players who want to play a true strategy game without the Upkeep, Heores, and Items. MBS will make their interface easier, they will adjust better, and Starcraft II with MBS will become just as big, if not bigger, than Warcraft II, since many pro players like Moon, etc, and most Warcraft III players will move onto Starcraft II. (The majority of people who stay will either be hardcore players, or Defense of the Ancients players); The only community that is criticizing MBS is us, the hardcore Starcraft fans. However, Starcraft II will be a very competitive game regardless of whether SC casuals, hardcores, and pros decide to move to it or not. This is because, as I mentioned before, a limited game like Warcraft III is still highly popular. New players will flood SC2, and new players will dominate it. SC2 is not SC1. Yes, they will be limiting a strategical element of SC2 - macro - but removing MBS would only cater to players of a 10 year old game, who ( when considering the amount of players of all RTS's and the amount of new players who will move to SC2) are and will be a very, very small minority in SC2. It would be very illogical for Blizzard to step back from MBS just to cater the crowd of a ten year old game. That would be similar to Java programmers reverting their code back to the binary 1's and 0's to cater to the old school hardcore programmers. New pro's will rise in SC2, and SC2 will be a success regardless of what the SC1 community demands of the game. You forget the fact that StarCraft has the most dominant e-sports scene out of any RTS ever created. I would argue that the fanbase (comprised mostly of Koreans) obliterates that of all other RTS scenes combined. You are right in the fact that new players will flood into SC2. Blizzard does not make crap games. It will receive top-notch ratings along with a large fan-base. However, the fact of the matter is we are not concerned with the game's popularity. We are concerned about how competitive SC2 will be, and how viable it will be as an e-sport. In other words, you are right in saying that SC2 will be popular, but you are wrong in saying that it will be competitive. And by competitive, I mean at the level it is today. You are missing the point. Casual players of a game, attracted by "popularity," do not spend ten years following a game, perfecting their strategy, and continuing to get better. SC1 has such depth due to this micro/macro trade-off that it has players who will play a ten-year old game with inferior features over the newer games of today. You are wrong in stating that the people who move from SC1 to SC2 will be a minority. I argue that they will be one of the largest factors in deciding whether anyone will play SC2 for ten years.
Our goal is not to beat WC3. We could do that on any given day. Our goal is to match SC1 in its success and longevity. We cannot do that with MBS. As I have said already, MBS removes a part of the game that is too valuable to remove - the macro-oriented part. Only in SC do people lose because they have micro-ed too long and forgotten to macro, and only in SC do people lose when they have macro-ed too much and left their units to die. In adding MBS, you gut the macro-portion of SC, and castrate much of the competitive potential SC2 has as an e-sport. Wait.. what? You're saying that StarCraft II's popularity very is dependent on how well it will manage to convert StarCraft: BroodWars players to the sequel? If every sequel is dependent on the following of the earlier entries in the series how do you explain the success of games like: StarCraft:Broodwars, Everquest, World of Warcraft, Counter Strike? And it's not like we haven't seen big evolutions from one sequel to another which were successfull: Quake 2 --> Quake 3 for example. Blizzard is generally good at pleasing their fans, but they make games for everyone - not just the rabid fanboys. Surely, their aim must be to cater not only to the hardcore fans but to new players alike. Hardcore fans are relatively easy to please. They would settle for, well, they would settle for StarCraft: Broodwars. New players, who tried the original but couldn't get into it, or who've never ever heard of StarCraft though.. they are harder to cater to.. and a MUCH larger group than the hardcore fanbase. You are wrong; you are not reading my post. I am not speaking of the popularity of SC2 of a game I have not a doubt in my mind that SC2 will be a popular game, one that is "cool" with "awesome graphics" and "awesome new units and buildings" with a "cool storyline." I am speaking of the potential for long-time success as a competitive e-sport. A huge part of that involves getting the current pros to sign on and say that SC1 is a legitimate competitive game and also to get the fans to follow them. Did you miss the first sentence of my post where I iterate that SC1 has the most dominant e-sports scene (fanbase and players included) out of any RTS ever? It would be a massive blow to SC2 to have the pros claim that SC2 is too easy (which is exactly what they're doing now). Another part of this longevity I speak of, of course, revolves around a fanbase which always does need new players and fresh blood. However, I am saying that the sacrifice of MBS is one that is too large to make to get new players to sign on. If MBS is the kill-all for them, I would argue that they are the type of casual gamers who will play the game for a while, then drop it when the next "cool" game comes out. That has no positive effect whatsoever on the longevity of SC2. As someone has already mentioned, hardcore fans are hardly "easy to please." SC1 created what we believe to be the perfect balance between micro and macro, and we would like to maintain that balance. No other RTS on the planet has the type of balance we have achieved, and I don't think we should settle for less.
Don't assume that the only way SC2 will be competitive in the future is if "current" SC pros move on to it. That isn't the case of WC3, and it won't be the case of SC2.
SC2 will develop a competitive scene regardless of if the pros choose not to move on to it. New pros will inevitably arise. It happens in ALL games, otherwise by your logic, no strategy games which have ever come out sequentially to another would have become competitive due to pros in the former refusing to move onto the latter, which is false when one looks at the simplified example of SC1 --> WC3, or even WC2 --> SC. (There are many other strategy games that demonstrate this, but we are all more familiar with Blizzard)
SC1 pros could help dictate the competitive scene, but they are NOT required at all. What is required is that SC2 attract a large enough fanbase such that new, or even old, pros arise to define the meta-game. SC2 won't be as competitive as SC1 with respect to macro, but it will still be very competitive. If its not competitive in the way SC1 fans want, then thats that.
To everyone else, stop comparing SC1 SC2 to WCIII. The only similar aspect between SC2 and WCIII is MBS, but this cannot be used to determine why the games are different. WCIII is fundamentally different from SC1 because of Upkeep, a much lower pop cap, a high hp / low damage ratio, Heroes, and Items. Do not use MBS to support why WCIII is "dull" or "uninspiring" when compared to SC!, because do to the nature of WCIII, MBS isn't even an issue when determining gameplay; its all the other factors that matter.
Only SC2 can be used as a basic for determining the effects of MBS, but SC2 hasnt come out yet.
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On March 19 2008 02:35 Centric wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2008 19:47 InterWill wrote:On March 18 2008 17:52 Centric wrote:On March 18 2008 16:59 FeArTeHsCoUrGe wrote:On March 18 2008 11:42 valiance. wrote:
MBS isn't necessarily going to make SC2 a less competitive game, it just changes what makes it starcraft-like. Warcraft 3 is plenty competitive, it just has a different micro:macro ratio than SC. So Blizz adding micro tasks to balance out macro might keep the overall difficulty and competitiveness of SC2 the same as SC1, but it's at the cost of making SC2 feel more like WC3.
That said, MBS is NOT being added in order to make SC2 a more competitive e-sport game, it's being added so SC2 will have some appeal beyond the sc1 e-sports community. The increase in micro is a direct response to the increased ease of macro introduced by MBS.
I'm unsure if SBS would be a good tradeoff for Blizz. I don't know if the public would buy into an SC2 with SBS, and I don't know if SC1 die hards and Koreans can make SC2 the success Blizz wants it to be. The group of hardcore fans will be essential to the success of SC2 in any case, but Blizz needs to reach beyond nostalgic SC1 fans coming back for SC2, and beyond TL fans and beyond Korean pro gamers, and beyond fans of the pro circuit, to people who HAVE NEVER HEARD of starcraft in their lives! If they are too timid in making SC2 different from its predecessor, it will NOT be as good as it could be. Only a revolutionary, godly game could live up to the legacy of SC1, and I think being locked into the thought patterns of SC1 will limit the ambitions of SC2.
That said, without balance, without a viable pro-scene, you end up with a game like DoW, which lives on fluff and fun, but is unplayable AS A GAME. That doesn't make DoW a bad game, it's fun, reviewers liked it, and it has a community that has stuck with it through x-pack after x-pack, but it's nowhere near what it could be. It's not a classic, because it's not a good, balanced, competitive game. It's the balance that bred the pro-scene and is the cornerstone of SC.
I'm just worried that Blizz will not be able to find a way to keep the starcraft feel AND the difficulty of SC1. Adding MBS but not adding micro keeps the SC feel, but also makes the game a lot easier. Adding micro just makes SC2 into WC4. SC2 will never feel exactly like SC1, but Blizz should make an effort to find new macro tasks to keep the difficulty AND feel of SC2 intact. I agree with this post. But I would like to add why SC2 would probably be better off with MBS. Warcraft III is a very successful strategy game that is played vigorously on the pro level, especially in Europe and China, the latter of which the pro scene has been on a rapid rise. The main reasons Warcraft III would not, or does not, appeal to certain players is due to Upkeep, Heroes, and items. MBS is not a factor here. Starcraft II will attact new players who want to play a true strategy game without the Upkeep, Heores, and Items. MBS will make their interface easier, they will adjust better, and Starcraft II with MBS will become just as big, if not bigger, than Warcraft II, since many pro players like Moon, etc, and most Warcraft III players will move onto Starcraft II. (The majority of people who stay will either be hardcore players, or Defense of the Ancients players); The only community that is criticizing MBS is us, the hardcore Starcraft fans. However, Starcraft II will be a very competitive game regardless of whether SC casuals, hardcores, and pros decide to move to it or not. This is because, as I mentioned before, a limited game like Warcraft III is still highly popular. New players will flood SC2, and new players will dominate it. SC2 is not SC1. Yes, they will be limiting a strategical element of SC2 - macro - but removing MBS would only cater to players of a 10 year old game, who ( when considering the amount of players of all RTS's and the amount of new players who will move to SC2) are and will be a very, very small minority in SC2. It would be very illogical for Blizzard to step back from MBS just to cater the crowd of a ten year old game. That would be similar to Java programmers reverting their code back to the binary 1's and 0's to cater to the old school hardcore programmers. New pro's will rise in SC2, and SC2 will be a success regardless of what the SC1 community demands of the game. You forget the fact that StarCraft has the most dominant e-sports scene out of any RTS ever created. I would argue that the fanbase (comprised mostly of Koreans) obliterates that of all other RTS scenes combined. You are right in the fact that new players will flood into SC2. Blizzard does not make crap games. It will receive top-notch ratings along with a large fan-base. However, the fact of the matter is we are not concerned with the game's popularity. We are concerned about how competitive SC2 will be, and how viable it will be as an e-sport. In other words, you are right in saying that SC2 will be popular, but you are wrong in saying that it will be competitive. And by competitive, I mean at the level it is today. You are missing the point. Casual players of a game, attracted by "popularity," do not spend ten years following a game, perfecting their strategy, and continuing to get better. SC1 has such depth due to this micro/macro trade-off that it has players who will play a ten-year old game with inferior features over the newer games of today. You are wrong in stating that the people who move from SC1 to SC2 will be a minority. I argue that they will be one of the largest factors in deciding whether anyone will play SC2 for ten years.
Our goal is not to beat WC3. We could do that on any given day. Our goal is to match SC1 in its success and longevity. We cannot do that with MBS. As I have said already, MBS removes a part of the game that is too valuable to remove - the macro-oriented part. Only in SC do people lose because they have micro-ed too long and forgotten to macro, and only in SC do people lose when they have macro-ed too much and left their units to die. In adding MBS, you gut the macro-portion of SC, and castrate much of the competitive potential SC2 has as an e-sport. Wait.. what? You're saying that StarCraft II's popularity very is dependent on how well it will manage to convert StarCraft: BroodWars players to the sequel? If every sequel is dependent on the following of the earlier entries in the series how do you explain the success of games like: StarCraft:Broodwars, Everquest, World of Warcraft, Counter Strike? And it's not like we haven't seen big evolutions from one sequel to another which were successfull: Quake 2 --> Quake 3 for example. Blizzard is generally good at pleasing their fans, but they make games for everyone - not just the rabid fanboys. Surely, their aim must be to cater not only to the hardcore fans but to new players alike. Hardcore fans are relatively easy to please. They would settle for, well, they would settle for StarCraft: Broodwars. New players, who tried the original but couldn't get into it, or who've never ever heard of StarCraft though.. they are harder to cater to.. and a MUCH larger group than the hardcore fanbase. You are wrong; you are not reading my post. I am not speaking of the popularity of SC2 of a game I have not a doubt in my mind that SC2 will be a popular game, one that is "cool" with "awesome graphics" and "awesome new units and buildings" with a "cool storyline." I am speaking of the potential for long-time success as a competitive e-sport. A huge part of that involves getting the current pros to sign on and say that SC1 is a legitimate competitive game and also to get the fans to follow them. Did you miss the first sentence of my post where I iterate that SC1 has the most dominant e-sports scene (fanbase and players included) out of any RTS ever? It would be a massive blow to SC2 to have the pros claim that SC2 is too easy (which is exactly what they're doing now). Another part of this longevity I speak of, of course, revolves around a fanbase which always does need new players and fresh blood. However, I am saying that the sacrifice of MBS is one that is too large to make to get new players to sign on. If MBS is the kill-all for them, I would argue that they are the type of casual gamers who will play the game for a while, then drop it when the next "cool" game comes out. That has no positive effect whatsoever on the longevity of SC2. As someone has already mentioned, hardcore fans are hardly "easy to please." SC1 created what we believe to be the perfect balance between micro and macro, and we would like to maintain that balance. No other RTS on the planet has the type of balance we have achieved, and I don't think we should settle for less.
First of all, I believe that your overestimating the importance of the pro-scene of StarCraft: Broodwar for the success of StarCraft II. Why would it be a "massive blow to SC2" if the pros claim it's too easy? Warcraft III has succeeded in becoming a successful e-sport despite claims that it's "too easy", the need to fight AI-controlled units to win, upkeep, slower pace, micro-oriented game play, cluttered visuals and several random factors. Now, if Warcraft could be come successful in spite of all these things working against it, then surely StarCraft II, featuring fast paced, action oriented combat with clear visuals, could be successful too.
Second, there are non-SBS-ways of adding harder macro to the game without making it feel like you're making macro harder for the sake of making macro harder. If Blizzard would increase the incentives for using Warp-in and juggling Add-ons they would be able to increase the macro complexity without alienating the casual gamers.
Third, why do you believe that the balance between macro and micro is perfect in StarCraft today? In fact, logically, it would seem very unlikely that the current balance is perfect - surely one fraction of a percentile toward micro or macro could make the balance better, no?
Fourth, the pro scene is easy to please. It goes like this: large fan base spawns competitive scene which due to the large fan base attracts sponsors which does two things: 1) makes it possible for people do make money playing the game, which means they have more time to practice and get better and 2) makes more people interested in becoming good. These two points can make the fan base even larger, and the cycle repeats itself.
As long as theirs money to be won by playing the game, there will be players fighting for the cash. And Blizzard has deep enough pockets to create monetary incentives for people to practice more and get better at their game (don't think this will be needed, but.. if all else fails).
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On March 19 2008 04:29 InterWill wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2008 02:35 Centric wrote:On March 18 2008 19:47 InterWill wrote:On March 18 2008 17:52 Centric wrote:On March 18 2008 16:59 FeArTeHsCoUrGe wrote:On March 18 2008 11:42 valiance. wrote:
MBS isn't necessarily going to make SC2 a less competitive game, it just changes what makes it starcraft-like. Warcraft 3 is plenty competitive, it just has a different micro:macro ratio than SC. So Blizz adding micro tasks to balance out macro might keep the overall difficulty and competitiveness of SC2 the same as SC1, but it's at the cost of making SC2 feel more like WC3.
That said, MBS is NOT being added in order to make SC2 a more competitive e-sport game, it's being added so SC2 will have some appeal beyond the sc1 e-sports community. The increase in micro is a direct response to the increased ease of macro introduced by MBS.
I'm unsure if SBS would be a good tradeoff for Blizz. I don't know if the public would buy into an SC2 with SBS, and I don't know if SC1 die hards and Koreans can make SC2 the success Blizz wants it to be. The group of hardcore fans will be essential to the success of SC2 in any case, but Blizz needs to reach beyond nostalgic SC1 fans coming back for SC2, and beyond TL fans and beyond Korean pro gamers, and beyond fans of the pro circuit, to people who HAVE NEVER HEARD of starcraft in their lives! If they are too timid in making SC2 different from its predecessor, it will NOT be as good as it could be. Only a revolutionary, godly game could live up to the legacy of SC1, and I think being locked into the thought patterns of SC1 will limit the ambitions of SC2.
That said, without balance, without a viable pro-scene, you end up with a game like DoW, which lives on fluff and fun, but is unplayable AS A GAME. That doesn't make DoW a bad game, it's fun, reviewers liked it, and it has a community that has stuck with it through x-pack after x-pack, but it's nowhere near what it could be. It's not a classic, because it's not a good, balanced, competitive game. It's the balance that bred the pro-scene and is the cornerstone of SC.
I'm just worried that Blizz will not be able to find a way to keep the starcraft feel AND the difficulty of SC1. Adding MBS but not adding micro keeps the SC feel, but also makes the game a lot easier. Adding micro just makes SC2 into WC4. SC2 will never feel exactly like SC1, but Blizz should make an effort to find new macro tasks to keep the difficulty AND feel of SC2 intact. I agree with this post. But I would like to add why SC2 would probably be better off with MBS. Warcraft III is a very successful strategy game that is played vigorously on the pro level, especially in Europe and China, the latter of which the pro scene has been on a rapid rise. The main reasons Warcraft III would not, or does not, appeal to certain players is due to Upkeep, Heroes, and items. MBS is not a factor here. Starcraft II will attact new players who want to play a true strategy game without the Upkeep, Heores, and Items. MBS will make their interface easier, they will adjust better, and Starcraft II with MBS will become just as big, if not bigger, than Warcraft II, since many pro players like Moon, etc, and most Warcraft III players will move onto Starcraft II. (The majority of people who stay will either be hardcore players, or Defense of the Ancients players); The only community that is criticizing MBS is us, the hardcore Starcraft fans. However, Starcraft II will be a very competitive game regardless of whether SC casuals, hardcores, and pros decide to move to it or not. This is because, as I mentioned before, a limited game like Warcraft III is still highly popular. New players will flood SC2, and new players will dominate it. SC2 is not SC1. Yes, they will be limiting a strategical element of SC2 - macro - but removing MBS would only cater to players of a 10 year old game, who ( when considering the amount of players of all RTS's and the amount of new players who will move to SC2) are and will be a very, very small minority in SC2. It would be very illogical for Blizzard to step back from MBS just to cater the crowd of a ten year old game. That would be similar to Java programmers reverting their code back to the binary 1's and 0's to cater to the old school hardcore programmers. New pro's will rise in SC2, and SC2 will be a success regardless of what the SC1 community demands of the game. You forget the fact that StarCraft has the most dominant e-sports scene out of any RTS ever created. I would argue that the fanbase (comprised mostly of Koreans) obliterates that of all other RTS scenes combined. You are right in the fact that new players will flood into SC2. Blizzard does not make crap games. It will receive top-notch ratings along with a large fan-base. However, the fact of the matter is we are not concerned with the game's popularity. We are concerned about how competitive SC2 will be, and how viable it will be as an e-sport. In other words, you are right in saying that SC2 will be popular, but you are wrong in saying that it will be competitive. And by competitive, I mean at the level it is today. You are missing the point. Casual players of a game, attracted by "popularity," do not spend ten years following a game, perfecting their strategy, and continuing to get better. SC1 has such depth due to this micro/macro trade-off that it has players who will play a ten-year old game with inferior features over the newer games of today. You are wrong in stating that the people who move from SC1 to SC2 will be a minority. I argue that they will be one of the largest factors in deciding whether anyone will play SC2 for ten years.
Our goal is not to beat WC3. We could do that on any given day. Our goal is to match SC1 in its success and longevity. We cannot do that with MBS. As I have said already, MBS removes a part of the game that is too valuable to remove - the macro-oriented part. Only in SC do people lose because they have micro-ed too long and forgotten to macro, and only in SC do people lose when they have macro-ed too much and left their units to die. In adding MBS, you gut the macro-portion of SC, and castrate much of the competitive potential SC2 has as an e-sport. Wait.. what? You're saying that StarCraft II's popularity very is dependent on how well it will manage to convert StarCraft: BroodWars players to the sequel? If every sequel is dependent on the following of the earlier entries in the series how do you explain the success of games like: StarCraft:Broodwars, Everquest, World of Warcraft, Counter Strike? And it's not like we haven't seen big evolutions from one sequel to another which were successfull: Quake 2 --> Quake 3 for example. Blizzard is generally good at pleasing their fans, but they make games for everyone - not just the rabid fanboys. Surely, their aim must be to cater not only to the hardcore fans but to new players alike. Hardcore fans are relatively easy to please. They would settle for, well, they would settle for StarCraft: Broodwars. New players, who tried the original but couldn't get into it, or who've never ever heard of StarCraft though.. they are harder to cater to.. and a MUCH larger group than the hardcore fanbase. You are wrong; you are not reading my post. I am not speaking of the popularity of SC2 of a game I have not a doubt in my mind that SC2 will be a popular game, one that is "cool" with "awesome graphics" and "awesome new units and buildings" with a "cool storyline." I am speaking of the potential for long-time success as a competitive e-sport. A huge part of that involves getting the current pros to sign on and say that SC1 is a legitimate competitive game and also to get the fans to follow them. Did you miss the first sentence of my post where I iterate that SC1 has the most dominant e-sports scene (fanbase and players included) out of any RTS ever? It would be a massive blow to SC2 to have the pros claim that SC2 is too easy (which is exactly what they're doing now). Another part of this longevity I speak of, of course, revolves around a fanbase which always does need new players and fresh blood. However, I am saying that the sacrifice of MBS is one that is too large to make to get new players to sign on. If MBS is the kill-all for them, I would argue that they are the type of casual gamers who will play the game for a while, then drop it when the next "cool" game comes out. That has no positive effect whatsoever on the longevity of SC2. As someone has already mentioned, hardcore fans are hardly "easy to please." SC1 created what we believe to be the perfect balance between micro and macro, and we would like to maintain that balance. No other RTS on the planet has the type of balance we have achieved, and I don't think we should settle for less. First of all, I believe that your overestimating the importance of the pro-scene of StarCraft: Broodwar for the success of StarCraft II. Why would it be a "massive blow to SC2" if the pros claim it's too easy? Warcraft III has succeeded in becoming a successful e-sport despite claims that it's "too easy", the need to fight AI-controlled units to win, upkeep, slower pace, micro-oriented game play, cluttered visuals and several random factors. Now, if Warcraft could be come successful in spite of all these things working against it, then surely StarCraft II, featuring fast paced, action oriented combat with clear visuals, could be successful too. Second, there are non-SBS-ways of adding harder macro to the game without making it feel like you're making macro harder for the sake of making macro harder. If Blizzard would increase the incentives for using Warp-in and juggling Add-ons they would be able to increase the macro complexity without alienating the casual gamers. Third, why do you believe that the balance between macro and micro is perfect in StarCraft today? In fact, logically, it would seem very unlikely that the current balance is perfect - surely one fraction of a percentile toward micro or macro could make the balance better, no? Fourth, the pro scene is easy to please. It goes like this: large fan base spawns competitive scene which due to the large fan base attracts sponsors which does two things: 1) makes it possible for people do make money playing the game, which means they have more time to practice and get better and 2) makes more people interested in becoming good. These two points can make the fan base even larger, and the cycle repeats itself. As long as theirs money to be won by playing the game, there will be players fighting for the cash. And Blizzard has deep enough pockets to create monetary incentives for people to practice more and get better at their game (don't think this will be needed, but.. if all else fails).
On March 19 2008 04:19 FeArTeHsCoUrGe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2008 02:35 Centric wrote:On March 18 2008 19:47 InterWill wrote:On March 18 2008 17:52 Centric wrote:On March 18 2008 16:59 FeArTeHsCoUrGe wrote:On March 18 2008 11:42 valiance. wrote:
MBS isn't necessarily going to make SC2 a less competitive game, it just changes what makes it starcraft-like. Warcraft 3 is plenty competitive, it just has a different micro:macro ratio than SC. So Blizz adding micro tasks to balance out macro might keep the overall difficulty and competitiveness of SC2 the same as SC1, but it's at the cost of making SC2 feel more like WC3.
That said, MBS is NOT being added in order to make SC2 a more competitive e-sport game, it's being added so SC2 will have some appeal beyond the sc1 e-sports community. The increase in micro is a direct response to the increased ease of macro introduced by MBS.
I'm unsure if SBS would be a good tradeoff for Blizz. I don't know if the public would buy into an SC2 with SBS, and I don't know if SC1 die hards and Koreans can make SC2 the success Blizz wants it to be. The group of hardcore fans will be essential to the success of SC2 in any case, but Blizz needs to reach beyond nostalgic SC1 fans coming back for SC2, and beyond TL fans and beyond Korean pro gamers, and beyond fans of the pro circuit, to people who HAVE NEVER HEARD of starcraft in their lives! If they are too timid in making SC2 different from its predecessor, it will NOT be as good as it could be. Only a revolutionary, godly game could live up to the legacy of SC1, and I think being locked into the thought patterns of SC1 will limit the ambitions of SC2.
That said, without balance, without a viable pro-scene, you end up with a game like DoW, which lives on fluff and fun, but is unplayable AS A GAME. That doesn't make DoW a bad game, it's fun, reviewers liked it, and it has a community that has stuck with it through x-pack after x-pack, but it's nowhere near what it could be. It's not a classic, because it's not a good, balanced, competitive game. It's the balance that bred the pro-scene and is the cornerstone of SC.
I'm just worried that Blizz will not be able to find a way to keep the starcraft feel AND the difficulty of SC1. Adding MBS but not adding micro keeps the SC feel, but also makes the game a lot easier. Adding micro just makes SC2 into WC4. SC2 will never feel exactly like SC1, but Blizz should make an effort to find new macro tasks to keep the difficulty AND feel of SC2 intact. I agree with this post. But I would like to add why SC2 would probably be better off with MBS. Warcraft III is a very successful strategy game that is played vigorously on the pro level, especially in Europe and China, the latter of which the pro scene has been on a rapid rise. The main reasons Warcraft III would not, or does not, appeal to certain players is due to Upkeep, Heroes, and items. MBS is not a factor here. Starcraft II will attact new players who want to play a true strategy game without the Upkeep, Heores, and Items. MBS will make their interface easier, they will adjust better, and Starcraft II with MBS will become just as big, if not bigger, than Warcraft II, since many pro players like Moon, etc, and most Warcraft III players will move onto Starcraft II. (The majority of people who stay will either be hardcore players, or Defense of the Ancients players); The only community that is criticizing MBS is us, the hardcore Starcraft fans. However, Starcraft II will be a very competitive game regardless of whether SC casuals, hardcores, and pros decide to move to it or not. This is because, as I mentioned before, a limited game like Warcraft III is still highly popular. New players will flood SC2, and new players will dominate it. SC2 is not SC1. Yes, they will be limiting a strategical element of SC2 - macro - but removing MBS would only cater to players of a 10 year old game, who ( when considering the amount of players of all RTS's and the amount of new players who will move to SC2) are and will be a very, very small minority in SC2. It would be very illogical for Blizzard to step back from MBS just to cater the crowd of a ten year old game. That would be similar to Java programmers reverting their code back to the binary 1's and 0's to cater to the old school hardcore programmers. New pro's will rise in SC2, and SC2 will be a success regardless of what the SC1 community demands of the game. You forget the fact that StarCraft has the most dominant e-sports scene out of any RTS ever created. I would argue that the fanbase (comprised mostly of Koreans) obliterates that of all other RTS scenes combined. You are right in the fact that new players will flood into SC2. Blizzard does not make crap games. It will receive top-notch ratings along with a large fan-base. However, the fact of the matter is we are not concerned with the game's popularity. We are concerned about how competitive SC2 will be, and how viable it will be as an e-sport. In other words, you are right in saying that SC2 will be popular, but you are wrong in saying that it will be competitive. And by competitive, I mean at the level it is today. You are missing the point. Casual players of a game, attracted by "popularity," do not spend ten years following a game, perfecting their strategy, and continuing to get better. SC1 has such depth due to this micro/macro trade-off that it has players who will play a ten-year old game with inferior features over the newer games of today. You are wrong in stating that the people who move from SC1 to SC2 will be a minority. I argue that they will be one of the largest factors in deciding whether anyone will play SC2 for ten years.
Our goal is not to beat WC3. We could do that on any given day. Our goal is to match SC1 in its success and longevity. We cannot do that with MBS. As I have said already, MBS removes a part of the game that is too valuable to remove - the macro-oriented part. Only in SC do people lose because they have micro-ed too long and forgotten to macro, and only in SC do people lose when they have macro-ed too much and left their units to die. In adding MBS, you gut the macro-portion of SC, and castrate much of the competitive potential SC2 has as an e-sport. Wait.. what? You're saying that StarCraft II's popularity very is dependent on how well it will manage to convert StarCraft: BroodWars players to the sequel? If every sequel is dependent on the following of the earlier entries in the series how do you explain the success of games like: StarCraft:Broodwars, Everquest, World of Warcraft, Counter Strike? And it's not like we haven't seen big evolutions from one sequel to another which were successfull: Quake 2 --> Quake 3 for example. Blizzard is generally good at pleasing their fans, but they make games for everyone - not just the rabid fanboys. Surely, their aim must be to cater not only to the hardcore fans but to new players alike. Hardcore fans are relatively easy to please. They would settle for, well, they would settle for StarCraft: Broodwars. New players, who tried the original but couldn't get into it, or who've never ever heard of StarCraft though.. they are harder to cater to.. and a MUCH larger group than the hardcore fanbase. You are wrong; you are not reading my post. I am not speaking of the popularity of SC2 of a game I have not a doubt in my mind that SC2 will be a popular game, one that is "cool" with "awesome graphics" and "awesome new units and buildings" with a "cool storyline." I am speaking of the potential for long-time success as a competitive e-sport. A huge part of that involves getting the current pros to sign on and say that SC1 is a legitimate competitive game and also to get the fans to follow them. Did you miss the first sentence of my post where I iterate that SC1 has the most dominant e-sports scene (fanbase and players included) out of any RTS ever? It would be a massive blow to SC2 to have the pros claim that SC2 is too easy (which is exactly what they're doing now). Another part of this longevity I speak of, of course, revolves around a fanbase which always does need new players and fresh blood. However, I am saying that the sacrifice of MBS is one that is too large to make to get new players to sign on. If MBS is the kill-all for them, I would argue that they are the type of casual gamers who will play the game for a while, then drop it when the next "cool" game comes out. That has no positive effect whatsoever on the longevity of SC2. As someone has already mentioned, hardcore fans are hardly "easy to please." SC1 created what we believe to be the perfect balance between micro and macro, and we would like to maintain that balance. No other RTS on the planet has the type of balance we have achieved, and I don't think we should settle for less. Don't assume that the only way SC2 will be competitive in the future is if "current" SC pros move on to it. That isn't the case of WC3, and it won't be the case of SC2. SC2 will develop a competitive scene regardless of if the pros choose not to move on to it. New pros will inevitably arise. It happens in ALL games, otherwise by your logic, no strategy games which have ever come out sequentially to another would have become competitive due to pros in the former refusing to move onto the latter, which is false when one looks at the simplified example of SC1 --> WC3, or even WC2 --> SC. (There are many other strategy games that demonstrate this, but we are all more familiar with Blizzard) SC1 pros could help dictate the competitive scene, but they are NOT required at all. What is required is that SC2 attract a large enough fanbase such that new, or even old, pros arise to define the meta-game. SC2 won't be as competitive as SC1 with respect to macro, but it will still be very competitive. If its not competitive in the way SC1 fans want, then thats that. To everyone else, stop comparing SC1 SC2 to WCIII. The only similar aspect between SC2 and WCIII is MBS, but this cannot be used to determine why the games are different. WCIII is fundamentally different from SC1 because of Upkeep, a much lower pop cap, a high hp / low damage ratio, Heroes, and Items. Do not use MBS to support why WCIII is "dull" or "uninspiring" when compared to SC!, because do to the nature of WCIII, MBS isn't even an issue when determining gameplay; its all the other factors that matter. Only SC2 can be used as a basic for determining the effects of MBS, but SC2 hasnt come out yet.
Both very good and intelligent posts. What determines the competitive scene more so than any factor is game popularity. What creates game popularity? Fun.
Nal-Ra knows this best:
"It looks fun. For a game to be popular, isn't that the most important thing? I think it will do well when it's released. It's too early to talk about balance. Each race has new, powerful units, so it should be fun."
That is ultimately it boys. If the game is fun, it will be popular. If its popular, that increases sponsorship, because that means theres money to be made. If theres money to be made, pro gamers will naturally start popping up, whether they be old Starcraft progamers/ old WC3 progamers or completely new ones. So if theres MBS or not, it only matters if it affects how fun the game is.. ultimately the MASSES, not the minority, will decided this.
A big problem with a lot of "fans" (whether they be dedicated proscene followers or "noob" players) is that they tunnel into what specific thing they like about their game as opposed to looking at the bigger picture. They fall into the comfirmation bias and tunneling effect when looking at what they "think" is the cause for their games success, and tend to only listen to arguments that "confirm" their own bias. The end result tends to be a narrower view on the subject matter.
Don't get be wrong, I love the whole esports scene, but its a fun and popular game that allows for that to exist in the first place... esports is a biproduct of a great game. I think we should keep that in mind during our discussion.
Although its hard to compare the two games perfectly, overall I will go on the record for saying that Starcraft was a more fun STRATEGY game than Warcraft 3. 
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How many times have you seen in pro games, with 300+ apm koreans who do nothing but play starcraft all day, and they would still lose many valuable units because they were distracted clicking 14 different buildings while his forces got attacked by surprise.
You see it a lot in every single game. Regardless of how good the player is, there is too much stuff going on late game you cannot micro decently when there is so much to macro.
It makes the game looks silly and unresponsive when you have 300+ apm korean pros wasting units out of distraction caused by excessive macroing. Clearly there is an unbalance in actions needed vs human actions possible in SC1. MBS is not gonna reduce the number of actions, it is gonna shift those actions another area, to microing.
Microing = creative fun smart gameplay
Building selection = repetitive boring dumb gameplay
I would much rather play and watch a game where creativity and skill are valued over repetitive tasks.
Say YES to MBS!
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Concept: Terran reactor v 2.0 (maximizing macro play for experienced players while still keeping MBS as part of unit production).
Just something that came up to me, when I saw a post somewhere that mentioned that the terran building upgrade called reactors would no longer allow production of 2 units at once but rather increased the production queue (wich is completely useless if you ask me, even counter productive).
The way I was thinking the reactor could work is, it would give a boost in the unit building time but in order to do so , a SCV would have to be moved inside the reactor (make a small animation with a door that lets the SCV inside). Once the SCV enters the reactor, the production speed of the next unit from that facility is increased.
Once the unit is finished being produced, the SCV is ejected from the reactor, requiring the players attention to send it back inside another time if he wants to speed up the production for the next unit in queue. This would add an element of skill, as micromanagement of the SCV would require the players attention everytime he wants to "boost" the production of units.
This is also a nice way of optimizing macro play for experienced players and takes no advantage of the MBS feature, rather requiring the player to actually perform mechanical manoeuvres with the mouse (by sending the scv inside the reactor) in order to boost unit production.
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That I have seen too. The fear with MBS is letting pro player approaching flawless play and flattening gameplay. But while WC3 featured massed armies with casters, heroes, support so focused in a single tactical groupe, SC is about scattered expansions and chokes on most maps. There are so many many things to do, errors will occur, but maybe not as blatant as today.
With SBS, mirror matchups can be dull as well (I did found Kal vs Jambi PvP to be) almost all buildings and units popping at the same time, match nearly decided on the event of a single big clash...
I think a important element of fun is giving or at least letting players believe they have several ways of dealing with every situation. But some moves need so much focus they can't be performed without damaging far too much the macro.
EDIT : I did a similar proposal, to use SCV to boost production, but with addition ressource cost rather than ejection. I think the zerg lore could also give birth to some macro elements, like recycling wounded units (dump them into hatcheries or something else for assimilation) since all zergs are expendable living weapons.
Maybe Blizzard should toy with the ressource system, leaving sudden vespene pools to be scavenged or something. Anything that could make players interact with their probes in a more regular fashion than just sending them to the minerals and protecting them from raids.
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On March 19 2008 07:55 Famehunter wrote:
Concept: Terran reactor v 2.0 (maximizing macro play for experienced players while still keeping MBS as part of unit production).
Just something that came up to me, when I saw a post somewhere that mentioned that the terran building upgrade called reactors would no longer allow production of 2 units at once but rather increased the production queue (wich is completely useless if you ask me, even counter productive).
The way I was thinking the reactor could work is, it would give a boost in the unit building time but in order to do so , a SCV would have to be moved inside the reactor (make a small animation with a door that lets the SCV inside). Once the SCV enters the reactor, the production speed of the next unit from that facility is increased.
Once the unit is finished being produced, the SCV is ejected from the reactor, requiring the players attention to send it back inside another time if he wants to speed up the production for the next unit in queue. This would add an element of skill, as micromanagement of the SCV would require the players attention everytime he wants to "boost" the production of units.
This is also a nice way of optimizing macro play for experienced players and takes no advantage of the MBS feature, rather requiring the player to actually perform mechanical manoeuvres with the mouse (by sending the scv inside the reactor) in order to boost unit production.
Seconded, I read somewhere that Blizzard is shooting for a 60/40 micro/macro ratio with SC2. Sounds like that they are well on their way to achieving this (if true).
Macro in the metagame is redundant and does take away from the creativity of micro battles. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making macro a hard skill to master, but only in the sense of timing, base building, etc., not in fighting the UI to build units faster.
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That's a nice idea Famehunter.
I don't mind macro being a big part of gameplay if it's at least fun, non-repetitive and dynamic to do so. SBS may help keep up a certain amount of macro in the game, but the stupid repetitiveness spoils the fun.
Something like the reactor mechanic would require the player to pay attention to his base just as in SC1, but what he's doing is far less repetitive, doesn't feel like fighting the UI and it has to be adapted to each situation.
All in all a nice thing.
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I can agree that fun is certainly one of the most important parts to the success of a game as an e-sport. Or as yangstuh said, popularity. All that matters is that lots and lots of people play the game (in the standard 1v1 setting that is - if everyone is playing UMS then that won't help the competitive scene). As long as plenty of people are playing, some are going to be better and want to make money off that skill. I think SC2 is going to become an e-sport regardless of what Blizzard changes from now until release (as long as the final product is relatively balanced that is). It has so much hype and because the game is being revealed and shown off long before its release, there is little chance of the final product not living up. Its not like a movie where you see plenty of hype and yet still go in to the movie hopeful but clueless - people have already played SC2, seen the units, seen the graphics, seen the gameplay.
The big question isn't if it will become an e-sport, but will it expand e-sports? Will it have its devout audience around the size of the current SC audience (or even smaller), or will it reach beyond the boundaries and pull people in to a scene they didn't know existed? I feel like there are two things that will help the game to accomplish this:- One is its hype and advertisement. This is in Blizzard's hands as much as it is in the community's. There needs to be a defined effort to bring in new people to the audience, and not just the game. Some of this will come naturally depending on the popularity of the game, but people playing the game will need to know that they can have just as much fun watching the game too. Blizzard should be showing off the fact that the best gamers are battling and that you should be watching. Communities should do the same.
- The second though is just as, if not more important. Entertainment. The game has to produce exciting moments, and plenty of them. There shouldn't be too many dull moments in the game, and when there are they should be full of anticipation. The game also needs to produce stars, people who fans can devote themselves to, feeling their defeats just as strongly as their triumphs. Some argue this will come naturally no matter how the game is made (after all - some people are just naturally talented at certain activities). Others will argue that this is largely in the hands of the developers to make sure the game is not too easy to master.
So enters MBS. Will it make the game easier? If it does, will it be significant? I don't know. If the game becomes significantly easier as a result of the simplification changes, Blizzard always has the option of making up the difficulty in the other area of the game (micro). This brings up a different concern: alienating the current Starcraft community. If the game becomes a micro war with macro being less than 10% of the action, then one of the key elements of the Starcraft game (multitasking) has been thrown out the window and that will not sit well with many people.
They could also revert the game to an SBS system,and take out other changes like automine and smartcasting too. I'm sure many Starcraft fans would rejoice, but then Blizzard would be sacrificing their new potential player base for their old one.
So whats the solution? A balance of sorts. Many of the people on this board have already admitted they would be satisfied with some of the changes, but in the end they really just want the game to still require a large portion of attention on macro in successful play. So maybe keeping SBS but changing the rest would be of some help. Possibly, but this would not be the win-win situation everyone hopes for. SC fans would still see less attention on macro (due to automine and idle worker selection), and new players would still have the challenge of SBS.
The real solution would be to find a perfect balance by creating something else to add to the macro side of the game. They would make up the difficulty by having players do many different relatively easy things with macro, instead of only a few challenging ones. This way players will still need to keep their screen in their base to be successful, but they can also do all of the activities required with relative ease. A good example is that reactor idea that Famehunter said. Simple, yet demanding. Hopefully Blizzard can come up with similar ideas for all the races.
On March 19 2008 07:39 VIB wrote:
Microing = creative fun smart gameplay
Building selection = repetitive boring dumb gameplay
This is really not a good way of looking at it. You have to remember, the concern is for the entertainment value of the game. There can certainly be repetitive elements, because not everything the player does is viewed on the spectator screen. In fact, its best that there are some repetitive elements because the players are so damn fast. This way the players can make full use of their speed without having too much action that the observers cant even follow.
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@ geno
MBS will only make the game easier for Starcraft players. Starcraft is a 10 year old game. Most games since then have incorporated MBS. Logically, Blizzard would be out of their mind to not include MBS, for that would just be purposely limiting a more modern interface just to cater to the fans of a 10 year old game, instead of attract new players from other genres.
Starcraft is not entertaining to watch because of macro; its entertaining because of strategies employed, timing attacks, and brilliant displays of micro. Most pros, and players of similar skill levels, macro equivalently, so the other factors are what usually come into play. Starcraft II will be the same.
The most important aspects of macro should revolve around proper economy management and precise timing. It shouldn't revolve around the ability to select 9 different factories as fast as possible when you know you want to build 9 vultures. That aspect is being reduced. Players who manage their economy, build orders, and unit production timing well will still beat players who don't do so as well.
MBS will not be as big of a deal as most of you make it to be.
@ yangstuh
Many can argue that Starcraft is more fun strategy wise than Warcraft III, whether its true or not. But the reasonings behind that argument cannot, and should not, involve MBS at all. In WCIII it is common, actually its very common, to be pumping units from a single building producer (or at most 2), like ghouls from one crypt, bears from two Ancients of Lores, etc. MBS rarely has an effect on WCIII, if at all. Thats why Warcraft III should not even be mentioned in this thread.
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On March 19 2008 02:13 0xDEADBEEF wrote:
WC3 is supposed to be heavily micro-oriented, so one can assume standardized macro among good players.
This is my point. MBS and automine work towards standardising macro. A macro mistake for the pros will just not happen. You will end up with standardised armies, with no variations from game to game.
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I should mention I'm fairly on the fence about MBS myself. I don't really think its going to be as big a deal as most people say either. I have my doubts about MBS taking so much difficulty away, that the macro/micro balance is thrown out of whack. At the same time, I can see the merit in concerns if it were the case. Sure, the exciting moments of the game for spectators are micro situations, but that doesn't mean that making the game mostly micro would be beneficial for observing. We can barely catch most of what goes on now, and thats without the observers watching the pros macro up. If the game were to become mostly micro, I would envision multiple simultaneous battles to become the norm, which doesn't exactly make it easy for spectators. There needs to be a balance because people don't watch at the same speed progamers play.
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On March 19 2008 07:39 VIB wrote:
How many times have you seen in pro games, with 300+ apm koreans who do nothing but play starcraft all day, and they would still lose many valuable units because they were distracted clicking 14 different buildings while his forces got attacked by surprise.
You see it a lot in every single game. Regardless of how good the player is, there is too much stuff going on late game you cannot micro decently when there is so much to macro.
It makes the game looks silly and unresponsive when you have 300+ apm korean pros wasting units out of distraction caused by excessive macroing. Clearly there is an unbalance in actions needed vs human actions possible in SC1.
Your opinon boggles me. Why would you games to be played perfect? Then wheres the room for improvement?
Back in the day, players like boxer were thought to have almost perfected the game. People thought that he had hit the limit where he couldnt improve his game any further. Of course we've made leaps and bounds and players these days could crush boxer's play back in his time.
Take grubby for example. What could grubby do to improve his game? Not a whole lot. Pretty much, work on not making mistakes. There is no higher level to warcraft, its just what it is. The limits have been reached and players are playing as good as they are probably ever going to get at the moment.
Within a few months. Macro is going to become very standardised if MBS and Automine are implemented without some sort of compensation implementation. The best ways to control your base and economy will be mapped out. The only thing one player will have over another will be micro. It wont make for a very interesting pro-league at all.
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I believe that reactor core already doubles production speed. Doubling the queue is the secondary effect.
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Brawl makes me worried. When I heard there would be no L cancelling, I was sure that he'd just include something to make gameplay just as frenetic as it was in melee. However, after playing brawl now for like 20 hours, it just seems so slow and I feel like i'm already getting bored of it.
I hope sc2 doesn't end up the same way, dumbed down to the point where it's not even fun to compete with anymore.
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I just found these threads ragging on Brawl and it pretty much echoes everything I see in these threads about SC2. I found it hilarious, because you see the exact same stereotypes of people arguing there as you see here: the "competitive" people, the "noobs", etc.
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=153322
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=152180
I wonder how that turns out, and if indeed the Brawl scene will overtake Melee (however small they both are in the grand scheme of things).
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EPT
