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On February 25 2008 10:44 Unentschieden wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2008 06:15 FrozenArbiter wrote:
When it comes to multiple building selection for the purposes of setting rally points I'm 100% for it. This is because you can never have enough hotkeys to set rallypoints with your 20 gateways, so it's just super inconvenient. I´m surprised to hear this. SBS being inconvenient is THE main reason (at least for me) for wanting MBS. On the other hand this argument is countered by stating that this very inconvenience is vital to SC gameplay. fusionsdf just pointed it out, ending with a sentence that I find highly interesting: "...strategy is the only differentiator at the pro level, and thats a problem." Strategy in a Strategy game!? It is supposed to be the deciding factor, Micro and Macro should be supporting ablilities to your Strategy! The winner in a strategy game should be the player with the better strategy, not the faster one. Some Strategies that could be possible (and impressive) in SC are invalidated since they are to hard to pull of mechanically - a shame in my opinion. When they DO get pulled of they are worthy Pimpest Plays though. Speed shoul give you an advantage-fine but it shouldn´t be the deciding factor especially if that forces the game to be inconvenient. As I understood fusionsdf the main SC Strategy would be to rely on the enemy being distracted elsewere by the UI to gain a advantage. Not smart proxies or something fancy like that, just praying that the enemy is looking somewhere else. SHOULD it be like that?
strategy being the only differentiator is a HUGE problem in an RTS...
For a given map there are really only 3 different outcomes
1) one strat is the strongest. As a consequence, with micro/macro ability being negligible, its the only one used
-same strategies always used, games are predictable (and play out predictably because of lack of micro/macro mistakes), and boring to watch
2) Rock Paper Scissors. Various strats counter eachother. Because macro/micro mistakes dont weaken the counter, it essentially becomes build order based. Whoever picks rock vs scissors wins. Boring for the fan.
3) No dominant strategy. Micro and macro make less of a difference because micro/macro mistakes are less common. It becomes difficult for a player to gain an advantage without resorting to rock paper scissors hard counters. Games drag on forever, until players standardize on a popular one for whatever reason. We see the same relatively effective builds, the same flawless micro, and no strategic differences among players. In other words, long, boring, close games.
The only real way to get rid of this would be to have super fast map rotation - keep in mind progamers play 13 hours a day, and if micro/macro arent an issue when creating a build, it won't take very long at all for the strategic depth of a map to be fully explored.
The slower you rotate the maps, the more boring it is for the fan.
The faster you rotate maps, the less the fan can keep up, the more alienated the fan.
So you can see why if micro/macro are unimportant for whatever reason, strategy wont hold up an rts alone and allow it to be a successful esport...It certainly cant be argued that removing the value of macro/micro and having strategy all important will improve the spectator value.
NOTE: for those of you who will inevitably attack this. I am referring to a hypothetical situation where strategy by and large determines the victor and macro/micro are unimportant.
While I dont think MBS will completely ruin the value of micro/macro, I believe it will lessen its effects substantially.
On February 25 2008 11:12 caution.slip wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2008 06:15 FrozenArbiter wrote:
When it comes to multiple building selection for the purposes of setting rally points I'm 100% for it. This is because you can never have enough hotkeys to set rallypoints with your 20 gateways, so it's just super inconvenient. but you never have enough hotkeys to be able to train from 20 gateways either...which is super inconvenient so then it becomes arbitrary what is deemed "nescessary" macro and whats not. In this example, making units with MBS bad, but setting rallies good. Why is there this thought? The only reason I can think of right now is because most players CAN'T mass rally now, and they would LIKE to mass rally. (kind of like the argument that people can't split their attention to macro from 10 raxes properly, but they would LIKE to) .actually think mass rally would break the game more than MBS unit training What about we keep MBS for multiple training, and players can use use that extra freed up time for setting up rallies one building at a time. Well, that just not intuitive. If MBS is implemented, would you rather it be implemented with "smart-training" (smart casting sort of) or not? Where the computer finds an empty rax or the rax with the shortest queue or the rax with a unit whos going to finish training the soonest. I think WC3 just queues it in the first rax, and continues, until there are no more resources. Not that anyone ever got more than two of any training facility anyways (in my experience)
The reason that SBS is important isnt because of the time it takes. Its not an APM argument.
The reason SBS is important is because it forces a great player to multitask. Every macro/micro cycle they must send scvs to mine, build scvs, build zealots/marines/whatever, micro units.
Those 4 steps are really the only ones that occur (or should ideally occur) every single macro/micro cycle.
mine scvs
build scvs
build units
micro units
thats it.
Everything else occurs occasionally - starting upgrades, making buildings, setting rally points.
combine MBS with auto-mining, and you effectively kill the macro/micro cycle. All 4 steps can be done without even going to your base. Which means you can watch your units all the time unless you are either starting upgrades (I should point out that since you will have more hotkeys free because of MBS, you could always hotkey your armories and never have to go back to your base to upgrade.) or making buildings.
Even if you eliminate automining, at some point in the mid/late game, making scvs and telling them to mine right away is going to become less important.
Now because a progamer can watch their units pretty much all the time, you do two things. First, you make micro mistakes far less likely. When they do occur, players will react faster and lose less units. Doing this also kills the macro/micro type players. Even with the game set up as it is in starcraft brood war, there are many players who spend 90% of the time watching their units. Then there are other players who focus on watching their base a bit more, and their units a bit less.
This is most pronounced in a conflict, whether the player is pro or amateur. If you engage an enemy, you must decide to make sure your marines dodge lurker spines to get a few kills, or run them out and focus on not missing your macro cycle. The players who watch their units for extra efficiency are generally considered micro players. Players who focus on making new units as fast as possible are generally considered macro players.
I may be repeating myself, but by not forcing a player to focus on their base, you get rid of this conflict and destroy both macro and micro styles of play. By doing so you make game-styles more homogenous, more vanilla, and less interesting for the fan to watch.
In addition to this, because you no longer have one player microing a unit around and capitalizing on the micro mistakes of his opponent - his opponent will be less likely to make a mistake and generally make less costly mistakes, because the multitasking requirement is less - you have players executing complex micro maneuvers and gaining no momentum.
For a fan, this is pretty boring. Many of the pimpest plays involve a micro mistake (or inattentiveness) compounded by the other player's micro.
As just one example, think how much less effective and impressive hold lurker would be...A lot of the damage is based on the reaction time of the terran, and in general, the more units that can suddenly die, the bigger and faster the momentum shifts and the more entertaining the game is to the viewer.
mass rally point is semi-reasonable (but not something I fully agree with) because it is not necessary every cycle and is more of an annoyance, rather than a tool for a multi-tasking player to try and gain an advantage.
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@ fusionsdf:
Well we know that viewpoint by now, but you have two mistakes in your thinking:
1. You seem to think that all micro tasks are equal. But they're not. There's micro tasks that are very easy (e.g. retreating or focus firing), and there are also some that are harder to do (e.g. spreading your marines nicely, or muta micro). There's also time intensive micro actions and those which are not.
So even if all pros would only have to micro (which is not true, read on...) there would still be some better in certain areas than others.
Microing is a complex field compared to macro mechanics. What you should do and what you can do varies greatly in each situation, map, matchup and game.
2. Read Klouvious' post on the previous page. He made a nice, very detailed post about why MBS will not destroy anything and, in fact, only help you in some situations. In many situations, you will have to use SBS because SBS grants you flexibility and total control. You can only use MBS if you want to mass 1 unit type only.
So, in conclusion, don't worry so much. Macro and switching to the base will still be there, and in late-game we will see slightly cooler micro actions because of the time you save. Everyone wins, and it will feel almost like SC1, yet be slightly better because there's a little bit more time for micro in late game.
MBS is not actually replacing SBS, it's more like complementing it in a useful way. You must use SBS if you want full control over what you produce (pros will often use this). MBS may actually be a trap for newbies: if they decide to build masses of 1 unit type because it's easy to do so, they will have an inefficient unit mix most of the time. But even with that trap it's useful for them to have it because they like having an easy UI, and they like focusing on their army.
Oh, by the way, I never include auto-mining into my posts here, and you shouldn't too. There's a different thread about that.
Try to keep it seperated, because you get to wrong conclusions if you say "MBS is bad because MBS + auto-mining will destroy macro".
I'm still unsure if auto-mining is good or bad, but I tend to think it's bad.
But MBS itself is definately a good and useful feature.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Deadbeef, reply to my post on page 3 plz 
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On February 26 2008 18:50 0xDEADBEEF wrote:
@ fusionsdf:
Well we know that viewpoint by now, but you have two mistakes in your thinking:
1. You seem to think that all micro tasks are equal. But they're not. There's micro tasks that are very easy (e.g. retreating or focus firing), and there are also some that are harder to do (e.g. spreading your marines nicely, or muta micro). There's also time intensive micro actions and those which are not.
So even if all pros would only have to micro (which is not true, read on...) there would still be some better in certain areas than others.
Microing is a complex field compared to macro mechanics. What you should do and what you can do varies greatly in each situation, map, matchup and game.
Progamers practice for 13 hours a day and are already the best of the best. Do you really think there are micro tasks that are too complex for some progamers? Even if that was possible, the lack of multitasking would force them out of the top progaming ranks, because macro (see the macro/micro style thing I discussed above) is less of a skill differentiator.
2. Read Klouvious' post on the previous page. He made a nice, very detailed post about why MBS will not destroy anything and, in fact, only help you in some situations. In many situations, you will have to use SBS because SBS grants you flexibility and total control. You can only use MBS if you want to mass 1 unit type only.
I read it. Tell me, when you are protoss reinforcing a battle vs terran, do you spend time deciding to build various units? You will probably notice that almost every good protoss reinforces with zealots. In the same way, zerg reinforces with lings, and terran reinforces with marines.
Now, if its not a reinforcing situation, its perfectly possible for a player to hotkey 5 gateways to one key and 5 to another, or 6 to 1 key and 2 to another.... as long as your ratios are semi consistent, you dont have to go back to reassign every cycle.
How is this different from SBS? In SBS, there are not enough hotkeys to hotkey every gateway, every nexus, every upgrade building, every unit group.
Because a player cant possibly hotkey every gateway, they must multitask, they must go back to their base, and they must be distracted.
MBS will free up a few keys. Unlimited selection will free up quite a few more. automining will further reduce the need to multi task.
If a player wants to waste a few extra keys for more flexible unit production, how is that any closer to SBS? They will have free keys to do so anyways, and still be able to skip the distraction of going back to their base every cycle .
All of this is important because of reasons I pointed out in my last post.
So, in conclusion, don't worry so much. Macro and switching to the base will still be there, and in late-game we will see slightly cooler micro actions because of the time you save. Everyone wins, and it will feel almost like SC1, yet be slightly better because there's a little bit more time for micro in late game.
And less room for micro mistakes, which means less excitement
MBS is not actually replacing SBS, it's more like complementing it in a useful way. You must use SBS if you want full control over what you produce (pros will often use this).
You are drastically overestimating the need to build a whole bunch of units in a custom mix.
2 or 3 preset ratios - 5,5 - 8,2 - whatever - should be more than enough, and I think its unlikely that super specific ratios will give a significant advantage. If it did, you should have more than enough hotkeys to create a better ratio.
For example:
Bind 5 gateways to 1, bind 5 gateways to 2
1z,2z - build 10 zealots
1z,2i - build 5 zealots, 5 immortals
1i, 2s - build 5 immortals, 5 stalkers
Bind 8 gateways to 3, 2 gateways to 4
3z,4z - 10 zealots
3z, 4t - 8zealots, two high templar
You get the idea. Since you will need maybe two hotkeys for all your units, 1 hotkey for all your nexuses...which still leaves you with a minimum of 3 hotkeys to do whatever you want with.
MBS may actually be a trap for newbies: if they decide to build masses of 1 unit type because it's easy to do so, they will have an inefficient unit mix most of the time. But even with that trap it's useful for them to have it because they like having an easy UI, and they like focusing on their army.
Oh, by the way, I never include auto-mining into my posts here, and you shouldn't too. There's a different thread about that.
Try to keep it seperated, because you get to wrong conclusions if you say "MBS is bad because MBS + auto-mining will destroy macro".
I'm still unsure if auto-mining is good or bad, but I tend to think it's bad.
But MBS itself is definately a good and useful feature.
Auto-mining and mbs are heavily inter-related.
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You mean that Huge one? Serious case of TL:DR imho.
Some points are by nature not debatable/right or wrong due to their nature. Like the need to pressue Players into mistakes being hardcoded into the UI. That is something that your enemy needs to take care of in my opinion. If your enemy doesn´t make mistakes you need to provoke them-while resisting your enemys attemtpts to do the same to you.
At lest that is what I think. Maybe there are some people out there that never make mistakes no matter what. But these deserve to be unbeatable ;9-
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well if you are unwilling to read, why are you even bothering to argue? For all you know, I've conclusively proved that mbs is bad, or since you havent read it, for all you know I am claiming that MBS is awesome.
There is absolutely no point disagreeing with someone if you refuse to read their points
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Yeah, reading this thread alone takes up a big amount of time already, can't read and reply to everything... I'll do it in my next post maybe. Now I have to reply to this huge wall of text first... (yay)
On February 27 2008 03:31 fusionsdf wrote:
Progamers practice for 13 hours a day and are already the best of the best. Do you really think there are micro tasks that are too complex for some progamers? Even if that was possible, the lack of multitasking would force them out of the top progaming ranks, because macro (see the macro/micro style thing I discussed above) is less of a skill differentiator.
Well, maybe not "complex", but too time-consuming, definately.
One example would be muta-harass at two positions at once. This would be a very neat thing to do in ZvT if the Z builds more mutas than usual (for example, goes for a heavy muta into guard build).
Jaedong tried it once on Bluestorm, but he didn't do it nicely because there's just too much going on to really do things like that. Even for pros.
This was also the only game where I've ever seen a Z pro do that.
In SC1, as it is, pros use up to 11 mutas + overlord (for stacking) and just micro with that group, the other mutas are inactive.
See a recent game between Jaedong and Flash on Blue Storm where Jaedong did a mass muta into guards build (and won in the end). He had A LOT of mutas just standing around during mid-game. He could have used them, if macro wasn't so demanding. That's easy to understand, isn't it?
You have to think a little bit outside the box. There will be new micro possibilities which would be too "hard" to do in SC1, trust me. SC1 simply doesn't allow so much because of the constant macro strain. It's just a logical consequence.
The more tasks a player has to juggle, the less good he will be in each of them, and SC1 macro mechanics are almost too time-consuming, thus reducing the micro possibilities too much.
I read it. Tell me, when you are protoss reinforcing a battle vs terran, do you spend time deciding to build various units? You will probably notice that almost every good protoss reinforces with zealots. In the same way, zerg reinforces with lings, and terran reinforces with marines.
Now, if its not a reinforcing situation, its perfectly possible for a player to hotkey 5 gateways to one key and 5 to another, or 6 to 1 key and 2 to another.... as long as your ratios are semi consistent, you dont have to go back to reassign every cycle.
How is this different from SBS? In SBS, there are not enough hotkeys to hotkey every gateway, every nexus, every upgrade building, every unit group.
You have to reinforce with the unit you need. Zeals, lings and marines might be often the right choice but not always. For example, if there's tons of vults surviving in a battle and just a few to no tanks, you'll want to reinforce with goons and maybe templars.
And the ratio always changes. It's not always the same ratio.
That's the problem with MBS: if you use it, you really have to be sure that you need exactly this ratio. This is not often the case, unless you want to lose. It's a dynamic game, you play against your opponent, you must build units that counter your opponent's units, not always the same.
Because a player cant possibly hotkey every gateway, they must multitask, they must go back to their base, and they must be distracted.
Same with MBS. You won't always have to, less than with SBS, but still often.
And less room for micro mistakes, which means less excitement
Now that's an interesting statement.
In essence, this means you want to make the UI deliberately "hard" so that players inevitably make all sorts of mistakes, so that it's more fun for the spectators?
If you do that, you basically introduce more random luck elements.
The UI shouldn't make the player do mistakes. The opponent should do that, by playing smart, by denying scouting, by making him "guess" (educated guessing) what you're up to, by attacking him at multiple fronts, and so on.
The moment the player can be distracted by something else than his enemy, the skill aspect of the game is weakened.
The spectators probably don't find such things exciting too if their favorite player does a stupid mistake yet again, and besides, they should enjoy the more awesome microing anyway.
So, no, I think this is a really bad thing if you introduce "artificial distractions". This must be a game where everything depends on the skill of the players alone. Your opponent must distract you, not the UI.
Auto-mining and mbs are heavily inter-related.
Not really. But there's a separate thread for that, that's the main reason we should separate these things here. It just leads to more strange generalizations (statements like "MBS is bad because in combination with auto-mining it will ruin macro") and confusion.
We're going in circles yet again I think. Most of the arguments are old, just reformulated...
There's just no solution in sight.
Since I don't want to be the last idiot arguing here for nothing, I soon have to join all those who have already quit the discussion. 
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I DID read it I just wanted to convey that the post lacked a summary.
I just wonder about some of the more interesting statements that show up:
"strategy being the only differentiator is a HUGE problem in an RTS..."
Makes you wonder what Real Time Strategy games are really about...
or
"And less room for micro mistakes, which means less excitement"
This is worrying since it suggests that the UI should provoke mistakes... think about it.
You can´t really argue about points like that, which in the end is the reason the discussion is rotating. I mean how often did we get the "MBS removes Macro" issue with pages long "proof" pro and contra? I also had loads of posts about that to the point that I could only repeat myself. That´s why I avoid stuff I already argued about.
The only meaningfull discussion right now would be about the gameplay principles since these are balance and beta independent but allow conclusions for the UI.
Is it really exciting to see the players make mistakes? Would they play perfectly and provoke stalemates if the UI was "good" enough?
Are RTS about Strategy? Or Speed? Or economics? Or Diplomacy?
What do the players want? Should we even care about what they want? (Just saying that they want more of the same is inconclusive - in that case no one would want a sequel)
Summary:
Some arguments sound really stupid, the MBS discussion is basically finished, we should go deeper.
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Well I think the general argument is that most RTS's suck ass and Starcraft pwns them and you generally want to work out why.
I was thinking that if perhaps all of these insane, n00bish UI additions were finalised, as long as the units in the game weren't too fast and weren't hardcounters, and you still played on big maps with good balance, I'd still probably like the game.
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On February 27 2008 11:43 HamerD wrote:
Well I think the general argument is that most RTS's suck ass and Starcraft pwns them and you generally want to work out why.
Well, to me it's easy to tell: because of its pretty much perfect balance (making it the best-balanced sci-fi RTS) and because it's become almost a "national sport" in Korea (if it wasn't, this site here probably wouldn't exist anymore). This makes people all over the world want to be as good as the pros, and constantly shows us where the skill ceiling is. It's very good for competitive play if you have such "idols".
Other, newer games will have a hard time getting ground in Korea. All the pros and commentators are in danger, the spectators are used to SC1, and so on.
SC2 will have a hard time getting established there as the "next pro game", even if it had the exact same UI as SC1. You don't replace something as big as SC1 so easily.
Which is why I think that we will have a seperate league for SC1, at best. SC2, or any other game for that matter, is not going to replace SC1 there so easily. It will take time, if it happens at all.
But in other parts of the world, SC2 will probably be a big success.
So... once SC2 is out and doesn't gain ground in Korea at first, it doesn't mean it has to be bad. 
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Why do so many of you keep shooting blank bullets in the dark? SO many people are so 'mis-informed' it isn't even funny anymore.
Reasons why SC:BW became so huge in Korea are the following:
1) Internet and LAN Cafes surge in the late 1990s all over Korea led to the influx.
2) SC:BW requirements allow you to play the game on practically any PC. In other words, any Korean could play!! There were a few games that hit it big during this time including Lineage (one of the first Korean MMORPG's by NC Soft) and SC:BW to name a few.
3) Incredible balance (no argument here, but you have to remember what this includes: game length, well-balanced races, mechanics -- limitations of the UI give the player more 'CONTROL' of situations which allow for more 'MISTAKES' -- this is why you probably won't see another bonjwa for sometime because the ceiling is so high now, dexterity, commitment, etc.)
4) SC:BW is the perfect spectator sport and lucky for us it turns out to be a computer game. This goes back to game length and the fact it is pretty easy to follow on a screen. Now, going back to the example of Jaedong microing 2 groups of mutalisks... do you think a SPECTATOR can actually FOLLOW that crap without a splitscreen? I didn't think so!!
Sure, on the odd occasion they will attempt to micro two groups to show their superiority but the UI is there for a reason. If you include MBS as I have said many times over the game will become robotic and all about hard counters rather than soft counters and hence the balance wion't be there. Why do you think there are so many problems with WC3? You can blame it on a variety of other things including it is harder to balance a game with four races instead of three and that is one of the many reasons Blizzard won't introduce a forth one in SC2's multiplayer.
5) Left another thing out lmao. SC:BW a national sport? I'd use the WWE/WWF comparison that has been tossed around in the past. It has it's own niche market in North America and SC:BW has it's own in Korea, but once you go outside of those countries the numbers drop off significantly.
Wake up!
Blizzard tinker with the UI interface all you want, but please add some more limitations to what the player can and cannot do (oh yes, we're talking about you MBS) because I assure you the game won't be as competitive as many of the dingbats would have you believe. The simple solution isn't always the best answer!
I will end my post with the following: 'MBS cannot live up to it's own hype' (Showtime!: 2008).
QFT
Since SC:BW we've seen many games go down the MBS route and they've all failed and landed flat on their ass. In other words, they've all disappeared after a few years for several reasons including balance, developer's stopped supporting/patching the game, small communities, mirror matchups/no diversity in play, only hard counters (RPS) and the UI.
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On February 27 2008 19:06 Showtime! wrote:
limitations of the UI give the player more 'CONTROL' of situations which allow for more 'MISTAKES'
Shouldn´t that say LESS control? There is simply a fundamental disagreement here: I think that UIs that intentionally provoke mistakes are HORRIBLE! If the Developers have to resort to a intentionally bad UI for balance they would be simply lazy and/or incompetent!
Overall your post had lots of accurate information and good reasoning about the unique position of SC in Korea. But then you seem to change your mind and state that MBS would ruin the balance.
This has been argued to death and that there is a semiconsens that we have to wait for the BETA untill we can come to a conclusion regarding that issue.
Surprisingly outside of that you deconstruct the (generalized) argument that the crappy UI made SC the top RTS for 10 Years.
1) Release date timing was perfect
2) Low system reqs
3) Incredible balance
4) Spectator friendly - though today there are better alternatives, C&C3 beats SC at least here by far.
5)It is a local phenomeon in Korea anyway
The simple solution is not always the best. True. Simple would be to Copy/Paste the old UI. Challenging would be to invent a new one that is both compfortable AND balanced.
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The reason starcraft became a national sport in Korea is because it is perfect for spectators. One of the greatest things being that the best players are AMAZING at the game. You watch them play and your jaw is on the floor. Its incredible to see people doing what they are doing because you know yourself that its shit hard to do. Every game of starcraft I play, I get a better appreciation for what the pros are doing and it mezmerises me every time.
Differences in skill should be emphasized a lot. Running a 5 base economy shouldnt just be a part of the game. It should be something that only the best can do. Blizzard sets the bar of what is spectacular and what is mediocre. If I could pull off the same game mechanically as a pro, then as a spectator, I will not enjoy starcraft 2. As a player, I will have no motivation to get better.
Its no different from watching and mimicing your favourite basketball player. You dont train yourself to gain the game sense that they have. You train yourself to be able to handle the ball like they do.
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On February 27 2008 20:43 Unentschieden wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2008 19:06 Showtime! wrote:
limitations of the UI give the player more 'CONTROL' of situations which allow for more 'MISTAKES'
Shouldn´t that say LESS control? There is simply a fundamental disagreement here: I think that UIs that intentionally provoke mistakes are HORRIBLE! If the Developers have to resort to a intentionally bad UI for balance they would be simply lazy and/or incompetent!
No, you keep on missing our point entirely. Look at it from my perspective/point of view and perhaps you'll understand what fusion and I are talking about (you cannot afford to be near-sighted when you go into any debate; you have to look at the entire picture or else ignorance will get the best of you).
Here we go:
The reason we say the player has MORE control is because there are more things s/he must do in order to win the game. In other words, the controller is in control of his/her destiny without depending on A.I. to do it for them. They have to do every component themselves and they cannot be LAZY or incompetent!!
It might just cost them the game. There have been many eras in SC:BW. To name a few: BoxeR, the Emperor of cute micro and pioneer of strategy; NaDa, bringing macro to a whole new level; OoV, the Cheater Terran who put the MAC into the Ro; etc.
Now we're seeing the best of both world's collide with such players like Bisu -- bringing new purpose into the Dark Templar; Flash -- technically sound against everything except for Carriers, Jaedong, InteR.Mind and the list goes on.
***
Back on topic:
From this point of view MBS gives the player LESS control because there are fewer moves they can make, i.e. game becomes more about the hard counters because there are fewer things for the player to do and as a result the game becomes more robotic in nature (player A does x player B has to do y). This is but one example.
So you see, it is through limitations that make the game MORE exciting.
We live in a world of impurities and imperfection. Perfection is boring and that is why many artists counter it with imperfect masterpieces. We find it more pleasing and satisfying because we draw all sorts of connections to it. It is more stimulating to look at. This is why we go to galleries and the theatre. It is undeniable.
The intention of the UI is to give the player the utmost control and freedom of controling every segment of the game rather than only a few.
A.I. is a fascinating idea, but when it comes down to player versus player you want to see all the variables play out. You want to FEEL like you're in control! No, you want to HAVE control!
MBS is nothing more than a dream in an ideal world, but we don't live in one. Why start now?
BW's UI isn't bad. That is a matter of opinion in which to this present day cannot be fully supported for there has never been a RTS with MBS that rised to the occasion. It is nothing but a dream.
This is where everyone gets all pissy because when it comes down to it. It becomes a matter of opinion and lucky for the Nay sayers there is more evidence to backup our claims to this present day until proven otherwise.
I have no problem with them improving a proven system that works. You have to learn how to crawl before you can walk and you have to learn how to walk before you can run. Unfortunately the RTS genre is still in its baby stages. We have very few well-balanced RTS video games to use as a reference point and right now SC:BW is it. There have been many test tube babies with MBS and it just hasn't worked out. They got aborted too soon. Why not grow an adult? Why not bring something that has worked before and show it to the world when you have the masses at your feet with all the WoW marketing you've done? Ask anyone at Blizzcon and they'll say the SC:BW games were the most entertaining ones.
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On February 27 2008 19:06 Showtime! wrote:
Since SC:BW we've seen many games go down the MBS route and they've all failed and landed flat on their ass. In other words, they've all disappeared after a few years for several reasons including balance, developer's stopped supporting/patching the game, small communities, mirror matchups/no diversity in play, only hard counters (RPS) and the UI.
Indeed there are many games with MBS that don't live up to Starcraft's success.
However how many Blizzard games have failed to be successful since Warcraft 2 ??
And as far as MBS is conserned, how many Blizzard games with MBS have been a failure ?
Warcraft 3 may be a failure in your eyes ... but both :
http://www.vivendi.com/ir/download/pdf/VIVGames_EuropeRoadshow_June2006.pdf#page=4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-sports
state otherwise.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?currentpage=12&topic_id=64719
Sorry about this, but please read my posts on this page before making me repeat myself, thank you in advance .
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Klouvious don't repeat yourself. I had the displeasure of reading practically every post and if you couldn't tell many of us who have been around for a while don't feel like arguing with people who are trolling the website. It isn't worth the time or patience and I highly doubt Blizzard exec's are reading these pages so it does nothing. But here I am yet again wasting my time.
Yes, WC3 has a bigger global fanbase but there are many reasons for this as well. Don't throw out wild numbers for the sake of it. You have to understand the plausible causes.
Here are some fun facts:
a) it came out several years after SC:BW. The consumer wants to buy the latest toy. Something that is exciting and different.
b) more people were hooked up online around the world than ever before! The Internet's big boom took place in the mid-1990s and like any other technology advancement it gets cheaper over time so more people have access to it.
c) Blizzard's success first started with the original Warcraft. Then came Diablo, WCII and their expansion Tides of Darkness. All of these games won many awards further expanding their markets. It is all about the lore. Of course people will overlook an older game and move onto a new one in which they believe to be better because of the visuals and so forth. Don't judge a book by its cover! These days it is all about the graphics. The RTS genre should have little weight on the graphics and more weight on the gameplay.
d) with every successful game you have more revenue. Blizzard has been bought out 2 times by the highest seller, Vivendi Games and now Activision, making every product they produce more marketable. They never had the advertising capabilities they had back then to boost SC:BW's reputation.
These are only a few examples.
Now then you tell me the level of competition between the two are the same.
They are totally different.
SC:BW has been around for a lot longer than WC3 and WC3 is already losing steam because of balance issues just like Orcs dominated the Humans because they have the Bloodlust spell in WCII. Although it looks like there are more things in play (heroes, items, creeping, etc.) the player is very limited in what they can and cannot do because of the UI interface. Making it more micro intensive and leaving little room for any soft counters. If player A does y player B has very few options.
There is a BIG difference between the two.
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I'm quoting Tasteless from another thread:
"I don't know where the hell midas is getting all his units.......haha"
***
You hear the Korean commentators say something like this in televised events all the time. As soon as one battle is over there are some players who are ready to collide once again.
They scroll over to the player's base and boom another force is moving out to tango. SC:BW is already fast. Now try picturing something that is even faster.
Some of us had the luxury of playing the game at Blizzcon on the fast setting. Games were fast. Imagine playing the demo on the fastest setting. As a spectator sport it probably wouldn't work because too much shit would be happening on and off the screen. Right now the game has too many colors and it is too flashy for its own good.
This is a problem Blizzard has to address.
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1) I admit I can´t wrap my head around the argument that less control allows for deeper gameplay. By increasing content (new mechanics like Warp-in) you generate the need to adequately control them or they are effectivly nonexistant.
"The intention of the UI is to give the player the utmost control and freedom of controling every segment of the game rather than only a few. "
Please, do tell how SBS gives more control compared to MBS. You pretty much detailed how SBS removes control and forces the player to deal with that.
2) You must be a fan of EA Games. They perfected the art of producing a decent game and then rereleasing it ad absurdum. (Battlefield anyone!?) Well it seems to work for them and I have no doubt Blizzard could adapt that strategy. Personally I hope they don´t, call me a dreamer if you want.
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Showtime!
You are right about the fact that this is a waste of time. I don't believe anyone will change his opinion because of what is said here, no matter how reasonable it sounds or how true it is. I too had the "displeasure" of reading everything that has been posted in this forum since Starcraft's 2 announcement, although I started posting only lately.The reason I even posted in the first place was to bring obvious, well at least to me, facts to people's attention, again. Such as that Starcraft is not the only successful RTS in the history of computer games thus it isn't the only reference for successful RTS games, the main reason for the success of an RTS is not its UI and Starcraft 2 having MBS, automine, unlimited selection doesn't make it an automatic failure. Not that I expected anyone's opinion to actually change hearing those things once again.
Obviously warcraft 3 is VERY different from both starcraft and starcraft 2. But I don't think anyone can deny that it is very successful. I once again have to resort to quoting myself :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-sports
Warcraft III
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne – Real-Time Strategy (1vs1, PC)
Played professionally all around the world with hot spots in South Korea, China and Germany, there are a few dozen "professional" teams. The game lacks a uniting body and has no definable world championship.
The finals of tournaments all around the world are considered to be the biggest tournaments to win. These include the six "Major tournaments" listed below as well as events organised by Blizzard Entertainment, televised Korean leagues, several tournaments held in China (IEST & WEF), ESL's WC3L Series and NGL One.
Warcraft III is seen as the competitive game with the second biggest playerbase, with the number players online at Battle.net ranging between 70,000 and 100,000 at any given moment. It must also be noted that the Chinese scene, which has over three million players, uses their own clients for online competition due to a poor connection to the outside world.
Wiki articles about Warcraft III competitions include a historical overview of "world championships" as well as a ranking based on them and a number of player biographies such as: Zdravko "Insomnia" Georgiev, Xiaofeng "Sky" Li, Dae Hui "FoV" Cho, Jang "Spirit Moon" Jae Ho, Fredrik "MaDFroG" Johansson and Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen.
Now then you tell me the level of competition between the two are the same.
Please quote where i said that. I don't think I have used the word competition or competitive until now. I don't like the term competitive when it comes to computer games, I think it is too vague when it comes to defining what makes a computer game more competitive than another and can be interpretted in many ways.
All the fun facts you mention that helped in W3's larger playerbase are reasons that will lead to an even larger playerbase for SC 2. Whether you will like SC 2 or not, is obviously up to you. Whether it is accepted in Korea as Starcraft 1 was, is yet to be seen. As for the rest of the world, if Blizzard makes another amazing game, as it has managed to do until now without fail, Starcraft 2 will probably become the most successful RTS of all times.
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EPT
