The Elephant in the Room - Page 27

On May 12 2011 16:07 WhiteDog wrote:
It's a good read but all that is quite hypothetical.

Most of the community were thinking that, within the foreign scene, the ex SC1 players would just dominate the ex WC3 players on SC2, but we are seeing something quite different, almost the opposite in fact, with two ex WC3 players facing each others in final of the TSL3, crushing MC, FruitDealer and such.
In Korea, the SC2 community is made / dominated by ex BW pro because the SC1 scene is so big that it impact so much with any kind of esport.

In my opinion, SC2 demand different skills from SC1, and even if players such as Flash and JD are overwhelming, I'm not sure they will dominate that much.

On May 12 2011 16:12 Kurr wrote:


Exactly.

Anyone paying attention to the scene would realize that overall skill level keeps going up. I completely agree that it's not up to par with BW...but isn't that to be expected? All the succesful players stayed there.

But you completely ignore the GROWTH of the current community. People will get better over time. It should not be shocking to you that a newer game (1 year old) is still growing, especially when there are 2 more expansions on the way that may change the game immensely.

In the few months that a good BW player would take to adapt to the current skill level in SC2, current SC2 players can also get better. Could a BW player dominate? Potentially. Could he also fail completely? Absolutely, and anyone trying to argue otherwise should take a step back and rethink his stance.


Now let's talk about effort, because that seems to be a recurring point in your article :


For example, you compared SlayerS' workload to an average BW team. Well, great, isn't that normal? But then you added that they are tearing the scene apart. COMPLETELY WRONG! MMA has been doing relatively well and Ryung as well but they are in no way dominating the scene.

So what if other teams are having success without as much effort? Simply put, they are not motivated enough. And as far as we know, they ARE putting in the 30-40 games a day, just nothing saying it in public. In the end, as the players get better, those that slack will get left behind... just like how it happened for BW or any other competitive event (sports OR games)

And obviously effort plays a large part in it. Those who put more effort into BW got better, got a good salary for their efforts and and thus stayed there. "Lesser" players that didn't practice as much or simply never had success for a variety of reasons jumped ship to SC2 (saying they just weren't skilled is a cop out; you can train your decision making or any other part of your skill set to become better player if you are truly motivated).

But that is not to say they won't change their ways, or that new players from other scenes or new to RTS entirely will not come in later, bring in good work ethics and become top players.

Bigger prize pools, sponsors and SALARIES! -> more training/effort -> better players. It's that simple.



I don't understand the goal of this article. Yes, there are plenty of sub par games in SC2 currently. I agree with that; the skill level isn't up there yet in general (but some players are definitely showing us that they are improving rapidly, and players like IdrA, Sen, etc, have been dominating all their opponents recently to give a few examples; you can expect their growth to continue and as such inspire other players to follow suit).

Did you honestly expect people to pick up SC2 and a few months later be at a skill level comparable to BW? No, of course not. It IS a different game. There are different abilities, timings, mechanics, etc. Everything factors in to make it a new learning curve and especially the boost to early game aggression means that it will take a while still for the skill level to truly develop and allow us to have games consistently be high level. Too many top players are not good enough yet at handling the pressure of early game and when they bring it to the mid game, it's half the time just a pleasantry because 1 player is so far ahead, and IMO that is what is currently holding back the majority of SC2 progamers (and, like I said, that's being fixed by itself over time with people getting better...not by saying "BW progamers are better")

Overall, calling this an elephant in the room is ridiculous. It was clear from the beginning that it would take a long time for the SC2 scene to grow to a respectable skill level. Anyone expecting anything else was simply too optimistic. The answer is not the say that BW progamers should switch because they are better. The answer is that SC2 players will get better over time and reach a skill level where people will stop making such ridiculous arguments.

On May 12 2011 16:02 JoFritzMD wrote:
One thing no one can dispute is that Brood War has a higher skill cap. It was a harder game. That is just an accepted fact. However that doesn't mean that we should just give up on SC2. SC2 is a much more friendly game for newcomers to the scene and for people who don't know much about gaming in general and that is the important point. Even if SC2 crashes and burns in the next 2 years it doesn't matter as long as it makes more people aware of the E-Sport scene.

I personally much prefer watching BW to SC2 but I still watch every SC2 tournament I can just because I want to see E-Sports grow (not to mention I do enjoy watching the games). Everyone just has to remember that no matter which game is "better" this is all for the love of E-sports in general whether it's Halo or WoW or CS or SC.