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I understand where you're coming from, but Blizzard KNOWS that sc2 HAS to be NON-newbie friendly, to keep with our esports. no offence, but the wow esports was probably an offshoot of wow that obviously didn't have blizzard's support - wow is an mmorpg, not a rts.
however in sc2, blizzard supports all of these esports events. They even have blizzcon where there are TOURNAMENTS for sc2 and before that wc3, but no tournaments for wow - because wow is not meant for tournaments/esports, its meant to be like a mmorpg.
Also, sc2 has already been dumbed down from bw. I mean, smart attacking, rally points simplified, better user interface, a variety of things.
I think it mainly comes down to this: The major tournaments are luring in non-players to buy sc2 - making money for blizzard. The esports scene in wow probably didn't lure non-players to buy sc2 (excuse me if i am wrong on that part). The 'play with your friends mmo style' probably lured more people into wow.
All in all, blizzard would be hurting themselves by newbifying sc2, and they know that. I mean, sc2 has its own BALANCE department at that. Did wow have that? (again, correct me if i'm wrong, i have actually not played WoW).
Just my 2c
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The difference is that due to WoW being a monthly subscription game they wanted to lower the skill level so even the most brain dead of noobies would continue to play and pay. In starcraft, lowering the skill cap for all these people would be far less profitable for Blizzard as there is no necessity to keep people playing after buying the game.
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The big difference between WoW and SC2 is that WoW was NEVER intended to be an eSport, and because of that, it was always patched around PvE. In contrast, SC2 was created with eSports in mind, and is balanced around the 1v1 component.
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On October 07 2011 18:55 gn0m wrote:
This already happened. Blizzard wanted to make a game that was easier than BW so that more people could enjoy it. They significantly reduced the mechanical skill needed and voila – SC2. But this doesn’t seem to be a big problem, the game is very popular anyways.
Also I don’t think Blizzard would ever agree on letting another organization control the game, which would be needed in order to make the eSport-label effective.
Yes, SC2 is easier to handle than BW is ofc. But i dont think it validates your point.
With easier handling you can complete more tasks in less time. It doesnt necessarily mean that people just do the same stuff with less effort. Doing more stuff with equal effort is probably more likely imo. And you have to remember SC2 is still in its beginning.
Although i agree on the whole thing: Games get more and more dumbed down. Its a shame really.
I dont even have any expectations in D3. Its not a good game at all. Too much anime too much restrictions. Too much overdone fighting animations. I want to play diablo not some japanese manga game ffs..
edit: Its not about good games anymore its all about good numbers..
I can remember the times when D1 or SC1 were released. Yes i am that old. Games and gaming were much different back than.
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@Pandemona : well PvE / Raiding got easier but also the gear grind is much faster and easier then before.
@Kipsate: No absolutely not, I just meant that if Blizzard could win more money by dumbing the game versus losing the eSport scene of their game, it would be a possibility for theme to do changes like this because it's a "good" business decision.
This would cause other companies like GOM, Mlg, IEM, WCG, Steel Series, Razer, Roccat, and other tournaments and companies that are build around the game to stop their investments in Starcraft or simply to go bankrupt while not affecting Blizzard.
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Blizzard is getting a silly amount of publicity from eSports, so I think your point about them screwing us over for business reasons is moot...
Blizzard wants to make the game more exciting for viewers and players and to recieve more money from companies for their IP. What you're talking about is as much the result of WoW arena forum gripes vs. Blizz's need to appeal to their predominantly PvE market; the game was balanced for the 95%, not the 1%.
In SC2 they regularly make posts about the winrate for all leagues, saying they monitor statistics for all players, and we are all playing the same part of the game. So it would be silly to take out various features.
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@zeOllie:
However in sc2, blizzard supports all of these esports events. They even have blizzcon where there are TOURNAMENTS for sc2 and before that wc3, but no tournaments for wow - because wow is not meant for tournaments/esports, its meant to be like a mmorpg.
Well actually there are also tournaments for WoW eSport at BlizzCons and WWI.
(I'm going ot eat so I'm jsut answering this quickly.)
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they're not really made with the same things in mind. WoW reminds me a lot of super smash bros in the sense that a competitive community came out simply because there are ALWAYS competitive people playing a game if there are enough people in general playing a game, but the developer doesn't care and has no interest whatsoever in cultivating it. frankly, they don't have to either.
that's obviously not the case with SC2, SC2 wouldn't even have been made if it weren't for the korean scene still playing BW so enthusiastically. blizzard is not retarded, they realize that esports is what makes starcraft, whether BW or SC2, as popular of a game as it is. they have catered to their target audience for both WoW and SC2 rather reasonably. the difference is the competitive community for WoW was never a high priority target audience if one at all
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If anybody is interested in the Story about SC2 and the "how to make an e-sport game" I recommend watching this.
Its about an hour long, but very very interesting listening to how and why blizzard made things more "simple" in order to create the perfect e-sport game.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014488/The-Game-Design-of-STARCRAFT
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On October 07 2011 19:20 LunaSea wrote:
@Novalisk : I never said that, you misunderdtood me.
What I tried to explain in my post was that there is the possibility for Blizzard to make SC2 easier so that more people like to play the game.
It already happended with WoW and probably a lot of other games (I think that CS 1.6 -> CSS could be a good example too), so why not SC2 ?
Because WoW and SC2 are completely different games. One was created with casual playerbase in mind, and one was created with the spectator experience in mind. Mind you I don't play WoW, so the game could have gotten really hard raid content or something since WotLK, but I'll take your word for it.
I didn't say that there are doing it now but it is certainly something that they eventualy could do and if they do it, it would ruin eSports in general not just SC2 because companies wouldn't trust games anymore.
Trust and professionalism are two things that games really struggled to obtain years after years, so we shouldn't lose what we already acquired.
If Blizzard started making the game easy to play it would indeed be bad for eSports, but you failed to show any pattern suggesting this could happen in the future. What changes have Blizzard made to SC2 for the sole purpose of making the game easier?
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On October 07 2011 19:24 LunaSea wrote:
Actually it's also what was happening with World of Warcraft where the pro players were also talking with the game developpers... :S
Blizzard never took any form of advice from pro players, not pvp:ers atleast. Some PvE guilds got to test unreleased raid content and give feedback on classes raid performance and needs, thats it. It was suggested thousands of times that they should hire a bunch of arena "pro gamers" to help them with balancing the game and they gave the same reply every single time: PvP and arena is not a priority, balancing is done out of a PvE perspective.
In other words any comparision between WoW and an "e-sport" game cannot be done, because WoW is never going to be balanced that way and it never was, they never even tried. Why do you think class X and Y was godlike in the arena fr Z amount of time? Because it was weak/fine in PvE. WoW is a PvE cashcow that milks the pockets of PvE players and "casual" gamers.
And WoW was dumbed down for PvE, because they do not care about PvP, again you cannot compare WoW to any form of competitive multiplayer game, because WoW was never intended as one and they have never tried to make it one either.
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@Lazorstrats : Well it's true, but if Blizzard plans on adding extensions (Zerg / Protoss / +++ ?) or paiable services you will have that type of "philosophy" coming back in one way or another.
@mordk : Yes I agree whith the fact that WoW never was designed for eSports, but if your game suddenly appears to have a competitive scene then you probably want to promote it and take advantage of it to develop it.
On October 07 2011 19:02 LunaSea wrote:
Like saying : Well there's definitetly something going on whith our game in the competitive gaming area, we should take advantage of that and develop it ! Even if it wasn't the main goal at first.
@Deezl : Well they did it with WoW and Valve did it with Counter Strike. CS 1.6 was great then wanted to surf on that enthusiasm and created CS: Source which was crap eSports wise.
Now they announced CS : GO and most of the eSport players already said that it wouldn't be a good game...
@TheRealartemis : Thanks for the link I will watch it later ! =)
@Novalisk : Besides the fact that SC2 seems easier then BW I don't think that there is a pattern suggesting that the game will evolve like this.
I simply think that it would be great to creat something like a "eSports Fifa" like Pandemona said BEFORE a disastre bursts out. Preventing SC2 eSport to colapse like WoW's did.
We don't wan't to waste a great game like Starcraft !
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@unkzz : yes actualy thy did, I know that a lot of players were asked for their opinion.
About PvE, there was also drama in that part of the game (Ex : Ensidia #1 Lich King kill where the guild was banned for some time and the GM quits...etc).
But I don't agree with the fact that WoW never was an eSport. For some years there even was a WoW event at Mlg's !
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On October 07 2011 18:15 LunaSea wrote:
---> Create an "eSport" status / label for games.
---> If a game claims to want an eSport scene they have to "subscribe" to this eSport label which constraints the company to change the game in agreement with the pro-gamer / caster community but also to make changes happen quicker.
Who gets to "create" the label, and who gets the developer to "have to" follow the rules you outlined, and why would any developer even care?
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@Talin: Well like I said in my previous posts and like Pandemona said something like an "eSports Fifa" would be great and even outside sports there are regulations in other fields like economy (in some ways).
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On October 07 2011 19:56 Novalisk wrote:
If Blizzard started making the game easy to play it would indeed be bad for eSports, but you failed to show any pattern suggesting this could happen in the future. What changes have Blizzard made to SC2 for the sole purpose of making the game easier?
Blizzard already did "excessively simplify the gameplay / mechanics." It's called SC2, and it's been pretty damn successful.
Overall, I think yall are giving game companies way too much credit. Blizzard didn't do anything to make BW an "esport," the community did. From maps, to tournaments, to teams, to sponsors, to this very site were all community driven.
Whether a game is successful or not at a tournament competitive level has nothing to do with the developer and everything to do with the community.
This risk of companies suddenly pulling out of progaming is funny as well, because it's largely already happened. The companies that are sponsoring pro teams now are companies that have done the research and know what they're doing is a sound investment. When other companies see good investments in "esports," they'll follow with their sponsorship, and not a moment sooner. At the end of the day, Pepsi doesn't care if SC2's gameplay is so bad that it becomes rock paper scissors in the GSL as long as their sponsorship sells drinks.
TLDR: calm down, everything will be A-OK 
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I'm sure Blizz will make more money from SC2 as an e-sport than it will do from individual sales.
Blizz will target the casual market with (goofy) custom maps in the Custom Maps Marketplace they are making.
Calm down, Blizzard are not killing e-sports.
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On October 07 2011 18:54 drsnuggles wrote:
You're completely wrong about comparing SC2 to WoW. WoW was never about eSports, even when a small scene formed, Blizzard never had incentives to build WoW into an eSport, whereas with SC2 they have no incentive not to, as it's a great way to get revenue for them (in the long run, they will sell broadcasting licenses to companies). This says it all.
Blizzard will never make changes to SC2 that will kill the esport scene.
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On October 07 2011 20:42 Trumpet wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2011 19:56 Novalisk wrote:
If Blizzard started making the game easy to play it would indeed be bad for eSports, but you failed to show any pattern suggesting this could happen in the future. What changes have Blizzard made to SC2 for the sole purpose of making the game easier? Blizzard already did "excessively simplify the gameplay / mechanics." It's called SC2, and it's been pretty damn successful.
I never said "excessively simplify the gameplay / mechanics". I also asked for changes made to SC2, not the SC franchise as a whole.
The mechanics in SC2 were simplified because as Blizzard figured, the BW mechanics contributed very little to the spectator experience. The game has a very high skill ceiling without them, and Blizzard made the change so the players could focus on activities more engaging to the spectators. This is different from making the game easier solely for the purpose of making it easier.
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On October 07 2011 21:02 Novalisk wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2011 20:42 Trumpet wrote:On October 07 2011 19:56 Novalisk wrote:
If Blizzard started making the game easy to play it would indeed be bad for eSports, but you failed to show any pattern suggesting this could happen in the future. What changes have Blizzard made to SC2 for the sole purpose of making the game easier? Blizzard already did "excessively simplify the gameplay / mechanics." It's called SC2, and it's been pretty damn successful. I never said "excessively simplify the gameplay / mechanics". I also asked for changes made to SC2, not the SC franchise as a whole. The mechanics in SC2 were simplified because as Blizzard figured, the BW mechanics contributed very little to the spectator experience. The game has a very high skill ceiling without them, and Blizzard made the change so the players could focus on activities more engaging to the spectators. This is different from making the game easier solely for the purpose of making it easier.
That quote was from the OP actually, wasn't all directed towards you specifically, I should have made that clear.
The rest of your point is largely subjective though. If you think that sc2's changes in mechanics were unanimously well received, you should look up how much hell was raised on these forums about them.
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