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On April 04 2015 15:35 JulDraGoN wrote:
One of the biggest reasons my friends stopped playing SC2 was not because of it being too hard.
It was not because it was too complicated
It was not because it lacked micro transactions.
It was not because you had to buy the game.
It was not because of game design issues.
It was because it lacked the social aspect.
Games are consumed in a different way than they were 10+ years ago.
Today, for the vast majority of gamers, the games are mostly another way to socially interact.
In LoL, dota, CS:GO you can be quite social. You round up a bunch of friends and just have fun.
SC2 doesn't really work that way.
I do think that Archon mode fits this aspect, which is good.
I agree, I have a group of friends that played LoL very frequently, they play together, they talk about the game, etc.
And they suck, they do try to get better, but they still suck, so you can see they altough they really like the game, its pretty obvious thats not everything there is to that, being able to get in skype with somefriends to play some games is really good and probably the biggest factor.
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8751 Posts
On April 06 2015 06:56 Lexender wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2015 15:35 JulDraGoN wrote:
One of the biggest reasons my friends stopped playing SC2 was not because of it being too hard.
It was not because it was too complicated
It was not because it lacked micro transactions.
It was not because you had to buy the game.
It was not because of game design issues.
It was because it lacked the social aspect.
Games are consumed in a different way than they were 10+ years ago.
Today, for the vast majority of gamers, the games are mostly another way to socially interact.
In LoL, dota, CS:GO you can be quite social. You round up a bunch of friends and just have fun.
SC2 doesn't really work that way.
I do think that Archon mode fits this aspect, which is good. I agree, I have a group of friends that played LoL very frequently, they play together, they talk about the game, etc. And they suck, they do try to get better, but they still suck, so you can see they altough they really like the game, its pretty obvious thats not everything there is to that, being able to get in skype with somefriends to play some games is really good and probably the biggest factor. Replace "LoL" with "SC2" in your post and I don't see how it becomes unrealistic.
Or when JulDraGoN says:Today, for the vast majority of gamers, the games are mostly another way to socially interact.
In LoL, dota, CS:GO you can be quite social. You round up a bunch of friends and just have fun.
SC2 doesn't really work that way. Why doesn't it work that way? In SC:BW we were like kids at a playground just making up anything we wanted to do. My group of friends saw low money 1v1's as the real way to play the game, so we'd play 1v1's and everyone else would obs, or we'd set up team battles and have drafts, or we'd do a little king of the hill or a round robin or whatever. We'd go to other groups of friends' channels and challenge their best players. It was just making up whatever we wanted and we needed nothing more than a way to create a private game and a chat channel, both of which SC2 obviously has, as well as way more. I think if people wanted to be playing SC2 socially, they'd be doing it. The tools are there. The whole time the StarCraft community was freaking out about the social features in SC2, Riot was laughing their asses off becoming popular with the shittiest client ever.
I think a much easier observation to accept is that successful multiplayer games have flourishing social scenes sprout up around them. So when you see a popular game with a strong social scene, it's weird to think that the social scene caused the popularity. I can't imagine the social scene being anything but a product of other factors, not a cause itself. I can see how it eventually is a part of a mutually beneficial relationship, but not how it gets a game off the ground.
What I'm interested in is what group of friends actually really enjoyed SC2 and preferred to play SC2 and then went to another game because of some social aspect of it. What exactly did the other game provide that SC2 didn't that was worth playing a worse game?
I suspect that people actually preferred to play other games. And their friends preferred to play other games. And groups of friends just migrated to other games. People who preferred SC2 the whole time got sucked into another game cuz they'd rather play with friends than play SC2 alone or make new friends. If that's the case, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with SC2 socially except that it's not super popular. There's no way to provide better infrastructure socially to make the game more popular when the reason it's not popular is because it's actually not popular. There's no social feature that groups of friends are waiting on from Blizzard so that they can all go back to playing SC2 like they wanted to all along.
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To be honest, many people that complain about the social aspect of the game don't realize that it's right in front of them.
That chat channel Nony talked about? For me, it's BonjwaDE. [Or TeamLiquid sometimes]
I go there, challenge people to 1v1, coach some people on their replays, sometimes we get some other dudes in and play vs them. We even had Bunny once in there and challenge the whole channel(needless to say we all got rekt) and it was streamed for fun.
Everytime I read "SC2 is not social enough, thats why I don't play" I don't really believe that. While I agree the social features can be improved( do there really need to be 10 different general chats for example? or why does the chat channel cleanse after being IG etc?), they're not preventing you from being social.
It's out there, and if you don't have a community suitable for you(BonjwaDE is german as in the title), create one. Though there is the TL group as well.
But, as Nony said, it's probably more the game than the actual social features.
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On April 01 2015 15:54 opisska wrote:
I still can't quite grasp how this is now introduced as the greatest invention of all times when the same feature was available in BW 15 years ago.
lol yeah seriously.. team mele was hella fun
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On April 07 2015 10:00 KeksX wrote:
To be honest, many people that complain about the social aspect of the game don't realize that it's right in front of them.
That chat channel Nony talked about? For me, it's BonjwaDE. [Or TeamLiquid sometimes]
I go there, challenge people to 1v1, coach some people on their replays, sometimes we get some other dudes in and play vs them. We even had Bunny once in there and challenge the whole channel(needless to say we all got rekt) and it was streamed for fun.
Everytime I read "SC2 is not social enough, thats why I don't play" I don't really believe that. While I agree the social features can be improved( do there really need to be 10 different general chats for example? or why does the chat channel cleanse after being IG etc?), they're not preventing you from being social.
It's out there, and if you don't have a community suitable for you(BonjwaDE is german as in the title), create one. Though there is the TL group as well.
But, as Nony said, it's probably more the game than the actual social features.
A big problem was no chat channels at release. That was a staple of Broodwar which helped make the game a huge event. We'd king of the hill, we'd float CCs to watch watch, we'd 3v3 top vs bottom in map, but it was always social. We played it on Kali in Maven's Haven and it was as much chatting as playing.
No chat channels at release really hurt the game in a way that it probably didn't recover from in some ways. Never the less, the excitement around the game with the early GSLs and MLGs was out of this world...
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On April 04 2015 15:35 JulDraGoN wrote:
One of the biggest reasons my friends stopped playing SC2 was not because of it being too hard.
It was not because it was too complicated
It was not because it lacked micro transactions.
It was not because you had to buy the game.
It was not because of game design issues.
It was because it lacked the social aspect.
Games are consumed in a different way than they were 10+ years ago.
Today, for the vast majority of gamers, the games are mostly another way to socially interact.
In LoL, dota, CS:GO you can be quite social. You round up a bunch of friends and just have fun.
SC2 doesn't really work that way.
I do think that Archon mode fits this aspect, which is good.
Yeah good point. But by design SC is a 1v1 game with a 2v2+ mode as an extra feature so it doesnt get the natural 2+ player benefits. its real time 1 on 1 chess
also blizzard made the sc2 menus seem like a black void on launch which didn't help (is that why they named it lotv???  )
that being said I've got 3 friends hooked on sc2 in the last six months so theres still hope!
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On April 06 2015 08:17 NonY wrote:
I suspect that people actually preferred to play other games. And their friends preferred to play other games. And groups of friends just migrated to other games. People who preferred SC2 the whole time got sucked into another game cuz they'd rather play with friends than play SC2 alone or make new friends. If that's the case, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with SC2 socially except that it's not super popular. There's no way to provide better infrastructure socially to make the game more popular when the reason it's not popular is because it's actually not popular. There's no social feature that groups of friends are waiting on from Blizzard so that they can all go back to playing SC2 like they wanted to all along.
This is so spot on...
I stopped playing Broodwar regularly when I'd log on to bnet and Soso, Cross, Hurkyl, Aquanda, Fenix, and Khalsa et all were not on...well if they weren't on I'd play with Jim, Giggles, Bongo or I'd log over to Kali and play with the Maven's Haven clan...but gradually people started not being around (okay not gradually mostly because of EVERQUEST!)
Then War3 came out...I remember playing 2v2s with Pillars, Grrr, and Dudey the first week...suddenly people were back and around (even if all three were living in Korea at the time) and we were playing again, but when my regular 2v2 partner (Hurkyl) stopped playing due to grad school and the other social friends stopped showing up...I stopped playing regularly. Its funny...I loved the game but without the people to play you just don't play.
From my perspective there are a lot of people who get a new game and enjoy it for 3 months to a year.
After that there are hardline genre players that go in popularity from MMOs, to MOBAs, to FPS, to Strategy and StarCraft is only a subset of Strategy. Most people simply aren't going to stick around forever but will enjoy the new hot thing for awhile or will play what their close friends are playing.
Yeah, Broodwar had a social scene that was beyond just gaming. I remember having dinner with Khalsa (nobody remembers him but he happened to be involved in sending 4 "foreigners" over to Korea in Broodwar) in New York after a "pro circuit broodwar tournament", having ilnp/Dudey's dad help me on my home mortgage to buy my house, etc etc etc
Now though...the people I play with are people I know IRL or have played with since 1998...something about StarCraft 2 not having a good social channel set up and having way more focused popularity (Uhm team liquid would have like 5 channels when they finally added channels) really caused the social aspect to fail and honestly I'll log over to Heroes because I have 3 RL friends playing there, I'll play Diablo with the wife because that's what she likes...its about the social aspects and spending time with your friends. BW connected a generation that hadn't been connected...but now everybody is on the internet and its different.
Sorry for the long meaningless post
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Archon Mode was already in broodwar if I remember right?
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The tournament I really want to see: Proleague stars (playing solo) Vs NA players paired up in archon mode. Solo players don't have to share their winnings, archons do. Get fun casters, see who turns up, I'm sure it would be a blast.
It might turn out that an archon of low NA masters can go blow for blow with the best Koreans playing solo, once they get the hang of how to effectively work together. If so, that's a whole new universe of very competitive, fun, high-level matches.
Anyway, if Archon Mode doesn't catch on, you know what we'll try next: PENTACHON! Apparently, that's what all the kids want to watch these days.
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On April 07 2015 11:17 j4vz wrote:
Archon Mode was already in broodwar if I remember right?
Brood War had team melee which could be the same or completely different
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On April 07 2015 11:43 lump1 wrote:
The tournament I really want to see: Proleague stars (playing solo) Vs NA players paired up in archon mode. Solo players don't have to share their winnings, archons do. Get fun casters, see who turns up, I'm sure it would be a blast.
It might turn out that an archon of low NA masters can go blow for blow with the best Koreans playing solo, once they get the hang of how to effectively work together. If so, that's a whole new universe of very competitive, fun, high-level matches.
Anyway, if Archon Mode doesn't catch on, you know what we'll try next: PENTACHON! Apparently, that's what all the kids want to watch these days.
Ever since the LotV Fan Alpha came out we have been hosting viewer vs pro archon mode games on stream. It's a lot of fun but even with teams of grandmasters we have very rarely gotten viewer victories vs the pros (Although some of the most exciting games have been when the viewers do win!)
If you want to check out some of the games we have the VODs on our Youtube Channel
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On April 07 2015 14:44 Bacon_Infinity wrote:Ever since the LotV Fan Alpha came out we have been hosting viewer vs pro archon mode games on stream. It's a lot of fun but even with teams of grandmasters we have very rarely gotten viewer victories vs the pros (Although some of the most exciting games have been when the viewers do win!) If you want to check out some of the games we have the VODs on our Youtube Channel
Very interesting! Thank you for the links, and for doing what you do. I have a feeling the grandmaster Archons will improve with time and practice and start beating the pros. Also, I suspect that this will introduce new race imbalances for David Kim to worry about - as in: I can imagine Protoss benefits less from teamwork than Zerg, making Archon Zerg OP. As long as it's all for shits and giggles, that's not a big deal, but if we're to have Archon tournaments for real stakes, these balance issues will become dealbreakers. To fix this LotV should make sure that all the races have units that benefit equally from babysitting by a dedicated microer.
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On April 07 2015 14:44 Bacon_Infinity wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2015 11:43 lump1 wrote:
The tournament I really want to see: Proleague stars (playing solo) Vs NA players paired up in archon mode. Solo players don't have to share their winnings, archons do. Get fun casters, see who turns up, I'm sure it would be a blast.
It might turn out that an archon of low NA masters can go blow for blow with the best Koreans playing solo, once they get the hang of how to effectively work together. If so, that's a whole new universe of very competitive, fun, high-level matches.
Anyway, if Archon Mode doesn't catch on, you know what we'll try next: PENTACHON! Apparently, that's what all the kids want to watch these days. Ever since the LotV Fan Alpha came out we have been hosting viewer vs pro archon mode games on stream. It's a lot of fun but even with teams of grandmasters we have very rarely gotten viewer victories vs the pros (Although some of the most exciting games have been when the viewers do win!) If you want to check out some of the games we have the VODs on our Youtube Channel
Any specific games you would recommend?
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On April 08 2015 00:09 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2015 14:44 Bacon_Infinity wrote:On April 07 2015 11:43 lump1 wrote:
The tournament I really want to see: Proleague stars (playing solo) Vs NA players paired up in archon mode. Solo players don't have to share their winnings, archons do. Get fun casters, see who turns up, I'm sure it would be a blast.
It might turn out that an archon of low NA masters can go blow for blow with the best Koreans playing solo, once they get the hang of how to effectively work together. If so, that's a whole new universe of very competitive, fun, high-level matches.
Anyway, if Archon Mode doesn't catch on, you know what we'll try next: PENTACHON! Apparently, that's what all the kids want to watch these days. Ever since the LotV Fan Alpha came out we have been hosting viewer vs pro archon mode games on stream. It's a lot of fun but even with teams of grandmasters we have very rarely gotten viewer victories vs the pros (Although some of the most exciting games have been when the viewers do win!) If you want to check out some of the games we have the VODs on our Youtube Channel Any specific games you would recommend?
The first one with The_Templar and SetGuitars was pretty funny. That 10 min ling speed OP lol  .
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I'd love to see Archon mode have its own rankedmatchmaking, I mean if 4v4 has it, why shouldnt Archon mode? I think it'd be quite successful!
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On April 08 2015 06:25 SnowfaLL wrote:
I'd love to see Archon mode have its own rankedmatchmaking, I mean if 4v4 has it, why shouldnt Archon mode? I think it'd be quite successful!
I think that's the main point of archon mode. You could always play stuff like this in the arcade. Now with the matchmaking available hopefully more people will find a fun way to play with matchmaking vs sitting around in a lobby never knowing who you will get.
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I think a much easier observation to accept is that successful multiplayer games have flourishing social scenes sprout up around them. So when you see a popular game with a strong social scene, it's weird to think that the social scene caused the popularity. I can't imagine the social scene being anything but a product of other factors, not a cause itself. I can see how it eventually is a part of a mutually beneficial relationship, but not how it gets a game off the ground.
I agree with this. I think all of the "social is the solution"-advocats are confusing correlation with causation.
In fact, I played LOL for the last 6 months (700 games or so) and I made zero friends and only had shitty soloq teampartners. Could I have made friends if I really wanted too??? Sure, exact same thing can be said about Sc2.
But in the end, LOL is just a much more accessible game and is much more foccused on "micro" interactioans than in Sc2 where you - tbh - have to do alot of stupid stuff.
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On April 08 2015 00:09 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2015 14:44 Bacon_Infinity wrote:On April 07 2015 11:43 lump1 wrote:
The tournament I really want to see: Proleague stars (playing solo) Vs NA players paired up in archon mode. Solo players don't have to share their winnings, archons do. Get fun casters, see who turns up, I'm sure it would be a blast.
It might turn out that an archon of low NA masters can go blow for blow with the best Koreans playing solo, once they get the hang of how to effectively work together. If so, that's a whole new universe of very competitive, fun, high-level matches.
Anyway, if Archon Mode doesn't catch on, you know what we'll try next: PENTACHON! Apparently, that's what all the kids want to watch these days. Ever since the LotV Fan Alpha came out we have been hosting viewer vs pro archon mode games on stream. It's a lot of fun but even with teams of grandmasters we have very rarely gotten viewer victories vs the pros (Although some of the most exciting games have been when the viewers do win!) If you want to check out some of the games we have the VODs on our Youtube Channel Any specific games you would recommend?
Some of the best games happened in the episodes with Hydra, MC, CranK and Kane but there are great moments in every episode 
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On April 01 2015 15:44 peanuts wrote:
Archon mode is going to be brilliant. Before, you could always use shared control of units to help someone out in 2v2s, but it still put massive pressure on them. With Archon, you can give them one or two tasks to focus on each game. It's very much like in Dota when you do a tri lane with friends. Focus on last hits, denies, warding, etc. etc. This really lets you keep an eye on your pal but also forces them to work.
Super excited to introduce friends to the game with this. Paired with it being standalone, I think it'll cause a massive spike in player numbers.
exactly, couldnt have said it better
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On April 01 2015 18:25 Wildmoon wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2015 16:11 opisska wrote:On April 01 2015 16:08 eviltomahawk wrote:On April 01 2015 15:54 opisska wrote:
I still can't quite grasp how this is now introduced as the greatest invention of all times when the same feature was available in BW 15 years ago. It's a fun mode, and bringing it out to be supported by the official matchmaking service is pretty nice. Any cool mode like this that can be brought out of the mediocre Arcade interface and exposed next to the other modes with matchmaking will get nice attention. A lot of other fun modes buried in the Arcade, like Peep Mode Maps, would probably get good attention if Blizzard gave them similar official support. I am not arguing otherwise and I AM looking forward to playing it. Only I would expect that people would give Blizzard some shit for not having it released already in WoL. But the list of such obvious features that are still missing is probably too long for that SC2 has some features that BW didn't have and missing some features that BW had so it's not like it's a crime for them to not have all of the features. It's good they are adding more and more features.
It's not a crime.
It's just being Steve Jobs, taking away features so that they can be "released" or " introduced" later
ie - a hole
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EPT
