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[SC2] Passing the Torch
July 28th, 2010 06:47 GMT
Pass the Torch
We all knew it was coming. Some of us were dreading it, while others awaited it with breathless impatience. Most of us were somewhat in between. We played the beta, we followed every blue post since the fit that surrounded its announcement way back in 2007, and now we're finally on the cusp of a new dawn. We know what's coming, but what we don't know is what will happen when it comes.
These are questions that nobody can answer, not even the vaunted Team Liquid staff. But perhaps now is not the time for asking questions, or for criticism, or for theorycrafting. No, my fellow Teamliquid.netizens, I think now is story time. Now is story time to remind us of the game that will be succeeded in the next few days, to remind us of the pioneers who created the greatest game ever made, and the pioneers who launched an industry.
Anticipation of Starcraft 2 has brought gamers and enthusiasts of every stripe to Starcraft and the communities that surround the game. So, this one is for you newcomers as well as you old timers, and for all those in between. There is no better time than now to reflect on Starcraft and e-Sports than now, on the eve of its next step, so gather round.
Hindsight 20/20
December 10, 1995. One day earlier, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness had been released. The team of developers at the young Blizzard Entertainment took little time to celebrate its wild success; there was work to be done.
They had not taken any of that success for granted. They were still a small developer in a fragile industry. Founded in 1991 by Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce under the name of 'Silicon & Synapse,' they focused primarily on porting games rather than developing their own, but with a direction change to original development in 1994 they chose to rename to 'Blizzard Entertainment.' Their flagship franchise would be the first to be released under the Blizzard label, and it would be their first PC-only game. 'WarCraft: Orcs and Humans' hit shelves in 1994, and it became immediately apparent that Blizzard had a winner.
Reviews were mixed through trended towards positive, but the sales figures were not. Warcraft may not have been a consensus pick among critics, but gamers were enthusiastic. A year later, Blizzard had pumped out Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, and this time it was not only the gamers who were enthusiastic, but reviewers as well. Blizzard was ready to take its next step.
The dreamers behind Warcraft had just acquired a new studio, Condor, which was busy at work on Diablo, but they weren't done making moves yet. They wanted to do something else. Orcs were cool, and humans fighting orcs were even cooler, but they wanted to move out of the domain of fantasy, and Condor's Diablo was not exactly going to do that. So they took their ideas into outer space.
Starcraft in its first incarnation would be unrecognizable by the release. It was built on the Warcraft II engine with some modifications, but necessity would dictate an entirely new engine after a poor showing at E3 1996. Diablo had generated more buzz then ever around Blizzard, and the momentum after Warcraft II's exceedingly successful release brought unprecedented enthusiasm for any news of a Blizzard project, but Starcraft fizzled at E3. It was ridiculed by the now famous quip 'It's just Warcraft in space.' Those words had a profound impact on its development, one that would transcend graphical updates and modest gameplay adjustments. It would re-write Starcraft's foundations and future, from being just another RTS to be the exemplar of the genre.
I think I've played a UMS that looked like this
The marked unenthusiasm of the Blizzard fan base over Starcraft's public showings caused the developers to make a dramatic shift in philosophy. The Warcraft philosophy had been more or less that of chess: two ultimately similar sides that built on strategic use rather than choice or depth. In order to take the 'Warcraft in space' stigma away, the development team made the change that would be the reason for its success, the same reason I extolled in A Legacy of Distinction: complexity.
The way Blizzard implemented that complexity was an innovation in RTS at the time. Instead of the chess-like use of how pieces are used against each other, emphasizing the implementation of the similarity, Blizzard emphasized the differences between the races in Starcraft. Three distinct, equal, and compelling sets of tools, built on the tested gameplay formula from Warcraft and Warcraft II. Not only were the races different, but they played differently. The Terrans were defensive and required strong management skills; the Zerg were fast and cheap and demanded excellent game sense and positioning; the Protoss were strong and expensive, and only skills complementing their strengths would get the job done. It would have been easy to simply give them all different graphics and units, but each race felt different and had different advantages and disadvantages.
The Blizzard team was driven further than they had expected by the pressure. A proper, powerful follow-up to Warcraft II would make them the dominant force in RTS. If Starcraft proved to be a flop, however, they would be seen as a one hit wonder. Thus, in an effort to make it the blockbuster they all felt it needed to be, they wrote a brand new engine and updated the graphics. They hired professionals for the voice acting and put more effort into the story and lore. Most importantly, they pioneered a simple, effective, free multiplayer service which they called Battle.net. The product that they shipped out on March 31, 1998 could not have been further or more different than the one they displayed at E3 on May 16, 1996.
Recognize me? Didn't think so.
The response was exactly the opposite from its first showing at E3. We all know how the game was received. We were the ones who received it. Most of us had never played a game like Starcraft. At the time its graphics were impressive, its engine was smooth, and its quality of production was pure Blizzard. Things only got better when Blizzard released the expansion, Brood War, which boldly added brand new units that enhanced the strategic options available to each race without breaking the balance. Coupled with its expansion, Starcraft quickly took hold not only in domestic but foreign markets as well, most notably South Korea. Once the game hit the shelves in South Korea, the rest was history.
Crazy As Them
But here at Team Liquid, fortunately, the rest is not history. And we have a Korean boy named Lim Yo-Hwan to thank for that.
Boxer needs no caption, but I gave him one anyway.
I'm not here to forge the story of SlayerS_'Boxer' on my keyboard for twelve hours. Riptide's words in Return of the King will work instead of my efforts in this regard, and more eloquently and completely I might add. However, it is not enough to simply mention Lim Yo-Hwan and be done with it. It's important to note that progaming didn't truly exist before Boxer, and would not have existed without him.
But we must also know that in perhaps any other country, with a similarly inspired, attractive, charismatic character like Boxer, progaming still would not have happened. Even the concerted efforts of organizations like MLG and thousands of investment dollars have not introduced anything close to Korean e-Sports in Western societies. In reality, it was Korean culture that allowed progaming to happen.
South Korea is the most wired country on the planet, and back in 1999, after Brood War was released, it was hardly different. In Seoul and Pusan, as well as other major population centers and even smaller towns, the late 90's saw an explosion in 'PC bangs,' essentially Internet cafes. Nearly every Korean had access to the internet at the time Brood War was released, and with the fortuitous addition of Battle.net, PC Bangs suddenly had a way to make lots of money off of gaming hungry youths.
It was these PC bangs that ensnared a young Lim Yo-Hwan. Boxer, along with a host of other gamers, would spend hours hammering feverishly at the keys, honing their skills at the hottest game around - Starcraft: Brood War. PC bang owners began hosting local tournaments, bringing in the best players around, and quickly what had been merely local tournaments became a a fledgling community, centered around Battle.net and Brood War. The best players were identified by which PC bang they played in, and it was not long before larger tournaments were being organized.
The incubator of e-Sports: the PC bang
I imagine the extent to which Brood War was played surprised even the PC bang owners, but it was certainly and inarguably on the fringe. There had never been a game that allowed for players around the world to be connected with just a few clicks of a button, or a game that seemed to have so many options and so many skill requirements as Starcraft. And so, despite its fringe status, interest grew, and so did the tournament prize pools.
A new age of young people brought up in a digital era rapidly began taking interest in this game. They all had access to it, and there might as well have been no game other than Starcraft as far as the PC bang owners were concerned. Still, interested youths and PC bangs would not have been enough. Many professional gaming circuits begin this way, and wither in a few years or die completely when a sequel is released. Popular games with legions of loyal fans in other cultures have not been enough to launch cultural phenomenons like e-Sports, despite seeming to have everything it takes. But those games are not Starcraft, and in South Korea, somebody was about to notice.
The stage was set, the star of the show had been selected, but somebody still needed to bring the cameras. The man to do that was a programming director at Tooniverse by the name of Hyung Joon Hwang. Noticing the growing popularity of Brood War, he took a chance and decided to air some Starcraft matches on a program called 'Gameplus.' When the numbers came in from the first match, Joon Hwang's roll of the dice had turned up a perfect seven. He had hit television paydirt. Not only were the ratings decent, better than anybody had expected, but the matches were cheap to televise and simple to set up. Tooniverse continued to air matches periodically, but growing popularity of the game eventually spurred Joon Hwang to a bold idea: a channel for gaming and gaming only.
The earliest generation of gamers who populated the first tournaments on television and otherwise were recruited from the best among the PC bangs, and the drawing of native players brought interest from across the country. There was no Courage tournament or progaming licensing, and only a handful of players had managers, much less sponsors. Lim Yo-Hwan had not emerged as a star yet, and e-Sports needed a hero, a man to draw in the crowds to watch the games whom all could unite behind. Enter Guillaume Patry.
A handsome, exotic French Canadian, Guillaume Patry was also the best North American player and was lured to Korea by the large tournament prizes and slipped into the progaming scene with ease. Known by the ID Grrrr..., Guillaume Patry brought star power to e-Sports in its earliest days. His presence boosted e-Sports, drawing audiences intrigued by his personality and his strong Protoss play. Although Guillaume Patry had an accomplished career, it was a short one. Eventually his passion for Brood War declined, and his interests changed.
But Lim Yo-Hwan had a passion that burned bold and bright, never wavering even in his most excruciating slumps or most devastating losses. As the Hope of Terran became its Emperor in tournament after tournament, everyone slowly converted to being Boxer fans. By the force of his personality and by the creativity he brought the game, Boxer became e-Sports. He was its face, its golden boy, and his thousands of fans relished his every win. Inspired by Boxer, a new generation of gamers set out to be professionals, and soon teams were created.
Progaming grew and grew, but it was still on the fringe. It was still regarded poorly culturally, and viewed mainly as a curiosity by many rather than a serious enterprise. The day that changed is the legend of 100,000. The man who started televised Starcraft, Hyung Joon Hwang, eventually became the executive director of the OnGameNet StarLeague, and continues to fill that role to this day. The 100,000 refers to the turnout for the Round 1 of the 2004 Sky Proleague Grand Final, and that number was concrete proof that Starcraft was here to stay, and that Progaming was not just a peculiar interest or hobby, but a serious cultural phenomenon. e-Sports may not have been founded that day, but that is the day remembered as when it moved from the fringe in public perception to the mainstream.
Everybody here should know this image
Since 2007 however, e-Sports has been stagnant. The dramatic growth in interest and revenue it appreciated from 2002 onward has leveled out, and despite brilliant innovators, strong players, and charismatic personalities, the game has grown perhaps as much as it will, an idea properly and articulated elaborated in Alethios' On Waxen Wings. So e-Sports looked to the horizon that year, and Blizzard answered the call about its future.
It's About Time
And so we come full circle. On May 19, 2007, Blizzard Entertainment announced that it was in development of Starcraft 2. It would not be until February 17 of 2010 that the beta would be released, but the length development did not deter the energy and excitement that built around the sequel. Blizzard knew the expectations of this game, and there is no doubt that they feel now in the development of Starcraft 2 as they felt developing Starcraft in the wake of Warcraft II's success.
To make it even harder, Starcraft 2 is perhaps the first game ever designed to be viable as an e-Sport. A favorable reception of Starcraft 2 as an e-Sport means much for the livelihoods and careers of the hundreds of progamers, coaches, and employees of OGN and MBC. Their future rests in the hands of a team put together to design a game for a purpose that a game has never before been designed for, but Blizzard is not to be underestimated.
In their amibition, Blizzard made the decision up front that Starcraft 2 was going to be designed for e-Sports, which is perhaps the greatest contrast in development between Brood War and its successor. Brood War's success in competitive play was an accident, and although Blizzard never set out to make it an unbalanced game, the strategic depth to which it can be played was not expected by even its developers. Starcraft 2 has the lessons of more than just 2 games of the Warcraft franchise to build on, with the model of the original Starcraft was there to inspire and inform its development, but they are not lessons on how to design an e-Sport, they are lessons on how to design great games. While the game has the experience of the Blizzard label to make it great, the task of designing a game explicitly for professional competition is not something that even they have done before.
How, then, has the Blizzard e-Sports team approached this? One aspect of their method has included improving replays, observer controls, and modding support but those are mere details. The extras and conveniences of watching are nice, but how about the development of the game itself? Blizzard approached the gameplay regarding e-Sports with a surprising lack of variance from Brood War itself, focusing on finding the right kind of complexity, making each race different, emphasizing offense over defence, creating counters to every unit, and working to allow creative strategies.
Taking it a step further, Blizzard shaped what skill sets would be necessary for success. They selected micro, multitasking, strategic thinking, knowledge of opposing races, and map knowledge as the player-specific factors to accentuate for success.
And yet some issues remain unaddressed. What of the large number of useless units that never or rarely see competitive play? Why a lack of LAN support or cross-realm play, or the stifling atmosphere of Battle.net 2.0? Brood War did not use bonus damage on certain units to balance its unit composition issues, so why does Starcraft 2?
Nevertheless, it seems from this that Blizzard has not changed their core philosophy, and wisely so. They still aimed for complexity in ways that few others would even dare, and Blizzard succeeded in making three distinct and fairly balanced races, highlighting and pronouncing their differences while still building them off the same gameplay principles.
But that has not saved Blizzard from criticism. I could write a laundry list here of additional features of gameplay items that have sparked controversy since its development. That every feature's inclusion or lack thereof sparks opinions has been a consequence of Blizzard's openness with the community, but there is no doubt that the game is better for Blizzard's regard for the input of its fans. They have never been secretive about their approach to Starcraft 2's development. Like the response at E3 to the Alpha of the original Starcraft, the reactions and opinions of the community factor in the development.
And yet, at times the outcries have been ignored. Some issues, Blizzard continues to budge on, issues which Blizzard perhaps considers trivial or irrelevant, or efforts which Blizzard does not wish to engage on for motivations we may never know. The greatest casualty of Starcraft 2's development has been our trust in Blizzard. Every decision they made, even every delay, we all surmised was for a good reason and the game would be better for it, but never has that been less certain than now. Glaring us in the face is the fact that this game is not quite ours yet, and that we have only so much ability to affect change in the game and the features that we want or do not want.
Still my favorite complaint image. Brings up some good points
What lies at the heart of the matter are not questions about specific features but of what the game is made of, how the game feels, and the depth to which it can be played. Blizzard has not altered the approach to development that brought the original Starcraft such success, and that is a fact that should bring us comfort, but it has yet to pass through any of the trials that will measure it in the end.
The inescapable fact is that the development has not even begun. The real development begins now, and will continue for as long as the game still has players. Starcraft did not have the entirety of its strategies and techniques mapped out and balanced in beta testing, and neither did Starcraft 2. The developers can do their best to make judgments and balance the units, tweak abilities and change build times, but creating and making the game what it can be is and always has been up to the players.
Tip of the Dawn
And so, where does this really leave us? While we are bidding a fond farewell to Brood War, at least as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports, we are also at a place of opportunity. The story I wrote here is a story that is part of the legacy which we enjoy every time we log on to ICCUP or watch a VOD. It is the story of how the greatest game ever made came to be, and the cultural phenomenon it inspired moved from fringe to mainstream.
And now we are at a critical point in the history of e-Sports. Starcraft 2 is a chance for the stagnant state of the Korean scene to revive and grow, and it is a chance for Europe and North America to bud and eventually grow similar scenes. But it all hinges on the development that begins the moment the game is released. The part of the development Blizzard is responsible for is over. They have done their jobs, and from the looks of it, it has every opportunity to become as successful or more successful than its predecessor.
The burden then is laid on us, the players. The majority of that responsibility is rested on active and vibrant communities like Team Liquid to share information, passion, and techniques so that the game may develop into what it can be. A few hours ago, Blizzard handed us a game, raw but full of promise, and it will be our responsibility to take it and make of it what we can.
And so, Blizzard has passed the torch, and we hold it now, burning white hot in these hours before a new dawn. Ooh, aah, and when you're done, pass it on, I say. Pass it on, because we're ready. Ready for a new world.
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Just remember, Brood War will always still be an enormous part of the history of Starcraft, no matter how far or successful Starcraft 2 gets. Nobody can forget that, and those who are unfamiliar with Brood War must learn that.
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I think we need to look at the game critically in order to truly understand it. We do not need more mindless SC2 hype which has been oozing from every corner of tl.net. We need more people critically questioning and testing possible faults and successes of the game in order to draw accurate conclusions about this game. I don't think enough of it was done in the beta. Especially by forces in the community such as top tier players who only looked at the game as a way of future financial benefit and fame. So much blindless SC2 hype came from these sad desperate souls. I won't name names but you know who you are.
Posts such as this asks some good questions about the future of the korean scene and the future of both games and some other good points but like countless before it, it only shines light on the positive conclusions such as having Starcraft 2 pro-scenes in Europe and North America to the likes of the Korean Starcraft: Broodwar scene. You must look at both sides of the spectrum. For example: Starcraft 2 could kill the Starcraft: Broodwar scene in Korea and then fail miserably and leave us with nothing. Don't get me wrong. Starcraft 2 is a reality and I hope it enjoys equal or better longevity and success as Broodwar but mindlessly hyping it is not the way to achieve this. We must...
Question Everything.
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Here's to another decade of awesome.
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Katowice25012 Posts
On July 28 2010 15:46 Ryusei-R1 wrote:
Just remember, Brood War will always still be an enormous part of the history of Starcraft, no matter how far or successful Starcraft 2 gets. Nobody can forget that, and those who are unfamiliar with Brood War must learn that.
This is a great point.
Awesome writeup! Great work, Arrian.
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HAHA, I love the stone/Bnet 2.0 comparison. Great article!
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You should change the part that said "after a poor showing at E3 2006" to "E3 1996", which should be what you meant I am sure.
I still remember spending hours over WC2, it was so great for its time. the first WC1 was memorable for the ridiculous ranged unit damage I still remember.
It's been almost 2 decades already, I feel old.
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I reckon you should change that banner up the top. It still says SC2 beta coverage.
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United States33392 Posts
Enjoyed the optimism for SC II, but the "BW is dead/stale/whatever" stuff I've seen enough of already.
Point being, you can write something that says "let's make SC II great" without having to attach "because there's something wrong with brood war" to it.
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Very goood article  glhf
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
great article
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Nice writeup. I hope that SC2 does turn out to be a worthy successor to the SC franchise that the community has built in this past decade.
On July 28 2010 15:47 G5 wrote:
I think we need to look at the game critically in order to truly understand it. We do not need more mindless SC2 hype which has been oozing from every corner of tl.net. We need more people critically questioning and testing possible faults and successes of the game in order to draw accurate conclusions about this game. I don't think enough of it was done in the beta.
This.
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On July 28 2010 15:47 G5 wrote:
I think we need to look at the game critically in order to truly understand it. We do not need more mindless SC2 hype which has been oozing from every corner of tl.net. We need more people critically questioning and testing possible faults and successes of the game in order to draw accurate conclusions about this game. I don't think enough of it was done in the beta. Especially by forces in the community such as top tier players who only looked at the game as a way of future financial benefit and fame. So much blindless SC2 hype came from these sad desperate souls. I won't name names but you know who you are.
Posts such as this asks some good questions about the future of the korean scene and the future of both games and some other good points but like countless before it, it only shines light on the positive conclusions such as having Starcraft 2 pro-scenes in Europe and North America to the likes of the Korean Starcraft: Broodwar scene. You must look at both sides of the spectrum. For example: Starcraft 2 could kill the Starcraft: Broodwar scene in Korea and then fail miserably and leave us with nothing. Don't get me wrong. Starcraft 2 is a reality and I hope it enjoys equal or better longevity and success as Broodwar but mindlessly hyping it is not the way to achieve this. We must...
Question Everything.
fuck yea. well said and what a great point.
the beta was more of a practice run than an actual test. i feel like very little was accomplished besides x unit getting nerfed to make up for X versus Y unit imbalances.
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Well written!
I do indeed hope that eSports comes out of this better then ever before. I don't think I could watch something I cherish this much go through anything else.
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SC2 is not here to replace SCBW, because it sucks.
Every notable player I know says it's sure nice to play for a few weeks, but otherwise too shallow.
Blizzard fucked it up, right from the concept phase.
What a waste.
User was warned for this post. Overly aggressive and inaccurate.
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You cant create artificially e-sports. A game have to evolve in order to be successful as an ESPORT. Its too early to say what will happen with SC2, but imo it has a very very long way to go.
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On July 28 2010 16:51 Metaspace wrote:
SC2 is not here to replace SCBW, because it sucks.
Every notable player I know says it's sure nice to play for a few weeks, but otherwise too shallow.
Blizzard fucked it up, right from the concept phase.
What a waste.
The game certainly does not suck. Very few professional players have publicly come forward and said they have no plans to continue playing upon release. Back this up with the fact that top tier players have been competing in tournaments for months and are still indicating excitement about the prospects for the game as an e-sport and I don't think your statement has a leg to stand on.
Once you play the single player campaign, by the way, it's very easy to see where all their manpower went. That thing is simply superb. Now that they're not working on that anymore, I'm certain many of the commonly discussed issues will be addressed.
Edit: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2010/07/27/stout.starcraft.skorea.fields.cnn?iref=allsearch
Case in point.
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The whole e-Sports aspect of SC2 seems so forced. If its viable for e-Sports it naturally will become one, not from the power of will alone. I can't imagine it ever reaching the height of BW simply because as a spectator sport its just not clear enough to a casual viewer. The name can't make it big, from what it sounds like the reception to the game in Korea has been less than enthusiastic already. BW was the right game at the right time, as mentioned on the cusp of broadband internet penetration and happened to run on any computer as well. Now people's attention is divided between many other games too, such as MMORPGs... the market has moved on. I imagine the situation will turn out similar to Warcraft 3 which ended up more popular competitively in other places rather than Korea. And without Korea all you will have is another niche scene.
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On July 28 2010 17:18 infinity2k9 wrote:
The whole e-Sports aspect of SC2 seems so forced. If its viable for e-Sports it naturally will become one, not from the power of will alone. I can't imagine it ever reaching the height of BW simply because as a spectator sport its just not clear enough to a casual viewer. The name can't make it big, from what it sounds like the reception to the game in Korea has been less than enthusiastic already. BW was the right game at the right time, as mentioned on the cusp of broadband internet penetration and happened to run on any computer as well. Now people's attention is divided between many other games too, such as MMORPGs... the market has moved on. I imagine the situation will turn out similar to Warcraft 3 which ended up more popular competitively in other places rather than Korea. And without Korea all you will have is another niche scene.
That's a very interesting, but shallow, view on the whole thing. Are they really forcing it as an e-sport? And if they are, who are "they"? I don't think you're talking about Blizzard, because all they've done is work to make it easier to be used in a tournament setting and struck deals to promote it as a sporting event. It has no effect on whether or not people will enjoy it or if they'll want to watch it, it's just a helping hand if someone does want to run it in an event. Nothing bad about it.
Of course you're right that it's going to be very slow to catch on in Korea, not because there's no interest but because there are financial responsibilities tied up in the original game. If people make a living off of SC:BW, it's gonna take some surefooted steps and advanced planning where they are sure they can live off SC2 before they move in that direction. They certainly aren't going to blindly leap.
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On July 28 2010 15:47 G5 wrote:
Especially by forces in the community such as top tier players who only looked at the game as a way of future financial benefit and fame. So much blindless SC2 hype came from these sad desperate souls. I won't name names but you know who you are.
(...)
For example: Starcraft 2 could kill the Starcraft: Broodwar scene in Korea and then fail miserably and leave us with nothing.
(...)
#2
I have no problem if people like Artosis, Day[9], some from EG clan or whoever want to earn money with this by streaming/casting/providing coverage... but the lack of criticism is kinda annoying. It seems to me that all the successful poker players like Fisheye who certainly was one of the best german players to ever play the game don't bother playing Sc2 because they just don't have to.
Same will be true for most of them, as long as it will be easier to earn money with poker they won't play it competitively.
So you have all these american people who invested a lot of time and effort in BW and now want to make money with SC2 without any doubt it seems. I never played SC2, but from all the streams and VODs i saw I hihgly doubt it will be as successful as BW. Lzgamer playing with like 120 APM, this is ridiculous. I don't know if the Expansion packs will change anything, but as it is I don't think people will want to play this game very long because it's just not fast enough and seems to depend much more on gameplay issues rather than handspeed/skill issues.
Still, gl to everybody trying to be successful at SC2 in whatever way you choose
€: also I hope that the range of broadcasting events/coverage will be larger in the future. It was already kinda sad that there was practically no Chinese coverage in BW despite being China the #2 BW country. I mean I don't know about the Chinese community, maybe they (have to) stick mostly to themselves because of lag issues. But in WC3 the integration of Chinese players seems to work, given that 4 out of the top 10 players are from China (gosu gamers ranking)
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Excellent write up! Enjoyed the read.
I wish Starcraft II the same success as Brood War.
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On July 28 2010 17:26 urashimakt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 17:18 infinity2k9 wrote:
The whole e-Sports aspect of SC2 seems so forced. If its viable for e-Sports it naturally will become one, not from the power of will alone. I can't imagine it ever reaching the height of BW simply because as a spectator sport its just not clear enough to a casual viewer. The name can't make it big, from what it sounds like the reception to the game in Korea has been less than enthusiastic already. BW was the right game at the right time, as mentioned on the cusp of broadband internet penetration and happened to run on any computer as well. Now people's attention is divided between many other games too, such as MMORPGs... the market has moved on. I imagine the situation will turn out similar to Warcraft 3 which ended up more popular competitively in other places rather than Korea. And without Korea all you will have is another niche scene. I don't think you're talking about Blizzard, because all they've done is work to make it easier to be used in a tournament setting
Certainly they did not.
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I see some people saying you can't force an esport as if it is unsure whether SC2 will be one, which needs a quick reply. BW was not forced as an esport that's true. Esports didn't exist when BW was launched. Because of this BW followed a natural path of competitive popularity into esports. Creating an industry for others to follow, for which they should be very thankful. That does not mean that this is the standard for how games become esports, at all. It is simply BW's path to esports and nothing else and won't be applicable in this new situation.
SC2 by default of being the new Blizzard game will be launched into esports and will stay there because it is a better game than every other non-BW RTS out there. It doesn't need time to prove this it is obvious from day one. Every big tournament has picked it up already. That includes tournaments that were not interested in BW (for the wrong reasons). SC2 has no games to compete with and crushes all opposition outside of Korea. It will stick around as an esport for a long, long time.
If BW had been launched into a world where esports already existed it would be in the same situation.
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On July 28 2010 17:56 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
I see some people saying you can't force an esport as if it is unsure whether SC2 will be one, which needs a quick reply. BW was not forced as an esport that's true. Esports didn't exist when BW was launched. Because of this BW followed a natural path of competitive popularity into esports. Creating an industry for others to follow, for which they should be very thankful. That does not mean that this is the standard for how games become esports, at all. It is simply BW's path to esports and nothing else and won't be applicable in this new situation.
SC2 by default of being the new Blizzard game will be launched into esports and will stay there because it is a better game than every other non-BW RTS out there. It doesn't need time to prove this it is obvious from day one. Every big tournament has picked it up already. That includes tournaments that were not interested in BW (for the wrong reasons). SC2 has no games to compete with and crushes all opposition outside of Korea. It will stick around as an esport for a long, long time.
If BW had been launched into a world where esports already existed it would be in the same situation.
First of all, love the writeup, well done.
I agree with Nazgul, and as it's also stated in the article: we have a huge chance here AND coming from the point of view of a beta participant - we are on the best way to create something huge. The game itself (leaving battle.net out) is way better than any modern RTS-game around I know of.
Tough the issues that are still left need to be adressed, like the stone example clearly shows. But the point is the following - most of the complaints are not regarding Starcraft 2 itself, they are regarding Battle.Net 2.0 - which will be under constant development. As Blizzard promised they are adressing some of these in future patches - so we will see how "soon" that will be. The past has shown that the pressure of the community is another viable tool to influence the whole direction of the game and the platforms.
I'm happily hoping for a bright future of the whole Starcraft universe and I think we are well prepared to hold the torch!
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What about sc2 conversion into sc1 with the map editor ?
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On July 28 2010 17:43 [DUF]MethodMan wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 17:26 urashimakt wrote:On July 28 2010 17:18 infinity2k9 wrote:
The whole e-Sports aspect of SC2 seems so forced. If its viable for e-Sports it naturally will become one, not from the power of will alone. I can't imagine it ever reaching the height of BW simply because as a spectator sport its just not clear enough to a casual viewer. The name can't make it big, from what it sounds like the reception to the game in Korea has been less than enthusiastic already. BW was the right game at the right time, as mentioned on the cusp of broadband internet penetration and happened to run on any computer as well. Now people's attention is divided between many other games too, such as MMORPGs... the market has moved on. I imagine the situation will turn out similar to Warcraft 3 which ended up more popular competitively in other places rather than Korea. And without Korea all you will have is another niche scene. I don't think you're talking about Blizzard, because all they've done is work to make it easier to be used in a tournament setting Certainly they did not.
I see you've ignored the tournament (LAN) edition, the extensive overhaul to replays, the ability to add an unlimited(?) number of spectators/referees to a game without needing a slot built into the map, and the contracting with GOMTV.
It's really easy to focus on the no regular LAN thing, I know. And it does suck. 
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I love these articles, so much great content on this site to give us newbies a way to get a grip on the whole scene.
On July 28 2010 17:56 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
SC2 has no games to compete with and crushes all opposition outside of Korea. It will stick around as an esport for a long, long time.
Sounds like a fair assessment.
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Philadelphia, PA10406 Posts
It's not the idea of Sc2 becoming big world-wide and in Korea that worries me, it's the idea that the mere presumption of Sc2's succession (these articles) will be enough to cripple what we already have, yet are no guarantee of future success.
Why couldn't (for example) Sc2 and BW have competitive scenes side-by-side? What about the current BW scene makes it so uninspiring that we're willing to ship it off, and what about the current Sc2 scene makes it so fantastic that we can already start talking about it's inherent ascension?
It's all a potemkin village, and instead of artificially saying things like "bid a fond farewell to BW" and risk making it so, we should be positive and realistic about Sc2's chances, and see what happens naturally. We're cutting down the house we've already build to clear land for a new house of uncertain size and quality. Where will we live if the second house collapses?
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Another 10 years of awesomeness!
Oh yea~~~
p.s.: just get trial key from my friend before I die from waiting,
btw, amazon is stumped, can't deliver 'til monday
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Good write-up. I enjoyed reading it.
Oh broodwar, we had some great days
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On July 28 2010 17:56 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
I see some people saying you can't force an esport as if it is unsure whether SC2 will be one, which needs a quick reply. BW was not forced as an esport that's true. Esports didn't exist when BW was launched. Because of this BW followed a natural path of competitive popularity into esports. Creating an industry for others to follow, for which they should be very thankful. That does not mean that this is the standard for how games become esports, at all. It is simply BW's path to esports and nothing else and won't be applicable in this new situation.
SC2 by default of being the new Blizzard game will be launched into esports and will stay there because it is a better game than every other non-BW RTS out there. It doesn't need time to prove this it is obvious from day one. Every big tournament has picked it up already. That includes tournaments that were not interested in BW (for the wrong reasons). SC2 has no games to compete with and crushes all opposition outside of Korea. It will stick around as an esport for a long, long time.
If BW had been launched into a world where esports already existed it would be in the same situation.
Great post, which hits the mark perfect. It's really astounding how quickly it got picked by different tournaments, I've never seen anything like that before. I also agree that it will stick around for a very long time, the only thing that's left to do for Blizzards is to slowly add missing features like chat rooms and this game is going to brand itself in history.
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agree with G5 and nazgul lol
=P
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Good write-up, really enjoyed this as usual on TL.
Worst case scenario for SC2 is a destiny like WC3 : skill cap reached within five years, the boringness of WC3 Scene killed it becaused it turned out it was not THAT depth. We've been seeing the same games over the past 3-4 years, same timings, same strats and same players.
Hopefully two extensions are gonna be enougth to add enougth depth in this already wonderful game named Starcraft II : Wings of Liberty
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@ G5
I don't see how the community has been overly optimistic and praising SC2 when in fact all this site has done during the beta is question it, complain about it, suggest new mechanics and how to increase micro, viewability of it etc etc.
We just need to keep up what we've been doing during beta and im sure this game will be brilliant in 2-3 years when the game is complete with its expansions.
Blizzard has shown that they do care about what TL.net has to say ( direct examples are the move attack from the phoenix, Move rally instead of A move rally etc.)
I don't think TL.net will be praising SC2 as some sort of miracle game once its out, beacuse its clearly not but Blizzard has said theyre going to implement cross realm play and chat channels in the future. Improvement to zerg and protoss will obviously follow aswell with these expansions.
Keep up the critizing.
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Still, I will NOT buy it until they change their idiotic licence policy. Why does only Korea profit from this?? Because they are the only ones who fucking care.
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It seems like Blizzard getting bad reviews at E3 for the alpha was the greatest thing to ever happen to the company. They seemingly decided that they were never going to get bad reviews again, and did what it takes to make that so.
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Starcraft 2 is not the successor. It is a competitor.
The whole imagery of passing the torch, and especially the last paragraphs of this article, read like anti-BW propaganda. I'm really saddened to read things like this on TL of all places, I would've hoped to see more cautious approach to the dynamics of what is going to happen between BW and SC2 instead of entirely jumping bandwagons. It appears that this article is advocating change for the sake of change, promoting switching over for the sake of SC2 being the new thing and leaving BW to the sharks, swapping it for an unfulfilled, uncertain promise of a continued legacy in the guise of a new game.
Why not look at SC2 on its own current merits, which to me are far from warranting unquestioning praise or abandonment of our first love.
I'm all for optimism, I doubt SC2 would even have a chance without an excited fanbase being hyped about it, but please, PLEASE, don't spit at BW claiming it's stagnant and outdated like this article does to do it. I realise this is SC2 coverage and such is going to be very pro-SC2, but to me that is even more a reason to try to avoid being compared to BW. Imagine if all the BW articles on this site were to make fun of how boring SC2 is to watch or how the units are uninspired and dull just to keep interest in the original alive. If this were any other site in the world I might even be inclined to believe this approach to the issue was a part of some twisted "business plan", but I refuse to think that little of this site and am just going to assume this is just the indiscretion of one writer.
StarCraft: Brood War will coexist with StarCraft 2. Certainly on TL this will be the case, at least I haven't really seen anything hinting otherwise, and although international BW has obviously taken a huge hit in popularity, only time will tell what will happen in Korea. I may not love how SC2 turned out, at least I don't like how it is in this stage of it's development, but I do want the best for it for the sake of esports. If you ask me the best scenario would be the StarCraft proscene continuing to thrive and grow in South Korea unaffected by this new upstart, while SC2 perhaps taking the Western World by storm. But this is just me daydreaming, and I'm not going to write an article portraying it as a reality of things to come.
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When I heard sc2 was going to come out, I knew the game would be one of the following choices.
1) it would suck so hard that people would stick to bw
2) it would be epic awesomeness and a perfect sequel to the best game ever
3) it would be average and half the people playing bw would switch over, effectively dividing the community
I don't mind either option 1 (strong community behind an awesome game), or 2 (same reason as 1), but option 3 is what i feared the most. And I think that, as it turns out, will happen
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I have to agree with G5 and Djin. SC2 still owns compared to non-blizzard RTS but its been overhyped, first by new users who joined purely for SC2 and probably never even followed BW, and second by the foreign progamers who just want to make some money and are trying to justify switching to an untested and most likely inferior game. In my opinion SC2 isn't even that competitively viable because the skill ceiling is too low.
Until the game has proven itself, you can't simply say that SC2 is the successor.
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So what creates eSports?
eSports is created by a common interest of a significantly large group of gamers. If you have 500 people watching and/or playing, someone will start creating a competition around it, attract sponsors, broadcast... and the scene will thrive.
So if there is still a significant group of gamers out there who dislike SC2 and prefer BW and want to play it, watch it and enjoy the competition around it, there will certainly be someone who notices this and creates a tournament for it.
Of course, decisions by already established tournament organizers have a certain effect on communities, but don't think that someone is taking something away from you. And just judging by the interest SC2 has sparked in the past days and past weeks: Every bit of attention around this game is perfectly justified, given the numbers of people playing in tournaments or watching broadcasts.
Disclosure: I work for Turtle Entertainment, operator of the Electronic Sports League (ESL) and this is solely my private opinion.
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On July 28 2010 15:47 G5 wrote:
I think we need to look at the game critically in order to truly understand it. We do not need more mindless SC2 hype which has been oozing from every corner of tl.net. We need more people critically questioning and testing possible faults and successes of the game in order to draw accurate conclusions about this game. I don't think enough of it was done in the beta. Especially by forces in the community such as top tier players who only looked at the game as a way of future financial benefit and fame. So much blindless SC2 hype came from these sad desperate souls. I won't name names but you know who you are.
Posts such as this asks some good questions about the future of the korean scene and the future of both games and some other good points but like countless before it, it only shines light on the positive conclusions such as having Starcraft 2 pro-scenes in Europe and North America to the likes of the Korean Starcraft: Broodwar scene. You must look at both sides of the spectrum. For example: Starcraft 2 could kill the Starcraft: Broodwar scene in Korea and then fail miserably and leave us with nothing. Don't get me wrong. Starcraft 2 is a reality and I hope it enjoys equal or better longevity and success as Broodwar but mindlessly hyping it is not the way to achieve this. We must...
Question Everything.
Agreed 100%, and this is what I've been saying from about a month into beta onward. There were some serious concerns (and ones way beyond the traditional fare of chat rooms, regional play, etc) early on, and that's when I realized that people were more interested in even making the beta an esport than they were interested in critiquing the game - one of the main points of being in a beta in the first place. It's definitely the case that people who have incentive to will do their best to make SC2 succeed regardless of the actual quality of the game, and I think that's what we've been seeing.
On July 28 2010 17:56 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
I see some people saying you can't force an esport as if it is unsure whether SC2 will be one, which needs a quick reply. BW was not forced as an esport that's true. Esports didn't exist when BW was launched. Because of this BW followed a natural path of competitive popularity into esports. Creating an industry for others to follow, for which they should be very thankful. That does not mean that this is the standard for how games become esports, at all. It is simply BW's path to esports and nothing else and won't be applicable in this new situation.
SC2 by default of being the new Blizzard game will be launched into esports and will stay there because it is a better game than every other non-BW RTS out there. It doesn't need time to prove this it is obvious from day one. Every big tournament has picked it up already. That includes tournaments that were not interested in BW (for the wrong reasons). SC2 has no games to compete with and crushes all opposition outside of Korea. It will stick around as an esport for a long, long time.
If BW had been launched into a world where esports already existed it would be in the same situation.
In actuality, SC2 is not as big as it is because it's 'obvious' that it's better than any RTS out there aside from BW. That's just not inherently true, and I personally find RTS games like Dawn of War more interesting to play when I don't want to play BW. To me, SC2 is just a sexed-up - yet competitively gimped - version of BW. Even though I know when I play DoW it's a competitively inferior game to BW (but what isn't?), the game's unique elements keep it interesting. SC2 has nothing in that department, and so I'm left with a prettier game that fails to be exciting and rewarding in the ways that BW still is.
You get it right when you say that it's position is 'by default of being the new Blizzard game', though. That's most certainly the case, and we are seeing a drastically different side of eSports here - one fueled more by the immediate interest in a game than by it's merits. Blizzard is a hugely popular company, and by default any game they release will generate a huge amount of interest. Where there is interest, there is a possibility for eSports, and so irregardless of the competitive nature of a Blizzard game, it can become an eSport.
But eSports have until this point been built mostly from the ground up - by the games' ability to reward the more competitive players, and at the same time keep them interested. We're not still so interested in BW today because it was made by Blizzard, or because of it's graphics, or because someone is selling it to us - we're interested in the game because it's incredibly rewarding competitively, and as a result very fun to watch and play. We're interested because we do play the game, and we know just how hard it is to be as good as Flash and Jaedong are. If BW hadn't had this limitless skill ceiling, it never would have gotten as far as it has, even if eSports had been already established at that time.
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enjoyed reading it , thx for your effort
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I remember when i was playing 1st time SC i wanted to play Zergs but my mom and brother said i cant play em becouse they are scary ^^ (i was 7)
and my 1st look at WC 1 or 2 was on playstation i was pro there :D
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When i said forced as an eSport i meant a long-time successful one, and mainly in Korea and broadcast on TV because of the content of the article. I'm sure it will be at WCG and plenty of foreigner tournaments regardless. Of course there is games immediately played in tournaments by default anyway, but not all of them stand the test of time. And as for the people 'forcing' it i meant mainly people in the community.
Also what feels forced to me is people playing it immediately just to become a pro and make money not for the fun of it. You read quotes from people like iloveoov, who just loved the game. He was happy just to be in a team house so he could play the game all day. Or i bet any of the top foreigners, were just playing on Bnet for years and having fun and happened to get good at the game, not jumping straight into laddering 8 hours a day for a sole purpose. I wonder how many of the current top players will just give up playing all the time if/when they get overtaken and theres a top tier of players winning everything.
This is all to be expected of course but still i don't really like it. Some reasonably high level players i know already burned out on beta and say they find laddering a chore. It makes me wonder what some of the other players opinions really are. You see a lot of generic comments 'yeah its a good game its got potential' but has any top player been REALLY enthusiastic about it? It feels like a lot of people are just trying to reassure us and maybe themselves that this will be a good game rather than a genuine appreciation for it.
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On July 28 2010 19:53 Bash wrote:
Starcraft 2 is not the successor. It is a competitor.
The whole imagery of passing the torch, and especially the last paragraphs of this article, read like anti-BW propaganda. I'm really saddened to read things like this on TL of all places, I would've hoped to see more cautious approach to the dynamics of what is going to happen between BW and SC2 instead of entirely jumping bandwagons. It appears that this article is advocating change for the sake of change, promoting switching over for the sake of SC2 being the new thing and leaving BW to the sharks, swapping it for an unfulfilled, uncertain promise of a continued legacy in the guise of a new game.
Why not look at SC2 on its own current merits, which to me are far from warranting unquestioning praise or abandonment of our first love.
I'm all for optimism, I doubt SC2 would even have a chance without an excited fanbase being hyped about it, but please, PLEASE, don't spit at BW claiming it's stagnant and outdated like this article does to do it. I realise this is SC2 coverage and such is going to be very pro-SC2, but to me that is even more a reason to try to avoid being compared to BW. Imagine if all the BW articles on this site were to make fun of how boring SC2 is to watch or how the units are uninspired and dull just to keep interest in the original alive. If this were any other site in the world I might even be inclined to believe this approach to the issue was a part of some twisted "business plan", but I refuse to think that little of this site and am just going to assume this is just the indiscretion of one writer.
StarCraft: Brood War will coexist with StarCraft 2. Certainly on TL this will be the case, at least I haven't really seen anything hinting otherwise, and although international BW has obviously taken a huge hit in popularity, only time will tell what will happen in Korea. I may not love how SC2 turned out, at least I don't like how it is in this stage of it's development, but I do want the best for it for the sake of esports. If you ask me the best scenario would be the StarCraft proscene continuing to thrive and grow in South Korea unaffected by this new upstart, while SC2 perhaps taking the Western World by storm. But this is just me daydreaming, and I'm not going to write an article portraying it as a reality of things to come.
The truth is that the popularity of BW hasn't really been increasing a whole lot for the last few years. Weather this means that BW will die out or if it has just reached a plateau at which it will continue to remain for years is anybody's guess. I believe that the BW scene will never expand or increase in popularity again, and I don't think that is an absurdly overblown belief. Most all casuals or people who don't know anything about the game will see the 2D sprites, scoff, and look to SC2.
I can tell that you still don't believe that SC2 has is as great a game as BW, which, right now, I would have to agree with. But again, the truth is that a large number of Korean pros have expressed interest in the new game, some of which have already switched over and have found a surprisingly complex and competitive game. With two full expansions to come over the next few years to build on top of the standing game that we have now (which I think is better than SC1 without BW), a virtually perfect balance is almost guaranteed. Casuals will see the flashy graphics and effects and will be attracted like moths, increasing the fan base. All of these things point toward a game that will be VERY successful in esports.
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On July 28 2010 15:59 sc2lime wrote:
HAHA, I love the stone/Bnet 2.0 comparison. Great article!
Second that =). Never knew a stone were that advanced!
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Having come to Starcraft through the SC2 beta I have to admit I missed out on SC/Broodwar and reading this I can see that I missed a hell of a lot Fortunatly the collectors edition has given me both games and will be visiting those at some point in the future Great writeup, thoroughly enjoyed the read.
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On July 28 2010 21:34 HopeNDespair wrote:Having come to Starcraft through the SC2 beta I have to admit I missed out on SC/Broodwar and reading this I can see that I missed a hell of a lot Fortunatly the collectors edition has given me both games and will be visiting those at some point in the future Great writeup, thoroughly enjoyed the read.
I was in the same situation when I came here back in April, but I found Liquipedia to be a great way to catch up on BW history, and I feel satisfied that I've caught up with the legacy at this point.
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On July 28 2010 15:47 G5 wrote:
I think we need to look at the game critically in order to truly understand it. We do not need more mindless SC2 hype which has been oozing from every corner of tl.net. We need more people critically questioning and testing possible faults and successes of the game in order to draw accurate conclusions about this game. I don't think enough of it was done in the beta. Especially by forces in the community such as top tier players who only looked at the game as a way of future financial benefit and fame. So much blindless SC2 hype came from these sad desperate souls. I won't name names but you know who you are.
Posts such as this asks some good questions about the future of the korean scene and the future of both games and some other good points but like countless before it, it only shines light on the positive conclusions such as having Starcraft 2 pro-scenes in Europe and North America to the likes of the Korean Starcraft: Broodwar scene. You must look at both sides of the spectrum. For example: Starcraft 2 could kill the Starcraft: Broodwar scene in Korea and then fail miserably and leave us with nothing. Don't get me wrong. Starcraft 2 is a reality and I hope it enjoys equal or better longevity and success as Broodwar but mindlessly hyping it is not the way to achieve this. We must...
Question Everything.
Oh G5, you are such a smooth talker. I do agree with you though. Less hype on SC2 and more testing would have been better. They set the standard so high and hyped the game so much that every little fault will be blown out of proportion.
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I see a lot of people getting mad at the article for saying that BW is a stagnant or boring game or whatever. But that's not what it says at all; it says only that the BW competitive scene has become rather stagnant. And this is simply true, whether you're a BW guy or not.
The competitive BW scene outside of Korea has become stagnant, and dwindled down very far from its heyday; that's not to say it isn't there, or that it couldn't still go on for years and years. But this is simply a fact. And it's not "Anti-BW propaganda" (really?).
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Decent writeup but falls into many of the common pitfalls we see in all these such articles/threads. Some BW people have already elaborated their issues with the comparison, and I just still don't agree with the BNet blathering. Honestly, at this point, the only thing worth protesting anymore is LAN. That's the one issue that Blizzard hasn't budged on. It's major, but it's not end-of-the-world material. Everything else is getting addressed. We'll never know why BNet 2.0 caused so many delays for SC2 and yet still came out without so many essential features. That's an issue of schedule overrun that only Blizzard can address. We'd only hope that it involved a SC1-style complete revamp late in the game, otherwise I truly can't understand it.
Chat channels? Coming. Simple automated tournament support? Coming soon. Cross-region? Coming. Viewing replays online? Coming. Major upgrades/improvements to custom games? Coming.
Yeah, it's not here now. Let's be angry. But it's coming, so let's not pretend it's not. Let's also not drag out tired and obnoxious "rock comparisons." SC2 has amazing upgrades in terms of it's spectating and replay viewing. It's just an amazing game for viewers. They are so much more informed just by watching the screen displays than they are with BW. That doesn't make BW bad or talk about the quality and dynamic of the play onscreen, but it just is something that SC2 does really well. Likewise, the partition of players easily into competition that is at their level with super-quick matchmaking is amazing. The level of balance is great already and getting better. We've now seen pros dip meaningfully into Tier 3 units, and even seen more Archons of all units. After 2 expansions, and a number of new units, we'll see an even more robust set of strategies and compositions.
As much as BW people hate the "let's move on from the old game to the new", I hate the qualified and timid approval of SC2. As someone has already eloquently put it, SC2 is not SC1 and should not be viewed as the replacement. It exists off to the side a bit. Informed by the original but not the original. Korea and the proleagues should not shut things down for BW this year. Let SC2 grow. It WILL get there. It WILL get there faster than BW got there, but it won't come for free. SC2 is great. It's amazing, even. In a world without BW's shadow it would already be nearly universally liked.
Don't fear it's development. Sure they should be farther along after 7 years, but oh well. Stop trying to hindsight game-develop. It's easy to say after the release that they could've done things better. No kidding, they'd tell you the same thing. The fact of the matter is that the particular set of circumstances, choices, and time led them to this point and that point is pretty damn good. In 2-3 years time, they'll be in an amazing place.
2-3 years time puts SC1 at 2000-01. Before it's absolute glory years. We've waited forever for this game, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater simply due to our impatience.
SC2 is great. SC2 is getting better. SC2 will succeed.
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that funny read the forum 2-3 months back and now .
im still missing the chat channel , no lan , cross realm play .
( if you stop complaint about all these missing features they will never add them btw )
im fealing the ladder system suck , the whole rank system pointless and the division ... just lol ?!
the single player realy great and fun , also the multiplayer realy fun to play 2-3 game each day .
the game just out for a few day and you talk about passing the torch ?
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On July 28 2010 22:17 Oddysay wrote:
that funny read the forum 2-3 months back and now .
im still missing the chat channel , no lan , cross realm play .
im fealing the ladder system suck , the whole rank system pointless and the division ... just lol ?!
the single player realy great and fun , also the multiplayer realy fun to play 2-3 game each day .
the game just out for a few day and you talk about passing the torch ?
This man beat me to it. I fully agree with this and was surprised it didn't come up sooner.
Other than that I respect and at least partially agree with what everyone except for G5 has said(Blizzard didn't force ESPORTS for SC2 how exactly?)
I'm afraid of what may happen to Brood War because I have kept certain information locked in my head for years now. Blizzard has said that Battle.net 2.0 will be added to all the other blizzard games. This means that anything that is taken away when they move it to the other games is probably staying taken away. This has had me in deep fear for what may happen for the years that I've stored this info in my head. Blizzard hyped us up just to conceal the bad things about the game hidden in their hype. Years later we have found the bad parts of the hype. Hopefully its not too late...+ Show Spoiler +kept is a word?!? I thought I made it up lol.
edit2: also. I've read a review on amazon.com and apperantly there is no spawn! You can't use one disk to put the game on a bunch of different computers and then play with all your friends at the same time after using only 1 disk. I'm very disappointed in blizzard. However, have you guys seen the case Starcraft:BW and Starcraft are in for the CE? It is wicked awesome looking!
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On July 28 2010 22:06 Takkara wrote:
Cross-region? Coming..
Why do you think this is coming when its a clear decision to deliberately not include it? Its easy to just say 'Blizzard will fix everything' but they are pretty infamous for actually ignoring common issues in their other games where the joke 'working as intended' came from. Chat channels was another deliberate decision to not include and they only vaguely said there was a replacement for them. I wouldn't be surprised if Bnet stays pretty much how it is now for a long time.
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To the OP, I despise this. You've essentially wrote a huge wall of verbose text to say one thing you could have said in a sentence: "I want BW to die and SC2 to succeed".
Tell me, OP, did Blizzard ask you to write this? It seems to me it's just propaganda hype for SC2 to say BW HAS GONE ON FOR TOO LONG, KILL IT.
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United States889 Posts
On July 28 2010 22:17 Oddysay wrote:
that funny read the forum 2-3 months back and now .
im still missing the chat channel , no lan , cross realm play .
( if you stop complaint about all these missing features they will never add them btw )
im fealing the ladder system suck , the whole rank system pointless and the division ... just lol ?!
the single player realy great and fun , also the multiplayer realy fun to play 2-3 game each day .
the game just out for a few day and you talk about passing the torch ?
From the OP:
And so, Blizzard has passed the torch, and we hold it now, burning white hot in these hours before a new dawn. Ooh, aah, and when you're done, pass it on, I say. Pass it on, because we're ready. Ready for a new world.
Thanks for showing you didn't read the article.
On July 28 2010 22:43 Garrl wrote:
To the OP, I despise this. You've essentially wrote a huge wall of verbose text to say one thing you could have said in a sentence: "I want BW to die and SC2 to succeed".
Tell me, OP, did Blizzard ask you to write this? It seems to me it's just propaganda hype for SC2 to say BW HAS GONE ON FOR TOO LONG, KILL IT.
Yes. I was paid $15.42 by Rob Pardo to promote SC2 on TL.net. And what a sweet $15.42 it was.
I spent it on booze and loose women.
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People who believe SC2 will succeed as a spectator sport because either:
1) it's the best modern multiplayer RTS out there now
or
2) it's the successor to a somewhat successful spectator sport, Brood War
or some other shallow factors, are assuming that something will succeed because of a superficial view of the factors that made Brood War successful, and are ignoring that perhaps almost every other game has failed to become a successful spectator sport on the scale of Brood War. By looking at the masses of games that have failed to become a successful spectator sport, it should become clear that it's not a given that SC2 will succeed, in fact it should be assumed SC2 will be a failure unless it has exceptional qualities that other games do not display, as something that is interesting to watch, not only play.
Even Brood War was not able to become a successful spectator sport in the west. It's true there are quite a few sponsors now throwing (small amounts of) money at SC2 tournaments and teams, and quite a few tournaments are being hosted and streamed online, but that's a very long distance away from become a successfully televised esport, and this result is not something I would assume is a guaranteed outcome.
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On July 28 2010 22:41 infinity2k9 wrote:Why do you think this is coming when its a clear decision to deliberately not include it? Its easy to just say 'Blizzard will fix everything' but they are pretty infamous for actually ignoring common issues in their other games where the joke 'working as intended' came from. Chat channels was another deliberate decision to not include and they only vaguely said there was a replacement for them. I wouldn't be surprised if Bnet stays pretty much how it is now for a long time.
I say this, because it's true and announced.
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25399622869&sid=3000&pageNo=3#43
When? Can't say. The limiting factor isn't Blizzard's desire, it's their schedule. Honestly, anyone who has done anything schedule-based for work, ESPECIALLY computer programming, knows that you never run out of things you want to do and more often than not features don't get delivered because you're already running late with the features that MUST be in for the release to be functional.
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Well written, that is indeed my favorite joke at SC2's expense as well.
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In fact, the unique combination of conditions under which Brood War became popular in South Korea might not ever be replicated. It's probably true that interest in Brood War has plateaued already, or at least does not have much more room to grow, so those who make their livings through "eSport" cannot rely on it forever, so I do expect OGN, MBC, and newcomers to try broadcasting SC2, like how they've tried for many other games besides BW. But I do think that at this point in time, the most likely outcome is one of the worse case scenarios. Brood War slowly dies out while SC2 doesn't catch on in the same way.
In my view it would be better to study the development and rise of skateboarding and other "extreme" sports, as well as poker, as spectator sports in the west to understand how interest in the activity as participants and as an audience was developed into televised events and such, rather than Brood War, which has not succeeded in the west, and succeeded in South Korea in a very unique set of circumstances.
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On July 28 2010 22:51 Arrian wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 22:17 Oddysay wrote:
that funny read the forum 2-3 months back and now .
im still missing the chat channel , no lan , cross realm play .
( if you stop complaint about all these missing features they will never add them btw )
im fealing the ladder system suck , the whole rank system pointless and the division ... just lol ?!
the single player realy great and fun , also the multiplayer realy fun to play 2-3 game each day .
the game just out for a few day and you talk about passing the torch ? From the OP: Show nested quote +And so, Blizzard has passed the torch, and we hold it now, burning white hot in these hours before a new dawn. Ooh, aah, and when you're done, pass it on, I say. Pass it on, because we're ready. Ready for a new world. Thanks for showing you didn't read the article. Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 22:43 Garrl wrote:
To the OP, I despise this. You've essentially wrote a huge wall of verbose text to say one thing you could have said in a sentence: "I want BW to die and SC2 to succeed".
Tell me, OP, did Blizzard ask you to write this? It seems to me it's just propaganda hype for SC2 to say BW HAS GONE ON FOR TOO LONG, KILL IT. Yes. I was paid $15.42 by Rob Pardo to promote SC2 on TL.net. And what a sweet $15.42 it was. I spent it on booze and loose women.
im failing to see where that say anything about me not reading the op , i have read it .
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well done
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Definitely SC2 cannot be seen as close to a replacement for SC1. Consider it a totally separate game, independent of SC1 in terms of gameplay. Only time will tell how far SC2 gets. (imo, i don't see it coming close to what how far SC1 got) Much disagreement with this article and imo its kind of insulting and ignorant.
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On July 28 2010 23:17 Oddysay wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 22:51 Arrian wrote:On July 28 2010 22:17 Oddysay wrote:
that funny read the forum 2-3 months back and now .
im still missing the chat channel , no lan , cross realm play .
( if you stop complaint about all these missing features they will never add them btw )
im fealing the ladder system suck , the whole rank system pointless and the division ... just lol ?!
the single player realy great and fun , also the multiplayer realy fun to play 2-3 game each day .
the game just out for a few day and you talk about passing the torch ? Thanks for showing you didn't read the article. im failing to see where that say anything about me not reading the op , i have read it .
The point is that the passing of the torch was not meant to be from BW -> SC2 in terms of eSports, but from Blizz -> community in terms of making SC2 succeed.
From the OP:
And now we are at a critical point in the history of e-Sports. Starcraft 2 is a chance for the stagnant state of the Korean scene to revive and grow, and it is a chance for Europe and North America to bud and eventually grow similar scenes. But it all hinges on the development that begins the moment the game is released. The part of the development Blizzard is responsible for is over. They have done their jobs, and from the looks of it, it has every opportunity to become as successful or more successful than its predecessor.
The burden then is laid on us, the players. The majority of that responsibility is rested on active and vibrant communities like Team Liquid to share information, passion, and techniques so that the game may develop into what it can be. A few hours ago, Blizzard handed us a game, raw but full of promise, and it will be our responsibility to take it and make of it what we can.
And so, Blizzard has passed the torch, and we hold it now, burning white hot in these hours before a new dawn. Ooh, aah, and when you're done, pass it on, I say. Pass it on, because we're ready. Ready for a new world.
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Good read, I'm somewhat glad that SC2 is here and at the fact that the negativity has died down quite a bit ever since beta. Heres to a brighter future for SC2 and all that relates to it.
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On July 28 2010 23:16 Zona wrote:
In fact, the unique combination of conditions under which Brood War became popular in South Korea might not ever be replicated. It's probably true that interest in Brood War has plateaued already, or at least does not have much more room to grow, so those who make their livings through "eSport" cannot rely on it forever, so I do expect OGN, MBC, and newcomers to try broadcasting SC2, like how they've tried for many other games besides BW. But I do think that at this point in time, the most likely outcome is one of the worse case scenarios. Brood War slowly dies out while SC2 doesn't catch on in the same way.
In my view it would be better to study the development and rise of skateboarding and other "extreme" sports, as well as poker, as spectator sports in the west to understand how interest in the activity as participants and as an audience was developed into televised events and such, rather than Brood War, which has not succeeded in the west, and succeeded in South Korea in a very unique set of circumstances.
NASCAR also was a viral success in America in terms of sport-growth. But it too has seen plateaus and now retreat. I'd love to see an article of academic analysis about why poker really took off. I remember the year that it did. I don't remember why poker was so exciting back then, maybe it was the advent of the online poker sites. The World Series of Poker had been going on for forever, but then overnight it exploded.
Chris Moneymaker, online sites, big TV deal. Unique factors that led to success, but I think you can see some interesting parallels that might bode well in SC2's favor:
1) Accessibility.
Why did Poker take off so well? Because it suddenly was in the hands of everyone. Online sites made it easy to play poker with anyone. You could slip into a buy-in tournament after tucking the kids in at night, or play a few hands of limit while you watched TV. It suddenly became easy for people to play poker, learn about poker, and train about poker. This is the way SC2 is evolving. With an auto-matchmaker that keeps people playing only against people at their level, and makes joining games simple and painless SC2 is poised to move in this direction. Later with simple automated tournaments, people will be able to get the thrill of amateur competition without having to find specific sign-up threads. There can be just as many Bronze league tournies as Diamond.
2) Viewability
Another reason Poker went viral? The card cam! Suddenly, instead of being as in the dark as the players, they could have a leg up. They had god-like knowledge of the game state. This lead to tremendous amounts of drama. The viewers knew what was up and could watch their favorite or least favorite players walk right to the edge of certain elimination and then defy odds with a bluff or burn out. This seemingly small addition gave average viewers incredible knowledge and made the game infinitely more viewable. I'm not sure if SC2 has quite a trump car like the card cam, but the new viewing tools are so useful. The ability to quickly dart from player view to player view, the ability to see the resources, production, armies, and income give viewers a quick look at the state of the game without having to have it explained by the camera or caster. I think, as in poker, the new viewing tools in SC2 could be a major key to it's viewership success.
3) Visibility
Having poker on TV definitely helped it grow quickly. It spawned all types of knockoff poker shows on many different channels. This is something that SC2 can only dream of, but if it happens bodes well. Success begets success. When something grows in popularity it gains more access to media and then gets more popularity. Already we've seen the birth of Youtube channels with over 100,000 subscribers. Live events are getting 8-15k viewers sustained over the course of the entire broadcast (more if you look cumulatively). SC2 is wildly popular and getting more popular on the internet. It's only a matter of time before it gets additional media opportunities and that can lead to mainstream growth. Like poker, it just takes that one critical spark to really set fire to a community's growth.
4) Everymanability
Moneymaker. For Poker it was the fool's dream that any amateur could win the World Series of Poker over all the pros. In SC2 it may be the "#1 Diamond Leaguers". The guys who believe they can take on the world. They feel they have a shot in this tournament. They feel more apart of the scene and community because they think that "if I only spent a little more time at this I could be that good." It's surprising how much more involved people can be in something simply because they feel like they're able to do it. We've already seen a lot of people make names for themselves in the beta both in casting, streaming, and playing. People see that success and want to try for it themselves. This competition breed ingenuity and creativity, it also provides hype and advertising. It increases the reach of the community and draws a wide variety of people in.
This is far from an academic review, but your really good post just inspired me to think about it and this is what I came up with. I think SC2 could have a bright future, and you're right that we should really be looking to learn from other viral communities on what helped them.
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United States889 Posts
On July 28 2010 23:24 lisherwin wrote:
Definitely SC2 cannot be seen as close to a replacement for SC1. Consider it a totally separate game, independent of SC1 in terms of gameplay. Only time will tell how far SC2 gets. (imo, i don't see it coming close to what how far SC1 got) Much disagreement with this article and imo its kind of insulting and ignorant.
Where do I say it's going to be a replacement? I said:
we are bidding a fond farewell to Brood War, at least as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports
Obviously, what I was implying is not the BW will die (or as others have alleged that I want it to die...check how long I've been here guys...I came here for BW, have been playing it basically since release, and I love the game) but that SC2 will be a competitor.
It seems like people have gotten hung up on the wrong things in this article. I vastly underestimated the tension between the BW fans and SC2 fans. My goodness. The vitriol could probably power Manhattan island for 3 weeks.
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On July 28 2010 23:36 Arrian wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 23:24 lisherwin wrote:
Definitely SC2 cannot be seen as close to a replacement for SC1. Consider it a totally separate game, independent of SC1 in terms of gameplay. Only time will tell how far SC2 gets. (imo, i don't see it coming close to what how far SC1 got) Much disagreement with this article and imo its kind of insulting and ignorant. Where do I say it's going to be a replacement? I said: Show nested quote +we are bidding a fond farewell to Brood War, at least as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports Obviously, what I was implying is not the BW will die (or as others have alleged that I want it to die...check how long I've been here guys...I came here for BW, have been playing it basically since release, and I love the game) but that SC2 will be a competitor. It seems like people have gotten hung up on the wrong things in this article. I vastly underestimated the tension between the BW fans and SC2 fans. My goodness. The vitriol could probably power Manhattan island for 3 weeks.
It's definitely palpable isn't it?
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On July 28 2010 22:57 Takkara wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 22:41 infinity2k9 wrote:On July 28 2010 22:06 Takkara wrote:
Cross-region? Coming.. Why do you think this is coming when its a clear decision to deliberately not include it? Its easy to just say 'Blizzard will fix everything' but they are pretty infamous for actually ignoring common issues in their other games where the joke 'working as intended' came from. Chat channels was another deliberate decision to not include and they only vaguely said there was a replacement for them. I wouldn't be surprised if Bnet stays pretty much how it is now for a long time. I say this, because it's true and announced. http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25399622869&sid=3000&pageNo=3#43When? Can't say. The limiting factor isn't Blizzard's desire, it's their schedule. Honestly, anyone who has done anything schedule-based for work, ESPECIALLY computer programming, knows that you never run out of things you want to do and more often than not features don't get delivered because you're already running late with the features that MUST be in for the release to be functional.
Their plan for cross region direct from them is an extra charge to play on a different region. And honestly don't give me this bullshit about schedule, it's not an excuse. Programming wise there is NOTHING stopping them allowing people to do this in the first place, and chat channels is about the easiest thing ever to implement they just chose NOT to. I don't think what someone from the 'community team' is much of a reliable source on anything the actual development team is doing anyway. They will always just give generic answers to everything... yes we are thinking about it, that will be in there at some point, etc.
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Great read! I wasn't much of a SC:BW player, although I did dabble in it. Looking at SC:BW's history, I do hope that SCII does become as much as a phenomenon as its predecessor, since I believe that the game has the potential to do that, and to help bring E-sports to North America. And its definitely in the hands of the players atm.
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we are bidding a fond farewell to Brood War, at least as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports
I guess I just don't see why we're necessarily bidding a good-bye to BW as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports. SC2 has its merits, but I think we're far far from passing the throne to SC2 as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports. It's a sensitive time for the SC1-SC2 divide we cannot say much about SC2 as a e-Sport game comparative to SC1 until we wait longer to see how the game progresses. I mean hell, its just been a day since SC2's release (after a volatile couple months of beta).
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On July 28 2010 23:40 infinity2k9 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 22:57 Takkara wrote:On July 28 2010 22:41 infinity2k9 wrote:On July 28 2010 22:06 Takkara wrote:
Cross-region? Coming.. Why do you think this is coming when its a clear decision to deliberately not include it? Its easy to just say 'Blizzard will fix everything' but they are pretty infamous for actually ignoring common issues in their other games where the joke 'working as intended' came from. Chat channels was another deliberate decision to not include and they only vaguely said there was a replacement for them. I wouldn't be surprised if Bnet stays pretty much how it is now for a long time. I say this, because it's true and announced. http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25399622869&sid=3000&pageNo=3#43When? Can't say. The limiting factor isn't Blizzard's desire, it's their schedule. Honestly, anyone who has done anything schedule-based for work, ESPECIALLY computer programming, knows that you never run out of things you want to do and more often than not features don't get delivered because you're already running late with the features that MUST be in for the release to be functional. Their plan for cross region direct from them is an extra charge to play on a different region. And honestly don't give me this bullshit about schedule, it's not an excuse. Programming wise there is NOTHING stopping them allowing people to do this in the first place, and chat channels is about the easiest thing ever to implement they just chose NOT to. I don't think what someone from the 'community team' is much of a reliable source on anything the actual development team is doing anyway. They will always just give generic answers to everything... yes we are thinking about it, that will be in there at some point, etc.
1) Chat is not hard for them to add, and yes they choose to not add it originally. Not in dispute. However, now that they want to add it, it needs to be scheduled. We don't know their schedule, but I can imagine it was and will continue to be a little full. They'll get to it, they just can't hack it into the client in a week or even a month.
2) No indication that cross-region will cost anything. That's just paranoia until they announce a fee. In fact, I believe they've said it'll be completely free, but I can't find the post right now.
3) The community team's job is to bring you the words of the development team. They meet with the development team and bring their words to the community. On issues of this much importance, the community team doesn't speak unless the development team/marketing gives them the thumbs up about precisely what they're saying. There's no difference between a community team member saying something and a developer saying it when it relates to something like this.
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"And so, Blizzard has passed the torch, and we hold it now, burning white hot in these hours before a new dawn. Ooh, aah, and when you're done, pass it on, I say. Pass it on, because we're ready. Ready for a new world."
And this is why TL is the premier site for the Starcraft community. Nowhere does Blizzard command TL to foster the development of e-sports, but TL takes that responsibility into its own hands and handles it with a level of professionalism that kindles nothing but respect.
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United States889 Posts
On July 28 2010 23:46 lisherwin wrote:Show nested quote +we are bidding a fond farewell to Brood War, at least as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports I guess I just don't see why we're necessarily bidding a good-bye to BW as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports. SC2 has its merits, but I think we're far far from passing the throne to SC2 as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports. It's a sensitive time for the SC1-SC2 divide we cannot say much about SC2 as a e-Sport game comparative to SC1 until we wait longer to see how the game progresses. I mean hell, its just been a day since SC2's release (after a volatile couple months of beta).
Two big reasons: because it's new, and because it's popular.
Even if the essence of the game isn't as good as BW's, the game has more popularity around the world right now than BW does, and that means that money and sponsorships will follow. Advertisers and sponsors don't care about how good a game is, they just care if it brings eyeballs. And SC2 will certainly bring eyeballs.
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On July 28 2010 15:47 G5 wrote:
I think we need to look at the game critically in order to truly understand it. We do not need more mindless SC2 hype which has been oozing from every corner of tl.net. We need more people critically questioning and testing possible faults and successes of the game in order to draw accurate conclusions about this game. I don't think enough of it was done in the beta. Especially by forces in the community such as top tier players who only looked at the game as a way of future financial benefit and fame. So much blindless SC2 hype came from these sad desperate souls. I won't name names but you know who you are.
Posts such as this asks some good questions about the future of the korean scene and the future of both games and some other good points but like countless before it, it only shines light on the positive conclusions such as having Starcraft 2 pro-scenes in Europe and North America to the likes of the Korean Starcraft: Broodwar scene. You must look at both sides of the spectrum. For example: Starcraft 2 could kill the Starcraft: Broodwar scene in Korea and then fail miserably and leave us with nothing. Don't get me wrong. Starcraft 2 is a reality and I hope it enjoys equal or better longevity and success as Broodwar but mindlessly hyping it is not the way to achieve this. We must...
Question Everything.
There have been countless people who tell us the exact opposite (that our SC2 coverage is too critical). Do you realize how much of a shitstorm we'd stir up if we made a "SC2: The Possible Death of BW?" newspost? We're trying to find a happy medium, but in general it's better to criticize things into a positive light (and even then, so many people get stuck with the criticism and flame you for being nostalgic about BW).
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United States889 Posts
On July 29 2010 00:06 Saracen wrote: Do you realize how much of a shitstorm we'd stir up if we made a "SC2: The Possible Death of BW?" newspost?
oh god. we'd have to go into witness protection
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Vatican City State2594 Posts
On July 28 2010 15:47 G5 wrote:
I think we need to look at the game critically in order to truly understand it. We do not need more mindless SC2 hype which has been oozing from every corner of tl.net. We need more people critically questioning and testing possible faults and successes of the game in order to draw accurate conclusions about this game. I don't think enough of it was done in the beta. Especially by forces in the community such as top tier players who only looked at the game as a way of future financial benefit and fame. So much blind* SC2 hype came from these sad desperate souls. I won't name names but you know who you are.
Amen. My heart has already been broken, my spirit withered, and my faith withdrawn. This will be the last post that I make as a dissident of SC2, because fighting as a disorganized and therefore effectively one-man army against this change just reminds me of the old geezers who always talk about "how good it was back in the day" while us youngsters laughed at their primitive ways. I am now that old geezer, waving the banner of SC, but might as well be wetting my pants and be living in a state of permanent senility for all that it matters. Best of luck to SC2, I would be happy if I was to be proven wrong by your development (it cannot be ignored that the BW we have today only came after years of patching).
+ Show Spoiler +I would be twice as happy however if the failure of the game revitalized people's interest in the war of Broods, and made an explosion in the progame scene once again... Somehow, I think this is where even I have to admit this is fantasy u_u; RIP BW.
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On July 28 2010 17:18 infinity2k9 wrote:
The whole e-Sports aspect of SC2 seems so forced. If its viable for e-Sports it naturally will become one, not from the power of will alone. I can't imagine it ever reaching the height of BW simply because as a spectator sport its just not clear enough to a casual viewer. The name can't make it big, from what it sounds like the reception to the game in Korea has been less than enthusiastic already. BW was the right game at the right time, as mentioned on the cusp of broadband internet penetration and happened to run on any computer as well. Now people's attention is divided between many other games too, such as MMORPGs... the market has moved on. I imagine the situation will turn out similar to Warcraft 3 which ended up more popular competitively in other places rather than Korea. And without Korea all you will have is another niche scene.
BW is just as clear to the casual user. The only reason people know what's going on is because they're already familiar with the game. Over time SC2 will be the same.
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On July 29 2010 00:09 Murderotica wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 15:47 G5 wrote:
I think we need to look at the game critically in order to truly understand it. We do not need more mindless SC2 hype which has been oozing from every corner of tl.net. We need more people critically questioning and testing possible faults and successes of the game in order to draw accurate conclusions about this game. I don't think enough of it was done in the beta. Especially by forces in the community such as top tier players who only looked at the game as a way of future financial benefit and fame. So much blind* SC2 hype came from these sad desperate souls. I won't name names but you know who you are. Amen. My heart has already been broken, my spirit withered, and my faith withdrawn. This will be the last post that I make as a dissident of SC2, because fighting as a disorganized and therefore effectively one-man army against this change just reminds me of the old geezers who always talk about "how good it was back in the day" while us youngsters laughed at their primitive ways. I am now that old geezer, waving the banner of SC, but might as well be wetting my pants and be living in a state of permanent senility for all that it matters. Best of luck to SC2, I would be happy if I was to be proven wrong by your development (it cannot be ignored that the BW we have today only came after years of patching). + Show Spoiler +I would be twice as happy however if the failure of the game revitalized people's interest in the war of Broods, and made an explosion in the progame scene once again... Somehow, I think this is where even I have to admit this is fantasy u_u; RIP BW.
As a real BW fan I am thrilled that SC2 is going to increase sponsorship raise the quality of pro-gaming lifestyle. There are tons of articles on how hard it is to be a pro-gamer. I don't see why you'd prefer the old game with the progamers' eating-raman-noodles-at-4AM-while-getting-paid-3-digit-salaries-and-no-bunks lifestyle rather than the new game with the promise of a brighter future for enterprising progamers and more cash for the older gamers as well. One's more enjoyable for you sure, but which is more enjoyable for Lee Jaedong?
All good things must come to an end, and there's still enough Brood War out there that you couldn't possibly have watched all the VODs. Enjoy those old VODs and be happy that there's a new future for progaming, one with actual money involved.
And if SC BW does prove to be the superior game (which I think it is), there will still be a competitive scene, even if it's not the huge korean one. Just look Super Smash: when Brawl came out, plenty of people stuck with the superior yet dated Melee.
The best part is, if SC 1 proves to be the better game, then all the hype about SC 2 will work to it's advantage, if it spreads awareness about esports in the foreign community. But that's only really a minor/secondary concern.
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On July 28 2010 23:56 Arrian wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 23:46 lisherwin wrote:we are bidding a fond farewell to Brood War, at least as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports I guess I just don't see why we're necessarily bidding a good-bye to BW as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports. SC2 has its merits, but I think we're far far from passing the throne to SC2 as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports. It's a sensitive time for the SC1-SC2 divide we cannot say much about SC2 as a e-Sport game comparative to SC1 until we wait longer to see how the game progresses. I mean hell, its just been a day since SC2's release (after a volatile couple months of beta). Two big reasons: because it's new, and because it's popular. Even if the essence of the game isn't as good as BW's, the game has more popularity around the world right now than BW does, and that means that money and sponsorships will follow. Advertisers and sponsors don't care about how good a game is, they just care if it brings eyeballs. And SC2 will certainly bring eyeballs.
Sure, SC2 is drawing larger audiences than most non-SC RTS games, but that's a consequence of the release of any RTS that bears the name "Starcraft X". The clamor of any SC2 progaming tournament held so far, as I've seen, doesn't come close to the uproar of the gathering of fans for something like, say, the Korean Air OSLs. Even in SC1's supposedly weakest stage of its lifetime, the fans are still crazier for the Korean progamers than they are for the most dominant SC2 players we have now. But please, throwing money into a legacy-dependent entrepreneurial venture, like SC2, is one thing and an everlasting, enjoyable game to watch and play is another. The latter is what produces a permanent and dominant e-Sports game.
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Like I said, if SC2 can gather as much audience as BW has in its early stages, and hold that dominance for a significant amount of time (like for how long BW was in town before it was declared a permanent and dominant e-Sport game), then this OP is valid. Otherwise, there is still some transition period that we need to wait before we can make the claim, with no speculation, that SC2 is now the uncontested ruler of e-Sports.
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Not to be a drama-llama, but I think there should definitely be a post addressing the SC1/SC2 divide. I know many, including me, have this ominous feeling. Over a short period of time, we've developed a strong affinity to the players and the teams of SC1. Even if there will be an eventual transition to SC2, players like us don't want to lose the bond that TL has helped us develop with the progaming scene in Korea and with a stronger, essence-filled game. Once that bond is broken, TL might just see a steep decline of participation in TL by the SC1 loyalists.
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On July 29 2010 00:06 Saracen wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 15:47 G5 wrote:
I think we need to look at the game critically in order to truly understand it. We do not need more mindless SC2 hype which has been oozing from every corner of tl.net. We need more people critically questioning and testing possible faults and successes of the game in order to draw accurate conclusions about this game. I don't think enough of it was done in the beta. Especially by forces in the community such as top tier players who only looked at the game as a way of future financial benefit and fame. So much blindless SC2 hype came from these sad desperate souls. I won't name names but you know who you are.
Posts such as this asks some good questions about the future of the korean scene and the future of both games and some other good points but like countless before it, it only shines light on the positive conclusions such as having Starcraft 2 pro-scenes in Europe and North America to the likes of the Korean Starcraft: Broodwar scene. You must look at both sides of the spectrum. For example: Starcraft 2 could kill the Starcraft: Broodwar scene in Korea and then fail miserably and leave us with nothing. Don't get me wrong. Starcraft 2 is a reality and I hope it enjoys equal or better longevity and success as Broodwar but mindlessly hyping it is not the way to achieve this. We must...
Question Everything. There have been countless people who tell us the exact opposite (that our SC2 coverage is too critical). Do you realize how much of a shitstorm we'd stir up if we made a "SC2: The Possible Death of BW?" newspost? We're trying to find a happy medium, but in general it's better to criticize things into a positive light (and even then, so many people get stuck with the criticism and flame you for being nostalgic about BW).
This is the same problem journalists have been facing for years, and I really don't want to see TL taking the same path that most news organizations do upon gaining prominence. Obviously with anything opinion-based you're going to have people from multiple sides claiming you're on the opposite side. This kind of criticism is going to come regardless of what you do, and that's why it's important to strive for the truth above anything else. There should really be no 'happy medium', as the reality behind any situation is not usually found nestled evenly between opposing sides. It's important to give everything it's proper weight.
Having said that, I would hope TL's role in reporting on SC2 does stay skeptical as G5 suggests it should. Obviously, no one is asking TL to make 'SC2 sucks' pieces, but after years of hype, and months of beta, I hope we can come back to earth soon.
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Vatican City State2594 Posts
On July 29 2010 00:22 SerpentFlame wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2010 00:09 Murderotica wrote:On July 28 2010 15:47 G5 wrote:
I think we need to look at the game critically in order to truly understand it. We do not need more mindless SC2 hype which has been oozing from every corner of tl.net. We need more people critically questioning and testing possible faults and successes of the game in order to draw accurate conclusions about this game. I don't think enough of it was done in the beta. Especially by forces in the community such as top tier players who only looked at the game as a way of future financial benefit and fame. So much blind* SC2 hype came from these sad desperate souls. I won't name names but you know who you are. Amen. My heart has already been broken, my spirit withered, and my faith withdrawn. This will be the last post that I make as a dissident of SC2, because fighting as a disorganized and therefore effectively one-man army against this change just reminds me of the old geezers who always talk about "how good it was back in the day" while us youngsters laughed at their primitive ways. I am now that old geezer, waving the banner of SC, but might as well be wetting my pants and be living in a state of permanent senility for all that it matters. Best of luck to SC2, I would be happy if I was to be proven wrong by your development (it cannot be ignored that the BW we have today only came after years of patching). + Show Spoiler +I would be twice as happy however if the failure of the game revitalized people's interest in the war of Broods, and made an explosion in the progame scene once again... Somehow, I think this is where even I have to admit this is fantasy u_u; RIP BW. As a real BW fan I am thrilled that SC2 is going to increase sponsorship raise the quality of pro-gaming lifestyle. There are tons of articles on how hard it is to be a pro-gamer. I don't see why you'd prefer the old game with the progamers' eating-raman-noodles-at-4AM-while-getting-paid-3-digit-salaries-and-no-bunks lifestyle rather than the new game with the promise of a brighter future for enterprising progamers and more cash for the older gamers as well. One's more enjoyable for you sure, but which is more enjoyable for Lee Jaedong? All good things must come to an end, and there's still enough Brood War out there that you couldn't possibly have watched all the VODs. Enjoy those old VODs and be happy that there's a new future for progaming, one with actual money involved. And if SC BW does prove to be the superior game (which I think it is), there will still be a competitive scene, even if it's not the huge korean one. Just look Super Smash: when Brawl came out, plenty of people stuck with the superior yet dated Melee. The best part is, if SC 1 proves to be the better game, then all the hype about SC 2 will work to it's advantage, if it spreads awareness about esports in the foreign community. But that's only really a minor/secondary concern.
If shit was really so tough for Jaedong, he wouldn't still be a progamer. There are other things that people can do in any country. The reason he puts up with it is because he CHOOSES to. They are not slaves. They are rational people like us, who put up with the downsides of our career choices simply because the upsides are so great.
Watching old VODs is not the same as following current leagues and watching the evolution of the game. VODs from the old era are nigh-unwatchable for me because even I have greater skill than those players now. VODs for the transition era are interesting, but I have watched at least 90% of all recommended "good" games. Even BW has boring and bad games. I'm not interested in watching those. I am interested in watching good games. I am interested in watching good new games.
The problem to me is that it seems impossible for both scenes to exist together, because even if SC2 is not successful, it will take away the funding from SC1, and SC1 will die. If SC2 fails, what are the chances that that money will go back to SC1? Sure the market in general will have increased for SC2 from SC1, but I believe the majority of the funding will come from current sponsors pushing for something new and refreshing. People already invested in SC1 will have to ride the wave and move onto SC2 for better or for worse.
Like I said I don't want to talk about the downsides of SC2 anymore. I'm done being a vocal hater, I'll resort to being a delusional hermit.
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New players entering the scene
New, beautiful and up to date graphics engine providing shiny things to an audience that loves them
Integrated match making system that can only improve to bring amateurs and pros alike to a competitive gaming ladder
Revitalized interest from people who played SC and BW in their hayday (think, 98-03 era when it wasn't so outdated) --- this is the #1 thing imo. So many people I am reconnecting with that haven't played SC since 5+ years ago who have picked up sc2.
Seriously, I know people don't like to ruin the status quo, but sc2's release is only going to bring in more people to the scene. Games that survive 13 years of play like SC/BW are rare, and great, but it is old. 13 year old game engines cannot stand the test of time that long and continue to grow. SC2 has been out less than a week, give it some time. SC/BW took years before it took off competitively and its successor is still far too young to claim either the heavyweight title or to predict its future years from now
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sick writeup
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On July 28 2010 22:51 Arrian wrote:
Yes. I was paid $15.42 by Rob Pardo to promote SC2 on TL.net. And what a sweet $15.42 it was.
I spent it on booze and loose women.
Where do you live and where are these women, that are less than 15 bucks? 
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On July 29 2010 01:05 Geisterkarle wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 22:51 Arrian wrote:
Yes. I was paid $15.42 by Rob Pardo to promote SC2 on TL.net. And what a sweet $15.42 it was.
I spent it on booze and loose women. Where do you live and where are these women, that are less than 15 bucks?
He was being sarcastic...
+ Show Spoiler +You were being sarcastic, right?
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nice read, including the comments. liked takkara's analysis about poker's keyfacts to success.
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Fantastic read!
Beautiful!
Thanks, Arrian and the rest of the TL staff.
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Canada2480 Posts
On July 28 2010 15:47 G5 wrote:
I think we need to look at the game critically in order to truly understand it. We do not need more mindless SC2 hype which has been oozing from every corner of tl.net. We need more people critically questioning and testing possible faults and successes of the game in order to draw accurate conclusions about this game. I don't think enough of it was done in the beta. Especially by forces in the community such as top tier players who only looked at the game as a way of future financial benefit and fame. So much blindless SC2 hype came from these sad desperate souls. I won't name names but you know who you are.
Posts such as this asks some good questions about the future of the korean scene and the future of both games and some other good points but like countless before it, it only shines light on the positive conclusions such as having Starcraft 2 pro-scenes in Europe and North America to the likes of the Korean Starcraft: Broodwar scene. You must look at both sides of the spectrum. For example: Starcraft 2 could kill the Starcraft: Broodwar scene in Korea and then fail miserably and leave us with nothing. Don't get me wrong. Starcraft 2 is a reality and I hope it enjoys equal or better longevity and success as Broodwar but mindlessly hyping it is not the way to achieve this. We must...
Question Everything.
thank you G5 for being one of the rare foreigners to keep a critical look about SC2
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wtf, when you said story time i thought it meant i would go to sleep satisfied. this just left me excited, with a larger desire to play the game. good thing i didn't read this at night.
but enough of my fanciful desires. i do believe that scbw and sc2 can coexist, but the chances of that are pretty slim. for the pros and people who enjoy watching extremely high level play, scbw is the way to go. limited hotkeying, a developed community with a plethora of strategies, and glitches that have become standard (muta micro, glitching units past minerals, etc.) all make the skill cap that much harder to reach. for lower level players (casual and newcomers to sc (limited to no bw background)) sc2 takes some mechanics from wc3 and makes it that much easier to pop into. MBS, infinite unit selection, automine take away things that at low level play, just don't seem too important. I mean how much should your skill be defined by your ability to set a worker to mine late in the game? But on the flip side, it's exactly these small things that define the well-trained commander of bw - with their ridiculous multitask and innate timing senses. So from what i'm seeing and reading, it'll be kind of like "watch bw for epic, play sc2 for fun." Then again, if we step back and look at that mentality, the bw community won't grow much and sc2 will have to go somewhere... Anyways, these are just my thoughts.
Once again good read, hope to see more of this kind of stuff. And for those of you looking for more depth, an eSports oriented game, and that epic feel of bw, Plexa's post "Filling the Void" does a nice job bringing in ideas and the comments have lead me to do a lot of hopeful thinking.
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On July 28 2010 18:37 tree.hugger wrote:
It's not the idea of Sc2 becoming big world-wide and in Korea that worries me, it's the idea that the mere presumption of Sc2's succession (these articles) will be enough to cripple what we already have, yet are no guarantee of future success.
Why couldn't (for example) Sc2 and BW have competitive scenes side-by-side? What about the current BW scene makes it so uninspiring that we're willing to ship it off, and what about the current Sc2 scene makes it so fantastic that we can already start talking about it's inherent ascension?
It's all a potemkin village, and instead of artificially saying things like "bid a fond farewell to BW" and risk making it so, we should be positive and realistic about Sc2's chances, and see what happens naturally. We're cutting down the house we've already build to clear land for a new house of uncertain size and quality. Where will we live if the second house collapses?
This is the best Ive ever heard! So true!
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On July 29 2010 01:21 swanized wrote:thank you G5 for being one of the rare foreigners to keep a critical look about SC2
It's almost like there is something that keeps you from seeing reality. Both TL and foreign players have been highly critical about SC2 in lots of articles that you can find all over the place. How come statements like these still pop up when TL has been a breeding ground for things to improve about SC2? Both in forums and newssection.
Basically every single good player I talk to says BW is a better game. But it's also 12 years old and these guys have played it over and over and over. They also all switch to SC2 because they feel it is the future, because they love gaming so much, because they love competitive play so much, because they love a new challenge, because they love to make money from the passion that they have. For all these reasons they are switching to the newer game. They aren't making $200k a year like Flash/Jaedong that will keep them going forever in BW. They have to make decisions in their lives which I think is something we can all respect.
Despite all that, I have yet to see any of those guys claim SC2 is the better game. Everyone is critical of it, but it is still going to be the big thing in years to come.
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On July 28 2010 23:51 Takkara wrote:
1) Chat is not hard for them to add, and yes they choose to not add it originally. Not in dispute. However, now that they want to add it, it needs to be scheduled. We don't know their schedule, but I can imagine it was and will continue to be a little full. They'll get to it, they just can't hack it into the client in a week or even a month.
2) No indication that cross-region will cost anything. That's just paranoia until they announce a fee. In fact, I believe they've said it'll be completely free, but I can't find the post right now.
3) The community team's job is to bring you the words of the development team. They meet with the development team and bring their words to the community. On issues of this much importance, the community team doesn't speak unless the development team/marketing gives them the thumbs up about precisely what they're saying. There's no difference between a community team member saying something and a developer saying it when it relates to something like this.
This is getting besides the point but actually in an interview they said cross region probably could be done with an extra fee, i'm certain of it. As if its an extra feature they are oh so generously giving you the opportunity to use. And hacking in some form of IRC would literally take less than a week. The communities people's job is to appease people that's why i wouldn't quote them directly about anything. The 'working as intended' quote was from a community forum's person in the first place.
I don't know why you are so quick to 100% trust Blizzard doing everything right, it's just an exact example of what i was saying regarding people just constantly assuring everyone that it will all be great and fixed in the future. Bnet 2.0 will be fixed completely with every feature everyone asked for, eSports will evolve and be huge everywhere, micro mechanics will appear make the game actually interesting etc. Constantly it's just people saying things are going to happen, everyone constantly saying 'give it time' when its not necessarily certain it will.
On July 29 2010 00:15 oxxo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 17:18 infinity2k9 wrote:
The whole e-Sports aspect of SC2 seems so forced. If its viable for e-Sports it naturally will become one, not from the power of will alone. I can't imagine it ever reaching the height of BW simply because as a spectator sport its just not clear enough to a casual viewer. The name can't make it big, from what it sounds like the reception to the game in Korea has been less than enthusiastic already. BW was the right game at the right time, as mentioned on the cusp of broadband internet penetration and happened to run on any computer as well. Now people's attention is divided between many other games too, such as MMORPGs... the market has moved on. I imagine the situation will turn out similar to Warcraft 3 which ended up more popular competitively in other places rather than Korea. And without Korea all you will have is another niche scene. BW is just as clear to the casual user. The only reason people know what's going on is because they're already familiar with the game. Over time SC2 will be the same.
Um BW is objectively clearer to a spectator, there can't be an argument here. Not in terms of understanding by graphics, but the presentation in turn helps the understanding. Big colourful sprites at 640x480, it's very easy to follow what is happening. You cannot try and tell me SC2 is anywhere near the same, just watch the average battle, all the projectiles and effects along with the fact its 3D. It's not due to familiarity its just an obvious difference in clarity.
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On July 29 2010 01:33 infinity2k9 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 23:51 Takkara wrote:
1) Chat is not hard for them to add, and yes they choose to not add it originally. Not in dispute. However, now that they want to add it, it needs to be scheduled. We don't know their schedule, but I can imagine it was and will continue to be a little full. They'll get to it, they just can't hack it into the client in a week or even a month.
2) No indication that cross-region will cost anything. That's just paranoia until they announce a fee. In fact, I believe they've said it'll be completely free, but I can't find the post right now.
3) The community team's job is to bring you the words of the development team. They meet with the development team and bring their words to the community. On issues of this much importance, the community team doesn't speak unless the development team/marketing gives them the thumbs up about precisely what they're saying. There's no difference between a community team member saying something and a developer saying it when it relates to something like this. This is getting besides the point but actually in an interview they said cross region probably could be done with an extra fee, i'm certain of it. As if its an extra feature they are oh so generously giving you the opportunity to use. And hacking in some form of IRC would literally take less than a week. The communities people's job is to appease people that's why i wouldn't quote them directly about anything. The 'working as intended' quote was from a community forum's person in the first place. I don't know why you are so quick to 100% trust Blizzard doing everything right, it's just an exact example of what i was saying regarding people just constantly assuring everyone that it will all be great and fixed in the future. Bnet 2.0 will be fixed completely with every feature everyone asked for, eSports will evolve and be huge everywhere, micro mechanics will appear make the game actually interesting etc. Constantly it's just people saying things are going to happen, everyone constantly saying 'give it time' when its not necessarily certain it will.
http://sclegacy.com/news/23-sc2/755-blizzard-responds-to-player-concerns
You can read the words for themselves. They haven't said it will cost anything. They haven't said explicitly it will be free, either. People suspect it will because they mentioned "Account Management" which has typically been used for pay features for WoW.
As I've said many times, there's plenty of things to complain about that don't involve paranoia or guesswork. Let's stick to things we know.
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FYI Brood War had different attack types that did different damage to different units (which is why goons don't 2-shot marines). In fact, some of the disparity in attacks on different units were GREATER than SC2.
Thanks for the excellent write-up.
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I like SC2 because it's so much smoother. My drones don't glitch out when I try to pull them out of the mineral line or when they try to build hatcheries. I actually like MBS and infinite select and automine because I can focus my attention on cutesy stuff that I wasn't able to do in BW. That said, SC2 still doesn't (yet) have the strategic depth of BW, but I don't think I'll be going back as long as the SC2 competitive scene remains alive.
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On July 28 2010 22:43 Garrl wrote:
To the OP, I despise this. You've essentially wrote a huge wall of verbose text to say one thing you could have said in a sentence: "I want BW to die and SC2 to succeed".
Tell me, OP, did Blizzard ask you to write this? It seems to me it's just propaganda hype for SC2 to say BW HAS GONE ON FOR TOO LONG, KILL IT.
Yeah that's exactly what he said. I can't even begin to describe how little I respect this post or this poster.
Great write-up as usual Arrian. Very enjoyable to read. Your mild response to stuff like this makes you all the cooler in the community's eyes I'm sure. Also a really cool little mini history of broodwar , thank you.
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On July 29 2010 01:24 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2010 01:21 swanized wrote:thank you G5 for being one of the rare foreigners to keep a critical look about SC2 It's almost like there is something that keeps you from seeing reality. Both TL and foreign players have been highly critical about SC2 in lots of articles that you can find all over the place. How come statements like these still pop up when TL has been a breeding ground for things to improve about SC2? Both in forums and newssection.
Well there may be people like Lalush criticizing actual gameplay issues raither than battle.net 2.0... issues. But I have the feeling that A LOT of people are hyping the game just because they want to earn money with it and not because it is a good multiplayer game like CS/BW/DotA/....
Basically every single good player I talk to says BW is a better game. But it's also 12 years old and these guys have played it over and over and over. They also all switch to SC2 because they feel it is the future, because they love gaming so much, because they love competitive play so much, because they love a new challenge, because they love to make money from the passion that they have. For all these reasons they are switching to the newer game. They aren't making $200k a year like Flash/Jaedong that will keep them going forever in BW. They have to make decisions in their lives which I think is something we can all respect.
Despite all that, I have yet to see any of those guys claim SC2 is the better game. Everyone is critical of it, but it is still going to be the big thing in years to come.
Yes, that's no problem. If I were Idra, seeing that it is incredibly hard to get into a starleague I would certainly switch over to SC2 too. And that may be true for any good (BW) player.
But that doesn't mean that SC2 will be as successful as BW in terms of longevity, let alone as an E-Sport. As some people already said, the skill ceiling doesn't seem to be high.
If you watch old [GG99]Slayer or NTT replays (or replays of yourself t.t), you had like 120, 130 EAPM back in the day.
Now look at where people are today. 240, maybe more. BW was so much fun to play because you never thought "wow that was perfect". There was always something to do. And that's why we admire people like Flash or Jaedong. Because they are just so fucking fast and give us the feeling that you can indeed master the game. How many pro gamers still kinda lack late game management? And that are pros, playing the game 10, 12 hours a day 12 years after it's release.
I don't know what the Expansion packs will bring. But I don't think that SC2 can compete with BW in terms of skill requirements. And, given your logic
everyone will play Warcraft 4 in a few years, given that it has a better engine/more people playing it/more price money.................
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This article made me realize Jim Raynor had 2 windscreen wipers on his suit :x
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I like how people are using Korean Brood War progamers who practice 12 hours a day as an example while simultaneously refusing to spend any effort on SC2, giving it up for dead before it's even out.
If it was that fucking easy, I'd be the new Boxer. Hey everyone, call me Boxer!
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sigh, the e-sports aspect of sc2 is just not too bright it seems... especially with the lack of LAN and customizable tournament-organizing widgets
it'll just seem so... "unprofessional" that a pro player has to log into a b.net account in order to play in an esports tournament. the fact that you're always connected to b.net mainframe gives me the feeling that big brother is watching.
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I have been in TL like one year and a half (not that much time), I came because I heard about BW and the launch of SC2, I had BW, I played it and I like it but I got to admit in my free time I prefer playing AoE2 (has a strong community as well), then I watched pro BW and I loved it, then I started to watch some foreign tournaments and after watching the pros playing it was a little dissapointed but ok, so I am a casual BW player but mainly an SC spectator and I got to tell you the main thing in any professional bussines is the client (viewer in this case) and SC:BW surpasses right now by far the spectator feeling that SC2 can make, but in the other hand BW foreign scene is not going to grow up more and casuals will go to SC2, so for me it will be like SC2 will have the big foreign community but the game wont be appealing enough to break the cultural thing in the western world to turn into a real e-sport and in Korea I dont see right now how the masses of spectators are going to switch to a game that is just not as watchable as SC:BW
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Nice article. HAHA, the alpha testing images of SC look awful. What's with all the purple and green shit everywhere? Hilarious.
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On July 28 2010 16:20 Waxangel wrote:
Enjoyed the optimism for SC II, but the "BW is dead/stale/whatever" stuff I've seen enough of already.
Point being, you can write something that says "let's make SC II great" without having to attach "because there's something wrong with brood war" to it.
I agree. BW will be here if the fans support it. And that will last some time.
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SC2 is a very good competitive game, but the Korean tournament organizers will stick with ScBw, since Blizzard made SC2 the way that Blizz will have supreme control over the competitive scene.
Good for them that way, but it ruined the possibility of SC2 to become a sport like SC:BW. (Unless Western cultures drop their stupid "games are bad, gamers are nerds" motto, or else SC2 as E-sport will remain just a dream.)
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On July 29 2010 00:25 lisherwin wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 23:56 Arrian wrote:On July 28 2010 23:46 lisherwin wrote:we are bidding a fond farewell to Brood War, at least as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports I guess I just don't see why we're necessarily bidding a good-bye to BW as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports. SC2 has its merits, but I think we're far far from passing the throne to SC2 as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports. It's a sensitive time for the SC1-SC2 divide we cannot say much about SC2 as a e-Sport game comparative to SC1 until we wait longer to see how the game progresses. I mean hell, its just been a day since SC2's release (after a volatile couple months of beta). Two big reasons: because it's new, and because it's popular. Even if the essence of the game isn't as good as BW's, the game has more popularity around the world right now than BW does, and that means that money and sponsorships will follow. Advertisers and sponsors don't care about how good a game is, they just care if it brings eyeballs. And SC2 will certainly bring eyeballs. Sure, SC2 is drawing larger audiences than most non-SC RTS games, but that's a consequence of the release of any RTS that bears the name "Starcraft X". The clamor of any SC2 progaming tournament held so far, as I've seen, doesn't come close to the uproar of the gathering of fans for something like, say, the Korean Air OSLs. Even in SC1's supposedly weakest stage of its lifetime, the fans are still crazier for the Korean progamers than they are for the most dominant SC2 players we have now. But please, throwing money into a legacy-dependent entrepreneurial venture, like SC2, is one thing and an everlasting, enjoyable game to watch and play is another. The latter is what produces a permanent and dominant e-Sports game.
You're comparing community-run tournaments in a game's beta with largely foreign players participating, to a ten-year esport's biggest tournament sponsored by a national airline? Golly, I can't argue with that logic.
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This is going to be very harsh to read for mindless SC2 fanatics. So skip this post if you blindly believe on this game. Long post btw.
As some people already stated in this thread, it is very annoying how people are so biased about a game the've known for less than 6 months, and discard and rate old and useless a game they've grown to love for more than 10 years. The thing about this is that most of these people, 1 month before the announcement of SC2 they were still very enthusiastic for SC1 as much as they are now for SC2. Once they heard, they tought this is a fresh start, I can be one of the best in this game, when I couldnt on its predecesor... Before you start saying to yourself its not like that, this kind of behaviour has already been seen in gamers from various and diferent games types, not only RTS but as the like of FPS and specially MMORPG. Who wouldn't love a fresh start, specially when it comes with arrangements so that it gives you the chance to be at the top with much less skills.
To make my point clear, ill give an example. Take Football and "futsal"; over the last years futsal has become a crecent sport with more and more people starting to like it as much as football, and why not? its much easier to keep up through a 40m field for 40 min divided in 2 halves with a 10 min break. Now not everyone can play football for sure, you need to be atlethic in order to keep up the rythym of the game, while anybody, anybody can play futsal in a competitive level, theres not really any requirements, believe me, Ive seen fat guys being in good teams in my country. Which reminds me the same situation of SC2/SC1, and let me ask you this, why if futsal is so newbie friendly(anyone can do it), football fans dont move on into it? Why does people still like so much football if its such an old old game/sport (in 1983 the Football Association was founded in England). Its because people tend to appreciate what is hard, people love the ones who can achieve what most cant, people ovacionate and become fan of the ones who can make easy what for them is so hard. Not everyone can do what Di Stephano, Van Basten, Maradona, Ronaldinho, Kaka and other great players had/have achieve, thats why they are recognized, thats why people cares about them, and that is why people like football.
It is because its so hard, that starcraft progamers are being looked up, because they've earned it, all those our they spend, doing something they like is what most people appreciate about them, all things that are good in live, are hard to get, and if they arent hard, they are not worth it. Life rewards hard work and sacrifices, but when you love something sacrifices are meaninless in comparison to reaching your goal. Why do i say this, because I dont believe that people will follow the scene of SC2, theres no passion, theres no real skill, theres no reward.
For me, its really sad to see the comunity just game hopping, leaving behind this great game that filled a part of their lives for more than 10 years.
For SC2 to become succesful as an esport, better say, to actually become an esport, all gamers will have to convince others to blindly believe and accept that the game is great, as you've done with it so far. If not, I believe this game's destiny is to fail like W3, only that this time, maybe gamers will not bounce back to SC1.
If you have read this far, you prolly think im an anti-SC2. I'm surely not, SC2 its a good game (specially the campaing must be sweet), but its just that, I just dont like the fact that people is turning over just cuz its easier to play or cuz it has modern graphics, it just seem like prefering a beautiful dumb/bad girl, over a nice smart girl (if you would choose the fisrt, you know what kind of a person you are).
GoodLuck in your new game, cuz if USA whole gamer comunity, (I dont mean the few that come in TL.net) and get USA sponsors and leagues, your hopes of making your game as successful in korea, as I stated before, I think in korea should fail the same as W3. Those are my predictions, not my hopes, as I believe unlike with W3, this may actually kill all the SC1 pro-scene.
PS.- Agree with palexhur, and I hope what Lightningbullet says becomes true.
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great read, thanks for this!
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what a great article. as my sc2 is in shipment (or the fedex truck it rides in has been hijacked and its contents sold to the TL black market) i cant help but feel some nostalgia for bw as i move on into a new game.
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like someone mentioned before, people forget how much BW meant to starcraft... remember, before BW, there were no medics, dts, or corsairs. There are two expansions yet to come, and as with BW, a handful of new units/mechanics can really increase the strategic depth. People are definitely overreacting (whether positively or negatively).
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This needs to be huge right away if it is to succeed. Otherwise all the good foreigners will return back to BW i think. Nostalgia is too powerful !
On second thought, no. SCII will be big. But not for me, at least if all the old players go back to BW.
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On July 29 2010 02:47 Djin)ftw( wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2010 01:24 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:On July 29 2010 01:21 swanized wrote:thank you G5 for being one of the rare foreigners to keep a critical look about SC2 It's almost like there is something that keeps you from seeing reality. Both TL and foreign players have been highly critical about SC2 in lots of articles that you can find all over the place. How come statements like these still pop up when TL has been a breeding ground for things to improve about SC2? Both in forums and newssection. Well there may be people like Lalush criticizing actual gameplay issues raither than battle.net 2.0... issues. But I have the feeling that A LOT of people are hyping the game just because they want to earn money with it and not because it is a good multiplayer game like CS/BW/DotA/.... Show nested quote +
Basically every single good player I talk to says BW is a better game. But it's also 12 years old and these guys have played it over and over and over. They also all switch to SC2 because they feel it is the future, because they love gaming so much, because they love competitive play so much, because they love a new challenge, because they love to make money from the passion that they have. For all these reasons they are switching to the newer game. They aren't making $200k a year like Flash/Jaedong that will keep them going forever in BW. They have to make decisions in their lives which I think is something we can all respect.
Despite all that, I have yet to see any of those guys claim SC2 is the better game. Everyone is critical of it, but it is still going to be the big thing in years to come.
Yes, that's no problem. If I were Idra, seeing that it is incredibly hard to get into a starleague I would certainly switch over to SC2 too. And that may be true for any good (BW) player. But that doesn't mean that SC2 will be as successful as BW in terms of longevity, let alone as an E-Sport. As some people already said, the skill ceiling doesn't seem to be high. If you watch old [GG99]Slayer or NTT replays (or replays of yourself t.t), you had like 120, 130 EAPM back in the day. Now look at where people are today. 240, maybe more. BW was so much fun to play because you never thought "wow that was perfect". There was always something to do. And that's why we admire people like Flash or Jaedong. Because they are just so fucking fast and give us the feeling that you can indeed master the game. How many pro gamers still kinda lack late game management? And that are pros, playing the game 10, 12 hours a day 12 years after it's release. I don't know what the Expansion packs will bring. But I don't think that SC2 can compete with BW in terms of skill requirements. And, given your logic everyone will play Warcraft 4 in a few years, given that it has a better engine/more people playing it/more price money.................
War3 eight years after its release still has big tournaments going on. War3 sucks. War3 requires 80APM. War3 has a small player base compared to SC2. These might be exaggerated but you get my point.
All big organizations will always look to include an RTS game for their tournaments. This game is not going to be BW and it's not going to be War3 over SC2 either. So it's SC2 or something newer and better. If nothing better comes along SC2 is guaranteed to have all the big organizations supporting it for a long, long time. There's really not that much room for debate on this.
I'm not talking about skill ceiling of longevity of the game. These are all things that BW is much better designed for, but BW isn't going to influence anything with regards to tournaments outside of Korea so it's not going to affect SC2's status as an esport.
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Well, that pretty much answers that, hahaha.
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On July 28 2010 15:47 Arrian wrote:
What of the large number of useless units that never or rarely see competitive play? ... Brood War did not use bonus damage on certain units to balance its unit composition issues, so why does Starcraft 2?
Are you serious with this? There's clearly no terrible units in Starcraft 2 and even the most underused units in starcraft 1 had their place. And sure, SC1's damage system reduces damage that some units take instead of increases it, but it's the exact same concept. How are these legitimate complaints at all?
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On July 29 2010 07:08 Aduromors wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2010 15:47 Arrian wrote:
What of the large number of useless units that never or rarely see competitive play? ... Brood War did not use bonus damage on certain units to balance its unit composition issues, so why does Starcraft 2? Are you serious with this? There's clearly no terrible units in Starcraft 2 and even the most underused units in starcraft 1 had their place. And sure, SC1's damage system reduces damage that some units take instead of increases it, but it's the exact the same concept. How are these legitimate complaints at all?
coughmothershipcough
coughscoutcough
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This was very well written and I really enjoyed it thank you! (:
oh and Go boxer haha love him.
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On July 29 2010 05:20 Qwerty. wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2010 00:25 lisherwin wrote:On July 28 2010 23:56 Arrian wrote:On July 28 2010 23:46 lisherwin wrote:we are bidding a fond farewell to Brood War, at least as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports I guess I just don't see why we're necessarily bidding a good-bye to BW as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports. SC2 has its merits, but I think we're far far from passing the throne to SC2 as the uncontested ruler of e-Sports. It's a sensitive time for the SC1-SC2 divide we cannot say much about SC2 as a e-Sport game comparative to SC1 until we wait longer to see how the game progresses. I mean hell, its just been a day since SC2's release (after a volatile couple months of beta). Two big reasons: because it's new, and because it's popular. Even if the essence of the game isn't as good as BW's, the game has more popularity around the world right now than BW does, and that means that money and sponsorships will follow. Advertisers and sponsors don't care about how good a game is, they just care if it brings eyeballs. And SC2 will certainly bring eyeballs. Sure, SC2 is drawing larger audiences than most non-SC RTS games, but that's a consequence of the release of any RTS that bears the name "Starcraft X". The clamor of any SC2 progaming tournament held so far, as I've seen, doesn't come close to the uproar of the gathering of fans for something like, say, the Korean Air OSLs. Even in SC1's supposedly weakest stage of its lifetime, the fans are still crazier for the Korean progamers than they are for the most dominant SC2 players we have now. But please, throwing money into a legacy-dependent entrepreneurial venture, like SC2, is one thing and an everlasting, enjoyable game to watch and play is another. The latter is what produces a permanent and dominant e-Sports game. You're comparing community-run tournaments in a game's beta with largely foreign players participating, to a ten-year esport's biggest tournament sponsored by a national airline? Golly, I can't argue with that logic.
You prove my point exactly. SC2 isn't even close to being called the uncontested e-Sports game in the world at the moment. And we shouldn't treat it as such. Until we see as much zeal for SC2 as the players had for SC1 and its players, then can we call it the "uncontested game of e-Sports". If not, SC2 is no different than any other typical RTS in its fledgling stage. Thank you. The fact that SC2 is not heralding the SC1's departure as the "uncontested game of e-Sports" is really not that hard to understand.
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On July 28 2010 16:51 Metaspace wrote:
SC2 is not here to replace SCBW, because it sucks.
Every notable player I know says it's sure nice to play for a few weeks, but otherwise too shallow.
Blizzard fucked it up, right from the concept phase.
What a waste.
i like sc2 and ill buy it cause i wanna see the campaigns, history, etc (1 player stuff) but im not to happy with the online part hopping that when i get it and try it ill change my mind any way ill know by then. im still waitting the original version i dont want the LA version.
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Wow, incredible article, very well done :D.
As for my thoughts on the game thus far, I do think it is worth noting that the campaign (which is INCREDIBLE and totally unique to any game I've ever played) sucked up A LOT of time and effort. This means there will (hopefully) be people working on player relations and other player requests instead of the campaign..at least for the time being.
Here's to another successful decade of starcraft gaming/esports 
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Haha, SC2 is better than 40,000 B.C. for one. Sole. Reason.
FACEBOOK!
...Ok, maybe that makes it worse.
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The sucess of SC2 as an e-sport hinges mainly on how fast (or even if) South Korea (or the western world) transitions from Broodwar or develops an independent wings of liberty scene. That being said, it may take quite some time for Starcraft's biggest proponent, South Korea, to accept SC2 as a proper form of competition. Will they switch out of Starcraft? Will they transition to some other, more traditional and technical game with competitive capabilities?
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really really interesting read. I totaly agree with you. The community need new blood and starcraft WoL will help about that
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That's a good write up, but where's the emphasis on the expansions and the "Trilogy"? That should have been the big final push of the article I think... Don't you trust that the game will be dramatically different by time the Trilogy is done?
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good work! we are moving on to starcraft 3 before the world ends!!
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On July 29 2010 01:55 Saracen wrote:
I like SC2 because it's so much smoother. My drones don't glitch out when I try to pull them out of the mineral line or when they try to build hatcheries. I actually like MBS and infinite select and automine because I can focus my attention on cutesy stuff that I wasn't able to do in BW. That said, SC2 still doesn't (yet) have the strategic depth of BW, but I don't think I'll be going back as long as the SC2 competitive scene remains alive.
Sometimes I'm too nostalgic for my own good! It definitely is smoother, mechanically it's not even close to the same bracket as BW. I just hope it's not TOO smooth, because as we all know, those unintentional glitches and bugs is what shifted and evolved the meta game of BW to levels over 9000.
@ Arrian - In regards to everyone being critical about the "BW" sentence, you have to agree, you could have conveyed the same message across without(unintentionally) trampling BW.I feel it's more of a welcoming another member to the family situation, he's the up and coming Flash, he has all our attention but only time will tell if he can step up to the plate of his older brother.
We'll see how far SC2 takes off after the hype dies down. Personally took me about 2 weeks before I got tired of it. I'm inclined to believe that the quality of the game will be the driving force behind the RTS scene and not just what's new and shinier. Still love your article(minus bidding farewell, I dream of the everyone lives together holding hands in harmony outcome) really, well put Arrian .
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I agree with your points about Korea, I don't think e-sports will be as big and financially lucrative any were else as they are in Korea so because of that SC2 will need to catch on with the pro and upcoming players on pro teams. a 2k tournament like day9's was awesome, but you can't justify playing SC2 for 10 hrs a day practice time if you are not getting a salary from a team. It needs to be a job for people more than a hobby to catch on else where and i dont think that will happen. I have heard things about MLG off and on over the years but until i can turn on the tv and see SC2 like you can in Korea its just not viable other than a game and not a sport.
Edit: I think foreign players are great to watch and i enjoy the tournaments but as soon as Korea picks up SC2 fully in the OSL/MSL they will be the standard to be like, i think its just a matter of time.
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The game is not perfect, but it is fantastic. You could say the same thing about BW.
I actually like that some of the units are used only in specific situations. I would hate it if every single game had motherships, or every single game had DTs as standard. Where is the wow factor if everything is always used? I think its better to have some units where when a top level player gets them everyone is on the edge of their seat waiting to see if the risk of unorthodox build pays off. Also, i dont get everyone saying mothership is useless. People should stop saying things are "useless" just because they cant auto-win ladder games every time they build them. I think a mothership would be pretty good at defending a heavily cannoned last expo.
To be completely honest i feel that most people will be more hyped on SC2 the higher the level of play gets. Once there are teams etc playing, and players with high profile and reputation are going head to head and doing things that people didnt think were possible, you will see many of the people who dont like SC2 turn right around. People forget that players like Boxer, Flash, etc fill a void and are remembered for taking the game up a notch when no one thought you could take it any further. There has to be periods where people think theyve seen it all for these types of players to break down that wall and show everyone there is more to the games depth than people thought. People arent even using chrono boost on warpgate cooldown yet for christs sake.
Give Starcraft 2 some time. By the way this is coming from someone who thinks BW is easily the greatest game ever made. Blizzard will look at the gameplay in SC2 as people play a shitload of games and they will add things in the expansions that bring the game into focus more than any amount of pre-planning could do. Patching and expansions are reactionary. We cant know fully what we want until we see for certain what we need. Right now everybody needs to just play to win. These are the wild west days of SC2s lifespan.
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I don't know where else to ask this question. Where can I learn how to use optimal macro? Liquipedia is ok but it definitely doesn't go enough in depth. Is there a way to switch views between bases and battles with out clicking on the mini map? Thanks.
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^
Hotkey buildings (e.g. Nexii), tab through them, hit space to centre screen on the selected building.
For battles it's even easier. Simply press the unit group hotkey twice to centre screen on them (I'm guessing you already know this..)
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nice read, awesome!
but you could remember the latin american community :'(
jajaja
cheers for starcraft 2 !
all beers on me!
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Actually, IdrA said that part of Brood War's sucess in Korea was due to an economic recession that had hit, and thus Starcraft was picked up a form of cheap entertainment. What are we in right now? I hope it gets as big as it did in Korea this time around.
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A little history here:
You know, when SC came out, it's 2D graphics were a step behind the competition (almost every review mentions Total Annihilation), and SC was only considered good because of the polish and attention to detail.
Also, "Most of us had never played a game like Starcraft." From a game industry perpective, I would find this statement puzzling. Everyone was on the RTS bandwagon -- Warcraft 2, Dark Reign, AOE, Total Annihilation, Myth etc... If you read the reviews of that time (metacritic) you'll see these "good/B+/A1" reviews of Blizzard's Starcraft. Like many of you know, the 12 unit limit was seen as a step backwards in RTS game design.
I understand that it's tempting to tell a story in your article: the passing of a great heritage from SC to SCII; but, i'd encourage you to stick to the facts a bit more. We don't need to pretend that Starcraft was perfect from the start to show that it is a great game.
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Here we goo!!! Another 10 years of starcraft start now!!!
Starcraft 2 got potential!! hope it gets big around the world!!
Imagine watching starcraft on cable at home!!!
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A fantastic read Arrian, thanks for putting it "to paper" as it were!
Hopefully if Blizzard can bite the bullet on a few issues (cross-realm/chat rooms) and get some community-required features going, SC2 will also last a long time.
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Well, first of all, i have to say, that you wrote an epic article. Great work.
And now to all the guys, which seem to clamp on the past. Are you guys still cooking over the open fire, because it's more delicious? Or did u guys have a stove. Seriosly, are you kidding me?
You guys critizing people hyping on sc2. But on the other hand you say, that sc2 won't become as big as scbw? I think this is pretty darn ironic. Be thankful of more and more people buying sc2. Maybe even today there are more people that bought sc2 than there were people buying scbw.
And seriosly, give players the time to enhance. Yeah the movement systems and all that stuff is way easier to handle in sc2. But isn't that the possibility for more action on the other hand? Just let all the progamers get into sc2. you will get epic matches. And the way better graphix can just be a +point for the people watching.
So again, give the people time to get into the game! There are many possibilities left, which were not explored yet.
When you want to compare sc2 to his predecessor, compare it to the beginning of sc1. People did just micro back then! They had 12 years to check that game out!!
Come on, i do even feel silly, to have to write this stuff....
Do not cling to the past!
PS: I am sorry for my bad english, i am just a random german geek =8)
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Starcraft will be remembered. along with it will also be the guys name Boxer...
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On July 29 2010 17:47 pedduck wrote:
Starcraft will be remembered. along with it will also be the guys name Boxer...
Of course it will! That's a fact
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Oh, the nostalgia.
It was a good run, but I'm still going to be on BW as well.
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Like a lot of broodwar fans, I am not that optimistic in the success of Starcraft 2. It has a lot of things it needs improvement on. But on the other hand, I think it will bring us a lot of new players and the only thing left for us to do is to convert them into bw players once they've been introduced to the community of Starcraft and the proscene. ^.^
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Very interesting write-up of the story, although I missed some mention of W3 in its role as experience for Blizzard.
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On July 29 2010 16:37 slimdagger wrote:A little history here: You know, when SC came out, it's 2D graphics were a step behind the competition (almost every review mentions Total Annihilation), and SC was only considered good because of the polish and attention to detail. Also, "Most of us had never played a game like Starcraft." From a game industry perpective, I would find this statement puzzling. Everyone was on the RTS bandwagon -- Warcraft 2, Dark Reign, AOE, Total Annihilation, Myth etc... If you read the reviews of that time ( metacritic) you'll see these "good/B+/A1" reviews of Blizzard's Starcraft. Like many of you know, the 12 unit limit was seen as a step backwards in RTS game design. I understand that it's tempting to tell a story in your article: the passing of a great heritage from SC to SCII; but, i'd encourage you to stick to the facts a bit more. We don't need to pretend that Starcraft was perfect from the start to show that it is a great game.
It wasn't perfect but it was original. No other RTS out there had ever before had 3 balanced and diverse races or even attempted to make a game with 3 races and not 2. A lot of the games out there only had 2 races and they were balanced in that they were mostly the same races but with different graphics for the units and names. Theres also the fact that it used professionals to voice act and worked hard on good portraits and a good campaign. Thats what he means by "Most of us had never played a game like Starcraft".
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Great article 
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Great article, let's hope Brood War doesn't die in Korea anytime soon.
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Such an excellent write-up. I dislike the lack of an obligatory + Show Spoiler + comment, at least on the first page. but great article! I'm really interested in seeing how this goes over the past few months, and before the year is up we'll have seen crucial developments.
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I don't understand why so many people say that SC2 is not as good as BW? How can you reach that conclusion on SC2 when it's still so new? It's not like there's some fundamental flaw with its gameplay mechanics that makes it instantly inferior to BW, I assume it's strategic depth you are all talking about, but how can you judge the strategic depth of a game that hasn't been fully explored yet?
As a very casual BW player and somehow more enthusiastic SC2 player, I really love the variety of BO's that SC2 has (more than BW), the fact that you can mix units of all techs and be successful even on the diamond league (as a terran player, 1-1-1 builds vs toss and mixes of infantry and mech vs zerg are common and very effective, both based on good scouting), and I love the fragility of its micro and how for example a few well placed snipes and emp's can give you victory over double-food armies. Also, the game is a blast to watch, with many units being fast and very harassment-potent which allows (demands) non-stop aggression and a lot of action and multitasking all over the map. It also allows lots of strong (but not overpowered) clever cheese...what else do you want? And that's only Wings of Liberty. What makes BW so superior really?
Also remember that SC2 is a work in progress and will get more chances to succeed, more than BW. With each installment, and a development cycle that will last more than 5 years for the core game and God knows how much more for extra tweaking, Blizzard have a big timeframe during which they can vastly improve the game even more as well as the Battlenet experience...if they are clever. And they are. Without a doubt. In short, I am optimistic about SC2's course. It's not a blockbuster movie that succeeds or fails within the first weekend, it is already an awesome game that can still become much better. I don't mean to belittle BW, I grew up with it as basically my only multiplayer game like the rest of you, but I see people going "yeah BW was of course better but SC2 is ok" etc, was it really?
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On July 28 2010 17:16 urashimakt wrote:
Once you play the single player campaign, by the way, it's very easy to see where all their manpower went. That thing is simply superb. Now that they're not working on that anymore, I'm certain many of the commonly discussed issues will be addressed.
Case in point.
uuuh two more expansions coming out buddy... im sure theyre already hacking away at it... they started sc original development the day after wcII came out..
still.. the single player is awesome!
you just gotta let time pass and the game develop naturally with future patches.. theres a lot to still discover in sc2
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On July 30 2010 01:14 Carnagath wrote:
As a very casual BW player and somehow more enthusiastic SC2 player, I really love the variety of BO's that SC2 has (more than BW), the fact that you can mix units of all techs and be successful even on the diamond league (as a terran player, 1-1-1 builds vs toss and mixes of infantry and mech vs zerg are common and very effective, both based on good scouting), and I love the fragility of its micro and how for example a few well placed snipes and emp's can give you victory over double-food armies. Also, the game is a blast to watch, with many units being fast and very harassment-potent which allows (demands) non-stop aggression and a lot of action and multitasking all over the map. It also allows lots of strong (but not overpowered) clever cheese...what else do you want? And that's only Wings of Liberty. What makes BW so superior really?
Haha what? This is like you have the games mixed around the wrong way. Everything you say about SC2 is more accurate to describe BW.
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Nice write-up. I pretty much only have started playing sc2, and never touched BW, so its nice to see the history of the game.
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Cross-realm and chat channels were confirmed several dozen times to be patched in later, right? I have no reason not to believe them. Brood War didn't even have replays at launch.
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On July 30 2010 01:54 infinity2k9 wrote:
Haha what? This is like you have the games mixed around the wrong way. Everything you say about SC2 is more accurate to describe BW.
So you've never played SC2 then I gather?
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On July 30 2010 01:14 Carnagath wrote:
Also, the game is a blast to watch,
This is a critical point
My play skills are very very bad (I was too old when brood war came out) however that dosent mean I cant enjoy watching the game.. and SC2 is better to watch than BW, and will make better TV.
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On July 29 2010 15:08 ThunderGod wrote:
^
Hotkey buildings (e.g. Nexii), tab through them, hit space to centre screen on the selected building.
For battles it's even easier. Simply press the unit group hotkey twice to centre screen on them (I'm guessing you already know this..)
Thanks
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The burden then is laid on us, the players.
We have the opportunity with the Internet to make a profound change in our community and barring any seriously bad decisions by Activision it should be for the better!
That being said; Here's to TL for never settling for less then best. Lets make it another stellar decade of starcraft!
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I think SC2 will remove a lot of the newbs/hackers from BW - that has to be a good thing!
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I like how sc2 is three days old and some people have the audacity to state that it looks to be a "boring/average game". That's like looking at an infant and saying "well... compared to your 12 year old brother you're gonna probably suck. Sorry bro."
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United States3824 Posts
That was the mission where you meet Kerrigan hater
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On July 30 2010 09:16 FromEarthWithLove wrote:
I think SC2 will remove a lot of the newbs/hackers from BW - that has to be a good thing!
Wrong, it will remove newbs / hackers from SC2.
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On July 30 2010 05:33 Captain Calamity wrote:
This is a critical point
My play skills are very very bad (I was too old when brood war came out) however that dosent mean I cant enjoy watching the game.. and SC2 is better to watch than BW, and will make better TV.
I can't watch SC2 streams at all. Neither I can watch any tournaments they make. Really simple, its friggin booring. Seriously at this moment(maybe not in future of prosports in SC2) all I've seen is bashing the wall tactics. Make army composition (1-2-3 units of type usually), bash them to opponent, cross fingers for GG.
Thats not entertaining, and fairly intresting in competitive point. There is few fancy micro rushes(also some call them cheeses), but thats about it.
I really hope SC2 can introduce something new to the board, maybe new maps that bring diversity or new "must" micro, to give it "who is doing something right" factor. When I just see 2 masses of armys clashing and other GG, it gets boring in the long run.
Another aspect that is lacking severly is in Terran matchup where stationary battles and slowpushes make entertaining games, In SC2 its just too slow to keep up with anything.
As singleplayer game its overachieving and really fun game. Multiplayer esport game that is broadcasted, just "no". Let's wait till few expansions are up and we get to see more... maybe then (big maybe).
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On July 30 2010 19:38 Jienny wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2010 05:33 Captain Calamity wrote:
This is a critical point
My play skills are very very bad (I was too old when brood war came out) however that dosent mean I cant enjoy watching the game.. and SC2 is better to watch than BW, and will make better TV. I can't watch SC2 streams at all. Neither I can watch any tournaments they make. Really simple, its friggin booring. Seriously at this moment(maybe not in future of prosports in SC2) all I've seen is bashing the wall tactics. Make army composition (1-2-3 units of type usually), bash them to opponent, cross fingers for GG. Thats not entertaining, and fairly intresting in competitive point. There is few fancy micro rushes(also some call them cheeses), but thats about it. I really hope SC2 can introduce something new to the board, maybe new maps that bring diversity or new "must" micro, to give it "who is doing something right" factor. When I just see 2 masses of armys clashing and other GG, it gets boring in the long run. Another aspect that is lacking severly is in Terran matchup where stationary battles and slowpushes make entertaining games, In SC2 its just too slow to keep up with anything. As singleplayer game its overachieving and really fun game. Multiplayer esport game that is broadcasted, just "no". Let's wait till few expansions are up and we get to see more... maybe then (big maybe).
Oh, so BW is more entertaining to watch? For example the Flash vs Jaedong games where the whole "action" of every game was whether Flash was going to successfully wall off his fast expo and defend it against 5 hydras? Come on, seriously. Also, the fact that you call SC2 "too slow" tells me that you've probably never played it.
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Oh, so BW is more entertaining to watch? For example the Flash vs Jaedong games where the whole "action" of every game was whether Flash was going to successfully wall off his fast expo and defend it against 5 hydras? Come on, seriously. Also, the fact that you call SC2 "too slow" tells me that you've probably never played it.
So everyone who says that SC2 is boring to watch has never played the game or just hate the world or blah blah?, for me SC2 is a hell of boring game to watch and I got the game, I even got a new pc in order to play it, but you are only a fanboy who just wants to criticize the people because it is free on the internet.
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On July 31 2010 00:48 palexhur wrote:Show nested quote +Oh, so BW is more entertaining to watch? For example the Flash vs Jaedong games where the whole "action" of every game was whether Flash was going to successfully wall off his fast expo and defend it against 5 hydras? Come on, seriously. Also, the fact that you call SC2 "too slow" tells me that you've probably never played it. So everyone who says that SC2 is boring to watch has never played the game or just hate the world or blah blah?, for me SC2 is a hell of boring game to watch and I got the game, I even got a new pc in order to play it, but you are only a fanboy who just wants to criticize the people because it is free on the internet.
No, everyone who says it's too slow has never played it. Also, you're criticizing me right now if I'm not mistaken, so touche.
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On July 30 2010 20:23 Carnagath wrote:
Oh, so BW is more entertaining to watch? For example the Flash vs Jaedong games where the whole "action" of every game was whether Flash was going to successfully wall off his fast expo and defend it against 5 hydras? Come on, seriously. Also, the fact that you call SC2 "too slow" tells me that you've probably never played it.
I have played it, since beta.
I have watched it since beta.
And if you clearly decide game in just if Flash just defended game against JD.... Man just no, no... There is just more, much more. And no I am not Flash fan, instead im Fantasy fan. Looks more in to the BW game. There is such much more in to the game(like micro and macro).
This statement seems like you have not actually watched game. (ps. its starcraft: BW)
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Croatia9505 Posts
On July 29 2010 01:55 Saracen wrote:
I like SC2 because it's so much smoother. My drones don't glitch out when I try to pull them out of the mineral line or when they try to build hatcheries. I actually like MBS and infinite select and automine because I can focus my attention on cutesy stuff that I wasn't able to do in BW. That said, SC2 still doesn't (yet) have the strategic depth of BW, but I don't think I'll be going back as long as the SC2 competitive scene remains alive.
So YOU'RE the culprit in teamliquid news team that is responsible for all this anti-bw propaganda!
haha just kidding, but seriously though, to an old BW player like me, who cares about SC2 just as much as he cares for W3 (read none), this news post certainly can tick off the wrong buttons ^^.
Just as many other people here I'm sure, I'm here for BW, so bidding a fond farewell to BroodWar would mean bidding a fond farewell to Teamliquid and that is one thing I sure as hell don't want to happen!
Cheers!
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United States47024 Posts
On July 30 2010 19:38 Jienny wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2010 05:33 Captain Calamity wrote:
This is a critical point
My play skills are very very bad (I was too old when brood war came out) however that dosent mean I cant enjoy watching the game.. and SC2 is better to watch than BW, and will make better TV. I can't watch SC2 streams at all. Neither I can watch any tournaments they make. Really simple, its friggin booring. Seriously at this moment(maybe not in future of prosports in SC2) all I've seen is bashing the wall tactics. Make army composition (1-2-3 units of type usually), bash them to opponent, cross fingers for GG. Thats not entertaining, and fairly intresting in competitive point. There is few fancy micro rushes(also some call them cheeses), but thats about it. I really hope SC2 can introduce something new to the board, maybe new maps that bring diversity or new "must" micro, to give it "who is doing something right" factor. When I just see 2 masses of armys clashing and other GG, it gets boring in the long run. Another aspect that is lacking severly is in Terran matchup where stationary battles and slowpushes make entertaining games, In SC2 its just too slow to keep up with anything. As singleplayer game its overachieving and really fun game. Multiplayer esport game that is broadcasted, just "no". Let's wait till few expansions are up and we get to see more... maybe then (big maybe).
I was of the same opinion until I watched the Tester v Rainbow set from the KotB semifinals. Some of the play was very odd, but it was more entertaining than a lot of what I'd seen up to that point.
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I also fit in the ''watching SC2 is boring to watch'' category. Even playing it after a few weeks was getting boring (and no, not because I got crushed).
I think the main problem with SC2 right now, not mentionning Battle.net 2.0, is the lack of oh shit units. Units like vultures, reavers, lurkers, defilers, spectacular units that can turn the tide of the game in just a few seconds.
In SC2, I can think of Banelings in this category, maybe hellions... that's about it. Last time I watched games, Reapers, DTs were semi-viable, High Templars lost the ''one storm wonder'' aspect of the show, it seems all about armies clashing into another, it feels repetitive.
I still have a lot of faith in Blizzard and I'm sure expansions will fix most of our complaints, but for now, I couldnt care less about SC2 and it's competitive scene.
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what if you have a tournament to see who can throw the stone the furthest? does that count?
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On July 31 2010 11:04 lepape wrote:
I also fit in the ''watching SC2 is boring to watch'' category. Even playing it after a few weeks was getting boring (and no, not because I got crushed).
I think the main problem with SC2 right now, not mentionning Battle.net 2.0, is the lack of oh shit units. Units like vultures, reavers, lurkers, defilers, spectacular units that can turn the tide of the game in just a few seconds.
In SC2, I can think of Banelings in this category, maybe hellions... that's about it. Last time I watched games, Reapers, DTs were semi-viable, High Templars lost the ''one storm wonder'' aspect of the show, it seems all about armies clashing into another, it feels repetitive.
I still have a lot of faith in Blizzard and I'm sure expansions will fix most of our complaints, but for now, I couldnt care less about SC2 and it's competitive scene.
I know what you mean, but SC2 has plenty of "oh shit" units. Units like Hellions, Reapers, Banshees, blink Stalkers and Warp Prisms (and in my opinion the yet horribly underused Nydus Worm) were especially designed for constant harassment and massive damage and they are very "oh shit" if used correctly (see TLO and Whitera). High Templars may not melt everything instantly now, but they are still VERY "oh shit", they decimate low-hp units and can feedback critical Tier 3 units for massive damage. Colossus is also very "oh-shit". Also, pretty much every late army composition feels more "oh-shit", because it needs to be scouted early and countered in a meaningful and imaginative way, not merely via Scourge, Psi or Lockdown.
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I hear alot of talk about whether or not e-Sports can be forced onto a game like SC2. But I see that people here aren't really taking anything other than the RTS Starcraft franchise into account.
If we look at the FPS industry, the first Counter-Strike was just a mod (unforced, as BW was) with no intention of becoming integrated with e-Sports. But it grew to become one of the most dominant FPS games in e-Sport culture.
Along came Counter-Strike: Source. This game had no single-player and was actually "forced" as an e-Sport game by Valve. And to this day, it still is played at very high competitive levels. So the whole "a game cannot be forced into e-Sports" is an invalid statement.
Sure, CSS is nowhere near Starcraft in terms of mainstream in Korea, but that doesn't make my conclusion any less true. You also have to remember (if you were ever part of the early CSS days) that Counter-Strike: Source had very limited to no support from the community (because CS 1.6 was still very viable in e-Sports), when it was released... It was made what it is purely from the people establishing tournaments and leagues.
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the emperor :,)
come to sc2!!
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After reading this wonderful article and every reply, I feel compelled to chime in. I loved SC/BW back in the day and will always have fond memories. (Heck, I even installed BW and started playing it again about a year or so ago when I began actively following the SC2 news.) I still occasionally watch a podcast to check out the pro scene and feel the nostalgia. But, in my opinion, the SC2 haters have it wrong right now. I know, change is hard. But, be honest with yourselves, BW is NOT going to attract new players. It just isn't. Instead of bashing SC2, you should be helping make it (or another game) better - as the OP stated with the whole torch passing idea. It (or another game) is the future of eSports (if there is a future). Holding onto the past and pretending change won't happen doesn't make it so.
I'd also like to address the idea of podcasts/streamed BW games being better than SC2 games. This is just silly. The ONLY reason someone would prefer to watch a BW game is because they have intimate knowledge of the game/players/etc. (I would wager dollars to donuts that if you showed 10 players new to SC replays of BW and SC2 all 10 would prefer to watch SC2.) SC2 is better looking, smoother, has many cool statistics screens for replays, seems to have greater variety of openings/strategies, lots of cool harassment opportunities, appears to require more countering/adapting to opponent choices, and is new enough to where everyone is just learning how to play it. I played BW for years, but the fast-paced, aggressive style of gameplay at the tournament and diamond level in SC2 is more interesting to watch than what I've seen lately in BW. While I am continually amazed by the crazy micro top BW players display, the games still have a 'been there, done that' feel for me. Personally, while I love good micro, I think skill in gaming is more than just this. It has been very cool how many games that appeared 'over' in SC2 have flip-flopped (often multiple times) before someone actually won. Also, it is nice to hear genuine excitement in the podcasters voices as they comment on these SC2 matches. To me, this just makes for a better viewing experience.
I'm hoping that SC2 brings another decade of relevance to the franchise.
Just my $.02.
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I find it funny that people say there's no criticism on Starcraft 2 on this site and it's all hype. Reading most of the threads here, the general consensus seems to me that SC2 is already dead on arrival. So are people just glossing over almost every single thread here?
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yeah sc2 is already dead on arrival. that's why it is the most sold RTS game in the first 2 days ever! in the first 24h it as bought over 1 million times worldwide and in the 48h more then 1,5 million times...
but @all the sc2 haters. yeah it is dead already.
seriosly? think of it.. that could be huuuge. esports could become huuuge with sc2 not just in korea but also in america and europe...
just an advice: jump on the train and make a biig party
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I just hope BW doesnt fade into the wind, its still the best RTS of all time
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We shall soon see in 2011: The year of the first Starcraft II World Cup. Literally.
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