Official State of the Game Podcast Thread - Page 1024

On May 07 2011 04:57 PHILtheTANK wrote:

I'm not going to spend the time looking up all of the complaints players have made, especially when its clear that there would be a ton more complaints if they weren't getting fined everytime they opened up their mouths.

The reason i say its like high school players is because most of the complaining about imbalance from non pro players is from their experience playing the game, not watching. You can't compare sports and eSports fans because 99% of eSports fans are people who play the game as well, while almost very few sports fans are actively playing the sport they watch. We derive alot of our assumptions about the game from our play, not just from watching the pros play.

The fact that there is nobody in the sport aged 40 or above is a completely moot point. Age doesn't mean any thing. The only reason in life that age is ever used comparatively is because it usually means experience. How much experience can you have in a year old game? All of those old coaches and commentators don't know anything about the game because they're 40, its because they've been playing/watching/coaching football for 30 years. When it comes to dissecting the game I'd rather trust some 21 year old "kid" who has spent the last year of his life playing the game nonstop than some 40 year old person, just for the sake that they're 40.

On May 07 2011 02:40 N3rV[Green] wrote:
So....Zerg is underpowered and cannot win games in a fair manner. Except when nearly every single statistic shows zerg over 50% win vs protoss in every major tournament there has been in the past half a year.

This just strikes me a strange.....Zerg can't possibly win...except when they do, all the fucking time.


Seriously zerg players, just end the stupid bullshit crying.

What zerg is TRYING to say, is that they FEEL like they cannot win a game, the game FEELS hard to win.

I'd say that's a pretty good thing honestly....I'm not sure winning with protoss or terran is "easy" either.

On May 07 2011 05:06 randplaty wrote:


Experience does not equal maturity, but to say they are mutually exclusive is really... uhh... makes me think you don't know what mutually exclusive means? Mutually exclusive means that if you have experience you cannot have maturity. I'm sure you're not saying that... are you?

I agree with you that maturity is something that a 20 year can definitely have, but experience has a LOT to do with it. It is related. And you know what? If you said that a bunch of 40 year olds don't really have much maturity difference than 60 year olds... I MIGHT be able to see where you're coming from. But SC2 pros are 15-25 generally. This is an age where people are seriously still growing up. A good number of SC2 pros can't even drink legally.

I'm not criticizing the game or even suggesting that things need to change. All I'm saying is that people need to realize how immature the game AND the players are... and that we should take a lot of things with a grain of salt. Instead of viewing some immature statements as... "wow that's insulting." Think of it as, "well he's still young."

On May 07 2011 05:44 Kich wrote:


Poor choice of words, +1 internet to you?

My stance is that being in your early 20's doesn't make you immature by default, and being in your mid 40's doesn't make you mature by default. Age doesn't necessarily coincide with maturity and it often doesn't.

In fact, if anything, being in your early 20's makes you psychologically more prone to accepting alternate ideas. Because you're still growing during those years, you are more open to opinions and ways of thinking etc.

You seem to be mistaking two words here, having professionalism and being mature are entirely different entities. The game is not mature in the sense that it hasn't been fleshed out, but that's speaking of maturity in the sense of growth and not in a psychological manner.

However the players are not what you would call legitimate professionals. They play the game at a professional level without the professional attitude that people expect out of physical sports--but why is this an issue?

Starcraft at it's core is a video game, it's culture and following are that of the video game culture. Starcraft, nor any e-sport, will ever mimic the NFL because of this. If you take away the video game culture, the game is left dry and uninteresting. It exists this way because while the players are on teams, they interact at a significantly more personal level--ESports professionals are on an astronomically closer level to their fans than NFL players are, they speak with them daily.

You could never know "A-rod" as closely as you could know someone like Day9, iNcontrol, or Tyler. They're people playing a game, who recognize they're playing a game, who enjoy that they're playing a game, they're real people. They react to things like real people do, they aren't force fed bullshit to spew out to fans--if someone apologizes, you know they fucking meant it: iNcontrol apologizes constantly for his past mistakes--Idra not so much. Neither of them have to, but because they're people, with real personalities, that we actually get to know and learn and experience, they handle things in different ways.

And I appreciate the fuck out of that. And if this thing ever turned out like the NFL did (in the sense that players are censored and become this sort of pseudo-entity that you know exists but can't actually relate to), I'll be pretty pissed. So here's to hoping it doesn't. I wouldn't ever say that someone was immature for making an insulting remark (unless it was warranted), because they're people, and sometimes people get pissed off. Unless you're white-ra.

On May 07 2011 06:34 tztztz wrote:
it would be a shame if sc2 would be dead in 5 years because of poor balance/game design and noone every spoke up...

On May 07 2011 06:40 Kich wrote:
Language is already toned down tremendously on the higher quality tournaments, there isn't enough money in the system for primarily non-player run tournaments, and the rest only apply to physical sports.

For starcraft to grow, it needs to continue panning towards a crowd that is largely video-game centric. If half the subscribers of World of Warcraft tuned in for tournament streams and showed interest, it would be possible to have tournaments completely run by non-player organizations. In order to pan to those crowds (because honestly, there's enough gamers in the world to sustain an e-sport on a healthy level for all participants I believe), they need to keep doing what they're doing.

It sounds to me like you're trying to make the argument that SC2 needs to have mass appeal, while I feel like this isn't the case--it needs only to appeal on a larger level to gamers.

On May 07 2011 07:03 slyboogie wrote:
Just to drop my 2 cents into the discussion. I think the Day[9]/Idra discourse is nothing unique to Starcraft 2. We see that type of dichotomy in dozens of places. It's the economist and the historian, it's the athlete and the sportswriter, it's the politician and the philosopher.

Day[9] talks about Starcraft 2 as a grand mystery, with hundreds of questions to be asked and thousands of hours to be committed. The concept of "balance" exists in the puzzle, but to Day[9], it is the players' search for balance that creates competitive Starcraft. The narrative is interrupted every time Blizzard involves itself - no revolution will occur, no genius to praise. In fact, I think that Day[9] is actually disappointed in Idra's venting/complaining/whining/balance talk (whatever you call it.) He wants Idra to commit himself to the confines of the game and create a way to win. Even if he loses, his struggle would be a nice story.

Idra, on the other hand, has no patience for the romantic idealism of emergent gameplay, of hundreds of fruitless hours looking for some Shangri-la of user created balance. No, he's a competitor and Starcraft 2 is his livelihood. In his eyes, his (non-Zerg) opponents have aluminum bats and he is left to swing away with a two-by-four. He doesn't really care about the valiant struggle of Zerg, he doesn't want to NEED to create brilliance - he already plays as well as anyone. Balance now, legacy later.

Anyways, just my 2 cents. Sorry for the broad tone.

On May 07 2011 06:49 genopath wrote:
SC:L has provided a small edited transcript between Day[9] and IdrA from the latest SOTG podcast.

http://sclegacy.com/editorials/105-strategy/1005-sotg-idra-vs-day9

Edit: The reason for the edit was to remove all profanity, unimportant situations (Incontrol funny faces) and give more clarity on both Day9 and IdrA's statements so that the interview can be read by a wider audience.

On May 07 2011 07:03 slyboogie wrote:
Just to drop my 2 cents into the discussion. I think the Day[9]/Idra discourse is nothing unique to Starcraft 2. We see that type of dichotomy in dozens of places. It's the economist and the historian, it's the athlete and the sportswriter, it's the politician and the philosopher.

Day[9] talks about Starcraft 2 as a grand mystery, with hundreds of questions to be asked and thousands of hours to be committed. The concept of "balance" exists in the puzzle, but to Day[9], it is the players' search for balance that creates competitive Starcraft. The narrative is interrupted every time Blizzard involves itself - no revolution will occur, no genius to praise. In fact, I think that Day[9] is actually disappointed in Idra's venting/complaining/whining/balance talk (whatever you call it.) He wants Idra to commit himself to the confines of the game and create a way to win. Even if he loses, his struggle would be a nice story.

Idra, on the other hand, has no patience for the romantic idealism of emergent gameplay, of hundreds of fruitless hours looking for some Shangri-la of user created balance. No, he's a competitor and Starcraft 2 is his livelihood. In his eyes, his (non-Zerg) opponents have aluminum bats and he is left to swing away with a two-by-four. He doesn't really care about the valiant struggle of Zerg, he doesn't want to NEED to create brilliance - he already plays as well as anyone. Balance now, legacy later.

Anyways, just my 2 cents. Sorry for the broad tone.

It's like Day9 is extremely educated and idra is not... oh wait...

On May 07 2011 07:15 randplaty wrote:



Hmm reading it instead of listening to it is very interesting. Day9's arguments are so much more clear when written down and it comes across much better. It's like Day9 is extremely educated and idra is not... oh wait...