Official State of the Game Podcast Thread - Page 2029

On January 27 2012 17:09 LittleAtari wrote:

was that the guy's name or did you just call him a hat?

On January 27 2012 17:03 Arisen wrote:
I'm super dissapointed by one statement durring the show:

"we don't want strategy questions"

I read a little bit of the thread after last weeks show and there were a ton of people complaining about strategy call-ins, how they'd rather hear about the panelists discussion on what can only be described as "drama" subjects: Player Transfers, etc, etc. Now, as a panelist type show, I can absolutely see the value in some of these discussions and wouldn't want to see less of them, but I'm super disappointed in this community about how little they want to hear about the actual game.

Perhaps it's a pet peeve of mine, but it makes me so depressed when I log into TL and see an epic ass post about some strategy or player's play get very few views/replies and then next to it see the next generic "Is X hurting esports?" or other "drama" thread get easily 10x the amount of attention. I just feel like a large part of this community doesn't actually care about starcraft as a game, they just care about the drama around SC2 or they care about the caster more than what they're casting. I feel like the majority of the fans of SC2 would rather see a boring game between 2 platinum players commentated by Day9 than a brilliant game between some of the best players in the world commentated by some OK casters.

I'm not trying to downplay the role of casters in creating excitement of the game or hate on people who don't know a lot about the game, etc. I just hope some people reevaluate and start to really watch Starcraft for the games. Even if you don't play, I just don't understand why you'd rather hear an in-depth discussion about some player transferring teams than NonY, one of the best minds in Starcraft talk about some new protoss strategy or the subtlety of X protoss player's decision making in an important match.

The first caller today said something along the lines of "why would I ask some of the best minds in esports about strategy?" and my heart broke. Why would you NOT ask some of the best minds in esports about strategy? If all you want to hear is people talking about the drama around the game, there are people who just watch a lot of starcraft who are charismatic more qualified to speak on the subject more than most of the hosts.

Once again, I'm not saying that the questions about esports and stuff are bad. They are informative and often entertaining. For my part, though, most of the reason I listen to these types of things is that I want to hear some of the best minds in Starcraft talk about the game. I would SO much rather hear iNcontroL and NonY talk about their thoughts on some brilliant game by HerO than them talking about how some event admin didn't act completely professionally or some other random subject that actually doesn't have a damn thing to do with the game.

I just don't understand why people hate to hear about the game so much. If all you care about is the "drama", go pick up a copy of TMZ and you'll be in heaven. I loved all the discussion around the NaNiwa incident not too long ago because NaNi played brilliantly against one of my favorite zerg player's, nestea and won, then refused to play the "rematch" game. I cared about that topic because of how NaNi played so well and how the topic effected the ethics of Starcraft. Similarly I give a fuck about what Day9 has to say about things because he had some of the best builds and most brilliant hive tech play around. I care about IdrA drama because of his brilliant timings and mechanics; I care about NonY's slump because he had some of the best timing attacks and strategies around, etc.

I'm sorry for the rant, but it's so depressing sometimes to hear about how little people care about the actual game. I like the drama too, but I would hope some people reevaluate and start to appreciate the game at least as much as the drama around it.

Good show otherwise, can't wait for the next one

On January 27 2012 18:18 Gamegene wrote:


Most people ask stupid questions that wastes time. Listen to that "MMM vs Protoss" call in from last episode; it was just a very thinly veiled "BIO SO CHEAP IT WINS BLAH BLAH BLAH" balance whine.

On January 27 2012 11:49 how wrote:


Thanks, I did not realize that, edited the post. Would you say you have to be a harry potter fan to enjoy it, or does it just help?

On January 27 2012 10:34 Dark.Carnival wrote:

Not sure why you ever expected anything else? Its always been a group of friends that have been in starcraft for a long time discussing whatever topics JP has for that show. Its popular because of the personalities on the show. My brain hurts when people expect more when it has been this way since the beginning.

Also, if anyone is expecting to get factual up to date news you're watching the wrong show, go watch LO3 if you want that.

On January 27 2012 17:03 Arisen wrote:
I'm super dissapointed by one statement durring the show:

"we don't want strategy questions"

I read a little bit of the thread after last weeks show and there were a ton of people complaining about strategy call-ins, how they'd rather hear about the panelists discussion on what can only be described as "drama" subjects: Player Transfers, etc, etc. Now, as a panelist type show, I can absolutely see the value in some of these discussions and wouldn't want to see less of them, but I'm super disappointed in this community about how little they want to hear about the actual game.

Perhaps it's a pet peeve of mine, but it makes me so depressed when I log into TL and see an epic ass post about some strategy or player's play get very few views/replies and then next to it see the next generic "Is X hurting esports?" or other "drama" thread get easily 10x the amount of attention. I just feel like a large part of this community doesn't actually care about starcraft as a game, they just care about the drama around SC2 or they care about the caster more than what they're casting. I feel like the majority of the fans of SC2 would rather see a boring game between 2 platinum players commentated by Day9 than a brilliant game between some of the best players in the world commentated by some OK casters.

I'm not trying to downplay the role of casters in creating excitement of the game or hate on people who don't know a lot about the game, etc. I just hope some people reevaluate and start to really watch Starcraft for the games. Even if you don't play, I just don't understand why you'd rather hear an in-depth discussion about some player transferring teams than NonY, one of the best minds in Starcraft talk about some new protoss strategy or the subtlety of X protoss player's decision making in an important match.

The first caller today said something along the lines of "why would I ask some of the best minds in esports about strategy?" and my heart broke. Why would you NOT ask some of the best minds in esports about strategy? If all you want to hear is people talking about the drama around the game, there are people who just watch a lot of starcraft who are charismatic more qualified to speak on the subject more than most of the hosts.

Once again, I'm not saying that the questions about esports and stuff are bad. They are informative and often entertaining. For my part, though, most of the reason I listen to these types of things is that I want to hear some of the best minds in Starcraft talk about the game. I would SO much rather hear iNcontroL and NonY talk about their thoughts on some brilliant game by HerO than them talking about how some event admin didn't act completely professionally or some other random subject that actually doesn't have a damn thing to do with the game.

I just don't understand why people hate to hear about the game so much. If all you care about is the "drama", go pick up a copy of TMZ and you'll be in heaven. I loved all the discussion around the NaNiwa incident not too long ago because NaNi played brilliantly against one of my favorite zerg player's, nestea and won, then refused to play the "rematch" game. I cared about that topic because of how NaNi played so well and how the topic effected the ethics of Starcraft. Similarly I give a fuck about what Day9 has to say about things because he had some of the best builds and most brilliant hive tech play around. I care about IdrA drama because of his brilliant timings and mechanics; I care about NonY's slump because he had some of the best timing attacks and strategies around, etc.

I'm sorry for the rant, but it's so depressing sometimes to hear about how little people care about the actual game. I like the drama too, but I would hope some people reevaluate and start to appreciate the game at least as much as the drama around it.

Good show otherwise, can't wait for the next one

On January 27 2012 20:22 Copenap wrote:
Both episode 60.5 and 61 don't work for me as mp3 download, am I doing something wrong?

On January 27 2012 20:25 svefnleysi wrote:

61 is working for me.

On January 27 2012 20:24 CallousCarter wrote:
Couldn't agree more. To be honest none of the hosts can give much more insight into most of the drama than your average tl poster unless of course they were personally involved in the incident but in that scenario they normally refuse to comment. They're all high level players/casters and should have a deep level of understanding of the game but for some reason none of them except day9 want to talk about it much. You can't grow an esport on drama alone, people have to be interested in the game and to be honest I'm noting a significant drop in interest in the game from fans and some players as well.

That's part of the reason my rectum clenches in anger every-time I hear one of Geoff's personality speeches. Having a personality isn't anything special because everyone has one. Having a good personality is a nice bonus, and yes I do love all the jokes, zoom ins and banter than happens on SotG. However if you want to be a professional player you have to be good at playing the game and that should be your primary focus, not saying he doesn't put a lot of time into the game but i get the feeling Geoff's attention is often torn between being a player and being a community personality. If you want to be a personality, casting or hosting shows are better career avenues.

On January 27 2012 20:39 I_Love_Bacon wrote:
ESPN covers sports 24-7... how much really in-depth analysis do they have? They might examine a couple of plays here and there, that's it. News, results, predictions, and interesting stories are what people want to hear.

On January 27 2012 20:39 I_Love_Bacon wrote:Despite most people thinking it would be a good idea, most people wouldn't truly understand strategy when it's really at a high level. It's interesting to hear, but most people don't get just how many moving parts go into 1 idea. I think about IdrA's time commenting his matches while he streamed practice games a while back. The amount of things he simply states without thinking about them, that might appear interesting to everybody else, are just fleating moments that require no additional time to look at for him. How can you meaningfully talk about strategy when there's such a huge gap between player and pro? The people who would actually take something out of it are the extreme minority while the other 99% are busy scratching their neckbeards pretending to understand what's going on.

On January 27 2012 18:19 LuckoftheIrish wrote:
That map discussion was... really bad. Really, really bad. I really wish Geoff was there to actually give the voice of a player who plays in tournaments. When he's organizing the EG practices, the maps they're practicing are the Tournament Big Four and these new community maps like Darkness Falls, Daybreak and Cloud Kingdom. He would have had a really good perspective on the issue, and he would have actually had intelligent things to say about the maps - Daybreak has some sick macro games, TvZ on Cloud Kingdom can be a little weird because X and Y - rather than just complaints.

Even Day9's whole speil about embracing 'I don't know' was irritating. Fine, we haven't seen 1,500 games on the ESV maps. Going that way leads to a map pool of Metalopolis, Shakuras, Dual Sight and Tal'Darim. We've seen a pretty decent number of games on some of these new maps. Newer tournaments, especially smaller ones, are embracing them. Why can't the hosts, who are theoretically the guys who should know this sort of stuff, be as aware as RANDOM_COMMUNITY_MEMBER_01?

In all that map discussion, the only strategy discussed was Artosis complaining about PvP on maps that don't have ramps, which doesn't apply to any of the new ones. In fact, he's complaining about Bel'Shir Beach and Tal'Darim Altar, which are some of the most vetted maps we have. If those two can't be used, and new maps aren't good enough either, then it looks like the 4-map pool Day9, Artosis and Tyler want is Metal, Shakuras, Dual Sight and XNC (Entombed Valley hasn't been around long enough! And MVP found a crazy new strategy and that's BAD.). That's ridiculous.

On January 27 2012 21:17 CallousCarter wrote:


I'm english and don't watch ESPN (or sky sports) but the main sports i follow are football (soccer), boxing and athletics. One of if not the most popular football programmes we have is match of the day. Its basically a highlight show for the Premier league and there's 4 ex football players who discuss the matches and they routinely peak down a goal or mistake in a high level of detail showing exactly where one team went wrong or what one team did right. I don't why nobody is doing something similar for SC2 but that's another topic. The point is there's a big market for analytical and game centric content for football, I've no idea why there wouldn't be for SC2.

I'm not saying people don't want to hear about drama as well but i feel that too often the community prioritises drama over the game. For instance take the blizzard cup. How much focus was on the matches and how much was on Naniwa's the Naniwa drama? The ratios were all wrong in my opinion.



What a a pile of bullshit. I can't stand this kind of elitist attitude. Sc2 isn't a simple game but it isn't quantum mechanics either. A reasonably articulate player/caster is perfectly capable or communicating high level strategy to your average viewer. Will the viewer know all the timings and have the mechanical skill to be able to load up a 1v1 and execute said strategy to a pro standard? No. However that doesn't mean there's no point in strategy talk. I think Starcraft 2 is a relatively visceral and entertaining game to watch especially when compared to other esports but to get the most out of watching it you have to understand what's happening and the deeper the understanding you have, the better (just like any other sport or esport). That's why casters are so important. It's also why strategy centric content like the daily is important.

State of the game has a pretty large influence over the foreign community, I just wish they would use it to promote the game more often rather than all the drama and "personalities".