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On October 14 2011 06:02 Treemonkeys wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 05:59 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:55 Treemonkeys wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:46 Treemonkeys wrote:On October 14 2011 05:44 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:42 DusTerr wrote:On October 14 2011 05:37 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:34 Treemonkeys wrote:On October 14 2011 05:32 Hnnngg wrote:
Why be a realist when being on a forum, doesn't seems conducive.
Good point. What I want to know is why didn't SC2 come with the ability to travel the galaxy FOR REAL and see the real zerg, terran, and protoss? Blizzard has enough money that they could have made it happen, they are just fucking greedy so lets boycott them. Who's with me? Because that's not possible. Idealism != impossible. Things could be better. They aren't because of Blizzard. Fuck them for making things worse. not making things better != making things worse... They're not being inactive. They are actively siphoning money from esports. They can't use all that money to reinvest back into esports. They are taking a fraction of a total sum of money would not have been available to esports at all without Starcraft 2. Microsoft should start doing the same, taking royalties from everyone making money off their computers. "You wouldn't be able to make money without our computers, give us a fraction!" They already do that essentially they're just not called royalties they're called licenses. So Microsoft charges Blizzard a fraction of every dollar they make? Or did Blizzard buy a license for a onetime fee? Or am I misunderstanding and Blizzard hasn't paid Microsoft anything? Microsoft for the most part charges for their products based on usage. So if you have a Microsoft server with 10,000 customers connecting to it at a time you're going to have to pay a hell of a lot more than if you only had 100 customers connecting at a time. Any developer that makes products for Windows has paid Microsoft a relatively large amount of money as an opportunity to make even more money.
This is absolutely untrue. You can download the Windows SDK free of charge from Microsoft's website, start developing right away and then sell your application at whatever price you want with no cuts to Microsoft.
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On October 14 2011 06:36 Hnnngg wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 06:33 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:01 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:59 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:46 Treemonkeys wrote:On October 14 2011 05:44 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:42 DusTerr wrote:On October 14 2011 05:37 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:34 Treemonkeys wrote:
[quote]
Good point.
What I want to know is why didn't SC2 come with the ability to travel the galaxy FOR REAL and see the real zerg, terran, and protoss? Blizzard has enough money that they could have made it happen, they are just fucking greedy so lets boycott them.
Who's with me? Because that's not possible. Idealism != impossible. Things could be better. They aren't because of Blizzard. Fuck them for making things worse. not making things better != making things worse... They're not being inactive. They are actively siphoning money from esports. They can't use all that money to reinvest back into esports. They are taking a fraction of a total sum of money would not have been available to esports at all without Starcraft 2. Microsoft should start doing the same, taking royalties from everyone making money off their computers. "You wouldn't be able to make money without our computers, give us a fraction!" They do. It is called having Windows or Office on your PC. So it's a onetime fee? I'm pretty sure major tournaments pay that to Blizzard ontop of the part of ad revenue going to Blizzard. You pay a lot more for these products as a business than you do as a personal user. This doesn't include their server OS, or support that comes with it. AutoCAD is $1000 for ONE license. You have to pay for a subscription to get tech support on an individual bias. $1000? Well, I've spent more on WoW by myself. Whereas the only percentage we have (50%) is a lot lot lot.
Oh, I was wrong about the $1000 plus subscription. It is really $4195. For one license. Plus, with the word subscription in there, you get charged after that too.
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I'm quite sure this has already been addressed....
- The game, according the EULA you signed, belongs solely and entirely to Blizzard and is protected under law as their copyrighted material.
- Having intellectual rights to the game, Blizzard is duly empowered to take whatever cut they wish from tournaments profiting from their intellectual property.
- As the EULA states, you do not "buy" a copy of the game, but rather an account which you can use to play the game. To those using a car analogy, yes, if Ford lets you use their intellectual property to create a car, they can make conditions on its use. Normally, however, you simply buy a car, and it becomes your personal property, and is thus entirely unrelated to the current discussion.
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On October 14 2011 06:33 Cataphract wrote:
You think David Kim just sits down one day in his office and decides on what needs to be changed and whips up the code himself? They have a TEAM of people that have the one job of balancing the game. They don't work for free.
Sorry but why do i care about the effort balancing the game, why shouldn't they support it. They want to keep the ladder active and they want to keep interest going for the expansions. You can be sure eventually they will stop regardless of if it helps eSports or not. It's totally irrelevant really, how low are your expectations that you think the richest game developer in the world that sold 4.5 million copies of their game needs extra revenue to have (gasp) a WHOLE TEAM!!!! continue balancing the game.
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On October 14 2011 06:39 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 06:18 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:12 FreudianTrip wrote:On October 14 2011 05:51 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Assirra wrote:On October 14 2011 05:40 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:36 DusTerr wrote:On October 14 2011 05:17 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:10 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 05:03 gatorling wrote:
If Blizzard gets too greedy. The market will punish them, there are plenty of other games out there that would love to be THE e-sport game.
There are plenty of games that WANT to be the e-sport game, but there is only one that I want to watch, Starcraft 2. And I think Blizzard has every right to get a share of money from tournaments. Man, the guy above me REALLY hates the single-player campaign. I would still bet that Blizzard made more money from people that only played that or enjoyed both SP and MP over those that only play MP. Being a WoW PvP player, you are always on the backburner to PvE. I see the same thing happening with SC2, except SC2 has already started with so much potential from the laurels of BW whereas WoW had a community to force it to have some semblance of competition. SC2 multiplayer is being throttled by the single-player, and Blizzard wants money from the tournaments. I'm not talking about balancing, I'm talking about time, energy, and money. The majority of the content of the original SC2 box is single-player. But because of great companies like MLG, we can have content outside of that original box. Blizzard only gave us box content, working years and years on it. But they didn't work for years on multiplayer, or balancing, or anything esports related. I don't understand why people think Blizzard is responsible for anything but single-player when talking about content. Wait, MP is being throttled by SP? I get how that happened in WoW, but explain how that's happening in SC2? First, the entire beta period was testing what part of the game? The same part of the game they spent time balancing and creating maps and a ladder system for.. MP (how well they've done isn't relevant). Everything they've done since release has also been MP related: *Balance patches (we're on 1.4 now) were ALL for MP (if you play any SP, all the original stats are still there). *All of the maps that blizzard created and have added to the ladder are for MP (sure you can use them vs AI also). *Master League and then GM being added. *updates to the observer overlays etc.. They have to throttle it. They don't have unlimited time and manpower, so they have to split the time between SP and MP. All the bulletpoints could've been with the box if they spent their time with MP instead of SP. Isn't this exactly why blizzard doesn't release games before its done? To make sure all those bulletpoints are in the box or please tell me what was so broken when you bought the game? Balance doesn't count btw, there are only a limited amount of testers and ppl nonstop find new ways to do stuff. No, the majority of time is dedicated to cinematics. Cinematics take so long to make compared to how long the actual video lasts. If you want to look at things that were broken, look at patch notes. Balance does count. They could dedicate the amount of people used to make cinematics, cosmetics, and flair to actually test things for balance. Absolutely retarded. You think a bunch of dudes who know how to use Maya and Photoshop will be badass at balancing? It wouldn't surprise me if most of them don't even play the game. Its not even the same part of the studio, its a separate team. Reading your post again it seems to be you saying fire anyone who doesn't do balance and hire balance people which is also retarded. Too many cooks spoil the broth. People to test balance. I want someone to test whether or not Guardian Shield damage reduction applies to Siege Tank attacks (hint, it didn't). They don't have to hire the Cinematic Team if they don't need one. They can use the money they would pay them to hire people to test balance. They can still have their small Balance Deciders, but they should've hired balance testers to test their balance, instead of riding on their customers to determine what is imbalanced or not (that is what has been happening by the way). It doesn't work that way, larger teams doesn't always equal better results. Besides, you're now asking Blizzard to reallocate funding from projects the community loves to increasing the size of the balance team when that may or may not have any actual effect on anything. The most it would do at best is speed up the rate at which balance patches are applied (which according to Blizzard they think is too fast as is) and at worst make balancing harder to do because with each new person brings with them differing opinions on how to proceed. The problem with the typical SC2 player is that they think any perceived imbalance should be patched immediately when Blizzard's entire mindset is to take things slowly and let the metagame evolve on its own. Your suggestion goes completely against that mindset, and they aren't changing that mindset so don't bother. It took Brood War many years to become as balanced as it is, if Blizz just releases patches every week it won't accomplish a damn thing beside making the metagame stale and the game frustrating to play.
Meta-game has nothing to do with balance. Balance isn't a perceived idea. It's just math. It takes this much time to make these many units that to do this much damage and have this much health and can take this much damage from this many units that take this amount of time to make.
It's just numbers.
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On October 14 2011 06:44 Hnnngg wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 06:39 Vindicare605 wrote:On October 14 2011 06:18 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:12 FreudianTrip wrote:On October 14 2011 05:51 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Assirra wrote:On October 14 2011 05:40 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:36 DusTerr wrote:On October 14 2011 05:17 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:10 Cataphract wrote:
[quote]
There are plenty of games that WANT to be the e-sport game, but there is only one that I want to watch, Starcraft 2.
And I think Blizzard has every right to get a share of money from tournaments.
Man, the guy above me REALLY hates the single-player campaign. I would still bet that Blizzard made more money from people that only played that or enjoyed both SP and MP over those that only play MP. Being a WoW PvP player, you are always on the backburner to PvE. I see the same thing happening with SC2, except SC2 has already started with so much potential from the laurels of BW whereas WoW had a community to force it to have some semblance of competition. SC2 multiplayer is being throttled by the single-player, and Blizzard wants money from the tournaments. I'm not talking about balancing, I'm talking about time, energy, and money. The majority of the content of the original SC2 box is single-player. But because of great companies like MLG, we can have content outside of that original box. Blizzard only gave us box content, working years and years on it. But they didn't work for years on multiplayer, or balancing, or anything esports related. I don't understand why people think Blizzard is responsible for anything but single-player when talking about content. Wait, MP is being throttled by SP? I get how that happened in WoW, but explain how that's happening in SC2? First, the entire beta period was testing what part of the game? The same part of the game they spent time balancing and creating maps and a ladder system for.. MP (how well they've done isn't relevant). Everything they've done since release has also been MP related: *Balance patches (we're on 1.4 now) were ALL for MP (if you play any SP, all the original stats are still there). *All of the maps that blizzard created and have added to the ladder are for MP (sure you can use them vs AI also). *Master League and then GM being added. *updates to the observer overlays etc.. They have to throttle it. They don't have unlimited time and manpower, so they have to split the time between SP and MP. All the bulletpoints could've been with the box if they spent their time with MP instead of SP. Isn't this exactly why blizzard doesn't release games before its done? To make sure all those bulletpoints are in the box or please tell me what was so broken when you bought the game? Balance doesn't count btw, there are only a limited amount of testers and ppl nonstop find new ways to do stuff. No, the majority of time is dedicated to cinematics. Cinematics take so long to make compared to how long the actual video lasts. If you want to look at things that were broken, look at patch notes. Balance does count. They could dedicate the amount of people used to make cinematics, cosmetics, and flair to actually test things for balance. Absolutely retarded. You think a bunch of dudes who know how to use Maya and Photoshop will be badass at balancing? It wouldn't surprise me if most of them don't even play the game. Its not even the same part of the studio, its a separate team. Reading your post again it seems to be you saying fire anyone who doesn't do balance and hire balance people which is also retarded. Too many cooks spoil the broth. People to test balance. I want someone to test whether or not Guardian Shield damage reduction applies to Siege Tank attacks (hint, it didn't). They don't have to hire the Cinematic Team if they don't need one. They can use the money they would pay them to hire people to test balance. They can still have their small Balance Deciders, but they should've hired balance testers to test their balance, instead of riding on their customers to determine what is imbalanced or not (that is what has been happening by the way). It doesn't work that way, larger teams doesn't always equal better results. Besides, you're now asking Blizzard to reallocate funding from projects the community loves to increasing the size of the balance team when that may or may not have any actual effect on anything. The most it would do at best is speed up the rate at which balance patches are applied (which according to Blizzard they think is too fast as is) and at worst make balancing harder to do because with each new person brings with them differing opinions on how to proceed. The problem with the typical SC2 player is that they think any perceived imbalance should be patched immediately when Blizzard's entire mindset is to take things slowly and let the metagame evolve on its own. Your suggestion goes completely against that mindset, and they aren't changing that mindset so don't bother. It took Brood War many years to become as balanced as it is, if Blizz just releases patches every week it won't accomplish a damn thing beside making the metagame stale and the game frustrating to play. Meta-game has nothing to do with balance. Balance isn't a perceived idea. It's just math. It takes this much time to make these many units that to do this much damage and have this much health and can take this much damage from this many units that take this amount of time to make. It's just numbers.
And this is why you aren't on the balance team.
Balance is more than simple math. You can't just tweak levers and knobs every time there's a fluctuation in the win rates of the races. Even then by what measure of win rate are you using to justify the need to tweak the levers.
Match up win percentages in GM Korea? What about GM North America? Europe? China? Russia?
What if the ladder win rates are contradicting what is happening in the pro levels? What about in the leagues below GM?
How would you explain the flavor of the month build in ZvP for a while, the one base Roach/Ling all in all of a sudden not working once Protoss players started figuring out how to stop it? Do you think a balance patch was necessary then?
How does the map pool play into the ladder win rates? How do you explain the differences in win rates across the various regions?
Balance is not a matter of simple math, even recognizing that something IS imbalanced is a much more complicated process than you seem to think it is. Addressing it in a way that doesn't completely throw the other match ups out of whack is a whole other process entirely.
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On October 14 2011 06:42 Cataphract wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 06:36 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:33 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:01 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:59 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:46 Treemonkeys wrote:On October 14 2011 05:44 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:42 DusTerr wrote:On October 14 2011 05:37 Hnnngg wrote:
[quote]
Because that's not possible. Idealism != impossible.
Things could be better. They aren't because of Blizzard. Fuck them for making things worse. not making things better != making things worse... They're not being inactive. They are actively siphoning money from esports. They can't use all that money to reinvest back into esports. They are taking a fraction of a total sum of money would not have been available to esports at all without Starcraft 2. Microsoft should start doing the same, taking royalties from everyone making money off their computers. "You wouldn't be able to make money without our computers, give us a fraction!" They do. It is called having Windows or Office on your PC. So it's a onetime fee? I'm pretty sure major tournaments pay that to Blizzard ontop of the part of ad revenue going to Blizzard. You pay a lot more for these products as a business than you do as a personal user. This doesn't include their server OS, or support that comes with it. AutoCAD is $1000 for ONE license. You have to pay for a subscription to get tech support on an individual bias. $1000? Well, I've spent more on WoW by myself. Whereas the only percentage we have (50%) is a lot lot lot. Oh, I was wrong about the $1000 plus subscription. It is really $4195. For one license. Plus, with the word subscription in there, you get charged after that too.
Still, it's a few thousand dollars for a multibillion dollar company. I'm sure Blizzard makes more from MLG than a few hundred dollars from ad revenue (MLG being a multimillion dollar franchise).
Actually, let's say MLG gets 100,000 views on ads. That's $200 per ad.
Let's be more conservative and say 50,000 ad hits. $100 per ad. That's a ton of money considering how many ads they run throughout a weekend. That adds up to $4195 really quickly, for a one time fee + subscription that generates more money than MLG can dream of.
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On October 14 2011 06:50 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 06:44 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:39 Vindicare605 wrote:On October 14 2011 06:18 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:12 FreudianTrip wrote:On October 14 2011 05:51 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Assirra wrote:On October 14 2011 05:40 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:36 DusTerr wrote:On October 14 2011 05:17 Hnnngg wrote:
[quote]
Being a WoW PvP player, you are always on the backburner to PvE. I see the same thing happening with SC2, except SC2 has already started with so much potential from the laurels of BW whereas WoW had a community to force it to have some semblance of competition.
SC2 multiplayer is being throttled by the single-player, and Blizzard wants money from the tournaments. I'm not talking about balancing, I'm talking about time, energy, and money. The majority of the content of the original SC2 box is single-player. But because of great companies like MLG, we can have content outside of that original box. Blizzard only gave us box content, working years and years on it. But they didn't work for years on multiplayer, or balancing, or anything esports related. I don't understand why people think Blizzard is responsible for anything but single-player when talking about content. Wait, MP is being throttled by SP? I get how that happened in WoW, but explain how that's happening in SC2? First, the entire beta period was testing what part of the game? The same part of the game they spent time balancing and creating maps and a ladder system for.. MP (how well they've done isn't relevant). Everything they've done since release has also been MP related: *Balance patches (we're on 1.4 now) were ALL for MP (if you play any SP, all the original stats are still there). *All of the maps that blizzard created and have added to the ladder are for MP (sure you can use them vs AI also). *Master League and then GM being added. *updates to the observer overlays etc.. They have to throttle it. They don't have unlimited time and manpower, so they have to split the time between SP and MP. All the bulletpoints could've been with the box if they spent their time with MP instead of SP. Isn't this exactly why blizzard doesn't release games before its done? To make sure all those bulletpoints are in the box or please tell me what was so broken when you bought the game? Balance doesn't count btw, there are only a limited amount of testers and ppl nonstop find new ways to do stuff. No, the majority of time is dedicated to cinematics. Cinematics take so long to make compared to how long the actual video lasts. If you want to look at things that were broken, look at patch notes. Balance does count. They could dedicate the amount of people used to make cinematics, cosmetics, and flair to actually test things for balance. Absolutely retarded. You think a bunch of dudes who know how to use Maya and Photoshop will be badass at balancing? It wouldn't surprise me if most of them don't even play the game. Its not even the same part of the studio, its a separate team. Reading your post again it seems to be you saying fire anyone who doesn't do balance and hire balance people which is also retarded. Too many cooks spoil the broth. People to test balance. I want someone to test whether or not Guardian Shield damage reduction applies to Siege Tank attacks (hint, it didn't). They don't have to hire the Cinematic Team if they don't need one. They can use the money they would pay them to hire people to test balance. They can still have their small Balance Deciders, but they should've hired balance testers to test their balance, instead of riding on their customers to determine what is imbalanced or not (that is what has been happening by the way). It doesn't work that way, larger teams doesn't always equal better results. Besides, you're now asking Blizzard to reallocate funding from projects the community loves to increasing the size of the balance team when that may or may not have any actual effect on anything. The most it would do at best is speed up the rate at which balance patches are applied (which according to Blizzard they think is too fast as is) and at worst make balancing harder to do because with each new person brings with them differing opinions on how to proceed. The problem with the typical SC2 player is that they think any perceived imbalance should be patched immediately when Blizzard's entire mindset is to take things slowly and let the metagame evolve on its own. Your suggestion goes completely against that mindset, and they aren't changing that mindset so don't bother. It took Brood War many years to become as balanced as it is, if Blizz just releases patches every week it won't accomplish a damn thing beside making the metagame stale and the game frustrating to play. Meta-game has nothing to do with balance. Balance isn't a perceived idea. It's just math. It takes this much time to make these many units that to do this much damage and have this much health and can take this much damage from this many units that take this amount of time to make. It's just numbers. And this is why you aren't on the balance team. Balance is more than simple math. You can't just tweak levers and knobs every time there's a fluctuation in the win rates of the races. Even then by what measure of win rate are you using to justify the need to tweak the levers. Match up win percentages in GM Korea? What about GM North America? Europe? China? Russia? What if the ladder win rates are contradicting what is happening in the pro levels? What about in the leagues below GM? How would you explain the flavor of the month build in ZvP for a while, the one base Roach/Ling all in all of a sudden not working once Protoss players started figuring out how to stop it? Do you think a balance patch was necessary then? How does the map pool play into the ladder win rates? How do you explain the differences in win rates across the various regions? Balance is not a matter of simple math, even recognizing that something IS imbalanced is a much more complicated process than you seem to think it is. Addressing it in a way that doesn't completely throw the other match ups out of whack is a whole other process entirely.
I didn't say anything about winrates. Good job.
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I think it is actually a really cool business model that Blizzard has come up with. It takes a lot of vision to believe that they'll be able to make significant revenue off an esports scene that barely existed when they started working on the game. So far the scene is growing beyond most people's wildest dreams.
I'm pretty sure that so far the amount of money that they're getting from big tournaments is pretty negligible to their bottom line. But if growth continues and they can actually have a solid long-term revenue stream from this stuff that will be truly amazing. Amazing for the company and also amazing for the competitive SC2 scene.
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On October 14 2011 06:24 infinity2k9 wrote:
MLG is clearly promotion for the game itself and everyone involved bought copies of the game, therefore paying for their development costs. It's just free advertisement potentially leading to more sales and continuing hype for the expansions. You say 'all the profit' like MLG is going to be raking in tons of money.
There is not much profit in eSports! I don't know how many times this has to be repeated. And again look at the BW scene if you want to see why leaving the scene alone to develop itself is preferable. To this day its still going strong with salaries, team houses, well funded events and good sponsors. There's no benefit to taking a cut other than to Blizzard, i don't understand how people can be so gung-ho for eSports constantly then arguing in favour of something that simply lines Blizzard's already massively fat pockets.
What is your point here? I'm simply stating that Blizzard have a part to play in every tournament simply because their product is the game that is being played. -_- Saying stuff like Blizzard is already rich enough is just naive, a business should thrive to maximize profit however small the gains may be and if tournament organizers keep agreeing to Blizzard's demands that is just good business in my book.
Think of it as paying that extra cleaning lady at Blizzard's office.
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On October 14 2011 06:53 Hnnngg wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 06:50 Vindicare605 wrote:On October 14 2011 06:44 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:39 Vindicare605 wrote:On October 14 2011 06:18 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:12 FreudianTrip wrote:On October 14 2011 05:51 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Assirra wrote:On October 14 2011 05:40 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:36 DusTerr wrote:
[quote]
Wait, MP is being throttled by SP? I get how that happened in WoW, but explain how that's happening in SC2?
First, the entire beta period was testing what part of the game? The same part of the game they spent time balancing and creating maps and a ladder system for.. MP (how well they've done isn't relevant).
Everything they've done since release has also been MP related:
*Balance patches (we're on 1.4 now) were ALL for MP (if you play any SP, all the original stats are still there).
*All of the maps that blizzard created and have added to the ladder are for MP (sure you can use them vs AI also).
*Master League and then GM being added.
*updates to the observer overlays
etc..
They have to throttle it. They don't have unlimited time and manpower, so they have to split the time between SP and MP. All the bulletpoints could've been with the box if they spent their time with MP instead of SP. Isn't this exactly why blizzard doesn't release games before its done? To make sure all those bulletpoints are in the box or please tell me what was so broken when you bought the game? Balance doesn't count btw, there are only a limited amount of testers and ppl nonstop find new ways to do stuff. No, the majority of time is dedicated to cinematics. Cinematics take so long to make compared to how long the actual video lasts. If you want to look at things that were broken, look at patch notes. Balance does count. They could dedicate the amount of people used to make cinematics, cosmetics, and flair to actually test things for balance. Absolutely retarded. You think a bunch of dudes who know how to use Maya and Photoshop will be badass at balancing? It wouldn't surprise me if most of them don't even play the game. Its not even the same part of the studio, its a separate team. Reading your post again it seems to be you saying fire anyone who doesn't do balance and hire balance people which is also retarded. Too many cooks spoil the broth. People to test balance. I want someone to test whether or not Guardian Shield damage reduction applies to Siege Tank attacks (hint, it didn't). They don't have to hire the Cinematic Team if they don't need one. They can use the money they would pay them to hire people to test balance. They can still have their small Balance Deciders, but they should've hired balance testers to test their balance, instead of riding on their customers to determine what is imbalanced or not (that is what has been happening by the way). It doesn't work that way, larger teams doesn't always equal better results. Besides, you're now asking Blizzard to reallocate funding from projects the community loves to increasing the size of the balance team when that may or may not have any actual effect on anything. The most it would do at best is speed up the rate at which balance patches are applied (which according to Blizzard they think is too fast as is) and at worst make balancing harder to do because with each new person brings with them differing opinions on how to proceed. The problem with the typical SC2 player is that they think any perceived imbalance should be patched immediately when Blizzard's entire mindset is to take things slowly and let the metagame evolve on its own. Your suggestion goes completely against that mindset, and they aren't changing that mindset so don't bother. It took Brood War many years to become as balanced as it is, if Blizz just releases patches every week it won't accomplish a damn thing beside making the metagame stale and the game frustrating to play. Meta-game has nothing to do with balance. Balance isn't a perceived idea. It's just math. It takes this much time to make these many units that to do this much damage and have this much health and can take this much damage from this many units that take this amount of time to make. It's just numbers. And this is why you aren't on the balance team. Balance is more than simple math. You can't just tweak levers and knobs every time there's a fluctuation in the win rates of the races. Even then by what measure of win rate are you using to justify the need to tweak the levers. Match up win percentages in GM Korea? What about GM North America? Europe? China? Russia? What if the ladder win rates are contradicting what is happening in the pro levels? What about in the leagues below GM? How would you explain the flavor of the month build in ZvP for a while, the one base Roach/Ling all in all of a sudden not working once Protoss players started figuring out how to stop it? Do you think a balance patch was necessary then? How does the map pool play into the ladder win rates? How do you explain the differences in win rates across the various regions? Balance is not a matter of simple math, even recognizing that something IS imbalanced is a much more complicated process than you seem to think it is. Addressing it in a way that doesn't completely throw the other match ups out of whack is a whole other process entirely. I didn't say anything about winrates. Good job.
Ok cool, so you're saying Balance is simple numbers and yet you aren't even proposing a way in which we can measure it.
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On October 14 2011 06:52 Hnnngg wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 06:42 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:36 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:33 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:01 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:59 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:46 Treemonkeys wrote:On October 14 2011 05:44 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:42 DusTerr wrote:
[quote]
not making things better != making things worse... They're not being inactive. They are actively siphoning money from esports. They can't use all that money to reinvest back into esports. They are taking a fraction of a total sum of money would not have been available to esports at all without Starcraft 2. Microsoft should start doing the same, taking royalties from everyone making money off their computers. "You wouldn't be able to make money without our computers, give us a fraction!" They do. It is called having Windows or Office on your PC. So it's a onetime fee? I'm pretty sure major tournaments pay that to Blizzard ontop of the part of ad revenue going to Blizzard. You pay a lot more for these products as a business than you do as a personal user. This doesn't include their server OS, or support that comes with it. AutoCAD is $1000 for ONE license. You have to pay for a subscription to get tech support on an individual bias. $1000? Well, I've spent more on WoW by myself. Whereas the only percentage we have (50%) is a lot lot lot. Oh, I was wrong about the $1000 plus subscription. It is really $4195. For one license. Plus, with the word subscription in there, you get charged after that too. Still, it's a few thousand dollars for a multibillion dollar company.
You would be amazed at how quickly software licensing fees at up for large corporations. Microsoft can and does charge companies millions of dollars in license fees. Even $100 licensing fee can get pretty major when it's per VM for a major company.
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On October 14 2011 07:01 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 06:53 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:50 Vindicare605 wrote:On October 14 2011 06:44 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:39 Vindicare605 wrote:On October 14 2011 06:18 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:12 FreudianTrip wrote:On October 14 2011 05:51 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Assirra wrote:On October 14 2011 05:40 Hnnngg wrote:
[quote]
They have to throttle it. They don't have unlimited time and manpower, so they have to split the time between SP and MP. All the bulletpoints could've been with the box if they spent their time with MP instead of SP.
Isn't this exactly why blizzard doesn't release games before its done? To make sure all those bulletpoints are in the box or please tell me what was so broken when you bought the game? Balance doesn't count btw, there are only a limited amount of testers and ppl nonstop find new ways to do stuff. No, the majority of time is dedicated to cinematics. Cinematics take so long to make compared to how long the actual video lasts. If you want to look at things that were broken, look at patch notes. Balance does count. They could dedicate the amount of people used to make cinematics, cosmetics, and flair to actually test things for balance. Absolutely retarded. You think a bunch of dudes who know how to use Maya and Photoshop will be badass at balancing? It wouldn't surprise me if most of them don't even play the game. Its not even the same part of the studio, its a separate team. Reading your post again it seems to be you saying fire anyone who doesn't do balance and hire balance people which is also retarded. Too many cooks spoil the broth. People to test balance. I want someone to test whether or not Guardian Shield damage reduction applies to Siege Tank attacks (hint, it didn't). They don't have to hire the Cinematic Team if they don't need one. They can use the money they would pay them to hire people to test balance. They can still have their small Balance Deciders, but they should've hired balance testers to test their balance, instead of riding on their customers to determine what is imbalanced or not (that is what has been happening by the way). It doesn't work that way, larger teams doesn't always equal better results. Besides, you're now asking Blizzard to reallocate funding from projects the community loves to increasing the size of the balance team when that may or may not have any actual effect on anything. The most it would do at best is speed up the rate at which balance patches are applied (which according to Blizzard they think is too fast as is) and at worst make balancing harder to do because with each new person brings with them differing opinions on how to proceed. The problem with the typical SC2 player is that they think any perceived imbalance should be patched immediately when Blizzard's entire mindset is to take things slowly and let the metagame evolve on its own. Your suggestion goes completely against that mindset, and they aren't changing that mindset so don't bother. It took Brood War many years to become as balanced as it is, if Blizz just releases patches every week it won't accomplish a damn thing beside making the metagame stale and the game frustrating to play. Meta-game has nothing to do with balance. Balance isn't a perceived idea. It's just math. It takes this much time to make these many units that to do this much damage and have this much health and can take this much damage from this many units that take this amount of time to make. It's just numbers. And this is why you aren't on the balance team. Balance is more than simple math. You can't just tweak levers and knobs every time there's a fluctuation in the win rates of the races. Even then by what measure of win rate are you using to justify the need to tweak the levers. Match up win percentages in GM Korea? What about GM North America? Europe? China? Russia? What if the ladder win rates are contradicting what is happening in the pro levels? What about in the leagues below GM? How would you explain the flavor of the month build in ZvP for a while, the one base Roach/Ling all in all of a sudden not working once Protoss players started figuring out how to stop it? Do you think a balance patch was necessary then? How does the map pool play into the ladder win rates? How do you explain the differences in win rates across the various regions? Balance is not a matter of simple math, even recognizing that something IS imbalanced is a much more complicated process than you seem to think it is. Addressing it in a way that doesn't completely throw the other match ups out of whack is a whole other process entirely. I didn't say anything about winrates. Good job. Ok cool, so you're saying Balance is simple numbers and yet you aren't even proposing a way in which we can measure it.
Winrates only tell you where to look, not what to do.
If you look at the winrates of all frosTSG teams, and they have wlr of about 90%, you'd say that'd be unbalanced yeh? So then you just blanket nerf Mortal Strike and Frost Strike, where the real problems are Spell Reflect and Necrotic Strike.
Winrates are not how you determine balance.
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On October 14 2011 07:04 Ribbon wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 06:52 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:42 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:36 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:33 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:01 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:59 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:46 Treemonkeys wrote:On October 14 2011 05:44 Hnnngg wrote:
[quote]
They're not being inactive. They are actively siphoning money from esports. They can't use all that money to reinvest back into esports. They are taking a fraction of a total sum of money would not have been available to esports at all without Starcraft 2. Microsoft should start doing the same, taking royalties from everyone making money off their computers. "You wouldn't be able to make money without our computers, give us a fraction!" They do. It is called having Windows or Office on your PC. So it's a onetime fee? I'm pretty sure major tournaments pay that to Blizzard ontop of the part of ad revenue going to Blizzard. You pay a lot more for these products as a business than you do as a personal user. This doesn't include their server OS, or support that comes with it. AutoCAD is $1000 for ONE license. You have to pay for a subscription to get tech support on an individual bias. $1000? Well, I've spent more on WoW by myself. Whereas the only percentage we have (50%) is a lot lot lot. Oh, I was wrong about the $1000 plus subscription. It is really $4195. For one license. Plus, with the word subscription in there, you get charged after that too. Still, it's a few thousand dollars for a multibillion dollar company. You would be amazed at how quickly software licensing fees at up for large corporations. Microsoft can and does charge companies millions of dollars in license fees. Even $100 licensing fee can get pretty major when it's per VM for a major company.
I don't think Blizzard is paying Microsoft millions of dollars to make video games.
I'd actually be interested to see how much money Blizzard pays Microsoft and how much MLG pays Blizzard compared to their revenues.
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On October 14 2011 07:07 Hnnngg wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 07:04 Ribbon wrote:On October 14 2011 06:52 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:42 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:36 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:33 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:01 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:59 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:46 Treemonkeys wrote:
[quote]
They are taking a fraction of a total sum of money would not have been available to esports at all without Starcraft 2.
Microsoft should start doing the same, taking royalties from everyone making money off their computers. "You wouldn't be able to make money without our computers, give us a fraction!" They do. It is called having Windows or Office on your PC. So it's a onetime fee? I'm pretty sure major tournaments pay that to Blizzard ontop of the part of ad revenue going to Blizzard. You pay a lot more for these products as a business than you do as a personal user. This doesn't include their server OS, or support that comes with it. AutoCAD is $1000 for ONE license. You have to pay for a subscription to get tech support on an individual bias. $1000? Well, I've spent more on WoW by myself. Whereas the only percentage we have (50%) is a lot lot lot. Oh, I was wrong about the $1000 plus subscription. It is really $4195. For one license. Plus, with the word subscription in there, you get charged after that too. Still, it's a few thousand dollars for a multibillion dollar company. You would be amazed at how quickly software licensing fees at up for large corporations. Microsoft can and does charge companies millions of dollars in license fees. Even $100 licensing fee can get pretty major when it's per VM for a major company. I don't think Blizzard is paying Microsoft millions of dollars to make video games. I'd actually be interested to see how much money Blizzard pays Microsoft and how much MLG pays Blizzard compared to their revenues.
As a very rough estimate on the upper bound, if they used Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN, paid the full retail price of $1,199.00 for every single one, and had 12-14 programmers that would be at most $17,000.
Of course, they could have paid nothing at all and used the free SDK with their own toolchain; it is a simple matter of convenience, they are in no way forced to pay MS anything. And no cuts from the revenue generated by the product goes to Microsoft, this is just absurd.
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On October 14 2011 07:40 qyk05328 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 07:07 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 07:04 Ribbon wrote:On October 14 2011 06:52 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:42 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:36 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:33 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:01 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:59 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Hnnngg wrote:
[quote]
Microsoft should start doing the same, taking royalties from everyone making money off their computers.
"You wouldn't be able to make money without our computers, give us a fraction!"
They do. It is called having Windows or Office on your PC. So it's a onetime fee? I'm pretty sure major tournaments pay that to Blizzard ontop of the part of ad revenue going to Blizzard. You pay a lot more for these products as a business than you do as a personal user. This doesn't include their server OS, or support that comes with it. AutoCAD is $1000 for ONE license. You have to pay for a subscription to get tech support on an individual bias. $1000? Well, I've spent more on WoW by myself. Whereas the only percentage we have (50%) is a lot lot lot. Oh, I was wrong about the $1000 plus subscription. It is really $4195. For one license. Plus, with the word subscription in there, you get charged after that too. Still, it's a few thousand dollars for a multibillion dollar company. You would be amazed at how quickly software licensing fees at up for large corporations. Microsoft can and does charge companies millions of dollars in license fees. Even $100 licensing fee can get pretty major when it's per VM for a major company. I don't think Blizzard is paying Microsoft millions of dollars to make video games. I'd actually be interested to see how much money Blizzard pays Microsoft and how much MLG pays Blizzard compared to their revenues. As a very rough estimate on the upper bound, if they used Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN, paid the full retail price of $1,199.00 for every single one, and had 12-14 programmers that would be at most $17,000. Of course, they could have paid nothing at all and used the free SDK with their own toolchain; it is a simple matter of convenience, they are in no way forced to pay MS anything. And no cuts from the revenue generated by the product goes to Microsoft, this is just absurd.
Yea, there are alot of people in here defending Blizz with no idea what they are talking about. Does Valve take a monetary cut from tournaments using CS? Just wondering..
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On October 14 2011 07:40 qyk05328 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 07:07 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 07:04 Ribbon wrote:On October 14 2011 06:52 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:42 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:36 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:33 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:01 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:59 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 05:49 Hnnngg wrote:
[quote]
Microsoft should start doing the same, taking royalties from everyone making money off their computers.
"You wouldn't be able to make money without our computers, give us a fraction!"
They do. It is called having Windows or Office on your PC. So it's a onetime fee? I'm pretty sure major tournaments pay that to Blizzard ontop of the part of ad revenue going to Blizzard. You pay a lot more for these products as a business than you do as a personal user. This doesn't include their server OS, or support that comes with it. AutoCAD is $1000 for ONE license. You have to pay for a subscription to get tech support on an individual bias. $1000? Well, I've spent more on WoW by myself. Whereas the only percentage we have (50%) is a lot lot lot. Oh, I was wrong about the $1000 plus subscription. It is really $4195. For one license. Plus, with the word subscription in there, you get charged after that too. Still, it's a few thousand dollars for a multibillion dollar company. You would be amazed at how quickly software licensing fees at up for large corporations. Microsoft can and does charge companies millions of dollars in license fees. Even $100 licensing fee can get pretty major when it's per VM for a major company. I don't think Blizzard is paying Microsoft millions of dollars to make video games. I'd actually be interested to see how much money Blizzard pays Microsoft and how much MLG pays Blizzard compared to their revenues. As a very rough estimate on the upper bound, if they used Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN, paid the full retail price of $1,199.00 for every single one, and had 12-14 programmers that would be at most $17,000. Of course, they could have paid nothing at all and used the free SDK with their own toolchain; it is a simple matter of convenience, they are in no way forced to pay MS anything. And no cuts from the revenue generated by the product goes to Microsoft, this is just absurd.
Oh.
That makes Blizzard look like dicks.
OOOH.
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On October 14 2011 07:44 SupLilSon wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 07:40 qyk05328 wrote:On October 14 2011 07:07 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 07:04 Ribbon wrote:On October 14 2011 06:52 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:42 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:36 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:33 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:01 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 05:59 Cataphract wrote:
[quote]
They do. It is called having Windows or Office on your PC. So it's a onetime fee? I'm pretty sure major tournaments pay that to Blizzard ontop of the part of ad revenue going to Blizzard. You pay a lot more for these products as a business than you do as a personal user. This doesn't include their server OS, or support that comes with it. AutoCAD is $1000 for ONE license. You have to pay for a subscription to get tech support on an individual bias. $1000? Well, I've spent more on WoW by myself. Whereas the only percentage we have (50%) is a lot lot lot. Oh, I was wrong about the $1000 plus subscription. It is really $4195. For one license. Plus, with the word subscription in there, you get charged after that too. Still, it's a few thousand dollars for a multibillion dollar company. You would be amazed at how quickly software licensing fees at up for large corporations. Microsoft can and does charge companies millions of dollars in license fees. Even $100 licensing fee can get pretty major when it's per VM for a major company. I don't think Blizzard is paying Microsoft millions of dollars to make video games. I'd actually be interested to see how much money Blizzard pays Microsoft and how much MLG pays Blizzard compared to their revenues. As a very rough estimate on the upper bound, if they used Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN, paid the full retail price of $1,199.00 for every single one, and had 12-14 programmers that would be at most $17,000. Of course, they could have paid nothing at all and used the free SDK with their own toolchain; it is a simple matter of convenience, they are in no way forced to pay MS anything. And no cuts from the revenue generated by the product goes to Microsoft, this is just absurd. Yea, there are alot of people in here defending Blizz with no idea what they are talking about. Does Valve take a monetary cut from tournaments using CS? Just wondering..
Do we have ANYONE who knows anything about this whole point?
The one person that knows wtf is going on (MLG_Lee) simply got ignored for more factless rambling.
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On October 14 2011 07:47 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 07:44 SupLilSon wrote:On October 14 2011 07:40 qyk05328 wrote:On October 14 2011 07:07 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 07:04 Ribbon wrote:On October 14 2011 06:52 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:42 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:36 Hnnngg wrote:On October 14 2011 06:33 Cataphract wrote:On October 14 2011 06:01 Hnnngg wrote:
[quote]
So it's a onetime fee? I'm pretty sure major tournaments pay that to Blizzard ontop of the part of ad revenue going to Blizzard. You pay a lot more for these products as a business than you do as a personal user. This doesn't include their server OS, or support that comes with it. AutoCAD is $1000 for ONE license. You have to pay for a subscription to get tech support on an individual bias. $1000? Well, I've spent more on WoW by myself. Whereas the only percentage we have (50%) is a lot lot lot. Oh, I was wrong about the $1000 plus subscription. It is really $4195. For one license. Plus, with the word subscription in there, you get charged after that too. Still, it's a few thousand dollars for a multibillion dollar company. You would be amazed at how quickly software licensing fees at up for large corporations. Microsoft can and does charge companies millions of dollars in license fees. Even $100 licensing fee can get pretty major when it's per VM for a major company. I don't think Blizzard is paying Microsoft millions of dollars to make video games. I'd actually be interested to see how much money Blizzard pays Microsoft and how much MLG pays Blizzard compared to their revenues. As a very rough estimate on the upper bound, if they used Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN, paid the full retail price of $1,199.00 for every single one, and had 12-14 programmers that would be at most $17,000. Of course, they could have paid nothing at all and used the free SDK with their own toolchain; it is a simple matter of convenience, they are in no way forced to pay MS anything. And no cuts from the revenue generated by the product goes to Microsoft, this is just absurd. Yea, there are alot of people in here defending Blizz with no idea what they are talking about. Does Valve take a monetary cut from tournaments using CS? Just wondering.. Do we have ANYONE who knows anything about this whole point? The one person that knows wtf is going on (MLG_Lee) simply got ignored for more factless rambling.
There's this sweet thing called an NDA. Basically means nobody can talk about anything. No scrutiny, at least on a fan level.
We get to take a backseat ride to Blizzard's apparent drunk driving (no we don't support gold-selling, but now we do).
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EPT
