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Beyonder
Netherlands15103 Posts
On October 17 2012 17:45 SarcasmMonster wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 17:44 TheKefka wrote:On October 17 2012 17:44 Fionn wrote:On October 17 2012 17:42 TheKefka wrote:On October 17 2012 17:39 Fionn wrote:On October 17 2012 17:37 TheKefka wrote:On October 17 2012 17:32 Fionn wrote:On October 17 2012 17:30 FXOUnstable wrote:On October 17 2012 17:28 tyner wrote:On October 17 2012 17:17 Sea_Food wrote:
[quote]
HDH invational had 35 000 live viewers + ALL of the 300 VoDs it was divided to have 100 000 - 400 000 live viewers. 2000$price pool.
TSL4 finals had what, 25 000 liver viewers? The VoDs have 15 000 -20 000 viewers. This is tournament of 35 500$ price pool. mmm I don't think TSL4 is a good example. All the crowd favorites were eliminated early on. The top finishers consisted of under the radar (to most people) Korean players. I know if naNiwa had made it past the 1st round I would've watched it till he went out at least. Actually I think thats a good example of the current state of affairs atm, no matter what prize pool you give it's often being won by unknown koreans so people stop watching, which reduces the turnout over time on events regardless of their prize pool. Can't you say that about LoL, too? Let's say Korea/Taiwan/China take over LoL and the popular teams like TSM, CLG.na, Diginitas get wiped out and it's constantly Asian dominance. Do you think the viewership will continue to grow? It already is,the finals for world championship was a Koreans team vs Taiwan team. The viewership numbers were the biggest ever.The NA scene currently is laughable compared to the Asians and 2 teams in Europe and yet the viewers grow. The reason is that the scenes are very isolated and there is only a couple of tournaments where they meet in a year,on a grand stage. In sc2 people are constantly reminded that the white guys suck dick,where as in LoL the NA scene gets a beating a couple of times in the year and that's it.People are given room for hope I guess. Don't take one case of the GRAND FINALS OF THE WORLD and say it will be like that forever. If the American and European teams get stomped by the Asians constantly, viewership will start to decline. I told you it's not the case because the scenes are very isolated,there is no LAN and the it's impossible to compete reasonably with a 200-250 ping. The online tournaments are very region based,so the clash Asians vs NA doesn't happen often at all. Online LoL tournaments don't draw 100,000+ numbers. Yes they do lol The online tourneys?
Online tourneys dont really draw 100k+ :o
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On October 17 2012 17:40 Beyonder wrote:
I do really wonder where Blizzard failed. Did they fail because they did not address to the masses (where LoL, for example, does)? Or did Blizzard fail by not focusing on the game at the highest level (progaming)? It really feels that their focus is somewhere in between, which is the problem.
SC2 greatly taxes you due to the 1v1 situation, the investment you make into a ~20/30 minute game both mentally and physically. And this is something which many people can not keep up, as it is not pleasurable for most. There are really no alternatives in the game to this for more casual gamers to calm down. They tried through adding icons and achievements, but really, these are silly and never work on a long-term basis. Warcraft 3 fixed this with 2v2 and 4v4 ladders and random teams, with dota and other UMS. Brood war had great custom maps too. Here, SC2 feels empty. A lot of this could have been prevented with casual ladder systems and casual maps that appeal to the masses, similar to BGH did in BW. Riot once again outperforms Blizzard here, as they added fun modes to the game (Dominion, though it is kind of crap, but the recent ARAM is awesome and addictive), and there are regular games in addition to the ELO-based ladder system, which many people again find taxing and a source of frustration (even if there, you can blame your team mates!)
And for progaming, the game is also crap. BW did a wonderful job here and the expansion saved it. It seems Blizzard is trying, but still failing. It would have been better (upon admitting that Blizzard does not have the knowledge or skills to create a mostly new wonderful game) if the useless units out of BW were replaced by more skillful, active units (such as the scout), and some skillful, active units were added. Oh well.
Well, Bey we all know the standard starting points:
- KeSPA fiasco surely didn't help the Korean market
- Cross realm bullshit barriers/money (bad lat whoopee) and B.Net 2.0 which had console guys working on it lmao (these definitely deserve to be tied together because it is the infrastructure for the game and it includes everything from the way we socialize to how they treated UMS and match making). This is what I believe Destiny means when it comes to making it more accessible to the casual fans because it's a RTS game for crying out loud but there should be a lot more options for interaction and hoping into a UMS game.
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On October 17 2012 17:46 Beyonder wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 17:45 SarcasmMonster wrote:On October 17 2012 17:44 TheKefka wrote:On October 17 2012 17:44 Fionn wrote:On October 17 2012 17:42 TheKefka wrote:On October 17 2012 17:39 Fionn wrote:On October 17 2012 17:37 TheKefka wrote:On October 17 2012 17:32 Fionn wrote:On October 17 2012 17:30 FXOUnstable wrote:On October 17 2012 17:28 tyner wrote:
[quote]
mmm I don't think TSL4 is a good example. All the crowd favorites were eliminated early on. The top finishers consisted of under the radar (to most people) Korean players. I know if naNiwa had made it past the 1st round I would've watched it till he went out at least. Actually I think thats a good example of the current state of affairs atm, no matter what prize pool you give it's often being won by unknown koreans so people stop watching, which reduces the turnout over time on events regardless of their prize pool. Can't you say that about LoL, too? Let's say Korea/Taiwan/China take over LoL and the popular teams like TSM, CLG.na, Diginitas get wiped out and it's constantly Asian dominance. Do you think the viewership will continue to grow? It already is,the finals for world championship was a Koreans team vs Taiwan team. The viewership numbers were the biggest ever.The NA scene currently is laughable compared to the Asians and 2 teams in Europe and yet the viewers grow. The reason is that the scenes are very isolated and there is only a couple of tournaments where they meet in a year,on a grand stage. In sc2 people are constantly reminded that the white guys suck dick,where as in LoL the NA scene gets a beating a couple of times in the year and that's it.People are given room for hope I guess. Don't take one case of the GRAND FINALS OF THE WORLD and say it will be like that forever. If the American and European teams get stomped by the Asians constantly, viewership will start to decline. I told you it's not the case because the scenes are very isolated,there is no LAN and the it's impossible to compete reasonably with a 200-250 ping. The online tournaments are very region based,so the clash Asians vs NA doesn't happen often at all. Online LoL tournaments don't draw 100,000+ numbers. Yes they do lol The online tourneys? Online tourneys dont really draw 100k+ :o
TheKefka is saying otherwise so I was confused.
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On October 17 2012 17:45 Fionn wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 17:44 TheKefka wrote:On October 17 2012 17:44 Fionn wrote:On October 17 2012 17:42 TheKefka wrote:On October 17 2012 17:39 Fionn wrote:On October 17 2012 17:37 TheKefka wrote:On October 17 2012 17:32 Fionn wrote:On October 17 2012 17:30 FXOUnstable wrote:On October 17 2012 17:28 tyner wrote:On October 17 2012 17:17 Sea_Food wrote:
[quote]
HDH invational had 35 000 live viewers + ALL of the 300 VoDs it was divided to have 100 000 - 400 000 live viewers. 2000$price pool.
TSL4 finals had what, 25 000 liver viewers? The VoDs have 15 000 -20 000 viewers. This is tournament of 35 500$ price pool. mmm I don't think TSL4 is a good example. All the crowd favorites were eliminated early on. The top finishers consisted of under the radar (to most people) Korean players. I know if naNiwa had made it past the 1st round I would've watched it till he went out at least. Actually I think thats a good example of the current state of affairs atm, no matter what prize pool you give it's often being won by unknown koreans so people stop watching, which reduces the turnout over time on events regardless of their prize pool. Can't you say that about LoL, too? Let's say Korea/Taiwan/China take over LoL and the popular teams like TSM, CLG.na, Diginitas get wiped out and it's constantly Asian dominance. Do you think the viewership will continue to grow? It already is,the finals for world championship was a Koreans team vs Taiwan team. The viewership numbers were the biggest ever.The NA scene currently is laughable compared to the Asians and 2 teams in Europe and yet the viewers grow. The reason is that the scenes are very isolated and there is only a couple of tournaments where they meet in a year,on a grand stage. In sc2 people are constantly reminded that the white guys suck dick,where as in LoL the NA scene gets a beating a couple of times in the year and that's it.People are given room for hope I guess. Don't take one case of the GRAND FINALS OF THE WORLD and say it will be like that forever. If the American and European teams get stomped by the Asians constantly, viewership will start to decline. I told you it's not the case because the scenes are very isolated,there is no LAN and the it's impossible to compete reasonably with a 200-250 ping. The online tournaments are very region based,so the clash Asians vs NA doesn't happen often at all. Online LoL tournaments don't draw 100,000+ numbers. Yes they do lol Can I have examples? I'm not super well versed in LoL e-sports, but I don't remember an online LoL tournament getting massive numbers. IPL had qualifiers that were around the same as SC2.
I think TSM invitational had a massive amount of viewers just before the Regionals.It wasn't 100k but it was like 80 I think.I mean just the players draw a huge amount.Yesterday Froggen and Oddone were streaming at the same time and both had 20 k at once.
But w/e my point is that Asians vs NA doesn't happen nearly as often as with sc2 and people get to build their delusional fanbase.
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On October 17 2012 17:45 Beyonder wrote:
And most of the reason Koreans winning isnt good for foreign spectator amounts, is because SC2 is still not very good. If SC2 was awesome, then play at the highest level would be an amazing spectator event that everyone would want to see.
I'm still entertained by a lot of matches, but I can understand where you are coming from.
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On October 17 2012 17:28 SarcasmMonster wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 17:24 Tobberoth wrote:On October 17 2012 17:21 soullogik wrote:
sc2 was flawed from the beginning.
hots looks like its more of the same.
if LoL is the future of esports, welp time to give up.
just gonna have to wait another 5 years for some developers to step up.
tho it doesn't look too good as most developers prefer to just shit out casual games to keep the masses entertained for a few weeks/month's.
This is why we need to put our faith in Dota 2. Amazing game? Check. Far from casual? Check. Good company supporting it? Check.Potential to get a lot of viewers? Check. When was Valve ever considered a GOOD esports community? They've totally neglected CS 1.6 scene. TF2 is casual as hell (random crits  ). Maybe DOTA2 will break the mold since its a clone of the WC3 mod, but Valve does not strike me as a serious esports company.
I said nothing about Valve being a good esports community, I said it's a good company and it's supporting it. Why are they good? Because they listen to the community and do their absolute best to appease it. What people wanted: Dota 1 in a new engine with better graphics and cool extras. Exactly that was supplied. No BS having to pay for heroes or ANY form of pay-to-win what so ever.
As for being a good esports company, maybe you haven't heard, but valve are the ones behind the international. If you didn't watch TI2, I would recommend not commenting on valves capacity for supporting esport, because the event was frickin amazing and honestly blew pretty much every single SC2 tournament out of the water clean.
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On October 17 2012 17:40 Beyonder wrote:
I do really wonder where Blizzard failed. Did they fail because they did not address to the masses (where LoL, for example, does)? Or did Blizzard fail by not focusing on the game at the highest level (progaming)? It really feels that their focus is somewhere in between, which is the problem.
THIS.
This man has just nailed it. Starcraft 2 will not grow if it becomes more casual, it needs to be the hardcore E-sport, and right now Brood War still is.
Yes, limited unit selection and manually clicking on production structures are tedious, but it differenciates the greatest player of all from the great ones. Flash would never be OSL champion and then fall into "code A" 2 seasons later. Only in SC2, where the skill ceilling is lower, that this happens.
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Blizzard failed with the interface at release, fine, but it's been over 2 years and they've done almost nothing.
It took them over a year to even acknowledge their failure. All their games are declining sharply, and they've distanced themselves from the players so much now. People've been hating on EA, on Activision (which is ActiBlizz now anyway), sadly Blizzard is no better now. They are no longer a top class developer but they hold on to some of the world's finest IPs and that's it. When I look at their performance in the past few years, I just don't see why HotS would be any better than WoL.
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I agree. I don't think Blizzard ever has, does, or ever will give a shit. In my mind, all they care about is milking every single last penny out of the gaming community, without giving what they promised back.
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On October 17 2012 17:51 Patate wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 17:40 Beyonder wrote:
I do really wonder where Blizzard failed. Did they fail because they did not address to the masses (where LoL, for example, does)? Or did Blizzard fail by not focusing on the game at the highest level (progaming)? It really feels that their focus is somewhere in between, which is the problem.
THIS. This man has just nailed it. Starcraft 2 will not grow if it becomes more casual, it needs to be the hardcore E-sport, and right now Brood War still is. Yes, limited unit selection and manually clicking on production structures are tedious, but it differenciates the greatest player of all from the great ones. Flash would never be OSL champion and then fall into "code A" 2 seasons later. Only in SC2, where the skill ceilling is lower, that this happens.
The OSL format makes it almost impossible for that to happen if I recall correctly. Even if you lost every single game, it takes 3 seasons to go from winner to "code A". (Correct me if I'm not remembering correctly.)
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Who cares about the popularity of the game in Korea, SC2 is international based, and should be compared to wc3, which thrived for a very long time, and only late into 2008 was there a decline.
It is stupid to compare a game that is popular in Sweden, Germany, Russia, America, France, Spain, England, Canada, South America, Australia, to a game that was popular in Korea.
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Most players don't want to play a full faction in a 1v1. It's lonely, and a lot of effort. But they might like to play half a faction.
Solution: Builder/Fighter pairs.
Two players pair up, or are paired by matchmaking, and play as if they were one player. One of them controls workers and buildings. The other controls all the other units. And that's it! Now, they can play any standard format (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, or even sillier stuff like 2v2v2v2bgh) and only play their preferred half of the game.
The clincher is that a Builder/Fighter pair, whether pre-arranged or paired through matchmaking, can play in the 1v1 ladder against competitive-style solo players. Or in the 2v2 ladder. Or the 3v3 ladder! Heck, when you cue for ladder, you could have a little row of checkboxes:
Builder: [ ] Fighter: [ ] Solo: [ ]
And a second row of checkboxes: Protoss: [ ] Terran: [ ] Zerg: [ ]
Or, why not go whole hog? A 3x3 grid of which options you're okay with. Maybe you like playing Zerg units, but can't stand macroing them. OK, check Fighter for Zerg, but not Builder for Zerg. Cool!
Of course, the fewer options you select, the longer it'll take to make you a match, and Blizz may want to keep numbers to track your skill level at each role. But... that's probably manageable. If queue times get bad because too many fighters or too many builders, Blizzard could allow for AI partners to fill out a Builder/Fighter pair (at low levels, wherein a non-cheating AI is actually a decent player).
We good?
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Russian Federation117 Posts
On October 17 2012 17:51 Patate wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 17:40 Beyonder wrote:
I do really wonder where Blizzard failed. Did they fail because they did not address to the masses (where LoL, for example, does)? Or did Blizzard fail by not focusing on the game at the highest level (progaming)? It really feels that their focus is somewhere in between, which is the problem.
THIS. This man has just nailed it. Starcraft 2 will not grow if it becomes more casual, it needs to be the hardcore E-sport, and right now Brood War is.
I think you don't see the actual point. LoL has a huge hardcore competitive community but the viewership of the tournaments (which is what ultimately attracts MONEYZ) doesn't consist in the majority of those hardcore dedicated fans. There're about as many if not more CASUAL players watching them.
Now, ask yourself a question: why we're currently seeing decline in those viewers numbers for SC2 tournaments? I'm sure all the hardcore SC2 players are still watching. The problem is that as Destiny rightfully pointed out, the CASUALS are leaving and there's not enough incentive to attract new players to the game.
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Quite an interesting topic although it seems to be discussed from a completely distorted point of view: namely a capitalistic viewpoint.
Who says that there has to be a huge SC2 Scene with lots of paying sponsors and tournaments with prize money in the millions?
StarCraft players should not mainly be driven by greed or financial interest but by an inherent will to improve in a discipline without hoping for any reward whatsoever -simply because they enjoy it - and tournament viewers should mainly consist out of people rejoicing in the competition and admiring the competitors skillwise.
Instead of pushing and forcing SC2 in the shape of a profitable format why don't the people who like the game for being a competitive discipline simply play it to increase their skill or watch tournaments of skilled players and everybody who is in for the money just leaves?
StarCraft is never going to be a social gathering or a streamlined cashcow. It is a highly demanding and low rewarding skill requiring 1v1 discipline.
If sponsors run away because of bad RoI it's a good thing in my opinion as those people who see StarCraft as a way to earn money leave and those who play for the sake of competition stay.
Who says there have to be paid full-time SC2 players? In my opinion SC2 is far bettter off with people playing it as a hobby and tournaments being hosted for the sake of competition by fans and amateur community figures. Streaming has never been easier and somebody who hosts a tournament in his free time won't have any problem finding competitors for his tournament and people willing to view it.
Going back to the roots and having a small hardcore community of die-hard fans willing to invest time in their hobby without expecting any reward whatsoever is the way to have a stable and sustainable community.
In my opinion SC2 has never profited of people expecting a reward for their interest. People like Destiny, MaximusBlack or Lindsay Sporrer who do not even seem to enjoy the game but take it as some kind of job are "destroying SC2". If Destiny does not enjoy SC2 the way it is why does he still play it and participates in the scene? He was one of the first streaming for money and expecting to make a living out of StarCraft without actually being an outstanding contestant who has ever shown his superiority in a tournament. Instead he has churned the community up numerous times with mischief completely unrelated to SC2.
If the "death of SC2" means an exodus of gold diggers and capitalists I will gladly lay SC2 to rest.
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I agree with this post. The most significant thing I've noticed is that whenever I play with friends, we only play team ladder games. We don't play with friends that are not good because it'll bring down our ladder score. The people I used to play UMS with in BW don't play Starcraft 2 because other than the most popular arcade games, it's impossible to join something like DBZ ALL SAGA expecting people to actually join because it's never going to happen.
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On October 17 2012 17:45 Beyonder wrote:
And most of the reason Koreans winning isnt good for foreign spectator amounts, is because SC2 is still not very good. If SC2 was awesome, then play at the highest level would be an amazing spectator event that everyone would want to see.
Indeed. We should have all seen this coming. Back in 2007, Blizzard put the Reaver and the Colossus side by side and decided the Colossus would be better for the game. You have units like the Mothership which belong as much in this game as hero's from WC3. They've attempted to casualise the Starcraft experience and while they have made the game easier, it's more boring and less captivating than what came before.
Then take battle.net 2.0, there is nothing more I can say that hasn't been said before. Logging on feels like a chore, it's completely inadequate.
And like has been said in the op, the hype around HOTS literally died after 1 week. That's crazy, but it should come as no surprise. The new units are uninspired and the core flaws of the game remain untouched.
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One of StarCraft 2's biggest issues is that it's not casual friendly. That's why LoL and Dota 2 are successful, like it or not, it's because anybody can play them. It doesn't get more user friendly than LoL and Dota.
We don't have to be LoL or Dota, even though I'm happy that those are successful. And so is StarCraft 2. Denying that would be pretty stupid. The thing is it doesn't really make a difference, most successful or least there will always be a StarCraft 2 scene because it is the only real option for people that like RTS games. I like playing LoL, but I can't stand watching it, that shit is duller than watching paint dry.
If we as a community undervalue the sponsors and how much they appreciate knowing their sponsorships are worth it, and we treat the game like shit, well in that case we really deserve whatever we get. Truthfully, we do. Could Blizzard do more? Yeah, they could. But if we just say fuck it and put it all on them, well then it's our fault too.
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On October 17 2012 17:56 AbideWithMe wrote:
Quite an interesting topic although it seems to be discussed from a completely distorted point of view: namely a capitalistic viewpoint.
Who says that there has to be a huge SC2 Scene with lots of paying sponsors and tournaments with prize money in the millions?
StarCraft players should not mainly be driven by greed or financial interest but by an inherent will to improve in a discipline without hoping for any reward whatsoever -simply because they enjoy it - and tournament viewers should mainly consist out of people rejoicing in the competition and admiring the competitors skillwise.
Instead of pushing and forcing SC2 in the shape of a profitable format why don't the people who like the game for being a competitive discipline simply play it to increase their skill or watch tournaments of skilled players and everybody who is in for the money just leaves?
StarCraft is never going to be a social gathering or a streamlined cashcow. It is a highly demanding and low rewarding skill requiring 1v1 discipline.
If sponsors run away because of bad RoI it's a good thing in my opinion as those people who see StarCraft as a way to earn money leave and those who play for the sake of competition stay.
Who says there have to be paid full-time SC2 players? In my opinion SC2 is far bettter off with people playing it as a hobby and tournaments being hosted for the sake of competition by fans and amateur community figures. Streaming has never been easier and somebody who hosts a tournament in his free time won't have any problem finding competitors for his tournament and people willing to view it.
Going back to the roots and having a small hardcore community of die-hard fans willing to invest time in their hobby without expecting any reward whatsoever is the way to have a stable and sustainable community.
In my opinion SC2 has never profited of people expecting a reward for their interest. People like Destiny, MaximusBlack or Lindsay Sporrer who do not even seem to enjoy the game but take it as some kind of job are "destroying SC2". If Destiny does not enjoy SC2 the way it is why does he still play it and participates in the scene? He was one of the first streaming for money and expecting to make a living out of StarCraft without actually being an outstanding contestant who has ever shown his superiority in a tournament. Instead he has churned the community up numerous times with mischief completely unrelated to SC2.
If the "death of SC2" means an exodus of gold diggers and capitalists I will gladly lay SC2 to rest.
This is a good post, and although I don't agree with everything (we do need SOME to breed competition) it is very well put together.
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I agree with everything Destiny said.
Blizzard has too much pride and don't want to "copy" from other games. They need to suck it up and do some research on what RioT did. And just mimick it. This "upgraded" interface didn't really do anything that would improve the game in the e-sports scene at all. I never played BW nor was I ever exposed to it prior to SC2 and what Destiny said makes sense. They should cater to casual gamers and make the interface more casual like when they sign on. The Arcade didn't do anything at all. I get it about the LAN/pirating issue they expressed, but they need to make the live tournaments run as smooth as possible. Maybe just implement a private tournament server or something. Or have private LAN accessibility or something like that.
Plus, the oversaturation of the tournament took a negative toll as well. Currently, there's too many tournaments that it throws hype out the window. You can't really hype up tournaments anymore; what makes this tournament any different from the one played a week ago when both of the same players faced each other, etc. If we toned it down to like once a month or every 2 months or so, I think it will be better. Because honestly I can't watch all the NASL/IPL/MLG/DH/etc.
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I've talked about this pretty often: Let's take a look at 2010 SC2.
Imagine a world where Team Liquid does not exist. A player buys SC2, finds himself all alone in a multiplayer game, where the only way to talk to someone is to friend someone that you played with, or with the email adress of someone. Now about E-Sports, without Team Liquid, no one would have any idea what tournaments would be happening, or such.
Now that player would ladder... as an old BW player, he'd favor a macro-based and positional playstyle. Then he looks at the map, and constantly loses from 1 base play because he tries to be greedy (aka expand).
How can this game be taken seriously? SC2 would be dead without TL 2 years ago. Blizzard is lucky to have such a community behind them that cares so much about this game that they're staying and hoping for change.
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EPT
