Destiny: The Pro Scene Depends on the Casual Scene - Page 11

On October 20 2012 12:15 Yusaho wrote:
Destiny is obviously biased on his opinion in the LoL vs SC2 debate.
For one he says something to the extent of why would someone want to make 100k in an SC2 tournament when they could win million dollar tournaments in LoL. There has only been one LoL tournament that awarded a million dollars to first at the end of the season(like Dota 2), and you have to remember it's split between at least 5 people on your team, possibly more. I would even lean to SC2 having more tournaments than LoL currently. LoL also clearly has a younger demographic than SC2, whereas Destiny claims that theyr'e one in the same. Also trying to claim 95% of SC2 people don't give a fuck about it's professional status or meta game feels like another exaggeration.
The only thing he's accurate on is numbers = sponsorship/salaries/prize pool, and I don't think anyone ever claimed or thought SC2 would be competitive in numbers with LoL, he's just stating the obvious on this. It's a free to play game made so a 10 year old can be ranked in the top 5% vs a game you have to purchase that people can play for years and not master. Not to mention we all know Blizzard is likely to never push their games for the competitive scene, in fact they impede some tournaments by requiring them to sign a contract with Blizzard when the prize pool is over 5k. Where as Riot has been throwing money at the scene, i.e. buying the expedition slot at Dreamhack to get their foot in the door last year, and doing whatever they can to force themselves into esports. So I don't see how any of this is news, I'm pretty sure anyone not new to the scene knew where SC2 stands.

On October 20 2012 12:58 PH wrote:

There's no good reasoning backing your statements. I've played like six 1v1 ladder games in SC2 in the last ten months. I have a friend who logs like twenty hours a week in the game just from playing Gem TD while at work.

Why is LoL's audience different from SC2's? Why can't things that work for Riot be things Blizzard can think about? You see...you hate Destiny, you misunderstood it, and now that you've been shown to be wrong, I think you're just making shit up to try to wriggle out of the pickle you're in.

What Destiny said, whatever you may think of him, makes sense. It's reasonable. What you say is full of holes and is filled with assumptions that are impossible to immediately accept.

The point I think you're trying to make (your last two posts don't say much of anything except that Destiny is wrong) is that SC2 doesn't need to change, that we're fine as we are, and that LoL's success both will have no affect on us and that we can learn nothing from it. Is that correct? If not, then I'm sorry, I can only work from what you've written down, I can't extract information directly from your mind.

If you feel that way, then you're wrong. I don't know what else to tell you. SC2 isn't great, HotS looks like shit. The scene is not stable and definitely needs help, and we can ALWAYS learn from the successes of others, ESPECIALLY a game like LoL, which has two key similarities: 1. IT'S A FUCKING COMPUTER GAME, and 2. IT'S BEING PROMOTED AS AN ESPORT.

Different formulas? Different audiences? What the fuck kind of a point are you even trying to make? I'm going to assume you never played BW, because I'd be shocked if you did. See...before the awful shithole that bnet 2.0 is came to be, and before the mediocrity manifested that is SC2 was released, we had this cool game called BW, and this online multiplayer client called Bnet. When you looked at the games being hosted and played on Bnet, which you could get to with one click of the mouse, something like 20% of the games played were actual 1v1 melee games. That's probably being generous. It was likely closer to 10%, if that. Everything else was team games, UMS, and FMPs. It was largely casual players playing all those games. That kept the community alive, it kept people online, and it kept the game fun. Even on iCCup, we'd host UMS maps to unwind after ladder games or intense practice sessions.

We don't need to force people who don't like to ladder into laddering. We don't need to somehow magically revitalize the ladder. People who want to play 1v1 seriously will do it on their own. Those who don't won't, and they shouldn't be coerced into doing it.

Despite that, we need to keep people interested in the game, and it needs to stay relevant. What better way than to keep the game as a UMS hub, just as BW was? Blizzard put in very robust tools for mapmakers to make all kinds of shit, from RPGs to FPSs all in-game. Shit, we even have Bejeweled in SC2. The game doesn't need to be kept alive solely through people actually playing ladder.

I follow the pro scene very closely, and I've been following it for years. I was way past seriously playing BW when SC2 came out, and I'm pretty much over playing that one too. Despite that, I still follow the scene. I guess you could call me a "casual", at this point. While the scene is fortunate in that I will never stop being a viewer because of how long I've been attached to this community, other casuals may not be in such a spot.

All Destiny is saying is to keep SC2 relevant for as many people as possible. He's not saying to compromise the competitive 1v1 aspect of SC2, he's saying to make the UMS, casual side side more robust. If you disagree with that, then you're just being spiteful, and you're shitting on Destiny, not his argument (which, btw, is a logical fallacy).

On October 21 2012 08:13 Zaurus wrote:


Mmorpg is not just about grinding. Is about socializing while teaming up and joking about stuffs.

On October 21 2012 08:27 Xiphos wrote:


You can potentially accomplish the same with Dota2.

1. Socializing with friends like "Oh hey Frank, guess what happened in my ecology class today?"

2. Teaming Up, self explanatory.

Joking about stuff, see number 1.

On October 21 2012 08:29 Zaurus wrote:


U are seriously getting too defensively. You can socialize in any game, is where your friends are.....

On October 20 2012 04:52 Schnullerbacke13 wrote:
I don't think we really need a pro scene. The game won't die (there is no comparable RTS out there), so there will be enough opponents on bnet and there will be streams and high level play even with only 'amateurs' playing. RTS are nerdish games comparable to (partially) chess, i don't think they have real mass-potential. They'll have a stable slowly growing audience and player base, but will not be mainstream ever. soccer > chess .
A big plus is that RTS tend to keep long term interest (if blizzard does not decide to simplify Starcraft further). This will make the fan base much more stable which is important long term. I think LOL will peak and fade away. A good, complex RTS will stay. So it is probably not a good idea to make sc2 more simple long term, as you'll get bored once the optimal builds+compositions are figured out. It was a major plus of BW micro-heavy design, that even after 5 years of play, new players and playstyles rose relying on specializing in microing specific units .

On October 20 2012 06:37 IPA wrote:
Man I can't wait for the dismal "sky is falling" drama to die off. Giving it a couple weeks because TL loves to think the apocalypse has arrived.

I played WC3 for almost 10 years. Even at the end, there was a small but hardcore group of players. That's all I, personally, need. And I know SC2 will be much larger than that for an extended period of time. I realize my desires don't necessarily coincide with community ambition. I want a hardcore competitive game that challenges me, and I want to be able to play it against 1k-10k people (at least). SC2 provides that, and more.

If casuals want to play a game like LoL - let them. I'll be sniggering and queueing up another ladder game with the hardcore faithful.

On October 20 2012 11:44 VanGarde wrote:
The most surreal thing is that people are making LoL out to be a successful game because riot is doing everything that Blizzard isn't when in fact from the point of view of the issues we have with sc2, LoL is a HORRIBLE rolemodel. In most regards it is even worse. Whatever LoL's success is from it is NOT from doing things better than Blizzard. Lets review:

Chat channels and the game feeling empty:
Well from a chat channels point of view LoL is exactly like sc2. You can have chat channels but they are not apparently obvious and you only get into them if you actually go and find them in much the same way as you do in sc2. There is nothing objectively better with LoL chat system but there are multiple things that are worse. First of all you can't just tab up a chat frame while you are in game like you can in sc2. If you are in game your are reduced to command line message sending which requires you to know the syntax in order to send a message to someone. Unless you already know how to do it you won't figure it out. There is another thing that would have had sc2 players up in arms. Get this, you can obviously put people on ignore just like you can in sc2 but in LoL the players on the enemy team are AUTOMATICALLY set to ignore as default unless you explicitly turn this off yourself. Imagine playing sc2 and you have to go into bnet options and check a box to not make the game autoblock all your opponents.

Custom games:
The LoL custom game system just consists of one single browser list containing all currently hosted games, it is really obnoxious to find what you are searching for, there is also no autostart function so if the person who hosted happens to be afk, which is often the case you will wait 10 minutes for a lobby to fill up only to have to leave once everything is full but the game isn't starting. There is also no join as party function you have to coordinate with your buddies to find and join the right game in the list. You can invite someone from your friends list into the game you are in but you can't suggest players so you still need to have everyone that is playing in friends.

LAN support
Yes LoL is getting this apparently but the important thing is that it hasn't had LAN support for all of its life time so all of the success it has had has been with the clear assumption that there will be no LAN support. In fact if anything the game is way more unstable than sc2 servers are even though it has gotten better in recent times.

Cross server support
On the one hand you can now pay to switch server, I am not sure if you can do this between all servers or not but you can between some. On the downside this came about because Riot split the eu server in two just like that to relieve server balance. This meant that over night all EU players were told, oh btw we are splitting you all up and everyone in this country will be on this server. This effectively killed half of my social interaction in LoL because now I have all my briton friends on one side, and all of my scandinavian friends on one side. You can create an account on any server ofcourse the usefulness of this is reduced by the fact that you need to play so many games to level up and get all of the abilities that you want for competitive play. It is as if you would have to grind games for a month to unlock emp or storm. That only beings to approach the amount of time you need to put in to buy all of the runes and unlock all of the champions that you need to just get your second account relatively playable.

Balance
New champions are added on a montly basis more or less and the new champions are almost invariably either terribly UP or horribly OP. They might get hot fixed relatively quickly but there is a lot of volatility in the game balance, way more so than in Starcraft 2.

I am not listing all of these things to bash on LoL, I do play the game myself. But people need to realize that whatever LoL is doing right, it is not all of the things that sc2 fans want from Blizzard. Most of those things are radically worse in LoL and it is not like the community have demanded things from riot for ages that never come to pass. The point of this reply was to illustrate that you are falling too much for the grass always being greener. LoL has many players because it has a low skill floor and because it is easy to get into. The long term replayability is dependent on the constant addition of new champions because god knows the maps doesn't change. It has essentially been played on the same map for all of it's life span. It is not a popular game because it is the apex of game design and interactivity, it is World of Warcraft PvP in Moba form.

On October 20 2012 05:25 namori wrote:
Wow people shunning artosis' passion and siding with someone like destiny who just want more casual players to watch his stream

On October 20 2012 06:02 namori wrote:


He's always pointing out viewers viewers viewers viewers viewers viewers viewers viewers which is the only thing he wants because he lives off of them. Artosis is caring about the game itself.

I honestly don't care about viewer numbers, I want a great competitive game to watch and play

On October 21 2012 09:01 Phanekim wrote:
The casual scene is a bunch of stupid under 22 year olds who dont know anything. Any gaming scene is completely toxic because of this mere fact. To hinge your business model on these kids is moronic. People don't play things more because the matchmaking system blows. The internet idiot theory applies here. If there was something that forces the well mannered players to play with each other that would be great.

On October 21 2012 09:07 Trumpstyle wrote:
Why play tennis when you can make more from Football, why do sponsors sponsor Tennis when Football is bigger?
Destiny argument is completely flaw. LoL will always be bigger because it's just easier for people control 1 unit instead were in Starcraft you need to micro units, handle economy it's just easier and more relaxing playing LoL. End of story.

On October 20 2012 11:44 VanGarde wrote:
The most surreal thing is that people are making LoL out to be a successful game because riot is doing everything that Blizzard isn't when in fact from the point of view of the issues we have with sc2, LoL is a HORRIBLE rolemodel. In most regards it is even worse. Whatever LoL's success is from it is NOT from doing things better than Blizzard. Lets review:
+ Show Spoiler +

On October 21 2012 08:16 radscorpion9 wrote:


I totally agree, but also I wonder, even if Sc2's UI and arcade were fixed so that people could enjoy customs more, would that really make people watch SC2's standard 1v1 multiplayer more? It just seems like two completely different things. I mean for SC Brood war I remember playing 2v2v2v2 BGH, the money maps, evolves and bunker wars when I was a kid, but that didn't translate into me watching brood war matches, I couldn't care less about that because I didn't play it, wasn't good at it, and it was kind of off my radar in general.

The reason people love LoL, most likely, is that the fundamental game itself is really fun. There are no customs (that I'm aware of) with LoL - its just the game that people love, so its a much more natural path that they would also enjoy watching pro-gamers play a game that they love. I can't see the direct link between playing customs in SC2 and watching standard SC2...I mean maybe they'll be willing to try to play standard once in a while because hey its right there, but I remember for Brood War how terrible I was, and decided there's just no reason to try again (even a few years later).

Edit: Anyway that's probably a bit of a tangent, its just another of Destiny's posts was mainly about customs and that's what a lot of people are complaining about. I agree though, SC2 actually needs to be fun to play and not scary

On October 21 2012 09:07 Trumpstyle wrote:
Why play tennis when you can make more from Football, why do sponsors sponsor Tennis when Football is bigger?
Destiny argument is completely flaw. LoL will always be bigger because it's just easier for people control 1 unit instead were in Starcraft you need to micro units, handle economy it's just easier and more relaxing playing LoL. End of story.

On October 21 2012 08:20 Zaurus wrote:



I agree with what you said. They should give SC2 LAN. There are going to be tons of illegal host, but it keeps the scene alive. DOTA SC2 might even be in existent. The new battle net really screw things up.

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.