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So obviously there has been a lot of discussion and theorycraft on how to grow the SC2 audience in light of the upcoming expansion. SC2 can be an intimidating game as the core gameplay revolves around "competitive". However, looking back to my experience with Brood War, I made the transition from casual to competitive with the help of pseudo-competitive custom maps such as Fastest Map Ever and BGH.
Here was my journey:
UMS Custom Games -> Fastest Map Ever -> Big Game Hunters -> Standard Play/Maps
Along the way, each point in this transition had provided me with some sort of handicap, while still giving me a taste of what true competitive play was like. Eventually, I became curious and motivated enough to really explore standard play.
With this path, I was able to get familiar with the game in a low stakes and fun environment (UMS), got interested in playing standard and was able to jump right into combat without worrying about macro (Fastest), and began appreciating build orders and deeper strategies (BGH), and finally went all in on the nitty-gritty of actual competitive play (Standard Maps).
StarCraft 2 has some decent micro/macro tutorials to get noobies into competitive play, and a practice league. But the practice league, IMO, is not the greatest way to capture casual players - it's just too slow on normal.
I'm not sure how popular Fastest Map Ever or BGH are in SC2, but if they are of similar popularity as they were in BW, having a matchmaking system or a newbie friendly ladder with these featured maps would really help maintain a casual audience (I know countless casual gamers who love BW but have only played Fastest and BGH). Maybe something for monobattles as well?
I'm curious as to how the rest of the SC2 community started playing competitively. How many of you jumped straight into ladder? How many of you started with UMS? Maybe monobattles or FFA? Perhaps some BGH or Fastest Map?
I really feel that these pseudo-competitive maps can make a great impact in retaining fans who are too intimidated by the ladder, but don't want to play Tower Defense all day. They key may be not the extreme casual fans, or the extreme competitive fan, but those who fall in the middle. All things in moderation, who knew?
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Technically I'd say I started with playing brood war. I jumped right into 1v1, and realized, really, I was bad. So I stepped back, played some team games and eventually ended up with 500 wins in team games, so I tried 1v1 again and lo and behold, I was (relatively) good and was able to go up from where I got placed from my first five games (silver) to plat within a week. And I also skipped normal mode after entering one game, realizing the speed and banshee rushing =P
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Yes I agree with you. I personally started 1v1 straight away with SC2, but back when I was younger playing Age of Empires and Age of Mythology it really was the custom games that kept me transfixed. I think this is the number one reason why it is such a shame that Blizzard's new custom maps system doesn't really work all that well. If Blizzard could perfect their custom maps system I think that would be more beneficial for maintaining the casual player base than pretty much anything else (certainly way more effective than some of the other things they've tried, like hiding number of losses and dumbing down certain aspects of standard play to make the game easier and more "casual-friendly").
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Italy12246 Posts
I pretty much just started with ladder. I was tired of how boring WoW had become for me, and i watched some random beta videos on TB's channel, i bought sc2 and never looked back 
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single player -> custom -> 1v1
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Beta 1v1 -> Single Player -> Challenges -> 1v1
SC2 is the first strategy-game I'm playing a little more competitive. I played SC1, WC3 and Company of Heroes, but just casualy. Mostly for the campaigns.
I don't really like those "in between ladder/custom"-style maps like BGH etc. So it's just competitive or story mode for me basicly 
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Single player of SC:BW -> teamgames in WC3 -> teamgames in SC2 -> 1v1 in SC2
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customs in war3 (RPGs, tags, tds, etc) -------> joined clan in war3 ------>participate in clanwars ------> 1v1 ladder war3 -------> realizing how weak undead is retiring from game -------> watching moon switching to Night elves ------> more ladder ladder ladder ------> sc2 not bad watched a lot of bw and beta vods -------> started playing sc2 1v1
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single player -> customs -> 1v1 -> customs lol
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I went from a few 1v1 games on battlenet to 1v1 on ICCUP to 1v1 on SC2.
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well, at least with the addition of new staff to CSL this year, you aren't the lowest ranked admin anymore :D
single player -> bgh -> 2v2 wc3 -> 1v1 scbw
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1v1 ladder -> 2v2 ladder -> 1v1 ladder
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Single player SC1 -> Play vs. friends SC1 -> Money map hunters (precursor to BGH) SC1 -> Ladder SC1 (Pre-broodwar). God I'm old. And looking back, nobody had any idea what they were doing. I liked FFAs, loved doing reaver drops when shuttles could fire scarabs (cheesed so many games like that) and the game was horribly balanced.
BW Comes out, and I still enjoy the game, still play with friends over jury rigged LANs. (I was in a boarding high school at the time, and there were ~10 korean exchange students in my class - I was good enough to win sometimes, but none of us were anywhere near progamer material.)
Sadly I never discovered ICCUP or TL.net or other lasting communities, and playing by dialup got frustrating so I didn't really play much over the net anymore. After High School my friends and I went seperate ways, and without friends who could keep up with me in skill, I put down BW until SC2 was announced (and I discovered TL when looking around for BW & SC2 info, games to watch, build order ideas, etc. before SC2 was released.)
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SC2 campaign -> 4v4s and UMS such as phantom -> 2v2 -> 1v1
It took me a long time to really buckle down in 1v1 because of ladder anxiety.
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SC1 UMS -> SC1 Big game hunters/ PHANTOM -> a little bit of ladder 1v1 in SC1 but i had ladder fear -> dreamhack champion
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I never played SC:BW, I heard of SC2 through TB's channel (I used to play WoW)
I did one mission of the campaign, skipped the practice league because I found it boring that the game was so slow. Got placed in bronze and I've been working my way up ever since.
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SC campaign > UMS > BW campaign > UMS > team games > SC2 campaign > team games > 1v1 ladder
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SC1 Campaign ->CivIII ->Civ IV -> Civ V -> SC2 Campaign -> 1v1 Lader -> X-Com
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Red alert 1/2 with bro 56k 1's -> sc1 BGH -> wc3 ums (dota mostly) -> Sc2 1's
R.I.P. Westwood
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On October 24 2012 02:48 Nerchio wrote:
SC1 UMS -> SC1 Big game hunters/ PHANTOM -> a little bit of ladder 1v1 in SC1 but i had ladder fear -> dreamhack champion
Hahaha awesome^
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EPT
