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PC Gamer just added a long interview with Dustin Browder about eSport, balance, and more.
Excerpt from the website:
How do you go about designing a new unit or changing a unit to encourage that kind thing in what was a little bit of a stagnant metagame in Wings of Liberty?
Browder: You try to create really solid tools. You don’t know how they’re going to be used or if they’re going to be used, but you have to look at a unit and say, “You know, for its cost, that unit has uses. That could be effective.” An example I would give is the Warp Prism from the end of Wings of Liberty. We started seeing that more and more and more, as Protoss players started to be more threatened by immobile forces, and they needed the mobility to break up the danger.
When the Brood Lords and Infestors are out, it’s dangerous as hell, but it’s not fast. So what they would do, is they would say, “Okay, I’m going to try to spread you out. I’m going to try to pull you away from here by constant harassment with Warp Prism. And it could be very cost effective and very dangerous. We hadn’t changed that unit. But they were starting to use it that way.
So that’s the ideal, is to create the tools so that when they suddenly have the need, they have something they can do which changes the way the game plays. And so it’s this constantly cycling metagame that we’re not even touching.
What was the reasoning behind the decision—you guys were kind of pushing against unranked play for a long time, and now it’s finally coming in the expansion. Was that community feedback?
Browder: There was a big concern, and there still is a big concern … if you have ranked play and unranked play, are those two, separate matchmaking pools? And does that damage the matchmaker? Especially in some places in the world … I’m thinking Southeast Asia, there’s a few places where the population of gamers is just not that huge. And our population of players is not that huge. So the matchmaker can struggle in those areas.
...
So what we’ve finally said for unranked play is, we’re going to risk it. We’re going to put them into a single matchmaker [with ranked players]. Now, the concern from the community, and the concern internally, is, do people start abusing that system? When I come in unranked, do I say, “Hey, I’m unranked. Don’t worry, I’ll quit out before this game is over. Don’t quit.” Or some silliness. I don’t know. There could be 50 ways to break this. They’ll find a way if they want to find a way.
So if that starts to happen, now this feature is in trouble. If people start abusing it, then that’s why we can’t have nice things. But we kind of felt like the benefits were worth the risk. So ultimately, we’re taking the leap. And we’re saying, I hope our community doesn’t ruin this. I hope a handful of bad apples don’t find a way to make this go bad for us. I hope people play with this system with a little bit of honest integrity, which is a little scary with any online community.
From your perspective, what is killing eSports?
Browder: [Laughs] I thought I was killing eSports. I thought that was my title. I have the crown! That’s what Twitter keeps saying.
That’s the silliest question, because nothing is killing eSports. It’s growing at logarithmic rates. Did you ever think we would be here, in this, place, two and a half years later? We’re just swimming in pros, and so many events you can’t even keep track of them all. Like, we used to talk about timing patches relative to major eSports events. Now there’s no way.
There is no way for us to patch Wings of Liberty without it hitting an eSport event. We went live with our beta in the US, because we thought that was going to be enough to give us testing. And we have had nothing but feedback from all over the world that’s, “So, when can I run my tournament? I want to run a [Heart of the Swarm] tournament. I’m in Korea, or I’m in Europe. When can I run a HotS tournament?”
It’s just constant. The amount of constant input coming into this studio, “More! More! This! That!” It’s just insane. So, the idea that anything is killing eSports is nuts. eSports is growing out of control. It’s alive and breathing and flying away. I have no idea when it’s going to stop.
And I think the StarCraft community should take some pride and joy in that. They should take some ownership of that, and say, “We did that. We helped build this. We are ground-floor, core contributors to what makes any eSport going forward.” They should, in their minds and hearts, claim some of that. Because they’ve absolutely earned it. They were on the ground floor. They were here when it really started to happen.
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Thanks for posting, will read.
Edit: hm, not much new stuff in there. I'm also not entirely sure if this is real or parody, right? Like, what in the world, who talks like that, right? I mean, right? DB is a cool dude though 
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"I’m going to try to pull you away from here by constant harassment with Warp Prism. And it could be very cost effective and very dangerous. We hadn’t changed that unit. But they were starting to use it that way."
Yes they did change the Warp Prism, they buffed the shield hp on it.
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Those answers you quoted sound really solid, time to read the rest.
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Browder: [Laughs] I thought I was killing eSports. I thought that was my title. I have the crown! That’s what Twitter keeps saying.
HAhaha love this guy :D
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Pretty fast, the article just went up and we have a thread
Browder: Ooh, flying rocks? Flying rocks! Like Outland, they’re all floating up there!
And they block movement for flyers, unless you destroy them! Oh yes, that’s good. Legacy of the Void: Flying rocks.
Confirmed!
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"logarithmic rates"? Is this a mistake? Maybe he meant exponential, because that would mean esport is growing very slowly.
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On January 25 2013 04:49 KingAlphard wrote:
"logarithmic rates"? Is this a mistake? Maybe he meant exponential, because that would mean esport is growing very slowly.
Well, from 0 to 1 it grows quite fast :D
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Logarithmic sounds right. There was a huge explosion at the start, but now the growth is slowed. Emphasis on growth.
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+ Show Spoiler +
Will we get modifiable rocks? Movable rocks? Liftable rocks?
Browder: Ooh, flying rocks? Flying rocks! Like Outland, they’re all floating up there!
And they block movement for flyers, unless you destroy them! Oh yes, that’s good. Legacy of the Void: Flying rocks.
This could be freaking cool haha
Really nice interview overall !
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On January 25 2013 04:36 AnomalySC2 wrote:
"I’m going to try to pull you away from here by constant harassment with Warp Prism. And it could be very cost effective and very dangerous. We hadn’t changed that unit. But they were starting to use it that way."
Yes they did change the Warp Prism, they buffed the shield hp on it.
I was just about to quote this. What the.....?
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On January 25 2013 04:58 Insoleet wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
Will we get modifiable rocks? Movable rocks? Liftable rocks?
Browder: Ooh, flying rocks? Flying rocks! Like Outland, they’re all floating up there!
And they block movement for flyers, unless you destroy them! Oh yes, that’s good. Legacy of the Void: Flying rocks.
This could be freaking cool haha Really nice interview overall !
I do love how DB has embraced the whole rocks thing and it's now just one big excuse to troll now. He's having fun with it.
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On January 25 2013 04:55 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Logarithmic sounds right. There was a huge explosion at the start, but now the growth is slowed. Emphasis on growth.
Ok, but he says eSports is growing out of control. after.
Well, looks like DB didn't study maths :\
Well, from 0 to 1 it grows quite fast :D
lol
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On January 25 2013 05:07 PVJ wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 04:36 AnomalySC2 wrote:
"I’m going to try to pull you away from here by constant harassment with Warp Prism. And it could be very cost effective and very dangerous. We hadn’t changed that unit. But they were starting to use it that way."
Yes they did change the Warp Prism, they buffed the shield hp on it. I was just about to quote this. What the.....?
The buff came long before the heavy usage of Warp Prisms. Or, more like the buff made Protoss try mid-game timings with Prisms, but didn't do much for late game.
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very cool article, I am so excited for HOTS and the game play I'm going to see. Yay to more unique play instead of just infest/broodlord action.
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On January 25 2013 05:11 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 05:07 PVJ wrote:On January 25 2013 04:36 AnomalySC2 wrote:
"I’m going to try to pull you away from here by constant harassment with Warp Prism. And it could be very cost effective and very dangerous. We hadn’t changed that unit. But they were starting to use it that way."
Yes they did change the Warp Prism, they buffed the shield hp on it. I was just about to quote this. What the.....? The buff came long before the heavy usage of Warp Prisms. Or, more like the buff made Protoss try mid-game timings with Prisms, but didn't do much for late game.
The buffed happened September 2011, and it wasn't until the hybrid league (when KeSPA players started playing) that Warp Prism were used more often.
When every Protoss in Proleague started using Warp Prisms, I remember everyone making comments about it (it was definitely not that used often before the hybrid league AFAIK).
Not sure if KeSPA players helped make Warp Prism usage more popular or not but it was definitely underused before then.
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On January 25 2013 08:15 Goldfish wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 05:11 WolfintheSheep wrote:On January 25 2013 05:07 PVJ wrote:On January 25 2013 04:36 AnomalySC2 wrote:
"I’m going to try to pull you away from here by constant harassment with Warp Prism. And it could be very cost effective and very dangerous. We hadn’t changed that unit. But they were starting to use it that way."
Yes they did change the Warp Prism, they buffed the shield hp on it. I was just about to quote this. What the.....? The buff came long before the heavy usage of Warp Prisms. Or, more like the buff made Protoss try mid-game timings with Prisms, but didn't do much for late game. The buffed happened September 2011, and it wasn't until the hybrid league (when KeSPA players started playing) that Warp Prism were used more often. When every Protoss in Proleague started using Warp Prisms, I remember everyone making comments about it (it was definitely not that used often before the hybrid league AFAIK). Not sure if KeSPA players helped make Warp Prism usage more popular or not but it was definitely underused before then.
Hero and Sage used it. That's about it.
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On January 25 2013 08:20 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 08:15 Goldfish wrote:On January 25 2013 05:11 WolfintheSheep wrote:On January 25 2013 05:07 PVJ wrote:On January 25 2013 04:36 AnomalySC2 wrote:
"I’m going to try to pull you away from here by constant harassment with Warp Prism. And it could be very cost effective and very dangerous. We hadn’t changed that unit. But they were starting to use it that way."
Yes they did change the Warp Prism, they buffed the shield hp on it. I was just about to quote this. What the.....? The buff came long before the heavy usage of Warp Prisms. Or, more like the buff made Protoss try mid-game timings with Prisms, but didn't do much for late game. The buffed happened September 2011, and it wasn't until the hybrid league (when KeSPA players started playing) that Warp Prism were used more often. When every Protoss in Proleague started using Warp Prisms, I remember everyone making comments about it (it was definitely not that used often before the hybrid league AFAIK). Not sure if KeSPA players helped make Warp Prism usage more popular or not but it was definitely underused before then. Hero and Sage used it. That's about it.
And White-Ra.
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The more I hear from Browder the more I love him. He definitely has a passion for the game and a sense of humor about who he is in the community! I hope he continues to deliver, and I certainly look forward to HotS as a finished product. I couldn't agree more with his statement that developing SC2 is about giving solid tools, although the example he gives may not be 100% perfect.
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I ctrl+f'ed "right". Was not disappointed, lol.
Great interview, the guy has a great sense of humor. I got to troll him for like 10 min at mlg anaheim, he's a real sport about it
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On January 25 2013 05:11 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 05:07 PVJ wrote:On January 25 2013 04:36 AnomalySC2 wrote:
"I’m going to try to pull you away from here by constant harassment with Warp Prism. And it could be very cost effective and very dangerous. We hadn’t changed that unit. But they were starting to use it that way."
Yes they did change the Warp Prism, they buffed the shield hp on it. I was just about to quote this. What the.....? The buff came long before the heavy usage of Warp Prisms. Or, more like the buff made Protoss try mid-game timings with Prisms, but didn't do much for late game.
Not at all, people began to use WP a lot, especially against Zerg, as soon as it was buffed. Of course Protoss being Protoss, first it was used more for all-ins, like the 4 Sentry ramp block gateway all ins, WP 4 gate and eventually Immortal/Sentry with WP etc.
At the time Zergs rarely made it to Infestor/Broodlord, so the metagame was to try and kill Protoss before they get a big Colossus deathball or die, and WP harass was used to prevent Zerg from getting a big army/economy while Protoss built their 3-4 base deathball.
I remember right after the buff, Sage used a DT Warp Prism drop to win against a Zerg in the GSL, and said he had heard about WhiteRa using this strat and that's how he came up with the build. Inca also broke his long losing streak vs Zerg with Warp Prism DTs, I believe it was against Leenock, it was a game was on Terminus.
Warp Prism Immortal drops also became very popular in PvP for a while, shortly after the buff.
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What, you will be able to play ranked ladder games against people who decided to play unraked ? (therefore, will probably try new builds and fool around, not playing at their 100%) This is dumb. It's ok to have unraked, it's just like custom matches but with a matchmaking, but mixing the two? Am I missing something?
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On January 25 2013 08:28 Adersick wrote:
The more I hear from Browder the more I love him. He definitely has a passion for the game and a sense of humor about who he is in the community! I hope he continues to deliver, and I certainly look forward to HotS as a finished product. I couldn't agree more with his statement that developing SC2 is about giving solid tools, although the example he gives may not be 100% perfect.
This. At first a lot of us didn't really like him because of how imbalanced the game was (mostly terran and maps). But every time he does an interview, you just start liking him more and more. He's really humble, acknowledges the community and really wants the community to be happy with the game. DB's definitely gotten a lot more likeable since the launch of SC2.
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On January 25 2013 08:46 sM.Zik wrote:
What, you will be able to play ranked ladder games against people who decided to play unraked ? (therefore, will probably try new builds and fool around, not playing at their 100%) This is dumb. It's ok to have unraked, it's just like custom matches but with a matchmaking, but mixing the two? Am I missing something?
That really struck me as odd too when I read it. Laddering is going to have some serious variance when the game is released. I think the way they can fix this is by making unranked mm "semi"-ranked instead, i.e. a fraction of the mmr change is applied rather than the full change from wins/losss so the player still has some skin in the game.
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eSports is growing, ok Dustin. All I heard of is companies pulling out of the business this year. It's great to be positive but that's not enough, being competent is about equally important.
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Disappointing interview. Zerg unit were not mentioned at all. Swarm host is still boring and I am still waiting for that long promised fix for boringness or corrupters and overseers.
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oh so you're supposed to use spine crawlers to counter reapers
...
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It’s growing at logarithmic rates.
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/Log.svg/220px-Log.svg.png)
not quick enough =/
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Someone should ask him about how the community hounded him for 2 years for "balanced maps", and once the map pool finally became "balanced" and one-dimensional, the game stagnated and died. He must secretly get some satisfaction from that.
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lol at DB making fun of his title as THE ESPORTS KILLER! Thanks for this stuff and DB rocks!
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On January 25 2013 09:42 IdrA wrote:
oh so you're supposed to use spine crawlers to counter reapers
...
terran?
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On January 25 2013 04:49 KingAlphard wrote:
"logarithmic rates"? Is this a mistake? Maybe he meant exponential, because that would mean esport is growing very slowly.
Sounds accurate to me.
Browder would be pretty dishonest (and would look like a total idiot) to say it's growing at an exponential rate.
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So, going forward with the game, where do you think we could take the concept of rocks from here?
Browder: More!
GOGO Dustin!!
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On January 25 2013 11:10 jdsowa wrote:
Someone should ask him about how the community hounded him for 2 years for "balanced maps", and once the map pool finally became "balanced" and one-dimensional, the game stagnated and died. He must secretly get some satisfaction from that.
That was more because of the zerg queen buffs and infestor buffs blizzard patched in.
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All I see is that Browder is still in denial. He doesn't want to acknolwedge any of the core game design flaws because he knows they all stem from his bad ideas. His concept of "game design" centers around unit counters and build orders. How is it he can still think that buffing/nerfing units xzy will somehow make the game magically more entertaining?
That’s the silliest question, because nothing is killing eSports. It’s growing at logarithmic rates. Did you ever think we would be here, in this, place, two and a half years later? We’re just swimming in pros, and so many events you can’t even keep track of them all. Like, we used to talk about timing patches relative to major eSports events. Now there’s no way.
Browder is lying through his teeth. Viewership numbers are down across the board. The only the SCII scene got big in the first place is due to efforts from the community, not due to Browder. I hope he realizes that the SCII scene will be in serious danger if HotS is anything short of amazing.
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Dustin Browder never fails to make me tilt my head.
He seems like a pretty nice and funny guy, and also he's willing to keep having interviews (although PcGamer isn't exactly the SC2 community) and exposing himself.
But I really can't get if he's clueless or he plays stupid.
This gem:
Browder: But many, many of our players, I run into them all the time at conventions, say, “I’m not really into multiplayer, but I love the campaign.” That’s very common. And these guys just aren’t on the boards. They’re not posting. But they make up easily half of our audience.
Now, unless I'm stupid Browder wants us to believe that Sc2 fans, some of the MOST VOCAL videogames fans around, apparently love the single player campaign... but they shut up, they don't speak about the great plot twists, the romantic love story and the deep character evolution from the previous game.
Simply to avoid wasting space on the internet, even in Blizzard forums: they just wait for him to pass by and then praise him for the great innovations.
At least half of the fans?
Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed.
That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience.
Or at least they PM'ed him, since I don't recall all this enthusiasm both on TL or Blizzard forums.
I hope he is bullshitting us since he wants to sell HoTS and actually doesn't really think like that, multiplayer it's what keep his game to be played.
I can see him talking about meta possibilities and giving us the example of a gold league player since Sc2 is not only for pros but even for baboons like myself, but then he talks about maps, innovations and the community feedback and I get mad.
All Blizzard maps are quite bad, there are a lot of solid - and especially willing to contribute - mapmakers, but afaik no one even contacted then.
The only time Blizzard decided to implement new maps, was because someone else - Team Liquid - made a contest.
The unranked system seems to be a concern, but other games such as League of legends show that it works. They could have even simply made another, identical same rank system and not show the ladder points to players (and I suspect that's exactly what they are doing) without making such a fuss.
With all the talking about esports dying and so on, I still don't see it that bleak.
The community is simply great, the game may have some flaws but it's far from being bad, unwatchable or unplayable.
yet the one who seems the least helping is Blizzard, insanely enough.
Tell what you want about Riot, their 'true' streaming numbers and the objective quality of their game at pro level, but here's the thing: they check the game and update him at least once a month.
They are always there.
New skins, art contests, even something as simple as the lobby image change.
From time to time they add new game features and so on.
Blizzard should be a way more accomplished company and yet we have to wait them to sell a whole new game JUST TO HAVE THE NEW REPLAY PATCH.
And to think that unlike League of legends, Sc2 could have an immense map pool and possibilities everywhere.
There are people who create mods for free, even if only to improve the game experience like the Stronger Team Colour one, for hell's sake!
I mean, up until some time ago you must even pay to change a stupid username.
Browder jokes about being the one who kills esports, and I think it's a pretty funny joke.
It's not a serious thing and surely I don't believe that there's a single individual responsible of everything wrong.
But his company position is something I can't understand.
They have the resources, the fan base, the opinions of people who play and know their game more than their own employees, and yet they always want people to beg.
It's not a matter of race X being OP, it's a matter of attitude.
Am I an ungrate asshole or simply wrong?
Sometimes we assume that whenever someone has a negtive opinion he must be trolling, but I don't see where I'm wrong...
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On January 25 2013 04:20 Veldril wrote:
Browder: [Laughs] I thought I was killing eSports. I thought that was my title. I have the crown! That’s what Twitter keeps saying.
That’s the silliest question, because nothing is killing eSports. It’s growing at logarithmic rates. Did you ever think we would be here, in this, place, two and a half years later? We’re just swimming in pros, and so many events you can’t even keep track of them all. Like, we used to talk about timing patches relative to major eSports events. Now there’s no way.
There is no way for us to patch Wings of Liberty without it hitting an eSport event. We went live with our beta in the US, because we thought that was going to be enough to give us testing. And we have had nothing but feedback from all over the world that’s, “So, when can I run my tournament? I want to run a [Heart of the Swarm] tournament. I’m in Korea, or I’m in Europe. When can I run a HotS tournament?”
It’s just constant. The amount of constant input coming into this studio, “More! More! This! That!” It’s just insane. So, the idea that anything is killing eSports is nuts. eSports is growing out of control. It’s alive and breathing and flying away. I have no idea when it’s going to stop.
And I think the StarCraft community should take some pride and joy in that. They should take some ownership of that, and say, “We did that. We helped build this. We are ground-floor, core contributors to what makes any eSport going forward.” They should, in their minds and hearts, claim some of that. Because they’ve absolutely earned it. They were on the ground floor. They were here when it really started to happen.
I really liked that answer. What a good interview! 
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On January 25 2013 21:44 MavivaM wrote:
Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed.
That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience.
One would think that Blizzard has access to the number of people who bought the game and the number of people who ladder.
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IIRC SC2 sold around ~5mio units. It's not bad to think around half have only played the campaign
In the middle of 2011 or so we had maybe like 600k concurrent users online on peak times?
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On January 25 2013 22:03 Epamynondas wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 21:44 MavivaM wrote:
Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed.
That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience. One would think that Blizzard has access to the number of people who bought the game and the number of people who ladder.
That's an intelligent post and I never thought about that.
So there are 2.5 million of people who bought the game only to go online and play the single campaign?
...I still hope he is bullshitting us >_>
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Browder, I truly appreciate you. No matter what others say, I KNOW you are putting some serious considerations into EVERY SINGLE action you make, thanks man.
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On January 25 2013 22:08 MavivaM wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 22:03 Epamynondas wrote:On January 25 2013 21:44 MavivaM wrote:
Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed.
That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience. One would think that Blizzard has access to the number of people who bought the game and the number of people who ladder. That's an intelligent post and I never thought about that. So there are 2.5 million of people who bought the game only to go online and play the single campaign? ...I still hope he is bullshitting us >_>
He is not. You will be surprised how many people outside of SC community hates Multiplayer and never touch it.
The problem with Teamliquid community is that we are sometimes too tightly focus on one game and not notice the trend or opinion of general public.
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From your perspective, what is killing eSports?
Browder: [Laughs] I thought I was killing eSports. I thought that was my title. I have the crown! That’s what Twitter keeps saying.
That’s the silliest question, because nothing is killing eSports. It’s growing at logarithmic rates. Did you ever think we would be here, in this, place, two and a half years later? We’re just swimming in pros, and so many events you can’t even keep track of them all. Like, we used to talk about timing patches relative to major eSports events. Now there’s no way.
There is no way for us to patch Wings of Liberty without it hitting an eSport event. We went live with our beta in the US, because we thought that was going to be enough to give us testing. And we have had nothing but feedback from all over the world that’s, “So, when can I run my tournament? I want to run a [Heart of the Swarm] tournament. I’m in Korea, or I’m in Europe. When can I run a HotS tournament?”
It’s just constant. The amount of constant input coming into this studio, “More! More! This! That!” It’s just insane. So, the idea that anything is killing eSports is nuts. eSports is growing out of control. It’s alive and breathing and flying away. I have no idea when it’s going to stop.
And I think the StarCraft community should take some pride and joy in that. They should take some ownership of that, and say, “We did that. We helped build this. We are ground-floor, core contributors to what makes any eSport going forward.” They should, in their minds and hearts, claim some of that. Because they’ve absolutely earned it. They were on the ground floor. They were here when it really started to happen.
Hat's off, completely agree with his gratitude to this community
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On January 25 2013 22:30 Veldril wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 22:08 MavivaM wrote:On January 25 2013 22:03 Epamynondas wrote:On January 25 2013 21:44 MavivaM wrote:
Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed.
That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience. One would think that Blizzard has access to the number of people who bought the game and the number of people who ladder. That's an intelligent post and I never thought about that. So there are 2.5 million of people who bought the game only to go online and play the single campaign? ...I still hope he is bullshitting us >_> He is not. You will be surprised how many people outside of SC community hates Multiplayer and never touch it. The problem with Teamliquid community is that we are sometimes too tightly focus on one game and not notice the trend or opinion of general public.
^This
I like SC2, bought the game, beat it on brutal, 100%'ed the sp achievements, and watch a lot of husky casts. (I even got the Here Comes the Hammer achievement on Left 2 Die while playing solo because I didn't want to deal with multi.) On the RPS forums, or the Escapist this would be enough to qualify me as an avid SC2 fan. I also lurk on the team liquid forums enough to know that here those things qualify me as the worst sort of noob. SC2 multi has a strong community, but it can be hostile and dismissive to outsiders and outside opinions.
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I think this may sound quite strange, but hear me out. Whoever designed wc3 was a genius. Browder, well, he's not.
When I bought wc3, one of the questions I asked myself was, "why not go online and have a look?"
After 2-3 years after TFT, I found myself asking, "why would anyone NOT go online when there's so much on offer?"
sc2, however, pushes you online straightaway.
After spending the first month or so getting into diamond, I began to ask myself, "why do I even bother going online?"
wc3, in short, was a very compelling online game with endless replayability. I'm sure many people remember Enfo's, wintermaul, WMW, Battleships, are you a retard, escape gay space, slide spongebob slide, X hero siege, castle defence, zoator, skibi, ryoko TD...and of course DOTA. wc3 gave me 8 years of entertainment for the price of a game and an expansion.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
Not quite sure what he is on about with logarithmicly?
The bit about him killing esports made me lol though :D
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eh? growing at logarithmic rates == sounds like bs
when we say growing exponentially it is just part of speech...
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On January 25 2013 04:58 Insoleet wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
Will we get modifiable rocks? Movable rocks? Liftable rocks?
Browder: Ooh, flying rocks? Flying rocks! Like Outland, they’re all floating up there!
And they block movement for flyers, unless you destroy them! Oh yes, that’s good. Legacy of the Void: Flying rocks.
This could be freaking cool haha Really nice interview overall !
New LotV map: Netherstorm
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On January 25 2013 22:03 Epamynondas wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 21:44 MavivaM wrote:
Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed.
That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience. One would think that Blizzard has access to the number of people who bought the game and the number of people who ladder.
They also know how many people finished the campaign which would be a good indicator that they liked it. In terms of those numbers Blizzard surely knows what they are talking about. If the SP wouldn't play an enormous role in the succes of the game they wouldn't pump so much money in CGI-Trailers and center the mainstream marketing around it.
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On January 25 2013 21:44 MavivaM wrote:Dustin Browder never fails to make me tilt my head. He seems like a pretty nice and funny guy, and also he's willing to keep having interviews (although PcGamer isn't exactly the SC2 community) and exposing himself. But I really can't get if he's clueless or he plays stupid. This gem: Show nested quote +Browder: But many, many of our players, I run into them all the time at conventions, say, “I’m not really into multiplayer, but I love the campaign.” That’s very common. And these guys just aren’t on the boards. They’re not posting. But they make up easily half of our audience. Now, unless I'm stupid Browder wants us to believe that Sc2 fans, some of the MOST VOCAL videogames fans around, apparently love the single player campaign... but they shut up, they don't speak about the great plot twists, the romantic love story and the deep character evolution from the previous game. Simply to avoid wasting space on the internet, even in Blizzard forums: they just wait for him to pass by and then praise him for the great innovations. At least half of the fans? Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed. That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience. Or at least they PM'ed him, since I don't recall all this enthusiasm both on TL or Blizzard forums. I hope he is bullshitting us since he wants to sell HoTS and actually doesn't really think like that, multiplayer it's what keep his game to be played. I can see him talking about meta possibilities and giving us the example of a gold league player since Sc2 is not only for pros but even for baboons like myself, but then he talks about maps, innovations and the community feedback and I get mad. All Blizzard maps are quite bad, there are a lot of solid - and especially willing to contribute - mapmakers, but afaik no one even contacted then. The only time Blizzard decided to implement new maps, was because someone else - Team Liquid - made a contest. The unranked system seems to be a concern, but other games such as League of legends show that it works. They could have even simply made another, identical same rank system and not show the ladder points to players (and I suspect that's exactly what they are doing) without making such a fuss. With all the talking about esports dying and so on, I still don't see it that bleak. The community is simply great, the game may have some flaws but it's far from being bad, unwatchable or unplayable. yet the one who seems the least helping is Blizzard, insanely enough. Tell what you want about Riot, their 'true' streaming numbers and the objective quality of their game at pro level, but here's the thing: they check the game and update him at least once a month. They are always there. New skins, art contests, even something as simple as the lobby image change. From time to time they add new game features and so on. Blizzard should be a way more accomplished company and yet we have to wait them to sell a whole new game JUST TO HAVE THE NEW REPLAY PATCH. And to think that unlike League of legends, Sc2 could have an immense map pool and possibilities everywhere. There are people who create mods for free, even if only to improve the game experience like the Stronger Team Colour one, for hell's sake! I mean, up until some time ago you must even pay to change a stupid username. Browder jokes about being the one who kills esports, and I think it's a pretty funny joke. It's not a serious thing and surely I don't believe that there's a single individual responsible of everything wrong. But his company position is something I can't understand. They have the resources, the fan base, the opinions of people who play and know their game more than their own employees, and yet they always want people to beg. It's not a matter of race X being OP, it's a matter of attitude. Am I an ungrate asshole or simply wrong? Sometimes we assume that whenever someone has a negtive opinion he must be trolling, but I don't see where I'm wrong...
I'm not one of the players Dustin describes, that never play multiplayer or doesn't follow the scene, but I actually enjoy the single player experience a lot more than the multiplayer one (though I love watching pro games). I'm looking forward to HotS first and foremost for the continued campaign and secondly for improved multiplayer at the pro level. My own multiplayer experience is not really a concern and doesn't really influence my decision to buy the game.
And I don't find it hard to believe at all that there are tons of players who loves single player, thinks multiplayer is stupid and hasn't even heard of teamliquid.net.
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I find nothing to hate about what was said in this interview. I don't get why people keep insisting on disecting every single statement to make it appear that Browder doesn't know what he's talking about. Haters gonna hate, I guess. I find Dustin Browder to be a very nice game director, and I really appreciate him being so positive to being interviewed. It's also unreasonable to expect him to be at a pro-level himself. That kind of commitment just isn't possible with a normal job, especially an executive.
While the interview did not give any huge revelations, I found it very interesting to somewhat better understand the thought process that goes into directing a game. Thanks for sharing the link.
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On January 26 2013 01:39 Wivyx wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 21:44 MavivaM wrote:Dustin Browder never fails to make me tilt my head. He seems like a pretty nice and funny guy, and also he's willing to keep having interviews (although PcGamer isn't exactly the SC2 community) and exposing himself. But I really can't get if he's clueless or he plays stupid. This gem: Browder: But many, many of our players, I run into them all the time at conventions, say, “I’m not really into multiplayer, but I love the campaign.” That’s very common. And these guys just aren’t on the boards. They’re not posting. But they make up easily half of our audience. Now, unless I'm stupid Browder wants us to believe that Sc2 fans, some of the MOST VOCAL videogames fans around, apparently love the single player campaign... but they shut up, they don't speak about the great plot twists, the romantic love story and the deep character evolution from the previous game. Simply to avoid wasting space on the internet, even in Blizzard forums: they just wait for him to pass by and then praise him for the great innovations. At least half of the fans? Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed. That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience. Or at least they PM'ed him, since I don't recall all this enthusiasm both on TL or Blizzard forums. I hope he is bullshitting us since he wants to sell HoTS and actually doesn't really think like that, multiplayer it's what keep his game to be played. I can see him talking about meta possibilities and giving us the example of a gold league player since Sc2 is not only for pros but even for baboons like myself, but then he talks about maps, innovations and the community feedback and I get mad. All Blizzard maps are quite bad, there are a lot of solid - and especially willing to contribute - mapmakers, but afaik no one even contacted then. The only time Blizzard decided to implement new maps, was because someone else - Team Liquid - made a contest. The unranked system seems to be a concern, but other games such as League of legends show that it works. They could have even simply made another, identical same rank system and not show the ladder points to players (and I suspect that's exactly what they are doing) without making such a fuss. With all the talking about esports dying and so on, I still don't see it that bleak. The community is simply great, the game may have some flaws but it's far from being bad, unwatchable or unplayable. yet the one who seems the least helping is Blizzard, insanely enough. Tell what you want about Riot, their 'true' streaming numbers and the objective quality of their game at pro level, but here's the thing: they check the game and update him at least once a month. They are always there. New skins, art contests, even something as simple as the lobby image change. From time to time they add new game features and so on. Blizzard should be a way more accomplished company and yet we have to wait them to sell a whole new game JUST TO HAVE THE NEW REPLAY PATCH. And to think that unlike League of legends, Sc2 could have an immense map pool and possibilities everywhere. There are people who create mods for free, even if only to improve the game experience like the Stronger Team Colour one, for hell's sake! I mean, up until some time ago you must even pay to change a stupid username. Browder jokes about being the one who kills esports, and I think it's a pretty funny joke. It's not a serious thing and surely I don't believe that there's a single individual responsible of everything wrong. But his company position is something I can't understand. They have the resources, the fan base, the opinions of people who play and know their game more than their own employees, and yet they always want people to beg. It's not a matter of race X being OP, it's a matter of attitude. Am I an ungrate asshole or simply wrong? Sometimes we assume that whenever someone has a negtive opinion he must be trolling, but I don't see where I'm wrong... I'm not one of the players Dustin describes, that never play multiplayer or doesn't follow the scene, but I actually enjoy the single player experience a lot more than the multiplayer one (though I love watching pro games). I'm looking forward to HotS first and foremost for the continued campaign and secondly for improved multiplayer at the pro level. My own multiplayer experience is not really a concern and doesn't really influence my decision to buy the game. And I don't find it hard to believe at all that there are tons of players who loves single player, thinks multiplayer is stupid and hasn't even heard of teamliquid.net.
I'm the same kind of player. Love to play the solo part and watch the multiplayer part. And contrary to what you might think MavivaM, a lot of people think the same. Of course you can argue about the 50% part, but without data it is a bit pointless
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mavivam.... i ahve about 10 real life friends that plays starcraft 2 8 of them play really casually wont ladder and only play with friends vs ai ... but they sure did rock the campagin ... only me and another one ladder.so 50 % is actually lower than i tough haha
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On January 25 2013 11:05 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:not quick enough =/
Ok, so this is definitely not what he meant (because I'm guessing DB isn't terribly into maths) - but technically, he COULD have meant that the rates themselves follow the logarithmic function (for instance, when you say "growing at a constant rate" you don't mean growing like the constant function - which is to say not at all). That would mean that the picture of the interest itself would be the integral of a logarithimic function would look like some version of x*ln(x) - x + C (use integration by parts), which is a graph that starts at C, dips down a bit initially, but then grows at slightly better than linear rates.
He probably meant exponential, but then, probably almost no one around him would know the difference between exponential and logarithmic anyway. But then in business, if you're using words which have more abstract meanings, it doesn't matter if you actually know what they mean. The message they mean to convey is "hey, I'm smart" and most people just assume that the subtext of the conversation (the "hey, I'm smart") is correct anyway. Of course, if more people in the US actually knew or were interested in math...
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On January 26 2013 02:13 Treehead wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 11:05 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:It’s growing at logarithmic rates. not quick enough =/ Ok, so this is definitely not what he meant (because I'm guessing DB isn't terribly into maths) - but technically, he COULD have meant that the rates themselves follow the logarithmic function (for instance, when you say "growing at a constant rate" you don't mean growing like the constant function - which is to say not at all). That would mean that the picture of the interest itself would be the integral of a logarithimic function would look like some version of x*ln(x) - x + C (use integration by parts), which is a graph that starts at C, dips down a bit initially, but then grows at slightly better than linear rates. He probably meant exponential, but then, probably almost no one around him would know the difference between exponential and logarithmic anyway. But then in business, if you're using words which have more abstract meanings, it doesn't matter if you actually know what they mean. The message they mean to convey is "hey, I'm smart" and most people just assume that the subtext of the conversation (the "hey, I'm smart") is correct anyway. Of course, if more people in the US actually knew or were interested in math...
But exponential growth would be an exaggeration of course. It may fit to league but not to starcraft. It's not like we grow faster now, the growth stagnated at some points so logarithmic makes actually more sense. It may be also a cubic equation because the growth could shoot up with hots, but is not likely gonna happen. There's no subtext at all DB is right.
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On January 26 2013 02:13 Treehead wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 11:05 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:It’s growing at logarithmic rates. not quick enough =/ Ok, so this is definitely not what he meant (because I'm guessing DB isn't terribly into maths) - but technically, he COULD have meant that the rates themselves follow the logarithmic function (for instance, when you say "growing at a constant rate" you don't mean growing like the constant function - which is to say not at all). That would mean that the picture of the interest itself would be the integral of a logarithimic function would look like some version of x*ln(x) - x + C (use integration by parts), which is a graph that starts at C, dips down a bit initially, but then grows at slightly better than linear rates. He probably meant exponential, but then, probably almost no one around him would know the difference between exponential and logarithmic anyway. But then in business, if you're using words which have more abstract meanings, it doesn't matter if you actually know what they mean. The message they mean to convey is "hey, I'm smart" and most people just assume that the subtext of the conversation (the "hey, I'm smart") is correct anyway. Of course, if more people in the US actually knew or were interested in math...
You should look at the rate of change as a function of time (derivative not integral). It seems to me that the rate of growth is actually decreasing although growth is still happening.
Not too worried though, HotS will for sure bring a lot of new interest into sc2
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On January 25 2013 22:08 MavivaM wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 22:03 Epamynondas wrote:On January 25 2013 21:44 MavivaM wrote:
Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed.
That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience. One would think that Blizzard has access to the number of people who bought the game and the number of people who ladder. That's an intelligent post and I never thought about that. So there are 2.5 million of people who bought the game only to go online and play the single campaign? ...I still hope he is bullshitting us >_>
WoL sold around 6 million copies the last time I checked. The majority of people who bought it never touched the multiplayer. It is fact across every RTS game ever made that the majority who buy it do not play the multiplayer. We are a tiny group of people.
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On January 25 2013 22:59 castlewise wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 22:30 Veldril wrote:On January 25 2013 22:08 MavivaM wrote:On January 25 2013 22:03 Epamynondas wrote:On January 25 2013 21:44 MavivaM wrote:
Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed.
That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience. One would think that Blizzard has access to the number of people who bought the game and the number of people who ladder. That's an intelligent post and I never thought about that. So there are 2.5 million of people who bought the game only to go online and play the single campaign? ...I still hope he is bullshitting us >_> He is not. You will be surprised how many people outside of SC community hates Multiplayer and never touch it. The problem with Teamliquid community is that we are sometimes too tightly focus on one game and not notice the trend or opinion of general public. ^This I like SC2, bought the game, beat it on brutal, 100%'ed the sp achievements, and watch a lot of husky casts. (I even got the Here Comes the Hammer achievement on Left 2 Die while playing solo because I didn't want to deal with multi.) On the RPS forums, or the Escapist this would be enough to qualify me as an avid SC2 fan. I also lurk on the team liquid forums enough to know that here those things qualify me as the worst sort of noob. SC2 multi has a strong community, but it can be hostile and dismissive to outsiders and outside opinions.
I just have written a blog post about this. Basically, I also think that we all tend to forget what the silent majority of people is doing with the game.
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Bisutopia19298 Posts
I gotta admit Dustin Browder interviews are always fun to read no matter the questions we get great answers lol.
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Browder is a good guy... He obviously loves this game. A LOT.
Can you imagine how stressful it must've been the first year or so, with tens of thousands of people relentlessly hating on you?
Yet the guy still forgives and loves the people who threw bricks at his face?
DB, he's like Jesus for Starcraft.
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From your perspective, what is killing eSports?
One word: Deathball™
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Nice Interview and I like he still consider there is more to work on TvP MECH. We await the next patches as soon as possible.
The saddest thing: Unranked and Ranked in the same Pool!!!! Two days ago a guy reported me because of this.I were looking for TvP and only faced T and Z and was quitting lot of games.One of the players got raged and reported me because: "in your match history there is "1v1" and you quit trying to get lower league than Gold,so I will report you!!!".Should I feel guilty?? There is no one in the "Custom Games" and I understand there arent many players in some regions like Southeast Asia,but matching Unranked with Ranked is so stupid...If the Community is growing,how is possible there to be "few" players???
The ladder will be a sh** and there will be a lot of free wins.It will be my fault and I hope we dont get punished because of this.Its just that sometimes I come to SC2 to play TvP,ZvP,PvT or TvT.Dont wanna play 20 games and got no time to play 10 games in a row to only find the match I am looking for.If I got no time or no friends,because I am casual or all my friends preffer CoD,what should I do???
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Great interview, thanks OP. Gogogo DB!
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Hmm, how do you verify this is actually DB if the interview was done in text only?
Just saying, because I did not spot a single "right?"
e. wait a minute, there's one right at the start.
False alert.
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I'm going to say it,
pitting Unranked players against Ranked players is not going to work out. Its just going to be heavily abused. Blizzard will be faced with one of two options. 1. Take away Unranked entirely. or 2. Unranked and Ranked will have to be completely separate MMR systems. More likely the second option will occur.
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On January 25 2013 04:36 AnomalySC2 wrote:
"I’m going to try to pull you away from here by constant harassment with Warp Prism. And it could be very cost effective and very dangerous. We hadn’t changed that unit. But they were starting to use it that way."
Yes they did change the Warp Prism, they buffed the shield hp on it.
It was starting to see some use before the shields buff but it never really took off big until the actual buff.
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On January 26 2013 02:13 Treehead wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 11:05 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:It’s growing at logarithmic rates. not quick enough =/ Ok, so this is definitely not what he meant (because I'm guessing DB isn't terribly into maths) - but technically, he COULD have meant that the rates themselves follow the logarithmic function (for instance, when you say "growing at a constant rate" you don't mean growing like the constant function - which is to say not at all). That would mean that the picture of the interest itself would be the integral of a logarithimic function would look like some version of x*ln(x) - x + C (use integration by parts), which is a graph that starts at C, dips down a bit initially, but then grows at slightly better than linear rates. He probably meant exponential, but then, probably almost no one around him would know the difference between exponential and logarithmic anyway. But then in business, if you're using words which have more abstract meanings, it doesn't matter if you actually know what they mean. The message they mean to convey is "hey, I'm smart" and most people just assume that the subtext of the conversation (the "hey, I'm smart") is correct anyway. Of course, if more people in the US actually knew or were interested in math...
Uhh, I'm pretty sure logarithmically is exactly what he meant, and that it probably is a decent approximation of growth in the SC2 scene. It might have been exponential 2 years ago, but it's certainly leveled out a lot now
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He says logarithmic as a figure of speech. Why are you guys trying to decipher that much out of it ?
He probably doesn't really know exactly the growth unless Blizzard has made a study on "e-sport growth" which isn't data available at Blizzard office. They would have to actually make the study and I doubt they did. He just knows there are many tournament, many fans and to him it looks like its growing and he says logarithmic in an interview. Thats about it...
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"Logarithmic" is pretty correct. SC2 exploded at release and now it's tapered off quite a bit. Still growing, but not at the rate of 2010/2011.
If it were "exponential", the whole planet would be hooked on SC2 by now. =P
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On January 26 2013 05:14 PauseBreak wrote:
I'm going to say it,
pitting Unranked players against Ranked players is not going to work out. Its just going to be heavily abused. Blizzard will be faced with one of two options. 1. Take away Unranked entirely. or 2. Unranked and Ranked will have to be completely separate MMR systems. More likely the second option will occur.
I see the issue, but as long as you don't know if you are playing against a ranked or unranked player, I don't think it will be easy to abuse.
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On January 25 2013 22:30 Veldril wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 22:08 MavivaM wrote:On January 25 2013 22:03 Epamynondas wrote:On January 25 2013 21:44 MavivaM wrote:
Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed.
That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience. One would think that Blizzard has access to the number of people who bought the game and the number of people who ladder. That's an intelligent post and I never thought about that. So there are 2.5 million of people who bought the game only to go online and play the single campaign? ...I still hope he is bullshitting us >_> He is not. You will be surprised how many people outside of SC community hates Multiplayer and never touch it. The problem with Teamliquid community is that we are sometimes too tightly focus on one game and not notice the trend or opinion of general public.
+1
It's very easy to forget when all you do is post at TL that the vast majority of people that bought Sc2 bought it for the Single Player campaign and maybe played a few multiplayer games for a little while.
From my own experience, most of my friends that bought it did so for the single player mode and the story. A couple of them got into multiplayer after they got bored of singleplayer mode but the rest did not.
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On January 26 2013 07:15 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 05:14 PauseBreak wrote:
I'm going to say it,
pitting Unranked players against Ranked players is not going to work out. Its just going to be heavily abused. Blizzard will be faced with one of two options. 1. Take away Unranked entirely. or 2. Unranked and Ranked will have to be completely separate MMR systems. More likely the second option will occur. I see the issue, but as long as you don't know if you are playing against a ranked or unranked player, I don't think it will be easy to abuse.
I think part of the issue with mixing ranked and unranked is that most people who wanted an unranked ladder, because it would provide a more "friendly" "stress-free" environment to play the game that isn't as mismatched as custom games. With neither player knowing either's ranks, wins/losses mean nothing other than playing the game for a good time.
With a mixed ladder, I wouldn't feel like I'm getting this environment, because the other player could always be playing "for real." Also, I think with the unranked ladder, you shouldn't be able to see your opponent's profile as this is counter to having no knowledge of your rank on the unranked ladder.
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On January 26 2013 02:31 virpi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 22:59 castlewise wrote:On January 25 2013 22:30 Veldril wrote:On January 25 2013 22:08 MavivaM wrote:On January 25 2013 22:03 Epamynondas wrote:On January 25 2013 21:44 MavivaM wrote:
Iirc Sc2 sold about 1.5 million copies in the very first days: let's say that the number hasn't changed.
That means that Browder met around 750.000 people in real life just because they wanted to congratulate for the single player campaign's glorious experience. One would think that Blizzard has access to the number of people who bought the game and the number of people who ladder. That's an intelligent post and I never thought about that. So there are 2.5 million of people who bought the game only to go online and play the single campaign? ...I still hope he is bullshitting us >_> He is not. You will be surprised how many people outside of SC community hates Multiplayer and never touch it. The problem with Teamliquid community is that we are sometimes too tightly focus on one game and not notice the trend or opinion of general public. ^This I like SC2, bought the game, beat it on brutal, 100%'ed the sp achievements, and watch a lot of husky casts. (I even got the Here Comes the Hammer achievement on Left 2 Die while playing solo because I didn't want to deal with multi.) On the RPS forums, or the Escapist this would be enough to qualify me as an avid SC2 fan. I also lurk on the team liquid forums enough to know that here those things qualify me as the worst sort of noob. SC2 multi has a strong community, but it can be hostile and dismissive to outsiders and outside opinions. I just have written a blog post about this. Basically, I also think that we all tend to forget what the silent majority of people is doing with the game.
The thing that I am most excited about for SC in the next month is not any tournament or 1v1 connected event. It's the release of the final chapter of the BW campaign remake.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=303166
DB interview is great. Blizzard gets endless shit, but I love SC2 and think they did a damn good job even if I wish we still had lurkers and firmly believe reavers>collosus.
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On January 26 2013 10:14 KillingVector wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 07:15 Plansix wrote:On January 26 2013 05:14 PauseBreak wrote:
I'm going to say it,
pitting Unranked players against Ranked players is not going to work out. Its just going to be heavily abused. Blizzard will be faced with one of two options. 1. Take away Unranked entirely. or 2. Unranked and Ranked will have to be completely separate MMR systems. More likely the second option will occur. I see the issue, but as long as you don't know if you are playing against a ranked or unranked player, I don't think it will be easy to abuse. I think part of the issue with mixing ranked and unranked is that most people who wanted an unranked ladder, because it would provide a more "friendly" "stress-free" environment to play the game that isn't as mismatched as custom games. With neither player knowing either's ranks, wins/losses mean nothing other than playing the game for a good time. With a mixed ladder, I wouldn't feel like I'm getting this environment, because the other player could always be playing "for real." Also, I think with the unranked ladder, you shouldn't be able to see your opponent's profile as this is counter to having no knowledge of your rank on the unranked ladder.
This is a good idea. I should note that I don't usually think there are very many good ideas in this community, but this is genuinely a brilliant idea.
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On January 26 2013 10:14 KillingVector wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 07:15 Plansix wrote:On January 26 2013 05:14 PauseBreak wrote:
I'm going to say it,
pitting Unranked players against Ranked players is not going to work out. Its just going to be heavily abused. Blizzard will be faced with one of two options. 1. Take away Unranked entirely. or 2. Unranked and Ranked will have to be completely separate MMR systems. More likely the second option will occur. I see the issue, but as long as you don't know if you are playing against a ranked or unranked player, I don't think it will be easy to abuse. I think part of the issue with mixing ranked and unranked is that most people who wanted an unranked ladder, because it would provide a more "friendly" "stress-free" environment to play the game that isn't as mismatched as custom games. With neither player knowing either's ranks, wins/losses mean nothing other than playing the game for a good time. With a mixed ladder, I wouldn't feel like I'm getting this environment, because the other player could always be playing "for real." Also, I think with the unranked ladder, you shouldn't be able to see your opponent's profile as this is counter to having no knowledge of your rank on the unranked ladder.
Well, here's the general issue. When people want "an unranked ladder":
1) They want to play a game that has no consequences (even if it's aesthetic penalties). Playing a ranked ladder opponent does not change this.
2) They want to goof around against an opponent who also goofs around. Playing any sort of automated match-making system makes this impossible on a consistent basis.
3) They want to try new things out in a "real game" environment without losing current standing. Unranked vs Ranked is actually ideal.
4) They want to curb-stomb newbies. No matchmaking system will ever allow this purposefully.
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On January 26 2013 02:06 Diminisherqc wrote:
mavivam.... i ahve about 10 real life friends that plays starcraft 2 8 of them play really casually wont ladder and only play with friends vs ai ... but they sure did rock the campagin ... only me and another one ladder.so 50 % is actually lower than i tough haha
people like mavivam like to push there opinions as fact. Just ignore him. I for one cant wait for the campaign and love the WOL campaign as well,
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On January 27 2013 13:49 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 10:14 KillingVector wrote:On January 26 2013 07:15 Plansix wrote:On January 26 2013 05:14 PauseBreak wrote:
I'm going to say it,
pitting Unranked players against Ranked players is not going to work out. Its just going to be heavily abused. Blizzard will be faced with one of two options. 1. Take away Unranked entirely. or 2. Unranked and Ranked will have to be completely separate MMR systems. More likely the second option will occur. I see the issue, but as long as you don't know if you are playing against a ranked or unranked player, I don't think it will be easy to abuse. I think part of the issue with mixing ranked and unranked is that most people who wanted an unranked ladder, because it would provide a more "friendly" "stress-free" environment to play the game that isn't as mismatched as custom games. With neither player knowing either's ranks, wins/losses mean nothing other than playing the game for a good time. With a mixed ladder, I wouldn't feel like I'm getting this environment, because the other player could always be playing "for real." Also, I think with the unranked ladder, you shouldn't be able to see your opponent's profile as this is counter to having no knowledge of your rank on the unranked ladder. Well, here's the general issue. When people want "an unranked ladder": 1) They want to play a game that has no consequences (even if it's aesthetic penalties). Playing a ranked ladder opponent does not change this. 2) They want to goof around against an opponent who also goofs around. Playing any sort of automated match-making system makes this impossible on a consistent basis. 3) They want to try new things out in a "real game" environment without losing current standing. Unranked vs Ranked is actually ideal. 4) They want to curb-stomb newbies. No matchmaking system will ever allow this purposefully.
These are all possibilities for what people expect from an unranked ladder. My personal experience is that when I hear someone complaining about wanting an unranked ladder, they want to be able to play the game without any ladder anxiety and want something different from being rolf stomped by masters players in custom games. That is, the unranked ladder is really for the casual part of the sc2 scene.
I'm going off anecdotal evidence, so I would love to see any polls if you got them. Otherwise, we're both fishing in the dark.
There could be potential problems with mixed ranked/unranked. I'm wondering if it is possible for two high masters players to win trade to GM. If you can stream snipe pro players consistently, then it should be possible for two people to coordinate always playing each other if their MMR is high enough.
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EPT
