I used to play Starcraft 2 frequently and was quite serious about it. Unfortunately I have essentially quit due to other dedications (namely school and tennis). However I am still a competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee player. Some comparisons between the Starcraft/LoL/Dota 2 communities and the FGC community have been made, and most suggest unreasonable changes.
To put it concisely, the FGC is a family, whereas the "E-Sports" community is just that: a community. Someone above said that the FGC combined is still smaller than the Starcraft community. This is 100% true. Now why is that? I would argue that it is almost entirely due to the lack of easy and widespread online play in many of these games. The group of people left who still play the game competitively become family, because they must play each other in person and work together to survive as a community. What does this lead to? A more mature and tightly-knit community. Of course there will be some rivalries, but at the end of the day, most everyone will unite, even paying for others' entry fees. This has led the game to be more relaxed, but also professional and intense. After all, it's sort of to troll in person.
Many (an understatement) Starcraft and even LoL or Dota players have cited the intimidation and fear involved in laddering as the primary issue in the community. This was also the primary motivation for me quitting Starcraft 2. Grinding for hours alone while constantly being paranoid about moving down on the ladder was too much for me, especially since I was so focused on tennis. Super Smash Bros. Melee remained fun because I was either practicing alone, or playing with friends (or people who became friends before long).
Now some of you might be saying "well what are we supposed to do? Remove online play and kill the community?". Obviously this would be a massive mistake. But I propose something else. Do not make many invite-only tournaments. It is imperative for even the biggest tournaments to be generally an open tournament. Yes this will lead to tons of entrants, but it will fix most of Starcraft's problems. Only allow the top players to make it to the actual venue, but allow even silver and gold players to enter if they wish. No longer is there a daunting ladder before you which defines your skill level to the whole community. No longer will you have to climb to the top just to feel like a Starcraft player. With this slightly more relaxed mentality in the community, the community will become more like a family. The focus will then be becoming a great player, not climbing a ladder. I think ladders should become like exclusive teams and leagues. Anyone can request to join teams, but have to win or compete evenly with some of the players first. This should extend far down as well. There should be bronze league and silver league teams too. Every month or so the top ten players should play another equally leveled team in a team tournament. The community will build bonds, and the individual player will feel useful.
Starcraft could become such a beautiful thing. Something truly fun.
you wanna improve the esports community? stop thinking so damn much about esports. stop thinking so much about sponsors, about how another game is the inferior esports game because it's different, stop trying to come up with lameass excuses why it has more viewers. just leave it as the game and the players.
when I heard people like the fgc didn't want any part of esports a couple years back I wondered wtf they were thinking but after all the bullshit I've seen happen in sc2 I see where they're coming from perfectly
On July 17 2013 10:51 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: As for introducing SC2 to other esports fans, Day9 did it... except maybe target audience doesn't have 90 minute attention span.
On July 17 2013 10:51 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: As for introducing SC2 to other esports fans, Day9 did it... except maybe target audience doesn't have 90 minute attention span.
Unnecessary shot at fans of other eSports? Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or just proving Alex's point haha.
I wasn't meaning to sound degrading, I mean people in general who have no idea wtf is going on might want something shorter to get into than 90 mins.
I know my league buddies who don't play SC2 would struggle through this video, and if I didn't play league, I'd want something shorter than 90 minutes to learn the tenets of league.
On July 17 2013 10:51 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: As for introducing SC2 to other esports fans, Day9 did it... except maybe target audience doesn't have 90 minute attention span.
Unnecessary shot at fans of other eSports? Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or just proving Alex's point haha.
I wasn't meaning to sound degrading, I mean people in general who have no idea wtf is going on might want something shorter to get into than 90 mins.
I know my league buddies who don't play SC2 would struggle through this video, and if I didn't play league, I'd want something shorter than 90 minutes to learn the tenets of league.
Haha okay, just a misunderstanding then. Thanks for the calm response though!
In my opinion, from having tried to get friends into starcraft, these are the two biggest things that need to be added:
1. Automatically join chat channels by default. Have a starting set of something like "general chat," "strategy chat," and "tournament chat" by default for new accounts, and allow players to customize their chat channels upon login. Modeling the chat window somewhat after how WoW works would be ideal. This would immediately let new players interact with people the instant they log in, and would greatly improve the sense of community in this game.
2. Free to play unranked (including 1v1!). The biggest hurdle I've had to getting people into this game is that they have to pay $60 to get a taste of the game. A game like starcraft that's primarily built around 1v1 competition is unique in the sense that you can't fully experience the game without owning it. A lot of games that I ended up getting into were because I played them at a friend's house, or on a recommendation from a friend. Halo, Super Smash Bros, Minecraft, etc. How is someone supposed to try starcraft without paying the full price? I was able to play splitscreen halo, and was hooked and went and bought the game. Same with smash and minecraft. However, most people won't just let you play on their ladder account to give it a try. In order to attract new people to the game, it needs to be as easy as possible for them to experience the game for the first time.
One reason I didn't see in my skimming of the OP is the "respect for skill." No one respects skill in this game.
Lose to polt on NA ladder and youre okay with it, its polt after all.
Lose to polt on a smurf account? bm bm bm bm bm.. but why?
because most people have no recognition as to what skill is and just see the loss as "i lost to random unknown terran player, this game is terrible/imba/etc"
(or on the flipside, being bm'd and/or having bronze-gold players rage quitting and whining about imbalance when they lose to me while doing a level job. You'd think a bronze player could recognize that he was playing someone who is confident versus most pros.
I am guilty of these things myself, too. But I think the lack of respect for SKILL and all losses being blamed on stupid crap is one of the more major problems in the starcraft community.
admit you suck. congratulate the winners. then get good enough to become the winner.
On July 17 2013 14:26 Let it Raine wrote: One reason I didn't see in my skimming of the OP is the "respect for skill." No one respects skill in this game.
Lose to polt on NA ladder and youre okay with it, its polt after all.
Lose to polt on a smurf account? bm bm bm bm bm.. but why?
because most people have no recognition as to what skill is and just see the loss as "i lost to random unknown terran player, this game is terrible/imba/etc"
(or on the flipside, being bm'd and/or having bronze-gold players rage quitting and whining about imbalance when they lose to me while doing a level job. You'd think a bronze player could recognize that he was playing someone who is confident versus most pros.
I am guilty of these things myself, too. But I think the lack of respect for SKILL and all losses being blamed on stupid crap is one of the more major problems in the starcraft community.
admit you suck. congratulate the winners. then get good enough to become the winner.
Pretty much 80% of twitch chat is just balance whine with mostly the intent of downplaying the opposite race of their favourite player. It must be quite off-putting for new people to come in as well! Also, I've played on all 3 ladders, and NA server is definetely without a question the most BM and whiny ladder, id say after every 2-3 wins, i'd get BM'd for winning, what makes it worse is, the report function never feels like it even does anything!
Oh look, every caster supporting every esport because it represents the best possible career for them, hiding behind the guise of being friendly and noble to everyone. Casters mostly being failed players who couldn't make a living off winning (sorry axslav/axeltoss, but it's true). Sure, people should stop being asshats to each other on the internet, World peace would be nice too while you're at it.
Guess what, a lot of people just don't give a fuck about other games and you'll never make them give any fucks. It's a great promotion for those who do don't get me wrong. I just find it extremely distasteful that all of a sudden all these organizations are diversifying into many other games, and now every community is expected to cross-polinate. Reading this entire post from Axeltoss and his quote from idra, what do we see? Plenty of flowery language about being friendlier gamers on the internet, not so much in the way of admitting the pure business potential of unifying the audience. I don't like it. It feels shady. It feels like MLG trying to get everyone to play nice so that we'll all keep watching no matter what game they put on. But it's impossible to really argue against someone saying "hey boys play nice" without looking like an asshole.
But to me, it just seems like shrewd business, Just like Artosis claiming he loves world of tanks. Eugh. Disgusting.
Maybe these people that did not open it (yet), are not interested in it for various reasons?
I have a flatmate which never ever would even install Dota 2 (or anything similar), no matter how much i "educate" (rofl) him about it. People seem quite capable of playing the games they like themselves...
On July 17 2013 14:26 Let it Raine wrote: One reason I didn't see in my skimming of the OP is the "respect for skill." No one respects skill in this game.
Lose to polt on NA ladder and youre okay with it, its polt after all.
Lose to polt on a smurf account? bm bm bm bm bm.. but why?
because most people have no recognition as to what skill is and just see the loss as "i lost to random unknown terran player, this game is terrible/imba/etc"
(or on the flipside, being bm'd and/or having bronze-gold players rage quitting and whining about imbalance when they lose to me while doing a level job. You'd think a bronze player could recognize that he was playing someone who is confident versus most pros.
I am guilty of these things myself, too. But I think the lack of respect for SKILL and all losses being blamed on stupid crap is one of the more major problems in the starcraft community.
admit you suck. congratulate the winners. then get good enough to become the winner.
Pretty much 80% of twitch chat is just balance whine with mostly the intent of downplaying the opposite race of their favourite player. It must be quite off-putting for new people to come in as well! Also, I've played on all 3 ladders, and NA server is definetely without a question the most BM and whiny ladder, id say after every 2-3 wins, i'd get BM'd for winning, what makes it worse is, the report function never feels like it even does anything!
Hey, if we want anecdotal evidence then I'll say I almost never get BM'd. Maybe 1 out of every 100 games if I'm lucky. Way more people being self-defeatest ("man I fucked that up, gg", etc). 95% of my games start with GLHF and end with GG. Even when I 6 pool.
But if I read these forums I'd think I'd be getting BM'd every other game. I'm just not seeing it.
We should just ignore the League of Casual community, we are way better. I would rather kill myself than play this terrible casualgame. Its like comparing a Champions Legue Winner to a 12-yo School-Team.
On July 17 2013 23:37 Muecke wrote: We should just ignore the League of Casual community, we are way better. I would rather kill myself than play this terrible casualgame. Its like comparing a Champions Legue Winner to a 12-yo School-Team.
This might come off as a troll-ish post but, to be honest, we should just stay away from what the Counter-Strike has become. ESEA has become the premier forums for NA CS and it is absolute shit. It's funny from time to time but the community is full of trolls and the people who have been around the longest and should be the most helpful troll themselves. Every effort to revive CS is shot down and ridiculed. They want LANs and then when they get anything solid they just shoot it down and abandon ship. Pros talk shit to the casual community and the casual community talks shit to the pros. The NA CS scene is what the NA SC2 scene should veer away from.
EPT
