A few weeks ago I received an email from an individual in Texas who started his own LAN center and is in the process of creating a studio in a small town with the intentions to broadcast Starcraft 2. In Anaheim I found myself holding back tears as never-felt before emotions washed over me as each crowd erupted over their respective stages and players, each audience member unequivocally immersed in their own experience, each having their own story of how and why they were there. I’ve seen professional players leap from their stations to pump up a crowd of thousands and embrace their friends and teammates after an intense long-sought victory. I’m not talking about only Starcraft 2 here. If there is one thing every e-sports title has in common, it’s the benefit of a passionate community. That sense of coming together. That feeling of camaraderie and as you realize you are a part of a massive movement, that there are hundreds of thousands of others out there who are thinking just as you do.
As I reflected upon this I felt the urge to know why each game has such a following, and also theorized about how to reach more people. This thing that we all know exists, how is it not massive already? More importantly, is there anything each of these communities (we) can actually do to simplify the process? Here are a couple of theories I have on what might be holding us back.
Theory one: Tension between the communities. The threads I have read, the comments made by certain individuals of certain communities... r/starcraft, TL, twitch chats... It blows my mind and is the most infuriating thing. People will just bash other games as a hobby. Each person has their own reasons. It’s a terrible mentality and it should go away. People like certain games, so what? How does it help anything to hate on something that you don’t like? It doesn’t. If you have a cupcake and your friend has a cookie, are you going to argue the cookie is too crumbly and laugh at them? No! You are going to enjoy your damn cupcake! How does this look to the outside world, too? Those outside of our bubbles? Are people going want to share in our tasty treat endeavours after seeing these toxic exchanges?
Theory two: Intimidation, fear of the unknown. Look I’ll be honest this applies to me. I look at Dota 2 and the overwhelming amount of knowledge I might need to understand the game, and I never really get started. It’s daunting and intimidating. Is that an excuse? Yes. Should it be? Probably not. This also leads me away from being able to enjoy the game when I try to watch it, in a sense. Not knowing the basic ideas and not being able to appreciate awesome plays on a screen made by the best players in the world. This can apply to any game.
Does this apply to anyone else or just me? Would others be willing to help fix these potential problems? I posted on r/leagueoflegends and r/dota2 the following two threads:
The basic idea of these threads was to first try to reach out and encourage more collaboration to address my “tension” theory and analyze if it even existed. Second was to address the intimidation factor and offer free help to those who seeked it in SC2, in return for their help with their game.
The response I received was staggering and unexpected. I’m really not sure what surprised me more, the amount of responses and level of friendliness, or the fact that many of the replies actually EMBRACED my game, and cited nerve issues or intimidation issues. Huge shoutout to both of those communities for being so incredibly receptive and cool about my idea about further collaboration between communities.
What also surprised me were certain community members who went back and reached out in the other direction on r/starcraft. Those threads are here:
Truly fantastic to see these threads pop up, showing that certain members of other communities are willing to take additional steps to bridge the gap.
The amount of responses also made me kind of sad... I only promised to help 4 people from dota2 and 4 from league of legends, and I’ve received responses from literally hundreds of awesome people that I would really like to help, but physically can’t.
So, is there a solution? I’m not promising I have one, in fact I’m open to suggestions. Rome wasn't built in a day. I feel there are little things that could be done to help us get where we want to be. Things we, as a community, have the ability to do. Things that can not only bring us together, but help push all of us forward. Where do we go from here? It might be up to you.
Based on some suggestions and reading a bunch of comments, I’ve come up with a few ideas. Ideas that any of us can do. Some I mean to tackle, and some that could be attempted by many of you. The main goals being: Encouraging additional collaboration between these amazing communities and decreasing unfamiliarity between games. I will include this list at the end of this post, and reserve the right to edit some great ones made by you fine folks to this post.
I’ll leave you with something simple as my first suggestion, something anyone can do. A simple change in attitude. Go out and actively share your cookies and cupcakes. Help each other perfect the recipe. There is plenty to go around, and none of us are running out anytime soon.
-Alex “Axeltoss” Rodriguez
P.S. This can also be applied at a much more basic level. That negative mindset whenever something new or different pops up in your OWN community. Rather than starting out bashing something you don’t like, imagine how differently things would be if everyone was constructive and positive about all of the content that is accessible and available in their respective scenes. Positive energy, rather than negative.
TL;DR: Be more open. Take action in helping your game become as accessible to others as possible.
EDIT: I'm moving forward with the coaching exchange.
Email me please if you would like to help: Axeltoss@mlg.tv.
Options:
Giving SC2 coaching to LoL players Giving SC2 coaching to Dota players Receiving LoL coaching from LoL players Recieving Dota coaching from Dota players
Ideas:
I will fulfill my promise to those I inquired in League of Legends and Dota 2. I’ve debated just taking a day to stream me coaching folks from LoL and Dota2 in the art of SC2, while also learning more of their game, but I’m not sure how interested people would be in that. The stream would be so others who want to learn can benefit, those I can’t necessarily personally interact with. I’m tentative to do this because I don’t want to feel like a self-promoter.
A coaching exchange. It doesn’t have to be just me trading coaching for coaching. Anyone in each community can participate as well. Imagine a portal of sorts where teachers and students can link up and learn from each other.
A weekly list of top professional matches from different games. People don’t have time to follow absolutely every match in each scene. “Best games of the week” could be a nice option for those who want to stick with their own game, but still enjoy others.
A show of sorts where top pros and personalities from other games come together and enjoy, teach, and learn from eachother more about their respective games, and generally just have a bunch of fun.
A source that includes a short compilation of history of each e-sport we love so dearly. Something concise and clean that gives a good sense of the current state of each scene: leagues that are happening, money at stake, top upcoming tournaments, players to look out for. This could help people from other games know WHY they should be excited about something that they haven't been able to see a ton of.
Basic introductory videos to our games. Has anyone truly done this right? 5 minutes or less explaining the absolute basics and making people excited who have never experienced the game before. Mixing in the e-sports aspect as well as the gameplay aspect.
IdrA quote:
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
On July 16 2013 02:01 ROOTAxeltoss wrote: "Theory one: Tension between the communities. The threads I have read, the comments made by certain individuals of certain communities... r/starcraft, TL, twitch chats... It blows my mind and is the most infuriating thing. People will just bash other games as a hobby. Each person has their own reasons. It’s a terrible mentality and it should go away. People like certain games, so what? How does it help anything to hate on something that you don’t like? It doesn’t. If you have a cupcake and your friend has a cookie, are you going to argue the cookie is too crumbly and laugh at them? No! You are going to enjoy your damn cupcake! How does this look to the outside world, too? Those outside of our bubbles? Are people going want to share in our tasty treat endeavours after seeing these toxic exchanges?"
the difficulty in improving in this area involves the mental maturity of participants. from a child's simple perspective if they like one thing then anything else must be "bad". from an adult's perspective: i love SC and SC2. WoW just is not "my thing". Does this mean "WoW sucks donkey balls". No it does not, but i ahve a hard time convincing an avid 14 year old RTS player of this perspective. Take a look at how "Force" stopped supporting Diablo3. His "farewell to Diablo" was an ADULT DISCUSSION. He didn't say "Diablo sucks donkey balls".
For these communities to work in large numbers they'll include males aged 13 to 17 who have a hard time viewing their favourite games from an adult perspective. Males at this age are naturally combative and still forming their own personal identity.
When I was a around that age... "WWF Wrestlemania 2000" was the greatest game ever made and any one who didn't agree was a total idiot. I was 14, and of course, i knew everything.
Great plan axeltoss! Most of the hate is towards league from starcraft and especially dota. Hopefully we can fix the issues on our end through this initiative.
I think some of the points you make are very good. Yesterday at EVO a lot of people were bashing on Super Smash Brothers as being "not a real fighting game" and not an e-SPORT, even though over 100k people were watching the event. That certainly doesn't help.
I think a show such as ESPN SportsCenter with recaps from all the games might be helpful for those who don't have time to necessarily watch EVERYTHING. Top 10 plays etc. That would be fun.
Also introductory videos for games would make it easier for people to understand. People who don't understand StarCraft watch me play and have no idea what's going on. Maybe if there was a really concise 2-3 min video explaining the game in nothing but the most basic detail it would help.
Thank you for this post. I share with you the feeling that without new "blood" for our game, we can't make esport "progress". However, as I see now the communauty, people seems to be divided in several categories : those who are happy with current level, those who wants more and a few that just goes by and might "damage" the communauty. I believe Blizzard is making some move with WCS and especially the WCS portal (that fits a bit your ideas : weekly list of professional plays, basic introduction to SC2 and short compilation of eSport history). As much people loves TL, I think it is too "nerdy" for casual gamers to catch SC2 fever just by finding this site. And out of TL, few sites gets so much precised and useful information.
Concerning coaching others esports fans to SC2, maybe I'm too old, but it seems to be an running debate on these forums since a long time... Free2play, more team leagues or whatever solution we could come up, SC2, imo, fits a "niche" on our maket.
Alex, I want you to know that I have so much respect for you for this, and everything you do. You are truly an amazing man. Now, it's time to learn how to Reddit so I can help out. ^^
On July 16 2013 02:16 DinoMight wrote: I think some of the points you make are very good. Yesterday at EVO a lot of people were bashing on Super Smash Brothers as being "not a real fighting game" and not an e-SPORT, even though over 100k people were watching the event. That certainly doesn't help.
I think a show such as ESPN SportsCenter with recaps from all the games might be helpful for those who don't have time to necessarily watch EVERYTHING. Top 10 plays etc. That would be fun.
Also introductory videos for games would make it easier for people to understand. People who don't understand StarCraft watch me play and have no idea what's going on. Maybe if there was a really concise 2-3 min video explaining the game in nothing but the most basic detail it would help.
Whaaaat were they really? Everybody knows that SSBM is like the best fighting game ever with the most skill required to play at a top level. I guess if they haven't really played it people wont appreciate the crazy moves of the players they're watching but shit man...
On July 16 2013 02:27 Swift118 wrote: Axel you seem like a genuinely nice guy, but I feel you are fighting a losing battle. Online + gaming = a lot of angsty behaviour and trolling.
Hey if only a few people feel inspired or change their mentality then I consider that a win.
I just want to point out, that dota players do have a legit reason to hate on Riot/Tencent(not on the game). The fact that Riot tried to sabotage our beloved game doesnt help the colaboration between the two communities. I follow a bit of League, there are pro players there who understand what is Riot doing, still they keep a good relationship with the dota players/community (I know about CLG_Link and d.Kiwikid).
I really respect you for opening up the communication, and I'm really glad that for the most part, the feedback has been really positive for you. It sounds a bit dumb, but I think a lot about the gaming community, because it's been a serious love-hate relationship for me ever since I started playing online multiplayer games seriously (starting with Diablo II, about ten years ago).
I think a lot of the issue is that there is both negative internal perceptions and external perceptions of gaming. The internal perception is outrageously exclusive -- this is really, really obvious when it comes to gender. Women and girls are actively harassed, belittled, and considered unwelcome as a norm. On the other hand, the outside community views gamers as nerdy, immature boys with prepubescent humor. I'm not saying that the perceptions are remotely accurate of the entire community (we are a very diverse bunch!), but it really hurts the ability to grow in terms of viewership and being a more inclusive form of entertainment.
When it comes to collaboration between communities, just think of it like music tastes. The hipsters don't want anyone else liking their music because they want to be the ones who were into it first. The elitists think their music is way above everyone else, that others who like their music can't truly appreciate it. Then the pop music fans think everyone else is pretentious and dumb. And then there are those who simply appreciate music for the fact of listening to something that is beautiful, whether they think it is or others do. You can absolutely see this with the different game communities or the battle of the console war, and most of the times, it's just frustrating and not worth the effort to untangle.
It's funny because I saw that Axeltoss wrote this and read everything with his voice. I like his casting! ^^
A show of sorts where top pros and personalities from other games come together and enjoy, teach, and learn from eachother more about their respective games, and generally just have a bunch of fun.
This could also be a very fun idea. I've followed the LoL scene a bit and I'm a big Curse fanboy, mostly because Voyboy joined them and because Voyboy is both incredibly good and incredibly friendly, afterwards though you start liking the entire team as a whole. Anyway, Voyboy did mention that he might have played SC2, though he said that on stream. But it could be fun to see pros coach each other at their games and stream the sessions.
I believe that someone who is striving to improve the quality of the community must follow a few guidelines. First, never be rude, regardless of the circumstances. One of the things that made me quit LoL and come back to sc2 was having my team completely flame the SHIT out of each other, arguing about who fucked up, who was wrong, holy shit what a nightmare. It's impossible to win a team game with that sort of mentality. This problem is lesser in SC2, but I still think that people should strive to be as friendly as possible; twitch chats in general are often bad.
Humans tend to compare themselve to eachother, in all aspects, from mentality to physical abilities. And that comparison is what we call competetiveness. Asking people to not compare the games they play to other games, is like asking KT_Flash to not be so competetive. It's not workimng, when the nature of the games they like, are competetive in every aspect. Also, when someone have jugded that they are superior in a specific way(stronger body, btter game, higher IQ etc), they will forever remember that, and try to make it stay that way.
And this is !!NOT!! just something kids do, thats what humans do. This is a short example of things that have been created by competetiveness: Wars, racism, sports, schools, capitalism, social classes----
There's nothing wrong with how the communities are grown and prosperous competitively, but intrinsically. This is probably the smallest of issues within eSports as a whole. You won't be able to achieve what the FGC has nearly functioned for years because of the natural genre of the games.
There will always be haters, they're such a minority that I think this will get more attention than the problem it's based on.
I think the fundamental issue with "theory one" (which I agree with) stems from the very fact e-Sports is competitive. We play a competitive game, and likely have been playing competitive games for a large part of our lives as gamers. We like to think we are better than other people we face - if we lose, it is not because they're a better player, but because we messed up, or they got lucky (generally speaking).
I saw this in the MLG Halo community so much. People have big egos online because of their online success at the game. They think that because they're better, they have the right to talk down on people, anything to boost their online ego, their e-penis. In the Halo community, this extended to eSports as a whole because of arguments against, for example, the CoD community. I can't count the amount of times I saw the "which requires more skill" debate. This happens between SC2, LoL, and Dota2 as well.
People need to stop trying to one up each other, trying to prove that what they like is the best. It all stems from our competitve nature, and that's completely understandable. But we have to put the interests of eSports as a whole first, so that we all can enjoy it.
On July 16 2013 02:57 cloneThorN wrote: On the point about why people bash other games:
Humans tend to compare themselve to eachother, in all aspects, from mentality to physical abilities. And that comparison is what we call competetiveness. Asking people to not compare the games they play to other games, is like asking KT_Flash to not be so competetive. It's not workimng, when the nature of the games they like, are competetive in every aspect. Also, when someone have jugded that they are superior in a specific way(stronger body, btter game, higher IQ etc), they will forever remember that, and try to make it stay that way.
And this is !!NOT!! just something kids do, thats what humans do. This is a short example of things that have been created by competetiveness: Wars, racism, sports, schools, capitalism, social classes----
Honestly, that is a rather lazy viewpoint. There is something between "power of friendship > all" and "everything else sucks giant flaming nutsacks".
Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
I admit that I made fun of soccer sometimes. I guess it is part of the competitive feeling for some people of being the best in the world, even if it is just you being the fan of the best game in the world. Pretty much a global problem based on the way education is run. If we would manage to get rid of that in gaming, then it would be a heavenly deed. Or it would ruin any competitive gaming, as we would be to nice and don't care about winning.
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
Yeah, thats how I feel about it aswell. I like the whole esports idea, and I think 'getting along' will get us alot further than being rude to eachother - but if I only want to watch starcraft, I am only going to watch starcraft. I'd love to see more people come and join the starcrafttrain, but I have no urge to attract more people towards games that I dont follow, or start following it myself even if I already tried to get into it in the past.
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
It's not a perfect comparison however. Hockey and football are established enough and have their own world going on. Esport games kind of compete, the bigger games gets the bigger stages, bigger prizepools - I'd say more tournaments, but LoL seems to be going with leagues instead, whereas we have a million single tournaments - and sponsors are starting to lean towards LoL more than sc2 (not too heavily, mind you, but team MVP for example, and I think it was team Light before they abandoned their sc2 team? might not have been them; some lesser known team had a sponsor that didn't want to support their sc2 squad)
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
I'm not certain how relevant this is. Perhaps it's more about once we get there we can bicker. Those examples you mentioned are already successful enough where it doesn't really matter that there might be animosity between them all. With how small esports is compared to those examples, I feel it's quite counter productive to show too much animosity towards other games.
I'm not saying hold hands and play all the games, I'm saying be open to the idea of other games existing and just have a generally more positive outlook on things. What are the things we can do to encourage positivity, rather than negativity?
Perhaps looking at it this way: NFL, NBA, MLB, Esports
As a caster, Axeltoss, I think you can do a lot to help -- can you cast SC2 to help the Dota2/LoL players follow the game better?
Likewise, can the Dota2/LoL casters help me watch them? I have the same daunting feeling you mention that I have no idea what is going on when trying to watch the best playing those games. I have even played them, but following the pro game is like trying to jump from bronze to GM in understanding, it's just a different game.
As mainly an SC2 player, I might be biased but I think we're most fun to watch. But if there was a caster who helped me capture the excitement and understanding of the MOBA games, maybe I could watch those to.
At the same time, I think it is very hard to just drop in and watch SC2 if you don't know the game really well. Many of my bronze league level friends have trouble following the cast. I don't think there's any chance I could get a non-player to watch even the best casters from WCS and be able to keep up at all.
Or is the depth of game knowledge in each title just too different to make it accessible to non-experts or across titles? If so, it's going to be hard to build a really big esports community.
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
Esports yo, I guess it's the idea that we're all in the same boat, similar to action sports, for a long time they weren't considered real sports and now they are becoming more and more mainstream, as someone who is an avid follower of snowboarding, I also like to take interest in other action sports like skateboarding, mx, bmx etc. and I don't bash on them.
Edit: Not that you have to like both things, I'm just explaining a possible reason.
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
I'm not certain how relevant this is. Perhaps it's more about once we get there we can bicker. Those examples you mentioned are already successful enough where it doesn't really matter that there might be animosity between them all. With how small esports is compared to those examples, I feel it's quite counter productive to show too much animosity towards other games.
I'm not saying hold hands and play all the games, I'm saying be open to the idea of other games existing and just have a generally more positive outlook on things. What are the things we can do to encourage positivity, rather than negativity?
Perhaps looking at it this way: NFL, NBA, MLB, Esports
Rather than: NFL, NBA, MLB, LoL, SC2, Dota 2
Its not about animosity. You're missing the point he's making.
He's not going to bash other games, but he isn't going to support them either.
Esports isn't a charity, it'll never succeed like the way you're suggesting.
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
I'm not certain how relevant this is. Perhaps it's more about once we get there we can bicker. Those examples you mentioned are already successful enough where it doesn't really matter that there might be animosity between them all. With how small esports is compared to those examples, I feel it's quite counter productive to show too much animosity towards other games.
I'm not saying hold hands and play all the games, I'm saying be open to the idea of other games existing and just have a generally more positive outlook on things. What are the things we can do to encourage positivity, rather than negativity?
Perhaps looking at it this way: NFL, NBA, MLB, Esports
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
I'm not certain how relevant this is. Perhaps it's more about once we get there we can bicker. Those examples you mentioned are already successful enough where it doesn't really matter that there might be animosity between them all. With how small esports is compared to those examples, I feel it's quite counter productive to show too much animosity towards other games.
I'm not saying hold hands and play all the games, I'm saying be open to the idea of other games existing and just have a generally more positive outlook on things. What are the things we can do to encourage positivity, rather than negativity?
Perhaps looking at it this way: NFL, NBA, MLB, Esports
Rather than: NFL, NBA, MLB, LoL, SC2, Dota 2
I guess that is basically where we differ. I see no value in the abstract construct "esports". I see games I like to play, like to watch and which I am up to pay money for watching. The idea of esports as an ideal is a mystery to me.
It is not up to the community to sell/promote a game. It is up to Blizzard and the Broadcasters. There's nothing wrong with spreading the word about something you like to friends, FB, Twitter etc, but this responsibility is not on the viewers/consumers/whatever. I really dislike this constant call for the community to do the work of others in the name of "esports". I agree that it is toxic to bash other games though. However, nothing wrong with saying Starcraft 2 is the best game out there competitively, and the #1 esport, because the gameplay should speak for itself. I also don't think the sc2 community should be constantly badgered to try other Esport titles.
one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Funny how you quickly hop from one high horse to another between 2 paragraphs
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
I'm not certain how relevant this is. Perhaps it's more about once we get there we can bicker. Those examples you mentioned are already successful enough where it doesn't really matter that there might be animosity between them all. With how small esports is compared to those examples, I feel it's quite counter productive to show too much animosity towards other games.
I'm not saying hold hands and play all the games, I'm saying be open to the idea of other games existing and just have a generally more positive outlook on things. What are the things we can do to encourage positivity, rather than negativity?
Perhaps looking at it this way: NFL, NBA, MLB, Esports
Rather than: NFL, NBA, MLB, LoL, SC2, Dota 2
I guess that is basically where we differ. I see no value in the abstract construct "esports". I see games I like to play, like to watch and which I am up to pay money for watching. The idea of esports as an ideal is a mystery to me.
A part of this is just helping with exposure. Folks just getting into LoL (have you seen the numbers? a ridiculous amount) might be open to SC2 but just havn't heard of it or know about it or are simply too intimidated. Taking the steps to help educate these people could be huge for the growth of everyone.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
I totally agree and the community could stand to get down off their high horse and stop losing their minds when LoL has an extra row of chairs at the next Dreamhack/MLG. It gets so old and takes the focus away from the matches and players.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
I'm not certain how relevant this is. Perhaps it's more about once we get there we can bicker. Those examples you mentioned are already successful enough where it doesn't really matter that there might be animosity between them all. With how small esports is compared to those examples, I feel it's quite counter productive to show too much animosity towards other games.
I'm not saying hold hands and play all the games, I'm saying be open to the idea of other games existing and just have a generally more positive outlook on things. What are the things we can do to encourage positivity, rather than negativity?
Perhaps looking at it this way: NFL, NBA, MLB, Esports
Rather than: NFL, NBA, MLB, LoL, SC2, Dota 2
I guess that is basically where we differ. I see no value in the abstract construct "esports". I see games I like to play, like to watch and which I am up to pay money for watching. The idea of esports as an ideal is a mystery to me.
A part of this is just helping with exposure. Folks just getting into LoL (have you seen the numbers? a ridiculous amount) might be open to SC2 but just havn't heard of it or know about it or are simply too intimidated. Taking the steps to help educate these people could be huge for the growth of everyone.
Folks getting into LoL have paid nothing. They have nothing to lose. If they hate it, big deal. 0 dollars spent.
Starcraft 2 is completely different. It's different from other PC games, and its learning curve is extremely steep for those who play multi-player on the ladder. Add to that a $60 price-tag and suddenly, just getting into the game is an investment of more than just time.
We see people come in and out of League of Legends like the revolving door that it is. I don't want that for SC2. It's not a bandwagon and it's definitely not for everyone. It's better that way.
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
winner.
There is no problem about communities. The real issue is some of the toxicity within the games and their communities. And the disproportion of interest from those at the top.
In my opinion, the gesture is nice, but misplaced.
I'm not certain how relevant this is. Perhaps it's more about once we get there we can bicker. Those examples you mentioned are already successful enough where it doesn't really matter that there might be animosity between them all. With how small esports is compared to those examples, I feel it's quite counter productive to show too much animosity towards other games.
I'm not saying hold hands and play all the games, I'm saying be open to the idea of other games existing and just have a generally more positive outlook on things. What are the things we can do to encourage positivity, rather than negativity?
Perhaps looking at it this way: NFL, NBA, MLB, Esports
Rather than: NFL, NBA, MLB, LoL, SC2, Dota 2
I guess that is basically where we differ. I see no value in the abstract construct "esports". I see games I like to play, like to watch and which I am up to pay money for watching. The idea of esports as an ideal is a mystery to me.
A part of this is just helping with exposure. Folks just getting into LoL (have you seen the numbers? a ridiculous amount) might be open to SC2 but just havn't heard of it or know about it or are simply too intimidated. Taking the steps to help educate these people could be huge for the growth of everyone.
Folks getting into LoL have paid nothing. They have nothing to lose. If they hate it, big deal. 0 dollars spent.
Starcraft 2 is completely different. It's different from other PC games, and its learning curve is extremely steep for those who play multi-player on the ladder. Add to that a $60 price-tag and suddenly, just getting into the game is an investment of more than just time.
We see people come in and out of League of Legends like the revolving door that it is. I don't want that for SC2. It's not a bandwagon and it's definitely not for everyone. It's better that way.
I find this theory confusing. They would still need to pay to play SC2. If the game is good and the community is filled with fun people, people would want to join to get in on the fun. Most of my really good friends to play LoL will also play SC2 with me as well.
On July 16 2013 04:03 Torte de Lini wrote: So are we looking to resolve the differences in communities or introduce people into other games? That's two very different objectives.
Well how about we settle for not hating on casters when they cast another game? Or not freaking out when one game has a slightly larger stage due to any number of issues? There are any number of ways that the community could be less focused on making sure they are "better" other games.
Some people can't accept that other people have differente tastes.
I played FPS for so long, i can't stand it nowadays but i don't have any pleasure in saying something bad about it.
Same with league, i played DOTA when it came out with Warcarft 3 but i never found it to be a good type of game for me. So i simply dont play, watch or follow it.
I simply don't care about it, does that give me the right to offend it's players? Not.. it doesn't !
On July 16 2013 04:03 Torte de Lini wrote: So are we looking to resolve the differences in communities or introduce people into other games? That's two very different objectives.
Well how about we settle for not hating on casters when they cast another game? Or not freaking out when one game has a slightly larger stage due to any number of issues? There are any number of ways that the community could be less focused on making sure they are "better" other games.
The counter argument did not start with people saying bashing on other games is right. You are turning the discussion into a completely different direction to discredit it. Please stick with what was actually said in replying.
On July 16 2013 04:03 Torte de Lini wrote: So are we looking to resolve the differences in communities or introduce people into other games? That's two very different objectives.
Well how about we settle for not hating on casters when they cast another game? Or not freaking out when one game has a slightly larger stage due to any number of issues? There are any number of ways that the community could be less focused on making sure they are "better" other games.
How do we proactively do that? There will always be a minority who hates on others for doing that, the casters gain a new audience regardless. Rather than minimize the amount of haters who are stubborn and unlikely to change, casters just need to ensure that they are welcomed in the new community.
Have end of season tournaments per league. Top 8,5,4,2,1, whatever the optimal number would all go into an open bracket and the winner would receive a prize, the extent of the prize based on their league. The more achievements players receive while playing would make them want to stick to the game because it feels like they're achieving something.
More to that, having an extra league above GM would provide a more spread out ladder and would have a lot more competiton at the top end of the ladder. Especially watching streams would be a lot more entertaining as the pro players would be almost playing other pros exclusivley which would result in more exciting and fun games AND a great practice enviroment for the pros.
I also feel that making divisions actually mean something would be a great thing. It might mess around with my first point, but the whole idea of that was just having an end of season tournament. If you have ranked divisions in leagues, it would promote more competition, and an extra sense of accomplishing something within the game.
Most of my ideas revolve around competitivness, I feel that's a great approach to a game like SC2 which is already primarly based around that idea. I feel like improving the Arcade and Team games for the more casual players would be amazing to attract players. Blizzard did such a great job with Warcraft III custom games, would love to see an equally as good system in SC2.
On July 16 2013 03:35 Drlemur wrote: As a caster, Axeltoss, I think you can do a lot to help -- can you cast SC2 to help the Dota2/LoL players follow the game better?
Likewise, can the Dota2/LoL casters help me watch them? I have the same daunting feeling you mention that I have no idea what is going on when trying to watch the best playing those games. I have even played them, but following the pro game is like trying to jump from bronze to GM in understanding, it's just a different game.
As mainly an SC2 player, I might be biased but I think we're most fun to watch. But if there was a caster who helped me capture the excitement and understanding of the MOBA games, maybe I could watch those to.
At the same time, I think it is very hard to just drop in and watch SC2 if you don't know the game really well. Many of my bronze league level friends have trouble following the cast. I don't think there's any chance I could get a non-player to watch even the best casters from WCS and be able to keep up at all.
Or is the depth of game knowledge in each title just too different to make it accessible to non-experts or across titles? If so, it's going to be hard to build a really big esports community.
I do think the casters of the matches are extremely important to attracting new viewers. Personally, I played a lot of brood war ( I was never good) but I didn't know a pro league existed until I made friends with a korean many years later who watched the proleague/osl matches religiously. I would watch a lot of them with him, and I understood the basics of the game so I could follow what was going on (even though I didn't understand the Korean casters or know any of the players)
When I started to follow sc2, I had a 6 year old laptop at the time that couldn't play the game so I had no idea about the new units, strats, or anything. But I remember watching Doa, painuser and HD on various casts who would make brief explanations about why what a player is doing is good/bad/some reasoning and it made it much more enjoyable to watch.
I think many casters forget that not everyone they are talking to understand the game implicitly, and this I think goes double for LoL and Dota2. Sc2 on a whole I think has better casters than Dota/LoL because SC2 casters do a much better job at breaking things down for viewers and that's important for making people understand the game who may not have played it and it could arouse interest in a viewer to pick up the game.
As communities go, I think uniting the different fan bases is an improbable task simply because people have different interests. I follow Dota 2 and SC2 but I have zero desire to follow LoL or any fighting games.
Improving the way different communities treat and interact with each other over the internet (I doubt the extremely toxic comments happen very often at lan) is a worthwhile goal, and hopefully some of what you say does come to fruition. It will be tough but good luck
On July 16 2013 04:03 Torte de Lini wrote: So are we looking to resolve the differences in communities or introduce people into other games? That's two very different objectives.
Well how about we settle for not hating on casters when they cast another game? Or not freaking out when one game has a slightly larger stage due to any number of issues? There are any number of ways that the community could be less focused on making sure they are "better" other games.
How do we proactively do that? There will always be a minority who hates on others for doing that, the casters gain a new audience regardless. Rather than minimize the amount of haters who are stubborn and unlikely to change, casters just need to ensure that they are welcomed in the new community.
Well, your right that we can't proactively do that, but the thread "Artosis and Tasteless to cast World of Tanks" is a great example of the community spending a lot of time discussing and hating on another game for no real reason. WoT is not for me, but there are people who love it and play it a lot. Why that thread stayed open for so long is beyond me, but I am sure someone from the World of Tank community was less than thrilled about it.
It is just an example, but I to believe Idra is correct that SC2 players and the community need to get off their high horse about the game and crapping on others.
High tide raises all boats. Esports as a whole is better if LoL, SC2, Dota, etc get bigger. I like to compare Esports to the XGames. Maybe the BMX guys bash the skateboarders, but overall I doubt it. It's all part of the same culture. There's a symbiotic relationship there, whether people want to admit it or not.
All that said, we would do well to keep our own side of the street clean. While the SC2 scene can be very helpful (glhf and all that), it can also be amazingly bitter and cynical. It's also fairly immature. Part of this stems from the age range of the people who make up the player base, but if you want the population at large to take you seriously, the powers that be need to start acting a bit more pro than they do. This is obviously a statement towards the people with influence in the community (casters, commentators, progamers, teams, etc).
As an example, think of the XGames again. Compare their tournaments to ours. Obviously there's production value is higher as they're on TV, but compare the commentary. There's a lot less joking around, inside jokes, etc. They take it seriously, even if the culture is decidedly counter culture for the most part. Be a pro, act like it, and people will follow.
Perhaps looking at it this way: NFL, NBA, MLB, Esports
Rather than: NFL, NBA, MLB, LoL, SC2, Dota 2
I completely agree with this. E-Sports is just so small compared to those huge leagues right now. Some games that are regarded as top E-Sports right now might not even end up growing to become a huge league like NFL,NBA etc. Combining the different communities all under one might prove to be a great success and offer huge growth to players trying out different games. More people playing=More money for developers. More money= Opportunity to expand E-Sports.
While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
On July 16 2013 04:32 blackone wrote: While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
Sponsors for one game will generally also sponsor other games. They see you as a target demographic, that being "esports lover", not "SC2 lover". When more sponsors get involved, Starcraft benefits directly. So while you don't need to care or watch other games, what happens with them is pretty important to the SC scene. See JinAir sponsoring Team 8 for a very recent example of this.
I was always shocked by the animosity that many players of Starcraft, League and Dota had towards each other. And don't even get me started on what these guys think of the fighting game, or fps communities. The thing is it is just so much easier to hate on something you don't understand, rather than reach out with an open mind and give it a chance. You don't even need to like the game, you can never play it again after a few matches if you want. All you need to do is look for the competitive depth, and the things that make that game appealing to others if not yourself. And who knows, you may find yourself losing a few hundred or even thousands of hours on a whole other game if you end up enjoying it (I'm looking at you league of legends -_-).
Also, those threads on reddit are great and the responses are affirming. Makes me want to go make one on the Dota 2 forum!
- Don't discriminate based on game. We're all eSports. - Encourage others to get into it, using my own time, energy and enthusiasm to teach them - Spend. Money. Can't stress that enough. Don't whine about PPV, or buying tickets, or anything else. That'll come later. Just eat out like, one less time per month and support the fucking industry.
On July 16 2013 04:32 blackone wrote: While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
Sponsors for one game will generally also sponsor other games. They see you as a target demographic, that being "esports lover", not "SC2 lover". When more sponsors get involved, Starcraft benefits directly. So while you don't need to care or watch other games, what happens with them is pretty important to the SC scene. See JinAir sponsoring Team 8 for a very recent example of this.
I don't want to be seen as a "target demographic". I am a person liking to play and watch certain computer games.
On July 16 2013 04:32 blackone wrote: While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
Agreed, everytime I hear this "ESPORTS" shit I just wanna puke.
On July 16 2013 04:39 Crownlol wrote: My main objectives are:
- Don't discriminate based on game. We're all eSports. - Encourage others to get into it, using my own time, energy and enthusiasm to teach them - Spend. Money. Can't stress that enough. Don't whine about PPV, or buying tickets, or anything else. That'll come later. Just eat out like, one less time per month and support the fucking industry.
"Support the industry"? Why should I support an industry? I can give you my account details if you want to support someone.
On July 16 2013 04:32 blackone wrote: While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
Sponsors for one game will generally also sponsor other games. They see you as a target demographic, that being "esports lover", not "SC2 lover". When more sponsors get involved, Starcraft benefits directly. So while you don't need to care or watch other games, what happens with them is pretty important to the SC scene. See JinAir sponsoring Team 8 for a very recent example of this.
I don't want to be seen as a "target demographic". I am a person liking to play and watch certain computer games.
Then you have no interest in the scene succeeding financially. Truth is, you're a target demo whether you like it or not. It's not up to you.
On July 16 2013 04:32 blackone wrote: While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
Sponsors for one game will generally also sponsor other games. They see you as a target demographic, that being "esports lover", not "SC2 lover". When more sponsors get involved, Starcraft benefits directly. So while you don't need to care or watch other games, what happens with them is pretty important to the SC scene. See JinAir sponsoring Team 8 for a very recent example of this.
I don't want to be seen as a "target demographic". I am a person liking to play and watch certain computer games.
Then you have no interest in the scene succeeding financially. Truth is, you're a target demo whether you like it or not. It's not up to you.
That is correct. I have no interest in others succeding financially. I buy products/services that I like and those are also products from the scene. I see no greater value behind it though.
On July 16 2013 04:32 blackone wrote: While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
Sponsors for one game will generally also sponsor other games. They see you as a target demographic, that being "esports lover", not "SC2 lover". When more sponsors get involved, Starcraft benefits directly. So while you don't need to care or watch other games, what happens with them is pretty important to the SC scene. See JinAir sponsoring Team 8 for a very recent example of this.
I don't want to be seen as a "target demographic". I am a person liking to play and watch certain computer games.
Then you have no interest in the scene succeeding financially. Truth is, you're a target demo whether you like it or not. It's not up to you.
That is correct. I have no interest in others succeding financially. I buy products/services that I like and those are also products from the scene. I see no greater value behind it though.
Ok, well sounds like you have a solid plan there and buying stuff because you think it is good is valid. So NASL could offer a PPV team league and you would have no problems right?
I think "ESPORTS" is less about forcing everyone to like every single game and more about showing the rest of the world that video games can be played at a competitive level that requires tremendous skill and dedication and is entertaining to watch.
"ESPORTS" is the answer to "why would you watch someone else play video games?" ESPORTS says "for the same reasons you watch someone else play baseball." Or poker. Or billiards.
I for one can't stand watching fighting games. But I also can't stand baseball! Or 3/4 quarters of most basketball games. So I'm not saying everyone has the same tastes. But if we all support the legitimacy of video games as a sport, regardless of what game it is, we can improve the community!
The tension isn't between Lol/DotA/whatever-flavor-of-the-month-MOBA and SC2. It's between ESPORTS INC. and SC2.
I don't care about esports. I fully understand that esports is the money machine that drives professional starcraft, but don't care about Razor or Doritos or Dr Pepper. I used to buy GOM, now I buy the OGN/Starleague pass. That's my financial support of the sport I care about - the no-bullshit, highest-level of play, by consummate quiet professionals who take starcraft as a job. If SC2 is truly a sport, the people who play it should act more like athletes and less like reality-TV stars.
I don't care about youtube/twitch "personalities", and I personally despise the EG model of nerd-rage entertainment to drive views to drive media sponsorship. It's all about feeding the machine, give us likes on facebook, likes on youtube, tweet and hashtag some bullshit. Subscribe! Comment!
This is the same thing with this Dota2-outreach. Stop making me try to care about games I don't care about. At all. There is a vast parasitic infrastructure that exists for no damned good reason. Do we really need a dozen talk shows featuring the same thirty people, just talking heads on Skype? No. But the machine must be fed, which is why they flog other games, to sustain interest. Just stop. This isn't an elitist thing, just the simple insistence that how I choose to spend my leisure time is none of your business. TeamLiquid gets it - there are buttons on the frontpage to turn off Dota and Other.
ESPORTS INC. wants an attractive demographic of hard-to-reach 18-35 males who don't watch TV anymore, so they can sell it to advertisers. I don't care about that. Let me play my starcraft and watch my heroes in peace.
On July 16 2013 04:32 blackone wrote: While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
Sponsors for one game will generally also sponsor other games. They see you as a target demographic, that being "esports lover", not "SC2 lover". When more sponsors get involved, Starcraft benefits directly. So while you don't need to care or watch other games, what happens with them is pretty important to the SC scene. See JinAir sponsoring Team 8 for a very recent example of this.
I don't want to be seen as a "target demographic". I am a person liking to play and watch certain computer games.
Then you have no interest in the scene succeeding financially. Truth is, you're a target demo whether you like it or not. It's not up to you.
That is correct. I have no interest in others succeding financially. I buy products/services that I like and those are also products from the scene. I see no greater value behind it though.
Ok, well sounds like you have a solid plan there and buying stuff because you think it is good is valid. So NASL could offer a PPV team league and you would have no problems right?
I would have no problem with them offering a PPV team league. Depending on whether I would want to watch it, I would pay for it. What I have a "problem" with (problem being a bit too strong) is the mentality that pumping money into an abstract idea like esports is good. I do not think that is the right direction for competitive gaming. In the end, if the product is good, people will pay for it to watch it. Competitive gaming is not there yet on a larger scale in my opinion. This has its reason partly in the way the content if offered, but mostly in - for outsiders - alienating side aspects like stream quality, presentation, accessability, etc. I can't imagine anyone watching ppv TV/movies besides hardcore fans in the quality that gaming is presented right now. I myself love competitive gaming. I played in international esports leagues before there was a word esports. That is the reason I am watching and am willing to pay for parts of it. The idea I like behind it, is the competition itself; the amount of money involved does not make it more attractive to me.
On July 16 2013 04:32 blackone wrote: While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
Sponsors for one game will generally also sponsor other games. They see you as a target demographic, that being "esports lover", not "SC2 lover". When more sponsors get involved, Starcraft benefits directly. So while you don't need to care or watch other games, what happens with them is pretty important to the SC scene. See JinAir sponsoring Team 8 for a very recent example of this.
I don't want to be seen as a "target demographic". I am a person liking to play and watch certain computer games.
Then you have no interest in the scene succeeding financially. Truth is, you're a target demo whether you like it or not. It's not up to you.
That is correct. I have no interest in others succeding financially. I buy products/services that I like and those are also products from the scene. I see no greater value behind it though.
Ok, well sounds like you have a solid plan there and buying stuff because you think it is good is valid. So NASL could offer a PPV team league and you would have no problems right?
I would have no problem with them offering a PPV team league. Depending on whether I would want to watch it, I would pay for it. What I have a "problem" with (problem being a bit too strong) is the mentality that pumping money into an abstract idea like esports is good. I do not think that is the right direction for competitive gaming. In the end, if the product is good, people will pay for it to watch it. Competitive gaming is not there yet on a larger scale in my opinion. This has its reason partly in the way the content if offered, but mostly in - for outsiders - alienating side aspects like stream quality, presentation, accessability, etc. I can't imagine anyone watching ppv TV/movies besides hardcore fans in the quality that gaming is presented right now. I myself love competitive gaming. I played in international esports leagues before there was a word esports. That is the reason I am watching and am willing to pay for parts of it. The idea I like behind it, is the competition itself; the amount of money involved does not make it more attractive to me.
I am with you that people shouldn't just support Esports because. My girlfriend and I ordered pizza from Papa Johns because we like EG and wanted to order pizza that was bad for us. We could have ordered other pizza, but its just a different phone number. That is the point people are trying to make, if you want a enegry drink and you like EG, get a Monster and let them know why. But the key part is like EG first. Its the same reason I support Giant Bomb, because they provide me with things I enjoy and everything else.
There are benifits to working with other games. If NASL was running both WCS and a Dota league, its easier for them to justify a huge studio and tons of production staff. Its easier for teams to move their players, since they all need to move to one place(near NASL).
So rather than thinking, 'Why are people trying to force me to like games I don't?" Look at is as, "how does this game make SC2 better? What can working with this game make my SC2 experience better?"
This whole "help esports" Ideal is silly, I don't care if League of Legends get's its own spot on HBO and is cast in a stadium on an island built specially for it if Sc2 and Dota 2 aren't getting viewers. It's always the same thing, oh guys we are helping "ESPORTS" when it reality 95% of the time it's "hey guys we are going to talk about/show LoL and nothing else".
I don't want to watch LoL, I don't care about LoL, I don't care if their game is easy or hard because I simply don't care so why should I care that it becomes a successful esport. I understand maybe 2 years ago when people had this delusion that one esport doing good is good for all games but I think LoL has proved this isn't the case and often hurts other games (Dota 2 at dreamhack comes to mind).
So unless the LoL community wants to come and promote other games and grow our games then who cares, you don't go up a homeless guy and ask him to share his bread because sharing is good. You already have bread, how about you use that bread to feed some homeless.
On July 16 2013 04:39 Crownlol wrote: My main objectives are:
- Don't discriminate based on game. We're all eSports. - Encourage others to get into it, using my own time, energy and enthusiasm to teach them - Spend. Money. Can't stress that enough. Don't whine about PPV, or buying tickets, or anything else. That'll come later. Just eat out like, one less time per month and support the fucking industry.
"Support the industry"? Why should I support an industry? I can give you my account details if you want to support someone.
A fledgling industry that has given you hours of entertainment deserves to be supported. Companies are just now becoming entrenched, new ones are starting up and dying off rapidly. Until MLG becomes NFL level, I'll spend a little extra.
Also, I helped at least 50 German TLers to watch IEM once to get past a restriction (paypall/CC only I believe). It ended up costing me a little out of my own pocket, but it isn't hard to help support everyone.
On July 16 2013 04:32 blackone wrote: While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
Sponsors for one game will generally also sponsor other games. They see you as a target demographic, that being "esports lover", not "SC2 lover". When more sponsors get involved, Starcraft benefits directly. So while you don't need to care or watch other games, what happens with them is pretty important to the SC scene. See JinAir sponsoring Team 8 for a very recent example of this.
I don't want to be seen as a "target demographic". I am a person liking to play and watch certain computer games.
Then you have no interest in the scene succeeding financially. Truth is, you're a target demo whether you like it or not. It's not up to you.
That is correct. I have no interest in others succeding financially. I buy products/services that I like and those are also products from the scene. I see no greater value behind it though.
Ok, well sounds like you have a solid plan there and buying stuff because you think it is good is valid. So NASL could offer a PPV team league and you would have no problems right?
I would have no problem with them offering a PPV team league. Depending on whether I would want to watch it, I would pay for it. What I have a "problem" with (problem being a bit too strong) is the mentality that pumping money into an abstract idea like esports is good. I do not think that is the right direction for competitive gaming. In the end, if the product is good, people will pay for it to watch it. Competitive gaming is not there yet on a larger scale in my opinion. This has its reason partly in the way the content if offered, but mostly in - for outsiders - alienating side aspects like stream quality, presentation, accessability, etc. I can't imagine anyone watching ppv TV/movies besides hardcore fans in the quality that gaming is presented right now. I myself love competitive gaming. I played in international esports leagues before there was a word esports. That is the reason I am watching and am willing to pay for parts of it. The idea I like behind it, is the competition itself; the amount of money involved does not make it more attractive to me.
I am with you that people shouldn't just support Esports because. My girlfriend and I ordered pizza from Papa Johns because we like EG and wanted to order pizza that was bad for us. We could have ordered other pizza, but its just a different phone number. That is the point people are trying to make, if you want a enegry drink and you like EG, get a Monster and let them know why. But the key part is like EG first. Its the same reason I support Giant Bomb, because they provide me with things I enjoy and everything else.
There are benifits to working with other games. If NASL was running both WCS and a Dota league, its easier for them to justify a huge studio and tons of production staff. Its easier for teams to move their players, since they all need to move to one place(near NASL).
So rather than thinking, 'Why are people trying to force me to like games I don't?" Look at is as, "how does this game make SC2 better? What can working with this game make my SC2 experience better?"
I think this post made me understand the difference in opinions better: A few posts up I said, that I don't want to be seen as a target demographic. I do not buy products because my favourite Ice Hockey team has them on their jersey. The whole Papa-John's deal was very strange (or even ugly) for me. I do not react to marketing (or at least I hope I don't react a lot to it at least) and what I definately dislike is crossselling. I buy my pizza, where it tastes good and I watch my computer games where I enjoy them.
By now I've given up on the idea that all communities can be friendly to each other at some point. Especially LoL and Dota2 will probably always argue, fight and hate on each other. By now it seems like a religious debate to me, where most of the hate for the other one is based on ignorance, and there will always be people who reach out and try their best to bring them together somehow, but it will mostly just be a drop in the bucket. Sorry to be so pessimistic on this issue, but I honestly believe the ability of communities to grow up emotionally doesn't go that far, especially as long as we time and time again have figureheads fuel the "war" between them.
Wow those 2-3 years of SC2/LoL/Dota involvement have made me really pessimistic on the subject. I never realized that before to be honest, but every time I read the comments on something LoL related in here it punches me back into this mindset.
What do you think we at /r/starcraft can do to help further this?
In terms of working with the /r/dota2 and /r/leagueoflegends reddits, I'm sure we could work toward promoting some kind of cross game 'events' - coaching/cross pollination of game knowledge and just casual game nights across the games and subs.
On July 16 2013 04:32 blackone wrote: While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
Sponsors for one game will generally also sponsor other games. They see you as a target demographic, that being "esports lover", not "SC2 lover". When more sponsors get involved, Starcraft benefits directly. So while you don't need to care or watch other games, what happens with them is pretty important to the SC scene. See JinAir sponsoring Team 8 for a very recent example of this.
I don't want to be seen as a "target demographic". I am a person liking to play and watch certain computer games.
Then you have no interest in the scene succeeding financially. Truth is, you're a target demo whether you like it or not. It's not up to you.
That is correct. I have no interest in others succeding financially. I buy products/services that I like and those are also products from the scene. I see no greater value behind it though.
Ok, well sounds like you have a solid plan there and buying stuff because you think it is good is valid. So NASL could offer a PPV team league and you would have no problems right?
I would have no problem with them offering a PPV team league. Depending on whether I would want to watch it, I would pay for it. What I have a "problem" with (problem being a bit too strong) is the mentality that pumping money into an abstract idea like esports is good. I do not think that is the right direction for competitive gaming. In the end, if the product is good, people will pay for it to watch it. Competitive gaming is not there yet on a larger scale in my opinion. This has its reason partly in the way the content if offered, but mostly in - for outsiders - alienating side aspects like stream quality, presentation, accessability, etc. I can't imagine anyone watching ppv TV/movies besides hardcore fans in the quality that gaming is presented right now. I myself love competitive gaming. I played in international esports leagues before there was a word esports. That is the reason I am watching and am willing to pay for parts of it. The idea I like behind it, is the competition itself; the amount of money involved does not make it more attractive to me.
I am with you that people shouldn't just support Esports because. My girlfriend and I ordered pizza from Papa Johns because we like EG and wanted to order pizza that was bad for us. We could have ordered other pizza, but its just a different phone number. That is the point people are trying to make, if you want a enegry drink and you like EG, get a Monster and let them know why. But the key part is like EG first. Its the same reason I support Giant Bomb, because they provide me with things I enjoy and everything else.
There are benifits to working with other games. If NASL was running both WCS and a Dota league, its easier for them to justify a huge studio and tons of production staff. Its easier for teams to move their players, since they all need to move to one place(near NASL).
So rather than thinking, 'Why are people trying to force me to like games I don't?" Look at is as, "how does this game make SC2 better? What can working with this game make my SC2 experience better?"
I think this post made me understand the difference in opinions better: A few posts up I said, that I don't want to be seen as a target demographic. I do not buy products because my favourite Ice Hockey team has them on their jersey. The whole Papa-John's deal was very strange (or even ugly) for me. I do not react to marketing (or at least I hope I don't react a lot to it at least) and what I definately dislike is crossselling. I buy my pizza, where it tastes good and I watch my computer games where I enjoy them.
That's fine and there are no problems with that. You don't need to buy stuff you don't like. My girlfriend and I didnt' really care where we got our unhealthy pizza from, so we decided Papa Johns. But a lot of these teams are going to try an make money, including TL. So its ok if they try and market stuff, right? At the end fo the day, you don't need to buy it.
On July 16 2013 04:32 blackone wrote: While I agree that hatred between communities is useless, I don't get the "it's all ESPORTS" mantra either. I have absolutely nothing to do with LoL or Dota. I don't hate them, but I don't care for them anymore than I care for a random TV show I don't watch. Why should I care? If I like hockey, do I have to care about curling too because they're both played on ice? That's also why I find the term eSports annoying. I don't care about esports, I care about Starcraft.
Sponsors for one game will generally also sponsor other games. They see you as a target demographic, that being "esports lover", not "SC2 lover". When more sponsors get involved, Starcraft benefits directly. So while you don't need to care or watch other games, what happens with them is pretty important to the SC scene. See JinAir sponsoring Team 8 for a very recent example of this.
I don't want to be seen as a "target demographic". I am a person liking to play and watch certain computer games.
Then you have no interest in the scene succeeding financially. Truth is, you're a target demo whether you like it or not. It's not up to you.
That is correct. I have no interest in others succeding financially. I buy products/services that I like and those are also products from the scene. I see no greater value behind it though.
Ok, well sounds like you have a solid plan there and buying stuff because you think it is good is valid. So NASL could offer a PPV team league and you would have no problems right?
I would have no problem with them offering a PPV team league. Depending on whether I would want to watch it, I would pay for it. What I have a "problem" with (problem being a bit too strong) is the mentality that pumping money into an abstract idea like esports is good. I do not think that is the right direction for competitive gaming. In the end, if the product is good, people will pay for it to watch it. Competitive gaming is not there yet on a larger scale in my opinion. This has its reason partly in the way the content if offered, but mostly in - for outsiders - alienating side aspects like stream quality, presentation, accessability, etc. I can't imagine anyone watching ppv TV/movies besides hardcore fans in the quality that gaming is presented right now. I myself love competitive gaming. I played in international esports leagues before there was a word esports. That is the reason I am watching and am willing to pay for parts of it. The idea I like behind it, is the competition itself; the amount of money involved does not make it more attractive to me.
I am with you that people shouldn't just support Esports because. My girlfriend and I ordered pizza from Papa Johns because we like EG and wanted to order pizza that was bad for us. We could have ordered other pizza, but its just a different phone number. That is the point people are trying to make, if you want a enegry drink and you like EG, get a Monster and let them know why. But the key part is like EG first. Its the same reason I support Giant Bomb, because they provide me with things I enjoy and everything else.
There are benifits to working with other games. If NASL was running both WCS and a Dota league, its easier for them to justify a huge studio and tons of production staff. Its easier for teams to move their players, since they all need to move to one place(near NASL).
So rather than thinking, 'Why are people trying to force me to like games I don't?" Look at is as, "how does this game make SC2 better? What can working with this game make my SC2 experience better?"
I think this post made me understand the difference in opinions better: A few posts up I said, that I don't want to be seen as a target demographic. I do not buy products because my favourite Ice Hockey team has them on their jersey. The whole Papa-John's deal was very strange (or even ugly) for me. I do not react to marketing (or at least I hope I don't react a lot to it at least) and what I definately dislike is crossselling. I buy my pizza, where it tastes good and I watch my computer games where I enjoy them.
That's fine and there are no problems with that. You don't need to buy stuff you don't like. My girlfriend and I didnt' really care where we got our unhealthy pizza from, so we decided Papa Johns. But a lot of these teams are going to try an make money, including TL. So its ok if they try and market stuff, right? At the end fo the day, you don't need to buy it.
No problem at all. I just think the product is far from there to be marketed on a bigger scale yet. And if it were, it would probably change things in a way, that might not interest me anymore. I'll just leave it at that, since we can just agree to disagree, what is not the worst end for a forum discussion by far.
I hate to say it, but Mr. G.I. Fields makes some valid points. Why are we reaching out now? Becuase we have less than 200k active weekly players, SC2 or RTS for that matter is the poor cousin in the market. There are '000's of posts about the 'learning and skill curve etc' but the real impediment that is stifling the growth of SC2 remains Blizzard Ent.
The release of HOTS in our market (Australia) received ZERO marketing, publicity or mainstream coverage. Unless you were a TL fanboy you wouldn't even know it was released. I can only speak for Aus, not sure what you guys experienced, but seems like Blizz weren't really fussed. As a case in point - WOW advertising has been in mainstream media here for nearly 10 years. Even if you've never played WOW, the average aussie knows what it is.
Axeltoss, thanks for a great thought starter, but I think the boat has sailed! Any response from the MOBA boys is more out of pity than collaboration. I hope I'm wrong. Blizzard, wake the f up and promote the bloody game.
The biggest problem I have with "the community" is that it takes itself too serious and too important. Any computer game will only have a rather limited lifespan - unlike "real sports" games - but the community seems to be under the delusion that it must reach the same degree of popularity. Even BW only lasted 15 years in the one country which has the biggest predisposition towards esports ... which basically invented it. Any of the motivational "lets grow eSports" threads or comments are consequently rather terrible and delusional, because you shouldnt try to force growth over night. Even regular sports took decades to grow and some didnt really make it outside certain corners of the world.
There is another bad part about the community and that is the rather childish "hatred" which is shown towards "other" games based on the "I dont like them, so they have to be terrible" argument. All computer games which are played competitively are part of eSports and thus at most people should ignore the games they dont like ... because hatred is a waste of time, because no one will be convinced otherwise by the typical arguments.
Yet another reason why I dont like the "vocal PvP community" is because they are part of the reason why Blizzard ruined WoW (at least for me it was part of the reason why I stopped liking the game anymore). Because "tournament PvP" had to be "fair" and "every class had to be viable" they fiddled around so much with the classes that they became less distinct. Obviously they gave the "oh we want to put fewer requirements on classes for groups so we spread key abilities X, Y and Z among them", but that way of thinking started with PvP. So basically I really truly hate people who have to make a competition of an MMO game and thus ruin the "us against the NPC monsters" design concept by forcing the devs to design classes which are "fair" and "balanced" against each other. This "balance between classes whining" trend isnt limited to fans of eSports and it was part of the reason why the D&D 4e was really terribly designed and took the distinctions of the separate classes (Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Mage) right out of the system and forced them to follow the same straightjacket line of development. Playing a different class doesnt change a thing ... except for "the color" or "the smell" or "the feel" of your character sheet. That is boring and because of this I really hate idiots who prefer to kill their friends instead of working together with them with a passion. We live in a world of "look at me" idiots and they should not ruin a perfectly good team game. For SC2 this equates to people whose only concept of "playing for fun" is "winning in 1v1" or "climbing the ladder" ... Its a GAME and is meant to be played FOR FUN+ Show Spoiler +
i think the lesson to learn from the growth and longevity of other esports titles over the years is that the community (in terms of interactivity) actually matters very little in producing a sustainable scene. lol and dota having the worst and least impactful communities showing consistent huge growth, and sc1 with the same community but a different platform growing larger than sc2 has so far, at least in asian markets. whether the community tries or not if the game is appealing new players will find their way to it, and only then can the community take part in keeping them around. starcraft as it stands today is so insuler that there is almost no new players joining, so no matter how hard individuals work to make the scene strong, the numbers following the scene can only fall.
the key to sustainability or growth is the developers of the game to either leave the platform open ended so that active communities like brood wars can create their own content or situations that are very welcoming for casual and new fans. with asia having an easily pirated game with huge ability for customization and a purely fun experience, that is the gateway to adding in more 'serious' fans.
league of legends has a similar but different approach. the developers are constantly working to provide for the community. taking the place of the active community of broodwar they take the community developed custom games such as ARAM and give it full client support. they are actively aware of the plight of the casual viewer in the development of both their game and the client around it. and they show awareness that while balance is important at the top level, gameplay concerns at a lower level can clearly be addressed without affecting that balance.
contrast this with blizzard. they have shown an utter disregard for the more casual friendly team game brackets, a consistant lack of understanding of the custom map community and have been slow and lumbering with their attempts at offering support. they have shown a lack of cohesiveness in their product meaning that if you arent already invested in the scene its hard to find the door.
the fact is you dont just pull your esport viewer out of the public and introduce them to proleague, thats just not how it works. just as in all sports and esports by opening the game up to the casual audience you allow people who choose to dedicate themselves to the scene to rise out of the mix by themselves. and although a scene itself can work hard to make the path from casual to avid follower as simple as possible, it ultimately falls to the developer to make the game casual friendly in the first place. i dont accept that arguments posted by some that marketing or development time are crucial factors here as its easy to point to successful games like LoL which was huge before they advertised in the mainstream, and mods like DotA which grew in a model that involved no cash or marketing of any kind, purely word of mouth.
its no secret that blizzard is a hugely profitable company with huge cash reserves, they could if they wanted to make esports around their game huge, if they gave real active support to the casual fans, and stopped allowing their desire for DRM/control to cripple the custom game scene they could own the biggest esport title in the world, but the fact is no matter how profitable esports becomes in korea or elsewhere, its a drop in the ocean compared to WoW and CoD, and until that changes blizzard simply wont give a shit.
On July 16 2013 05:38 Rabiator wrote: The biggest problem I have with "the community" is that it takes itself too serious and too important. Any computer game will only have a rather limited lifespan - unlike "real sports" games - but the community seems to be under the delusion that it must reach the same degree of popularity. Even BW only lasted 15 years in the one country which has the biggest predisposition towards esports ... which basically invented it. Any of the motivational "lets grow eSports" threads or comments are consequently rather terrible and delusional, because you shouldnt try to force growth over night. Even regular sports took decades to grow and some didnt really make it outside certain corners of the world.
There is another bad part about the community and that is the rather childish "hatred" which is shown towards "other" games based on the "I dont like them, so they have to be terrible" argument. All computer games which are played competitively are part of eSports and thus at most people should ignore the games they dont like ... because hatred is a waste of time, because no one will be convinced otherwise by the typical arguments.
Yet another reason why I dont like the "vocal PvP community" is because they are part of the reason why Blizzard ruined WoW (at least for me it was part of the reason why I stopped liking the game anymore). Because "tournament PvP" had to be "fair" and "every class had to be viable" they fiddled around so much with the classes that they became less distinct. Obviously they gave the "oh we want to put fewer requirements on classes for groups so we spread key abilities X, Y and Z among them", but that way of thinking started with PvP. So basically I really truly hate people who have to make a competition of an MMO game and thus ruin the "us against the NPC monsters" design concept by forcing the devs to design classes which are "fair" and "balanced" against each other. This "balance between classes whining" trend isnt limited to fans of eSports and it was part of the reason why the D&D 4e was really terribly designed and took the distinctions of the separate classes (Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Mage) right out of the system and forced them to follow the same straightjacket line of development. Playing a different class doesnt change a thing ... except for "the color" or "the smell" or "the feel" of your character sheet. That is boring and because of this I really hate idiots who prefer to kill their friends instead of working together with them with a passion. We live in a world of "look at me" idiots and they should not ruin a perfectly good team game. For SC2 this equates to people whose only concept of "playing for fun" is "winning in 1v1" or "climbing the ladder" ... Its a GAME and is meant to be played FOR FUN+ Show Spoiler +
its doing fine, its doing better than it has ever before :/ esports isnt suffering, its doing great.
if we're talking individual game and help that...who can? as for sc2 we fucking tried, community has given their voice with countless ideas and threads but sc2 will be what blizzard wants it to be.
my random babble: my suggestion would be to make sc2 difficult (or any game), and i mean fucking difficult, why? well, at the moment its like "here, everyone has the potential to be the best sc2 player, so go at it!" what i'd prefer is "everyone has the potential to be great in sc2 but only a few with extra something can become the best". thats how i felt with bw, bw pros were beyond a level i can achieve mechanically and strategically, something unachievable without the right environment and time. i watched bw pros in awe, its how it got me into it, like witnessing the craziness and huge balls of f1 racers. sc2? none, nada of that.
maybe i've come to be too entitled but it feels like anyone can achieve it if they tried hard enough, even then the differences between the pros seem minimal, no more the days of "S class" being on another than "A class", now they're interchangeable on monthly bases...because of the limited space a player can improve/have difference between players mechanically.
sc2 offers anyone can be ulsan bolt if they tried hard enough, we(blizzard) give you height, weight, muscle, you just need to practice. in bw, you had it or you didnt, no catering.
professional level should mean something, set apart from amateurs.
however i know i'm wrong, lol proves my theory wrong if i understand it correctly
I think that the 'community' would benefit greatly from a bit less misogynical tendencies (yes, I'm mainly thinking about twitch chat, the only thing in the world even comparable to youtube comments) and a less macho image.
I mean, some of the terms that casters use on regular basis are awkward. And where are the female casters? What's the deal with women only being considered competent for asking players how they feel about winning their games? I know Maddelisk casted SM, but it was only in swedish and for a newspaper, so it wasn't really the great mainstream esports content we all know.
On July 16 2013 05:57 neptunusfisk wrote: I think that the 'community' would benefit greatly from a bit less misogynical tendencies (yes, I'm mainly thinking about twitch chat, the only thing in the world even comparable to youtube comments) and a less macho image.
I mean, some of the terms that casters use on regular basis are awkward. And where are the female casters? What's the deal with women only being considered competent for asking players how they feel about winning their games? I know Maddelisk casted SM, but it was only in swedish and for a newspaper, so it wasn't really the great mainstream esports content we all know.
This is all the more relevant when you consider we had lilsusie casting with Tasteless during BW. I always thought she did a good job getting player backgrounds, histories, records, etc for the cast and generally asking good questions so noobs like me could understand what we were watching. This is something lacking in today's casting.
I remember a Hot_Bid interview (when he was the interviewee not the interviewer) once where he basically said "chill out, community. Not everything runs the first time it's tried out." Not in those words, obviously. But I felt that he had a point. When I go on (read: stalk, kill the mood in, etc etc) LR threads there's some railing on the casters, or the quality of the VODS, or something small that doesn't make or break the tournament.
Personally I don't LOVE the SPL casters for English but that's not a reason to not watch it, that sort of thing.
I think IdrA's got a bit of a point on the LoL thing though, and I'm scared for the future of eSports in a way. Riot has the money to bankroll massive tournaments and because of that , I wonder if any smaller-funded eSports games have started to die off in favour of it. The reasoning being, "Well I COULD play _____ and make money from it, or try to get good at LoL and stream + play in their tournaments for huge money." Hopefully this fear is ungrounded (I certainly don't have time to look at every single eSport and its growth) but at the same time it's interesting to look at the impact of LoL.
i also not think we have to be nice to "other" communitys, i like the fact thinking that "we" are the best and only true esport title out there i play lol and i find it so ... casual even i like playing it sometimes i rly cant watch it for long and sc2 feels so like chess so ... no i think how we treat the others is fine
SC2 community is weird, it's a community with a lot of fear. SC2 viewers/players are always afraid about decline, and the constant "SC2 is dying" thing is, for me, the big problem. It's the second esport game in the world, and even if Dota 2 reach one day this place, sc2 will still be a great esport game with tons of viewers, tournaments, teams and pro/casu players (look at CS GO, and you will see what is a esport game and community which have a lot of difficulties). But sc2 community continue (since nearly 2 years) to be afraid to decline or disappear because of other games. It's a problem, we need to be happy about the succes of the other esport games like LoL or Dota 2, and we don't have to be afraid about it. We will still be here, and TL is a good exemple of a dynamic community which will not disappear. If we are not afraid about other games, we will stop to criticize them, to insult other players. Like De Gaulle said: "Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first". We need to love our game, to stop being afraid about his decline and we will not hate the games of other guys.
On July 16 2013 06:11 Wertheron wrote: SC2 community is weird, it's a community with a lot of fear. SC2 viewers/players are always afraid about decline, and the constant "SC2 is dying" thing is, for me, the big problem. It's the second esport game in the world, and even if Dota 2 reach one day this place, sc2 will still be a great esport game with tons of viewers, tournaments, teams and pro/casu players (look at CS GO, and you will see what is a esport game and community which have a lot of difficulties). But sc2 community continue (since nearly 2 years) to be afraid to decline or disappear because of other games.
Think of how the scene even talks about itself in other ways. "High Masters" players, APM, talking about players who reach ro8 instead of winning the entire thing as being in a "slump", believing that long macro games are "better" than short games even though it's a *strategy* game, obsessions with viewership numbers, player salaries, winning totals, and crowd sizes more than interesting gameplay, etc, etc.
People are number focused, and entirely blinded by them to the detriment of just watching and enjoying the game for what it is. It's no wonder being ranked #2 is not "good enough". Being ranked #2 in this community as anything is like a death knell.
I think one problem of expanding out to people right now is that most of the people who watch esports events(I'll use Sc2 as an example) play the SC2, used to play SC2, or play another esport such as LoL, Dota, World of Tanks, etc. So the people watching SC2 events would be primarily gamers, or former gamers. A sport like football has an incumbent factor in the sense that, oh hey some friends of mine watch this, it's on TV, I've watched football games with parents or at bars etc. It seems that because it's already a norm to watch it it isn't too hard to get more people, or a new generation of people to start watching football. I think if a games could be broadcasted on TV it might make it a bit easier for people to sit down and watch.
With regards to tension between communities this is certainly true, and is the case between the LoL and SC2 clubs/teams on my campus. There is a lot of bashing on both sides, which is slowly toning down due to changes in who runs the teams. One thing that probably doesn't help the tension is the nature of eSports events usually have to side stage one of the major eSports causing at least one side to get angry. Plus unlike sports such as football and baseball you don't have both games going on in one huge field where fans interact. So despite some people who would claim baseball is really boring to watch, and is dumb, etc. they would not actually go to a baseball game, so the problem sort of sorts itself out. Add in the fact the communities for eSports are extremely active online on sites such as reddit and TL, you end up with a lot more interaction between the fans. So the few jackasses willing to piss off one community can do it much easier, starting a flame war online. The tension will slowly fade as events start to become more independent, but until then it the only way to really prevent or stop the tension is for people to stop being elitist dicks about their games (hard to imagine that happening but hopefully will happen)
Blizzard is just bassackwards when it comes to their promotion IMO. Their latest Reddit AMA had me shaking my head. Basically paraphrasing "we don't care that the USA (I dare say rest of the world) has no representatives its about best players BUT WCS Korea will have no seeding advantage AND we don't care that WCS NA has become Korean B Team BUT there will be no cash advantage in Korea either."
All I get from Blizzard is that they don't really care that a worldwide tournament doesn't have any flavor. 14-16 businesslike Koreans getting dat paycheck. They refuse to even throw a bone and give NA TWO spots as someone suggested. I guess I can respect the totalitarianism of Blizzard though. Hopefully their theory that people want the best games but have no reason to have dreams of competing will grow SCII as an eSport.
What I am jealous of is Fighting Game Community. I feel like SC2 is better in many respects but they have a lot of things going right which I think we can use to improve as a community.
FGC: Manages to have influential and interesting players that do not change week to week but continue long strings of dominance which allows massive hype and auras of Godlikeness like when Daigo enters a room, or Infiltration or PR Balrog or EG Justin Wong.
SCII has great players they just need to be pimped. I am afraid to say it but we just need a fan culture in SCII which is unfortunately derided as "biased" by the community but should be encouraged to offer someone to believe in. Honestly, I think the community needs to allow some bias, and the community insisting on fair and balanced coverage has delivered only bland and beige coverage of events causing a severe lack of hype in many games.
I think we could promote certain players like Innovation, MVP, Stephano, Naniwa excessively. Make them the stars. Then we will get more awareness if you will to players causing more fans of players to tune in.
FGC: Has ZERO downtime. We need to cut ours down a looooot. SCII right now is like a baseball game, but worse. Like if each pitch the batter took a 1minute break.Game Over. Wait 2 min TOPS for ads then GO.
FGC: Is professional yet informal. I think SCII has gotten too far away from its PC Bang roots and is too much like a business. Too many monkey suits and ties, too many "weather reports". Go back to Oxford shirts and ties no jackets, maybe cool t shirts, faster looser easier commentary, don't be afraid to shout at appropriate moments, have fun with it.
People may think FGC is silly but except for like one F-Bomb the casters actually curse a LOT less than SCII casters. JS
FGC: Crowds sit close to the players, making it way more intense. Community needs to get off its iPads and on its feetpads and we should put the community closer to the stage.
I think as a community to improve the game, we need to be less orthodox, more welcoming, willing to accept some nationalism and accept some rabid fandom and stop the urge to make fun of people who take one players side over another "you don't wish BOTH players luck? You son of a bitch!" I have read comments like this on TL which is just insane to me.
Then we may see expansion! We can still make it happen. But like some say maybe its too late to make SC2 popular anymore.
I've read as much of this as I can and remembered as much as I can, but here's some of my takes on it. Apologise if they've: - been said before - rile people up - both - neither - the first one on a wednesday
uh...
Okay So
People have devoted themselves to a game, for whatever reason. Either they think it's the best thing ever, they want to be the best at it, they like the players in it, whatever reason, it doesn't matter. If something else comes along that's also popular, people feel an emotion. Fear. This is less likely to happen in other sports, because some of them have been around for centuries and, in general, they're not going to go anywhere. However, eSports can do one thing that those regular Sports do less of: Die.
With Starcraft II, we've had a pretty rocky road. We thought that SC2 would just take over where broodwar left off, but it didn't really do that. People still prefer BW over SC2, and the audiences in Korea have kind of felt the same way about it. BW OSL finals filled stadia, SC2 struggles to do that. That's not to say that it won't, just that it doesn't as much as BW did. Now, is that comparison fair? Maybe, maybe not, but it exists.
With the reception being below the expectations given to it, there's that fear that it will just curl up and die as an eSport. This is unlikely to happen as long as Blizzard keeps the money coming in, but even then we've had Blizzard's bizarre ruleset that comes with their money, but again, irrelevant.
SC2 is a game where you ladder, you practice, generally by yourself, it's competitive, it's kind of lonely in 1v1 ladder, and that's it. You ladder, you occasionally compete. Then there's the community. Generally pretty nice. TL is a great place to come and post. I wouldn't have a 3 figure post count if you were all douche nozzles. Anyway, we're a friendly community that enjoys a competitive game of SC2. Learning strategies, playing hard, all that jazz.
In comes League of Legends. It looks like it's been drawn in crayon, it's free to play, but with microtransactions everywhere, and it just seems that little bit casual. It starts off with no spectator mode, very few characters, and bizarre balance. However, it takes off, people start playing it, tournaments appear, suddenly it's the #1 watched game on Twitch. There's this idea that there are finitely many people (which there are) and they can only support one game at a time (some do). So there's this slight fear: If League really does well? will it take people from SC2 an will SC2, therefore, die? With that in mind there was a slight dislike of League that came from it. From the fear of it being fun and addictive enough to take players from SC2 there came the dismissal: "Oh it's just a stupid casual game." "League is DotA without the skill requirements", blahblah. There was this hope that, if people could stop their friends starting League, they'd stay in SC2 and we'd live on! Maybe League would go away! However, at latest stats tracking, everyone on the planet has, on average, 2.3 League accounts. They also have the loudest English casters known to man. I think they're fine.
Again, this also comes from people pouring their heart out into a game for a long time . They don't want to think that it's for nothing and that the game will just go away!
As you can see, though, this doesn't happen. BW still has its supporters and there are still even some tournaments. Even games that Supreme Commander have custom lobbies and 6-800 active users online at any one time. The problem is, though, if it goes down to that, will people think that they've wasted all that time?
With that in mind, there is some enmity there. It's not there for everyone, though. I think most believe that we can co-exist. As usual, though, they're the quiet ones mostly
I think with DotA it's slightly different, as DotA came from Warcraft, which is from the same company as SC2, and so has more of a "this is our baby" feel to it. Even thought now it's made by Volvo.
That's just how I see it, though. I can see why people would feel that way. It makes sense to me, however unfounded it is. Some people just want to be the most popular, or in the most popular crowd! Others just want to feel like what they have will last.
For what it's worth, I play SC2, I play League, I play DotA. I'm uniformly bad at all of them, pretty much.
I would love to see a guide or resource of the pro scene of each game. SC2 is easy to follow here on TL and Dota 2 is now accessible. However, to me, games like CS:GO, LoL, and HoN, I don't know where to go for all the stats/liquidpedia/results. If people can let me know or someone can build a center of these data it would be great!
I think threads like this, along with the rest of the "SC2 is dying" whine posts you see regularly, contribute negatively to the health of the scene.
If you enjoy the game for what it is and just have fun, some of that enthusiasm will rub off on the people around you. SC2 is awesome, I love it. If MLG gets slightly less viewers this year, I don't give a shit, and neither should you. Most of the time the whiners are not even accurate about their complaints (just because you saw one concurrent number smaller than last year, doesn't mean there's less viewers overall, etc..).
I also think the threads on Reddit and elsewhere that ask people to email sponsors and thank them are also a net negative because it leads to a scenario where things are not sustainable. Businesses want actual customers, not enthusiasts who just email sponsors all day. When you have these sort of activist people inflating data points on a short term level, I think you ultimately do more harm to the scene due to sponsor expectations being off the mark.
As for following up on this cross-community stuff, I think this whole collaboration idea also falls under the "contrived and ultimately counter-productive" category. Are we seriously going to embark on some phony game outreach because of Twitch chat trolls? Seriously? Twitch chat trolls are now driving policy?
I'm not condoning the troll behavior, but people should be genuine and love the games they love for real reasons, not because of some artificial outreach because people are terrified the scene is dying. That type of behavior ultimately hurts the scene.
On July 16 2013 07:28 titan55 wrote: I would love to see a guide or resource of the pro scene of each game. SC2 is easy to follow here on TL and Dota 2 is now accessible. However, to me, games like CS:GO, LoL, and HoN, I don't know where to go for all the stats/liquidpedia/results. If people can let me know or someone can build a center of these data it would be great!
For some games, it's not easily accessible, for others; it just means reading the right sites. ESEA covers CS:GO pretty heavily. LoL is covered by TL unofficially, no?
On July 16 2013 06:11 Wertheron wrote: SC2 community is weird, it's a community with a lot of fear. SC2 viewers/players are always afraid about decline, and the constant "SC2 is dying" thing is, for me, the big problem. It's the second esport game in the world, and even if Dota 2 reach one day this place, sc2 will still be a great esport game with tons of viewers, tournaments, teams and pro/casu players (look at CS GO, and you will see what is a esport game and community which have a lot of difficulties). But sc2 community continue (since nearly 2 years) to be afraid to decline or disappear because of other games. It's a problem, we need to be happy about the succes of the other esport games like LoL or Dota 2, and we don't have to be afraid about it. We will still be here, and TL is a good exemple of a dynamic community which will not disappear. If we are not afraid about other games, we will stop to criticize them, to insult other players. Like De Gaulle said: "Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first". We need to love our game, to stop being afraid about his decline and we will not hate the games of other guys.
Actually as it stands now I would say Sc2 is in 3rd place. Afaik Dota 2 is already pulling in more viewers overall. Not to say Sc2 is dying but it's definitely in a slow decline. And you know what would fix this, if Blizzard got their head out of their ass and started fixing the Sc2 client and Bnet and make it less awful and boring.
Less whining, moaning, hating, flaming and sponsorship contacting. Honestly the community can be ridiculously OTT and pathetic, just ask Idra or Destiny.
Basically, people need to stop taking everything so seriously, and just relax a bit. (and I find threads like this a bit silly, but whatever...)
Also im bored with everyone constantly talking and worrying about the state of sc2, honestly, just get on with it and play and enjoy the damn game. + if your new and you go on TL and read about how everyone thinks the game is going to die... idk, maybe not an ideal situation.
Hey Alex, it's nice to read a post not so bleak for once. I agree that it seems like there is tension between(and amongst) gaming communities, but it is a difficult if not impossible issue to address. I feel like the gaming population has in general become large enough where communities for one game can sustain themselves and the gamers of each end up staying in their pools without exploring the other games once they've found what they like best. It's only natural to have preference I guess.
I think this combined with the freedom of speech without consequence that is the internet can lead to some of the tension between gaming communities, and even inside our own. I feel like many forum users are extremely opinionated, dramatic, and critical even toward others in their own community. Your last simple suggestion is probably the best - I think everyone would need to find it in themselves to be more positive and constructive, myself included, to make the gaming community a better place.
On July 16 2013 06:11 Wertheron wrote: SC2 community is weird, it's a community with a lot of fear. SC2 viewers/players are always afraid about decline, and the constant "SC2 is dying" thing is, for me, the big problem. It's the second esport game in the world, and even if Dota 2 reach one day this place, sc2 will still be a great esport game with tons of viewers, tournaments, teams and pro/casu players (look at CS GO, and you will see what is a esport game and community which have a lot of difficulties). But sc2 community continue (since nearly 2 years) to be afraid to decline or disappear because of other games. It's a problem, we need to be happy about the succes of the other esport games like LoL or Dota 2, and we don't have to be afraid about it. We will still be here, and TL is a good exemple of a dynamic community which will not disappear. If we are not afraid about other games, we will stop to criticize them, to insult other players. Like De Gaulle said: "Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first". We need to love our game, to stop being afraid about his decline and we will not hate the games of other guys.
Actually as it stands now I would say Sc2 is in 3rd place. Afaik Dota 2 is already pulling in more viewers overall. Not to say Sc2 is dying but it's definitely in a slow decline. And you know what would fix this, if Blizzard got their head out of their ass and started fixing the Sc2 client and Bnet and make it less awful and boring.
dota 2 don't pull more viewers long term, and never will be until they officially release the game.
Unless you're in Russia, then that is a different story.
On July 16 2013 06:11 Wertheron wrote: SC2 community is weird, it's a community with a lot of fear. SC2 viewers/players are always afraid about decline, and the constant "SC2 is dying" thing is, for me, the big problem. It's the second esport game in the world, and even if Dota 2 reach one day this place, sc2 will still be a great esport game with tons of viewers, tournaments, teams and pro/casu players (look at CS GO, and you will see what is a esport game and community which have a lot of difficulties). But sc2 community continue (since nearly 2 years) to be afraid to decline or disappear because of other games. It's a problem, we need to be happy about the succes of the other esport games like LoL or Dota 2, and we don't have to be afraid about it. We will still be here, and TL is a good exemple of a dynamic community which will not disappear. If we are not afraid about other games, we will stop to criticize them, to insult other players. Like De Gaulle said: "Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first". We need to love our game, to stop being afraid about his decline and we will not hate the games of other guys.
Actually as it stands now I would say Sc2 is in 3rd place. Afaik Dota 2 is already pulling in more viewers overall. Not to say Sc2 is dying but it's definitely in a slow decline. And you know what would fix this, if Blizzard got their head out of their ass and started fixing the Sc2 client and Bnet and make it less awful and boring.
dota 2 don't pull more viewers long term, and never will be until they officially release the game.
Unless you're in Russia, then that is a different story.
Umm the game was officially released a few weeks ago.
On July 16 2013 07:16 Gowerly wrote: With Starcraft II, we've had a pretty rocky road. We thought that SC2 would just take over where broodwar left off, but it didn't really do that. People still prefer BW over SC2, and the audiences in Korea have kind of felt the same way about it. BW OSL finals filled stadia, SC2 struggles to do that.
In Korea. SC2 is hugely more popular than BW ever was in the west. This is not debatable. The problem is that instead of celebrating that fact, we somehow feel the need to compare it to LoL instead. No longer is the success of SC2 in the west considered as a triumph, it's now seen as "SC is dying". And that's pretty sad when you stop to think about it.
On July 16 2013 02:16 DinoMight wrote: I think some of the points you make are very good. Yesterday at EVO a lot of people were bashing on Super Smash Brothers as being "not a real fighting game" and not an e-SPORT, even though over 100k people were watching the event.
Wait, are you serious? Are people really talking about that?
Because not even a single game at EVO is an eSport, including SSF4 etc etc. Capcom has said it several times already that they do not support eSports and won't bring their game titles into the eSports scene.
EVO is just an awesome gaming tournament. I wish that more game companies like Capcom would invest in the industry and bring their awesome games into the world of eSports though. Having those awesome fighting games included in our industry would be amazing.
But honestly, one of the biggest things that we need to do to help grow eSports is to change our attitude. Like IdrA said, don't be so conceded, but also, just in general, we can't be such huge nerds. Being a nerd is awesome, and I always say that everyone is a nerd in their own way, but gaming nerds like to take it to another level a lot of the time and that really discourages people who aren't huge nerds to participate.
Other people need to feel comfortable watching and playing games with the people who know a lot and follow/participate in the eSports scene. Right now, they look at us as intense gamers who are too weird to really collaborate with.
In order to let eSports grow, we need to learn to accept other people, and that means opening ourselves up. With time, this will allow other people to learn to accept us, and after that they will be able to enjoy the same things we've come to enjoy.
I've been checking the active numbers on all those reddits the past few days. r/LoL gets like 10-15k actives, and rivals all the big subreddits besides r/funny. r/dota2 has about 2-3k active, though that could be inflated due to post launch. r/starcraft has something like 1.5-2k active viewers, making it quite small for a subreddit of 150k subscribers.
Lots of people have left sc2. There's not enough keeping people who don't want to be part of the competitive scene, (no LAN, hard-to-use map editor, poorly designed bnet) and the entry cost is too high for newcomers. If you see a pro match of LoL or DotA, you can instantly go into a game and try out what you saw and suck at it. (for LoL you have to grind IP or pay money for a champion, but much less than paying $60 for WoL + HotS)
We need to stop bashing other games and work as one. Instead of saying "LoL is not a real sport/game joke ez", we as a community need to work together. You dont see people saying "omg basketball so much better than football football ez" (there are, just not as many). If you read the forums, most community will bash on other games to make themselves feel like the game they are playing is the best game ever (why would you do this?).
On July 16 2013 08:39 phodacbiet wrote: We need to stop bashing other games and work as one. Instead of saying "LoL is not a real sport/game joke ez", we as a community need to work together. You dont see people saying "omg basketball so much better than football football ez" (there are, just not as many). If you read the forums, most community will bash on other games to make themselves feel like the game they are playing is the best game ever (why would you do this?).
No but you do hear people quarrel about American football versus soccer versus Rugby. Also there are people who prefer one sport over the other. I don't feel like I have to support other gaming communities if it's not my cup of tea.
On July 16 2013 08:32 Vestige wrote: observe the LoL community. Do the exact opposite.
Point in case.
How about growing the fuck up? And not acting like retarded Jr highers throwing tantrums, and losing all ability to control yourself once a female is present.
Seriously this community is cancerous, and its disgusting. Everyone should be ashamed that the major personalities ALL speak out AGAINST reading the forums and reading reddit about these games because the community is so negative and fueled by hate.
Holding up a sign that bashes another game at a SC2 event just makes you look like a fearful child who is scared of other games taking your spotlight.
Seriously... you wanna know how many people in the League community talk about/bash SC2 especially at events? 0.
Because they dont give a shit about whether SC2 fails or succeeds, it doesnt matter to them as long as they support their scene and it succeeds and flourishes.
LoL World Finals are being held at the fucking STAPLES CENTER... you know.. WHERE THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS, maybe the most prolific/notorious sports/franchises in the world play?
Because they managed to sell out a college basketball stadium last year.
Seriously instead of hating on and bashing another game, which is by FAR the most successful esport game in the history of the planet, you should grow up and focus on being positive for your own game and not hateful toward others.
On July 16 2013 08:39 phodacbiet wrote: We need to stop bashing other games and work as one. Instead of saying "LoL is not a real sport/game joke ez", we as a community need to work together. You dont see people saying "omg basketball so much better than football football ez" (there are, just not as many). If you read the forums, most community will bash on other games to make themselves feel like the game they are playing is the best game ever (why would you do this?).
No but you do hear people quarrel about American football versus soccer versus Rugby. Also there are people who prefer one sport over the other. I don't feel like I have to support other gaming communities if it's not my cup of tea.
not supporting, and insulting are completely different things.
I dont like basketball... I dont go to football games and hold up a sign "Football > Basketball" cause that shits fucking stupid and rude.
On July 16 2013 06:42 DeathProfessor wrote: FGC stuff
not the way to go. some of the FGC stuff is nice for viewers in the know and all, but there's a reason all fighting games combined are still smaller than Starcraft, despite all the "SC2 is dying" garbage (fighting games actually did die, I know, I was there). The FGC is extremely insular, super hostile to anyone and everyone that isn't already there, is extremely vulgar in way that mixes the worst of nerd culture with a pseudo gang-banger mentality. they pride themselves on community, but outside of all the shouting at Evo once a year they behave more like a gang. it took almost a decade to get even Capcom to acknowledge the community, much less any sponsors.
the biggest problem with esports is exclusiveness and hostility, racist/misogynist/homophobic/etc. language, entitlement, etc. the FGC is the worst of all of that, and that fact drowns out the positives
On July 16 2013 02:16 DinoMight wrote: I think some of the points you make are very good. Yesterday at EVO a lot of people were bashing on Super Smash Brothers as being "not a real fighting game" and not an e-SPORT, even though over 100k people were watching the event.
Wait, are you serious? Are people really talking about that?
Because not even a single game at EVO is an eSport, including SSF4 etc etc. Capcom has said it several times already that they do not support eSports and won't bring their game titles into the eSports scene.
EVO is just an awesome gaming tournament. I wish that more game companies like Capcom would invest in the industry and bring their awesome games into the world of eSports though. Having those awesome fighting games included in our industry would be amazing.
But honestly, one of the biggest things that we need to do to help grow eSports is to change our attitude. Like IdrA said, don't be so conceded, but also, just in general, we can't be such huge nerds. Being a nerd is awesome, and I always say that everyone is a nerd in their own way, but gaming nerds like to take it to another level a lot of the time and that really discourages people who aren't huge nerds to participate.
Other people need to feel comfortable watching and playing games with the people who know a lot and follow/participate in the eSports scene. Right now, they look at us as intense gamers who are too weird to really collaborate with.
In order to let eSports grow, we need to learn to accept other people, and that means opening ourselves up. With time, this will allow other people to learn to accept us, and after that they will be able to enjoy the same things we've come to enjoy.
how is evo event not esports? isnt esports competitive gaming? or is this some kind of hipster mentality
On July 16 2013 02:16 DinoMight wrote: I think some of the points you make are very good. Yesterday at EVO a lot of people were bashing on Super Smash Brothers as being "not a real fighting game" and not an e-SPORT, even though over 100k people were watching the event.
Wait, are you serious? Are people really talking about that?
Because not even a single game at EVO is an eSport, including SSF4 etc etc. Capcom has said it several times already that they do not support eSports and won't bring their game titles into the eSports scene.
EVO is just an awesome gaming tournament. I wish that more game companies like Capcom would invest in the industry and bring their awesome games into the world of eSports though. Having those awesome fighting games included in our industry would be amazing.
But honestly, one of the biggest things that we need to do to help grow eSports is to change our attitude. Like IdrA said, don't be so conceded, but also, just in general, we can't be such huge nerds. Being a nerd is awesome, and I always say that everyone is a nerd in their own way, but gaming nerds like to take it to another level a lot of the time and that really discourages people who aren't huge nerds to participate.
Other people need to feel comfortable watching and playing games with the people who know a lot and follow/participate in the eSports scene. Right now, they look at us as intense gamers who are too weird to really collaborate with.
In order to let eSports grow, we need to learn to accept other people, and that means opening ourselves up. With time, this will allow other people to learn to accept us, and after that they will be able to enjoy the same things we've come to enjoy.
how is evo event not esports? isnt esports competitive gaming? or is this some kind of hipster mentality
the fighting game community refuses to let what they do be called an Esport.
Because they didnt coin the term so they reject it. it's really that simple. Wheat has done multiple shows about the FGC killing itself over and over because of the egos associated with it.
I did it guys, I'm in the silver league now and it's true what they say. We all float down here. In fact.... WE ALLLLL FLOAT! WE ALLLLLLllL FLLLLOAAAT!
On July 16 2013 08:32 Vestige wrote: observe the LoL community. Do the exact opposite.
Point in case.
How about growing the fuck up? And not acting like retarded Jr highers throwing tantrums, and losing all ability to control yourself once a female is present.
Seriously this community is cancerous, and its disgusting. Everyone should be ashamed that the major personalities ALL speak out AGAINST reading the forums and reading reddit about these games because the community is so negative and fueled by hate.
Holding up a sign that bashes another game at a SC2 event just makes you look like a fearful child who is scared of other games taking your spotlight.
Seriously... you wanna know how many people in the League community talk about/bash SC2 especially at events? 0.
Because they dont give a shit about whether SC2 fails or succeeds, it doesnt matter to them as long as they support their scene and it succeeds and flourishes.
LoL World Finals are being held at the fucking STAPLES CENTER... you know.. WHERE THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS, maybe the most prolific/notorious sports/franchises in the world play?
Because they managed to sell out a college basketball stadium last year.
Seriously instead of hating on and bashing another game, which is by FAR the most successful esport game in the history of the planet, you should grow up and focus on being positive for your own game and not hateful toward others.
You know it's funny because I watched my friend play a few games of SC2 (I haven't played in ages) and the first game his opponent told him to suck his dick right before he raged quit. After the game the kid pursued him by msging him more, which I found hilarious. The next game more of the same stuff. Next game after that some guy decided to offensive GG (not that I care) but many people seem to think just because there are more people playing in a team game there will be more derp but when you play 1v1 in SC the level of maturity is just about the same. I'm trying to think back to my BW days to think about all the BM. Heck I even asked my bud if he noticed he was playing any hackers and he said, "nope." Then you come to these boards and it's like on a whole different level with the whining and non-stop talking about other games as if they have any idea of what they're talking about or act like supremacists. Then we have threads like this and in all honesty its never going to change. You cannot fight ignorance. You can try to teach them about the game, but that only helps those who are actually interested or curious and we already have a lot of resources for that. I'd like to get rid of the whole idea of e-sports as a whole. We've spoken about it so many times meh. >_<
On July 16 2013 06:42 DeathProfessor wrote: FGC stuff
not the way to go. some of the FGC stuff is nice for viewers in the know and all, but there's a reason all fighting games combined are still smaller than Starcraft, despite all the "SC2 is dying" garbage (fighting games actually did die, I know, I was there). The FGC is extremely insular, super hostile to anyone and everyone that isn't already there, is extremely vulgar in way that mixes the worst of nerd culture with a pseudo gang-banger mentality. they pride themselves on community, but outside of all the shouting at Evo once a year they behave more like a gang. it took almost a decade to get even Capcom to acknowledge the community, much less any sponsors.
the biggest problem with esports is exclusiveness and hostility, racist/misogynist/homophobic/etc. language, entitlement, etc. the FGC is the worst of all of that, and that fact drowns out the positives
gee williker, I wonder why the FGC hates people like you. "your community is shit and you're all thugs....wait, why are you being mean to me? "
1. Encourage maturity, thoughtfulness, manners. People who bash other games do so normally out of lack of at least one of the above. I'm nearly certain that people who aren't mature/intelligent/nice to other people/communities online aren't in real life. It's not an issue within e-sports specifically, but a societal issue with the demographic e-sports attracts the most.
A lot of people rail on the LoL community for being immature.
What was BW's like back in the day? Can we reasonably rail on LoL's community for being full of little children when the roots of TL and a big player in eSports didn't have the most mature audience? (watch the NaDa/YellOw/Nal_rA interview to get an idea of what I'm talking about).
On the other hand, eSports is becoming more professional internationally. Should this alone be the reason that we're going to encourage maturity? I would say so.
On July 16 2013 10:28 Kishin2 wrote: 1. Encourage maturity, thoughtfulness, manners. People who bash other games do so normally out of lack of at least one of the above. I'm nearly certain that people who aren't mature/intelligent/nice to other people/communities online aren't in real life. It's not an issue within e-sports specifically, but a societal issue with the demographic e-sports attracts the most.
There's not much.
It's the internet. You cannot change the internet. That applies everything from forums, stream chat, banter in games etc. It's always going to be there. In games I try to set a good example and if I get through to a few people when I play then I say I did my job. Otherwise you have to accept it for what it is. Love calling out the little derps though because it's good fun. I think it goes way beyond age as well. Some people are pretty immature.
On July 16 2013 10:32 IntoTheheart wrote: I wonder:
A lot of people rail on the LoL community for being immature.
What was BW's like back in the day? Can we reasonably rail on LoL's community for being full of little children when the roots of TL and a big player in eSports didn't have the most mature audience? (watch the NaDa/YellOw/Nal_rA interview to get an idea of what I'm talking about).
On the other hand, eSports is becoming more professional internationally. Should this alone be the reason that we're going to encourage maturity? I would say so.
We had a lot of arguments in Clan Leagues, Nation Wars, etc. B.Net East was pretty bad (but it was everywhere-- east was by the worst in the early days like Vanilla SC Ladder chan; toyland, etc). Heck, we were all pretty bad when it came to which Nation was best and any time you bicker with guys in channels it would lead to them boasting about their record against the other guy or you flame bait them into a game or some shit. So yeah, it was pretty bad but at least we got straight to the point with our shit.
On July 16 2013 10:28 Kishin2 wrote: 1. Encourage maturity, thoughtfulness, manners. People who bash other games do so normally out of lack of at least one of the above. I'm nearly certain that people who aren't mature/intelligent/nice to other people/communities online aren't in real life. It's not an issue within e-sports specifically, but a societal issue with the demographic e-sports attracts the most.
There's not much.
It's the internet. You cannot change the internet. That applies everything from forums, stream chat, banter in games etc. It's always going to be there. In games I try to set a good example and if I get through to a few people when I play then I say I did my job. Otherwise you have to accept it for what it is. Love calling out the little derps though because it's good fun. I think it goes way beyond age as well. Some people are pretty immature.
It's e-sports. I can't change it, but we can. Isn't the objective of this thread to reject the current state of the community and focus on things to make it better?
From what I can tell, most of the bashing between sc2 and LoL originates from the sc2 community. I know most of the more influential personalities have started publicly advocating for less animosity and more acceptance between the two communities. This is good.
To tackle the issue more precisely, we have to ask, "Why do sc2 players bash LoL?" My answer to that would be the people bashing LoL lack either maturity, thoughtfulness, or manners (not entirely age).
On July 16 2013 10:40 Ettick wrote: Is there a community between pro sports fans? Yep.
Are the fans of particular sports friendly towards fans of others? Nope.
Why should eSports be any different from pro sports in this aspect?
Basketball fans do not typically tell Football fans, "go die, football trash game."
On July 16 2013 10:28 Kishin2 wrote: 1. Encourage maturity, thoughtfulness, manners. People who bash other games do so normally out of lack of at least one of the above. I'm nearly certain that people who aren't mature/intelligent/nice to other people/communities online aren't in real life. It's not an issue within e-sports specifically, but a societal issue with the demographic e-sports attracts the most.
There's not much.
It's the internet. You cannot change the internet. That applies everything from forums, stream chat, banter in games etc. It's always going to be there. In games I try to set a good example and if I get through to a few people when I play then I say I did my job. Otherwise you have to accept it for what it is. Love calling out the little derps though because it's good fun. I think it goes way beyond age as well. Some people are pretty immature.
It's e-sports. I can't change it, but we can. Isn't the objective of this thread to reject the current state of the community and focus on things to make it better?
From what I can tell, most of the bashing between sc2 and LoL originates from the sc2 community. I know most of the more influential personalities have started publicly advocating for less animosity and more acceptance between the two communities. This is good.
To tackle the issue more precisely, we have to ask, "Why do sc2 players bash LoL?" My answer to that would be the people bashing LoL lack either maturity, thoughtfulness, or manners (not entirely age).
On July 16 2013 10:40 Ettick wrote: Is there a community between pro sports fans? Yep.
Are the fans of particular sports friendly towards fans of others? Nope.
Why should eSports be any different from pro sports in this aspect?
Basketball fans do not typically tell Football fans, "go die, football trash game."
The point is you cannot change the community. You have to accept it for what it is and what it is not and I'm not just talking about the bashing with regards to the different games but I'm talking about the overall experiences I've had playing/seeing in each community. Some people think so high and mighty of their scene when in reality they're no better than the other. They're all pretty bad when it comes to salt. So once again, we're not just talking about friction between communities but we're talking about the inner shit that goes on within each community, which is downright awful.
On July 16 2013 06:42 DeathProfessor wrote: FGC stuff
not the way to go. some of the FGC stuff is nice for viewers in the know and all, but there's a reason all fighting games combined are still smaller than Starcraft, despite all the "SC2 is dying" garbage (fighting games actually did die, I know, I was there). The FGC is extremely insular, super hostile to anyone and everyone that isn't already there, is extremely vulgar in way that mixes the worst of nerd culture with a pseudo gang-banger mentality. they pride themselves on community, but outside of all the shouting at Evo once a year they behave more like a gang. it took almost a decade to get even Capcom to acknowledge the community, much less any sponsors.
the biggest problem with esports is exclusiveness and hostility, racist/misogynist/homophobic/etc. language, entitlement, etc. the FGC is the worst of all of that, and that fact drowns out the positives
I lol'd.
Anyway, having come from the fighting game community, I don't think you can apply some ideas from there 'cause the games are so different. If anything, I think the REAL problem is how uncontrollable the internet is in general, you can't FORCE people on TL or Reddit to be X.
Just as realsports cant convince their fans not to cuss while they're watching a live game. The problem they dont' have is that there are so many people interested, they can afford to behave super formal and what not. SC2 isn't big enough to impose that kind of treatment on anyone.
On July 16 2013 02:16 DinoMight wrote: I think some of the points you make are very good. Yesterday at EVO a lot of people were bashing on Super Smash Brothers as being "not a real fighting game" and not an e-SPORT, even though over 100k people were watching the event.
Wait, are you serious? Are people really talking about that?
Because not even a single game at EVO is an eSport, including SSF4 etc etc. Capcom has said it several times already that they do not support eSports and won't bring their game titles into the eSports scene.
Not true. Dreamhack has SF4. IPL e-sports helped promote Capcom's latest fighting game SFxT. MLG get's the shaft because someone convinced the higher ups at Capcom that MLG is a threat to the growth of grassroots tournament organizers of the fgc.
EVO is just an awesome gaming tournament. I wish that more game companies like Capcom would invest in the industry and bring their awesome games into the world of eSports though. Having those awesome fighting games included in our industry would be amazing.
Dreamhack has sf4. IPL would have gotten more capcom fighters if they stayed alive.
This article encapsulates everything I think in my head and I loved every word. I really wish people could practice what you preached in this thread. I think all the esports communities have evovled into something awesoem and I make sure I watch a game or to periodically to keep current and page respects. Thanks for writing this I feel reapply positive if people read the whole post we can find change for the better! <3
I don't know I don't think people should take there game so serious. AT the end of the day, Starcraft II is a game, League of legends is a game, Dota 2 is a game, Zelda is a game. We play them for fun! If you don't enjoy playing Starcraft II then don't play it, no need to make the statement that LoL is a better game. LoL might be the better game for the person in the example, but that could be that they have more fun playing it. So I don't really see the problem with the communties. I mean you will see a few loud mouths and stuff, but the majority of people who play are playing for fun. Like I will be honestly, I got bored of watching Starcraft 2 esports, because I stopped having fun with Starcraft II, and started to enjoy watching dota 2, because I am having more fun playing dota 2. But I am not going on forums and saying SC II sucks because of reason X. We don't need all the communties to watch and play each others games. The communties should be responsible for supporting there games and presenting the positive stuff. And who knows maybe people will get into it.
Great write up Alex. I echo many of your sentiments.
I'm saddened that public figures of LoL/Dota2/CoD push and support other games, but once an SC2 personality publicly talks about enjoying something else, in comes the undulating waves of lost passion speculation. Obviously, this only applies to a small percentage of the community considering most fans are multi-game fans, but it still is quite discouraging seeing obnoxious forms of elitism from time to time.
On July 16 2013 11:41 FrodaN wrote: Great write up Alex. I echo many of your sentiments.
I'm saddened that public figures of LoL/Dota2/CoD push and support other games, but once an SC2 personality publicly talks about enjoying something else, in comes the undulating waves of lost passion speculation. Obviously, this only applies to a small percentage of the community considering most fans are multi-game fans, but it still is quite discouraging seeing obnoxious forms of elitism from time to time.
I'm sorry, I really really really tried to watch tanks, but you need to do something about matches ending in a draw
On July 16 2013 06:42 DeathProfessor wrote: FGC stuff
not the way to go. some of the FGC stuff is nice for viewers in the know and all, but there's a reason all fighting games combined are still smaller than Starcraft, despite all the "SC2 is dying" garbage (fighting games actually did die, I know, I was there). The FGC is extremely insular, super hostile to anyone and everyone that isn't already there, is extremely vulgar in way that mixes the worst of nerd culture with a pseudo gang-banger mentality. they pride themselves on community, but outside of all the shouting at Evo once a year they behave more like a gang. it took almost a decade to get even Capcom to acknowledge the community, much less any sponsors.
the biggest problem with esports is exclusiveness and hostility, racist/misogynist/homophobic/etc. language, entitlement, etc. the FGC is the worst of all of that, and that fact drowns out the positives
I think the issue of 'E-sports' being taken as a homogenous entity is part of this friction. I genuinely despise watching League, I won't bash it but equally my enjoyment of Starcraft is to me completely independent of that. I only tend to get pissed off when League starts to interfere with my enjoyment of the Starcraft community. Ironically enough, this is generally due to people making off-topic discussions bashing League!
I also believe the reason that this coalescing of different gaming communities under the banner of E-sports is because high-level gaming still isn't seen by the general public as the skillful, demanding activity that it is. Until that occurs, and the scene gets that added impetus of acceptance as a legitimate activity in the eyes of many, I can understand the necessity to stand together as a more homogenised scene.
Hopefully in the future it won't be necessary, and we can all be fans of 'Starcraft' or 'Dota', and be free to follow our various personal favourite gaming scenes without being praised or criticised for our particular favourites. It won't entirely stop the pointless pissing contests (see American football vs football) about whose activity is better, but I do firmly believe that scenes that are big enough to be entirely independent of each other is a good endgoal.
On July 16 2013 02:01 ROOTAxeltoss wrote: "Theory one: Tension between the communities. The threads I have read, the comments made by certain individuals of certain communities... r/starcraft, TL, twitch chats... It blows my mind and is the most infuriating thing. People will just bash other games as a hobby. Each person has their own reasons. It’s a terrible mentality and it should go away. People like certain games, so what? How does it help anything to hate on something that you don’t like? It doesn’t. If you have a cupcake and your friend has a cookie, are you going to argue the cookie is too crumbly and laugh at them? No! You are going to enjoy your damn cupcake! How does this look to the outside world, too? Those outside of our bubbles? Are people going want to share in our tasty treat endeavours after seeing these toxic exchanges?"
the difficulty in improving in this area involves the mental maturity of participants. from a child's simple perspective if they like one thing then anything else must be "bad". from an adult's perspective: i love SC and SC2. WoW just is not "my thing". Does this mean "WoW sucks donkey balls". No it does not, but i ahve a hard time convincing an avid 14 year old RTS player of this perspective. Take a look at how "Force" stopped supporting Diablo3. His "farewell to Diablo" was an ADULT DISCUSSION. He didn't say "Diablo sucks donkey balls".
For these communities to work in large numbers they'll include males aged 13 to 17 who have a hard time viewing their favourite games from an adult perspective. Males at this age are naturally combative and still forming their own personal identity.
When I was a around that age... "WWF Wrestlemania 2000" was the greatest game ever made and any one who didn't agree was a total idiot. I was 14, and of course, i knew everything.
To be honest, even though tension between games and superiority complex for one's favorite game isn't necessary qualities you would want your kid to express, it's not necessarily bad for the community. Look at American football and football (soccer), or any number of more traditional sports. It's quite common for those of one to look down upon the other. Try convincing a major tennis fan, that watches his favorite player return a serve that was travelling at 180 mph, and could be anywhere in roughly a 30-foot axis, that it's harder to hit a 98 mph fastball. Try and tell your football coach that soccer is a physical game. We all have our favorites, we hold them close and we kick at everything else. I'm not advocating the behavior, nor am i defending it, but unless you give me some reasoning, i doubt there is much of a correlation between a positively, open-minded community and the growth rate and/or popularity of a sport.
On July 16 2013 11:41 FrodaN wrote: Great write up Alex. I echo many of your sentiments.
I'm saddened that public figures of LoL/Dota2/CoD push and support other games, but once an SC2 personality publicly talks about enjoying something else, in comes the undulating waves of lost passion speculation. Obviously, this only applies to a small percentage of the community considering most fans are multi-game fans, but it still is quite discouraging seeing obnoxious forms of elitism from time to time.
I'm sorry, I really really really tried to watch tanks, but you need to do something about matches ending in a draw
Haha working on it! Thanks for at least giving it a try with an open mind. No one here denies that watching tanks can be pretty bland compared to playing through the game itself. It's improved drastically already and will continue to do so from our talks with WG.
On July 16 2013 02:16 DinoMight wrote: I think some of the points you make are very good. Yesterday at EVO a lot of people were bashing on Super Smash Brothers as being "not a real fighting game" and not an e-SPORT, even though over 100k people were watching the event.
Wait, are you serious? Are people really talking about that?
Because not even a single game at EVO is an eSport, including SSF4 etc etc. Capcom has said it several times already that they do not support eSports and won't bring their game titles into the eSports scene.
EVO is just an awesome gaming tournament. I wish that more game companies like Capcom would invest in the industry and bring their awesome games into the world of eSports though. Having those awesome fighting games included in our industry would be amazing.
But honestly, one of the biggest things that we need to do to help grow eSports is to change our attitude. Like IdrA said, don't be so conceded, but also, just in general, we can't be such huge nerds. Being a nerd is awesome, and I always say that everyone is a nerd in their own way, but gaming nerds like to take it to another level a lot of the time and that really discourages people who aren't huge nerds to participate.
Other people need to feel comfortable watching and playing games with the people who know a lot and follow/participate in the eSports scene. Right now, they look at us as intense gamers who are too weird to really collaborate with.
In order to let eSports grow, we need to learn to accept other people, and that means opening ourselves up. With time, this will allow other people to learn to accept us, and after that they will be able to enjoy the same things we've come to enjoy.
how is evo event not esports? isnt esports competitive gaming? or is this some kind of hipster mentality
eSports is an industry. A business. One that is supposed to be able to sustain itself.
EVO is something Capcom supports, but Capcom does not want to support the lifestyle of FGC players. It does not want to support the pro gamer lifestyle. They simply want to make a game that people can play for fun.
eSports is a business. Capcom doesn't support the eSports machine.
Someone with inside info can tell me if I'm wrong, but the inside info I had back when I worked with these kinds of things told me I'm not.
On July 16 2013 10:40 Ettick wrote: Is there a community between pro sports fans? Yep.
Are the fans of particular sports friendly towards fans of others? Nope.
Why should eSports be any different from pro sports in this aspect?
Basketball fans do not typically tell Football fans, "go die, football trash game."
FOOTball vs 'American' football sometimes happens though
But then again, you don't see various martial art community bashing each other, or various motor sports (G1 vs dirtbike racing or something), or pingpong and tennis....
On July 16 2013 10:40 Ettick wrote: Is there a community between pro sports fans? Yep.
Are the fans of particular sports friendly towards fans of others? Nope.
Why should eSports be any different from pro sports in this aspect?
Basketball fans do not typically tell Football fans, "go die, football trash game."
FOOTball vs 'American' football sometimes happens though
But then again, you don't see various martial art community bashing each other, or various motor sports (G1 vs dirtbike racing or something), or pingpong and tennis....
All fans act that way. They're just more polite about it in real life; online anonymity brings out the ugly in most people. E-sports fans are equal to traditional sports fans!
Enough with the discrimination! Enough is enough! The world is watching.
I disagree with Axeltoss's theories on why people behave the way he describes. Here is my theory to why people behave the way they do.
Humans have to feel like they belong to a group. In every group you will run into people that have become irrationally identified to a particular group. Then that's when the chauvinist behavior appears and what you are mainly complaining about. Gaming chauvinism, in my opinion, is based off of fear. The fear being that if the game they like isn't superior to every other game then they will lose out somehow. Maybe they feel like the community they belong to will fail if they aren't aggressively asserting some viewpoint? Maybe they feel that it's absolutely unacceptable that the game they love becomes an equal to every other game? Surely there are many more reasons for this type of irrational behavior but I just can't simply think of anymore at this present time. Can people be cured from the centuries worth of humans pounding chauvinism into our genes? Maybe through self realization and people just being called out on it that they are being irrational. It won't be easy but the world would be a better place if people just played the game they like without having to make it more than that.
There are plenty of people who can live and let live when it comes to the differing tastes of others, and there are those who have to proclaim the supremacy of their own worldview. The former, by definition are less vociferous in putting their viewpoint across so the latter seems more prevalent than it actually is.
I don't see us as being damned by genetic heritage to continually wage these battles , of which SC2 vs LoL is the latest iteration.
There's been some weird shots taken at the FGC in this thread. Many people in the FGC don't want to be lumped in with ESPORTS. There is a lot of hostility towards MLG towards some things that happened in the past (they felt that their games were being pushed into the corners of the venues and ignored, you can easily google more information about this) and they like and enjoy the position that they are currently in.
That being said, ESPORTS is a medium that takes place purely with the power of the internet and computers. This means the people who follow it are probably using those things too. We've seen what the internet does to normal people. The fact that these normal people can be very young and immature. For whatever reason people don't understand that the ESPORTS umbrella is very similar to the extreme sports umbrella, in that you don't like to like all of the sports in the umbrella, but that they need to work together to succeed. People hate Tencent and Riot because they actively try to avoid any competition. In my opinion that "hurts esports", but at the end of the day I will just watch FGC tournaments, DotA 2 and speedruns until people don't want to do them or I lose interest. It's highly likely it'll be the latter (as it was with Sc II)
There is a lot of irrational hate to be found. But for the record, a substantial part of the animosity from Dota towards LoL is not targeted at their players, but their companies Riot/Tencent, who have gone out and actively hurt our scene.
To quote a compliation
First off, you might know the name Pendragon. One of the "community managers" for Riot. Well, back in the day he was also in charge of the #1 DOTA forum, dota-allstars.com. Now, Pendragon, employed by Riot games, decided to be a gigantic motherfucker, tore the site down, said some bullshit and left an ad for LoL in its place. Oh, and he held onto the archives for years, only recently releasing them. And to top it off, he claims to this day that he only had the best intentions for the community in mind.
Speaking of Pendragon, it is widely speculated that he was the one behind this load of pure slander. This one hasn't been confirmed though.
Riot had bought dota2.vn and redirected to leagueoflegends.com. It currently redirects to the Vietnamese Dota wikipedia article.
Even worse, Riot attempted to counter-file for a DOTA trademark simply to prevent DOTA 2 from happening. And had the nerve to claim it was for the sake of the dota community.
And most recent was the attempt of Tencent to spread the outright lie that DOTA 2 would not be F2P in china and instead cost $100 (USD) a copy.
When a company has gone *that* far to try to sabotage a game you love and are passionate about, there is definite reason to hold a grudge. Now, I agree that it's silly to direct this anger at people who play LoL but Riot should not be let off the hook for all they've done
Just for a moment imagine TL during Broodwar to be shut down, just to have ads for a new RTS to be plastered all over iCCUP.
We welcome new players, no matter where they come from. Additionally to general introduction there is also a number of guides on /r/dota specifically targeted at people with LoL background to ease their entry.
But I'm sick and tired of being put off as a bunch of toxic people that harbor resentments for no reason. There is deep history between Dota and the company Riot.
On July 16 2013 02:16 DinoMight wrote: I think some of the points you make are very good. Yesterday at EVO a lot of people were bashing on Super Smash Brothers as being "not a real fighting game" and not an e-SPORT, even though over 100k people were watching the event. That certainly doesn't help.
I think a show such as ESPN SportsCenter with recaps from all the games might be helpful for those who don't have time to necessarily watch EVERYTHING. Top 10 plays etc. That would be fun.
Also introductory videos for games would make it easier for people to understand. People who don't understand StarCraft watch me play and have no idea what's going on. Maybe if there was a really concise 2-3 min video explaining the game in nothing but the most basic detail it would help.
Whaaaat were they really? Everybody knows that SSBM is like the best fighting game ever with the most skill required to play at a top level. I guess if they haven't really played it people wont appreciate the crazy moves of the players they're watching but shit man...
the people that bash on SSBM claiming its not a real fighting game, are actually fighting game enthusiast from the FGC while i dont hate SSBM i think its pretty cool but considered a fighting game at the level of other titles is quite a stretch. the thing is people are hanging on its views too much. it was given a time slot on the finals day of EVO which is the most important fighting game tournament in the world every year. meaning no matter what you put in that time slot it would have generated massive amounts of viewers.
view numbers for each title
Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 - 148k (being the biggest heavy hitter title of the FGC you can a tribute a lot of the other games viewers to this title) Street fighter 4 Arcade Edition - 130k Injustice - 128k SSBM - 130k
theirs been so much talk about SSBM and its 130k viewers when really its the other titles such as street fighter mainly marvel which are generating the numbers, SSBM just got brought on for the ride
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
a classical Idra. even when reiterating the concept of a more developed e-sports community, he insists on being a broodwar elitist.
I like your point OP, but i would hope the peace offer would also extend towards Starcraft Broodwar. Many people may not realize, but to some of us fans, who still follow Broodwar, it's insulting how Sc2 Commentators speak of Broodwar. This boils down to two points basically as far as i perceive it.
a) Using the past term. Please stop referencing broodwar as dead or past thing. Though the community has gotten much smaller and the big money isnt present, BW community is very much alive and progressing. In Europe, America, China, Russia and Korea.
b) differentiate. There is no game called starcraft. There are actually two games. More often than not, in narrations of prominent Sc2 figures, this seems to be forgotten.
On July 16 2013 09:04 MaestroSC wrote: Seriously this community is cancerous, and its disgusting. ... Seriously instead of hating on and bashing another game, which is by FAR the most successful esport game in the history of the planet, you should grow up and focus on being positive for your own game and not hateful toward others.
Cancer is a disease that kills people. No one is dying here. You're going overboard trying to make your point. At the heart of the matter is getting people to voluntarily spend their disposable income.
Is the community influence sometimes "negative"? .. sure it is.
A better way to dissolve the immature rage is to diffuse it and not respond in an equally extreme way. Either way this is hardly a "life or death" issue. Nothing going on is "disgusting". Is it slightly poor taste? Sure it is. But some guy making fun of a video game is hardly 'disgusting'.
Diagnosing it with extreme language only perpetuates the immaturity feedback loop.
On July 16 2013 02:01 ROOTAxeltoss wrote: "Theory one: Tension between the communities. The threads I have read, the comments made by certain individuals of certain communities... r/starcraft, TL, twitch chats... It blows my mind and is the most infuriating thing. People will just bash other games as a hobby. Each person has their own reasons. It’s a terrible mentality and it should go away. People like certain games, so what? How does it help anything to hate on something that you don’t like? It doesn’t. If you have a cupcake and your friend has a cookie, are you going to argue the cookie is too crumbly and laugh at them? No! You are going to enjoy your damn cupcake! How does this look to the outside world, too? Those outside of our bubbles? Are people going want to share in our tasty treat endeavours after seeing these toxic exchanges?"
Amen, Axeltoss. People need to either learn to appreciate other games and their communities for what they do for Esports as a whole, or quiet themselves and enjoy SC2, or whatever else they're into. Attempting to de-legitimize other scenes because you think the game sucks (LoL in particular for SC2 players), or because it's small (Smash, some other FG's) doesn't do anyone any good.
I agree that bitter conflict between game audiences is counterproductive. I agree partly that there is some reluctance to watch the stream of a different game because of the different rulesets and mechanics. Some of the general sentiment I agree with.
As I reflected upon this I felt the urge to know why each game has such a following, and also theorized about how to reach more people. This thing that we all know exists, how is it not massive already? More importantly, is there anything each of these communities (we) can actually do to simplify the process? Here are a couple of theories I have on what might be holding us back.
Have you done any research about what kind of audience totals you could expect if everyone who enjoyed watching competitive gaming all came together to watch a specific event? I do not expect to hear this "how is it not massive" without any kind of numbers backing it up. How will it be massive? What's the average viewership of a major WoW, LoL (4x SC2 stated), World of Tanks, Call of Duty (I'm trying my best not to laugh here, symptoms of what you call the tension between communities), some kind of Halo or Counterstrike alternative FPS put together at once? 4.7mil watched an MLG, 2.2mil conccurrent for finals. What numbers could you expect if 50% of the tournament viewership from other games combined for a SC2 stream/live event (there already is some crossover too)?
All this is to answer the unspoken question, what's massive for esports and how does that matter? For a while there getting SC2 on TV was like a thread a week. Is that the goal here? What if PPV was the norm, and sponsorship dollars increased? Would a 15% growth in average prize pool and 20% growth in sponsor contributions to teams be considered the massive that Axeltoss is positing is pretty close?
Other things needing addressing:
Declining viewerbase and the changeover between games. A sizable percentage of players do not play games 1yr after, 2yr after, 3yr after release. Professional BroodWar is not featured from OnGameNet or MBC. How many of these fans will tune into another game with the same fervor, how many game occasionally but don't watch, and to what extent does this work against a growing fanbase?
Really, how many people are just waiting for an introduction to LoL, DotA, WoT, WoW, or FPS#1, to become interested viewers? I can stand some DotA if it's explained to me, but these modern shooter games I will not tune into, as much as oldschool CounterStrike matches were fun to watch back in the day. How much fan crossover is to be expected with coaching or whatever, how much of fanbase just doesn't like watching a Action-RTS(MOBA?) and will only tune into RTS? It can't all be ascribed to intimidation.
I covered what strikes me odd when people make these threads with the thought of "massive" involved (massive if not for x). I will say people did well on crossover from people that bought SC2 and were curious what Brood War was like. Multiple tournament videos with pimpest plays, wikis explaining the paths of star players, basic mechanics. I mean that Savior writeup was stellar.
Do I see SC2 viewership climbing with a fantastical devotion of fans to inclusiveness and reaching out? I mean if everybody unpaid went to a LoL or BlackOps forum and offered a basic video and offer of free coaching under a trial installation all for the love of the game, what is a reasonable expectation. Ten percent bump? Do this for 3 months (eternity in gamerland practically) and get 25%? Okay, well you're pretty far on your way to convincing me that it isn't entirely out of hand for that to happen. There's a limit to good faith efforts attempting to boost the ratings for a show you actually don't like, not because you didn't try it, but because it isn't enjoyable to you. As one former baseball businessman said, he didn't go out with the aim of convincing football players to buy season tickets to his baseball team, he went out and advertised to get people that already liked watching baseball at home to watch it live!
(And by the way, I considered some of those MLG crowds to be the top of massive. Not from a commitment to the spirit of camaraderie between communities, just a confluence of good storyline players & teams with 2 well-played games at one event)
On July 16 2013 06:04 IntoTheheart wrote: I think IdrA's got a bit of a point on the LoL thing though, and I'm scared for the future of eSports in a way.
What did Idra specifically say? Source or anything? I'm curious
In regards to comparing the skill level of the different games... doesn't this come down to Epeen and the common insecurities of internet gamers?
The reason there is this game bashing is a lot of the 'nerds' that play these games play them to win and therefore have a sense of achievement which they may not be getting in life. Saying 'my' game is harder than yours and I am good at it is a way of trying to make oneself feel better about their own achievements.
Everyone wants to feel special and that they have accomplished something...
On July 16 2013 08:32 Vestige wrote: observe the LoL community. Do the exact opposite.
Seriously instead of hating on and bashing another game, which is by FAR the most successful esport game in the history of the planet, you should grow up and focus on being positive for your own game and not hateful toward others.
Thank you for writing this! You've seriously encouraged me to go a bit more out of my way to get involved in other scenes and help those trying to get into our scene. I was pretty into both League of Legends and DotA 2, but I never really did anything like offering to help anyone but friends I already knew to get into Starcraft. I've always agreed with your point on how fruitless trashing other people's games is.
But as a personal effort, if I have a cupcake and somebody is enjoying a cookie next to me, I can do more than just eat my cupcake. I can offer them a bite of my cupcake. I can ask them where they got the recipe for their cookie and how they made it. I've been getting really gung ho about Street Fighter 4 lately so I'm going to see what I can do to get more communication going between the fighting game scene and the Starcraft scene. And when I start to feel more comfortable, I'll see if I can extend those people in fighting games to the LoL or DotA 2 scenes!
Speaking of ideas, I think your cross game coaching idea was a great one. I think maybe if we could somehow organize cross game e-sports intro weeks, that would be great. Something like releasing one or two videos a week on the e-sports community in one game's scene, including interviews/talks with prominent players, explanation the game mechanics, break down of the big tournaments and how to follow it, etc. I might actually try and take this idea and roll with it....
Thank you again Axeltoss. Whenever I see you talk or write about this kind of stuff I can feel your passion coming through in your words and it reinvigorates my own passion toward e-sports. And for that, I could not be more grateful.
I think that to be a better community, we should all focus on being better individuals. By improving ourselves, the community itself shall evolve positively.
Obviously crying and bitching is pretty useless but I like having some healthy competition around. And make no mistake, it IS competition. Tons of lower level players in particular (but not only them) have left SC2 for LoL. You can only imagine that the competition is more fierce between DOTA and LoL, being so similar.
We should be trying to figure out how to improve our section of E-Sports, or the game itself. Irrational hate is stupid, trying to beat the competition is not.
On July 16 2013 09:04 MaestroSC wrote: LoL World Finals are being held at the fucking STAPLES CENTER... you know.. WHERE THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS, maybe the most prolific/notorious sports/franchises in the world play?
Because they managed to sell out a college basketball stadium last year.
Seriously instead of hating on and bashing another game, which is by FAR the most successful esport game in the history of the planet, you should grow up and focus on being positive for your own game and not hateful toward others.
Snide jabs like that are what usually triggers the negative responses and escalate things. How successful a game is and where the finals are being played is hardly relevant to this discussion. Why do you feel the need to bring it up here?
Anyhow, this thread is mostly about esports comminities taking themselves too seriously (as per usual). It's a marketing ploy for a handful of companies, they're going to push the most popular games to get the highest ROI. We're watching glorified ads, it just so happens that sometimes they involve a video game we like.
I don't know... I really don't see the point or need why all the gaming communities should hold hands and "unite" under the flag of esports for the greater good. And NBA, NFL, MLB, E-sports doesn't make any sense to me either.
Let me explain what I mean:
I am all in favour of treating each other with respect and not bashing anybody or anything on the grounds of a video game (or any personal interest for that matter), but
as many others before me posted: I like certain games for playing others for watching and others I just don't give a fuck about, they don't interest me in the slightest and honestly it wouldn't bother me if they didn't exist at all. But I would never go out of my way (making a thread or post etc.) to let people know the game they like sucks (because I don't like it) and the game I like is the pride of videogame creation. That's just stupid but it brings us to
bashing and flaming of other games. If people think this goes just on in the "e-sports world" than they are tragically mistaken. You obviously never heard how some people in my football (soccer) team talk about curling (quote:"those fucking fags with their brooms"...idiots are not an exclusive feature of e-sports) or synchronised swimming or how skiers and snowboarders talked about each other in the beginning. And these are just extreme examples, generally people think the sport they have chosen to do (or support) is cooler or superior to others. So...
...why is it different with video games? It really isn't, the only real big difference is that gamers are native inhabitants of the same space: the computer and by that I mean the internet. Through this relative closeness and the connectivity in the "gaming community" hateful posts seldom remain undetected and unresponded to, and things easily are blown up out of proportion.
as for the "NBA, NFL, MLB, E-sports" idea: Some time ago there was an initiative in order make SC2 an olympic discipline. I don't know how serious this was but I think contrary to the whole "united e-sports" concept this is more the way to go. A promising game (which one doesn't matter) should lead the charge for "recoginition" and get a foot in the door for all the other games, instead of trying to unite every game in the world under the e-sports flag and therfore creating an inconsistent and unclear construct which nobody will understand and even less acknowledge.
Sports trashing eachother is definitely real but it's massive turn off for me there as it is here. I simply cannot and will not put up with the strange kind of arrogance or small penis syndrome or whatever the hell it is which encourages people to focus so much negative energy on entertainment which they don't consume. It's especially bothersome when i actually enjoy the content of both the person talking trash, and that of which they're talking trash about. Are you trying to drive me away from your sport/game?
Fans are fans, and the masses are asses, so i don't neccessarily blink an eye when fanbois behave like fanbois. But from the higher ups like the players themselves, the commentators and analysts, surely these people could hold themselves to a higher standard. When those people lower themselves to that of the feral fanboi it turns me off big time.
I don't know how many others feel the same as i do but i hope people realise the sheer volume of content i have at my disposal. There is a lot. I've got shitloads of crap TV channels, then there's new media vomitting out so much content that i really should be a lot fatter than i am. And don't get me started on the backlog of books and video games i've yet to touch (fucking steam sales).
Why would i watch a game i have no interest in? To support E-Sports? Lol.
I love to watch Dota 2 and I like to play it. It's also the only game were i sometimes watch playerstreams because they actually seem to have fun while playing.
League? Ive got about 150 games and never ever touched it as soon as i got Dota 2... Oh and Riot shall burn + i don't unerstand why anyone would play this over Dota. So "supporting" this is not really in my interest anyway?
SC2? I watch some of it due to SC/BW nostalgia but honestly, it could just be gone and it would most probably even bring a smile on my face (it's just fucking disgrace to SC/BW and my "sadness" about what Blizzard brought us here has long grown into plain anger). TL could then go full Dota 2 and i would be a really happy guy. Well, it's sadly still the best "new" RTS to play (because basically all others are bad or not supported) so i can understand why someone would play this... Somewhat... Actually.. Just do yourself a favour and get SC/BW and play a truely great game.
CS (1.6, Source, GO)? I played some 1.6 and Source but never understood the general appeal as a spectator sport and never will .
Quake (and Fighting games)? Are pretty cool to watch from time to time because these guys are freaking awesome. I don't give a shit about the communities tho but some more Quake tournaments wouldn't hurt.
As for supporting E-Sports in general: I actually bought an ASUS Notebook because i like the GD studio and wanted a gaming notebook anyway on the other side, I'll never ever buy a can of Monster because their constant product placement makes me wanna womit.
On July 16 2013 18:59 Velr wrote: SC2? I watch some of it due to SC/BW nostalgia but honestly, it could just be gone and it would most probably even bring a smile on my face (it's just fucking disgrace to SC/BW and my "sadness" about what Blizzard brought us here has long grown into plain anger). TL could then go full Dota 2 and i would be a really happy guy. Well, it's sadly still the best "new" RTS to play (because basically all others are bad or not supported) so i can understand why someone would play this... Somewhat... Actually.. Just do yourself a favour and get SC/BW and play a truely great game.
This is pretty much the perfect example of what SC2 fans do to LoL now; it started out with BW fans doing it to SC2 fans (and that's kinda become less popular as time went on, but obviously it still happens)
Standing on a box and shouting that you think X is a better game than Y is utterly pointless whether it's SC2 -> LoL or BW -> SC2. This post did it in an SC2 forum; it's like going into /r/leagueoflegends and telling people about how SC2 is so much better.
Frankly, though, I don't trust people to have any level of critical thinking that allows them to recognise that wasting their time being negative is entirely not useful. If everyone took their negative, worthless opinions and turned them into positive energy for their own scene, it'd be great for all scenes, but it won't happen because people love to hate and feel superior because of things that frankly don't matter.
So, worrying about people doing silly things like unproductive hate spreading is kinda pointless as far as I'm concerned and unfortunately and calls for it to stop will fall on deaf ears. Better to focus on other things.
On July 16 2013 18:59 Velr wrote:SC2? I watch some of it due to SC/BW nostalgia but honestly, it could just be gone and it would most probably even bring a smile on my face (it's just fucking disgrace to SC/BW and my "sadness" about what Blizzard brought us here has long grown into plain anger). TL could then go full Dota 2 and i would be a really happy guy. Well, it's sadly still the best "new" RTS to play (because basically all others are bad or not supported) so i can understand why someone would play this... Somewhat... Actually.. Just do yourself a favour and get SC/BW and play a truely great game.
Know what? I recently gave BW a try, and didn't like it as much. I prefer SC2, after having played both.
Also, I find posts like this completely pointless, and probably counterproductive.
As the guy above me said, if you go onto a LOL forum and start telling everyone to play a "Real" game, sc2, then not only are you going to achieve nothing, but your going to create a dislike and annoyance at sc2.
On July 16 2013 17:02 Little-Chimp wrote: Obviously crying and bitching is pretty useless but I like having some healthy competition around. And make no mistake, it IS competition. Tons of lower level players in particular (but not only them) have left SC2 for LoL. You can only imagine that the competition is more fierce between DOTA and LoL, being so similar.
We should be trying to figure out how to improve our section of E-Sports, or the game itself. Irrational hate is stupid, trying to beat the competition is not.
it would make sense if you were in charge of the marketing department at Blizzard. They wanna beat their competition. To me, this trail of thought is not understandable as a fan. I like my game, i play my game, i tell people why i do so. I feel it is not my duty to convince people why my game is better than their game or to "support" my game by throwing money at it's sponsors.
Making Sc2 successful is Blizzard's job, not the job of sc2 fans.
1. Let people enjoy whatever they damn please. Don't bash people just because they like some other game, and likewise don't try to get people to watch games that they don't care about just for some bullshit "supporting esports" cause.
2. Stop caring so much about completely worthless drama. Stop trying to create drama.
There, two rules that if adhered to will definitely "improve the community" by orders of magnitude.
Not that anyone will follow them. It seems like every month we have a thread like this and yet nothing ever changes...
On July 16 2013 18:59 Velr wrote:SC2? I watch some of it due to SC/BW nostalgia but honestly, it could just be gone and it would most probably even bring a smile on my face (it's just fucking disgrace to SC/BW and my "sadness" about what Blizzard brought us here has long grown into plain anger). TL could then go full Dota 2 and i would be a really happy guy. Well, it's sadly still the best "new" RTS to play (because basically all others are bad or not supported) so i can understand why someone would play this... Somewhat... Actually.. Just do yourself a favour and get SC/BW and play a truely great game.
Know what? I recently gave BW a try, and didn't like it as much. I prefer SC2, after having played both.
Also, I find posts like this completely pointless, and probably counterproductive.
As the guy above me said, if you go onto a LOL forum and start telling everyone to play a "Real" game, sc2, then not only are you going to achieve nothing, but your going to create a dislike and annoyance at sc2.
And i never did this? I know that arguing this stuff is pointless, all i do is tell friends/people i know that play Lol to try out Dota. As for SC2... Well, i barely know anyone anymore(from playing with/against) that still plays it, so aside from the occasional bitching here I have not many people to talk about it or then they share many of my views anyway .
My main point was... I care about Dota 2 and really don't care much what "EPSORTS" is doing in general, Dota 2 seems to be doing fine and that is all that matters to me now. I don't see a single reason to support other ESPORTS.
Just because i like to watch downhill Snowboarding doesn't mean i have to like Formula 1 or support it in any way, why would I, because Red Bull sponsores both? Thats just flawed logic to me.
On July 16 2013 19:24 MasterOfPuppets wrote: How can we improve as a Community?
1. Let people enjoy whatever they damn please. Don't bash people just because they like some other game, and likewise don't try to get people to watch games that they don't care about just for some bullshit "supporting esports" cause.
2. Stop caring so much about completely worthless drama. Stop trying to create drama.
There, two rules that if adhered to will definitely "improve the community" by orders of magnitude.
Not that anyone will follow them. It seems like every month we have a thread like this and yet nothing ever changes...
I think that's going a bit far. The biggest issue of division has mostly to do with ignorance of each others scene. Being a Tennis player in America; I grew up with a pretty huge "that's a gay sport" or "high class sport" stigmata. I don't think anyone realistically expect everyone to support every possible esports; but what we can do as a community is have an open and even dialogue in regards to educating everyone about their respective esports/scene before people make stupid prejudice judgement of their games; such as "low skill cap" or "takes less skill" or "your scene is full of 12 year olds".
On July 16 2013 19:24 MasterOfPuppets wrote: How can we improve as a Community?
1. Let people enjoy whatever they damn please. Don't bash people just because they like some other game, and likewise don't try to get people to watch games that they don't care about just for some bullshit "supporting esports" cause.
2. Stop caring so much about completely worthless drama. Stop trying to create drama.
There, two rules that if adhered to will definitely "improve the community" by orders of magnitude.
Not that anyone will follow them. It seems like every month we have a thread like this and yet nothing ever changes...
I think that's going a bit far. The biggest issue of division has mostly to do with ignorance of each others scene. Being a Tennis player in America; I grew up with a pretty huge "that's a gay sport" or "high class sport" stigmata. I don't think anyone realistically expect everyone to support every possible esports; but what we can do as a community is have an open and even dialogue in regards to educating everyone about their respective esports/scene before people make stupid prejudice judgement of their games; such as "low skill cap" or "takes less skill" or "your scene is full of 12 year olds".
You're right, but at the same time I don't think you're aware how many people go around these forums telling people to proactively watch tournaments of others games otherwise they're "hurting esports" and being 100% serious about it. It's one thing to try and educate people on a game, it's another thing altogether to tell try and guilt trip them that they're hurting some abstract and arbitrary notion of "esports" that you have in your head. That's what I meant by that.
Plus, it goes without saying that anyone who adamantly argues his opinion without having any idea what they're talking about (in this case, what you're saying that some people think some games have a low skill cap despite never having watched them etc) is a moron and should not be taken seriously.
On July 16 2013 19:24 MasterOfPuppets wrote: How can we improve as a Community?
1. Let people enjoy whatever they damn please. Don't bash people just because they like some other game, and likewise don't try to get people to watch games that they don't care about just for some bullshit "supporting esports" cause.
2. Stop caring so much about completely worthless drama. Stop trying to create drama.
There, two rules that if adhered to will definitely "improve the community" by orders of magnitude.
Not that anyone will follow them. It seems like every month we have a thread like this and yet nothing ever changes...
I think that's going a bit far. The biggest issue of division has mostly to do with ignorance of each others scene. Being a Tennis player in America; I grew up with a pretty huge "that's a gay sport" or "high class sport" stigmata. I don't think anyone realistically expect everyone to support every possible esports; but what we can do as a community is have an open and even dialogue in regards to educating everyone about their respective esports/scene before people make stupid prejudice judgement of their games; such as "low skill cap" or "takes less skill" or "your scene is full of 12 year olds".
You're right, but at the same time I don't think you're aware how many people go around these forums telling people to proactively watch tournaments of others games otherwise they're "hurting esports" and being 100% serious about it. It's one thing to try and educate people on a game, it's another thing altogether to tell try and guilt trip them that they're hurting some abstract and arbitrary notion of "esports" that you have in your head. That's what I meant by that.
Plus, it goes without saying that anyone who adamantly argues his opinion without having any idea what they're talking about (in this case, what you're saying that some people think some games have a low skill cap despite never having watched them etc) is a moron and should not be taken seriously.
Have you not read the comments in threads like these? Most of the arguments as to why "my esport is better than your esports" is essentially an argument out of ignorance; not of knowledge. I'm addressing the masses; not specific cases; and in regards to "watching other tournaments"; I just recently watched EVO, even though I never keep up with FGC; holy shit was it amazing. That top 8 story line/games for SSFIV:AE was fucking ridiculous. It was so awesome! Now; my experiences not withstanding; the main reason I'd suggest people to watch other game tournament is mostly as a way to educate them in other scenes. If it's not your cup of tea; that's fine, but fucking try it before saying it sucks.
On July 16 2013 09:04 MaestroSC wrote: LoL World Finals are being held at the fucking STAPLES CENTER... you know.. WHERE THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS, maybe the most prolific/notorious sports/franchises in the world play?
Because they managed to sell out a college basketball stadium last year.
Seriously instead of hating on and bashing another game, which is by FAR the most successful esport game in the history of the planet, you should grow up and focus on being positive for your own game and not hateful toward others.
Snide jabs like that are what usually triggers the negative responses and escalate things. How successful a game is and where the finals are being played is hardly relevant to this discussion. Why do you feel the need to bring it up here?
Anyhow, this thread is mostly about esports comminities taking themselves too seriously (as per usual). It's a marketing ploy for a handful of companies, they're going to push the most popular games to get the highest ROI. We're watching glorified ads, it just so happens that sometimes they involve a video game we like.
I would also point out that WCS could be hosted at the Staples Center if Blizzard was dumping as much money into WCS as Riot is. But things like the Staples Center will go away when LoL isn't the biggest game in the world. Its all marketing and how much budget they have.
I think communities need to accept studios like NASL and MLG working with other games. The more games, the easier it is for them to have great production. Sure one game will be the focus, but the more talented staff and studio will bring all games up. Its less about how much money is Blizzard dumping into the scene and more about how much money can these studios make off of us watching SC2 and other Esports(if you like other games).
On July 16 2013 21:56 Plansix wrote: I would also point out that WCS could be hosted at the Staples Center if Blizzard was dumping as much money into WCS as Riot is. But things like the Staples Center will go away when LoL isn't the biggest game in the world. Its all marketing and how much budget they have.
chicken-egg. Riot has the money to do this because a lot of people already spend and continue to spend a lot of money on LoL. How did LoL get to be "the biggest game in the world"?
To assess the "success" of any live event you need access to the gate and paid attendance numbers.
Both, the Toronto Rock lacrosse team and the Maple Leafs hockey team "sell out the building" for playoff games. The "gate" is $7,000,000 for a Maple Leafs game and under $300,000 for lacrosse games.
"sell out at a college basketball stadium" says not much.
who knows, maybe Riot made a few million at last year's event "in a college basketball stadium"... or maybe they barely broke even.
On July 16 2013 21:56 Plansix wrote: I would also point out that WCS could be hosted at the Staples Center if Blizzard was dumping as much money into WCS as Riot is. But things like the Staples Center will go away when LoL isn't the biggest game in the world. Its all marketing and how much budget they have.
chicken-egg. Riot has the money to do this because a lot of people already spend and continue to spend a lot of money on LoL. How did LoL get to be "the biggest game in the world"?
To assess the "success" of any live event you need access to the gate and paid attendance numbers.
Both, the Toronto Rock lacrosse team and the Maple Leafs hockey team "sell out the building" for playoff games. The "gate" is $7,000,000 for a Maple Leafs game and under $300,000 for lacrosse games.
"sell out at a college basketball stadium" says not much.
who knows, maybe Riot made a few million at last year's event "in a college basketball stadium"... or maybe they barely broke even.
There is no chicken and the egg here, Jimmy. LoL had one of the largest user bases in the world before it created the LCS some time ago. They made LCS after they got to that level. Having the LCS doesn't hurt Riot and is likley the best marketing money they could be spending., but I can't be sure they make money directly from the producing the LCS(make money directly from the broadcast, rather than inspire people to buy more champs and skins). Maybe they will make money off the Staples Center if they can fill it. But if the game becomes less popular, they won't, so it wouldn't make sense to rent it out.
On July 16 2013 21:56 Plansix wrote: I would also point out that WCS could be hosted at the Staples Center if Blizzard was dumping as much money into WCS as Riot is. But things like the Staples Center will go away when LoL isn't the biggest game in the world. Its all marketing and how much budget they have.
chicken-egg. Riot has the money to do this because a lot of people already spend and continue to spend a lot of money on LoL. How did LoL get to be "the biggest game in the world"?
To assess the "success" of any live event you need access to the gate and paid attendance numbers.
Both, the Toronto Rock lacrosse team and the Maple Leafs hockey team "sell out the building" for playoff games. The "gate" is $7,000,000 for a Maple Leafs game and under $300,000 for lacrosse games.
"sell out at a college basketball stadium" says not much.
who knows, maybe Riot made a few million at last year's event "in a college basketball stadium"... or maybe they barely broke even.
There is no chicken and the egg here, Jimmy. LoL had one of the largest user bases in the world before it created the LCS some time ago. They made LCS after they got to that level. Having the LCS doesn't hurt Riot and is likley the best marketing money they could be spending., but I can't be sure they make money directly from the producing the LCS(make money directly from the broadcast, rather than inspire people to buy more champs and skins). Maybe they will make money off the Staples Center if they can fill it. But if the game becomes less popular, they won't, so it wouldn't make sense to rent it out.
Implying this is the community's job to attract more people. Everyone knows Blizzard is failing hard and their poor attempts to copy Riot are useless. If there is someone to blame it's Blizzard. I guess it's easier for Axeltoss to blame the community since Blizzard doesn't give a shit about how big his e-penis is.
On July 16 2013 22:17 floor exercise wrote: When LCS players aren't contractually forbidden from mentioning competing games in social media I will support a 'unified' esports.
It's honestly as simple as that. People might talk about how it's the communities that are keeping the games apart, but Riot actively tries to harm competition, undercut growth of other scenes, and have a long history of attempting to shit in DotA's throat. Every other game can get a long fine, the divisive factor is League, and that's more to do with the company that heads it than it is the fanbase or the game itself.
On July 16 2013 21:56 Plansix wrote: I would also point out that WCS could be hosted at the Staples Center if Blizzard was dumping as much money into WCS as Riot is. But things like the Staples Center will go away when LoL isn't the biggest game in the world. Its all marketing and how much budget they have.
chicken-egg. Riot has the money to do this because a lot of people already spend and continue to spend a lot of money on LoL. How did LoL get to be "the biggest game in the world"?
To assess the "success" of any live event you need access to the gate and paid attendance numbers.
Both, the Toronto Rock lacrosse team and the Maple Leafs hockey team "sell out the building" for playoff games. The "gate" is $7,000,000 for a Maple Leafs game and under $300,000 for lacrosse games.
"sell out at a college basketball stadium" says not much.
who knows, maybe Riot made a few million at last year's event "in a college basketball stadium"... or maybe they barely broke even.
There is no chicken and the egg here, Jimmy. LoL had one of the largest user bases in the world before it created the LCS some time ago. They made LCS after they got to that level. Having the LCS doesn't hurt Riot and is likley the best marketing money they could be spending., but I can't be sure they make money directly from the producing the LCS(make money directly from the broadcast, rather than inspire people to buy more champs and skins). Maybe they will make money off the Staples Center if they can fill it. But if the game becomes less popular, they won't, so it wouldn't make sense to rent it out.
great job re-asking the questions i posted
It's a question no one can answer without looking at Riot's budget, income from ads on Twitch and other numbers. I would also need more details on their deal with the Staples Center, if they get money from food, drinks and other things sold during the event. We can only guess, but we are basicly uninformed on the subject.
On July 16 2013 22:17 floor exercise wrote: When LCS players aren't contractually forbidden from mentioning competing games in social media I will support a 'unified' esports.
It's honestly as simple as that. People might talk about how it's the communities that are keeping the games apart, but Riot actively tries to harm competition, undercut growth of other scenes, and have a long history of attempting to shit in DotA's throat. Every other game can get a long fine, the divisive factor is League, and that's more to do with the company that heads it than it is the fanbase or the game itself.
That's not quite a fair comparison though. DotA is a direct competitor to LoL.
It's not like Blizzard didn't try to get everyone to switch from BW to SC2 right from the start. I don't think every BW fan is happy with Blizzard's action re: BW and that was Blizzard's own game!
On July 16 2013 22:17 floor exercise wrote: When LCS players aren't contractually forbidden from mentioning competing games in social media I will support a 'unified' esports.
It's honestly as simple as that. People might talk about how it's the communities that are keeping the games apart, but Riot actively tries to harm competition, undercut growth of other scenes, and have a long history of attempting to shit in DotA's throat. Every other game can get a long fine, the divisive factor is League, and that's more to do with the company that heads it than it is the fanbase or the game itself.
That's not quite a fair comparison though. DotA is a direct competitor to LoL.
It's not like Blizzard didn't try to get everyone to switch from BW to SC2 right from the start. I don't think every BW fan is happy with Blizzard's action re: BW and that was Blizzard's own game!
Last time i checked SC/BW-Bnet servers are still up and you got a full version of SC/BW with the Wol collectors edition.
Yeah, Blizzard was/is clearly trying to KILL SC/BW... Nah, they just don't market it anymore and actively pushed for SC2's breaktrhu in Korea via GSL.
Comparing that to what Riot trie(s)d is ridiculous, at least i haven't seen Blizzard actively closing down the biggst SC/BW forum on the planet and using it's link to advertise Wol... ...
imo we should just learn to ignore other communities as this thread demonstrates it doesn't matter how much you try and reason, people are just going to get mad at each other for petty reasons and differences.
On July 16 2013 21:56 Plansix wrote: I would also point out that WCS could be hosted at the Staples Center if Blizzard was dumping as much money into WCS as Riot is. But things like the Staples Center will go away when LoL isn't the biggest game in the world. Its all marketing and how much budget they have.
chicken-egg. Riot has the money to do this because a lot of people already spend and continue to spend a lot of money on LoL. How did LoL get to be "the biggest game in the world"?
To assess the "success" of any live event you need access to the gate and paid attendance numbers.
Both, the Toronto Rock lacrosse team and the Maple Leafs hockey team "sell out the building" for playoff games. The "gate" is $7,000,000 for a Maple Leafs game and under $300,000 for lacrosse games.
"sell out at a college basketball stadium" says not much.
who knows, maybe Riot made a few million at last year's event "in a college basketball stadium"... or maybe they barely broke even.
There is no chicken and the egg here, Jimmy. LoL had one of the largest user bases in the world before it created the LCS some time ago. They made LCS after they got to that level. Having the LCS doesn't hurt Riot and is likley the best marketing money they could be spending., but I can't be sure they make money directly from the producing the LCS(make money directly from the broadcast, rather than inspire people to buy more champs and skins). Maybe they will make money off the Staples Center if they can fill it. But if the game becomes less popular, they won't, so it wouldn't make sense to rent it out.
Really though it's pure conjecture, because you have no idea what their sales figures are, and how profitable they are, and what makes them money. All you can state with certainty is that they have the largest playerbase and that they are indeed renting out the Staples Center. Everything past that is you pulling out of your ass, which is fine if you recognize it as such, not the actual truth.
On July 16 2013 21:56 Plansix wrote: I would also point out that WCS could be hosted at the Staples Center if Blizzard was dumping as much money into WCS as Riot is. But things like the Staples Center will go away when LoL isn't the biggest game in the world. Its all marketing and how much budget they have.
chicken-egg. Riot has the money to do this because a lot of people already spend and continue to spend a lot of money on LoL. How did LoL get to be "the biggest game in the world"?
To assess the "success" of any live event you need access to the gate and paid attendance numbers.
Both, the Toronto Rock lacrosse team and the Maple Leafs hockey team "sell out the building" for playoff games. The "gate" is $7,000,000 for a Maple Leafs game and under $300,000 for lacrosse games.
"sell out at a college basketball stadium" says not much.
who knows, maybe Riot made a few million at last year's event "in a college basketball stadium"... or maybe they barely broke even.
There is no chicken and the egg here, Jimmy. LoL had one of the largest user bases in the world before it created the LCS some time ago. They made LCS after they got to that level. Having the LCS doesn't hurt Riot and is likley the best marketing money they could be spending., but I can't be sure they make money directly from the producing the LCS(make money directly from the broadcast, rather than inspire people to buy more champs and skins). Maybe they will make money off the Staples Center if they can fill it. But if the game becomes less popular, they won't, so it wouldn't make sense to rent it out.
Really though it's pure conjecture, because you have no idea what their sales figures are, and how profitable they are, and what makes them money. All you can state with certainty is that they have the largest playerbase and that they are indeed renting out the Staples Center. Everything past that is you pulling out of your ass, which is fine if you recognize it as such, not the actual truth.
Exactly, which is why we shouldn't be freaking out. Riot is clearly doing well in some way and wants to put a lot of money behind LCS. Or maybe the Staples Center is free due to the CEO of Riot winning during a poker game? We will never know. It doesn't mean the same thing would work for Blizzard or even Valve, since they do not work under the same model and have their own fanbases. I would rather they all try their own things with their own games and see flaws and merits to each. It is better for them to have their own ideas, rather than just chance the guy that everyone believes is the biggest and best.
Well I'm an long time lurker on these boards, but I felt compelled to write some of my thoughts on this topic and thread in general.
- The whole "casual game" thing as it were, in my view was an inside joke. Blizzard did and still is making the game as accessible to newer gamers. This isn't a bad thing, it just speaks of the trend over the last decade or so, to appeal to a larger market.
The truth is SC2 is as much as a "casual game" as LOL is. The majority of people who bought the game are unlikely to stick with the multiplayer, much like Call of Duty.
- As for any banter between the communities. I think it's been proven that too many people take what is said literally. Like something I love is being attacked, I must don my battle armor and defend it from the internet. I come from a background where most of the people involved are usually mature adults and can handle any jabs. Notwithstanding the irony of that last paragraph and my username, I feel I can poke fun at others and the same back without it reaching a malicious level. So far in my experience, most "e-sports" fans just take it too far and end up offending someone.
I'm not sure if this intrinsic to this scene, but I see it other scenes too, so it may be more about the age of the core viewership. Ofc, as with everything in life I could be completely wrong.
- Some of the other games and communities mentioned in here. From my experience during the big events like MLG/Dreamhack etc. people will deliberately start a flame war saying "LOL > sc2". I'm not admonishing it. I'm just saying that both sides have technically taken shots at each other, except for LOL pros who have admirably said nothing but good things about other games. If I was wearing a hat, I'd tip it to them. I feel they are model pros for someone so young. Most of my experiences with the LOL crowd have been mostly positive.
As for the FGC, in some of the streams I watch, small parts of their chat take homophobic and racist words to excessive levels. This isn't to tar everyone with the same brush, but I kinda wish I'd taken some screen shots of the stuff that have been said. This is obviously based purely on what the content provider finds acceptable, and as I'm no angel I'm probably not best equipped to deal with it. Pretending it doesn't happen is also some form of denial, that I don't even want to touch.
TL:DR Every hobby takes skill to get good at. I also feel much of this thread is cathartic for some.
I know a major part in my experience with LoL is that it has one the worst communities ever. Every fuckin' game it's flame flame flame, "feeder" "noob" etc. People insult each other EVERY GAME. You can say what you want about the sc2 community, but BM is still frowned upon. In LoL, BM is the norm. Also a lot of LoL-players are under 18's, which for me and my 27 years of age is a good reason to not really be that interested in getting back into the game. I got my account up to lvl 30 and I will only touch it when I have 4 other mates with me.
DotA is different. It's very elitist, but you are warned. And nowhere as asshole-filled as Lol.
Tl;Dr: I don't mind the game, but I don't get along with the people who play it. And I know I'm not the only one.
The biggest thing holding SC2 back in my opinion is Blizzard. Blizzard simply doesn't understand SC2.
Let me highlight the problem, straight from David Kim:
David Kim wrote:
•Widow Mines are currently overshadowing units such as Siege Tanks and Thors, but their use doesn’t correlate distinctly with wins over Protoss or Zerg opponents.
•So our question here becomes “is this a good thing that Widow Mines have replaced Siege Tanks as the primary splash damage units?”
•We believe the answer is yes.
•When you see an army of Marines and tanks clash with a Zerg army, you pretty much know who will come out ahead, even before the battle.
•When you see an army of Marines and Widow Mines, it comes down to the skill of the players in that specific battle.
•The current design of Widow Mines rewards both players who are skilled at using them and opposing players who are skilled at defeating them.
•It doesn’t look like Siege Tanks have disappeared. They’re critical in TvT, and in TvZ they’re key to playing a safe early/mid game. Additionally, Terran Mech also has potential.
•As long as Widow Mines reward skilled players and Terran can’t legitimately be said to be better than the other races, we don’t plan to adjust this unit."
So when you see an army of Marines and Tank clash, the outcome is predictable and has less to do with player skill than Widow Mines? It doesn't matter if the Terran is caught out of Siege Mode? Really?
Widow Mines can burrow in one second, meaning that you're punished less if Zerg to catches you out of position. Furthermore, Widow Mines do so much damage and so quickly in large battles, that it is often uncertain who is going to come out on top. If they do some friendly fire damage or don't pick off key units (Banelings) then Zerg wins. If they do massive damage to only the Zerg army, Terran wins. Predicting that is nearly impossible, and thus we get games decided by unmicroed Widow Mine hits. It certainly isn't skilless as both side splits their units frantically, but Siege Tank play requires more skill and as Blizzard mentioned the outcome is more predictable, which is good thing.
Furthermore, this was never the intention of Blizzard. They didn't intend Widow Mines to replace Siege Tanks. And that highlights the issue even more. They add units into the game to perform a specific role, and then the way they are balanced they end up not only performing that role, but doing other roles and replacing other units too. Look at the Hellbat. Did Blizzard learn nothing from BFH's in WOL TvT?
And then we have units like the Swarm Host. Blizzard talks about how it doesn't like Mech play and thinks it is boring. Then they added the Swarm Host into the game, a unit they believe would help Zergs "finish off" Protoss or Terran in the midgame. Is it used that way? Of course not. It is more of a turtle unit than Siege Tanks ever were.
These problems mean that metagame gets stale quickly, because Blizzard doesn't actually know how to improve the game.
Oh well. Blizzard even admits they can't figure out their own game (giving us insight into why we had to repeat history with Hellbats following BFH in TvT).... and apparently they only recently realized (or at least admitted) that aggressive play was exciting:
David Kim wrote:
Some things we're noticing are:
- The super aggressive play is turning out to be really fun to watch.
- Nobody is close to figuring the game out yet.
- A few players are really changing up their play and having completely different results than what's expected by the majority.
- Some of the initial balance concerns do seem to be continuing in games whereas the more creative players aren't struggling as much against them.
Some things we're thinking of going forward:
- We'll try our best to not be too quick to make judgments on things that are allowing players to play a much more aggressive game. For example, yes Medivacs look strong but it's forcing even the opponents to play aggressive and the constant action throughout the game is looking to be really fun to watch.
- We'll continue watching all the pro and community concerns, but keep in mind we'd really like the game to settle before we step in and make a move.
SC2 has been difficult to figure out because it is poorly designed and relies on chance too much. The chance element ensures that the results aren't predictable, and so it seems like no one can completely figure out the game. During times with unpredictable results, the games have been scrappy with a lot of aggressive play. This was the case in both the first months of WOL and HOTS.
Blizzard's biggest failing is when we've seen predictable results it has been due to units or unit combinations that discourage micro (Sentries, Infestors, Photon Overcharge, deathballs ect...) and thus when we've had predictable results the game has been boring.
The solution for this problem is predictable results with units that encourage skillful play. This builds player skill, as players realize the way to get better isn't for them to build X unit that hard counters Y unit, it is for them to use Z unit better.
•Widow Mines are currently overshadowing units such as Siege Tanks and Thors, but their use doesn’t correlate distinctly with wins over Protoss or Zerg opponents.
•So our question here becomes “is this a good thing that Widow Mines have replaced Siege Tanks as the primary splash damage units?”
•We believe the answer is yes.
•When you see an army of Marines and tanks clash with a Zerg army, you pretty much know who will come out ahead, even before the battle.
•When you see an army of Marines and Widow Mines, it comes down to the skill of the players in that specific battle.
•The current design of Widow Mines rewards both players who are skilled at using them and opposing players who are skilled at defeating them.
•It doesn’t look like Siege Tanks have disappeared. They’re critical in TvT, and in TvZ they’re key to playing a safe early/mid game. Additionally, Terran Mech also has potential.
•As long as Widow Mines reward skilled players and Terran can’t legitimately be said to be better than the other races, we don’t plan to adjust this unit."
So when you see an army of Marines and Tank clash, the outcome is predictable and has less to do with player skill than Widow Mines? It doesn't matter if the Terran is caught out of Siege Mode? Really?
Widow Mines can burrow in one second, meaning that you're punished less if Zerg to catches you out of position. Furthermore, Widow Mines do so much damage and so quickly in large battles, that it is often uncertain who is going to come out on top. If they do some friendly fire damage or don't pick off key units (Banelings) then Zerg wins. If they do massive damage to only the Zerg army, Terran wins. Predicting that is nearly impossible, and thus we get games decided by unmicroed Widow Mine hits. It certainly isn't skilless as both side splits their units frantically, but Siege Tank play requires more skill and as Blizzard mentioned the outcome is more predictable, which is good thing.
Furthermore, this was never the intention of Blizzard. They didn't intend Widow Mines to replace Siege Tanks. And that highlights the issue even more. They add units into the game to perform a specific role, and then the way they are balanced they end up not only performing that role, but doing other roles and replacing other units too. Look at the Hellbat. Did Blizzard learn nothing from BFH's in WOL TvT?
And then we have units like the Swarm Host. Blizzard talks about how it doesn't like Mech play and thinks it is boring. Then they added the Swarm Host into the game, a unit they believe would help Zergs "finish off" Protoss or Terran in the midgame. Is it used that way? Of course not. It is more of a turtle unit than Siege Tanks ever were.
These problems mean that metagame gets stale quickly, because Blizzard doesn't actually know how to improve the game.
Oh well. Blizzard even admits they can't figure out their own game (giving us insight into why we had to repeat history with Hellbats following BFH in TvT).... and apparently they only recently realized (or at least admitted) that aggressive play was exciting
- The super aggressive play is turning out to be really fun to watch.
- Nobody is close to figuring the game out yet.
- A few players are really changing up their play and having completely different results than what's expected by the majority.
- Some of the initial balance concerns do seem to be continuing in games whereas the more creative players aren't struggling as much against them.
Some things we're thinking of going forward:
- We'll try our best to not be too quick to make judgments on things that are allowing players to play a much more aggressive game. For example, yes Medivacs look strong but it's forcing even the opponents to play aggressive and the constant action throughout the game is looking to be really fun to watch.
- We'll continue watching all the pro and community concerns, but keep in mind we'd really like the game to settle before we step in and make a move.
When did this become about Blizzard and game design? This is a broad topic, but not that broad.
On July 16 2013 23:57 Douillos wrote: I know a major part in my experience with LoL is that it has one the worst communities ever. Every fuckin' game it's flame flame flame, "feeder" "noob" etc. People insult each other EVERY GAME. You can say what you want about the sc2 community, but BM is still frowned upon. In LoL, BM is the norm. Also a lot of LoL-players are under 18's, which for me and my 27 years of age is a good reason to not really be that interested in getting back into the game. I got my account up to lvl 30 and I will only touch it when I have 4 other mates with me.
DotA is different. It's very elitist, but you are warned. And nowhere as asshole-filled as Lol.
Tl;Dr: I don't mind the game, but I don't get along with the people who play it. And I know I'm not the only one.
I don't think Dota is really any better. I hear plenty of stories of people flaming and being assholes. This is a factor of MOBAs more than it is of LoL. That's why it's better to always play with friends. Soloq is a gamble, but it's just a factor of it being a team game.
When did this become about Blizzard and game design? This is a broad topic, but not that broad.
He asked a question about how the community can improve. I see Blizzard as part of the community. Blizzard needs improvement more than any other part of the community in my opinion, and it is what is holding SC2 back as compared to LOL.
Even if you don't see Blizzard as part of the community, it is our responsibility to pressure Blizzard into improving if you agree with my argument.
On July 16 2013 23:57 Douillos wrote: I know a major part in my experience with LoL is that it has one the worst communities ever. Every fuckin' game it's flame flame flame, "feeder" "noob" etc. People insult each other EVERY GAME. You can say what you want about the sc2 community, but BM is still frowned upon. In LoL, BM is the norm. Also a lot of LoL-players are under 18's, which for me and my 27 years of age is a good reason to not really be that interested in getting back into the game. I got my account up to lvl 30 and I will only touch it when I have 4 other mates with me.
DotA is different. It's very elitist, but you are warned. And nowhere as asshole-filled as Lol.
Tl;Dr: I don't mind the game, but I don't get along with the people who play it. And I know I'm not the only one.
I don't think Dota is really any better. I hear plenty of stories of people flaming and being assholes. This is a factor of MOBAs more than it is of LoL. That's why it's better to always play with friends. Soloq is a gamble, but it's just a factor of it being a team game.
Exactly, I love Dota and kinda dislike LoL, but that is because I play with different people. I think Dota has better community features and a better focus on team play. But there are still shit heads in the game who are only in it for themselves. Play with friends and avoid morons.
When did this become about Blizzard and game design? This is a broad topic, but not that broad.
He asked a question about how the community can improve. I see Blizzard as part of the community.
Blizzard needs improvement.
Even if you don't see Blizzard as part of the community, that is it our responsibility to pressure Blizzard into improving, if you agree with my argument.
Yeah, I don't really see how game design has anything to do with the topic at hand. There are whole threads about that. There is little Blizzard can do to make the community more friendly, that is our issue. They have added a ton of features for people to get their feet wet and its up to the community to get people intrested.
When did this become about Blizzard and game design? This is a broad topic, but not that broad.
He asked a question about how the community can improve. I see Blizzard as part of the community.
Blizzard needs improvement.
Even if you don't see Blizzard as part of the community, that is it our responsibility to pressure Blizzard into improving, if you agree with my argument.
Yeah, I don't really see how game design has anything to do with the topic at hand. There are whole threads about that. There is little Blizzard can do to make the community more friendly, that is our issue. They have added a ton of features for people to get their feet wet and its up to the community to get people intrested.
I suppose it is bit of a stretch the more I think about it, but it is related, and I think worthy of this discussion.
The fact is, a lot of people play this game because of the competitive element. As other better designed games also mirror that element, people leave for those games. If the game is better then more will play it. If the results are more predictable and balanced the community will be more friendly. We all see the community gets a lot more heated when there is obvious game design issues. Those issues, and Blizzard's inability to understand or fix them doesn't help the build the community at all, it pushes people away.
When did this become about Blizzard and game design? This is a broad topic, but not that broad.
He asked a question about how the community can improve. I see Blizzard as part of the community.
Blizzard needs improvement.
Even if you don't see Blizzard as part of the community, that is it our responsibility to pressure Blizzard into improving, if you agree with my argument.
Yeah, I don't really see how game design has anything to do with the topic at hand. There are whole threads about that. There is little Blizzard can do to make the community more friendly, that is our issue. They have added a ton of features for people to get their feet wet and its up to the community to get people intrested.
In my opinion, the truth is that netizens in general tend to act a lot less civil when they are in front of their computer. I don't have much hope for making anyone on the internet any more friendly. And also, Sc2 players have quite a good etiquette in general (at least out of twitch chats).
So yeah, I'm not really fond of the idea of corresponding in any way with LoL players, so thats that for me.
On July 16 2013 23:57 Douillos wrote: I know a major part in my experience with LoL is that it has one the worst communities ever. Every fuckin' game it's flame flame flame, "feeder" "noob" etc. People insult each other EVERY GAME. You can say what you want about the sc2 community, but BM is still frowned upon. In LoL, BM is the norm. Also a lot of LoL-players are under 18's, which for me and my 27 years of age is a good reason to not really be that interested in getting back into the game. I got my account up to lvl 30 and I will only touch it when I have 4 other mates with me.
DotA is different. It's very elitist, but you are warned. And nowhere as asshole-filled as Lol.
Tl;Dr: I don't mind the game, but I don't get along with the people who play it. And I know I'm not the only one.
I don't think Dota is really any better. I hear plenty of stories of people flaming and being assholes. This is a factor of MOBAs more than it is of LoL. That's why it's better to always play with friends. Soloq is a gamble, but it's just a factor of it being a team game.
On July 16 2013 23:57 Douillos wrote: I know a major part in my experience with LoL is that it has one the worst communities ever. Every fuckin' game it's flame flame flame, "feeder" "noob" etc. People insult each other EVERY GAME. You can say what you want about the sc2 community, but BM is still frowned upon. In LoL, BM is the norm. Also a lot of LoL-players are under 18's, which for me and my 27 years of age is a good reason to not really be that interested in getting back into the game. I got my account up to lvl 30 and I will only touch it when I have 4 other mates with me.
DotA is different. It's very elitist, but you are warned. And nowhere as asshole-filled as Lol.
Tl;Dr: I don't mind the game, but I don't get along with the people who play it. And I know I'm not the only one.
I don't think Dota is really any better. I hear plenty of stories of people flaming and being assholes. This is a factor of MOBAs more than it is of LoL. That's why it's better to always play with friends. Soloq is a gamble, but it's just a factor of it being a team game.
LoL and DotA are also known as friendship breaker
I have found that the further up you get in LOL in league, the more manner people are. People call out toxic players at higher levels, and people actually self reflect and correct themselves when they are toxic.
On July 16 2013 23:57 Douillos wrote: I know a major part in my experience with LoL is that it has one the worst communities ever. Every fuckin' game it's flame flame flame, "feeder" "noob" etc. People insult each other EVERY GAME. You can say what you want about the sc2 community, but BM is still frowned upon. In LoL, BM is the norm. Also a lot of LoL-players are under 18's, which for me and my 27 years of age is a good reason to not really be that interested in getting back into the game. I got my account up to lvl 30 and I will only touch it when I have 4 other mates with me.
DotA is different. It's very elitist, but you are warned. And nowhere as asshole-filled as Lol.
Tl;Dr: I don't mind the game, but I don't get along with the people who play it. And I know I'm not the only one.
I don't think Dota is really any better. I hear plenty of stories of people flaming and being assholes. This is a factor of MOBAs more than it is of LoL. That's why it's better to always play with friends. Soloq is a gamble, but it's just a factor of it being a team game.
LoL and DotA are also known as friendship breaker
Lost a lot of friends by saying " Fuck you I will make Support Ashe work." It works now, friends are slowly coming back XD
On July 16 2013 23:57 Douillos wrote: I know a major part in my experience with LoL is that it has one the worst communities ever. Every fuckin' game it's flame flame flame, "feeder" "noob" etc. People insult each other EVERY GAME. You can say what you want about the sc2 community, but BM is still frowned upon. In LoL, BM is the norm. Also a lot of LoL-players are under 18's, which for me and my 27 years of age is a good reason to not really be that interested in getting back into the game. I got my account up to lvl 30 and I will only touch it when I have 4 other mates with me.
DotA is different. It's very elitist, but you are warned. And nowhere as asshole-filled as Lol.
Tl;Dr: I don't mind the game, but I don't get along with the people who play it. And I know I'm not the only one.
I don't think Dota is really any better. I hear plenty of stories of people flaming and being assholes. This is a factor of MOBAs more than it is of LoL. That's why it's better to always play with friends. Soloq is a gamble, but it's just a factor of it being a team game.
LoL and DotA are also known as friendship breaker
Lost a lot of friends by saying " Fuck you I will make Support Ashe work." It works now, friends are slowly coming back XD
On July 16 2013 23:57 Douillos wrote: I know a major part in my experience with LoL is that it has one the worst communities ever. Every fuckin' game it's flame flame flame, "feeder" "noob" etc. People insult each other EVERY GAME. You can say what you want about the sc2 community, but BM is still frowned upon. In LoL, BM is the norm. Also a lot of LoL-players are under 18's, which for me and my 27 years of age is a good reason to not really be that interested in getting back into the game. I got my account up to lvl 30 and I will only touch it when I have 4 other mates with me.
DotA is different. It's very elitist, but you are warned. And nowhere as asshole-filled as Lol.
Tl;Dr: I don't mind the game, but I don't get along with the people who play it. And I know I'm not the only one.
I don't think Dota is really any better. I hear plenty of stories of people flaming and being assholes. This is a factor of MOBAs more than it is of LoL. That's why it's better to always play with friends. Soloq is a gamble, but it's just a factor of it being a team game.
LoL and DotA are also known as friendship breaker
I have found that the further up you get in LOL in league, the more manner people are. People call out toxic players at higher levels, and people actually self reflect and correct themselves when they are toxic.
I think the hatred betwen starcraft and the mobas is natural and is mainly based on the succes of the latter and the dissapointment in sc2.You can also see this hatred in many other domains such as regular sports(see boxing vs mma).The resons of hatred are multiple and vary form different groups involved but they mostly involve around these primary reasons:
1.Money
It is very difficult for a sc2 pro not to feel envious about the fact that each lcs player receives form riot 12500$ dollars a year if his team qualifies for the lcs.Not to mention the bonuses they receive for placing good.Not to mention the money from sponsorships lol teams get(and they get a lot from companies such as samsung/snapdragon etc).The popularity of lol also means higher viewership numbers like oddone having 20k-30 k regularly on his stream which in term translates to even more money.
2.Fame and celebrity
Although it may seem childish fame and celebrity are a main reason or hate.Even in our everyday lives we hate people who are more successfull than us.Moreover the hate is amplified if we perceive the individual to be inferior to us.Take for example the hatred between the rap/heavy metal genres and pop music.Theoretically they do not have nay reason to hate each other.Practically rap/heavy metal fans see the billions of dollars pop musicians are making for singing shallow songs hence the envy hence the hate.
Moreover celebrity translates in views both onlune and on tv which translate into money,There is a reson why ogn champions-the kr lol tournament- is during prime time in korea and the proleague is not on rpimetime anymore.For a television more viewers->more money from commercials.
3.Ease of succes
Well here comes the part which amplifies the 2 main points above.Ease.Lol having such a large community rewards even small doses of succes with huge amounts of money.For example It is not uncommon for a casual(aka not part of lcs pro teams) lol streamer to get 20k viewers(wings of death for example).Even the most succesfull sc2 pro doesnt get that.In sc2 you need to place very high at a tournament to even dream about 5k to 10k.In lol where lcs is virtually region lock a couple of wins versus teams form the same continent gets you auto 10k viewers and lots of money form riot.How much money can you get in sc2 by beating only players form your continent?Answer:0(ok maybe scarlet).In sc2 you have the dawnting task of facing very skilled koreans who will eventually beat you and leave you without ways of making of living.
Ok so these are the reasons why a pro might hate lol.But why do fans hate it?Well it is simple.Because the succes of th e lol and other esports scenes will automatically reduce the financial potential and growth of the sc2 scene and they will have less players,less,teams,less matches,less tournaments to watch.Lets see some reasons.
1.Money
Why on Earth will a starcraft pro remain in the starcraft if he can not make a living and die of hunger.It sounds preety radical to say "die of hunger" but that is what actually happens.You are a sc2 progamer in your 20s.You can not win any tourneys because of koreans hence you do not get any tournament money and you do not get nay viewer son streams.What can you do?Food costs a lot,the rent costs a lot what are you going to live.In this situation you have only 2 options: a)quit progaming and go to uni/follow a regular career b)switch to a game where you cna actually make a living and face opponents of the same calibre:lol
How does this affect the fans.simple.They lose all their favourite pros to other games and have less favourite players to watch.This phemenomenon is mostly visible in the fighting sports community.For example in boxing due to the lack of big athletes who choose basketball and amrerican football the boxing heavyweight division is dominated by fat unskilled athlethes who provide low quality matches.It is a bummer for the fans but this is how it is.Most of the big guys have chosen the big money and safety of the basketball,american football scenes.we do not have the skill of Mike tyson or Muhammad Ali in the boxing heavyweight divison anymore.
Moreover this type of lack of athlethes is also noticeable in the sc2 na scene which is now virtually devoided of na talent.Remember the early days of sc2 when there were many na sc2 progamers with idra/incontrol/huk leading the pack?where is the idra of today?Where is the next huk?Na teams such as eg and temaliquid arent even hiring na talent anymore and instead choose code a koreans who can not make it in korea,Why arent there any more north american cittizens following a career in sc2?That is a direct consequence of lack of money and interest in the na sc2 scene.Compared to that the lol sc2 scene does not have any koreans and is thriving.Na lol fans have something to watch and spend their money on.This causes jealousy with the sc2 fans.
2.Future development
It is not a secret anymore that in terms of viewers and buying power sc2 is behind sota 2 and lol.Hence sponsors will automatically be more prone to sponsor dota2/lol and any other succesfull esport rather than sc2.Which in turn will lead to less tournaments,lesser prize pools and lesser willing gamers. In the present day this is still not clearly visible.sc2 still holds a power postion.But what will happen in the future?How will the esports scene look like when sc3 will come?Esports a whole isnt a niche thingy anymore.Literally everyone in the gaming industry knows about it and wants a slice of it.I have heard execs form games such as Halo 4,Gears of War,God of War talking about preparing their games for a esports scene.Look at COD.They just entered the mlg tournament and they had only 10k less viewers than sc2 an establisehed esport. Unless blizzard gets its shit togetter sc3 will be in a far worse positon than sc2.
An optional reason:
Demographics
It is sort of no secret that esports as whole are dominated mostly by asians.In terms of sponsorships one of the main things a company things before sponsoring any sport event is demographics.What is the demographic my product is targeting?What is the demographic of sc2 in na?People form korea coming to na scene only from the money?A 10k viewership made mostly by teenage kids with no income.Very hard to convince a sponsor to invest in something like this.Lol on the other hand has constant 100k viewers(albeit alsi they are teenage kids with no money but they are 10times our number),many na citizens playing and a big fanbase.As a sponsor they will be mostly likely to get a sponsorship.This in turn will again lead to less money in the sc2 scene,less pros,less tournaments and the cycle restarts
All in all both sc2 fans and pros have enough reasons to hate.Even if subconsciously but their hate has some practical reasons.
On July 17 2013 01:00 Kabras wrote: "Broodwar is the only game that is actually hard" - so true.
Also the type of attitudes that fractures communities and prevents any type of unified scene or cross-game dialogue.
don't really care about any community or cross-game dialogue, whatever that means. i just like how idra says: "yea, lol isn't half bad you know, but BW still only hard game out there tho". haha, glad to see idra is still idra.
On July 17 2013 01:17 theking1 wrote: .As a sponsor they will be mostly likely to get a sponsorship.This in turn will again lead to less money in the sc2 scene,less pros,less tournaments and the cycle restarts
And when Sc4 is relased we will be ruled by intelligent dolphins. I am calling it now.
I used to hate this "Sc2 is dying" posts in every thread but meanwhile I find them very entertaining. No matter what the thread is about after a few pages you will have a few people whining about SC2 and seeing it's near end.
I wonder was there the same amount of whining about Warcraft 3 when it was less popular than counterstrike (which was certainly the case in germany)?
For the topic itself: I respect the other communitys but I see no point spending time with games I don't care about.
On July 17 2013 01:17 theking1 wrote: .As a sponsor they will be mostly likely to get a sponsorship.This in turn will again lead to less money in the sc2 scene,less pros,less tournaments and the cycle restarts
And when Sc4 is relased we will be ruled by intelligent dolphins. I am calling it now.
I used to hate this "Sc2 is dying" posts in every thread but meanwhile I find them very entertaining. No matter what the thread is about after a few pages you will have a few people whining about SC2 and seeing it's near end.
I wonder was there the same amount of whining about Warcraft 3 when it was less popular than counterstrike (which was certainly the case in germany)?
For the topic itself: I respect the other communitys but I see no point spending time with games I don't care about.
I did not say sc2 will die.All I said were reasons of hate.And you would be surprised about the flack blizzard got for not supporting the wc3 and wow proscenes as much as the starcraft scene.Forums were filled with requests and qq for blizzard to invest more money and make the games more balanced,requests that went largely unnoticed.
On July 17 2013 01:17 theking1 wrote: .As a sponsor they will be mostly likely to get a sponsorship.This in turn will again lead to less money in the sc2 scene,less pros,less tournaments and the cycle restarts
And when Sc4 is relased we will be ruled by intelligent dolphins. I am calling it now.
I used to hate this "Sc2 is dying" posts in every thread but meanwhile I find them very entertaining. No matter what the thread is about after a few pages you will have a few people whining about SC2 and seeing it's near end.
I wonder was there the same amount of whining about Warcraft 3 when it was less popular than counterstrike (which was certainly the case in germany)?
For the topic itself: I respect the other communitys but I see no point spending time with games I don't care about.
I did not say sc2 will die.All I said were reasons of hate.And you would be surprised about the flack blizzard got for not supporting the wc3 and wow proscenes as much as the starcraft scene.Forums were filled with requests and qq for blizzard to invest more money and make the games more balanced,requests that went largely unnoticed.
No pun intented I am just getting tired of "Sc2 is dying" posts.
But I guess the reason for hate is much more simple the internet is crowded with young man who love to fight each other. A few years ago you could find plenty of 1.6 vs Source [the most annoying one] and before that Quake vs UT and now its Dota2 vs LoL.
It is very difficult for a sc2 pro not to feel envious about the fact that each lcs player receives form riot 12500$ dollars a year if his team qualifies for the lcs.Not to mention the bonuses they receive for placing good.Not to mention the money from sponsorships lol teams get(and they get a lot from companies such as samsung/snapdragon etc).The popularity of lol also means higher viewership numbers like oddone having 20k-30 k regularly on his stream which in term translates to even more money.
It's actually $175,000 per team of which a minimum of $12,500 is supposed to go to players per split (ie $25k per season).
According to Riot, they'll spend $8 million this season on supporting teams, tournaments, and prizepool. That's with an estimated $200 million annual revenue for Riot Games.
Such a topic and idras quote is the last one.. person who is by far the biggest asshole on stream. Doesn't matter whats he is like irl, he is driven by hate and anger and a terrible attitute on stream.
Isn't his attitude, a contributor to the semi-shitty attitude on sc2 everywhere? I for one understand that I am my own person and if idra calls people piece of shit and a retard on stream, I don't change myself because of that. But some 9-13 year old kids, they see idra is smart, successful and plays video games,... they see the rage and might often enough do the same all over the internet, because thats the only Greg they see.
Axeltoss I think your question simply lies in people learning to be more accepting. There is indeed a lot of game bashing but you only listed two of the three motives for this.
Another major reason people can't accept games is, as someone above me posted, ease of success.
Basically its hard to respect other games/gamers if you feel they don't need to dedicate as much time or effort to be successful in their pursuit as someone else in another game/domain. This has many ties and analogies in the real world as well; -when you work out hard pump tons of hours into the gym and need to manage your diet to healthy and feel good, and you see someone eating junk food, not work out, sleep at irregular hours and still remain healthy and slim, it feels like life is cheating you -its easier to respect a boss/superior, who works side by side with his employes and doesn't ask them to do something he wouldn't do
A great divide now between the SC2 scene and the scenes of the other games is this sense of unfairness. Yes SC2 and MOBA's require vastly different skill sets to be successful at, yes you still need to dedicate time to these to develop them, however different doesn't mean better. There is still tension and animosity, and rightfully so, because it is perceived that the skill sets required to achieve success, and maintain it, in SC2, are vastly harder to obtain then the ones required to be successful at MOBAs. And in all seriousness, when you look at the amount of effort SC2 players need to dedicate to the mastery of their craft and how much they earn, and then look at LoL, how much they have to put in to achieve the same success while receiving more money, its hard to not feel like someone is cheated.
Again, a small fix would be just people learning to be more accepting. Like I know what I like, and I know what I dislike, but I don't try to force my opinion on to others. Others are free to enjoy their games and lead their lives how they see fit as long as it doesn't interfere with my life or my games. If people would just adopt this simple mentality a lot of game bashing could probably be avoided which could reduce a lot of tension.
However its only a small fix, as even though I can accept other people's games I still can't respect the game, I just can't respect it because of the discrepancy in effort required to succeed compared to SC2.
Now making SC2 more accessible for other people, that isn't the community's job unfortunately, that's the parent company, Blizzard's job, to keep finding ways to push it towards more people while keeping the core values of the game alive. Like the recent spawning feature and some other measures they have made to help spread it more in South Korea.
We can spread its popularity trough word of mouth, some small coaching, introducing people to awesome tournaments and stuff, but at the end of the day if the game is hard/difficult to pick up and keep people sucked in, then all these efforts are still for naught. Its still Blizzard's job to design the game in such a way that it is easy to get but hard to master, in a way they have achieved this, but in others they have failed. And it is also Blizzard's job to design a marketing, growth and sale strategy to spread the game to as many people as possible and continue to attract people, and in this sense Blizzard has kind of failed, especially in South Korea, they failed to take into account the importance of PC Bang's in the Korean culture and how it would impact their success there, and it has lead to SC2 somewhat under performing there. They also failed to take into account the effect MOBA's would have on the game market as well, though no one can fault them for that, no one knew what MOBAs could become, but they still failed to adapt to the changing trends once they did notice the,
On July 17 2013 02:15 gosublade wrote: Such a topic and idras quote is the last one.. person who is by far the biggest asshole on stream. Doesn't matter whats he is like irl, he is driven by hate and anger and a terrible attitute on stream.
Isn't his attitude, a contributor to the semi-shitty attitude on sc2 everywhere? I for one understand that I am my own person and if idra calls people piece of shit and a retard on stream, I don't change myself because of that. But some 9-13 year old kids, they see idra is smart, successful and plays video games,... they see the rage and might often enough do the same all over the internet, because thats the only Greg they see.
Seemed to me that his attitude in that quote is a heck of a lot better than his reputed terrible attitude.
He's right too, when he says that you can be bad and press a bunch of buttons and kill other bad people - think of fighting games. Bad players in fighting games are of course called button mashers, because that's what we are. We can beat other bad players, and we get enjoyment out of it. It's fun, even though we're bad. But there's a lot of skill involved in being really good at a fighting game, as EVO shows us consistently. (Sorry, FGC people - I really don't know your scene outside of watching EVO each year.) That's basically what Idra's saying, and of course he manages to say it while coming across as having his usual attitude, but that's partly because he's quoting his past statements where he DID have an attitude.
I honestly don't really think his attitude is a great contributor to a shitty attitude on sc2 - there are people with attitudes in every game. (Don't even get me started on some of the more notorious LoL players.) It seems to be that there's a vocal minority in each game that hates on all the other games because their game is the best. I have only soft evidence that on axel's corresponding reddit thread in LoL, and also a corresponding high-tiered LoL player posted at /r/starcraft in response, with a similar message inspired by Axel's post, the threads both saw pretty high rating, and the "hate comments" mostly got downvoted into oblivion. Not exactly the most scientific of evidence, but it's something!
I was a big BW watcher, and though I spend a large chunk of my free time watching LoL and less on SC2 now, (and I also contribute to the TL LoL writeups) I still get excited about SKT in ProLeague, and a few other players (Liquid`Hero) and even watch when TheYango points me at an interesting DOTA2 game (usually involving TL again. It's nice having a team I can automatically root for without having any clue about the scene!) There are times I can't help but judge one game against another, but I love esports in all its forms, and there's no reason to hate.
On July 16 2013 03:12 grs wrote: Is there a reason people who like Ice Hockey have to like Football? I don't think so. Why is there an urge to unite communities for different games? I like Starcraft, I like Dota and I like LoL. I find fighting games utterly stupid on the other hand. That does not mean I should go around and bash people that like fighting games, but it does also not mean I have to like fighting games, just because I like other games.
I'd agree that you don't have to like other communities games, so long as you are not stupid and abrasive to them as well. I will however not disagree that for eSports as a whole, the communities in various games working collaboratively doesn't hurt to help promote the growth of all games in general at a faster pace then any will on there own.
Look at it this way what's better?
Option A: Riot or Blizzard hosting a tournament just for their respective games individually or...
Option B: Riot and Blizzard coming together with a group(s) like MLG/IEM/GSL and hosting a tournament with both games under one roof in one place? You throw other developers and games like CoD CS:GO etc. into the mix too and just imagine how much bigger things could be and how much attention it could generate.
While both options are perfectly valid approaches, one achieves the goals of growing esports and gaining attention for esports far more quickly then the other.
On July 17 2013 05:48 NonY wrote: So many SC2 pros that have played LoL but no one knows because they don't want everyone to know haha
Do you play LoL or Dota2?
I played LoL during season one and then took a long break from it and then played a short burst near the start of season two. I watch some personal streams and some tournament streams occasionally. Aphromoo is my fav
I played Dota2 a little bit but lost motivation while becoming familiar with the heroes and items. I watched a bunch of Liquid's matches when they first got a Dota2 team even though I didn't understand much of what was happening and eventually I lost interest in that too.
On July 17 2013 05:48 NonY wrote: So many SC2 pros that have played LoL but no one knows because they don't want everyone to know haha
Do you think if more SC2 pros were open about this (this seems so silly to say, haha), it would calm relations between the communities?
No idea. When SC2 players actually switched games professionally, there were many toxic reactions on both sides (SC2 bitter, LoL gloating). This would be a sort of miniature version of that and it could go either way. If things were going well, I think it might help move things along in a positive direction. But it's not as simple as that for SC2 progamers. Ignoring any bickering between LoL and SC2, there are some fans of progamers who just don't want to hear about their favorite players "wasting time" on other games, no matter the context.
On July 17 2013 05:48 NonY wrote: So many SC2 pros that have played LoL but no one knows because they don't want everyone to know haha
Do you think if more SC2 pros were open about this (this seems so silly to say, haha), it would calm relations between the communities?
No idea. When SC2 players actually switched games professionally, there were many toxic reactions on both sides (SC2 bitter, LoL gloating). This would be a sort of miniature version of that and it could go either way. If things were going well, I think it might help move things along in a positive direction. But it's not as simple as that for SC2 progamers. Ignoring any bickering between LoL and SC2, there are some fans of progamers who just don't want to hear about their favorite players "wasting time" on other games, no matter the context.
Its totally weird, because the player could have an awesome pass time like "cooking" or "playing guitar" and there would be no problems. Or the all important pass time of "having a wife" and no one gets upset. But you touch LoL, Dota 2 or CoD and everyone is up in arms.
If you want MOBA people to play SC2 it's pretty easy. Just ask them if they're tired of always carrying their team (since everyone thinks they're the reason the team wins and everyone else is an idiot) and to ditch the dead weight and do it up 1v1 in Starcraft.
People's over inflated sense of self is a great motivator.
On July 17 2013 06:26 vesicular wrote: If you want MOBA people to play SC2 it's pretty easy. Just ask them if they're tired of always carrying their team (since everyone thinks they're the reason the team wins and everyone else is an idiot) and to ditch the dead weight and do it up 1v1 in Starcraft.
People's over inflated sense of self is a great motivator.
But then most of them realize that they aren't as good as they thought and go back to the reassuring though of " It wasn't my fault, my team is terrible"
The feeling of blaming your team non stop, stops after you played for some time, it's honestly a dumb argument. After some time you realised when you screwed up had an off game... i personally sometimes even apologize to my teammates.
The flaming also isn't happening as often...
On the other side... If i'm hangover as fuck i know can't play Dota 2 as i could not play WC3 or SC2 because it's not fun when you realise how terrible you play ^^.
On July 17 2013 06:26 vesicular wrote: If you want MOBA people to play SC2 it's pretty easy. Just ask them if they're tired of always carrying their team (since everyone thinks they're the reason the team wins and everyone else is an idiot) and to ditch the dead weight and do it up 1v1 in Starcraft.
People's over inflated sense of self is a great motivator.
But then most of them realize that they aren't as good as they thought and go back to the reassuring though of " It wasn't my fault, my team is terrible"
Eh. For the most part, the people that would blame their teammates 24/7 in LoL or DotA are the same sort that blame balance or cheese in SC2 while being in silver where none of that really matters.
Wow Idra's quote is great, and so true about Broodwar being the only game that's actually hard. What he says about LoL is certainly true, but the thing that bugs most StarCraft and Dota players is that Dota 2 is so superior in terms of competitive play. The skill ceiling is sooo much higher for Dota, and that's obviously a big deal when you're talking about playing games for money.
StarCraft and the MOBAs can co-exist peacefully, but I really don't think Dota and LoL can ever do that considering LoL is based completely off Dota and is essentially a simplified version.
The main goals being: Encouraging additional collaboration between these amazing communities and decreasing unfamiliarity between games. I will include this list at the end of this post, and reserve the right to edit some great ones made by you fine folks to this post.
Why is this so important for esports? Real life spots have fragmented communities as well and there its not seen as a problem. Some people like basketball, others american football, some others like swimming or european soccer. You cant expect esport fans to get into every new game hype there is,esports fans also have a job or school or other real life activities. People have their favorite games and there is nothing wrong with that. Is it just to get more vieuwers for all games? esports is still relativly small compared to real life sports,and if everyone who watched sc would also watch lol and dota, and vice versa there would be alot bigger audience for all of the games but you cant force this upon the people and i dont think the community should strive for it either. There is only one way to make all esport lovers support a game, and that is to make a game so awesome that it somehow apeals to everyone. But this seems an impossible task since people like different things.
The twist between communities is something imaginary i feel btw, and maybe only felt by the hard core fans. The majority of the casual watchers have no problem with dota and the dota community or whatever other game, they completely dont care for wich game is the "most difficult" just like they are not interested if basketball has a higher skill ceiling then baseball lol. Up till this thread i wasnt even aware that there is so much rivalry between games, and i still feel its not real. A vocal hardcore group of fans might feel like this and because they are vocal one might start to think the whole community is like that, but thats not the case at all.
Annyway:I wont go study lol or dota to be able to vieuw the games, just like i am not getting into american football or golf. I like tennis, soccer and cycling and thats more then enough for me. Esports should be happy with the fans they have for every tittle and to get more fans they should just make a game that is interesting and fun to watch and play for a verry broad audience and wich requires no excessive study to be able to understand it and have fun while watching it.
You are fighting a ghost, the majority of sc fans dont care for dota or lol at all, they dont hate on them and there is no twist. The hating is only done by people with age 16 and lower and maybe a few older ones wich have an extreme obsession for one game, like someone on another page already said. its typical behaviour for that age group and there is no way they will change,and most definatly not by asking friendly. The best thing would be to just completely ignore it, instead of devoting a whole thread. Though i have to admit this thread is about more things, i still think you give a small group to much credit.
Theory 2 seems false btw People dont fear the unknown, just like people who like basketball and are not interested in american footbal are not afraid of the unknown, the reason is much more simple. People simply dont like certain games and they do like certain other games. You cant ask from people to study a game to get to like it,if people like the game they will study it!. People watch esports for their pleasure, not because they have to put work in it. I am not afraid of studying dota and getting to know the game, i simply dont want to because after looking into it a bit it didnt apeal to me at all.
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.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
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!
That's funny because I play on all 3 ladders and SEA has definitely been the most BM and whiny. People call me fat and stupid all the time if I mention I'm American. I had a KR/TW account before the region switching function and literally never encountered BM so I know its not them... Kinda ironic since Australia is quickly catching and surpassing us in fat.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
well there is a better or worse but the totally dedicated player pool is the slim to make a differnce:D
On July 17 2013 20:00 darkscream wrote: 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.
it is not a surprise really.With the growing esport market and numerous esports appearing its sort of a mandatory job requirement for a caster/personality to be proficient in at least 2-3 succesfull esports.Not to mention a lot of people realized there is more money in the foreign scenes of other esports such as dota2,lol,wot,,cod etc and it be far more advantageous financially to provide content for many esports instead of just focusing on just 1 aka sc2.Oh and there is that category of former sc2 pros who realize people in the sc2 scene only watched them when they won tournaments and now that they can not anymore they sort of transition slowly to lol.Which is humanly understandable really.Why work your as off as a casual streamer in the sc2 scene for 1k viewers when you can easily get 2k-3k in lol and even more if there are no major lol personalities streaming.Destiny was the first to understand this and he is now preety succesfull in lol.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
Look at car racing. Nascar is what everybody makes fun of in the scene. It looks to be unskilled and a dumbed down version on F1 / Indy, etc. However why is it that when a big name from F1, Indy Car, etc. move over to Nascar do they usually flounder?
I really don't think that it is fair to even call Dota a more difficult game than League. Skill cap just seems like a foolish idea to begin with. I feel like the skill level is determined by the people participating, at least in competitive games.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
So just because Dota came first Riot shouldn't be allowed to engage in competitive business practices? By the logic Doom should be allowed to be the only successful FPS. I admit it was pretty shitty when Riot was talking about limiting teams to only have a LoL team instead of both a LoL and Dota team, but other then that they didn't do anything wrong from a competitive stand point (plus they thankfully stepped down from that position.)
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
You do realise that the people who created League of Legends are the people who worked on DotA All Stars, right? The founders are the same group of people that made the most popular WC3 mod. And I think we have wandered your own personal opinion, rather than fact.. That is the point, that you may not like it, but other people do and there is nothing wrong with that. At the end of the day, there is no better or worse.
Looking at the discussion for the tomorrow's OSL games... Stop believing that people will throw games in the style people are saying it right now. There is nothing good coming out of that group match right now. If Rain beats him, even if FanTaSy plays the game of his life, people will suspect him from throwing (and not like it's EGDoto). If FanTaSy beats Rain, people will either say legit shit or badmouth the team or talk about shit like the team spirit of SKT being shit.
I know it sucks that they laid the matches out this way, but damn. I'm getting sad.
Completely agree that there is no better or worse. Noone has even come close to the skill ceiling in anny game besides checkers, i guess people dont understand what skill ceiling is and what it means to play perfect. Lol is a way harder game to have succes in then dota, because alot more people play it. To be the best at lol you have to be the best of say 1m people, and to be the best of dota you have to be the best of say 100k people.
It would be kinda nice if there would come one game wich was more popular then anny other game. I do see the value in getting more fans for 1 game, the fans are now spread out over all games and that makes none of the games extremely atractive for commercial purposes, only lol seems to stick out a bit but not by an overwelming (10 to 1) margin. So game designers : go to the drawing table and make something everyone loves
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
So just because Dota came first Riot shouldn't be allowed to engage in competitive business practices? By the logic Doom should be allowed to be the only successful FPS. I admit it was pretty shitty when Riot was talking about limiting teams to only have a LoL team instead of both a LoL and Dota team, but other then that they didn't do anything wrong from a competitive stand point (plus they thankfully stepped down from that position.)
How about their parent company trying to spread the rumor that Dota 2 would have been pay-to-play in China? Or buying the dota2.vn domain to link to LoL? Or shutting down the #1 Dota 1 forums at that time? That's not competitive. It's the very definition of anti-competitive.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
So just because Dota came first Riot shouldn't be allowed to engage in competitive business practices? By the logic Doom should be allowed to be the only successful FPS. I admit it was pretty shitty when Riot was talking about limiting teams to only have a LoL team instead of both a LoL and Dota team, but other then that they didn't do anything wrong from a competitive stand point (plus they thankfully stepped down from that position.)
How about their parent company trying to spread the rumor that Dota 2 would have been pay-to-play in China? Or buying the dota2.vn domain to link to LoL? Or shutting down the #1 Dota 1 forums at that time? That's not competitive. It's the very definition of anti-competitive.
They forget all about the negative campaign riot did to steal all the customers form dota 1.They forget that riot had dota 2 banned form mlg and dreamhack and only recently were they allowed.They forget that even nowadays dota2 is banned form wcg in which it was a main title for years due to wcg being owned by tencent.They forget all about the monopoly and anti competitive practices that riot has been doing for ages.they forget about the fact that many heroes who were originally designed by the dota 1 community,such as rammus, were stolen by guinosso and implememtned in lol.They forget all about those dota 2 and dota 1 pros who could not make a living in tournaments because of riot.They forget that riot still does not allow lol players to mention other esports.The forget how riot employess created an website insulting icefrog.They forget all of that.They sort of forget that the only reason riot did not carry on its evil plan of banning dota3 and possibly even sc2 was because they did not make enough money to ban everyone.Riot is the evil corporation of the esports world.I have ntohing against lol or its players but a company such as riot gives enough reasons of hate.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
So just because Dota came first Riot shouldn't be allowed to engage in competitive business practices? By the logic Doom should be allowed to be the only successful FPS. I admit it was pretty shitty when Riot was talking about limiting teams to only have a LoL team instead of both a LoL and Dota team, but other then that they didn't do anything wrong from a competitive stand point (plus they thankfully stepped down from that position.)
How about their parent company trying to spread the rumor that Dota 2 would have been pay-to-play in China? Or buying the dota2.vn domain to link to LoL? Or shutting down the #1 Dota 1 forums at that time? That's not competitive. It's the very definition of anti-competitive.
They forget all about the negative campaign riot did to steal all the customers form dota 1.They forget that riot had dota 2 banned form mlg and dreamhack and only recently were they allowed.They forget that even nowadays dota2 is banned form wcg in which it was a main title for years due to wcg being owned by tencent.They forget all about the monopoly and anti competitive practices that riot has been doing for ages.they forget about the fact that many heroes who were originally designed by the dota 1 community,such as rammus, were stolen by guinosso and implememtned in lol.They forget all about those dota 2 and dota 1 pros who could not make a living in tournaments because of riot.They forget that riot still does not allow lol players to mention other esports.The forget how riot employess created an website insulting icefrog.They forget all of that.They sort of forget that the only reason riot did not carry on its evil plan of banning dota3 and possibly even sc2 was because they did not make enough money to ban everyone.Riot is the evil corporation of the esports world.I have ntohing against lol or its players but a company such as riot gives enough reasons of hate.
when was the last time you saw pepsi and coke in the same restaurant or fast food place? Quit being so naive. It's standard business practice, there's nothing nefarious about not wanting your funding to be used to fund their competition.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
So just because Dota came first Riot shouldn't be allowed to engage in competitive business practices? By the logic Doom should be allowed to be the only successful FPS. I admit it was pretty shitty when Riot was talking about limiting teams to only have a LoL team instead of both a LoL and Dota team, but other then that they didn't do anything wrong from a competitive stand point (plus they thankfully stepped down from that position.)
How about their parent company trying to spread the rumor that Dota 2 would have been pay-to-play in China? Or buying the dota2.vn domain to link to LoL? Or shutting down the #1 Dota 1 forums at that time? That's not competitive. It's the very definition of anti-competitive.
They forget all about the negative campaign riot did to steal all the customers form dota 1.They forget that riot had dota 2 banned form mlg and dreamhack and only recently were they allowed.They forget that even nowadays dota2 is banned form wcg in which it was a main title for years due to wcg being owned by tencent.They forget all about the monopoly and anti competitive practices that riot has been doing for ages.they forget about the fact that many heroes who were originally designed by the dota 1 community,such as rammus, were stolen by guinosso and implememtned in lol.They forget all about those dota 2 and dota 1 pros who could not make a living in tournaments because of riot.They forget that riot still does not allow lol players to mention other esports.The forget how riot employess created an website insulting icefrog.They forget all of that.They sort of forget that the only reason riot did not carry on its evil plan of banning dota3 and possibly even sc2 was because they did not make enough money to ban everyone.Riot is the evil corporation of the esports world.I have ntohing against lol or its players but a company such as riot gives enough reasons of hate.
when was the last time you saw pepsi and coke in the same restaurant or fast food place? Quit being so naive. It's standard business practice, there's nothing nefarious about not wanting your funding to be used to fund their competition.
that has more to do with "I already offer pepsi, im not paying my legs to have cokes too"
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
So just because Dota came first Riot shouldn't be allowed to engage in competitive business practices? By the logic Doom should be allowed to be the only successful FPS. I admit it was pretty shitty when Riot was talking about limiting teams to only have a LoL team instead of both a LoL and Dota team, but other then that they didn't do anything wrong from a competitive stand point (plus they thankfully stepped down from that position.)
How about their parent company trying to spread the rumor that Dota 2 would have been pay-to-play in China? Or buying the dota2.vn domain to link to LoL? Or shutting down the #1 Dota 1 forums at that time? That's not competitive. It's the very definition of anti-competitive.
They forget all about the negative campaign riot did to steal all the customers form dota 1.They forget that riot had dota 2 banned form mlg and dreamhack and only recently were they allowed.They forget that even nowadays dota2 is banned form wcg in which it was a main title for years due to wcg being owned by tencent.They forget all about the monopoly and anti competitive practices that riot has been doing for ages.they forget about the fact that many heroes who were originally designed by the dota 1 community,such as rammus, were stolen by guinosso and implememtned in lol.They forget all about those dota 2 and dota 1 pros who could not make a living in tournaments because of riot.They forget that riot still does not allow lol players to mention other esports.The forget how riot employess created an website insulting icefrog.They forget all of that.They sort of forget that the only reason riot did not carry on its evil plan of banning dota3 and possibly even sc2 was because they did not make enough money to ban everyone.Riot is the evil corporation of the esports world.I have ntohing against lol or its players but a company such as riot gives enough reasons of hate.
when was the last time you saw pepsi and coke in the same restaurant or fast food place? Quit being so naive. It's standard business practice, there's nothing nefarious about not wanting your funding to be used to fund their competition.
the fact that it is common doesnt mean I have to like it.It is also immoral.And the fact that many dota 2 pros suffer cause of this makes it even more discusting.What is even more discusting is that they stole a lot of idea which the community had created for free and turned them into profit although the ideas themselves were for nonprofit use only.I can hate riot as much as I want for that.And also i dunno how it is where you live but in europe it is quite common to see both pepsi and coke in supermarkets,restaurants,fast food joints etc.
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
So just because Dota came first Riot shouldn't be allowed to engage in competitive business practices? By the logic Doom should be allowed to be the only successful FPS. I admit it was pretty shitty when Riot was talking about limiting teams to only have a LoL team instead of both a LoL and Dota team, but other then that they didn't do anything wrong from a competitive stand point (plus they thankfully stepped down from that position.)
How about their parent company trying to spread the rumor that Dota 2 would have been pay-to-play in China? Or buying the dota2.vn domain to link to LoL? Or shutting down the #1 Dota 1 forums at that time? That's not competitive. It's the very definition of anti-competitive.
They forget all about the negative campaign riot did to steal all the customers form dota 1.They forget that riot had dota 2 banned form mlg and dreamhack and only recently were they allowed.They forget that even nowadays dota2 is banned form wcg in which it was a main title for years due to wcg being owned by tencent.They forget all about the monopoly and anti competitive practices that riot has been doing for ages.they forget about the fact that many heroes who were originally designed by the dota 1 community,such as rammus, were stolen by guinosso and implememtned in lol.They forget all about those dota 2 and dota 1 pros who could not make a living in tournaments because of riot.They forget that riot still does not allow lol players to mention other esports.The forget how riot employess created an website insulting icefrog.They forget all of that.They sort of forget that the only reason riot did not carry on its evil plan of banning dota3 and possibly even sc2 was because they did not make enough money to ban everyone.Riot is the evil corporation of the esports world.I have ntohing against lol or its players but a company such as riot gives enough reasons of hate.
when was the last time you saw pepsi and coke in the same restaurant or fast food place? Quit being so naive. It's standard business practice, there's nothing nefarious about not wanting your funding to be used to fund their competition.
the fact that it is common doesnt mean I have to like it.It is also immoral.And the fact that many dota 2 pros suffer cause of this makes it even more discusting.What is even more discusting is that they stole a lot of idea which the community had created for free and turned them into profit although the ideas themselves were for nonprofit use only.I can hate riot as much as I want for that.And also i dunno how it is where you live but in europe it is quite common to see both pepsi and coke in supermarkets,restaurants,fast food joints etc.
Pepsi and Coke are sold at the same super markets, but are not served as beverages in the same place. You either have a pepsi contract or a coke contract, there isnt a restaurant that will serve both, and its not coincidental. Unless you are speaking of a small family owned business that hands you a coke or pepsi can over the counter...but any restaurant with an actual deal will not carry both.
The fact that its a standard business practice in now way is a good argument for people to think its oke. There are a ton of business practices that people dislike.
On July 18 2013 02:27 onlywonderboy wrote: [quote] That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
So just because Dota came first Riot shouldn't be allowed to engage in competitive business practices? By the logic Doom should be allowed to be the only successful FPS. I admit it was pretty shitty when Riot was talking about limiting teams to only have a LoL team instead of both a LoL and Dota team, but other then that they didn't do anything wrong from a competitive stand point (plus they thankfully stepped down from that position.)
How about their parent company trying to spread the rumor that Dota 2 would have been pay-to-play in China? Or buying the dota2.vn domain to link to LoL? Or shutting down the #1 Dota 1 forums at that time? That's not competitive. It's the very definition of anti-competitive.
They forget all about the negative campaign riot did to steal all the customers form dota 1.They forget that riot had dota 2 banned form mlg and dreamhack and only recently were they allowed.They forget that even nowadays dota2 is banned form wcg in which it was a main title for years due to wcg being owned by tencent.They forget all about the monopoly and anti competitive practices that riot has been doing for ages.they forget about the fact that many heroes who were originally designed by the dota 1 community,such as rammus, were stolen by guinosso and implememtned in lol.They forget all about those dota 2 and dota 1 pros who could not make a living in tournaments because of riot.They forget that riot still does not allow lol players to mention other esports.The forget how riot employess created an website insulting icefrog.They forget all of that.They sort of forget that the only reason riot did not carry on its evil plan of banning dota3 and possibly even sc2 was because they did not make enough money to ban everyone.Riot is the evil corporation of the esports world.I have ntohing against lol or its players but a company such as riot gives enough reasons of hate.
when was the last time you saw pepsi and coke in the same restaurant or fast food place? Quit being so naive. It's standard business practice, there's nothing nefarious about not wanting your funding to be used to fund their competition.
the fact that it is common doesnt mean I have to like it.It is also immoral.And the fact that many dota 2 pros suffer cause of this makes it even more discusting.What is even more discusting is that they stole a lot of idea which the community had created for free and turned them into profit although the ideas themselves were for nonprofit use only.I can hate riot as much as I want for that.And also i dunno how it is where you live but in europe it is quite common to see both pepsi and coke in supermarkets,restaurants,fast food joints etc.
Pepsi and Coke are sold at the same super markets, but are not served as beverages in the same place. You either have a pepsi contract or a coke contract, there isnt a restaurant that will serve both, and its not coincidental. Unless you are speaking of a small family owned business that hands you a coke or pepsi can over the counter...but any restaurant with an actual deal will not carry both.
Actually I've been to places that serve both Coke and Pepsi, as well as both Pepsi and other Coca-Cola owned products. Anecdotal evidence and all, but just pointing that out.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
So just because Dota came first Riot shouldn't be allowed to engage in competitive business practices? By the logic Doom should be allowed to be the only successful FPS. I admit it was pretty shitty when Riot was talking about limiting teams to only have a LoL team instead of both a LoL and Dota team, but other then that they didn't do anything wrong from a competitive stand point (plus they thankfully stepped down from that position.)
How about their parent company trying to spread the rumor that Dota 2 would have been pay-to-play in China? Or buying the dota2.vn domain to link to LoL? Or shutting down the #1 Dota 1 forums at that time? That's not competitive. It's the very definition of anti-competitive.
They forget all about the negative campaign riot did to steal all the customers form dota 1.They forget that riot had dota 2 banned form mlg and dreamhack and only recently were they allowed.They forget that even nowadays dota2 is banned form wcg in which it was a main title for years due to wcg being owned by tencent.They forget all about the monopoly and anti competitive practices that riot has been doing for ages.they forget about the fact that many heroes who were originally designed by the dota 1 community,such as rammus, were stolen by guinosso and implememtned in lol.They forget all about those dota 2 and dota 1 pros who could not make a living in tournaments because of riot.They forget that riot still does not allow lol players to mention other esports.The forget how riot employess created an website insulting icefrog.They forget all of that.They sort of forget that the only reason riot did not carry on its evil plan of banning dota3 and possibly even sc2 was because they did not make enough money to ban everyone.Riot is the evil corporation of the esports world.I have ntohing against lol or its players but a company such as riot gives enough reasons of hate.
when was the last time you saw pepsi and coke in the same restaurant or fast food place? Quit being so naive. It's standard business practice, there's nothing nefarious about not wanting your funding to be used to fund their competition.
the fact that it is common doesnt mean I have to like it.It is also immoral.And the fact that many dota 2 pros suffer cause of this makes it even more discusting.What is even more discusting is that they stole a lot of idea which the community had created for free and turned them into profit although the ideas themselves were for nonprofit use only.I can hate riot as much as I want for that.And also i dunno how it is where you live but in europe it is quite common to see both pepsi and coke in supermarkets,restaurants,fast food joints etc.
Pepsi and Coke are sold at the same super markets, but are not served as beverages in the same place. You either have a pepsi contract or a coke contract, there isnt a restaurant that will serve both, and its not coincidental. Unless you are speaking of a small family owned business that hands you a coke or pepsi can over the counter...but any restaurant with an actual deal will not carry both.
Actually I've been to places that serve both Coke and Pepsi, as well as both Pepsi and other Coca-Cola owned products. Anecdotal evidence and all, but just pointing that out.
Maybe it's a NA thing then (or at least in the States).
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
So just because Dota came first Riot shouldn't be allowed to engage in competitive business practices? By the logic Doom should be allowed to be the only successful FPS. I admit it was pretty shitty when Riot was talking about limiting teams to only have a LoL team instead of both a LoL and Dota team, but other then that they didn't do anything wrong from a competitive stand point (plus they thankfully stepped down from that position.)
How about their parent company trying to spread the rumor that Dota 2 would have been pay-to-play in China? Or buying the dota2.vn domain to link to LoL? Or shutting down the #1 Dota 1 forums at that time? That's not competitive. It's the very definition of anti-competitive.
They forget all about the negative campaign riot did to steal all the customers form dota 1.They forget that riot had dota 2 banned form mlg and dreamhack and only recently were they allowed.They forget that even nowadays dota2 is banned form wcg in which it was a main title for years due to wcg being owned by tencent.They forget all about the monopoly and anti competitive practices that riot has been doing for ages.they forget about the fact that many heroes who were originally designed by the dota 1 community,such as rammus, were stolen by guinosso and implememtned in lol.They forget all about those dota 2 and dota 1 pros who could not make a living in tournaments because of riot.They forget that riot still does not allow lol players to mention other esports.The forget how riot employess created an website insulting icefrog.They forget all of that.They sort of forget that the only reason riot did not carry on its evil plan of banning dota3 and possibly even sc2 was because they did not make enough money to ban everyone.Riot is the evil corporation of the esports world.I have ntohing against lol or its players but a company such as riot gives enough reasons of hate.
I'm familiar with most of these things, I just have different opinions about them. I think they are shitty but nearly as reprehensible as you do. Closing down Dota Allstars was terrible, I won't defend that, but a lot of it's just business imo. Might be a little strong armed but it's not like they killed Dota 2, the game seems to be doing fine. If they had truly killed Dota or banned SC 2 from events then I'd be more inclined to agree.
On July 16 2013 03:47 IdrA wrote: one of the biggest things the sc2 scene can do to encourage this is hopping down off it's high horse. in the past i called league a casual game, having not played it at all, and in a way it is, in that you can hit buttons and kill other bad people and have fun even if you dont know what's going on. but if you actually want to be any good at it there's a ton of knowledge and abilities you need that are very different from those required for sc2. and ive seen or talked to plenty of sc2 pros who play it, with varying levels of seriousness, and are stuck in bronze or silver. some skills transfer over and if you were actually good at sc2 you should have a good understanding of how to approach learning league, but theyre entirely different games and it's entirely possible to be great and one and suck at the other. plus league is the big kid on the playground now. it just seems kinda sad and petty to be sitting there with a quarter of their viewership saying "well at least our game takes skill"
besides broodwar is the only game that is actually hard
Compared to Dota, LoL is a game that takes less skill and has much less depth.
Just saying
That's part of his point, being harder doesn't instantly equate to being better. Also just because Dota has more depth doesn't mean LoL doesn't have any depth. It may take less skill, but a majority of the player base will still never reach that high level of play anyway.
If people are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars, yes, it DOES make it better.
No not really. People play lots of different sports for lots of different amounts of money and they are all pretty good. They even take different amounts of skill or skills. There is no better or worse.
When one game was based off the other and the copying games company has done nothing but try to stop the growth of the other, yes it does matter. Sorry.
So just because Dota came first Riot shouldn't be allowed to engage in competitive business practices? By the logic Doom should be allowed to be the only successful FPS. I admit it was pretty shitty when Riot was talking about limiting teams to only have a LoL team instead of both a LoL and Dota team, but other then that they didn't do anything wrong from a competitive stand point (plus they thankfully stepped down from that position.)
How about their parent company trying to spread the rumor that Dota 2 would have been pay-to-play in China? Or buying the dota2.vn domain to link to LoL? Or shutting down the #1 Dota 1 forums at that time? That's not competitive. It's the very definition of anti-competitive.
They forget all about the negative campaign riot did to steal all the customers form dota 1.They forget that riot had dota 2 banned form mlg and dreamhack and only recently were they allowed.They forget that even nowadays dota2 is banned form wcg in which it was a main title for years due to wcg being owned by tencent.They forget all about the monopoly and anti competitive practices that riot has been doing for ages.they forget about the fact that many heroes who were originally designed by the dota 1 community,such as rammus, were stolen by guinosso and implememtned in lol.They forget all about those dota 2 and dota 1 pros who could not make a living in tournaments because of riot.They forget that riot still does not allow lol players to mention other esports.The forget how riot employess created an website insulting icefrog.They forget all of that.They sort of forget that the only reason riot did not carry on its evil plan of banning dota3 and possibly even sc2 was because they did not make enough money to ban everyone.Riot is the evil corporation of the esports world.I have ntohing against lol or its players but a company such as riot gives enough reasons of hate.
- Riot doesn't allow MLG to run Dota2 is a part of the business. Normally MLG is the one that have to organize and pay out prize for all the games it wants to cover, such as SC2, Dota2, LoLv..vv.. But then Riot came in and help MLG to pay for LoL and provide equipment (iirc), so in a sense Riot is the co-partner with MLG, and there's absolutely no reason for MLG to carry dota2 at that time. If MLG don't like it, they can just do like DreamHack and say "fuk no, i will pay for it myself and carry games that I want". Valve or Blizzard really does nothing to promote their game on MLG as far as I know.
- Dota2 isn't in WCG this year, and LoL wasn't in WCG last year. Tencent is a sponsor for WCG, so is Nexon. If anything, you have to tell Valve and Nexon to push the game to get it into WCG.
- LoL stole ideas from Dota, but you must admit that heroes like Earth Spirit is kind of similar to champions like Syndra too.
- Riot doesn't allow players to mention other esports? I countlessly saw players play games like SC2 on their stream, or CLGLink's blog talks about Dota, even praise it, just fine.
- website dota2.vn was a joke from Vietnamese dota community. They made it after IT1 for fun, at that time SEA didn't even have LoL servers, let alone LoL Vietnamese server...
I'm not on the side with Riot. Its business practice is harsher than others, and while I hate it, I respect it. I've watched a bunch of satelliteTV providers, or a bunch of insurance companies bashing each other on national TV, so this is just meh.
EPT
even i like playing it sometimes i rly cant watch it for long and sc2 feels so like chess so ... no i think how we treat the others is fine 
Thanks for at least giving it a try with an open mind. No one here denies that watching tanks can be pretty bland compared to playing through the game itself. It's improved drastically already and will continue to do so from our talks with WG.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CN9d7V8.png)
