No Starcraft 2 at MLG Columbus (so far) - Page 55

On August 12 2013 09:44 Mr. Nefarious wrote:
I used to be a big Star1/Star2 guy until Dota 2 came along. Way better production (TI3 holy crap), way better UI (Valve GG), way better balance (Icefrog), more excitement and depth for each individual game and less rehashing of the same few builds over and over, way friendlier community... there are many reasons we see star2 being replaced, mainly because of the same old issues that blizzard failed to recognize/deal with since day 1 of WOL beta. Inability to watch other players/spectate in the client (really?), The awkwardness of the Zerg race in general and reliance on tech units rather than lower tier swarm units, warpgates having no downside but being a required early upgrade leading to gateway units having perilous balance, maps being nearly completely stagnant and boring, all other countries in the world pretty much irrelevant to the OSL/GSL, the mundane grinding of ladder games on the ghost town of battle.net 0.2.... I could go on but its pointless. Yes, Star2 is definitely the best RTS in the world still being played, however it has a lot of serious problems that still need to be addressed that 3+ years in, I really doubt are ever going to see changes. Sc2s balance still hasn't hit it's "nirvana" ala broodwar or even been at a point where balance isnt a major bitching point for basically the entire community. For Dota 2: Free to Play, the much better UI, the broodwar approach to balance (everything is OP), their extreme focus on production value and just enjoyment of the game, feedback and responsiveness to the community.... It feels like Valve's Dota 2 has no where to go but up. It definitely has taken my gaming and viewing time. SC2 might not be going anywhere, but it's definitely playing catchup in terms of overall production, game design and community these days.

On August 12 2013 19:28 Caladan wrote:



Aside from being offtopic like hell: You're missing the point. It's fine that you could say "SC2 suxx" and switch over to Dota2 (like the whole TL.net staff/site is doing atm sadly, but thats a different topic).
But for most SC2 fans - they want RTS!
SC2 is the biggest and also one of the last real RTS games. Dota 2 is not a RTS game, it's a "moba".
We want macro, micro, we want base building and resource mining. We don't want to switch to any "ESPORTS" game. We want RTS, we want SciFi! We love watching SC2 streams!

On August 12 2013 13:34 Treemonkeys wrote:


Have to agree with most of this after watching TI3. The production just blew away any SC2 tournament. SC2 could really use F2P with cosmetic purchases, tournament purchases to add to the prize pool, the ability to watch tournaments in game with casting audio, etc. With Blizzard's size they should be able to push some of this stuff out in a few short weeks but they are far too slow and indecisive to react.

On August 12 2013 22:13 Plansix wrote:

Execpt that Dota 2 won't see that for another year and it will be all online $5000 cups for the next 12 months. I bet if we had one SC2 event a year, it would be pretty amazing too.

On August 12 2013 22:13 Plansix wrote:

Execpt that Dota 2 won't see that for another year and it will be all online $5000 cups for the next 12 months. I bet if we had one SC2 event a year, it would be pretty amazing too.

On August 12 2013 19:28 Qikz wrote:
You can't claim either Starcraft or LoL/Dota have higher/lower skill ceilings as they require completely different skillsets.

On August 12 2013 22:52 Alur wrote:

I don't know about all online 5k cups. I count 10 30k+ tournaments after last years TI. (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Premier_Tournaments)

And honestly, with the momentum Dota 2 has after official launch, TI3 and soon Valve's documentary, I can see viewership - and thus the magnitude of the events growing as time goes on. Another interesting thing is the interactive compendium, I can totally see Valve giving organizers the opportunity create similar content, potentially letting tournaments crowdfund part of their prizepool.

On August 13 2013 12:47 usethis2 wrote:
Hope the trend continues until Blizzard learns. (hopefully) They published the game, sure, but once we buy a copy then it shouldn't be Blizzard's business what we do with it. You buy a book, should the author/publisher care whether you wipe your ass with it or feed it to goats?

Blizzard wanted to own everything. Not just the game itself but everything consumers do with the game. Thus no LAN. Tournaments should pay up.

I really, really hope something will give this greedy corporation a lesson.

On August 12 2013 22:24 Wombat_NI wrote:
Oh god, another 'SC2 is dying thread'.

Viewer numbers are important, but not the be-all and end-all when it comes to sponsor involvement and everything that drives a scene. I would wager for example, that the SC2 playerbase have more disposable income on average compared to the f2p LoL for example, and while the SC2 scene has fewer eyeballs, there is attractiveness to sponsors for the other reasons I outlined.

I mean, I run a Fbook page for the Northern Irish SC2 players, and in our (often pointless) quest for peripheral perfection we've put out quite a bit of cash into our beloved mechanical keyboards and the like, in a way that our MOBA-playing buddies just tend not to do. I mean that's only one anecdotal example, but illustrative of other stuff.

For example, football/soccer and golf both have huge corporate involvement, the former because of its omnipresent popularity, the latter because middle-aged men spend a shitload of money on golfing equipment.

On August 12 2013 22:13 Plansix wrote:

Execpt that Dota 2 won't see that for another year and it will be all online $5000 cups for the next 12 months. I bet if we had one SC2 event a year, it would be pretty amazing too.

On August 13 2013 13:49 theking1 wrote:



i think you are exagerrating a bit.First of all viewership numbers are THE MOST IMPORTANT factor when judging the succes of a boradcasted esport.
A lot of esport personalitties explained this very good:viewers are the product you sell to the advertisers for them to invest money.Not the other way around:no viewers->no advertisers->no money

And the idea of sc2 people having and investing more money than other people is ridiculous and is a blatant lie.The lol forums are filled with people claiming to have spent anywhere form 100 to 500 dollars on lol skins alone.Not to mention the million dollar worth of compediums the dota2 people bought.There is no statistic showing sc2 people have more money than lol or dota2 people.

And the comparison to golf is exagerrated as hell.A golf club can cost anywhere form 2k dollars to a couple of hundreds of thoudsands.But there other factors come into play such as golf being th esport of the high class managers/businessman hence they get sponsored by rolex and rolls royce who are after that market segment.The market segment of sc2 is the smae as the market segment of lol and dota2:kids and young adults.The only difference is the mobas actually know how to monetize this stuff while blizzard still asks for money for tournaments.

Maybe if blizzard will understand that big tournaments actually promote its game and not the other way around we wouldnt be in this situation right now.

On August 13 2013 13:59 Wombat_NI wrote:

It's not a blatant lie, but an analogous example that isn't directly applicable. From my personal experiences on TL/IRL and even the 'How do you earn a living' thread or whatever, it seems apparent that SC2 attracts a different clientele. I might be entirely wrong on this, and my experiences and viewings are atypical, but I'm not lying.

Yeah they make money from skins, but they have to do that as a tradeoff for being F2p in the first place.

I just feel the 'SC2 is dying' crowd too often cite viewing figures, without considering perhaps that there are variable RoIs on those particular eyeballs.

On August 13 2013 15:25 FrozenHobo wrote:
I personally am surprised Riot did not force MLG to sign some type of agreement that Dota can't be played at MLG... Now Dota will have essentially open recruitment from another game that is the same on some levels. I mean if t hey are both shown at the same event (league and dota) I could see some league players leaving the LoL scene. Riot should just threaten to pull out of MLG. That would shake up some people at MLG.