|
I know some guy out there can do a better job then I did at this, but no one has yet, maybe a admin can edit a lot of this to help.
After hearing MLG dropping Starcraft for Columbus I've seen people like iNcontroL write up things (Geoff's thread http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/1jz4u5/lets_have_a_chat/)
So I think we should all write something in here about what can make Starcraft a better environment for gamers and get the best possible viewership it can. Geoff's right we can all agree that Starcraft will never be the top game for people to watch. Why? Because the game in very repetitive. And because (I feel) it's 1v1 and because there is no tournament with a massive prize pool every-year like LoL, Dota, CoD, Fifa. but we do have WCS which I think in everyone's eyes hasn't done to well, no hate to Korea and ESL, they done great and NASL so far is looking extremely good with their look into the players before they play in Ro16.
Obviously everyone has different views on how the tournament would like to be. So why don't we share ideas? You never know, one idea may stand out and many of us agree on and why Starcraft is losing viewers and why WCS numbers aren't where they were aimed to be at.
So lets all write in comments how you think Starcraft can improve and Blizzard can get viewership it deserves
July 2013 Top 50 Streamers
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=423963
July 2012 Top 50 Streamers
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=357470
Although Viewers haven't really changed by a big margin, yes the top 10 have less viewers then a year ago but that's because of things like WCS, many more streamers now. So us an community are doing a good job still but we need to increase the viewers and I feel that's up to mainly Blizzard, they make MLG pay them for their game to be played, when other games don't, and they have limits etc that basically hurt future organisations who want to grow and be successful.
My view and to help you think:
What did WCS do wrong?
• Is WCS seasons too long?
• Is it to the fact WCS messed up and had 16 qualify and 16 invited first season which lead to players missing out a season and that should be in those 16 players ''invited'', I mean you look now the Ro32 players are much better then season one is EU and AM.
• Is it because the prize-pool is to small for such a drawn out 1 year tournament?
• Letting Koreans take part in an American and European section when they have their own? Fair enough the skill of Koreans is of much higher standard.
• Shouldn't WCS just give points to people who place well at LAN events then have a WCS Final that way?
• Wouldn't it help if MLG invited Kespa players so they get more viewers.
• Are Blizzard just too stubborn to listen to the community yet they try make SC a competitive game because they think they're always right?
EDIT/UPDATE
So who's happy with the current balance of the game and the new patch that might take place? And if not what would you do?
Poll: Happy with the current state of the gameNo.. Why? (52) 59% Yes (36) 41% 88 total votes Your vote: Happy with the current state of the game (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No.. Why?
Thank you
|
WCS doesn't have that feeling of exclusivity at all and conflicts with many others tournaments as well. It feels like anyone can compete anywhere they want given enough effort. So with that being said it kinda waters down the entire experience for many. Yes some people want to watch Koreans just destroy all the foreigners but there are groups of people who enjoy foreigners competing against each other. Given the trend I have a feeling WCS viewership will bottom out eventually and it will be business as usual.
|
We're 3 years into it, its kinda safe to say the SC2 boom has passed and we should be expecting a decline. The numbers never could touch the free to play games, to be honest speed running Zelda 64 today gets more viewers than some SC2 tournaments. Sad but true and it raises more money through donations whereas SC2 fans hate dropping $5 for a ticket. I'm speculating SC2 will have to go back to being a niche game like the old BW days but to be honest I know nothing.
|
It's up to Blizzard to fix the game on a fundamental level, unfortunately Blizzard is the least likely to do anything because sc2 isn't their main source of income.
|
the post by destiny was actually spot on regarding the issues of playerbase. honestly its mainly because most people couldnt wait 3 years for them to fix the fundamental issues that blizzard done wrong
|
On August 09 2013 23:23 Esoterikk wrote:
It's up to Blizzard to fix the game on a fundamental level, unfortunately Blizzard is the least likely to do anything because sc2 isn't their main source of income.
They could "fix" anything. Realtime strategy still is not as attractive as a whole as other genres. One should rather look at the success of SC2: The first global esports RTS.
|
On August 09 2013 23:31 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2013 23:23 Esoterikk wrote:
It's up to Blizzard to fix the game on a fundamental level, unfortunately Blizzard is the least likely to do anything because sc2 isn't their main source of income. They could "fix" anything. Realtime strategy still is not as attractive as a whole as other genres. One should rather look at the success of SC2: The first global esports RTS.
Honestly for most players sc2 isn't an rts game. It only is at the top levels of play. Sc2 is a very mechanical and motor-memory trained game and herein lies the problem. It's not a strategy game for most or a game that attracts a larger audience due to the subtlety in appreciating high level play. There is no "noob" fan base like they had in bw or in Moba games.
Lots of players will complain but to make sc2 more popular you need to dumb down the mechanics and up the excitement factors and flashy plays/strategies. If you look at all the memorable matches, they weren't your standard metagame games, they were either flashy, game breaking, or just awesomely cheesy or close.
|
The learning curve for starcraft is pretty high and we can't expect new gamers to be into a game that is 3 yrs old and over 10 + for SC/BW. As of now, we should expect a decline in interest for gamers and a massive increase for F2P games like LoL, HoN, and DoTA2. The learning curve for these MoBA games aren't that high and anyone can pick it up.
|
On August 09 2013 21:41 aka_star wrote:
We're 3 years into it, its kinda safe to say the SC2 boom has passed and we should be expecting a decline. The numbers never could touch the free to play games, to be honest speed running Zelda 64 today gets more viewers than some SC2 tournaments. Sad but true and it raises more money through donations whereas SC2 fans hate dropping $5 for a ticket. I'm speculating SC2 will have to go back to being a niche game like the old BW days but to be honest I know nothing.
BW was a niche game outside of Korea. In Korea, BW was one of the country's biggest sports. The problem today is that SC2 is a niche game in Korea.
|
First of all, lets remember this is blizzard we're talking about if we go by their history of games releases the initial game is usually buggy but the expansions tend to fix most of the issues. WCS 2012 Was pretty good in a few regions kinda buggy and unsustainable. So were currently in blizzard WCS 1.2.0 so personally i cant wait for 2014 because right now blizzard cant change anything big for the wcs format till 2014. So i'm expecting in blizzard tradition for the WCS expansion (2014) pack to be a really good release  .
+ Show Spoiler +
Seriously Compare sc1 to scbw
diablo 2 to d2 lod
WC3 to TFT
wol to hots
Even in Wow vanilla had tons of issues and burning crusade helped it a ton
But anyway has WCS been a failure ... really? More players are getting payed. I've personally heard of and learned about more non koreans with the WCS then at the end of wings. At the end of wings other then koreans all you really heard about in tournaments were Stephano, Scarlett and right at the end Snute.
Look at this year however, things likeeurope Welmu just barely missing out on a place in premier the qualifiers was a big story. Strong finishes letting TLO, Stephano and Dimaga getting to the world finals. Moonglade and snute getting far in WCS America against the korean invasion. Suppy taking out both heart and ryung. Being exposed to the chinese and australian scenes.
I personally feel there hasnt been this much "interaction" with the non korean scene since 2010 and early 2011 before the koreans went global.
Additionally from an entertainment value point of view Korea has either stayed the same or got better. From what i've read it seems like since kespa switched over to sc2 popularity inside korea has improved. Then WCS EU in itself has been a massive success. WCS America was tricky but now in the hands of NASL it seems to be making great strides. Then i also like how the points system seems to be adding another dynamic to tournaments like dreamhack.
So personally i like the product they have but there are issues. I HOPE that in 2014 the scheduling is done and announced months in advance. I hope the events become more offline i dont think blizzard need to region lock it but i do think they need to disincentivize korean players going to america. Id also like to see more information on the non-compete rule. But if scheduling is done and released months in advance it would make it so much easier for other tournaments to plan around that. Also i'd like to see something more done with the american scene but i dont know what would help out. NASL are doing a great job with WCS US which will help. Maybe that Redbull thing thats been hinted will help out etc.
But essentially i dont see that korea/eu are having issues, america may have problems but NASL might be helping to solve that already.
|
On August 09 2013 21:17 Batiste wrote:• Are Blizzard just too stubborn to listen to the community yet they try make SC a competitive game because they think they're always right?
I think this is such a huge thing that can't really be decided. Who knows how many people it takes to change a lightbulb at Blizzard. I dunno the inner-doings of that place, and those who know SOME THINGS often say that Blizzard understands and that they're trying to work on it. :S So who the hell knows.
I think that a community-driven shift in the way things are done will probably lead blizzard in a specific direction (i.e. less tournaments/change in leagues) and go along with it. On the other hand, Blizzard might not want to let go of the WCS and change it instead. Who knows, they can take a page from League of Legends and start paying people's salaries per region or something.
|
battle net in general sucks too. The arcade system is horrible and why there isnt tournaments everyday like wc3 i have no idea...
|
If playing starcraft 2 made you feel more like a general commanding a war, and less like a battle or a chess match, it would garner a highest viewership. No matter how cool the game looks from a spectator's point of view, it is lacking the element of "epicness" that can't come from cool laser beams.
|
honestly sc2 just doesn't feel like a casual game, take 10 minutes to build up an army and lose it in seconds.. i think the game is just frustrating for new players with not much action just farming them minerals n gas. I don't have the answers but the community has been talking about these problems for years now but blizzard refuses to listen. The average gamer won't go on the forums to complain, they will just stop playing the game.
|
I believe the problem is not WCS or any tournament at all,
the problem is sc2
It has so many flaws and right now the game is not in a good shape, everymatchup involving protoss is garbage
for example
Unit composition vs unit composition. The battle can end in an instant and its over.
Zerg cant beat a limit armee of protoss without swarmhosts, thats utterly bad and boring in the long run
Wol was like that for three years but zerg had eventually buffed infestor+broodlord which was also utterly boring and protoss had a really tough time to take that armee head on, so it was reversed there
Blizzard decided to wait, to let someone figure it out even if the unit composition was a discgrace to the name of starcraft and rts in general
THe deathball syndrome, which makes it really hard to
1) Get units outside the deathball to do some small battle/harassment
2) Get many workers (65 is standard, some matchups go higher but in general never over 100)
Get 3base, saturat, now macro up
Thats the standard thing which is terrible terrible terrible
Zerg can stack up over 50+ larva on 3bases with 4hatcheries
Terran can sack the precious Scv (workers) for bigger armee then anyone else because of mule
So many faults, i can name more but cant come up right now
but these are enough
|
I do not read a lot of topics on TL.net and close to nothing on reddit, since I'm more or less the most casual Starcraft 2 gamer in existence. But I do watch my fair share of streams and tournaments and the only thing sparking my interest are personalities.
E.g. if TLO or Flash are not playing, I'm most of the time not watching. I think both players are really interesting both through their gaming history, growth and development overall. I care about how they do, it engages me on a emotional level.
Over the last few days, there popped a couple of threads regarding Stephano's retirement and he got to make a personal statement live within one of the biggest tournaments around. His personality is big in Starcraft 2 and I remember tournament streaming numbers went down considerably when he got eliminated.
Since Starcraft 2 is mainly a 1 on 1 game, teams are not that important overall, in my opinion. Although both Liquid and EvilGenius are doing a great job promoting them with behind the scene videos and such, which I very much like, in the end it comes down to the players and not the team since only one guy or girl can stand in the spotlight.
The other thing what really bothers me is that there is no clear structure (at least for me) within all the tournaments. I miss something like leagues in soccer (see Code A / Code S).
If there is a tournament, I don't want to search Liquipedia or such to know what format it uses and which players can participate how and most of all I don't want it to end with just winning some money.
I want a general league with ranking like the Power Rank (maybe just for the regions), which does not reset completely each season but - like soccer leagues - has up and downs for the last and first couple of players.
I want to see at a quick glance at which level the players are playing.
Yeah, so for me: It's more personalities and (self-)promoting and a clear league system instead of all the various independent tournaments, which fight for affection.
|
On August 09 2013 23:38 peidongyang wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2013 23:31 [F_]aths wrote:On August 09 2013 23:23 Esoterikk wrote:
It's up to Blizzard to fix the game on a fundamental level, unfortunately Blizzard is the least likely to do anything because sc2 isn't their main source of income. They could "fix" anything. Realtime strategy still is not as attractive as a whole as other genres. One should rather look at the success of SC2: The first global esports RTS. Honestly for most players sc2 isn't an rts game. It only is at the top levels of play. Sc2 is a very mechanical and motor-memory trained game and herein lies the problem. It's not a strategy game for most or a game that attracts a larger audience due to the subtlety in appreciating high level play. There is no "noob" fan base like they had in bw or in Moba games. Lots of players will complain but to make sc2 more popular you need to dumb down the mechanics and up the excitement factors and flashy plays/strategies. If you look at all the memorable matches, they weren't your standard metagame games, they were either flashy, game breaking, or just awesomely cheesy or close.
Dumb downed mechanics and flashy plays make the game more boring in my opinion.
|
Starcraft has way too many upsets, some may say this is good, but I think its bad. Some problems with the game
- too static. the game isn't made for dynamics so whenever something dynamic happens it upsets the flow - hence all the upsets
- the game isn't relaxing enough. after work I want to relax and play a game and Starcraft is too difficult mechanically and I don't find it fun. (was high masters WoL and Masters in HoTS)
- Way too much balance whine (main reason I quit playing). This is probably caused from how difficult the game is, people put so much effort into it and when they loose its natural to balance external factors
Compare it to Dota 2
- Built on dynamics and chaos, so much room for creativity
- Game is relaxing, and if you have a few friends that you play with its great fun
- Not as many upsets, generally the favorites win
Ideas
- Less balance whining and elitism in general by the community
- Allow more creativity in the game (not sure how this will be accomplished but I'm sure Blizzard's game developers could figure something out if they wanted to)
- Don't know how it can get more casual players into the game because if they make the game easier then the skill gap between top players will continue to narrow so its kind of a paradox right now. Maybe have two different "modes" of the game, easy and difficult? Prob a terrible idea but I'm sure someone else has better
EDIT: A major problem with the game not being fun is the lack of interaction. If u look at WoW, Dota2 these are games you can hop on with 5 or more friends, create a party and have lots of fun. Yes Starcraft has team play but it seriously sucks.
|
There are several things regarding SC2 that are not going well.
The game/bnet itself:
- the game is basically balanced (though it has a protoss tendency recently. let's check next WCS before crying "go nerf", okay?), but, IMO, the required mechanics, micro and macro are on a totally different level for each race (T>Z>P)
- Battle.net-Lobby is not really designed for an online(community based) game. The only thing that is used by 100% of the players? The friend list. Everything else is either an unnecessary feature or used by a minority (e.g. channels - mostly used for tournament organisation)
- Arcade. I do not know about a more unprofessional matchmaking system than the Blizzard Arcade. Seriously. Arcade ruins some maps, the lobbies crash kinda often... This is not what I paid 40-60bucks (twice with HotS..) for.
- when adding new maps to the mappool, there's always 1-2 maps that are simply a joke. Those maps are known for being a joke before. Why still put them in? Where's the problem of filtering the map veto ladder data? Blizzard put so many game data features in lately.
- complete disregard of 2v2, 3v3, 4v4. Why? I do know that tournaments are always 1on1-based. But the watcher majority does not consist of pure 1on2-master/gm-players but of people that kind of enjoy playing a 3on3 with friends sometimes. I do not have proof of that, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.
WCS:
- get koreans out of NA/EU. Seriously. Where's the point of determining the "WCS EU winner", the very best man of EU, when he's a korean? Do you think that this will have a push impact on the scene? Yes, it will - professional foreigner support will be pushed back and back and back. Or is it for the chills of a foreigner beating a korean (because that is what we all want in our hearts..)? Then why don't you send the five best AM and EU players to a TRUELY global final - and watch innovation fall in a bo5 to sjow/hasuobs/scarlett/whoever? Yeah, might not happen too often. But, that way, you actually do support EU/NA scene with your prize money, you're not giving it to koreans for, well, basically free.
- well, here's a good thing: keep up the high value production. I really enjoy watching ESL/MLG/NASL-WCS-work - it's pretty badass, especially the ESL live events.
|
On August 10 2013 00:19 Foxxan wrote:
I believe the problem is not WCS or any tournament at all,
the problem is sc2
It has so many flaws and right now the game is not in a good shape, everymatchup involving protoss is garbage
for example
Unit composition vs unit composition. The battle can end in an instant and its over.
Zerg cant beat a limit armee of protoss without swarmhosts, thats utterly bad and boring in the long run
Wol was like that for three years but zerg had eventually buffed infestor+broodlord which was also utterly boring and protoss had a really tough time to take that armee head on, so it was reversed there
Blizzard decided to wait, to let someone figure it out even if the unit composition was a discgrace to the name of starcraft and rts in general
THe deathball syndrome, which makes it really hard to
1) Get units outside the deathball to do some small battle/harassment
2) Get many workers (65 is standard, some matchups go higher but in general never over 100)
Get 3base, saturat, now macro up
Thats the standard thing which is terrible terrible terrible
Zerg can stack up over 50+ larva on 3bases with 4hatcheries
Terran can sack the precious Scv (workers) for bigger armee then anyone else because of mule
So many faults, i can name more but cant come up right now
but these are enough
You can name more even though you can't?
All "issues" you mention are no real issues in my eyes. Either you describe the existence of a standard strategy, which is a good thing since it gives the spectating experience some structure and allows for mind games. Or you explain some powerful capabilities as if it would be a bad thing that races have powerful abilities which however are balanced out by some vulnerabilities.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
