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On September 21 2013 09:26 Schism wrote:
I've said it in a few posts around here. They must start looking at having team games at the big tournaments. It should be written in to pro contracts that they play team games. Team games in SC2 can be unbalanced but they are crazy and fun to watch.
Make some bigger team maps to counter the strongest rushes to make sure the games get into the mid-late. Get some maps out there like Dark Continent and Killing Fields from BW - no protected main, no easy expos...throw caution to the wind.
Again, almost anyone can be really good - even elite - at team games. If you're a 70 APM player who can't really bust out of gold or platinum 1v1 but are diamond/master team player, who you gonna watch, the boring rubbish that was Taeja-Innovation finals or a DOTA2/LOL pro game? Because SC2 doesn't offer any competition to those team based games at the moment. It is going to be worse when BAS arrives, SC2 is going to bleed even more. The e-sports community for SC2 needs to do something NOW - not tomorrow, next month, next patch...but now.
For every person you'd gain by showing team games, there would be people like me who you would lose. I'm not sure what the ratio would be but a lot of people don't like teams.
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On September 21 2013 03:40 Xeris wrote:
One of the biggest problems (game play) is unsolvable.
It's far from impossible to change the gameplay. People have come up with all kinds of alternative pathing systems in the map editor. I'm sure Blizzard could outdo all of them if they put the time in, but so far they've lacked the willingness to give it a real shove. There are other fixes like Barrin's fewer minerals per base suggestion that are easy to implement, albeit tricky to tweak. I have no reason to believe a can-do attitude from Blizzard couldn't solve all the major gameplay issues in one expansion.
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On September 21 2013 09:26 Schism wrote:
I've said it in a few posts around here. They must start looking at having team games at the big tournaments. It should be written in to pro contracts that they play team games. Team games in SC2 can be unbalanced but they are crazy and fun to watch.
Make some bigger team maps to counter the strongest rushes to make sure the games get into the mid-late. Get some maps out there like Dark Continent and Killing Fields from BW - no protected main, no easy expos...throw caution to the wind.
Again, almost anyone can be really good - even elite - at team games. If you're a 70 APM player who can't really bust out of gold or platinum 1v1 but are diamond/master team player, who you gonna watch, the boring rubbish that was Taeja-Innovation finals or a DOTA2/LOL pro game? Because SC2 doesn't offer any competition to those team based games at the moment. It is going to be worse when BAS arrives, SC2 is going to bleed even more. The e-sports community for SC2 needs to do something NOW - not tomorrow, next month, next patch...but now.
I just love how you say the community needs to do something NOW yet do nothing yourself except complain how big tournaments don't support your favorite thing.
And thanks but no thanks, if i wanted to see a team game designed around it i would watch dota2/lol tournaments, not something tacked on which is clearly not balanced at all.
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I heard blizzard all stars was going to be part of the HoTS client? Also being able to watch gm ladder games like LoL does would be great, things like these could dramatically boost sc2 interest, the list is very big on things they could do to make sc2 better. However the reality is the only changes we get are small balance patches trickled out every few months, it's not good enough really compared to what the other games are doing.
I'd also like to see some sort of GM style ladder for 2v2 but called something different to make it unique, people like team games but there's nothing to aim for.
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Great post. I feel i cant contribute to the argument.
Though compare the electricity in the air of all the tournaments of different games.
Bws msl osl proleague
lols worlds
Dotaa ti1/2/3
Sc2 wcs finals
Something is definitely lacking and i think OP along side many different threads in the past and recently have all highlighted issues.
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Well written post overall, but there's one part that I'm a bit confused about.
On September 21 2013 03:40 Xeris wrote:
Riot's idea here is really great, if I understand it correctly. Pro teams are restricted to only compete in the LCS. They are unable to play in 'amateur' events like the MCS, MLG Invitationals, and the like. This is great because it gives amateur teams like Denial eSports the opportunity to win ~$10,000 in tournaments. If Blizzard restricted pro team players to only compete in WCS or other major events it would give more players an opportunity to win money, as well as create scarcity.
If you can see Flash stream every day, it makes his tournament appearances less interesting; if Flash plays in every tournament, it makes things stale. If you know you will only get to see Flash play in the WCS, you'll damn well be tuning in to watch him play because you won't get another opportunity.
Sorry if I'm missing something, but wouldn't this essentially mean that we'd be restricting access to players (who might want to go to a lot of different tournaments) for the sake of making them feel more exclusive? Screwing players over for the sake of viewership pleasure?
I mean, I understand the idea, but ultimately, I think the players have too little power as it is, and severly limiting their ability to choose which tournaments to go to doesn't feel like an improvement.
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There are often tournaments occuring, why not put those on the main screen too, not just Dreamhack and WCS
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Nice article Duran, agreed with all of it.
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I think the point about gameplay being boring to watch is the most important. If the game is exciting, passion will make up for whatever shortcomings there are in Bnet and tournament scene. I haven't seen anything in SC2 that matches moments like Boxer locking down a whole army of carriers with his ghosts, or one shuttle and a reaver completely destroying an opponent's army piece by piece.
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The personality vs skill bit surprised me, because it seems at odds with what MC said a while back. Three years also strikes me as a pretty short span of time in which to judge longevity (maybe I misunderstood what this word meant), especially since most of the top players today popped up after 2010. As for the idea that a stronger team scene would strengthen the scene as a whole---while I don't necessarily disagree with this, I wonder if it's worth thinking about why teams, especially non-Korean, haven't developed much outside of Korea. And even there, as far as I know, the numbers are nothing like what they were for BW a few years back. Perhaps we need to change how we think of SC2 teams before we can start making progress.
As for the surplus of tournaments, I have to say that as a spectator, I really like Valve's system---one invite-based tournament during the year, while independent organizers can structure their own leagues. Exciting to watch, very meaningful, and, for someone who follows the third-party tournaments, rewarding in a number of ways.
Then there's the coup de grace---SC2 isn't as fun to watch. Personally, I do like watching it, but I feel like in general, a lot of people who present SC2 to viewers---casters, hosts, players, coaches, analysts, etc.---maybe don't focus on the interesting things as much as they could. That blog about the difference between the BW and SC2 engines really sums that up well. I want to know more about the dance that happens before the fight, the way players read and respond to each other, the risks, the gambles, the preparation. Right now I think a lot of SC2 casting is about what the units are doing, not what the players are thinking, and I'd love to see it the other way around.
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On September 21 2013 10:49 RaZorwire wrote:Well written post overall, but there's one part that I'm a bit confused about. Show nested quote +On September 21 2013 03:40 Xeris wrote:
Riot's idea here is really great, if I understand it correctly. Pro teams are restricted to only compete in the LCS. They are unable to play in 'amateur' events like the MCS, MLG Invitationals, and the like. This is great because it gives amateur teams like Denial eSports the opportunity to win ~$10,000 in tournaments. If Blizzard restricted pro team players to only compete in WCS or other major events it would give more players an opportunity to win money, as well as create scarcity.
If you can see Flash stream every day, it makes his tournament appearances less interesting; if Flash plays in every tournament, it makes things stale. If you know you will only get to see Flash play in the WCS, you'll damn well be tuning in to watch him play because you won't get another opportunity.
Sorry if I'm missing something, but wouldn't this essentially mean that we'd be restricting access to players (who might want to go to a lot of different tournaments) for the sake of making them feel more exclusive? Screwing players over for the sake of viewership pleasure? I mean, I understand the idea, but ultimately, I think the players have too little power as it is, and severly limiting their ability to choose which tournaments to go to doesn't feel like an improvement.
It isn't screwing players over. It's restricting access so you don't have Flash winning every single tournament, for example. It gives professional players a tournament system to participate in, and it gives non professional players more access for exposure and money. What makes Riot's system work is that they actually salary the pro teams/players so it's economically viable for them to not play other non LCS events.
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On September 21 2013 08:12 Popkiller wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2013 08:05 Xeris wrote:On September 21 2013 07:38 Popkiller wrote:
I have questions for the OP (or anyone who can answer them):
How much of a role did Blizzard play in making BW huge in Korea? How much of their time and money was dedicated to making BW an "eSports success" in Korea?
How much time and money are they currently dedicating to making SC2 an eSports success? How big is their eSports team? How big is their WCS team? How much money are they spending, besides on the prize pool, on WCS?
Now, considering that, pretend I'm Blizzard. Tell me, why should I devote more time and resources on making SC2 better for eSports? Give me some numbers. Thanks Plexa, btw. Blizzard didn't play a huge role as far as I know, they really started putting their hands in the pot as BW was getting really big, which is why you had quite a bit of dramam between them and KeSPA around 2008-2009 if I recall. With respect to your second group of questions, I don't have exact figures but I will say: - Blizzard pays the prize pool ($2 million roughly?) - Blizzard pays the entire travel cost for all regions and finals, which means they are paying for 16 flights for NA, EU, and KR. Multiply that by 4 ... and you get 192 flights. Thats over $200, 000 on flights. They are also paying for the venues for these events, which means they're paying NASL, ESL, Gom to host there, plus Gamescom, Toronto, and whatever.. probably about $500, 000 in venue costs, another in production... then there's accommodation (food, etc for players and personalities) and payments to all the casters including THEIR flights and you're looking at roughly $5 million would be my rough estimate. That's not even factoring in the cost of Blizzcon or the time/cost of their employees who are working on WCS. It is quite expensive. For your third question. There are ways to monetize eSports, especially for game developers like Blizzard. Riot and Valve have done a great job. While Riot may not directly profit from LCS yet, the extra value they get from decals, merch, skins, and champions over a year almost surely covers the cost of their eSports expense. Likewise for Valve. Blizzard can't quite do the same for SC but there are ways and some things they can copy.. like a compendium for example for the World Finals would be a grwat revenue tool. I'm assuming your recommendation to Blizzard might be to make SC2 multiplayer F2P and earn revenue through micro transactions, or would you recommend they try selling SC2 like normal, with eSports-related micro transactions on top of that?
Ya, roughly 500k compendiums sold. I think F2P is the way of the future. I wonder if Blizzard can make the switch at this point or if they're in too deep. There is some way to implement microtransactions with SC2 but obviously it doesn't have the same potential as it does in a game like League (where you can buy skins, champions, runes, and more). In SC2 you can't really buy anything game altering so it sucks. I'd have to think a lot more about different things they could add that would be purchasable.
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
I don't mind region locking as long as:
1. Prize money based on meritocracy - The best regions get the most money
2. No region gets shafted - you know, CN/TW/SEA/Africa/etc
But if they just applied region locking with the same prize pool for everyone and giving 'WCS events' to undeserving, self entitled regions, I'm quitting.
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Ever since Catalysm™ began on 1st Sept 2013, we have been seeing retirement aftrer retirement. Then MC kickstarted the whole SC2 deep analyst trend. But there is something missing among the chaos - Blizzard. No damage control, no PR stunt, no indication of direction, nothing! This silence simply doesn't make sense for a company that's worth more than $10 billions.
I sincerely believe/hope that the next time they patch SC2, it will be something mind blowing. Recent D3 changes has proved that Blizzard is not afraid to do a u-turn if they really have to. The question is, does DB/DK want to be Josh Mosqueira(The guy who pushed for D3 AH removal) or Jay Wilson(The guy who defended the AH until the day he was replaced and now had to "support" the changes)?
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I wish big name retired Kespa players would speak out about the design issues of SC2. I know the ones still involved like Boxer and GoRush are in no position to say anything but ones like Bisu, July, Jangbi, etc. could give their honest evaluation of the game, its specific defects as they see it, and if anything can be done about it. Blizzard must give some weight to their criticism. Foreigner ex-pros should also weigh in.
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It's telling enough that they and other prominent non Korean figures (IdrA for example) have quit because they don't enjoy the game.
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On September 21 2013 11:42 Xeris wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2013 08:12 Popkiller wrote:On September 21 2013 08:05 Xeris wrote:On September 21 2013 07:38 Popkiller wrote:
I have questions for the OP (or anyone who can answer them):
How much of a role did Blizzard play in making BW huge in Korea? How much of their time and money was dedicated to making BW an "eSports success" in Korea?
How much time and money are they currently dedicating to making SC2 an eSports success? How big is their eSports team? How big is their WCS team? How much money are they spending, besides on the prize pool, on WCS?
Now, considering that, pretend I'm Blizzard. Tell me, why should I devote more time and resources on making SC2 better for eSports? Give me some numbers. Thanks Plexa, btw. Blizzard didn't play a huge role as far as I know, they really started putting their hands in the pot as BW was getting really big, which is why you had quite a bit of dramam between them and KeSPA around 2008-2009 if I recall. With respect to your second group of questions, I don't have exact figures but I will say: - Blizzard pays the prize pool ($2 million roughly?) - Blizzard pays the entire travel cost for all regions and finals, which means they are paying for 16 flights for NA, EU, and KR. Multiply that by 4 ... and you get 192 flights. Thats over $200, 000 on flights. They are also paying for the venues for these events, which means they're paying NASL, ESL, Gom to host there, plus Gamescom, Toronto, and whatever.. probably about $500, 000 in venue costs, another in production... then there's accommodation (food, etc for players and personalities) and payments to all the casters including THEIR flights and you're looking at roughly $5 million would be my rough estimate. That's not even factoring in the cost of Blizzcon or the time/cost of their employees who are working on WCS. It is quite expensive. For your third question. There are ways to monetize eSports, especially for game developers like Blizzard. Riot and Valve have done a great job. While Riot may not directly profit from LCS yet, the extra value they get from decals, merch, skins, and champions over a year almost surely covers the cost of their eSports expense. Likewise for Valve. Blizzard can't quite do the same for SC but there are ways and some things they can copy.. like a compendium for example for the World Finals would be a grwat revenue tool. I'm assuming your recommendation to Blizzard might be to make SC2 multiplayer F2P and earn revenue through micro transactions, or would you recommend they try selling SC2 like normal, with eSports-related micro transactions on top of that? Ya, roughly 500k compendiums sold. I think F2P is the way of the future. I wonder if Blizzard can make the switch at this point or if they're in too deep. There is some way to implement microtransactions with SC2 but obviously it doesn't have the same potential as it does in a game like League (where you can buy skins, champions, runes, and more). In SC2 you can't really buy anything game altering so it sucks. I'd have to think a lot more about different things they could add that would be purchasable.
I'll be interested to see if Riot or Valve ever make as much off their F2P games as Blizzard does selling their blockbuster titles. I don't think F2P/micro transactions is more profitable than what Blizz is doing now. My impression is that eSports is still small business compared to Activision/Blizzard.
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Nicely written. I agree on 99% of it . But not to saying IdrA is around. He's that one butthurt guy who talks shit about the game after retiring from sc2 just because he's can't win anymore. I don' really mind his bm in-game before. But meh lost respect to the guy .
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agree with everything except the region locking. i still believe that spreading the koreans increases the overall skill of the pro players in the region. hometown players knocking out established koreans will always be epic as well.
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On September 21 2013 10:25 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2013 09:26 Schism wrote:
I've said it in a few posts around here. They must start looking at having team games at the big tournaments. It should be written in to pro contracts that they play team games. Team games in SC2 can be unbalanced but they are crazy and fun to watch.
Make some bigger team maps to counter the strongest rushes to make sure the games get into the mid-late. Get some maps out there like Dark Continent and Killing Fields from BW - no protected main, no easy expos...throw caution to the wind.
Again, almost anyone can be really good - even elite - at team games. If you're a 70 APM player who can't really bust out of gold or platinum 1v1 but are diamond/master team player, who you gonna watch, the boring rubbish that was Taeja-Innovation finals or a DOTA2/LOL pro game? Because SC2 doesn't offer any competition to those team based games at the moment. It is going to be worse when BAS arrives, SC2 is going to bleed even more. The e-sports community for SC2 needs to do something NOW - not tomorrow, next month, next patch...but now. I just love how you say the community needs to do something NOW yet do nothing yourself except complain how big tournaments don't support your favorite thing. And thanks but no thanks, if i wanted to see a team game designed around it i would watch dota2/lol tournaments, not something tacked on which is clearly not balanced at all.
Love it do you? Where did i say it was my favourite thing? I prefer 1v1, but i don't know how many more "scv all-ins" i can take before i don't care to watch anymore. And what am i supposed to do? I am not a pro, or a GM, or a Blizzard employee or e-sports caster or team owner or sponsor, my input is limited to forums like this.
Team games in SC2 is not "tacked on". I've been playing SC since literally the day SC1 came out and teams is and always has been as legitimate and popular as 1v1. The imbalance in any team games can be largely nullified by better (and bigger) maps. It will never be properly balanced but it can be fun to watch. As opposed to 1v1 pro at the moment which is only slightly unbalanced from patch to patch, but approaching the point where xx% of the games are about as exciting as watching someone else watch paint dry.
People like you are why SC2 will be monstered by MOBA games. I mean...god forbid we try something different to build the popularity of the game, right? We need more one sided boring 1v1 finals like the last 2 major tournaments!
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EPT
