EPTSC2 is one of the more difficult esports out there, and time will tell if it doesn't get supplanted with finger quotes "easier", more accessible and popularist games in the future.
I love this game and the community that partakes of it.
StarCraft II - A Lifecycle - Page 3
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DSK
England1110 Posts
SC2 is one of the more difficult esports out there, and time will tell if it doesn't get supplanted with finger quotes "easier", more accessible and popularist games in the future. I love this game and the community that partakes of it. | ||
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IntoTheEmo
Singapore1169 Posts
Warcraft III deserves a special mention too. It's still my most played RTS of all time, but the scene is extremely niche, even more so than BW. Yet Grubby still streams often and I think Back2Warcraft is still a thing. I enjoyed watching some of that in the past. Heck, my most viewed competitive game right now is Pokemon on Pokemon Showdown lol. What esports? There's no prize pool, it's just literally people playing for the love of Smogon's singles format. I think it comes down to this: Do you really need a high-profile, mega-sponsored esport to validate watching it? If so the game is already doomed. | ||
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Morbidius
Brazil3449 Posts
On June 06 2019 09:35 IntoTheEmo wrote: As long as players have the passion to continue performing at a high level and there's an audience for it, there will always be a scene. Brood War has had it worse - and it even had the infrastructure to accommodate military service with Air Force ACE. Warcraft III deserves a special mention too. It's still my most played RTS of all time, but the scene is extremely niche, even more so than BW. Yet Grubby still streams often and I think Back2Warcraft is still a thing. I enjoyed watching some of that in the past. Heck, my most viewed competitive game right now is Pokemon on Pokemon Showdown lol. What esports? There's no prize pool, it's just literally people playing for the love of Smogon's singles format. I think it comes down to this: Do you really need a high-profile, mega-sponsored esport to validate watching it? If so the game is already doomed. I don't need mega sponsored events but player skill is a huge thing for me, and it hurts to see it falling to where it is now. Look at Innovation, he's the second best Terran in the world by all rights, but he's just a shadow of his former self. And we aren't getting new people fast enough. Maru became king of Korea just by maintaining his high level, Serral is one the one in a million, like Life and Taeja who were extremely gifted. Watching SC2 is still fun, but it definitely has this ''This isn't the real potential this game has'' feeling to it. Just like WoL had. And to people who recite the ''highest skill era'' mantra: The best players fall off in every game and eventually can't compete with new players, you can see it plainly in Brood War how every Bonjwa has both a rise and a fall, around the same time. Now we see this completely stagnated scene, filled with has beens and patch heroes and we have to keep accepting this ''Highest skill era, best game has ever been, best year of Starcraft II so far'' from casters. Its sad. | ||
Excalibur_Z
United States12235 Posts
On June 06 2019 09:35 IntoTheEmo wrote: As long as players have the passion to continue performing at a high level and there's an audience for it, there will always be a scene. Brood War has had it worse - and it even had the infrastructure to accommodate military service with Air Force ACE. Warcraft III deserves a special mention too. It's still my most played RTS of all time, but the scene is extremely niche, even more so than BW. Yet Grubby still streams often and I think Back2Warcraft is still a thing. I enjoyed watching some of that in the past. Heck, my most viewed competitive game right now is Pokemon on Pokemon Showdown lol. What esports? There's no prize pool, it's just literally people playing for the love of Smogon's singles format. I think it comes down to this: Do you really need a high-profile, mega-sponsored esport to validate watching it? If so the game is already doomed. This is a really difficult concept for many people who measure success in Twitch views, cash inflow/outflow, or other such metrics to understand. I was thinking about mentioning this in my earlier post but this is a more opportune time: the fighting game community has a lot of newcomers and bandwagoners who hop from game to game simply based on perceived popularity. Sports-inclined people call these "fair-weather fans" (they're only interested when their game or team is in the spotlight, otherwise they pay no attention). However, the core FGC people always tell newcomers to just play what they like to play. Play what's fun for you. Watch the games that are fun for you to watch. The FGC traditionalists have notoriously recoiled against so-called "esports" efforts and corporate partnerships because they believe that money comes with strings attached and it dilutes the integrity of the competition, that the games will be played by paper-chasers rather than passionate enthusiasts. They tell new people to their scene that if you find a game you like, join a Discord community for it, find a subreddit, play with your crew of 50 people. 20 people. 5 people. There are going to be other people who find the game fun too and are looking for other people to play with, and that's the bottom line. The game will never die as long as people want to play it and want to put effort into finding others with that shared interest. SC2 will never be in that position (especially now that it's F2P) but you're not going to convince a certain contingent of people otherwise. | ||
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IntoTheEmo
Singapore1169 Posts
I can relate to being disappointed with seemingly lower-skilled games Morbidius, that easily applies to BW too since both games have lost their teamhouse environment. But as people have said, innovative discoveries and meta shifts have surfaced time and time again during the BW post-KeSPA years. SC2 is a pretty old game now (I remember first playing it when WoW's then-current expansion was Cataclysm lol, ain't that a throwback) and unfortunately the reality is that not every game gets to be timeless. I've found it easier to just accept that and share in Tastosis's excitement, cause even if they're not entirely accurate about the level of games, it's coming from a place of passion, and great games DO happen on a regular basis. At the end of the day, that's the only thing that matters. | ||
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Excalibur_Z
United States12235 Posts
Is it more fun when more people like the things that you like? Sure, because it means you have more potential friends and associates available to you. But that doesn't mean the bonds you build with a smaller community are any less valuable: if anything, the opposite is true, because you know there are no ulterior motives behind their interest -- it originates from a pure passion to celebrate an enjoyable game with likeminded people. | ||
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GrandSmurf
Netherlands462 Posts
But it's not. I'll agree with you though, It's a small miracle we still have some tournaments, But it's sentiment indeed. Personally, i only watch these tournament because of tastosis are so engaging. not because the game is fun or balanced. | ||
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AlgeriaT
Sweden2195 Posts
I've followed professional SC since ca 2007 and I still find it interesting enough to continue. Sure the scene isn't nearly as big as during peak Broodwar, but it's still very much alive. In some ways more so than a few years ago. This year I've been following GSL with renewed interest. I don't play myself anymore but I perceive the balance to be better than in a long time because the games are more interesting and varied. I still see great players dedicate all their time and energy to come up with new strats and to be the best. I still see the likes of Scarlett, Juanito etc live the adventure and move to Korea to be the best. I see FanTaSy return from the dead aka military service and make it to GSL Ro32 with novel and awesome and fun to watch strats. There are still stories to follow. There's Scarlett the brightest of them all wrestling with her tournament performance since her legendary first appearances in 2014. Again there's anyone else who dares go to Korea and take on the GSL monsters on their home turf. Then there's the stylishness of Dark's Z. The brilliance of Gumiho's T. The rudeness of PartinG's P. And of course there's Serral. There's Wardi, Incontrol, Rotterdam, and Tastosis our eternal godfathers and best friends. On Twitch there's PiG, Neuro, Vibuuu and many more. And there is always, always TL. Without a doubt the most dynamic and loving online community I've ever visited. And of course there are so many more that deserve being mentioned in such a list that I feel almost ashamed not to be doing it. So yeah. Maybe the numbers don't stack up like with other popular games. But we all know those games are more popular because they're easier to play and easier to watch - they offer less depth. Starcraft is still the connoisseur nerd's pick. It provides complexity, challenge and spirit like no other. It is irreplaceable. That's why it survives despite the lower numbers. And why it still produces passionate players and fans, and ever immortal stories. People have been crying dead gaem almost since it was first released. But it is still very much here and alive. So honestly I'm not sure we need a main forum post telling us its not. We should be celebrating what this brilliant game still actually is. Not casting a shadow over it by saying that it "was". | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9487 Posts
On June 06 2019 17:34 AlgeriaT wrote: Blog material imo. Honestly I have trouble seeing why this even needed to be posted. I've followed professional SC since ca 2007 and I still find it interesting enough to continue. Sure the scene isn't nearly as big as during peak Broodwar, but it's still very much alive. In some ways more so than a few years ago. This year I've been following GSL with renewed interest. I don't play myself anymore but I perceive the balance to be better than in a long time because the games are more interesting and varied. I still see great players dedicate all their time and energy to come up with new strats and to be the best. I still see the likes of Scarlett, Juanito etc live the adventure and move to Korea to be the best. I see FanTaSy return from the dead aka military service and make it to GSL Ro32 with novel and awesome and fun to watch strats. There are still stories to follow. There's Scarlett the brightest of them all wrestling with her tournament performance since her legendary first appearances in 2014. Again there's anyone else who dares go to Korea and take on the GSL monsters on their home turf. Then there's the stylishness of Dark's Z. The brilliance of Gumiho's T. The rudeness of PartinG's T. And of course there's Serral. There's Wardi, Incontrol, Rotterdam, and Tastosis our eternal godfathers and best friends. On Twitch there's PiG, Neuro, Vibuuu and many more. And there is always, always TL. Without a doubt the most dynamic and loving online community I've ever visited. And of course there are so many more that deserve being mentioned in such a list that I feel almost ashamed not to be doing it. So yeah. Maybe the numbers don't stack up like with other popular games. But we all know those games are more popular because they're easier to play and easier to watch - they offer less depth. Starcraft is still the connoisseur nerd's pick. It provides complexity, challenge and spirit like no other. It is irreplaceable. That's why it survives despite the lower numbers. And why it still produces passionate players and fans, and ever immortal stories. People have been crying dead gaem almost since it was first released. But it is still very much here and alive. So honestly I'm not sure we need a main forum post telling us its not. We should be celebrating what this brilliant game still actually is. Not casting a shadow over it by saying that it "was". I <3 this post. I don't get why people are complaining. There's plenty of SC2 to watch, playing the game (at plat level I'm at anyway) is still fun and its never hard to find a ladder game - and personally I like the balance of the game where it is now. The community is alive, although slightly less personal than it once was (this forum has changed dramatically and I only started coming here after SC2 was released). I haven't seen any signs of the game dying except that there are fewer big tournaments. The one thing we are missing are big tournaments that mix foreigners and koreans on a regular basis. My favourite days of SC2 were the IPL days and briefly when Shoutcraft Kings came along it reignited that. I don't think its out of the question that something like that will happen again. | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
On June 06 2019 17:34 AlgeriaT wrote: Blog material imo. Honestly I have trouble seeing why this even needed to be posted. This would have been blog material if posted by you or me, not by one of the most recognizable SC2 writers of the past couple of years, not only on TL. If you go to r/starcraft, there is literally a dozen of memes you can post and you will immediately get an upvote bandwagon of mizen hate - so yeah, people do tend to know who he is  Anyway, nothing is constant and nothing even makes sense as constant. I have lived through this marvelous experience of getting fascinated by a game, following it for years and having it as my go-to casual entertainment for evenings at home, cheering for all the various great things that did and did not happen along the way and at the end getting to visit the actual real GSL in person, in the most insane year of my life. But I don't think this would make sense for me to live through again. Life is all about new experiences and despite being a long-time fan, my interest in SC2 is also "dying" - there is simply not that much that hasn't happened already, a lot of stories have been told. I am not unlikely to watch games here and there, but I am also very moch looking for new, unexpected and different things in my life. In the end, the greatest thing that SC2 brought to me was the chance to get to know a bit some very interesting people, including mizen himself, so there is also that! | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6818 Posts
On June 06 2019 17:34 AlgeriaT wrote: Blog material imo. Honestly I have trouble seeing why this even needed to be posted. I've followed professional SC since ca 2007 and I still find it interesting enough to continue. Sure the scene isn't nearly as big as during peak Broodwar, but it's still very much alive. In some ways more so than a few years ago. This year I've been following GSL with renewed interest. I don't play myself anymore but I perceive the balance to be better than in a long time because the games are more interesting and varied. I still see great players dedicate all their time and energy to come up with new strats and to be the best. I still see the likes of Scarlett, Juanito etc live the adventure and move to Korea to be the best. I see FanTaSy return from the dead aka military service and make it to GSL Ro32 with novel and awesome and fun to watch strats. There are still stories to follow. There's Scarlett the brightest of them all wrestling with her tournament performance since her legendary first appearances in 2014. Again there's anyone else who dares go to Korea and take on the GSL monsters on their home turf. Then there's the stylishness of Dark's Z. The brilliance of Gumiho's T. The rudeness of PartinG's T. And of course there's Serral. There's Wardi, Incontrol, Rotterdam, and Tastosis our eternal godfathers and best friends. On Twitch there's PiG, Neuro, Vibuuu and many more. And there is always, always TL. Without a doubt the most dynamic and loving online community I've ever visited. And of course there are so many more that deserve being mentioned in such a list that I feel almost ashamed not to be doing it. So yeah. Maybe the numbers don't stack up like with other popular games. But we all know those games are more popular because they're easier to play and easier to watch - they offer less depth. Starcraft is still the connoisseur nerd's pick. It provides complexity, challenge and spirit like no other. It is irreplaceable. That's why it survives despite the lower numbers. And why it still produces passionate players and fans, and ever immortal stories. People have been crying dead gaem almost since it was first released. But it is still very much here and alive. So honestly I'm not sure we need a main forum post telling us its not. We should be celebrating what this brilliant game still actually is. Not casting a shadow over it by saying that it "was". 5/5 for this blog post <3 This is exactly the way I feel, also I do still play the occasional 2v2 / 3v3 and about a month ago I played 1v1 for the first time in years. I got absolutely demolished xD | ||
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TheSky123
15 Posts
Heart: Completely opposite to Head It was unpleasant and very confusing at first. However, i think it has been easier for me now. Just accept the current stage of SC2 and look at other "dead games": they still have loyal fans, they are still fun to them. So it wiil be the same to SC2 as long as there are people love to play the game. Just ease your mind and enjoy the game. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + On June 06 2019 17:34 AlgeriaT wrote: Blog material imo. Honestly I have trouble seeing why this even needed to be posted. I've followed professional SC since ca 2007 and I still find it interesting enough to continue. Sure the scene isn't nearly as big as during peak Broodwar, but it's still very much alive. In some ways more so than a few years ago. This year I've been following GSL with renewed interest. I don't play myself anymore but I perceive the balance to be better than in a long time because the games are more interesting and varied. I still see great players dedicate all their time and energy to come up with new strats and to be the best. I still see the likes of Scarlett, Juanito etc live the adventure and move to Korea to be the best. I see FanTaSy return from the dead aka military service and make it to GSL Ro32 with novel and awesome and fun to watch strats. There are still stories to follow. There's Scarlett the brightest of them all wrestling with her tournament performance since her legendary first appearances in 2014. Again there's anyone else who dares go to Korea and take on the GSL monsters on their home turf. Then there's the stylishness of Dark's Z. The brilliance of Gumiho's T. The rudeness of PartinG's T. And of course there's Serral. There's Wardi, Incontrol, Rotterdam, and Tastosis our eternal godfathers and best friends. On Twitch there's PiG, Neuro, Vibuuu and many more. And there is always, always TL. Without a doubt the most dynamic and loving online community I've ever visited. And of course there are so many more that deserve being mentioned in such a list that I feel almost ashamed not to be doing it. So yeah. Maybe the numbers don't stack up like with other popular games. But we all know those games are more popular because they're easier to play and easier to watch - they offer less depth. Starcraft is still the connoisseur nerd's pick. It provides complexity, challenge and spirit like no other. It is irreplaceable. That's why it survives despite the lower numbers. And why it still produces passionate players and fans, and ever immortal stories. People have been crying dead gaem almost since it was first released. But it is still very much here and alive. So honestly I'm not sure we need a main forum post telling us its not. We should be celebrating what this brilliant game still actually is. Not casting a shadow over it by saying that it "was". I don't think it's about numbers. Let's see it from the little more pessimistic view, shall we? 1) When you're gone, stay gone. (I must admit that in the Czech version of Pulp Fiction this sounds better as we have "You will disappear and stay disappeared" )We had godfathers and big figures before. We lost them, many suddenly and without announcement(looking at you Husky). Day9, Husky, Apollo(although...), itmeJP(although...), Destiny(although...). Not all of them went away from SC2, but they moved from mostly SC2 content. So people are afraid, especially those who remember these people. We're not talking about people without a proper viewerbase. Also all the tournaments we have lost so far. Man, there was a time when it was actually too many and the tournament organizers had issues of finding free tournament dates! Now? We lost so many  2) The sound of silence. The sound of silence coming from Blizzard is deafening(not sure if this is the proper English phrase, but we use it in Czech so deal with it  ). We had blue posts for less than what's happening in the current state of SC2. I remember we had posts like "we don't know how to fix it, but we're looking into it". Now? Nothing. Silence...3) All the shine of a thousand spotlights, all the stars we steal from the nightsky, will never be enough Let's face it, in the last 6 months we heard terrible-terrible news from Blizzard. Mike ended. He was the face of the "we love Starcraft". Big lay offs. Heroes cancellation. Personal changes. Now another bad news. It looks like there's a never ending stream of bad news coming from or about Blizzard. And we know SC2 isn't doing great in the great scheme of things. And this makes us nervous. I'm not sure, but I think even the WCS got slight cut offs. If Blizzard decide to remove their money support(and remember, Heroes got no warnings!), we will lose people. Are you sure all of the people you named can live without the Blizzard support? Don't forget Artosis has a family  I don't know, nobody except them knows. Considering #1 people are afraid.4) And believe me I am still alive, I'm doing science and I'm still alive I feel fantastic and I'm still alive, while you're dying I'll be still alive And when you're dead I'll be still alive. Still alive. Let's not be all gloom & doom. The game will prevail, the community will survive, the game will survive(until Blizzard turns off the servers  ). When Blizz removes money then we will lose some people. That's for sure. We will lose all the fancy tournaments. But there will be community tournaments, even if not that big. There will be some players, smaller games have them. There will be streamers(I would bet my left testicle that Winter or Neuro won't be affected as they're not that much connected to Blizz money as Tastosis seems to be(e.g.)). The game will be alive. Just not as fancy and shiny as now Many people realize #4. They know the game won't die. They just don't want to lose what we have now. Maybe we're just old & grumpy + Show Spoiler + Death comes with the life, it's granted. SC2 was dying from the start because it had the best possible start which, sadly, didn't fullfil the requirements of many. We lost many players/viewers until the game stabilized. it's fine to talk about the death of SC2 in a calm and human(uhm..) way. As long as we don't pronounce it dead before it actually dies. | ||
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Thaniri
1264 Posts
I have no kind words to say about threads like this. We've been having these conversations for 7 years in this community. Back when Destiny went on his SoTG rant it might have mattered. At this point, who cares? https://tl.net/blogs/334009-i-hate-esports If you want to support this game, the only way forward is to support it with your wallet. The viewers to make this a thriving industry aren't there and they won't be there by making blog posts like this. Buy warchests to support WCS. Crowdfund Homestory Cup. Subscribe to some twitch streamers. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24430 Posts
SC2 comes and with Twitch becomes interconnected and accessible to a level that I would have thought unfathomable science fiction when I was first playing games online, and even a retraction subsequently is still pretty crazy big to people of my age I imagine, and people older than me even more so. Other games may be bigger, they have much worse communities because of it in my view. Eventually you have too many faces, and everything gets swallowed up. I like being able to browse TL and recognise posters that have been around for years, have a sense of who they are, what their biases are etc. You can’t scale that up indefinitely IMO On the game itself, I like me RTS games, I don’t see that changing. I don’t stop liking jazz because it’s not as big as the newest hottest pop star. | ||
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renaissanceMAN
United States1840 Posts
On June 07 2019 01:08 Wombat_NI wrote: I can’t really speak for anyone other than myself. My first online gaming experience was in 1997 I believe with Diablo 1. played Starcraft really casually for fun without even knowing it had a burgeoning community. Then came Warcraft 3 and being in forums similar to this, syncing replays to audio files because full video was too awkward and slow to upload and download. SC2 comes and with Twitch becomes interconnected and accessible to a level that I would have thought unfathomable science fiction when I was first playing games online, and even a retraction subsequently is still pretty crazy big to people of my age I imagine, and people older than me even more so. Other games may be bigger, they have much worse communities because of it in my view. Eventually you have too many faces, and everything gets swallowed up. I like being able to browse TL and recognise posters that have been around for years, have a sense of who they are, what their biases are etc. You can’t scale that up indefinitely IMO On the game itself, I like me RTS games, I don’t see that changing. I don’t stop liking jazz because it’s not as big as the newest hottest pop star. You like Jazz? Eww! (just kidding) ~~~ This is probably closest to how I feel though--I'll continue to enjoy the game, and continue to hope the community/scene prospers and grows while recognizing that SC2's time as 'the game' has passed. | ||
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Proko
United States1022 Posts
The game is alive, the balance will change, the scene will have to live on it's own passion and dollars. | ||
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gTank
Austria2551 Posts
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IshinShishi
Japan6156 Posts
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feardragon
United States970 Posts
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