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United States1804 Posts
These are my personal feelings and not a reflection of anyone else on the Teamliquid writing staff or the people who maintain the website, moderate the forums or work on liquipedia.
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StarCraft II has been dying for a very long time.
StarCraft II was dying in late Wings of Liberty when sponsors’ interest waned and the money started to dry up. StarCraft II was dying in Heart of the Swarm when independent tournament series dropped StarCraft II from their roster.
StarCraft II was dying in 2016 when Life squandered the momentum of 2015 by tainting StarCraft II. Major sponsors no wanted a part of the game. Proleague 2016 was a stillborn baby and at the end of the year it died for good. StarCraft II was dying in 2016 because mediocre players no longer had the support of teams and the scene shrunk.
StarCraft II was dying in 2017 because teams could not longer offer players liveable salaries. High profile players went from earning tens of thousands to hundreds a month. StarCraft II was dying in 2018 when Hot6ix finally got off the sinking ship that was GSL. StarCraft II was dying in 2018 because Spo couldn’t raise the funds to run SSL without Blizzard support. At this point Blizzard is the only thing keeping StarCraft II alive, internationally or Korean.
When you think back, StarCraft II has been on hospice since 2014 when people began to realize that the KeSPA B-Teamers were never going to be able to replace the stars. There wasn’t some big influx of new players. All the people who suggest Blizzard should fund some grassroots effort to get new talent in the scene are being unrealistic. There is no young talent. Why would any kid who was talented at video games pick up StarCraft II and start a dead end career when there was more money in League or Overwatch.
But what really did StarCraft II in was eventuality. Military service was always on the horizon. Eventually all the players we’ve come to adore would have to pick up and get on with their lives. A lot of people thought it was a sad thing. I always felt otherwise. Yes, StarCraft II players had given their hearts and bodies to the games. Yes, they’d mortgaged their future for something fleeting. But now they were finally able to move on. Find a partner, have children, whatever, it doesn’t matter. We always knew this was coming. And when the big wave or retirements happened StarCraft II would finally expire.
I’m not going to talk about balance or the way Blizzard handled region lock, tournaments or anything else. If it were just about numbers they probably would have shut down professional StarCraft II along time ago. They care about the game. Sentiment is the only reason we still have tournaments with cash prizes to watch.
I was never bothered by the fact that StarCraft II was dying. Nothing lasts forever. Everything dies. I can’t blame people who aggressively claimed StarCraft II was doing fine, or that it was flourishing. But I do feel like they were hiding the truth from themselves. They wanted StarCraft II to be something it wasn’t. They needed it be something it wasn’t because of something inside of themselves. Some even went so far as to ostracized and vilify those who denied the claims of StarCraft II’s well being. What caused all this? I couldn’t tell you and I’m not going to guess. People do all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons.
I just never understood why they needed StarCraft II to be something more. I loved StarCraft for what it was. StarCraft II gave us amazing games, intense rivalries, lasting moments and players whose stories were worth telling and retelling over and over. StarCraft II was a great game even if it was dying. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
We should celebrate StarCraft. We should remember the things that made us love it. The connection we had with a particular unit, the attachment we made to a team. The vigor with which we cheered for our favorite players, and the emotion we felt when people achieved their dreams. Whether it was becoming a champion or just playing, players got to experience something special for a few years. That’s what StarCraft II was. It was dying for a long time, but it was special and I know many people loved it.
I didn’t edit this or make any grammatical corrections so some things might not make perfect sense or sound as clean as they could. I wanted to put my feelings to paper, not write some carefully constructed article my editors would pick apart and overhaul. Take whatever you want from this musing. I’ve loved StarCraft II and it will be with me for a very long time. I hope some of you have felt the same attachment to it that I have. Thank you for reading.
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Seven years is quite a long time for a death animation; some games that could potentially become Esports die out entirely in few months.
Blizzard is the only one providing funds at the moment, but would indipendent tournament have saved Starcraft if the game was deemed a failure and Blizzard's support was abandoned when the game was at its apex in 2011/2012?
If we speak about general interest and the rise of new players, Korean scene has been truly dying; western scene resurrected in LoTV and western audience is responsible for the increase of viewers in the last years.
Considering how atrocious the last decade has been for the RTS genre, Starcraft 2 enjoyed both amazing success and a long lifespan.
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https://www.rankedftw.com/stats/population/1v1/#v=2&r=-2&sy=c&sx=a
Which Data did you use?
Yes, Sc2 did not speak to the same audience BW spoke too. A lot of people that wanted sc2 to be BW have left. As long as there is a huge playerbase (highest peak in 6 years (which is as far as that Data dates back); just 120 days ago) a new competitive scene should be able to form, no? This feels more like the old guard dying out, but I only spent 3 seconds typing something into google, since I couldn't figure out how you could confidently make these statements.
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your statement, "everything dies" is the most telling one that you wrote here. if an esport dying is a similar fate for all esports, except league of legends now, what is the true significance of highlighting it then?
is it just sentiment, or do people genuinely enjoying the game hold it up higher and also hope for more to come?
there's nothing wrong or unrealistic about that, is there?
as you don't understand why people defend against "game is dead" (we've all known and partially treated it this way for years), i don't understand the insistence that it is dying.
the statement itself doesn't mean anything other than the person not enjoying the game anymore (and usually finding escape in this way), or it is to acknowledge the fact that everything comes to an end. normally this doesn't accomplish anything at all.
it is like saying overpopulation or extreme crime messes up a city, but from an outside point of view.
if you didn't live or work there, you wouldn't know that there are millions of people that try their hardest to continue living there. you don't describe that as sentiment or whatever, because that is simply too easy and it is too plain and obvious.
it is also a little ignorant to do so in that example.
there are just a lot of conditions, and it's life. it doesn't change the fact that it's dying, but neither does highlighting it.
i'm sorry, it's just a "what does that impart?", or "why is that important?" sort of feeling for me. nothing positive is usually gained from this mentality, other than personal closure.
obviously what you say here is in the opposite direction. you are saying that we should appreciate it for how far it got and what it could give us in its lifetime. it's also obvious enough that you believe it is in its twilight years.
i think a takeaway, aside from any personal lessons learned from the game,
is that some games are better played than watched (looking at fortnite and mobile games), and then you have games like starcraft that are better watched than played.
the future of esports depends on popularity first and foremost, and then having a genuinely good spectator game.
i think RTS will always have a place because it is perfect for commentary and assessment.
team games have a wider scope because more players are involved. it doesn't make it any less demanding than a solo game. it actually means the ceiling is extremely intricate and high because of involvement and the number of factors at hand. but still, there is only one point of view you can follow at a time.
the pacing was always important for an esport and RTS hits this sweet spot perfectly IMO.
i just hope next time the bubble doesn't occur. the industry as a whole is realistic with their investment, and tournament organizers are able to make money from beginning to end without scaling back on cost and experience.
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As long as queue times are as short as they are right now, I think the game is very much alive. The "sc2 is dying" crowd doesn't know what an actual dead game looks like. Now if you were to say the professional sc2 scene is dying, that's something I can see happening in the upcoming few years. But right now everything seems pretty alive.
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I counter this with the theory that SC2 will outlive most popular games on the market right now with few exceptions (mainly CS and LoL)
I think Starcraft will still be kicking when Fortnite is long forgotten. My reasoning beeing that Starcraft is and will be the most unique game and experience there is. Nothing comes even close.
Maybe we don't have the prize pool of "The International" or the fame of Fortnite. But all people still following Starcraft will continue to do so. Most of the fanbase of a Fortnite or a Apex Legends will jump to the next best thing as soon as something new and exciting comes up. Just as it happened with PUBG and multiple times before that.
Edit: 2000 posts, whoop :D
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Canada8988 Posts
I don't get why we should turn back into "starcraft is dead let's celebrate it and pass to something else"
Is the esports scene with firework, spinning camera and overserious commentary last for long? Most likely not.
It dosen't mean we should just abandonned something we loved, it's not a reason to stop talking about it with friend, continue that endless grind, keep whatching the best of the best whoever they are.
If it was the esport scene that you like, then that's fine, I'm sure a lot of people are the same, but it's not the same as loving the game in itself.
Starcraft isn't a person, it can't die on it's own, it's only dependable on the people using it.
If there's no more tournament, why not make a lan or an online cup? Starcraft 2 will die when everyone has abandonned it, as long as peoplr care about it, animate it, organize tournament ect... We will be able to enjoy it not in the form of nostalgia of the flashy light, but as an actual game we keep playing.
Edit: Congratz on the 2000!
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Bisutopia19213 Posts
During the SC:BW forced transition with KESPA I had a very brief moment of anger and despair thinking it was over and I was just going to add another rage quit blog to the TL forums. I thought really hard about what Starcraft meant to me and what value it added to my life. Then I thought about what value I could add back into Starcraft.
This last thought helped me sink my feet back into the ground and double down on my involvement in the community and games. To be honest, the Sonic years of Starcraft are some of my best and most memorable years. I got close with a ton of community members and we experienced Starcraft in a more intimate way. The players were more amateurish and lesser known, but the games were equally fun and the new personalities such as Sonic/Brittany/Terror really made it an amazing time to be a Brood War fan. And every fan that was left, was a true, blindly in love fan of the game. So arguably at its worst I was enjoying Brood War the most.
I bring this up because I am a big SC2 fan too. I was doing Kespa Proleague banners and LR threads before SC2 had it's own legendary LR champions. I attended MLGs and Red Bull tournaments too. There's not a doubt in my mind that no matter what level of "death" you are going to say SC2 has reached, that something equally great will grow out of it. There are too many of us that are willing to rally together and keep the torch alive if Blizzard ceases to carry the flame.
My advice to Starcraft 2 lovers, as someone who has much experience with this, is to not engage in the "SC2 is dead or dying discussion". There's no point to it and no point in getting worked up about those who say it is. You can't convince them to think otherwise, but engaging with them can certainly take you to a dark and angry place. Instead, periodically ask how you can get involved even if it means just being a casual fan and turning on a stream to help players and casters get their views. SC2 has a long future that fans should be looking forward to.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On June 04 2019 22:33 Harris1st wrote:
I counter this with the theory that SC2 will outlive most popular games on the market right now with few exceptions (mainly CS and LoL)
I think Starcraft will still be kicking when Fortnite is long forgotten. My reasoning beeing that Starcraft is and will be the most unique game and experience there is. Nothing comes even close.
Maybe we don't have the prize pool of "The International" or the fame of Fortnite. But all people still following Starcraft will continue to do so. Most of the fanbase of a Fortnite or a Apex Legends will jump to the next best thing as soon as something new and exciting comes up. Just as it happened with PUBG and multiple times before that.
Edit: 2000 posts, whoop :D
it won't die in the meaning there won't be any streams or tournaments. But without Blizzard there's no GSL, Blizzcon and WCS. We would probably get the HSC and maybe some backstage at IEM. The community would be still around but don't fool around, the community won't keep the game where it is now on the quality we're getting.
On June 04 2019 22:58 Nakajin wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I don't get why we should turn back into "starcraft is dead let's celebrate it and pass to something else"
Is the esports scene with firework, spinning camera and overserious commentary last for long? Most likely not.
It dosen't mean we should just abandonned something we loved, it's not a reason to stop talking about it with friend, continue that endless grind, keep whatching the best of the best whoever they are.
If it was the esport scene that you like, then that's fine, I'm sure a lot of people are the same, but it's not the same as loving the game in itself. Starcraft isn't a person, it can't die on it's own, it's only dependable on the people using it. If there's no more tournament, why not make a lan or an online cup? Starcraft 2 will die when everyone has abandonned it, as long as peoplr care about it, animate it, organize tournament ect... We will be able to enjoy it not in the form of nostalgia of the flashy light, but as an actual game we keep playing. + Show Spoiler +Edit: Congratz on the 2000!
It doesn't have the LAN, if Blizzard stops servers we need a replacement. That's one thing I don't hate EU for - they are asking providers of such services to release a "repair" manual to get the thing going on. Because once they turn off the service our copies will be useless for the multi player because the only server code is on the Blizzard side.
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A blog written by a writer is still a blog come on guys
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I would not say it has been dying for a long time. I would say there were serious issues that were not addressed around 2013 that led to a steep decline in the game and it is now on the verge of dying. Maybe that is semantics, but oh well. What has concerned and still does concern me the most is all of the people (personalities/casters/etc) around 2012-2014 who kept telling us day in and day out that there was nothing wrong with starcraft and that we were just being negative and that we should just leave if we feel that way. Now they pretend it is our fault and that they were messiahs who knew what was going to happen. I won't name names but there is a reason I don't admin tournaments anymore and why I watch less than I used to (I miss the 2012 days of a tournament of some kind nearly every day). Starcraft two will make it to the next decade in all likelihood, but right now it is being picked at by vultures trying to get what money they can out of the carcass until it rots away.
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Admittedly, the Korean scene's days are numbered but last year, the viewership went up significantly after SC2 became free to play so if Blizzard keeps supporting the scene (which is uncertain sadly), I think Korean scene has maybe 2 years left but the foreign scene has potential to have many more years. Whether or not SC2 lasts for many years, I agree that it had a good run.
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On June 04 2019 21:43 naughtDE wrote:https://www.rankedftw.com/stats/population/1v1/#v=2&r=-2&sy=c&sx=aWhich Data did you use? Yes, Sc2 did not speak to the same audience BW spoke too. A lot of people that wanted sc2 to be BW have left. As long as there is a huge playerbase (highest peak in 6 years (which is as far as that Data dates back); just 120 days ago) a new competitive scene should be able to form, no? This feels more like the old guard dying out, but I only spent 3 seconds typing something into google, since I couldn't figure out how you could confidently make these statements.
I agree that 2018 was actually a good year for the scene, probably thanks to SC2 being free to play and Serral. Problem is the Koreans are almost irreplaceable. There might be a new group of foreign players coming up but it is unlikely they will fill the void left by Koreans going to the military. I can see the scene lasting with just the foreign scene and I think it would still be very entertaining but if Korean scene fades to the point where GSL is gone, I don't know about anyone else but that would greatly reduce my interest in the pro scene.
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On June 04 2019 20:38 Mizenhauer wrote:
Sentiment is the only reason we still have tournaments with cash prizes to watch.
believe it or not, but Starcraft is still very important for their brand. Since several years the ROI is not about money. Providing a certain amount of money to keep sc2 around is still a business decision.
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On June 05 2019 06:22 Anc13nt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2019 21:43 naughtDE wrote:https://www.rankedftw.com/stats/population/1v1/#v=2&r=-2&sy=c&sx=aWhich Data did you use? Yes, Sc2 did not speak to the same audience BW spoke too. A lot of people that wanted sc2 to be BW have left. As long as there is a huge playerbase (highest peak in 6 years (which is as far as that Data dates back); just 120 days ago) a new competitive scene should be able to form, no? This feels more like the old guard dying out, but I only spent 3 seconds typing something into google, since I couldn't figure out how you could confidently make these statements. I agree that 2018 was actually a good year for the scene, probably thanks to SC2 being free to play and Serral. Problem is the Koreans are almost irreplaceable. There might be a new group of foreign players coming up but it is unlikely they will fill the void left by Koreans going to the military. I can see the scene lasting with just the foreign scene and I think it would still be very entertaining but if Korean scene fades to the point where GSL is gone, I don't know about anyone else but that would greatly reduce my interest in the pro scene.
Undeniably, the Korean scene adds immense value to the Pro scene and it's demise will be a loss.
Maybe that is what I misunderstood about Mizenhauer's post, that the dead game meme refers to the Pro scene, since player base numbers are up and up and I enjoy the new faces that keep popping up in the western scene.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On June 04 2019 23:59 Elentos wrote:
A blog written by a writer is still a blog come on guys
SC2General section isn't the Blog section, so we can be more cereal 
On June 05 2019 06:09 Anc13nt wrote:
Admittedly, the Korean scene's days are numbered but last year, the viewership went up significantly after SC2 became free to play so if Blizzard keeps supporting the scene (which is uncertain sadly), I think Korean scene has maybe 2 years left but the foreign scene has potential to have many more years. Whether or not SC2 lasts for many years, I agree that it had a good run.
Uhm, no? Let's say that the GSL and Korean scene collapses in this year and by the Blizzcon there's no JAGW and most Korean players are in the military.
So, what happens to the WCS? First of all - there won't be any threat for Serral. Let's be real, Serral's major threat are Koreans, not foreigners. Foreigners can win from time to time, but the major enemies are in Korea. This will make the WCS(foreigner scene) uninteresting(there's nothing more boring than knowing how it ends).
Also, without Koreans you lose many "elitist" who are watching WCS too just because they're interested in the game and it's in a good time slot.
Without the Korean scene foreign scene won't survive for long. Will it kill SC2 scene? No. But it will be really bad for foreign scene ;-)
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On June 05 2019 18:07 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2019 23:59 Elentos wrote:
A blog written by a writer is still a blog come on guys SC2General section isn't the Blog section, so we can be more cereal Show nested quote +On June 05 2019 06:09 Anc13nt wrote:
Admittedly, the Korean scene's days are numbered but last year, the viewership went up significantly after SC2 became free to play so if Blizzard keeps supporting the scene (which is uncertain sadly), I think Korean scene has maybe 2 years left but the foreign scene has potential to have many more years. Whether or not SC2 lasts for many years, I agree that it had a good run. Uhm, no? Let's say that the GSL and Korean scene collapses in this year and by the Blizzcon there's no JAGW and most Korean players are in the military. So, what happens to the WCS? First of all - there won't be any threat for Serral. Let's be real, Serral's major threat are Koreans, not foreigners. Foreigners can win from time to time, but the major enemies are in Korea. This will make the WCS(foreigner scene) uninteresting(there's nothing more boring than knowing how it ends). Also, without Koreans you lose many "elitist" who are watching WCS too just because they're interested in the game and it's in a good time slot. Without the Korean scene foreign scene won't survive for long. Will it kill SC2 scene? No. But it will be really bad for foreign scene ;-)
I guess I have to remind you Serral lost to Reynor which you loudly celebrated.
And wtf are you saying, elitists (it's pretty telling how you designate yourself) would never commit the sacrilege of watching unholy foreigner play. Eu scene don't need them at all. I dare say these departures would do good as it would lower the gatekeeping of the overall community.
As a heretic, I really enjoy watching the small tournament of my country like the underdogs (and before the different lans). Rly, there is nothing more satisfactory than following the regular progress of a player like Stephano, Dayshi, Denver, Ptitdrogo, Clem, and then seeing them performing on bigger stage. Sc2 is not necesserily only about big names you know.
That said, as I am not really into this artificial koreans vs foreigners war, seeing the difficulties of the korean scene makes me sad.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On June 05 2019 20:56 stilt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2019 18:07 deacon.frost wrote:On June 04 2019 23:59 Elentos wrote:
A blog written by a writer is still a blog come on guys SC2General section isn't the Blog section, so we can be more cereal On June 05 2019 06:09 Anc13nt wrote:
Admittedly, the Korean scene's days are numbered but last year, the viewership went up significantly after SC2 became free to play so if Blizzard keeps supporting the scene (which is uncertain sadly), I think Korean scene has maybe 2 years left but the foreign scene has potential to have many more years. Whether or not SC2 lasts for many years, I agree that it had a good run. Uhm, no? Let's say that the GSL and Korean scene collapses in this year and by the Blizzcon there's no JAGW and most Korean players are in the military. So, what happens to the WCS? First of all - there won't be any threat for Serral. Let's be real, Serral's major threat are Koreans, not foreigners. Foreigners can win from time to time, but the major enemies are in Korea. This will make the WCS(foreigner scene) uninteresting(there's nothing more boring than knowing how it ends). Also, without Koreans you lose many "elitist" who are watching WCS too just because they're interested in the game and it's in a good time slot. Without the Korean scene foreign scene won't survive for long. Will it kill SC2 scene? No. But it will be really bad for foreign scene ;-) I guess I have to remind you Serral lost to Reynor which you loudly celebrated. And wtf are you saying, elitists (it's pretty telling how you designate yourself) would never commit the sacrilege of watching unholy foreigner play. Eu scene don't need them at all. I dare say these departures would do good as it would lower the gatekeeping of the overall community. As a heretic, I really enjoy watching the small tournament of my country like the underdogs (and before the different lans). Rly, there is nothing more satisfactory than following the regular progress of a player like Stephano, Dayshi, Denver, Ptitdrogo, Clem, and then seeing them performing on bigger stage. Sc2 is not necesserily only about big names you know. That said, as I am not really into this artificial koreans vs foreigners war, seeing the difficulties of the korean scene makes me sad.
I guess I have to remind you I wrote Foreigners can win from time to time . I acknowledged this. but the biggest chances are in the Korea. So don't say otherwise and don't twist my words into something I didn't write.
Some people watch mostly Koreans and then WCS. But their primal target is the GSL. WIth GSL collabsing I can see them going away from SC2 which isn't good when you lose the Blizzard support and you need EVERY. Possible. Viewer.
Also I am not the one who started saying about the Korean SC2 fans being elitists, that's why the quotation marks.
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I miss 2010-2012 SC2. We had multiple MLGs, IPL, NASL, GSL, GSTL, Code S, Code A. IEM, Dreamhack etc. SO many tournaments.
We had EG Team House and all the drama to go along with it. I miss those times.
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Blizzard squandered Starcraft II.
Starcraft II started with so much hope. There was a time when Starcraft II was a top esport. But as time wore on, Blizzard seem incapable of managing their game. WOL bounced from countless bunker changes to the 4 Gate to the 1-1-1 to the Soultrain to Broodlord Infestor ect. Blizzard only had band aid solutions to these problems in Heart of the Swarm, like Photon Overcharge. And as a result of these band aids, we got hours long Swarm Host snooze fests.
It was a masterclass in how not to design a game, during the very time League was producing articles on how to design games! LOTV fixed some of these issues, but there are still very poor game design mechanics present in the game.
And people stopped watching and playing because the game went from promising to boring and frustrating.
It was always about the quality of the game. And it started off so promising. But Starcraft was mismanaged by the hubris of Dustin Browder and David Kim, who thought that people would like ladder specific maps like Acid Plant, that players just needed to figure how to deal with all-ins that had perplexed professionals for months. And of course, they thought the technology just wasn't there yet for basic features like ingame chat rooms.
Telling the tale of Starcraft II without talking about Blizzard's hubris is telling an incomplete story.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On June 05 2019 22:23 BronzeKnee wrote:
Blizzard squandered Starcraft II.
Starcraft II started with so much hope. There was a time when Starcraft II was a top esport. But as time wore on, Blizzard seem incapable of managing their game. WOL bounced from countless bunker changes to the 4 Gate to the 1-1-1 to the Soultrain to Broodlord Infestor ect. Blizzard only had band aid solutions to these problems in Heart of the Swarm, like Photon Overcharge. And as a result of these band aids, we got hours long Swarm Host snooze fests.
It was a masterclass in how not to design a game, during the very time League was producing articles on how to design games! LOTV fixed some of these issues, but there are still very poor game design mechanics present in the game.
And people stopped watching and playing because the game went from promising to boring and frustrating.
It was always about the quality of the game. And it started off so promising. But Starcraft was mismanaged by the hubris of Dustin Browder and David Kim, who thought that people would like ladder specific maps like Acid Plant, that players just needed to figure how to deal with all-ins that had perplexed professionals for months. And of course, they thought the technology wasn't there yet for basic features like ingame chat rooms.
Telling the tale of Starcraft II without talking about Blizzard's hubris is telling an incomplete story.
The biggest player drop was IMO in WoL. I wouldn't blame HotS or LotV that much. Also in our country there's a saying, that you cannot build a good house on a bad bottom. And WoL beta/WoL is the lowest layer who should have been the best for the games which are built on it.
(Maybe I did a wrong translation)
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Yes, Blizzard's inability to handle the problems created by boring playstyles that limited counterplay options in WOL was the beginning of the end. That is when people started to leave.
HOTS seemed like last big chance to fix the issues and redeem the game, and instead it made the game worse.
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Canada8988 Posts
On June 05 2019 22:23 BronzeKnee wrote:
Blizzard squandered Starcraft II.
Starcraft II started with so much hope. There was a time when Starcraft II was a top esport. But as time wore on, Blizzard seem incapable of managing their game. WOL bounced from countless bunker changes to the 4 Gate to the 1-1-1 to the Soultrain to Broodlord Infestor ect. Blizzard only had band aid solutions to these problems in Heart of the Swarm, like Photon Overcharge. And as a result of these band aids, we got hours long Swarm Host snooze fests.
It was a masterclass in how not to design a game, during the very time League was producing articles on how to design games! LOTV fixed some of these issues, but there are still very poor game design mechanics present in the game.
And people stopped watching and playing because the game went from promising to boring and frustrating.
It was always about the quality of the game. And it started off so promising. But Starcraft was mismanaged by the hubris of Dustin Browder and David Kim, who thought that people would like ladder specific maps like Acid Plant, that players just needed to figure how to deal with all-ins that had perplexed professionals for months. And of course, they thought the technology just wasn't there yet for basic features like ingame chat rooms.
Telling the tale of Starcraft II without talking about Blizzard's hubris is telling an incomplete story.
I don't think it ever mostly about the quality of the game, people just went to play something else and SC2 didn't have the agressive marketing of CSGO or the free to play and already huge player base of Moba. And as for HOTS problems, well it certainly existed but as a medium player (between gold and diamon) it wasn't really a factor. Hours long game with swarmhost almost never happen to me, and while I sucked against P it certainly wasn't because of the MSC, but mostly cause I couldn't split for shit agaisnt storm and collosus or play with ghost. (It maybe is a more fundamental problem of SC2 but thats another question)
Balance problems don't affect most players.
Valve STILL don't have a legit match making system, you have to pay external server to play CSGO without half the player hacking or sucking ass and you can't host a lobby on valve server, yet it's doing just fine.
Also I'm pretty sure Acid Plant came to the map pool after DK and Browder left the game, but I get your point.
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On June 05 2019 22:23 BronzeKnee wrote:
Blizzard squandered Starcraft II.
Starcraft II started with so much hope. There was a time when Starcraft II was a top esport. But as time wore on, Blizzard seem incapable of managing their game. WOL bounced from countless bunker changes to the 4 Gate to the 1-1-1 to the Soultrain to Broodlord Infestor ect. Blizzard only had band aid solutions to these problems in Heart of the Swarm, like Photon Overcharge. And as a result of these band aids, we got hours long Swarm Host snooze fests.
It was a masterclass in how not to design a game, during the very time League was producing articles on how to design games! LOTV fixed some of these issues, but there are still very poor game design mechanics present in the game.
And people stopped watching and playing because the game went from promising to boring and frustrating.
It was always about the quality of the game. And it started off so promising. But Starcraft was mismanaged by the hubris of Dustin Browder and David Kim, who thought that people would like ladder specific maps like Acid Plant, that players just needed to figure how to deal with all-ins that had perplexed professionals for months. And of course, they thought the technology just wasn't there yet for basic features like ingame chat rooms.
Telling the tale of Starcraft II without talking about Blizzard's hubris is telling an incomplete story.
I cannot agree more, i think most of the good design SC2 has comes from the exceptional race design in the original. Their new units proved to be a mess time and again, the maps were horrible, the balance was an atrocity. Instead of designing Heart of the Swarm as a real expansion and adress problems with the game they used it as a paid patch to fix Broodlord/Infestor. Only after releasing legacy of the void, with the glorious tankivacs and adepts, the clowns had to admit that what they were seeing was the final product, and that it was a mess. By then it was a niche esport and kespa had one foot at the door.
On June 05 2019 23:08 Nakajin wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2019 22:23 BronzeKnee wrote:
Blizzard squandered Starcraft II.
Starcraft II started with so much hope. There was a time when Starcraft II was a top esport. But as time wore on, Blizzard seem incapable of managing their game. WOL bounced from countless bunker changes to the 4 Gate to the 1-1-1 to the Soultrain to Broodlord Infestor ect. Blizzard only had band aid solutions to these problems in Heart of the Swarm, like Photon Overcharge. And as a result of these band aids, we got hours long Swarm Host snooze fests.
It was a masterclass in how not to design a game, during the very time League was producing articles on how to design games! LOTV fixed some of these issues, but there are still very poor game design mechanics present in the game.
And people stopped watching and playing because the game went from promising to boring and frustrating.
It was always about the quality of the game. And it started off so promising. But Starcraft was mismanaged by the hubris of Dustin Browder and David Kim, who thought that people would like ladder specific maps like Acid Plant, that players just needed to figure how to deal with all-ins that had perplexed professionals for months. And of course, they thought the technology just wasn't there yet for basic features like ingame chat rooms.
Telling the tale of Starcraft II without talking about Blizzard's hubris is telling an incomplete story. Also I'm pretty sure Acid Plant came to the map pool after DK and Browder left the game, but I get your point.
I think he might be refering to Slag Pits, its kinda similar to Acid Plant(only in a cosmetic way)
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Yes, I meant Slag Pits.
On June 05 2019 23:08 Nakajin wrote:
Balance problems don't affect most players.
I think a lot people confuse balance and game design. A game can be balanced without being well designed. However, a well designed game is relatively balanced.
That being said, people see balance and assume good game design. Bad game design is power without gameplay (Photon Overcharge), lack of counterplay ect... A game can have those elements and still be balanced.
So it really isn't about balance. Yes, the MSC solved some certain balance problems Protoss was having in the early game, but it did that through gameplay that utterly lacked skill and was bad design. As a Protoss player I was frustrated that all my hard work in WOL in learning to hold different timings via scouting, positioning and micro was rendered useless by simply clicking a button and pressing on a Pylon in the HOTS beta. I felt skill being drained out the game, even if the MSC happened to improve balance at times.
That was frustrating, and by that time WOL had been boring to watch. That was the last time I played SC2 ladder seriously. There is a direct correlation between the quality of the game and the exodus of players. As players figured out how to abuse Infestors and other stuff that the other side had no counterplay against, the game became boring, predictable, and frustrating to play and watch. Even if it remained relatively balanced.
And Blizzard was helpless in fixing it.
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On June 05 2019 23:48 BronzeKnee wrote:
Yes, I meant Slag Pits.
If Browder&friends watched a couple of Brood War professional games and had some vague notion about balance they would never put in things like that in the map pool. And they believed these kind of maps were ''Beginner Friendly.'' I'm sure people playing their first ladder game just loved having 6 lings in their mineral line before the game even begins. Very welcoming. Then the guy went on to create another failure for Blizzard: Heroes of the Storm. In a way i'm glad that game failed because it highlights how imcompetent the original SC2 devs were.
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On June 05 2019 23:02 BronzeKnee wrote:
Yes, Blizzard's inability to handle the problems created by boring playstyles that limited counterplay options in WOL was the beginning of the end. That is when people started to leave.
HOTS seemed like last big chance to fix the issues and redeem the game, and instead it made the game worse. Yeah, it seemed like early 2013 to mid-2014 is where a lot more people started leaving (myself included in later 2014). It was a combination of things like DOTA 2 and League of Legends getting much more popular with it becoming clear that not only did Blizzard did not fix the big issues in SC2 with HoTS, but they actually ended up adding more problems, that it really started to do a number on the game's popularity. It took them a very long time to deal with the issue of swarmhosts when it was clear at the time that not only were they balanced poorly, but just from a design perspective they were a horrible concept. They sucked all the fun out of the game and were very powerful when abused. Even the casters seemed to dread games with them after a while. Every other PvZ was starting to turn into a 30-45 minute death animation for protoss unless they managed to catch the swarmhost player off guard or kill them with an all-in. When the strongest strategy is building a massive amount of static defence, parking all your units between it all, and starving your opponent out for an hour, you know something is drastically wrong, but they ignored it for months, and viewership suffered as a result. Same with all the mass raven stuff going on back then.
edit:
Like every unit they added in HoTS was horrible at first. The initial hellbat was so badly balanced that they had to rush a patch out for it since the drops would just literally kill any protoss and zerg that didn't specifically prepare for it. I already mentioned swarmhosts. Proxy oracle was obscenely powerful against terran since it could 2-shot marines and SCVs. Widow mines were permanently cloaked so if protoss didn't rush detection for the drops they'd end up either dead or irrecoverably behind. The mothership core was not that bad balance-wise but it was clearly a bandaid fix for how badly broken protoss was in the early game. They made so many bad design decisions with that expansion. I remembered resenting it a lot when it came out. It didn't make the game feel more fun. It made most games at first feel like a coinflip.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
On June 05 2019 23:02 BronzeKnee wrote:
Yes, Blizzard's inability to handle the problems created by boring playstyles that limited counterplay options in WOL was the beginning of the end. That is when people started to leave.
HOTS seemed like last big chance to fix the issues and redeem the game, and instead it made the game worse.
Nop, the biggest issue was
1) Bad maps
2) Big design issues(as I played in Beta and was watching beta tournaments I rather not mention them as the biggest may be from beta )
3) Game designed for competetive nerds, not for casuals
And I believe #3 was the biggest issue
3.1) No unranked!
3.2) The w/r ratio with your position, league and the graph was on the main page of 1v1 which turned off many people by ladder anxiety(my WR is bad, I can see how bad I am ... or my WR is good, I cannot hit the play button because it will get worse) You were not able to find anyone to help you as for the custom games there's no match making and there were no functions which would overcome this(chat channels, room names). Nowadays we have the Discord, back then even the outside chat was an issue. - edit> back then IRC was a nerd tool either IMO 
3.3) No social tools. Yes, you can add friends, but you were not able to see the replay with them(e.g.), you were not able to chat with all of them - 1 chat per friend(annoying). No teams(guilds), this is a huge part of a game, even 1v1, where you can have team leagues. No tournament support(IN A 1V1 COMPETETIVE GAME)
3.4) No tutorial. This was best described with the picture of newbie playing with marines and a "pro" killing this guy with a tank Many new players didn't get into the game, the game is fast and unforgiving. The learning games were on maps which were NOT on the ladder(rocks denying rushes, while many had air close distance.... seriously?) and on the normal speed(no muscle memory training etc.), HotS came with some Tutorials, not best, but at least something.
I can go on and on and on, but I believe this was a huge downset for many people. The strong focus on 1v1 and competetivness and ignoring almost everything else. On bad maps.
On June 06 2019 00:21 Ben... wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2019 23:02 BronzeKnee wrote:
Yes, Blizzard's inability to handle the problems created by boring playstyles that limited counterplay options in WOL was the beginning of the end. That is when people started to leave.
HOTS seemed like last big chance to fix the issues and redeem the game, and instead it made the game worse. Yeah, it seemed like early 2013 to mid-2014 is where a lot more people started leaving (myself included in later 2014). It was a combination of things like DOTA 2 and League of Legends getting much more popular with it becoming clear that not only did Blizzard did not fix the big issues in SC2 with HoTS, but they actually ended up adding more problems, that it really started to do a number on the game's popularity. It took them a very long time to deal with the issue of swarmhosts when it was clear at the time that not only were they balanced poorly, but just from a design perspective they were a horrible concept. They sucked all the fun out of the game and were very powerful when abused. Even the casters seemed to dread games with them after a while. Every other PvZ was starting to turn into a 30-45 minute death animation for protoss unless they managed to catch the swarmhost player off guard or kill them with an all-in. When the strongest strategy is building a massive amount of static defence, parking all your units between it all, and starving your opponent out for an hour, you know something is drastically wrong, but they ignored it for months, and viewership suffered as a result.
Actually wasn't, they already had to update the searching algorithm of MM before to widen its range. It was the last straw, but people were leaving before too. In the end, the game was one of the best selling games of that era, we had ton of players at the start.
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Canada8988 Posts
On June 05 2019 23:59 Morbidius wrote:If Browder&friends watched a couple of Brood War professional games and had some vague notion about balance they would never put in things like that in the map pool. And they believed these kind of maps were ''Beginner Friendly.'' I'm sure people playing their first ladder game just loved having 6 lings in their mineral line before the game even begins. Very welcoming. Then the guy went on to create another failure for Blizzard: Heroes of the Storm. In a way i'm glad that game failed because it highlights how imcompetent the original SC2 devs were.
Ah ya that make more sense Slag Pits was shit, actually as much as I think we are overly harsh with SC2 "design" problem, maps were generally legit awefull, it did get better once they started letting community map maker do it.
And yes the lack of tutorial in SC2 was/is a problem, the campain gameplay is great, much better then SCBW in my opinion, but it's not a good introduction for the 1v1 as it's more focus on making a fun and diverse experience than to recreate the multiplayer experience in a campain.
And the actual tutorial are just awefull messes. Playing against AI is the best tutorial really, but it's not clear that you should do it before getting into multiplayer.
With that said most RTS have no or very little tutorial for multiplayer.
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On June 06 2019 00:27 deacon.frost wrote:Actually wasn't, they already had to update the searching algorithm of MM before to widen its range. It was the last straw, but people were leaving before too. In the end, the game was one of the best selling games of that era, we had ton of players at the start. Oh yeah, I'm sure a lot of people left during the end era of WoL where it was infestor/broodlord in like half of all games. I was more referring to those of us who had stuck through the end of WoL hoping that the HoTS expansion would fix the issues with the game. Once we saw the issues were definitely not going to be fixed, we also started to leave.
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It was interesting to see your perspective on the matter but when I came across this...
On June 04 2019 20:38 Mizenhauer wrote:
They wanted StarCraft II to be something it wasn’t. They needed it be something it wasn’t because of something inside of themselves.
I had a good laugh.
SC2 Korean pro scene may be on its last legs but the player base seems to be larger than the last few years, so the game probably won't die anytime soon.
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United States12235 Posts
On June 05 2019 22:44 deacon.frost wrote:
The biggest player drop was IMO in WoL. I wouldn't blame HotS or LotV that much. Also in our country there's a saying, that you cannot build a good house on a bad bottom. And WoL beta/WoL is the lowest layer who should have been the best for the games which are built on it.
(Maybe I did a wrong translation)
We would say "a good house can't stand on a poor foundation" but it's a valid point. I remember the first reveal of SC2 where they highlighted a lot of the Big Dramatic Changes. Stuff you wouldn't expect, like Zealot Charge, Immortals with the original Hardened Shields, cliff-jumping Reapers, the Phase (Warp) Prism with its power field deployment, the Warp-in mechanic, Blink Stalkers, Nydus Worms, the cliff-walking Colossus with their beam weaponry, Banelings, the Overloading Phoenixes, Warp (Void) Rays with the increased beam damage over time, and of course the Mothership (I had forgotten about the Time Bomb haha). You could tell from the beginning that this was a game about Counters of Counters that have Counters which are Countered by Counters and These Counters Counter the Counters of the Countering Counters, while at the same time it was clearly built around defying expectations. Remember the concept of the Soul Hunter, that increased in strength with each organic unit killed? Dustin Browder made a post about their design tenets once:
We have a few rules for our units:
1) A unit should have a cool personality. A unit must be something that is fun to play with.
2) A unit should have their own very unique role on the battlefield.
3) A unit should be fun for the enemy to try to deal with. Generally this means good strengths and interesting weaknesses.
They did dial back some of this stuff during the beta, but foundationally the vision was already cemented. This was how the team was directing the course of development for years behind the scenes. This is a classic Command and Conquer design philosophy (which certainly we can't fault him for this, that's his background) but it's contrary to what we see in Brood War. I'm sure a major critique in Brood War, just at a cursory level, is that Reavers and Tanks are too similar: they do the same thing, long range area damage. Hydras, Dragoons, and Marines have no discernible differences, they're just ranged attackers. Zealots and Zerglings essentially serve the same role. Battlecruisers and Carriers are basically the same, large capital ships. Wraiths, Scouts, and Mutas, all similar air raiding units. Certainly there is so much overlap that there exists a lot of opportunity for diversification. Obviously I believe this misses the bigger picture: even if Zealots and Zerglings have the same movement and attack mechanics, controlling Zealots and Zerglings still feels very different. As a designer, that feeling of unique racial immersion must be inherent to the command experience, it doesn't have to be forced via being broken down to a per-unit level.
The live operations phase was another area of difficulty for the game. The beta helped iron out a lot of unit roles and gave Blizzard some great context behind how top-level players utilize all these units in a variety of situations and matches. When the game had its 1.0 launch, Blizzard was criticized for their swift corrective balance actions, and they were often accused of swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction. Discussion forums were constantly blowing up about this: this race is too strong, that race is too weak; this unit is too good, that unit is useless; this pro player vouches for the inferiority of X, that pro player is downplaying how strong Y is... the signal-to-noise ratio was incredibly poor and it was impossible to glean relevant, actionable information. Yet, despite Blizzard's outward "wait and see" mantra, we did tend to see rather frequent sudden changes. Even today, 9 years after the launch of SC2, players are finding new engine quirks to exploit in Brood War and increase the level of mechanical mastery necessary to compete at the top level. SC2 was simply a more technologically refined game, so perhaps the team knew this and decided to react more quickly to things that they predicted couldn't be countered by exploits in their new game's engine. SC2 was also designed to have a broad casual appeal, and the team was on record saying they would patch engine-related issues when they affected the performance of units because they didn't want exploits to be a mechanical and knowledge barrier for players to optimally play the game.
I believe the HotS squad had to really scrape the bottom of the barrel when it came to new units and abilities. It showed in the extremely rapid and tumultuous iteration process, and eventually it showed in the games. I think things got streamlined a lot more in LotV though, they learned from a lot of their earlier mistakes and the game is in a good place competitively (and casually, for that matter).
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
Excalibur_Z - nice post and thanks for the translation, yes, that's it!
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On June 04 2019 20:38 Mizenhauer wrote: I can’t blame people who aggressively claimed StarCraft II was doing fine, or that it was flourishing. But I do feel like they were hiding the truth from themselves. They wanted StarCraft II to be something it wasn’t. They needed it be something it wasn’t because of something inside of themselves. Some even went so far as to ostracized and vilify those who denied the claims of StarCraft II’s well being.
everyone on tl who pointed out game was daed kept getting banned cause the mods didn't like the truth shrug. everyone else moved on. thus the daed game posts decreased, not because it wasn't true, but because everyone who could point out obvious got banned or left
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On June 06 2019 05:58 fishjie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2019 20:38 Mizenhauer wrote: I can’t blame people who aggressively claimed StarCraft II was doing fine, or that it was flourishing. But I do feel like they were hiding the truth from themselves. They wanted StarCraft II to be something it wasn’t. They needed it be something it wasn’t because of something inside of themselves. Some even went so far as to ostracized and vilify those who denied the claims of StarCraft II’s well being.
everyone on tl who pointed out game was daed kept getting banned cause the mods didn't like the truth shrug. everyone else moved on. thus the daed game posts decreased, not because it wasn't true, but because everyone who could point out obvious got banned or left
I was one of those people. Facts aren't welcome around here very often
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an actual serious ded gaem post? what is this, 2013?
the fuck is even the point of this article
On June 06 2019 05:58 fishjie wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2019 20:38 Mizenhauer wrote: I can’t blame people who aggressively claimed StarCraft II was doing fine, or that it was flourishing. But I do feel like they were hiding the truth from themselves. They wanted StarCraft II to be something it wasn’t. They needed it be something it wasn’t because of something inside of themselves. Some even went so far as to ostracized and vilify those who denied the claims of StarCraft II’s well being.
everyone on tl who pointed out game was daed kept getting banned cause the mods didn't like the truth shrug. everyone else moved on. thus the daed game posts decreased, not because it wasn't true, but because everyone who could point out obvious got banned or left
or maybe the longtime sc2 fans are simply content with the fact that their favorite game isn't as popular as it used to be, and don't feel the need to keep getting insecure about their esports dick size every couple days anymore
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On June 06 2019 07:03 GreasedUpDeafGuy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2019 05:58 fishjie wrote:On June 04 2019 20:38 Mizenhauer wrote: I can’t blame people who aggressively claimed StarCraft II was doing fine, or that it was flourishing. But I do feel like they were hiding the truth from themselves. They wanted StarCraft II to be something it wasn’t. They needed it be something it wasn’t because of something inside of themselves. Some even went so far as to ostracized and vilify those who denied the claims of StarCraft II’s well being.
everyone on tl who pointed out game was daed kept getting banned cause the mods didn't like the truth shrug. everyone else moved on. thus the daed game posts decreased, not because it wasn't true, but because everyone who could point out obvious got banned or left I was one of those people. Facts aren't welcome around here very often
The game was so dead back then it's still alive after many years. Which facts?
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SC2 was doomed when Blizzard saw the competition going to a F2P model and they kept going on the antiquated base game + expansion pack model. No one wanted to start playing HotS when the cost to get in was $50+. The increased player base is nice, but most of those players are casuals, and there is no new blood in the professional scene, especially in Korea. GSL players can't keep putting off their military service forever, and you only need to look at the ages of the Korean elite to see how soon they have to face reality. Of the players in the Ro8 of the GSL only Hurricane and Dark are under 24. PartinG, once a prodigy, is 24. Trap and Innovation are 25. soO and herO are 26. Classic is 27, and at the end of this year he won't be able to defer his service any longer. Soon there will be no one left to take up their mantle aside from players returning from the military who might not be able to return to their previous level and the non-existent newcomers. These are the end times for SC2, at least in Korea. The sooner we realize that the days of Proleague, professional teams, and 32 world-class players in the GSL aren't coming back, the sooner we can move on and appreciate what remains before it's gone.
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The only way that SC2 will die in the near future is due to Activision-Blizzard actively trying to kill it. The community is pretty rock-solid, the game is F2P, there is a wealth of content and resources to learn the game, map makers'a'mapping. I think for the time being we are fine.
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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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.
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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.
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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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Yeah I'm not that well versed in the FGC community but I did watch some videos about the SFV drama and certain groups desperately clinging on to Marvel even after Infinite's disappointment. I get what you mean.
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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United States12235 Posts
I guess the underlying message is that there are communities for everything. Literally everything. Look at the speedrunning community. Many of the games they run have no multiplayer options at all, so they invent opportunity where none exist: they forge a collaborative and constructively competitive community around their shared passion for games they enjoy. Some games only have like 2 or 3 speedrunners, but they'll gladly teach others and get them up to speed in the hopes that the newbloods will mature into competitors that will eventually challenge the veterans to improve.
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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If a game is fun and balanced across the different skill levels, it can live on for 20 years.
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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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 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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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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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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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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Head:SC2 is dead really! It's SC3 time
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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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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There are so many blog posts about dying game.
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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Northern Ireland24427 Posts
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.
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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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I think what is really happening is that we are watching the end of a golden era for blizzard. They were something very special for a long time, but that's over. That death is going to come with some other pains, including the death of Blizzard support for its legacy esports titles.
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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If a normal user would post something like this, it would be moved to blogs in a heartbeat ...
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im pretty sure the bl/infestor era was the one thing that accelerated sc2's death the most, the game became such a snoozefest that a lot of ppl outright stopped playing back then, me included.
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Saying a game has been dying for 8 years is about as meaningful as saying a 50 year old that will live to the age of 80 is dying. Yea bad things happen and if you don’t feel the scene is big enough anymore for you then I can respect that. But it just feels weird to phrase it that way with your last paragraph’s call to action for everyone(we) to just memorialize it and bury it like trying to bury a 50 year old because they’re going to “die” eventually at this rate. Maybe ‘ misreading your words as a call to action since I don’t think I’d feel that way if this were just in the personal blog section.
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"Rolling around in the muck is no way of getting clean." - Aldous Huxley
I hope you stay as part of the scene, but if you really think it's dying then good luck elsewhere. Please don't think we need an alarm or bell rang or anything the moment it happens. I feel it shouldn't be required of anyone in our scene to announce our death. Blizzard will do that when they shut down the servers.
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Even if Blizzard ever shuts down the servers, the fans will find ways to emulate them and keep the small but very resilient scene going.
And yeah, it's not a very attractive scene for new players. The majority of young talent in esports goes elsewhere. However, it's still an active esport, despite being difficult and not as well paid, and it still manages to get some new players every year to this day. It's the best RTS and some people just love pure RTS above anything else.
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It is the dream that SC2 was something more, something bigger that kinda helped it to explode in the earlier days.
Without it, who knows what kind of scene we would have now.
I agree that SC2 dying doesn't really bother me as much as well, it seems the whole esports scene is kinda dying out. But SC2 still has great things going, I just hope there are ways for it to continue for many years to come.
There really isn't any other game like this, where you invest years into it and it' kinda becomes part of you.
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I've been following Starcraft 2 since 2007, and it's always had the most pessimistic scene imagineable, constantly convinced it wasn't measuring up to some golden standard.
During the development & through the peak of its popularity, when it was THE esport, the first successful esport in the West, it was measured against BW. It wasn't designed as well, wasn't as skillful, there was no micro, MBS, etc, etc. Which is fair, I guess. BW is a good game, and anyone who wants can still play it and watch it. Ever since that peak (& it's been a while now, let's be real), it's been measuring itself against that peak. Which is fair too, I guess. Starcraft 2 was the first big esport in the West, and it will never be that again. If that's what people want, if that's their standard of success or what it means to them for the game to be alive, then Starcraft 2 has been dead for a long time now, and will never come back.
I started following SC2 before it was the biggest best esport, though, and I can't see myself stopping at this point as long as there are games to watch. It's a good game, and a better esport. That's really all I have to say.
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On June 07 2019 07:21 feardragon wrote:
Saying a game has been dying for 8 years is about as meaningful as saying a 50 year old that will live to the age of 80 is dying. Yea bad things happen and if you don’t feel the scene is big enough anymore for you then I can respect that. But it just feels weird to phrase it that way with your last paragraph’s call to action for everyone(we) to just memorialize it and bury it like trying to bury a 50 year old because they’re going to “die” eventually at this rate. Maybe ‘ misreading your words as a call to action since I don’t think I’d feel that way if this were just in the personal blog section.
Agreed, this is kinda like you're having a wake for a funeral that hasn't happened yet, and is in fact years down the line... a little weird.
If this was "remember the good old days this old girl ain't what she used to be" I'd be down with it but either way it's sliced this feels more like a blog post.
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On June 07 2019 13:09 Captain Peabody wrote:
I've been following Starcraft 2 since 2007, and it's always had the most pessimistic scene imagineable, constantly convinced it wasn't measuring up to some golden standard.
During the development & through the peak of its popularity, when it was THE esport, the first successful esport in the West, it was measured against BW. It wasn't designed as well, wasn't as skillful, there was no micro, MBS, etc, etc. Which is fair, I guess. BW is a good game, and anyone who wants can still play it and watch it. Ever since that peak (& it's been a while now, let's be real), it's been measuring itself against that peak. Which is fair too, I guess. Starcraft 2 was the first big esport in the West, and it will never be that again. If that's what people want, if that's their standard of success or what it means to them for the game to be alive, then Starcraft 2 has been dead for a long time now, and will never come back.
I started following SC2 before it was the biggest best esport, though, and I can't see myself stopping at this point as long as there are games to watch. It's a good game, and a better esport. That's really all I have to say.
You should have seen the COD scene after vCOD.
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On June 06 2019 11:34 Morbidius wrote:Show nested quote +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.
I agree the highest skill area is not a very good thing to bring up but design wise, I think since 2017 the game is way better than wol/hots in which protoss was kinda meh. (at least, I really hated it)
im pretty sure the bl/infestor era was the one thing that accelerated sc2's death the most, the game became such a snoozefest that a lot of ppl outright stopped playing back then, me included.
I think he did too and hots didn't really correct some flaws, like the 6 first months of 2014 were frustrating and 2015 after the patch 2.1.9 almost made me stop watching. (and I don't really play since). Dark times, the game is so much better.
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On June 06 2019 11:34 Morbidius wrote:Show nested quote +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.
I'd rank Gumiho above Inno right now to be honest. Although I agree INno is a shadow of his former self, that's only if you compare him to his peaks of 2013, 2017 etc. I really don't think he's worse than he was in late 2013, 2016 etc. Of course then you could just use soO or Zest or Stats as examples of players who have fallen off.
And Maru definitely didn't win four GSLs just by maintaining his skill level. He mastered basically every aspect of terran and found new ways to win almost every season. You can say he always had the mechanic skill, but since the start of 2018 he certainly used it more effectively. Rogue even said he went from the laziest Jin Air player (in terms of practice) to the hardest.
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Ye and it will keep on dying for 10more years until blizz releases new rts, and everyone jumps to it. It was same story as wc3, but wc3 at its highest were like 10% of the size of sc2 size right now at this moment, and many people did enjoy wc3 very much played there hearts out and there was decent scene with tournaments.. right now sc2 is one of the biggest esport game and it has unique market as there is no other rts game..
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People saying BL/Infestor killed SC2. Yet we are 2 expansions past that era. Then HOTS killed the game.
If people truly enjoy the game it will never die. Look at BW, look at Melee. The scene might not be as glorious as it once was or whatever but the community can and will continue. If that means primarily grass roots events so be it.
To be honest one of the best things about this community is that its not gigantic and we can actually have meaningful interactions with one another, we have casters and progamers post here all the time.
Don't worry, be happy!
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Speaking of keeping SC2 alive, how do I pay for skins in this game? Back when I quit in hots SC2 didn’t have skins. And since I came back I haven’t been able to figure out how to buy them. LOL makes it really really easy to give rito money, but SC2 seems wierd about that.
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Dying, Dying, Dying......
Killed, Killed, Killed.....
Cant compete with LoL, Fortnite, Dota, Mario Kart, Zelda, Pokemon.....
For fucks sake, let it be already ? I dont understand why this topic has to be brought up every so often in so many occasions and even in events. If we would listen to doomsday-prophets, this game has been dead for what, 50+ times in 8+ years already, and on the contrary its still going strong. Yeah, it isnt in its peak anymore, but what game would be at this age ? There are some issues and concerns of course, but even with taking them account, I cant see Starcraft 2 dying anytime soon.
2018 was a very big year for SC2 and 2019 has been a positive start as well. We have nice tournaments with new competition and new and upcoming players, even some little rivalries rising up. And besides the competitive side, there is a huge amount of people playing Co-Op, casual Ladder, custom games etc. I still think that SC2 would have even potential to grow more, if marketed correctly, but of course Blizzard wouldnt do that because it would be risky and cost a lot. But all in all, what in this game is dying here ? You can get 1v1 almost instantly in any league, same goes mostly for team games and especially co-op too. There are more tournaments going on than I have ever seen and most of them are casted, some with multiple languages. WCS and GSL are rolling normally at least for now and price money is still great. Ironically, if Husky would have made an actual comeback, it would propably been a huge burst too to the scene. So many people have been waiting for it, but well, you cant get it all, can you ?
Problems then. Yeah, as others have said, Korean scene is the biggest problem and hardest to solve. I still think that there is potential too with right actions and advertising. It would be nice to have more big tournaments than GSL in there. Not neccessarily anything 100k supertournaments, but more like bit smaller Weekend tournaments with reasonable payouts, so that there would be more steady income for more players there. And yeah, remove the region lock too, it should be a good way to get even more "oldies" get back into the competitive scene. That way there would be enough opportunities for Koreans to get nice income and enough competitive challenge to make things interesting. Korea is still the homeland of Starcraft, im sure there is the spark somewhere buried there waiting to come out. It just needs some light and gasoline to get it back burning again.
Finally, narratives and rivalries. That is a section, which could be boosted a lot. But it kinda needs removing the region lock and adding more tournaments to Korea and reviving that scene to get going. It would be kind of dull to have this "Serral vs. Korea" thing as an only bigger rivalry/narrative in the scene. Nowadays players like Neeb, Raynor, Special, Showtime, Scarlett, Lambo, Heromarine etc. are starting to be at the same level as top 20sh Koreans are today and also can challenge Serral occasionally. It would be very interesting and fun to see them mixed up against Koreans in various tournaments. In addition, it would propably increase the overall skill-level as well, since mixing up the playing field and making foreingers play against better players would be good practise as well.
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On June 08 2019 09:41 General_Winter wrote:
Speaking of keeping SC2 alive, how do I pay for skins in this game? Back when I quit in hots SC2 didn’t have skins. And since I came back I haven’t been able to figure out how to buy them. LOL makes it really really easy to give rito money, but SC2 seems wierd about that.
There is a collections tab that let's you buy stuff, happy hunting!
Also to everyone in this thread, sc2 is insanely fun it's the tennis of esports, god it's made me happier then any other game on the market, super glad I play it and I hope you see you guys on the ladder!
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The number of people apparently still waiting for SC2 to die so they can necro their posts from 8 years ago and say SEE I TOLD YOU SO is either hilarious or sad and I'm not sure which
The game has maintained an active, high-skill competitive community with top players making lucrative smounts of money for its entire lifespan of going on 10 years
Now that things look slightly shaky due to shakeups at Blizzard, despite SC2's amazing 2018 performance, you come out of the woodwork to stroke your egos like vultures
What the actual fuck is wrong with you people, just enjoy the game or bug off and let other people enjoy it if you don't anymore
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I have always thought that the daed game meme comes from the same place as the constant balance wine: frustration. You loose some games, get frustrated, think “this is imba”... you play some more games, loose again, balance-wine in the forums... you play days later, loose against the same shit, and shout “it is a daed game anyway” to try to minimise the importance of it and reduce your frustration.
It is in the nature of the game. It is hard.
I wonder where the frustration of this writer comes from. One day he shouts patchzerg (Zerg imba?), another day the game is dead, what is next?
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On June 07 2019 13:04 ETisME wrote:
It is the dream that SC2 was something more, something bigger that kinda helped it to explode in the earlier days.
Without it, who knows what kind of scene we would have now.
I agree that SC2 dying doesn't really bother me as much as well, it seems the whole esports scene is kinda dying out. But SC2 still has great things going, I just hope there are ways for it to continue for many years to come.
There really isn't any other game like this, where you invest years into it and it' kinda becomes part of you.
This death of esports is greatly exaggerated.
SC2's declining tournaments, sponsors, etc. are a very separate matter from esports as a whole which continues to see ever widening interest from the "mainstream" in the form of reporting by notable entities (e.g. espn) and increasing interest and financial buy-in by large players like NBA and NFL owners.
Ultimately what matters in esports continuing is the money. It's needed to fund salaries, put on productions, and get people to watch. People watching means advertiser interest. In general the 18-34 year old demographic is one of the most highly sought for advertisers for various reasons and that very strongly correlates to esports and the desire to entice consumers isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The more advertisers warm to the idea of targeting this market, the more money ends up in the scene and the more it grows.
LoL still puts up very strong numbers, DOTA 2 keeps topping its prize pools (and maybe viewership numbers) year over year, and CS:GO continues to pull in huge viewer counts, to name a few. Several of the fighting games also are continuing to grow year over year with increasingly bigger events like EVO. Overwatch still feel dubious to me, but it has the funding for now to stick around. I think it's interesting mostly just because of the approach they've taken to aggressive franchising from the outset.
Plenty of other games still come and go, even if only for relatively short periods, but the fact that they're able to do that consistently is pretty much proof that esports as whole is doing fine. You just have to remember that one game (or even a few) does not represent esports as a whole. It's pretty hard to imagine people collectively losing all interest in watching competitions.
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"StarCraft II has been dying for a very long time"
No. Starcraft doesnt lose base players. im 40, played from the start when i was 16, ive seen all the trends and shifts and starcraft gains players, they quit (hard game an all) but the base numbers stay. It isnt dying and ill put another 40 years to say it will be like this for the rest of time if there isnt an SC3. Yes there were glory years, but so had call of duty, halo, counterstrike(arguably still has the numbers) but SC will always be there.
Take it from me, there is no less inactivity now than there was when i was playing SC on a 56k modem. forget the pro scene, betting and esports have been prevailent in korea longer than i think some of you have been alivce, the whole idea of justinTV was to show people how starcraft was being played. The industry owes a lot to starcraft but when you can make easier to manage and get into games there will be an inevitable fall off with a game like starcraft. I used to race ina racing league. Why do you think the Forza league died but the project gotham one didnt at the time? Well ye, PGR, press go, forza . . well who the fuck wants to drive a million laps fine tuning a car? Back in the days of forza 2, you had to know ur shit to some extent. Much the sam,e with SC. you cant just pick up and play, not really.
Starcraft isnt dying, yes people have moved on from sponsorship if thats ur marker, but the game has carved itself in history and as long as you have people like me around who were there from the start programming around 1991 and well into the scene of which was incredibly hard to get information on, the UK only got the internet so to speak in 96, and that was only in colleges then i can continue to put people straight who are not up on their actual history and how it was, not a few lines from a google search.
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Erm...
"Starcraft dead"?
I love mutalisks 4ever!!
You lack perspective. I think i will try telling my mom that bridge (the card game) is dead because kids dont want to play it...
Peace!
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Sc2 asks to much to his professionnal players. Comparing to others games like Moba or FPS, players need to handle long game with a high APM...
It s not surprising to me Sc2 is dying, i have some issue but i already know community will never accept changes as i know how fans players dislike modifications of their sacred races...
Changes could be done with unit tester to reduce most of the box size units (about 70%), then reducing their speed movement. Then it s logic, first you have to adjust them against units with the biggest range,.. then you have to adjust area damage units. You can also remove the sight of creep tumors in compensation of some tools or mecanics.
I could work on that but i have not enought time for now.
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On August 07 2019 20:48 Vision_ wrote:
Sc2 asks to much to his professionnal players. Comparing to others games like Moba or FPS, players need to handle long game with a high APM...
It s not surprising to me Sc2 is dying, i have some issue but i already know community will never accept changes as i know how fans players dislike modifications of their sacred races...
Changes could be done with unit tester to reduce most of the box size units (about 70%), then reducing their speed movement. Then it s logic, first you have to adjust them against units with the biggest range,.. then you have to adjust area damage units. You can also remove the sight of creep tumors in compensation of some tools or mecanics.
I could work on that but i have not enought time for now.
How would that change anything?
And even if, you could just change the overall zoom factor and slow the game down a bit. Same result.
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that was wholesome - thanks for the good read!
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On June 07 2019 07:21 feardragon wrote:
Saying a game has been dying for 8 years is about as meaningful as saying a 50 year old that will live to the age of 80 is dying. Yea bad things happen and if you don’t feel the scene is big enough anymore for you then I can respect that. But it just feels weird to phrase it that way with your last paragraph’s call to action for everyone(we) to just memorialize it and bury it like trying to bury a 50 year old because they’re going to “die” eventually at this rate. Maybe ‘ misreading your words as a call to action since I don’t think I’d feel that way if this were just in the personal blog section.
Strong agreed here.
Overall just really no fond of this article. I disagree with the premise (or at least the perspective), and think it's just needlessly, selectively critical and pessimistic.
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On August 07 2019 20:54 Harris1st wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2019 20:48 Vision_ wrote:
Sc2 asks to much to his professionnal players. Comparing to others games like Moba or FPS, players need to handle long game with a high APM...
It s not surprising to me Sc2 is dying, i have some issue but i already know community will never accept changes as i know how fans players dislike modifications of their sacred races...
Changes could be done with unit tester to reduce most of the box size units (about 70%), then reducing their speed movement. Then it s logic, first you have to adjust them against units with the biggest range,.. then you have to adjust area damage units. You can also remove the sight of creep tumors in compensation of some tools or mecanics.
I could work on that but i have not enought time for now. How would that change anything? And even if, you could just change the overall zoom factor and slow the game down a bit. Same result.
Same result ?
Comparing zerglings speed on Sc2 and Broodwar is enought to understand my point of view... You can suppose SC2 Zerglings need maybe 8 seconds to cross the map and BW Zerglings need maybe 15 seconds.. That s not a surprise, the sc2 map is smaller with the fastest unit speed parameter. If you only change the zoom factor, it doesn t help on macro game decision, you may save some time with micro and even.... You will have to work on the sight of each units to keep the existing ratio of fog of war with the new camera size.
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I disagree. So, sponser interest wise SC2 isn't doing good. Without the support of Blizz itself, we wouldn't have something called esport in SC2 - at least nowhere near to the extend we're used to. That's really nothing new.
But it's not caused by SC2 not being a vivid game with a vivid scene with a vivid competition but by other games overshadowing SC2 and thus attract sponsor's interest much more.
But playerbasewise? SC2 is healthy and won't have a severe loss of active players anytime soon. And we actually do have many young talents finding their way into the pro scene. Western competetion in SC2 is still lucrative for young RTS-nerds to commit heavily. And we also have them in Korea but they're just not supported over there. Still some of 'em keep trying. I won't list new talented players again as I did in other threads before. New blood is there, it just has to be fostered. Western competition being on an uprise since region lock (which I falsely damned back then) is a strong proof for that.
Do we have the resources to foster new talent? That's another question. But the sentiment of "There is no young talent" is just wrong.
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Northern Ireland24427 Posts
On August 07 2019 20:54 Harris1st wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2019 20:48 Vision_ wrote:
Sc2 asks to much to his professionnal players. Comparing to others games like Moba or FPS, players need to handle long game with a high APM...
It s not surprising to me Sc2 is dying, i have some issue but i already know community will never accept changes as i know how fans players dislike modifications of their sacred races...
Changes could be done with unit tester to reduce most of the box size units (about 70%), then reducing their speed movement. Then it s logic, first you have to adjust them against units with the biggest range,.. then you have to adjust area damage units. You can also remove the sight of creep tumors in compensation of some tools or mecanics.
I could work on that but i have not enought time for now. How would that change anything? And even if, you could just change the overall zoom factor and slow the game down a bit. Same result.
SC2 doesn’t have especially long games on average, especially compared to MOBAs.
Slowing the game down in terms of movements speeds etc will just lengthen games. The mechanical requirement for macroing and multitasking will be the same, then it will be a case of the same APM strain, just over longer average periods of time.
Your changes would potentially make it less mentally stressful to play as it’s less fast, but I’ve never heard of pros complaining much about that, it would probably help players playing casually though.
Starcraft is Starcraft, its appeal is its strain and difficulty. There are very few 1v1 games that are big eSports, team games dominate in general, but a certain type of person enjoys going mano o mano in such a mechanically demanding game.
There’s so much to do, and do to relative degrees of execution that nailing that one game where you just straight up outplay someone in a macro game is an individual victory you don’t get from many games nowadays.
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On August 07 2019 23:55 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2019 20:54 Harris1st wrote:On August 07 2019 20:48 Vision_ wrote:
Sc2 asks to much to his professionnal players. Comparing to others games like Moba or FPS, players need to handle long game with a high APM...
It s not surprising to me Sc2 is dying, i have some issue but i already know community will never accept changes as i know how fans players dislike modifications of their sacred races...
Changes could be done with unit tester to reduce most of the box size units (about 70%), then reducing their speed movement. Then it s logic, first you have to adjust them against units with the biggest range,.. then you have to adjust area damage units. You can also remove the sight of creep tumors in compensation of some tools or mecanics.
I could work on that but i have not enought time for now. How would that change anything? And even if, you could just change the overall zoom factor and slow the game down a bit. Same result. SC2 doesn’t have especially long games on average, especially compared to MOBAs.
You can t argue with MOBA against SC2 in term of difficulty..
Slowing the game down in terms of movements speeds etc will just lengthen games. The mechanical requirement for macroing and multitasking will be the same, then it will be a case of the same APM strain, just over longer average periods of time.
The in-game strategy will be study if you re slowing the game (with a box size reduction), but it s pretty sure pros players will always use their APM wastefully.. it looks like as our frenchs players pretend too do. Further, your economy isn t change to preserve part of the Builds so it s not a total conversion - You can going deeper if only one side of the game is freeze (macro) isn t it ?
Contrary if you decrease game speed it s like you re increasing hit points but it s not exactly what i mean.
Your changes would potentially make it less mentally stressful to play as it’s less fast, but I’ve never heard of pros complaining much about that, it would probably help players playing casually though.
It s about give to players the chance to breathe between fights.
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Northern Ireland24427 Posts
On August 08 2019 03:48 Vision_ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2019 23:55 Wombat_NI wrote:On August 07 2019 20:54 Harris1st wrote:On August 07 2019 20:48 Vision_ wrote:
Sc2 asks to much to his professionnal players. Comparing to others games like Moba or FPS, players need to handle long game with a high APM...
It s not surprising to me Sc2 is dying, i have some issue but i already know community will never accept changes as i know how fans players dislike modifications of their sacred races...
Changes could be done with unit tester to reduce most of the box size units (about 70%), then reducing their speed movement. Then it s logic, first you have to adjust them against units with the biggest range,.. then you have to adjust area damage units. You can also remove the sight of creep tumors in compensation of some tools or mecanics.
I could work on that but i have not enought time for now. How would that change anything? And even if, you could just change the overall zoom factor and slow the game down a bit. Same result. SC2 doesn’t have especially long games on average, especially compared to MOBAs. You can t argue with MOBA against SC2 in term of difficulty.. Show nested quote +
Slowing the game down in terms of movements speeds etc will just lengthen games. The mechanical requirement for macroing and multitasking will be the same, then it will be a case of the same APM strain, just over longer average periods of time.
The in-game strategy will be study if you re slowing the game (with a box size reduction), but it s pretty sure pros players will always use their APM wastefully.. it looks like as our frenchs players pretend too do. Further, your economy isn t change to preserve part of the Builds so it s not a total conversion - You can going deeper if only one side of the game is freeze (macro) isn t it ? Contrary if you decrease game speed it s like you re increasing hit points but it s not exactly what i mean. Show nested quote +
Your changes would potentially make it less mentally stressful to play as it’s less fast, but I’ve never heard of pros complaining much about that, it would probably help players playing casually though.
It s about give to players the chance to breathe between fights.
They’re difficult, they require different skillsets, team coordination being an obvious one. To my knowledge no notable SC player has switched to a MOBA and really succeeded, despite it being a way harder mechanical game, those mechanics don’t translate to an advantage in other games.
I’m not 100% sure what you mean by box size reduction, I do agree that ideally I’d prefer if in SC2 large engagements went slower, I’ve felt that the whole life cycle of the game.
I don’t think it’s a big impediment to the game though.
WC3 has high hit points and slow fights, in WC3 the better players are more dominant on ladder than in either Starcraft. BW has slower engagements but the UI makes controlling everything incredibly difficult.
I don’t think slowing SC2 down will redress a balance between mechanics and strategy and decision making, if anything it will make the game more mechanically demanding, and extend the advantage mechanically good players have over players whose skills may be in good decision making vs pure mechanics.
I would personally like it myself, but I like the mechanical demands of the game.
As it is big engagements and the speed of the game mean past basic positioning and some caster control (outside of bio), engagements can be sufficiently executed with a-moving.
If you slow it down, stuff like optimal target fire from say Collosus or Immortals becomes possible, really good baneling splits in an offensive capacity, more optimal tank target fire, baneling sniping etc, plus a whole ton of other micro tricks.
Again I’d personally like if there was more of that in big engagements, I don’t think changes in this area would be bad for the game.
I do think the skill gap would widen between good mechanical players and other players who might be good strategically.
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Your analyze is quite good and i would express myself more if i was ok in english understandement.. Especially the comparison with WC3, but it s hard to say without a mod "slowing game of sc2", how every units's behaviour will be..
I think SC2 begins to suffer from the LOL syndrome, each patch can decieve fans cause they feel an unadvantage balance.
Of course, it s easier to say than do it.. and even they showed us units testing videos since 2 or 3 years, i don t think Blizzard can settle down the balance system. Indeed, their effort was amazing but players were also customers and they couldn t satisfied them.
Of course pros players can statisfied themselves with money, but the lack of diversity in Builds is a pain in the ass for viewers and each patch decision can t add no more value on a specific Race Tree Builds, without damaging an other one.
I hope with a such modification (reduce box collision / slow most of the units movement comparing to combat distance units / adjust fire rate / then specific units as Banelings, Colossus...), Players can go on "with working on this 10 years game testing", can go deeper to find new Builds.
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The biggest reason SC2 died in my opinion is because you could play the e-sport competitors (league, csgo) with friends, and sc2 was strictly 1v1 ladder in the "how to really play"-sense and 2v2 never felt as serious. Playing 1v1 with your bronze friend gets old, going 2v2 with tier 1 rushes every game gets old... Eventually the player base shifts over to a different game. I know I did.
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France12761 Posts
On August 08 2019 04:48 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2019 03:48 Vision_ wrote:On August 07 2019 23:55 Wombat_NI wrote:On August 07 2019 20:54 Harris1st wrote:On August 07 2019 20:48 Vision_ wrote:
Sc2 asks to much to his professionnal players. Comparing to others games like Moba or FPS, players need to handle long game with a high APM...
It s not surprising to me Sc2 is dying, i have some issue but i already know community will never accept changes as i know how fans players dislike modifications of their sacred races...
Changes could be done with unit tester to reduce most of the box size units (about 70%), then reducing their speed movement. Then it s logic, first you have to adjust them against units with the biggest range,.. then you have to adjust area damage units. You can also remove the sight of creep tumors in compensation of some tools or mecanics.
I could work on that but i have not enought time for now. How would that change anything? And even if, you could just change the overall zoom factor and slow the game down a bit. Same result. SC2 doesn’t have especially long games on average, especially compared to MOBAs. You can t argue with MOBA against SC2 in term of difficulty..
Slowing the game down in terms of movements speeds etc will just lengthen games. The mechanical requirement for macroing and multitasking will be the same, then it will be a case of the same APM strain, just over longer average periods of time.
The in-game strategy will be study if you re slowing the game (with a box size reduction), but it s pretty sure pros players will always use their APM wastefully.. it looks like as our frenchs players pretend too do. Further, your economy isn t change to preserve part of the Builds so it s not a total conversion - You can going deeper if only one side of the game is freeze (macro) isn t it ? Contrary if you decrease game speed it s like you re increasing hit points but it s not exactly what i mean.
Your changes would potentially make it less mentally stressful to play as it’s less fast, but I’ve never heard of pros complaining much about that, it would probably help players playing casually though.
It s about give to players the chance to breathe between fights. They’re difficult, they require different skillsets, team coordination being an obvious one. To my knowledge no notable SC player has switched to a MOBA and really succeeded, despite it being a way harder mechanical game, those mechanics don’t translate to an advantage in other games. I’m not 100% sure what you mean by box size reduction, I do agree that ideally I’d prefer if in SC2 large engagements went slower, I’ve felt that the whole life cycle of the game. I don’t think it’s a big impediment to the game though. WC3 has high hit points and slow fights, in WC3 the better players are more dominant on ladder than in either Starcraft. BW has slower engagements but the UI makes controlling everything incredibly difficult. I don’t think slowing SC2 down will redress a balance between mechanics and strategy and decision making, if anything it will make the game more mechanically demanding, and extend the advantage mechanically good players have over players whose skills may be in good decision making vs pure mechanics. I would personally like it myself, but I like the mechanical demands of the game. As it is big engagements and the speed of the game mean past basic positioning and some caster control (outside of bio), engagements can be sufficiently executed with a-moving. If you slow it down, stuff like optimal target fire from say Collosus or Immortals becomes possible, really good baneling splits in an offensive capacity, more optimal tank target fire, baneling sniping etc, plus a whole ton of other micro tricks. Again I’d personally like if there was more of that in big engagements, I don’t think changes in this area would be bad for the game. I do think the skill gap would widen between good mechanical players and other players who might be good strategically.
I'm pretty sure HasuObs, LucifroN and Vortix went on to be top HotS players. Korean side I think sCfOu (the guy that did mass barracks marines against NesTea and ended up losing) and probably some others were successful on HotS too.
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EPT
