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We already knew ActiBlizzard's decisions were questionable; It's fine, community will take over. This is not remotely comparable to HoTS, Sc2's competitive scene has at least 30 other months of guaranteed support.
Sc2 won't die after that, it will downscale. And even if so, people were calling Sc2 a dead game in 2013 already and turns out it this might happen more than 10 years later; not a bad lifespan for the most successful competitive Rts in the history of videogames.
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On October 16 2020 16:49 JustPassingBy wrote: RIP Starcraft as we know it from 2023 onwards. :-/
The game and community will most likely continue to exist well beyond that, but without cash from Blizzard I expect a massive downscaling in the competitive scene which will have riple effects in other facets of Starcraft (e.g. streaming). The community will most likely soften the blow by crowdfunding their own events, but I don't think they will be able to replace Blizzard in this capacity.
Meanwhile Afreeca have to pay good money to host a tournament
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At some point it feels like a bad news. On the other hand I belive ESL/DH + Afreeca combined can handle pro scene much better in comparison (if they got a good competitive + financial structure). Also, there is a hope for @Dreamhaven guys and even for SC3.
In the end we're on the same boat and some changes had to be done, maybe there is a chance to make it all better? 3 years is esports is a huge period honestly, we got time to figure it out, we got a powerful core community that dedicated many talented people to such big companies esl/dh/shopify/deepmind/redbull/twitch and others directly involved in esports.
SC2 was a catalyst and it was directly responsible for the new era of competitive esports, in 2010-2013 it also allowed twitch to rise to the level it has now.
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RIP no new commanders
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No new Blizzcon anymore right? Sucks wanted to see Reynor hold that trophy one last time...
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On October 16 2020 23:51 outscar wrote: No new Blizzcon anymore right? Sucks wanted to see Reynor hold that trophy one last time...
It could be a very long time before Blizzard even mentions anything StarCraft-related again at another Blizzcon.
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On October 16 2020 13:51 lechatnoir wrote: The only thing that counts is GSL and the Pro Tour.
In general, absolutely, more specifically, some of the other community tourneys are rather important too. Homestory Cup, this year's King of Battles, NationWars, TSL, etc.
Something CatZ said on his stream last night about the "offseason" between GSL seasons and this DH Summer/Fall/Winter. When there is a dearth of official tournaments, these kind of tournaments have done really well in filling the gap. The worry now is will those dwindle over time, which would be unfortunate. Of course, 2 additional years with ESL means two more years of weekly ESL Open Cups, which is absolutely stellar.
From my perspective, TLO leaving TL to be Shopify's eSports Program Manager means that there are some 3rd parties that are really considering investing time and potentially resources into the scene. What I've enjoyed, especially during the COVID lockdown, is the consistent amount of content to watch. AlphaX has done a great job filling the gap, hopefully they continue to do so. Indy has done a lot as well, Wardi and his tourneys have been great, etc.
CatZ said something else too: "Well yes, if you perceive the scene to be dead, then it is dead. But if you choose to see it as alive and running instead, then that's what it will be." (paraphrasing, not exact)
Blizzard's post doesn't change my interest in the pro scene as long as there is one. There's plenty to be excited about and there's plenty to be hopeful of. As long as the top players continue to give their all, I will support the scene.
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Northern Ireland23745 Posts
On October 17 2020 00:34 PabloSanchez wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2020 13:51 lechatnoir wrote: The only thing that counts is GSL and the Pro Tour. In general, absolutely, more specifically, some of the other community tourneys are rather important too. Homestory Cup, this year's King of Battles, NationWars, TSL, etc. Something CatZ said on his stream last night about the "offseason" between GSL seasons and this DH Summer/Fall/Winter. When there is a dearth of official tournaments, these kind of tournaments have done really well in filling the gap. The worry now is will those dwindle over time, which would be unfortunate. Of course, 2 additional years with ESL means two more years of weekly ESL Open Cups, which is absolutely stellar. From my perspective, TLO leaving TL to be Shopify's eSports Program Manager means that there are some 3rd parties that are really considering investing time and potentially resources into the scene. What I've enjoyed, especially during the COVID lockdown, is the consistent amount of content to watch. AlphaX has done a great job filling the gap, hopefully they continue to do so. Indy has done a lot as well, Wardi and his tourneys have been great, etc. CatZ said something else too: "Well yes, if you perceive the scene to be dead, then it is dead. But if you choose to see it as alive and running instead, then that's what it will be." (paraphrasing, not exact) Blizzard's post doesn't change my interest in the pro scene as long as there is one. There's plenty to be excited about and there's plenty to be hopeful of. As long as the top players continue to give their all, I will support the scene. If Blizzard didn’t hold the keys to the kingdom in terms of the actual game UI and servers etc I’d feel 100% confident here.
We’ve got a great dedicated community, companies willing to sponsor SC2 content etc.
I have no worries there whatsoever, but the community currently has no way to replace Blizzard in terms of balance, ladder map pools etc. Unlike what we’ve seen in BW and WC3 in the past.
Depends how this moves on going forwards, and what level of maintainence Blizz commits to.
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Co-op is still quite massive.
Why did they have to kill that
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Six of my friends and I just refunded our Shadowlands Epic Edition preorder and our subscriptions to set a statement against this bullcrap. I hope those Activision product managers die a horrible and slow death of asphyxiation under the piles of money they make from the mobile market.
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Yes the as close to perfect solution is we get minimal to no corporate influence from Activision-Blizzard, and the devs still continue to do balance tweaks and bugifxes as needed..
The community can create the content on it's own. TLMC can be used for adding to map pools and with the new 5.0 Editor fingers crossed the Arcade becomes the new home for original content.
The only big loss to me is no more Co-op commanders and no more funding from War Chests. Beyond that, the less influence from Blizzard the better off SC2 is in the long term.
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I am not a co-op player so this news does not really bother me. The Warchest - and with it the tournament that were financed with the Warchest - is a disappointment, but I would assume there is some way to come up with the funding for similar events without it. And Blizzard supported StarCraft II for more than 10 years with all kinds of content. That's more than we could have asked for when it was released 10 years ago. The only thing that would be worrying, was, if they actually cut the funding of the eSports-Scene. But even there I am not worried too much, since the contracts with ESL and Afreeca stand and there are at least two more years of fully funded eSports in StarCraft II. And that's all I need right now.
And on the plus side, these were the first comments by Blizzard that suggest that new games in the StarCraft universe are on the horizon? I definitely do not expect a StarCraft III given the state of the RTS genre in recent years (although some publisher seem to be willing to invest into the genre again recently with remakes and remasters being released). Any new game in the StarCraft universe would be awesome though. And if the end of commanders and Warchest means that the eSport-scene will still be there and at the same time they are working on something new, that's a positive thing overall, imo.
... the only thing that worries me is that we don't know what Blizzard is up to these days in general. This news does not change anything about that though. Even without any word - or maybe even more without any word - I would have been worried that they suddenly killed the game because it does not make enough profit for them. So... no change in worries in this regard for me. Blizzard pulling away from the game might actually be even good there, because the scene can stabilize independently of Blizzard.
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It's 2020 and I still play Unreal Tournament 99 with my guys. There are CTF international cups in Europe. Every year we have big lan party here in Poland. Epic gave their source code to community and thanks to that we have new patches. 21 years and ppl are still playing. And UT was never as big as sc2.
So i think that as long as people would play, and the player base is legit, there will always be some investors to host a tournament, or lan and shit like that. Pro scene will definitely shrink, but hopefully thanks to passion, wilk never perish.
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Mexico2170 Posts
People here are very confident about the two more years of GSL and ESL. You don't know the contracts. There could be clauses that let blizzard pull out at any time. Hell, I bet there are.
Next year ESL is pretty much happening. Next year GSL? I don't known... And after that? I wouldn't bet on it. It's cool there are contracts, but even that is no guarantee.
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Can we just go back to brood war
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On October 17 2020 01:45 Comedy wrote: Can we just go back to brood war
I tried to go back to BW after so many years of sc2...No fucking way. It's unplayable for me. Butni still like to watch proffesionals in Korea.
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Kind of surprised about the loss of Co-op support. I thought that was the biggest active part of the game. It would be fun if they allowed user maps in the future... Always thought it could be cool to have a longer map with 3+ expansions etc.
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Canada13379 Posts
On October 17 2020 01:59 TanksALot wrote: Kind of surprised about the loss of Co-op support. I thought that was the biggest active part of the game. It would be fun if they allowed user maps in the future... Always thought it could be cool to have a longer map with 3+ expansions etc.
Maybe they're going to work on a new game in the SC universe? Resources might be shifting no way for us to know.
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On October 16 2020 08:27 PresenceSc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2020 07:41 Waxangel wrote:Source Post: Blizzard
this change will free us up to think about what’s next, not just with regard to StarCraft II, but for the StarCraft universe as a whole. Rob Bridenbecker Starcraft 3? World of Starcraft please
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We all knew 2020 was never going out of beta and we went straight to 2021 release.
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