EPT
one of the finest ever to play the game, among others. On top of all this, famous players like 
Bisu, 
firebathero, EffOrt, and Calm are playing mediocre Starcraft: sometimes they look downright bad. Legends like Reach, NaDa, Iris, and July seem to have lost their magic, perhaps never to return. At times even the very best - Jaedong, Leta, Stork, fantasy - have looked terrible in recent games. Certainly, you say, some of the magic is gone.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkxBJrBOqH0
Magic happening, the old-school way.
Magic happening, the old-school way.
Of course, the news is not all bad.
Flash is looking like the closest thing to a challenger for "bonjwa" status since Jaedong ripped his way through scores of wannabe alpha nerds for a full year en route to second place in the Shinhan Bank 2009 Winners League, second place in the Shinhan Bank 2009-2010 Proleague, and two straight OSL titles and The Golden Mouse. And that was less than a year ago! Old-timers like free, Kwanro, fOrGG, and Kal have been picking up their game recently; newer players like Stats, BaBy, and ZerO continue to provide flair and exuberance. Times may be changing in the pro scene, but there's never a dull moment.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPsl4TBrGWU
A pretty sweet game - just played yesterday!
A pretty sweet game - just played yesterday!
And we can even say that, for all its faults, Starcraft II looks like it could well develop - in another three or four years of hard-core play - into a worthy successor to the best RTS ever made. Blizzard recently opened the beta stage for Starcraft II, and despite various balance debates and general complaining the game already looks set to become a huge success regardless of quality - just look at the number of people streaming and the hordes of people watching them do it. Well-known Broodwar stalwarts like Chill and Day[9] are spending huge amounts of time playing and discussing Starcraft II. And yes, whatever some of us would like to believe, the game really does have that kind of potential.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUxF4XWtj4g
Magic, The Replacement(?)
Magic, The Replacement(?)
But we know this: There will always be a niche somewhere in the world for underwater basket-weavers. People do various things for various reasons, not always for money - and hell, if curling can be in the Olympics, we can virtually (see what I did there) guarantee there will always be some sort of professional gaming scene - and on that scene, as we know full well, there will always be some players of The Best Strategy Video Game Ever Made, whether that continues to be Broodwar, is usurped by SC2 (can you imagine how awesome it would be to actually have a better game in our hands?) or some hypothetical future game, or is Broodwar, finally revived in thirty years when lesser imitators and descendants have run their course. Even J. S. Bach was ignored for a while and had to be revived. We know it can happen to the best: but we know the best always survives. Bach. Homer. Michelangelo. Chess. Starcraft.
![[image loading]](http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk5/neverggg/diaries/khan/09copycopy.jpg)
This is such a fantastic image. I can't say it better myself. <3 NeverGG
But in the end, a game is not successful - a game does not live - on the efforts of a few professionals who happen to be very very good at something. A game lives in the lives and imaginations of us, the people who play the damn thing. Football - soccer - is the biggest game there is because everybody plays it. Chess has survived for a thousand years because kids learn to play chess from their parents and older siblings growing up, even though the vast majority of people utterly suck balls at it and don't understand the strategy behind it. Basketball and football (American) and baseball (also American, but then so am I) and cricket or rugby (not American) live and grew in popularity because people played them. Even people who go on 0-13 free throw streaks and can't touch the bottom of the net will go out and play basketball because they love it - and it's people like that that keep the game alive. I'm not saying that you have to suck to care about a game. I'm saying that there are games, and then there are games that people come back to time and time again regardless of skill level, because the game brings out something beautiful.
I confess: I've played this game for nine years now, and I still suck balls at it. I only ever win with Zerg all-in shenanigans or the occasional PvT 10/15. I'm the D- to end all D-. I'm not even any good at BGH or Fastest to make up for it. I've done time with other titles in frustration: Homeworld, Age of Empires, Warcraft III, Dawn of War; but I keep coming back to Starcraft. I know I'm not the only one. But I still count myself as part of a game that's more than a game, a game that's developed a community.
I was listening to Day[9] on Tuesday, presenting his life of Starcraft. I honestly don't remember the last time I was that close to crying: I can't imagine his emotions during some of the events he mentioned, but in a community we all become a part of that. Maybe Starcraft will never match the draw of a World Cup or a Super Bowl. Maybe we'll be relegated to the occasional showcase of the curling world, or the mere showmanship of the ice skaters. Maybe - maybe more likely - we'll just continue as a thing that millions follow, but quietly, like chess-players.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzDGNBKplVw
Follow quietly? Korea says "ROFL".
Follow quietly? Korea says "ROFL".
I'm not really a motivational speaker. But I'm upset here. Between the accusations of cheating in the Korean scene and the advent of Starcraft II, I'm seeing a lot of people saying "Starcraft will die." I don't know why they think that. Some seem to think the integrity of the game is ruined. This is so much nonsense. If the entire European football scene were found out tomorrow to have been rigged for the last ten years - absolutely nothing would stop a couple dozen guys going out on the weekend and kicking the ball around, playing the game.
sAviOr or Justin - hell, Jaedong or Flash - could be proven a hacker, abetted by KeSPA, a week from now, and it would change nothing about the game. You could keep playing and not be tainted at all. The leagues in Korea could reform, reformed. Team Liquid and other sites could - and would - continue to host tournaments. Corruption can't kill a game this beautiful."We are just too pretty for God to let us die."
- CaptainMalcolm Reynolds Any Starcraft Player
- Captain
Others are afraid Starcraft II will deliver the coup de grace. A more warranted fear, but still, what are the possibilities: either Starcraft II delivers on its promise and rightly usurps the place of Prince of RTS, or it fails - and if it fails, we have our nearly-perfect game. Football (soccer, yes) has survived the evolution of rugby and Aussie rules and American rules and Canadian rules and for all I know Zulu rules and still goes strong. People lost tons of stuff in the Dark Ages, but some of it was preserved and most of it has been rediscovered - and twenty-five hundred years later, thousands of people still read Homer and laugh at Plautus' dirty jokes, even though it's not like nothing's been written since then.
The classics survive. Starcraft is a classic. It will survive, eventually and one way or another. But there is a way things can wither for a time, and that's for those who love them to lose faith. "It's just a game," they say. Explain it to them, don't agree. "I really should do something more social," you think. Start a LAN group. Do what it takes. We've got something special here, something Blizzard surely never dreamed of when they released what was just another good RTS. Starcraft is something you can build a community on, with everything that means: among other things, community is up to the people in it.
Watch the game. Play the game. Practice the game. Suck terribly at the game. Teach your kids and neighbors to play and feel the surge of pride when they kick your ass. Wait for the day, twenty years from now, when you'll be able to watch some scrawny nerd play for a World Championship, and you'll be able to say, "I taught that loser to 5-pool," when he wins. Because that's what we've got here: a game that's more than a game, a game that's got the potential to become a part of history.
Success is never final - and failure is not fatal
