EPTDoA says: Don't poison yourself, SC2 community! - Page 8
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jackalope1234
122 Posts
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mongoose22
174 Posts
Also, there's also the usual online disinhibition effect that makes the internet and forums into pretty ugly places to be, where everyone's opinion swings far in one direction or the other and no one has trouble typing out every nasty thing that comes to their head because no one's going to reach out through the screen to slap them in the face. I'd never want to be a community manager. | ||
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risk.nuke
Sweden2825 Posts
The gameplay factor - I came, I played, I got bored. Blizzard set out to sell their games to everyone. How do you make a game that suits everyone? You can't, simply. People like differently. So they came up with their solution. Cram in as many "cool" spells and abilitys in sc2 as possible. And it worked, everyone went omg this game is the dopest thing ever untill after 6 months you'd bored and you felt nothing for their "cool" mechanics anymore. And this was the first problem. The second problem was somewhere along the game design phase it was decided that no two units in this new starcraft should do the same thing. It will be much more epic if every single unit feels unique. Remember back, if I got a penny every time someone said in an interview they wanted to make every unit feel unique I could have made my own game. The problem with making every unit unique is you can no longer just have two basic fighting units, The basic differences (Attack, range, life, speed, mobillity etc) wasn't enough. Now every unit needs a different attack and a spell or three or it wasn't hipp enough to be in the new flagship game. This required alot of spells. I believe primary reasoning for this whole idea was they had already thought of a ton of spells and badly wanted them implanted in their game but it's off the point. [image blocked] Every unit needs spells. As they went on implementing spells it shortly became extremely forced. They didn't implement spells because they thought it would make the game greater. They implemented spells because they had to according to the game design. And they needed to implement a lot of spells because god forbid two units would do even remotely the same thing. They wanted three balanced races and every race should be able to do the same thing but go about it in extremely different ways. All this leads up to how they forced spells upon the game itself that contributed to why the game could never reach it's potential as the follow up to broodwar. Because at the design level they had put themselves against the wall with 'spells for every unit' and crippled themselves with 'no spells can be simmilar'. They were forced to implement bad spells to get enough spells which resulted in suboptimal gameplay. (some of the abilliys have been removed but their presences at the design level made the game what it is today) The observer factor - why doesn't the lesser player loose. What made the korean bw scene so amazing to watch for me was how hardcore it was. The pros prepared endlessly for their strategys, training their builds and executing them flawlessly. I knew that when I watched two pros go up against each other I knew they were giving it everything they had. Most importantly I knew when I turned of the stream the better player had prevailed. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that the victor had deserved his win even if I was a hardcore fanboy of the loser. There wasn't room for doubt. Turning my eyes at sc2. The first year was the worst I'd ever seen. People were cheesing left and right. All-in builds and timing pushes were dominating regular up play. It was just to hard to be strong all around, or rather not playing "standard" was just disturbingly strong. I had my heroes though, the elite people I saw had strong macro and micro but upsets were daily and it killed me to see them get smashed by lesser skilled players timing pushes and shenanigans. Now I'm not saying the game is still at that level, There are sc2 playes who smash anyone lesser skilled but it's not come as far as you've been deluded into thinking it has because there are still fundamental flaws in the game design that makes it easier for the lesser player to win. And this, more then anything else is what killed the viewers. Because it's not fun to speculate on a match up when the smallest mistake can be a small mistake... or lead to the destruction of half your army due to poorly designed mechanics. TBC | ||
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cheative
8 Posts
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Irre
United States646 Posts
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slightlyoff
6 Posts
On October 22 2012 02:33 Greenhit wrote: This is the angry overentitled style that hes referring to I would imagine. Why not people just stop pretending they have any idea how to develop a game with the complexity and scale of a game like Starcraft? The PROS should have input, yes, but other then that, I doubt any change good or bad has been made just because a random average joe had some sort of input. Stop putting game developers on a pedestal, as somebody who has played hundreds of video games I know what features make for good gameplay and a fun to play game that I enjoy, and what features are meaningless fluff or don't work at all. (A) We aren't talking only about game balance in complaints but overall game design. (battle.net, arcade, etc.) (B) Pros input only takes priority for things like balance, and even then lots of pros are retarded and don't have the proper reasoning to stand back and look at the game as a whole to fix a problem. Just because someone isn't a pro doesn't mean they don't have the proper perspective to recognize problems and come up with solutions. If only pros can design games, then why are we play starcraft? a game not made by pros. (C) Overly entitled? Is it overly entitled to ask for a better game or else we won't buy the next expansion? That's called consumerism. You demand a good product or else you don't buy it. Again, stop putting game developers on a pedestal. Blizzard is not some indie company with 20 game developers working their hearts and souls to ash to put out a good game based on polite feedback. They are a large corporation trying to maximize profits from the game by weighing the time to money benefit of working on certain features. If people don't put their wallets where their mouth is they will never give you what you want or they will take 5 years to do it. | ||
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Tyree
1508 Posts
Viewership is down across the board and has dived by roughly 50% in the span of just a year. That is a outright crisis in every imaginable way This is not about Destiny or whether you like him or not, i personally do not like him, but at least here he is finally in the right. He is the only person who is "e-famous" enough in SC2 community who actually has the grapefruits to say what needs to be said, the game is in free fall and who knows where it will be in year. The so called respected personalities of SC2 all have too much of a stake in their jobs with keeping sponsors happy to really tell you the truth, whether it be Apollo, iNcontrol, Day9, Artosis or whoever else you look up to while you trash Destiny. All of those guys might have to find a new job soon unless either SC2 picks up or they switch to LoL. You can bet your ass that behind closed doors and in privacy they are saying 95% of the same things Destiny is, while in public portraying this super positive, everything-is-fine goody too shoes attitude. Day9 used to get 20-25k viewers, now he gets around 8k, there are people who goof around on Twitch and play WoW Arena who get as many viewers as he does, TSL3 did 60-70k, TSL4 barely did half those numbers, Destiny himself used to do 3-4k viewers now he hovers around 1,5-2k. Take any sample and the trend is right there. We arent talking some personal experience "my 2 friends used to watch, now they dont, SC2 is dead lolz" we actually have the numbers to back it up. And no i am not some LoL or DOTA fanatic, do not give a **** about either game and the entire genre, i have no desire to watch either nor play any of them. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Also, people need to see the decline in numbers as a sign that there is to many SC2 shows and events out there. Day9 was pulling 25K viewers when he was the only man doing what he is doing. But 8k viewers is still a huge number which outpaces most cable networks nightly: http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/cable-cnn-ends-its-ratings-slide-fox-falls-again/cable-by-the-numbers/ So Day9 is still more watched most cable networks. There is value is SC2 and people need to market it. This is the crunch time for the community. We are no longer in the period of endless growth that propelled forward for 2 years. There are other games out there fighting for viewers. Leaders of the community need to put a more push a more positive outlook and encourage better discourse, rather than let venom rule every thread. | ||
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don_kyuhote
3006 Posts
On October 24 2012 01:30 Tyree wrote: This is not about Destiny or whether you like him or not, i personally do not like him, but at least here he is finally in the right. He is the only person who is "e-famous" enough in SC2 community who actually has the grapefruits to say what needs to be said, the game is in free fall and who knows where it will be in year. The so called respected personalities of SC2 all have too much of a stake in their jobs with keeping sponsors happy to really tell you the truth, whether it be Apollo, iNcontrol, Day9, Artosis or whoever else you look up to while you trash Destiny. All of those guys might have to find a new job soon unless either SC2 picks up or they switch to LoL. You can bet your ass that behind closed doors and in privacy they are saying 95% of the same things Destiny is, while in public portraying this super positive, everything-is-fine goody too shoes attitude. This is my thoughts as well. As long as playing/doing anything related to the game at hand is the main source of income, no way are they going to say negative stuff about it openly. They may behind the door, but never publicly. I think this is one of the prime proof of that. http://soundcloud.com/jcmoods/inc1 + Show Spoiler + Idra: It's sc2, you get better when you don't practice. incontrol: get those comments out now Greg, we can get those out of the way. Idra: yea...I'll be good. incontrol: .....it's just that when it's just us friends and you say something that if ever were leaked out, you would have to back peddle a little bit Idra: uhuh....fucking terrible game....I've talked to FakeSteve about it and he said he hasn't talked to a single top player who doesn't secretly hate the game | ||
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Irre
United States646 Posts
On October 24 2012 01:47 Plansix wrote: But 8k viewers is still a huge number which outpaces most cable networks nightly: http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/cable-cnn-ends-its-ratings-slide-fox-falls-again/cable-by-the-numbers/ So Day9 is still more watched most cable networks. rofl what? | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
If you take any cable network and look at the nightly viewership for a single show, it topped out at around 2-5 thousand nightly for their most popular shows. Day9 pulls in about 8-9K per daily every night. This is why people who don't play games care about Esports, because their numbers are compelling and the demographic is one that normally does not watch ads. | ||
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Sophia
Germany115 Posts
The biggest problem is: SC2 is hard and 98% of people are way too bad to play hard games. SC2 is no fun if you are a terrible gamer - so they play LoL and have fun with it because its so easy even if you are completly retarded. | ||
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maximizer
Germany24 Posts
I think Blizzard RTS games are still the goldstandard when it comes to gameplay and balancing. Yes sure the balance of sc2 isnt perfect and I think one problem that makes the game very frustrating to play is that different races and game mechanics reward skill very differently depending on the level of play. However if we´re honest balancing is still very good - I dont think there are many other games that are real competitors in that regard - besides other Blizz games. So why are so many people leaving? I feel like one out of many reasons, maybe not the main reason but still, is their mafia style marketing tactics. I cant speak so much for Broodwar, but alot of sc2 players and followers, atleast those who are active in the esports department of sc2, came from another Blizz RTS. The problem is the reason why they came. Normally if you produce a new product and want to sell it, it must be good enough for the consumer to believe that its better than the old one, so he or she needs to replace it. However I think with sc2 that wasnt the case. A community is what keeps a game alive, a multiplayer game is nothing without its community and blizz knows that. Also in esports the communities are based around tournaments and livestream-coverage etc... and regarding those events Blizzard has its fingers in every pie. I mean look at sc2, blizz kinda runs GSL together with gom.tv, they are partners with MLG and nearly every other league that matters. What they did to wc3 was they just shut off life-support and let the communities die to achieve a community transfer from wc3 to sc2. I remember how ESL.tv (ESL is kinda the most important league for the german scene) suddenly decided to replace wc3 by sc2 and even though the protest of the community was overwhelming (atleast in the beginning) they repeated like a broken record the following mantra: "blablabla the community is tired of wc3, they want a new game, which would be sc2 then". Most of the third party companies wich make content for entertainment purposes based on Blizz games are part of the Blizzard marketing machine (which isnt very surprising because at the end of the day Blizz has total control over them due to legal matters like copyrights etc, if Blizz doesnt approve what they´re doing, theyre done) and to my mind you must be quite naive to not see this. However making your customers switch by ruining the old product is not a very good long term strategy. It maybe works once - but if you fail to satisfy them repeatedly youre going to lose them at some point. Ofcourse I know that what I wrote doesnt apply on anyone who s played BW or WC3 and that there are alot of people who switched and genuinly fell in love with sc2 - of course I dont want to take anything away from them! | ||
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Polygamy
Austria1114 Posts
This community does so much of their job for them already. They have more ideas and feedback then they could ever hope to pay some one for and they get it for free, granted they are not all good ideas but there are plenty of great ones too. The community also makes maps and holds contest with outsider money. Everything from game play to Bnet seems as if it was made in a rush without much thought for longevity. Bnet 2.0 was a step backwards from Bnet 1.0 made more than 10 years earlier. Even if Blizzard doesn't have an exact lead over battle net they certainly have oversight. Why not cross realm play? Because people buy a second copy of this game to play on another server, boosting sales. I am sorry this is so negative but SC/BW was a great part of my childhood and it's clear in my eyes that Blizzard has very little intentions of every putting the effort forth to make this game live up to it's predecessor. | ||
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Boonbag
France3318 Posts
They can't revive the BW fame at will. LoL might take over, and that's it =( | ||
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StickyFlower
Sweden68 Posts
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Fandango
291 Posts
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Irre
United States646 Posts
On October 24 2012 02:07 Plansix wrote: + Show Spoiler + If you take any cable network and look at the nightly viewership for a single show, it topped out at around 2-5 thousand nightly for their most popular shows. Day9 pulls in about 8-9K per daily every night. This is why people who don't play games care about Esports, because their numbers are compelling and the demographic is one that normally does not watch ads. No. you clearly did not understand the chart and you are incredibly naive to believe a TV show even the most random TV show would get <80,000 viewers. That chart is by the thousand..so its like 1.9-4 million a night...not 4000 lol. How could you possibly believe that Day9 is more watched than a primetime news show??? | ||
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Laneir
United States1160 Posts
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[F_]aths
Germany3947 Posts
Some responses in this blog only strengthens Doa's points. SC2 is an extremely well-made game. It could be better still, but we should not act as if doom is imminent. We should support the game and voice real criticism instead trying to appeal to emotion. Some minor points which could be improved to make SC2 a better game is not the end of the world. edit: So sad that some try to undermine Doa's credibility because he works as an SC2 caster. He as an SC2 caster has much more insight that we normal TL users. We should focus on his argument instead of attacking him ad hominem. | ||
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