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Cheers. I wrote an article about "e-Sports". I know this is a topic you guys are interested in, so I figure, "Why the hell not?" I'll post it here. See how much trouble I get in.
I'd just like to preface this by saying one thing: You're not going to like some of the things I say in the entry and I expect a lot of people will think I am saying these things for the sole purpose of being inflammatory. I'm not. I'm not the first person in the history of this web site to gradually fall out of favor with StarCraft II, and I'm hardly the only person who thinks that the DotA clones are dumbed-down real-time strategy games. And while TeamLiquid is absolutely entitled to choose the games that they cover, it's impossible not to notice that Warcraft III wasn't up to standards a decade ago and the site just began covering a modified, simpler version of Warcraft III. I don't write to be popular, and if I did, I'd be writing Top X Lists. And also, if I was writing to be popular, the article wouldn't be running in the 5,000-word range. I like to at least give the courtesy of a synopsis, though, so here it is:
http://www.learntocounter.com/the-transformation-of-e-sports/
Synopsis: With e-Sports™ officially jumping the shark, it’s time to explain what went wrong. In the past, professional video game tournaments were an extension of long-term interest in select, excellent video games. But now, companies have discovered that they can use these tournaments to advertise new video games. From a company perspective, these tournaments are little more than a form of stealth marketing. However, these tournaments act as a form of mass media, exposing the flaws of these unproven video games on a highly visible platform. In tandem with the impatient and stubborn video game player of today, the outcomes of these tournaments create an expectation that companies will “fix their game” as quickly as possible, instead of allowing players to explore the game. This has hamstrung developers. In order to manage “fun to play”, “fun to watch”, and “fix your game”, companies pursue safe, boring design decisions in the pursuit of “balance”. The result has been a class of video game that neither lives up to its predecessors or relevant video game history, and are hardly the games worth broadcasting to the world.
Basically, I now think that the e-Sports marketing model has become detrimental to the actual quality of the games and has become completely antithetical to its original purpose, which was to provide lasting enjoyment of various excellent games as they held to scrutiny over the course of years. Professional video game tournaments are evolving into a form of stealth marketing, which I don't think would be an awful thing if these tournaments and the results of these tournaments turned their player bases into raving lunatics, which subsequently prevents their designers from exhibiting any degree of patience in tweaking their games. At this point, unless you're part of a small percentage of players that can actually make some good money doing this, I completely fail to see the purpose of playing these "e-Sports" (DotA 2, StarCraft II, League of Legends) when there are so many better similar titles out there. I don't expect everyone to agree with that, but that's what discussion is for.
 
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Katowice25012 Posts
Saying that Dota is a dumbed down version of Warcraft 3 is a very unusual opinion and I suspect if you honestly think that you haven't played it very much (or at all). I can understand how people come to that conlusion but it's very clear you're looking at it from the outside and haven't taken the time to learn how it works or why that is incorrect.
On November 19 2012 19:10 MichaelJLowell wrote:
Synopsis: With e-Sports™ officially jumping the shark.
I'm a little curious as to how you reached this as well because I haven't heard that view at all from anyone, including all the people bemoaning SC2's fate a few weeks back.
On November 19 2012 19:10 MichaelJLowell wrote:
At this point, unless you're part of a small percentage of players that can actually make some good money doing this, I completely fail to see the purpose of playing these "e-Sports" (DotA 2, StarCraft II, League of Legends) when there are so many better similar titles out there. I don't expect everyone to agree with that, but that's what discussion is for.
I think it's pretty hard to make an argument that there is a plethora of superior alternatives to these three games for a lot of people. I've spent a lot of time in a lot of RTSes and SC2 is pretty strictly better to all of them in a lot of ways, I suspect many feel the same.
Fast forward to recent history, and the staff at TeamLiquid.net (the pre-eminent Western source for coverage of professional and tournament StarCraft) saw some hideous writing on the wall, roughly translating to “Nobody gives a fuck about StarCraft II anymore.” So naturally, in August of 2012, the web site announced that they would begin coverage of tournament and professional DotA 2,
Just a quick clarification that this is not at all how it happened. When I was hired to work at TL in mid-2011 one of the things I was brought on to do was to look towards covering Dota for the future. That whole decision and process took about a year, long before it was popular to say SC2 is dying.
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Do note when I respond to this, I'm sure you've played just as much (if not more) of these games, so believe me, if it sounds like I'm talking down to you or stating the obvious at any point, I'm not. There's other people reading along and they may need the input.
On November 19 2012 19:25 heyoka wrote:
Saying that Dota is a dumbed down version of Warcraft 3 is a very unusual opinion and I suspect if you honestly think that you haven't played it very much (or at all). I can understand how people come to that conlusion but it's very clear you're looking at it from the outside and haven't taken the time to learn how it works or why that is incorrect.
All of the tactics and mechanics within Warcraft III exist within the Defense of the Ancients model, the difference being the things that those systems emphasize. So, for example, experience denial is much more critical in Defense of the Ancients because the effort-to-reward ratio (how much the player gains by investing his time and resources in a specific tactic or play) is far, far greater.
The difference is fairly simple: There are far, far, far more things going on in a game of Warcraft III at any time. That's important to note because Warcraft III is already a fairly limited game of strategy that is buffered by its emphasis on tactics and its excellent soft-counter unit design. (However, good luck explaining that to some of the Total Annihilation die-hards). In Warcraft III, you have to manage a functional base, create your armies from that composition, and pay particular attention to as many as three powerful hero units at any given time, with units spread out across the entire battlefield as controlled by one individual. Defense of the Ancients completely strips away the base construction and large-army micromanagement in favor of a single unit and then leaves all the other stuff to the computer. (And yes, DotA may be a team game where you have to coordinate with others, but Warcraft III also featured team games, and the larger team gametypes were the best game modes in that game.)
The DotA clones try to compensate for this by giving you an absurd array of choice, where you have access to dozens of heroes or Champions, large numbers of purchasable items, and talent trees, but most of these choices are either unintuitive and redundant, and only a small percentage of the mechanics in these systems function within the game structure at any given time. So while there's one-hundred-plus Champions in League of Legends, only ten of them are being used at any time. Each of those heroes is individually less complex with fewer moving parts than any army and base in most real-time strategy games.
You can make the argument that DotA clones are their own genre and should be judged as such, but then the most appropriate comparison is comes with fighting games, and that the DotA clones are some combination of Counter-Strike, Super Smash Bros., and Diablo, a five-on-five versus multiplayer game where fighters use limited input to perform their special moves, a game where the fighters gradually level up over the course of the battle. And if that's the case, then the DotA clones are doing themselves a disservice by bogging themselves down in all the number crunching and grinding, and they should focus more on the things that fighting games do well. (Keep in mind that I didn't really care for the role-playing-style number-crunching in Warcraft III, either. However, it was easier to keep track of in that game than it is in the offshots.) And I have played some Defense of the Ancients. I'm not going to claim that I've played hundreds upon thousands of hours of it, but the reasons I dislike the games have very little to do with any fine-tweaking or unit balancing. I'm just comparing the scope of the games.
On November 19 2012 19:25 heyoka wrote:
I'm a little curious as to how you reached this as well because I haven't heard that view at all from anyone, including all the people bemoaning SC2's fate a few weeks back.
When X number of the professional Korean StarCraft players jumped to League of Legends, it made it pretty clear that professional video game tournaments are just a career choice now. At least with StarCraft II, you could make the argument that Blizzard muscled KeSPA out of the way, so it was generally logical to continue on to the new game. (Just because most of the Western players were playing on an amateur level didn't mean they didn't desire to play in Korea and get paid to do it.) Also keep in mind that you and me obviously differ on the matter of the DotA clones, so when I hear years and years of "we need to protect the skill ceiling in StarCraft" and then I see people jumping to League of Legends, it means something completely different to me. (Edit: While I don't like to change and edit things in my articles after I'm done, I did change "jumping the shark" to a more neutral assertion.)
On November 19 2012 19:25 heyoka wrote:
I think it's pretty hard to make an argument that there is a plethora of superior alternatives to these three games for a lot of people. I've spent a lot of time in a lot of RTSes and SC2 is pretty strictly better to all of them in a lot of ways, I suspect many feel the same.
As far as I've been able to tell, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is basically Command and Conquer with a far more advanced strategy component and incredibly high lethality that punishes players for making the slightest tactical mistake. (Most of the Command and Conquer games were incredibly fast and buildings were made out of paper, but engagements between armies tended to last for a fairly long time and mistakes could be overcome.) And when compared to StarCraft (and Brood War), StarCraft II lacks the soft-counter system that led to interesting matchups like Vultures against Dragoons and Lurkers against Marines, and ends up being an out-and-out rock-paper-scissors design, which is something that's been done far better in games like Supreme Commander and Age of Empires II. That's why the deathball had become such an integral and dominant part of StarCraft II tactics. When combined with the high lethality and the disinteresting unit design, unit composition has become far more important and does much more to dictate the outcome of most battles.
That's a fairly simple explanation for it, but StarCraft II's problems are generally more complex than that (the vast majority having to do with the game engine), but I still do think it's at least a pretty solid tactics-oriented RTS that just happens to be the successor to one of the kings of the tactics-oriented RTS. I'd hardly consider it anywhere near the class of the genre, though.
On November 19 2012 19:25 heyoka wrote:
Just a quick clarification that this is not at all how it happened. When I was hired to work at TL in mid-2011 one of the things I was brought on to do was to look towards covering Dota for the future. That whole decision and process took about a year, long before it was popular to say SC2 is dying.
Noted. Little bit tired, but I'll see what I can amend. Thanks for the input.
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On November 19 2012 19:25 heyoka wrote:Saying that Dota is a dumbed down version of Warcraft 3 is a very unusual opinion and I suspect if you honestly think that you haven't played it very much (or at all). I can understand how people come to that conlusion but it's very clear you're looking at it from the outside and haven't taken the time to learn how it works or why that is incorrect. Show nested quote +On November 19 2012 19:10 MichaelJLowell wrote:
Synopsis: With e-Sports™ officially jumping the shark. I'm a little curious as to how you reached this as well because I haven't heard that view at all from anyone, including all the people bemoaning SC2's fate a few weeks back. Show nested quote +On November 19 2012 19:10 MichaelJLowell wrote:
At this point, unless you're part of a small percentage of players that can actually make some good money doing this, I completely fail to see the purpose of playing these "e-Sports" (DotA 2, StarCraft II, League of Legends) when there are so many better similar titles out there. I don't expect everyone to agree with that, but that's what discussion is for. I think it's pretty hard to make an argument that there is a plethora of superior alternatives to these three games for a lot of people. I've spent a lot of time in a lot of RTSes and SC2 is pretty strictly better to all of them in a lot of ways, I suspect many feel the same.Show nested quote +Fast forward to recent history, and the staff at TeamLiquid.net (the pre-eminent Western source for coverage of professional and tournament StarCraft) saw some hideous writing on the wall, roughly translating to “Nobody gives a fuck about StarCraft II anymore.” So naturally, in August of 2012, the web site announced that they would begin coverage of tournament and professional DotA 2, Just a quick clarification that this is not at all how it happened. When I was hired to work at TL in mid-2011 one of the things I was brought on to do was to look towards covering Dota for the future. That whole decision and process took about a year, long before it was popular to say SC2 is dying.
BW?? If you really played it for a long time and feel that sc2 is strictly better, I think you are in the minority. Even most SC2 pros that came from BW say its the better game when asked privately.
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The comparison was being made to all real-time strategy games, not just Brood War.
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On November 19 2012 20:46 MichaelJLowell wrote:
The comparison was being made to all real-time strategy games, not just Brood War.
So? It was said that sc2 was strictly better than all of them, which includes BW. Cant argue for other games, but if someone claims to have played rts games extensively (incl BW) and thinks sc2 is better than all of them, I cant help but call him out that hes probably in the minority among those ppl who have done the same (aka played BW and SC2 for a significant amount of time).
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Oh, hmmm. Fair enough. Yeah, probably time for me to go take a nap. I'll reply to anything when I come back into being.
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I can't even begin to comprehend how you think dota is a dumbed down war3. the games have totally different goals, totally different methods of reaching those goals and are equally complex in terms of strategy and skills required. actually dota is probably second only to BW in terms of strategy and depth and evolution of play.
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France8043 Posts
On November 19 2012 21:14 PrinceXizor wrote:
I can't even begin to comprehend how you think dota is a dumbed down war3. the games have totally different goals, totally different methods of reaching those goals and are equally complex in terms of strategy and skills required. actually dota is probably second only to BW in terms of strategy and depth and evolution of play.
The "depth" is inflated by all the micro patches and the new heroes...
Do you realize why they patch those games all the time ? Because it is a very shallow genre (HoN can be pretty fun tho) and they don't want a stale game where people always make the same picks. So they release a new hero/champion, add +1 stats/lvl to another and rework a skill.
That's cheaper than making a new game for sure lol. Release new stuff, let the nerds cry, then patch, more tears, rinse and repeat until expansion (Hots) or remake on new engine (Dota2).
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On November 19 2012 21:40 Boblion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2012 21:14 PrinceXizor wrote:
I can't even begin to comprehend how you think dota is a dumbed down war3. the games have totally different goals, totally different methods of reaching those goals and are equally complex in terms of strategy and skills required. actually dota is probably second only to BW in terms of strategy and depth and evolution of play. The "depth" is inflated by all the micro patches and the new heroes... Do you realize why they patch those games all the time ? Because it is a very shallow genre (HoN can be pretty fun tho) and they don't want a stale game where people always make the same picks. So they release a new hero/champion, add +1 stats/lvl to another and rework a skill. That's cheaper than making a new game for sure lol. Release new stuff, let the nerds cry, then patch, more tears, rinse and repeat until expansion (Hots) or remake on new engine (Dota2).
?????????? the depth is created through the multitude of strategies. you clearly don't know dota if you think it's patched all the time. dota is used to getting 1-3 real patches a year at most. the reason valve is patching so much is there are a lot of bugs with the new engine and not every hero in dota is in dota 2 yet. Dota is known for NOT having a stale game, the character choices change fluidly on their own similar to BW. a team( or BW player) brings in a new innovation and everyone adapts and the game changes. it's a natural cycle in dota and bw.
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France8043 Posts
Dota is one of the most patched games of all time but good try. The changelog alone could probably make a nice book lol.
And again the game is not stale because of the constant patching it would have been figured out for a long time otherwise.
I mean i like the idea of having tons of different heroes available but eventually people will figure who are the "top" picks and only play the same pool of heroes. And then the game gets patched 
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France8043 Posts
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Yeah. thats 5 years ago. and the majority of patches are bug fixes. god forbid a character be left with a spell that just doesn't function. i guess if blizzard patched BW ever it would invalidate BW as an esport too. oh. wait.
26 patches with legitimate gameplay changes. over 5 years. especially because dota has a stable version and the new version with stable patches lasting a long time. out of those 26 patches, about 10 were stable patches. which means competitive dota was patched twice a year at most.
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France8043 Posts
1.08 vs 6.67c
You really have no idea about what you are talking about lol.
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uhhh. no you have no clue, educate yourself. even a wikipedia search can provide you with your answers. i suggest looking up "brood war" and "dota allstars" since you seem uneducated about both.
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France8043 Posts
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About when competitive dota starts how many patches there were since then, and how many bw patches there are.
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On November 19 2012 20:35 diehilde wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2012 19:25 heyoka wrote:Saying that Dota is a dumbed down version of Warcraft 3 is a very unusual opinion and I suspect if you honestly think that you haven't played it very much (or at all). I can understand how people come to that conlusion but it's very clear you're looking at it from the outside and haven't taken the time to learn how it works or why that is incorrect. On November 19 2012 19:10 MichaelJLowell wrote:
Synopsis: With e-Sports™ officially jumping the shark. I'm a little curious as to how you reached this as well because I haven't heard that view at all from anyone, including all the people bemoaning SC2's fate a few weeks back. On November 19 2012 19:10 MichaelJLowell wrote:
At this point, unless you're part of a small percentage of players that can actually make some good money doing this, I completely fail to see the purpose of playing these "e-Sports" (DotA 2, StarCraft II, League of Legends) when there are so many better similar titles out there. I don't expect everyone to agree with that, but that's what discussion is for. I think it's pretty hard to make an argument that there is a plethora of superior alternatives to these three games for a lot of people. I've spent a lot of time in a lot of RTSes and SC2 is pretty strictly better to all of them in a lot of ways, I suspect many feel the same.Fast forward to recent history, and the staff at TeamLiquid.net (the pre-eminent Western source for coverage of professional and tournament StarCraft) saw some hideous writing on the wall, roughly translating to “Nobody gives a fuck about StarCraft II anymore.” So naturally, in August of 2012, the web site announced that they would begin coverage of tournament and professional DotA 2, Just a quick clarification that this is not at all how it happened. When I was hired to work at TL in mid-2011 one of the things I was brought on to do was to look towards covering Dota for the future. That whole decision and process took about a year, long before it was popular to say SC2 is dying. BW?? If you really played it for a long time and feel that sc2 is strictly better, I think you are in the minority. Even most SC2 pros that came from BW say its the better game when asked privately.
Well I think people have opinions and even though to some of us who thinks bw is the better game, some people would even think bw is bad and C&C is the better RTS out there and I agree though because it's a fun game but not really that good from a competitive perspective again it's my opinion.
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France8043 Posts
So wait i'm naming the last bw balance patch (1.08), i'm linking to the Dota changelog and this guy tell me to go on wiki to know how many patches there are ? Really ?
I don't know wtf is wrong with you dude but you are a piss poor debater. Anyway i think that i have made my point clear for the others people in this thread and if you don't get it well too bad i guess.
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Dota is really mainly a teamwork game. If you play it against someone one-on-one then yes it is a very dumbed-down version of Warcraft 3, but most of the skill lies in the teamwork and team strategies.
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EPT
