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On March 10 2013 16:04 LuckyFool wrote:
The metagame is broken and the game became just generally boring to play. But we can't really talk about it in the forums here on TL without being told to shut up or that we're balance whining/complaining.
It became painfully clear after a while that there are just too many design issues that Blizzard wouldn't budge on which were causing issues with the game. A few small things here and there are tolerable for a while but weeks turned into months, months turned into years without real change or fixes to design flaws which are just fundamentally bad for an RTS game. I can't speak much on the past 2-3 months of HoTS or WoL as I haven't played seriously since November of last year, but the state of WoL was really not in a good spot when I quit and it made thinking about HoTS and the future of SC2 depressing so I distanced myself. I don't have the energy or willpower to even begin to go into it all here. (sometime in the near future I may be inspired to throw it all into my own blog post but that'll be for another day)
I can say that I definitely agree that it's been quite easy for lots of high masters or semi professional players who played purely as a hobby to move on to other things. Of course contracted players on professional teams will continue playing because it's their job. But the real life of the game in my opinion, where you can truly gauge the heartbeat on a day to day basis is the scene one step below that. The scene where people log on every night not to collect a paycheck, not to fulfill some tournament obligation, not to do something for the community. But to play because the game is fucking amazing. To play because there's a sense of accomplishment, a sense of self improvement, a sense of meaning to investing time into the game. If the people who play for the love of the game stop playing, that's when you really have an issue. Once a game stops rewarding you regarding the amount of time you start dedicating, well the guy who is dedicating that time will begin to ask himself, why? Am I playing for fun or something more? Am I even having fun anymore?
Need to stop now but I've now been inspired to go into this topic in more detail in a blog post of my own in the not so distant future.
I would be definitely interested in your thoughts on this.
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It's a vicious circle. Topics such as these work actually in a counter-productive manner, seeing that there's plenty of people who eventually stop playing because of the negativity and alike. Myself, the negativity of the community and the elitism based on rank instead of knowledge is pushing me away from the game.
I am someone who is highly competitive, and prior to my internship in China I used to play around 40-50 hours a week to practice. When I returned after 6 months of inactivity, the spark was gone and there were no reasons for me to really re-ignite my passion for this game. I reached a skillcap due to not playing enough because of various reasons. Reasons which some percieve as 'balance whine', so not to be discussed here. For the same reason, I am highly doubting to buy HotS. I play a Zerg and I've not had much fun in the game, so I guess there's no point.
As long as we've got incapable designers roaming around the Blizzard HQ, I will remain damn skeptical.
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Yesterday, I played SC2 WoL for the first time in about two weeks. Before that, and even until now, I just use the client for casting and that's it.
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On March 10 2013 16:04 LuckyFool wrote:
The metagame is broken and the game became just generally boring to play. But we can't really talk about it in the forums here on TL without being told to shut up or that we're balance whining/complaining.
It became painfully clear after a while that there are just too many design issues that Blizzard wouldn't budge on which were causing issues with the game. A few small things here and there are tolerable for a while but weeks turned into months, months turned into years without real change or fixes to design flaws which are just fundamentally bad for an RTS game. I can't speak much on the past 2-3 months of HoTS or WoL as I haven't played seriously since November of last year, but the state of WoL was really not in a good spot when I quit and it made thinking about HoTS and the future of SC2 depressing so I distanced myself. I don't have the energy or willpower to even begin to go into it all here. (sometime in the near future I may be inspired to throw it all into my own blog post but that'll be for another day)
I can say that I definitely agree that it's been quite easy for lots of high masters or semi professional players who played purely as a hobby to move on to other things. Of course contracted players on professional teams will continue playing because it's their job. But the real life of the game in my opinion, where you can truly gauge the heartbeat on a day to day basis is the scene one step below that. The scene where people log on every night not to collect a paycheck, not to fulfill some tournament obligation, not to do something for the community. But to play because the game is fucking amazing. To play because there's a sense of accomplishment, a sense of self improvement, a sense of meaning to investing time into the game. If the people who play for the love of the game stop playing, that's when you really have an issue. Once a game stops rewarding you regarding the amount of time you start dedicating, well the guy who is dedicating that time will begin to ask himself, why? Am I playing for fun or something more? Am I even having fun anymore?
Need to stop now but I've now been inspired to go into this topic in more detail in a blog post of my own in the not so distant future.
Just wanted to pop in and say I'm very interested in the blog you mentioned.
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I really hate seeing these. Let's please not go back to the OMGAWD WOL HAS TEH DEATHS posts we saw back with the conspiracy theories and blah. Please. The game is the second most popular E-Sport in the world. It is constantly behind LoL, but that is due to marketing and a large casual crowd that blizzard has only now realized is important. I'm going to clear here when I say that SCII is not dying. If blizz made a couple more ladder parts, between master and grand master maybe your friends wouldn't quit, but SCII, when HotS comes out, is going to be a different game. Blizzard has given us most of what we wanted, and to see people saying they won't even try it out is enormously whiney. I get if someone was ultra-into the scene, spending tons of time on the game and got disillusioned with the game, but to not try out the game that comes out afterward is ridiculous. I remember Luckyfool making a youtube video about SC vanilla before BW and how great of a change it made BW seem, I think we can all expect similar results from HotS from what we have all seen from the beta.
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United States744 Posts
On March 11 2013 01:35 docvoc wrote:
I really hate seeing these. Let's please not go back to the OMGAWD WOL HAS TEH DEATHS posts we saw back with the conspiracy theories and blah. Please. The game is the second most popular E-Sport in the world. It is constantly behind LoL, but that is due to marketing and a large casual crowd that blizzard has only now realized is important. I'm going to clear here when I say that SCII is not dying. If blizz made a couple more ladder parts, between master and grand master maybe your friends wouldn't quit, but SCII, when HotS comes out, is going to be a different game. Blizzard has given us most of what we wanted, and to see people saying they won't even try it out is enormously whiney. I get if someone was ultra-into the scene, spending tons of time on the game and got disillusioned with the game, but to not try out the game that comes out afterward is ridiculous. I remember Luckyfool making a youtube video about SC vanilla before BW and how great of a change it made BW seem, I think we can all expect similar results from HotS from what we have all seen from the beta.
Thank you for sharing your opinion, and I'm glad you actually said what you did. I intended this blog really to be a discussion about how StarCraft might die. But might is obviously a word that can go either way. You have taken the opinion that is less frequently expressed in these thread because I opened it up negatively. I do have a negative view, but I largely respect not only your but everyone's opinion in this thread. Anyone else please continue to discuss any or all sides of this argument, as it is interesting to hear specific stories and well thought-out statistically-based positions.
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The best way I can sum this up is a quote from mike morhaime from the ESPN talks I watched recently.
"You know, with Starcraft 2 we set out to make an esport[sic]"
then later on in the interview when talking about how they balance:
"Well we look at win percentages for every match up on every map in every league and then decide what needs fixing from there."
Sorry you can't make MLB be "balanced" off wreck/work leagues. There comes a point(as in plat and below) where you say, "Sorry kid, right now you're just not that good and this strategy isn't overpowered, you just don't have the skill or game knowledge to properly handle it yet." As opposed to going "we saw that bronze and silvers are massing void rays only and that is unacceptable so we're completely re-designing the void ray." The fact that multiple units have gone through multiple re-works yet are still this piss poor speaks volumes.
That said, StarCraft 2 does have too many underlying issues as Luckyfool said. It just doesn't work all that well, IMO the units aren't as flexible even with micro.(Things like seeing 8 dragoons take on 14-20 zerglings and coming out on top through dance micro) The accelerated macro mechanics actually take away from the game as well IMO as opposed to adding to it. And also the fact that they intentionally made us have 2 geysers "to up the skill ceiling in base management". Managing an extra geyser doesn't "increase" any skill ceiling, it just creates another hurdle you have to jump through. Think about what that would mean to have to have 3 less workers for every base, on three bases that is an extra 4 units at 2 supply each or 1 extra tier 3 unit, at various points in the game, that can be a game changer.
Also you can't "set out" to make an esport, it just has to happen like it did with BW. A lot of factors helped bring brood war to where it was, from the PC Bangs and High Speed Internet to the economic/social issues at the time. Poorer people looking for a way to relax without wasting a fuck ton of money. I remember watching a documentary from 2001? or so about Slayers_99 the player who won a Kings tournament from Norway. They did interviews with people and they pretty much said they go to PC Bangs because for like 2 bucks an hour you can play any game they had and also use the internet. Hell they even had "couples" rooms where couples could get seats right next to each other and play games together.
All of these things combined means that while Starcraft is a decent/good game(7/8 final score after all patches and overhauls IMO) it still wasn't any where near Starcraft Brood War(10 final score after all patches and overhauls IMO). And I say that as someone who once he got his Starcraft 2 Beta key never looked back at playing Brood War until recently, when I just finally realized why Starcraft is leaving such a bad taste in my mouth.
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On March 10 2013 18:32 Kuni wrote:
There are not many games, which lived for more than 10+ years. Only Counterstrike and Broodwar, right?
What other games were there?
Warcraft III (started 2003 or so?), DotA (2005), Quake 3 (2005?). All dead now.
Maybe one other?
DotA appears to be thriving, in no small part because Valve had the sense to make an HD version with enhanced features instead of a gimmicky 'sequel'.
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On March 10 2013 17:43 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 16:04 LuckyFool wrote:
The metagame is broken and the game became just generally boring to play. But we can't really talk about it in the forums here on TL without being told to shut up or that we're balance whining/complaining. Well we certainly don't want the average user to do this, but I'm sure we'd let you because of your experience in the scene....
Don't open the floodgates Plexa.
On March 11 2013 02:13 FromShouri wrote:
The best way I can sum this up is a quote from mike morhaime from the ESPN talks I watched recently.
"You know, with Starcraft 2 we set out to make an esport[sic]"
then later on in the interview when talking about how they balance:
"Well we look at win percentages for every match up on every map in every league and then decide what needs fixing from there."
Sorry you can't make MLB be "balanced" off wreck/work leagues. There comes a point(as in plat and below) where you say, "Sorry kid, right now you're just not that good and this strategy isn't overpowered, you just don't have the skill or game knowledge to properly handle it yet." As opposed to going "we saw that bronze and silvers are massing void rays only and that is unacceptable so we're completely re-designing the void ray." The fact that multiple units have gone through multiple re-works yet are still this piss poor speaks volumes.
That said, StarCraft 2 does have too many underlying issues as Luckyfool said. It just doesn't work all that well, IMO the units aren't as flexible even with micro.(Things like seeing 8 dragoons take on 14-20 zerglings and coming out on top through dance micro) The accelerated macro mechanics actually take away from the game as well IMO as opposed to adding to it. And also the fact that they intentionally made us have 2 geysers "to up the skill ceiling in base management". Managing an extra geyser doesn't "increase" any skill ceiling, it just creates another hurdle you have to jump through. Think about what that would mean to have to have 3 less workers for every base, on three bases that is an extra 4 units at 2 supply each or 1 extra tier 3 unit, at various points in the game, that can be a game changer.
Also you can't "set out" to make an esport, it just has to happen like it did with BW. A lot of factors helped bring brood war to where it was, from the PC Bangs and High Speed Internet to the economic/social issues at the time. Poorer people looking for a way to relax without wasting a fuck ton of money. I remember watching a documentary from 2001? or so about Slayers_99 the player who won a Kings tournament from Norway. They did interviews with people and they pretty much said they go to PC Bangs because for like 2 bucks an hour you can play any game they had and also use the internet. Hell they even had "couples" rooms where couples could get seats right next to each other and play games together.
All of these things combined means that while Starcraft is a decent/good game(7/8 final score after all patches and overhauls IMO) it still wasn't any where near Starcraft Brood War(10 final score after all patches and overhauls IMO). And I say that as someone who once he got his Starcraft 2 Beta key never looked back at playing Brood War until recently, when I just finally realized why Starcraft is leaving such a bad taste in my mouth.
I watched Rob do that panel too and I'd say Mike isn't really the best public speaker. There have been several conversations/interviews with Blizzard where they mark out how they go about balancing the game. That was meant to be one example but I do agree with your sentiment.
For the guys who like to keep pointing out that SC2 is larger on the global scale. That comes with time. Let's say you switch the two titles. You would be able to say the exact same thing lol. Last but not least, I'm going to repeat myself by saying Brood War isn't dead; SC2 isn't dead. You can talk about the decline all you want. Please do call it that but both games are in no shape or form dying.
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When Starcraft dies I'll still be hosting LANs in my basement with a derelict Battle.net server if anyone wants to come over post-SC-apocalypse. I'll even hop on the treadmill to power it all if someone else wants to play. For this reason alone, Starcraft will never ever die. I will be there giving it CPR and keeping blood pumping manually until I die. So fuck you downers. Starcraft for life.
Seriously though, I honestly feel like re-linking Destiny's infamous "SC2 is dying" thread a few months after the fact is hardly any more useful than the post was in the first place. The discussion hasn't gone anywhere since then, and isn't going anywhere now. If you're so damn worried about Starcraft dying you could try to avoid getting on your soapbox and telling people to repent before the metagame rapture happens, and instead tell people how great the game really is in spite of its many faults, try to be a positive influence perhaps, or just share the game with a few friends who haven't ever played it maybe?
Every little nitpick and gripe that people bring up about why SC2 is dying is ultimately a perfect example of the 2/10 knees too pointy, would not bang attitude. Ya, SC2's metagame can be kind of tiring to deal with at times, but 9/10 games I don't feel that way. 9/10 games I watch or play I am having a blast enjoying my favorite game of all time. If you are about to propose to your girlfriend of 2 years because you've finally realized that she is way out of your league, treats you wonderfully, loves you dearly, is hot as hell, and you can't live without her, but then you notice that she has a weird birth mark on her neck. Wait, she also likes that one TERRIBLE movie that you hate beyond anything else, and she is right handed but likes to eat with her fork in her left hand for some convoluted and silly reason, and she likes to sing in the shower and she's a horrible singer are you going to dump her by the way side? NO. Because in spite of her weirdness, faults, and quirks she is still way better for you than any other girl out there. That girl's name is Starcraft. And she is a nice lady. DotA and LoL are pretty good looking too, and maybe if Starcraft dies you can find some comfort in them, but no one will ever complete you like Starcraft will.
Also, Starcraft is a game that is still changing and growing and becoming better and better, whereas a girl would start to get old, flabby, and wrinkled, Starcraft is getting sexier and sexier and has a team of dozens of dedicated people working all the time to make it the best game ever, for us. Plus she has an open relationship with hundreds of thousands of other awesome people (men AND women, HOT) that make up this community.
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I also think SC2 is dying, as it deserves. I used to be a Master zerg (BEFORE the queen range buffs and infestor metagame) and quit simply because I got bored. It's just a poorly designed game with a lot of factors that not only make it a bad esport but also NOT fun. Colossi are not a fun unit. There is nothing enjoyable about using them. They're just ridiculously effective at what they do. And the counter to them is not fun either. It's just massing long range air units that are completely useless after killing the colossi. It is not fun to dump 40% of your army resources into units that have only one use and then literally just sit around in the sky as paperweights waiting to get shot down.
This problem occurs a LOT in SC2, where you have hard counters where one unit is basically completely useless versus another. And because macro is so automated and because there is this hard counter system, you basically just smash armies against each other, suicide the remains, and then tech switch instantly to a different army comp then do it all over again. It lacks nuance. It lacks finesse. It is an ugly brute of a game, not at all like Broodwar.
Blizzard made a huge mistake destroying the Broodwar scene and making this atrocity of a game.
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On March 10 2013 16:04 LuckyFool wrote:
The metagame is broken and the game became just generally boring to play. But we can't really talk about it in the forums here on TL without being told to shut up or that we're balance whining/complaining.
It became painfully clear after a while that there are just too many design issues that Blizzard wouldn't budge on which were causing issues with the game. A few small things here and there are tolerable for a while but weeks turned into months, months turned into years without real change or fixes to design flaws which are just fundamentally bad for an RTS game. I can't speak much on the past 2-3 months of HoTS or WoL as I haven't played seriously since November of last year, but the state of WoL was really not in a good spot when I quit and it made thinking about HoTS and the future of SC2 depressing so I distanced myself. I don't have the energy or willpower to even begin to go into it all here. (sometime in the near future I may be inspired to throw it all into my own blog post but that'll be for another day)
I can say that I definitely agree that it's been quite easy for lots of high masters or semi professional players who played purely as a hobby to move on to other things. Of course contracted players on professional teams will continue playing because it's their job. But the real life of the game in my opinion, where you can truly gauge the heartbeat on a day to day basis is the scene one step below that. The scene where people log on every night not to collect a paycheck, not to fulfill some tournament obligation, not to do something for the community. But to play because the game is fucking amazing. To play because there's a sense of accomplishment, a sense of self improvement, a sense of meaning to investing time into the game. If the people who play for the love of the game stop playing, that's when you really have an issue. Once a game stops rewarding you regarding the amount of time you start dedicating, well the guy who is dedicating that time will begin to ask himself, why? Am I playing for fun or something more? Am I even having fun anymore?
Need to stop now but I've now been inspired to go into this topic in more detail in a blog post of my own in the not so distant future.
They don't let people post balance whine/this game sux shit anymore because it's annoying. People are tired of hearing about it, especially when it's some random "low master" player who is mad because of "patchzergs". I mean, sheesh, no one is holding a gun to their head and forcing them to watch/play SC2. I think you might have some valuable insight into the game to make a difference. Most people, when talking about the game, make terrible, terrible suggestions like "Air units should be able to burrow", "We need to give Terran an arbiter", etc, or just bitch about how bad the game is.
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Well there's a time and a place to bitch about things. You can't bitch about everything constantly. People like avilo aren't taken seriously because they bitch about everything from the sun rising in the east to lag while playing broodwar in LAN mode. While he does have good points sometimes there is a time and a place to express opinion and a time and a place to hold back.
I feel selective bitching at times is quite necessary and far more effective. It's all about picking and choosing your battles.
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United States10328 Posts
On March 10 2013 18:32 Kuni wrote:
There are not many games, which lived for more than 10+ years. Only Counterstrike and Broodwar, right?
What other games were there?
Warcraft III (started 2003 or so?), DotA (2005), Quake 3 (2005?). All dead now.
Maybe one other?
I think Age of Empires II still has an active ladder; and though it's not a computer game, Super Smash Bros. Melee still has lots of tourneys.
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even after playing sc2 and league of legends for a while, i still find myself coming back to broodwar
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On March 11 2013 02:43 Severedevil wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 18:32 Kuni wrote:
There are not many games, which lived for more than 10+ years. Only Counterstrike and Broodwar, right?
What other games were there?
Warcraft III (started 2003 or so?), DotA (2005), Quake 3 (2005?). All dead now.
Maybe one other? DotA appears to be thriving, in no small part because Valve had the sense to make an HD version with enhanced features instead of a gimmicky 'sequel'.
That's true. I guess the argument, that DotA2 is still DotA and not another game is valid. I'm sure it will reach the 10 years easily. It's one of the best online games that have ever been made, and it was only a custom map :-)
On March 11 2013 09:30 ]343[ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 18:32 Kuni wrote:
There are not many games, which lived for more than 10+ years. Only Counterstrike and Broodwar, right?
What other games were there?
Warcraft III (started 2003 or so?), DotA (2005), Quake 3 (2005?). All dead now.
Maybe one other? I think Age of Empires II still has an active ladder; and though it's not a computer game, Super Smash Bros. Melee still has lots of tourneys.
That's cool. Apparently the first Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament was hosted in 2003 and this year's EVO will have one due to a charity vote for the last game of the event. Age of Empires 2 came out 1999 I believe, so that's quite a success, if lots of people are still playing the game today. Just read, that the developers have stopped investing time and efforts in the game at the beginning of the year. But that doesn't mean people will stop playing it. 13 years for a computer game is pretty respectable.
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Quoting an article from Destiny in Starcraft is like quoting Georges W. Bush in political science ...
I wished I would take the time to explain why things change slowly in a big company like Blizzard but I have no time to waste. The game isn't perfect but it doesn't have to be for me to enjoy it, I just have to enjoy the storylines.
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On March 11 2013 08:51 LuckyFool wrote:
Well there's a time and a place to bitch about things. You can't bitch about everything constantly. People like avilo aren't taken seriously because they bitch about everything from the sun rising in the east to lag while playing broodwar in LAN mode. While he does have good points sometimes there is a time and a place to express opinion and a time and a place to hold back.
I feel selective bitching at times is quite necessary and far more effective. It's all about picking and choosing your battles.
This definitely concerns me a lot whenever I embark on writing a review for a game.
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On March 11 2013 19:02 Kuni wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2013 02:43 Severedevil wrote:On March 10 2013 18:32 Kuni wrote:
There are not many games, which lived for more than 10+ years. Only Counterstrike and Broodwar, right?
What other games were there?
Warcraft III (started 2003 or so?), DotA (2005), Quake 3 (2005?). All dead now.
Maybe one other? DotA appears to be thriving, in no small part because Valve had the sense to make an HD version with enhanced features instead of a gimmicky 'sequel'. That's true. I guess the argument, that DotA2 is still DotA and not another game is valid. I'm sure it will reach the 10 years easily. It's one of the best online games that have ever been made, and it was only a custom map :-) Show nested quote +On March 11 2013 09:30 ]343[ wrote:On March 10 2013 18:32 Kuni wrote:
There are not many games, which lived for more than 10+ years. Only Counterstrike and Broodwar, right?
What other games were there?
Warcraft III (started 2003 or so?), DotA (2005), Quake 3 (2005?). All dead now.
Maybe one other? I think Age of Empires II still has an active ladder; and though it's not a computer game, Super Smash Bros. Melee still has lots of tourneys. That's cool. Apparently the first Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament was hosted in 2003 and this year's EVO will have one due to a charity vote for the last game of the event. Age of Empires 2 came out 1999 I believe, so that's quite a success, if lots of people are still playing the game today. Just read, that the developers have stopped investing time and efforts in the game at the beginning of the year. But that doesn't mean people will stop playing it. 13 years for a computer game is pretty respectable.
Age of Empires 2 is also getting the HD update treatment, slated to come out this April on Steam. I'm thinking of pre-ordering.
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