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On January 25 2019 07:53 Jealous wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2019 07:51 iCCup.Trent wrote:On January 25 2019 06:59 iFU.pauline wrote: So I really don't get the "lack of structure". What more do you want? Someone knocking at your door saying:
"Hi, I like starcraft, I am about the same level as you, I want to play at the same time as you, I have a clan with players just like you, we speak the same language as you, do you want to be our friends and join us? When we were young the gaming landscape, community, etc, was all very different. I 100% honestly think this last joke you made should not be a joke. Why wouldn't it be great if it was exactly as you exemplified? Recently I had a long holiday and decided to try to level up a little. It wasn't going very well but then I got closer to a couple of guys from the community that were very easy going and decided to altruistically help me, and that got me from high D to low B in <3 weeks. I think we should all pitch in with what we can to teach, be inviting, easy going, as much as we can, regardless of whether it was harder for us back then. I don't think anyone here is arguing against helping people? What I quoted seemed to be arguing against being as helpful as possible, but whatever, here to help not to argue I was thinking that since the Discord channel is pretty active we could just communicate here somewhere that the Discord channel is a good way of getting questions answered and getting some lightweight mentoring, etc. We're not doing that actively at the moment, right?
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On January 25 2019 07:55 Greth wrote: We play FFAs so all the noobs can gang up on Jealous so he quits the channel again. fu
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On January 25 2019 08:00 iCCup.Trent wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2019 07:53 Jealous wrote:On January 25 2019 07:51 iCCup.Trent wrote:On January 25 2019 06:59 iFU.pauline wrote: So I really don't get the "lack of structure". What more do you want? Someone knocking at your door saying:
"Hi, I like starcraft, I am about the same level as you, I want to play at the same time as you, I have a clan with players just like you, we speak the same language as you, do you want to be our friends and join us? When we were young the gaming landscape, community, etc, was all very different. I 100% honestly think this last joke you made should not be a joke. Why wouldn't it be great if it was exactly as you exemplified? Recently I had a long holiday and decided to try to level up a little. It wasn't going very well but then I got closer to a couple of guys from the community that were very easy going and decided to altruistically help me, and that got me from high D to low B in <3 weeks. I think we should all pitch in with what we can to teach, be inviting, easy going, as much as we can, regardless of whether it was harder for us back then. I don't think anyone here is arguing against helping people? What I quoted seemed to be arguing against being as helpful as possible, but whatever, here to help not to argue I was thinking that since the Discord channel is pretty active we could just communicate here somewhere that the Discord channel is a good way of getting questions answered and getting some lightweight mentoring, etc. We're not doing that actively at the moment, right? It happens daily if not hourly. Check the various strategy channels. Also happens in LMaster's Discord. And obviously the CPL Discord. There are many, many places where people can go and ask questions about the game, live, like a customer service chat room for a major company.
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On January 25 2019 08:05 Jealous wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2019 08:00 iCCup.Trent wrote:On January 25 2019 07:53 Jealous wrote:On January 25 2019 07:51 iCCup.Trent wrote:On January 25 2019 06:59 iFU.pauline wrote: So I really don't get the "lack of structure". What more do you want? Someone knocking at your door saying:
"Hi, I like starcraft, I am about the same level as you, I want to play at the same time as you, I have a clan with players just like you, we speak the same language as you, do you want to be our friends and join us? When we were young the gaming landscape, community, etc, was all very different. I 100% honestly think this last joke you made should not be a joke. Why wouldn't it be great if it was exactly as you exemplified? Recently I had a long holiday and decided to try to level up a little. It wasn't going very well but then I got closer to a couple of guys from the community that were very easy going and decided to altruistically help me, and that got me from high D to low B in <3 weeks. I think we should all pitch in with what we can to teach, be inviting, easy going, as much as we can, regardless of whether it was harder for us back then. I don't think anyone here is arguing against helping people? What I quoted seemed to be arguing against being as helpful as possible, but whatever, here to help not to argue I was thinking that since the Discord channel is pretty active we could just communicate here somewhere that the Discord channel is a good way of getting questions answered and getting some lightweight mentoring, etc. We're not doing that actively at the moment, right? It happens daily if not hourly. Check the various strategy channels. Also happens in LMaster's Discord. And obviously the CPL Discord. There are many, many places where people can go and ask questions about the game, live, like a customer service chat room for a major company. I mean if we actively communicate here on TL about the availability for questions and mentoring on Discord. I only discovered the Discord space 2 months ago.
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On January 25 2019 07:55 Greth wrote:I'll keep this brief, because I've been working on a large article that'll post as a blog in a while. I've been one of the few people who have ever consistently casted 'bad' games of BW. I've casted 'newbie tourneys' and generally - through attempted humor - tried to show people Starcraft outside of pro and even C+ play. There are a lot of paradigm shifts that need to happen to make BW a 'large' game. It isn't impossible, but certainly improbable. My main argumentation for the return of BW to a stable playerbase - several thousand, perhaps around the 10k mark (outside of korea) is that 'kids today' are already subdivided into various groups of gamer that already enjoy the mechanics that BW consists of. People don't balk at terrible UIs or shy away from terrible graphics (although RM cleaned things up). There is a whole 'retro scene' that just can't get enough of the 'old school hard core' as long as it is only pretending to be old. You also have Dark Souls, and a whole bunch of frustrating games that everyone can't seem to fellate enough on reddit. Dark Souls sort of alleviates the issue with games like BW or Quake: the large amount of hidden skill that can't be taught through playing the game, but must come from outside sources. Quake has strafe jumping and even rocket jumping. BW has build orders and mechanical 'tricks'. If people don't learn this hidden skill, then they start playing the game in '98 and you get games like the ones I'm casting. I already wrote an article about this called ' Preventing the Starcraft Dark Age' - right before remastered came out. To jabber on about that topic a bit. And I think, now that Blizzard has come and gone, I'm disappointed (but not surprised in the least) that Blizzard didn't take this time and their endless budget to at least give a fucking link to a Day9 video in the fucking game. (Or a micro tutorial or 2 ... I know, utopian dreams). I think right now our biggest adversary is Starcraft's legacy. The game is one of the most well know franchises on the planet - including SC2 - and everyone is too fucking scared to play it. Same with Quake. It's reputation is of pure hardcore. You don't play this game to have fun, you play it to get your ass beat for a decade before even having a grasp of just how much you suck. And it attracts only those types of people. My Don Quixote quest has been largely hidden from the mainstream. I have 2k subs after 10 years. Mostly cuz I'm bad at what I do and I never cared much for self promotion - I also have a series of cult followers that kill random members of my fanbase each time I upload a video. But ... I have always shown that normal human beings also play Starcraft - and that not everyone who picks up the game needs to aspire to be Flash. We play FFAs so all the noobs can gang up on Jealous so he quits the channel again. They get to play the game, see all levels of low level SC (of which there are MANY) and have a good time with real people in a discord voice chat. And when they're done they're around in the channel, to talk about the game (and not cue up instantly for the next one). Games like Quake were played by thousands on LANs - casually. Brood War was played casually! And we were OKAY WITH BEING BAD! But now, with ranked matchmaking you are constantly put into competition with people. There is a winner, and a loser, and that's where the relationship ends. We didn't give a shit about ladder. We played some BW in our channels, and then played some UMS and then some FFA, or 3v3 or 2v2. BW was ALL we played, in various forms. And that community feeling is now gone. "How can I improve." "I want to be C+ by next month!" "I'm grinding ladder." Where is "I'm having fun."? Isn't the basis of every sport that kids can play it in the schoolyard? The kid that starts crying on the football pitch because someone didn't give him a pass like De Bruyne - or someone didn't dunk it like LeBron (is that right?)... Nobody thought like that. So why do we have to do the builds like Flash? Let's first try to find people's natural level before they grind themselves into a burnout. Before they eventually realize they're forever stuck on C+ and leave forever. There is an unhealthy split between casual and competitive, and in BW, casual died. In SC2 casual never existed. We were talking more about Ladder anxiety than about playing the game, because everything was recorded. And when you were burned out on ladder, you took a break. I've been C- on a good day since 2003. And that is normal. I've been a mid level competitive player in every shooter I've ever touched, never good at BW. And that's a ... Maturity... That has mostly vanished from games today. If BW is to ever grow again, we need to bring back the noobs. Casually. Let them roam in '98 and slowly bring them in. Will this be possible without Blizzard? Yes. But it will take a long time and a lot of motivated people. If Blizzard decides to grace us with another divine visitation after yet another decade of silence - that and a few thousand bucks, and some expansion on what Remastered is right now (not maintained by a skeleton crew) - a few twitch sponsorships - then things could go very fast indeed. And because I've never been marketable - I will accept payment to never post a video again.
This is how.
The only other things to add is potentially have the lowest 2 leagues in ladder essentially be some sort of safe spaces, where better ranked players can't get into and won't play those players in ranked play. Potentially smaller, simmpler maps for those 2 leagues as well. I have an idea how to probably make both of those things work. We just might need some more newbs arounds first so theres's enough similarly skilled players around for them to play. If Blizzard merges the servers and gets lag-free games between regions common-place, and if the Afreeca streamers and Korean pros eventually move to twitch, that will advertise the game to so many more people, new players will be coming to BW, at least that's the next possible big wave.
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On January 25 2019 07:55 Greth wrote:I'll keep this brief, because I've been working on a large article that'll post as a blog in a while. I've been one of the few people who have ever consistently casted 'bad' games of BW. I've casted 'newbie tourneys' and generally - through attempted humor - tried to show people Starcraft outside of pro and even C+ play. There are a lot of paradigm shifts that need to happen to make BW a 'large' game. It isn't impossible, but certainly improbable. My main argumentation for the return of BW to a stable playerbase - several thousand, perhaps around the 10k mark (outside of korea) is that 'kids today' are already subdivided into various groups of gamer that already enjoy the mechanics that BW consists of. People don't balk at terrible UIs or shy away from terrible graphics (although RM cleaned things up). There is a whole 'retro scene' that just can't get enough of the 'old school hard core' as long as it is only pretending to be old. You also have Dark Souls, and a whole bunch of frustrating games that everyone can't seem to fellate enough on reddit. Dark Souls sort of alleviates the issue with games like BW or Quake: the large amount of hidden skill that can't be taught through playing the game, but must come from outside sources. Quake has strafe jumping and even rocket jumping. BW has build orders and mechanical 'tricks'. If people don't learn this hidden skill, then they start playing the game in '98 and you get games like the ones I'm casting. I already wrote an article about this called ' Preventing the Starcraft Dark Age' - right before remastered came out. To jabber on about that topic a bit. And I think, now that Blizzard has come and gone, I'm disappointed (but not surprised in the least) that Blizzard didn't take this time and their endless budget to at least give a fucking link to a Day9 video in the fucking game. (Or a micro tutorial or 2 ... I know, utopian dreams). I think right now our biggest adversary is Starcraft's legacy. The game is one of the most well know franchises on the planet - including SC2 - and everyone is too fucking scared to play it. Same with Quake. It's reputation is of pure hardcore. You don't play this game to have fun, you play it to get your ass beat for a decade before even having a grasp of just how much you suck. And it attracts only those types of people. My Don Quixote quest has been largely hidden from the mainstream. I have 2k subs after 10 years. Mostly cuz I'm bad at what I do and I never cared much for self promotion - I also have a series of cult followers that kill random members of my fanbase each time I upload a video. But ... I have always shown that normal human beings also play Starcraft - and that not everyone who picks up the game needs to aspire to be Flash. We play FFAs so all the noobs can gang up on Jealous so he quits the channel again. They get to play the game, see all levels of low level SC (of which there are MANY) and have a good time with real people in a discord voice chat. And when they're done they're around in the channel, to talk about the game (and not cue up instantly for the next one). Games like Quake were played by thousands on LANs - casually. Brood War was played casually! And we were OKAY WITH BEING BAD! But now, with ranked matchmaking you are constantly put into competition with people. There is a winner, and a loser, and that's where the relationship ends. We didn't give a shit about ladder. We played some BW in our channels, and then played some UMS and then some FFA, or 3v3 or 2v2. BW was ALL we played, in various forms. And that community feeling is now gone. "How can I improve." "I want to be C+ by next month!" "I'm grinding ladder." Where is "I'm having fun."? Isn't the basis of every sport that kids can play it in the schoolyard? The kid that starts crying on the football pitch because someone didn't give him a pass like De Bruyne - or someone didn't dunk it like LeBron (is that right?)... Nobody thought like that. So why do we have to do the builds like Flash? Let's first try to find people's natural level before they grind themselves into a burnout. Before they eventually realize they're forever stuck on C+ and leave forever. There is an unhealthy split between casual and competitive, and in BW, casual died. In SC2 casual never existed. We were talking more about Ladder anxiety than about playing the game, because everything was recorded. And when you were burned out on ladder, you took a break. I've been C- on a good day since 2003. And that is normal. I've been a mid level competitive player in every shooter I've ever touched, never good at BW. And that's a ... Maturity... That has mostly vanished from games today. If BW is to ever grow again, we need to bring back the noobs. Casually. Let them roam in '98 and slowly bring them in. Will this be possible without Blizzard? Yes. But it will take a long time and a lot of motivated people. If Blizzard decides to grace us with another divine visitation after yet another decade of silence - that and a few thousand bucks, and some expansion on what Remastered is right now (not maintained by a skeleton crew) - a few twitch sponsorships - then things could go very fast indeed. And because I've never been marketable - I will accept payment to never post a video again.
This is a great reflection on not just bw but life as a whole. Subscribed.
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On January 25 2019 07:55 Greth wrote: But now, with ranked matchmaking you are constantly put into competition with people. There is a winner, and a loser, and that's where the relationship ends. We didn't give a shit about ladder. We played some BW in our channels, and then played some UMS and then some FFA, or 3v3 or 2v2. BW was ALL we played, in various forms. And that community feeling is now gone.
"How can I improve." "I want to be C+ by next month!" "I'm grinding ladder."
Where is "I'm having fun."?
This is an excellent point. Unranked matchmaking would possibly help. The current player pool is too low already though. I at least try to adopt a different mindset for ladder, and just use matchmaking to simply find games for fun.
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On January 25 2019 07:55 Greth wrote:I'll keep this brief, because I've been working on a large article that'll post as a blog in a while. I've been one of the few people who have ever consistently casted 'bad' games of BW. I've casted 'newbie tourneys' and generally - through attempted humor - tried to show people Starcraft outside of pro and even C+ play. There are a lot of paradigm shifts that need to happen to make BW a 'large' game. It isn't impossible, but certainly improbable. My main argumentation for the return of BW to a stable playerbase - several thousand, perhaps around the 10k mark (outside of korea) is that 'kids today' are already subdivided into various groups of gamer that already enjoy the mechanics that BW consists of. People don't balk at terrible UIs or shy away from terrible graphics (although RM cleaned things up). There is a whole 'retro scene' that just can't get enough of the 'old school hard core' as long as it is only pretending to be old. You also have Dark Souls, and a whole bunch of frustrating games that everyone can't seem to fellate enough on reddit. Dark Souls sort of alleviates the issue with games like BW or Quake: the large amount of hidden skill that can't be taught through playing the game, but must come from outside sources. Quake has strafe jumping and even rocket jumping. BW has build orders and mechanical 'tricks'. If people don't learn this hidden skill, then they start playing the game in '98 and you get games like the ones I'm casting. I already wrote an article about this called ' Preventing the Starcraft Dark Age' - right before remastered came out. To jabber on about that topic a bit. And I think, now that Blizzard has come and gone, I'm disappointed (but not surprised in the least) that Blizzard didn't take this time and their endless budget to at least give a fucking link to a Day9 video in the fucking game. (Or a micro tutorial or 2 ... I know, utopian dreams). I think right now our biggest adversary is Starcraft's legacy. The game is one of the most well know franchises on the planet - including SC2 - and everyone is too fucking scared to play it. Same with Quake. It's reputation is of pure hardcore. You don't play this game to have fun, you play it to get your ass beat for a decade before even having a grasp of just how much you suck. And it attracts only those types of people. My Don Quixote quest has been largely hidden from the mainstream. I have 2k subs after 10 years. Mostly cuz I'm bad at what I do and I never cared much for self promotion - I also have a series of cult followers that kill random members of my fanbase each time I upload a video. But ... I have always shown that normal human beings also play Starcraft - and that not everyone who picks up the game needs to aspire to be Flash. We play FFAs so all the noobs can gang up on Jealous so he quits the channel again. They get to play the game, see all levels of low level SC (of which there are MANY) and have a good time with real people in a discord voice chat. And when they're done they're around in the channel, to talk about the game (and not cue up instantly for the next one). Games like Quake were played by thousands on LANs - casually. Brood War was played casually! And we were OKAY WITH BEING BAD! But now, with ranked matchmaking you are constantly put into competition with people. There is a winner, and a loser, and that's where the relationship ends. We didn't give a shit about ladder. We played some BW in our channels, and then played some UMS and then some FFA, or 3v3 or 2v2. BW was ALL we played, in various forms. And that community feeling is now gone. "How can I improve." "I want to be C+ by next month!" "I'm grinding ladder." Where is "I'm having fun."? Isn't the basis of every sport that kids can play it in the schoolyard? The kid that starts crying on the football pitch because someone didn't give him a pass like De Bruyne - or someone didn't dunk it like LeBron (is that right?)... Nobody thought like that. So why do we have to do the builds like Flash? Let's first try to find people's natural level before they grind themselves into a burnout. Before they eventually realize they're forever stuck on C+ and leave forever. There is an unhealthy split between casual and competitive, and in BW, casual died. In SC2 casual never existed. We were talking more about Ladder anxiety than about playing the game, because everything was recorded. And when you were burned out on ladder, you took a break. I've been C- on a good day since 2003. And that is normal. I've been a mid level competitive player in every shooter I've ever touched, never good at BW. And that's a ... Maturity... That has mostly vanished from games today. If BW is to ever grow again, we need to bring back the noobs. Casually. Let them roam in '98 and slowly bring them in. Will this be possible without Blizzard? Yes. But it will take a long time and a lot of motivated people. If Blizzard decides to grace us with another divine visitation after yet another decade of silence - that and a few thousand bucks, and some expansion on what Remastered is right now (not maintained by a skeleton crew) - a few twitch sponsorships - then things could go very fast indeed. And because I've never been marketable - I will accept payment to never post a video again.
Good points. I sorta forgot how stressful ranked play is for most people. It works great for me because I can generally get put into a match within 90 seconds against someone that is 3/4 times pretty close to my skill level. And that's great for me because I don't care about my rank and I just want to play some good games and be able to not play on FS every match lol. But yeah blizzard really pushed ranked ladder matches back when SC2 came out and it really putoff huge chunks of casual players (although it seems that they've turned that around a bit with all of the co-op stuff in the last couple years?).
That's the hardest part about trying to get modern gamers into SC: they almost all have a mindset that they need to be very good at the game to have fun with it.
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On January 25 2019 08:14 iCCup.Trent wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2019 08:05 Jealous wrote:On January 25 2019 08:00 iCCup.Trent wrote:On January 25 2019 07:53 Jealous wrote:On January 25 2019 07:51 iCCup.Trent wrote:On January 25 2019 06:59 iFU.pauline wrote: So I really don't get the "lack of structure". What more do you want? Someone knocking at your door saying:
"Hi, I like starcraft, I am about the same level as you, I want to play at the same time as you, I have a clan with players just like you, we speak the same language as you, do you want to be our friends and join us? When we were young the gaming landscape, community, etc, was all very different. I 100% honestly think this last joke you made should not be a joke. Why wouldn't it be great if it was exactly as you exemplified? Recently I had a long holiday and decided to try to level up a little. It wasn't going very well but then I got closer to a couple of guys from the community that were very easy going and decided to altruistically help me, and that got me from high D to low B in <3 weeks. I think we should all pitch in with what we can to teach, be inviting, easy going, as much as we can, regardless of whether it was harder for us back then. I don't think anyone here is arguing against helping people? What I quoted seemed to be arguing against being as helpful as possible, but whatever, here to help not to argue I was thinking that since the Discord channel is pretty active we could just communicate here somewhere that the Discord channel is a good way of getting questions answered and getting some lightweight mentoring, etc. We're not doing that actively at the moment, right? It happens daily if not hourly. Check the various strategy channels. Also happens in LMaster's Discord. And obviously the CPL Discord. There are many, many places where people can go and ask questions about the game, live, like a customer service chat room for a major company. I mean if we actively communicate here on TL about the availability for questions and mentoring on Discord. I only discovered the Discord space 2 months ago. As per suggestions:
https://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/541126-new-low-level-bw-player-coaching-advice-discord
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I think there's too much survivorship bias when it comes time to analyze what does or does not work as an effective tool for new players. Some thrive in the atmosphere that Brood War has had in the years prior and other's don't.
Seems like everytime this post comes up it seems to shift into generational rants about how entitled players are these days. It's pretty awkward being at least somewhat older and having to read these entirely dismissive rants in response to concerns about the new player experience. I don't even understand where it comes from, most of the dudes in the CPL are late 20s/30s.
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On January 25 2019 15:27 kaboombaby wrote: I think there's too much survivorship bias when it comes time to analyze what does or does not work as an effective tool for new players. Some thrive in the atmosphere that Brood War has had in the years prior and other's don't.
Seems like everytime this post comes up it seems to shift into generational rants about how entitled players are these days. It's pretty awkward being at least somewhat older and having to read these entirely dismissive rants in response to concerns about the new player experience. I don't even understand where it comes from, most of the dudes in the CPL are late 20s/30s. Can you suggest some concrete solutions for what you think we should be doing for new players and to attract new players?
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I think a Team ladder is really needed. Probably even 3on3 or 4on4. 1on1 duels isn't something casual players are interested in today. And it's many casual players you need, to find the odd guy who likes stick around and get good.
Look at Quake Champions. Yes, it's not a massive success but it has revived the hardcore franchise a bit even with strafe jumping etc. being mostly intact. Yes, it has those wonky heroes as a draw - complete with daily quests and in-game currency, but those are irrelevant for the most part anyway.
The thing is: there's actually a somewhat healthy casual playerbase that play TDM and Instagib (the money map version of Quake if you like to call it that). None of those players would even think about touching the 1on1 duel ranked ladder.
Another example: Rocket League. Granted it is designed as a team game in the first place, but the low rank casual 1on1 ladder is a very special place. It's a massive playersbase, so you'll find some games anyway but it's really awkward with janky games and skill levels all over the place - just like SC low rank casual games would look like. Most flock to 2on2 and 3on3.
I think back in the day you had UMS maps for those players in StarCraft. Of course those are still there, but today's players also want easy matchmaking. I think team matchmaking would help a lot! Of course it will also lead to frustration if you're a veteran that's getting matched with a casual team mate. It's a necessary evil though.
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On January 25 2019 07:35 bferi wrote: There weren't so many games around so it is obvious that you were trying harder for the one you chose and seem to like. I could argue about these a lot but I don't think it would be useful somehow... Hence my question in the first line.
This had nothing to do with game count, btw you are talking about a period where you had the greatest hit in online gaming, bw, diablo, warcraft, wow, quake 3, cs and all derived mods, if you were looking for a reason to stop bw, trust me, they were tons of them.
On January 25 2019 07:35 bferi wrote: Regarding the more useful part of your post: yes there are all these resources but there is something called "searching a needle in a haystack". This may not be the best comparison but it is really hard to find the useful information at first.
Hard to find useful information? Are you serious? Right now anyone can click on liquipedia and find hundred of pages of well written guides with all possible build orders you could imagine and progamers vod to back them up.
On January 25 2019 07:35 bferi wrote: Ok there are streams, so? A newcomer should watch a guy play high level SC where he can't even follow what he is doing with his eye let alone his mind? It doesn't help. If he asks in the chat and he gets a useful reply then ok, but...
It doesn't help, WHAT? first person view has been the dream for a decade, in case you didn't notice, foreign level drastically improved when replays came out and even more with afreeca, If you think that this type of material doesn't help a newbie, then what would? A noname loser on a chat that will just tell you the exact damn thing you can find anywhere else?
On January 25 2019 07:35 bferi wrote: I think you are missing the point that a newcomer in 2000 was totally different than today regarding a lot of things. You could say that "we don't want those people, they don't work hard enough, not BW-worthy" (as sponge-worthy in Seinfeld). Well then as many said here the players will die out.
No, I don't think at all I am missing the point, you are talking about having more social interactions which is perfectly understandable. I will give you an other example that is again my own experience. I didn't spend 20 years non stop playing bw, I stopped end of 2005 and came back in 2009. Probably the worst part you could miss when it comes to gameplay and community. Before we were mostly scattered by countries and now it looks like everything became fully international. Players I knew? All gone. So I start grinding iccup with my low C- terran, then I start to get bored, I need a clan with people to interact with. So I look for a russian team, I like russian team they looked pretty durable in the past with good spirit. I find one that is about my level, I start doing clan war and socialize with other players and that is how it goes...
Being part of a community is about being proactive, this is not a generation thing. Everything is already here at the disposal of people who are willing to do something. You sound a bit hopeless frankly. Ultimately bw will die, yes, eventually we will all die too.
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pauline: I think we shouldn't compare the number of games back in 2000 and today... It is obvious how many more "possibilities" there are today. And yes it has a great effect on what we are talking about.
I've already written about why it is hard to find information on the first page, I'm not going to repeat myself, only that part maybe I'm too dumb that's why I didn't find useful information at the beginning.
Streams: You just totally ignored what I said, but okay, I don't have enough energy to go into a pointless debate.
This is my last post regarding the debate with you because I think there is no point to continue. No hard feelings, glhf.
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On January 25 2019 19:14 bferi wrote: pauline: I think we shouldn't compare the number of games back in 2000 and today... It is obvious how many more "possibilities" there are today. And yes it has a great effect on what we are talking about.
I've already written about why it is hard to find information on the first page, I'm not going to repeat myself, only that part maybe I'm too dumb that's why I didn't find useful information at the beginning.
Streams: You just totally ignored what I said, but okay, I don't have enough energy to go into a pointless debate.
This is my last post regarding the debate with you because I think there is no point to continue. No hard feelings, glhf.
I know what you said about streams and this is utter crap, which i did not discuss. indeed I am nostalgic but I also live in my time, there is no way I would like to go back in 2005 compare to what we have now. I am not the one who post thread like this and I make no judgement on new comers which you implied in your previous post. I don't consider myself as some kind of elite, I know by experience that I read tens of threads like this over 2 decades, which provided nothing useful aside of throwing negative vibes. Starcraft thrived over the years because of people being proactive, it never needed some kind of "social plans" to attract new players as if this was some kind of business company. If that ever worked out anyway...
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I started playing SCBW in 2004 at the age of 32. I was a teacher and got interested in what the students are doing in computer classroom. The game was very popular in this school, it was difficult to find unoccupied computer during lesson breaks (and there was often a queue at the classroom door). I was able to observe the casual gaming sustainability - younger students had a chance to learn the game and beat and/or befriend those from higher school year. They were enjoying it regardless of the level of play. There was a common practice of playing 4vs4 Hunters (not BGH), arranging the team of better and worse players altogether so to make whole game balanced. We knew nothing about professionals. This is a first remark I want to make: casual gaming can keep the game alive, alone.
Then came 2011 and some of these people went to the other game. And stayed. They knew "it is still in progress", "there will be parts 2 and 3". They knew that RTS is fun and decided to devote their time to the hot title in the genre. This is my remark number two: new things are attractive. We are lost on this position unless we find a way to introduce new elements to the game. And since we are rather to sacrifice our dead bodies than to change anything in the game balance, I don't see a real solution to that.
I however did something else. Although I was, I am and I will always be a noob, I also am a teacher who discovered SCBW educational value (for those interested it involves reasoning with imperfect information and real-time decisionmaking, those two things being rather absent in school programmes). So I developed a school programme for teaching Starcraft and held it from 2012 to 2017 in secondary school. I had like 10-15 hours to teach absolute basics to the 14 year olds. You cannot imagine that. You have never seen "5CC before anything" build, one base maxing on 11 workers, or "Overlord rush" They had fun. Girls had fun as well, had to mention that. Some of these kids kept playing after the classes were finished. This is my remark number three, and most important one: any game is fun at school, and you can teach it. And this is a form of game promotion as well. Even if we all know Starcraft has ridiculously steep learning curve. For educational purposes it is better to keep it secret.
For a "healthy" game, the player base should have a pyramid structure with a broad "casual" bottom and constantly decreasing number of higher skilled players. In SCBW (or any "matured" game) the structure resembles rather a whirlgig toy. Imagine climbing the surface of pyramid as opposed to climbing the whirlgig. If anyone is to do that climbing, we should either assist on the most difficult FIRST part of the climb or attract enough casual players to eliminate the overhanging part.
...Or hide the facts. Separate the man from the boys, for boys good. Pretend Flash never existed. Make skill-based versions of Liquipedia. Let them play against similar skill. Do the "noob only" tourneys. Make new campaign resembling 20 years of metagame shift. And most importantly, never insist they HAVE TO be better. They only have to have fun.
On the side note: Greth I won't give you a dime, because I want you to keep making your videos forever.
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On January 25 2019 06:59 iFU.pauline wrote: ... What more do you want? Someone knocking at your door saying:
"Hi, I like starcraft, I am about the same level as you, I want to play at the same time as you, I have a clan with players just like you, we speak the same language as you, do you want to be our friends and join us? I also play zerg and I wouldn't mind if you knocked on my door. Do you happen to have a photo?
I am old new blood.
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So I have modified the thread because now I understand better that instead of "lack of structure" its more what kind of structure; That being said I realise from reading through the whole thread and what people have posted is that I don' t know myself what a newcomer really needs to pick up brooder and play it... only my ideas, Greth made a really interesting point do about making it fun as opposing to improving at all costs.
Jealous I have already answered your question, and I think other people have indirectly answered it better than me - of course these are all opinions and you are entitled to yours too, I am sorry for not considering what you and L_master are doing for newcomers, I believe that to be an excellent thing and understand the effort, patience and time you both put into to it for no personal gain. That being said I suggest you change your attitude in this thread. Nobody here has or is trying to find a quick fix, this is not the kind of thing for that, but rather people are exposing their ideas, their personal experiences and discussing the topic, so if you have something to contribute on that side, otherwise I think you have made your point...
Also I am interesting in reading threads like this that have popped up in the past, can anyone Kindly provide a link if they know?
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I guess I will share my experience as well; Around 2008 and 2009 I was playing some bw vs computer just for fun, really to run away from problems with my girlfriend. Then I found some commentated vods on youtube and started to follow the pro-league and first person streams... still I did not play online vs other players or make an account on TL, which I found but was more rather like a lurker. In 2011 I started to play online some ladder games vs other players and got discouraged, and left. A couple of months after I Found the DRTL and posted hoping some team would pick me up so I could start playing again, with maybe some new people that had my skill set, which would have been close to 0 at that point. I didn't really care, but what was important was to find people who where at that level, who struggled with the same issues I had in game, I mean I could not even beat the computer most of the times.... So eventually no one in the DRTL picked me up as it was packed with newcomers at that time, so I pm' d the organiser and they where very kind and put me into a team last minute. We started to have a lot of fun and where talking to each other daily, organising practice times, reviewing replays, joking and all sorts of good stuff. Without that time I do not think I would have developed the confidence to play online by my own in the coming years, as here in my country BW was never that popular, WOW was pretty big or FIFA, FPS, that kind of thing. A couple of friends would play Starcraft together but after I started playing online I was able to beat them 1vs2 regularly, and I was D+ on ladder. I had an inspiration from that teamleauge, because I always did a lot of sports, especially tennis, and would play competetevly 1vs1, so I started the DRIT, which was the same for the same skill level, and that was a lot of fun too and got me into organising tournaments, which is something I have done. The culmination of that was for me the Italian Esports Open event where I manage to be an admin for the tournament. It was hard, because on one side it felt like a dream come true, but on the other the organization was phenomenal, but most of the staff was Italian and did not play or understand bw that much. Even the mapool which I suggested to change and they did 2 weeks prior to the event. Something that anyone from here would have suggested. I got to meet FBH in person, and Draco, who by the way was always trying to get the players together and play. I remember this moment after the first day was over, where he got everyone together and all the pros where watching FBH ladder or playing against each other or watching some vods, everyone was having a good time. Also KogeT who I believed was co-casting on day2 with Sayle. But another thing made me sad: there where 200 seats and at any given time 40 or so where occupied. Also the Italian stream was always around 100 viewers. This made me wonder beyond the fact as I said that bw was never popular in Italy, that no new people where coming in and interested in BW.
For me personally, the amount of information available was what let me know that there was a competitive scene, but I did not understand any of it. Only when I was in the team and we played vs each other, I started to manage to follow a build order, understand concepts such as harassing, main yarding, timings, valued upgrades. And it was fun because everytime I played with my clan or in the league, it was 40-60 win rates, in between, so it was challenging. It not challenging when I played against an opponent that was much better or much worse than me. only depressing and it felt like a waste of time, winning or loosing.
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Where is "I'm having fun."?
Isn't the basis of every sport that kids can play it in the schoolyard? The kid that starts crying on the football pitch because someone didn't give him a pass like De Bruyne - or someone didn't dunk it like LeBron (is that right?)... Nobody thought like that. So why do we have to do the builds like Flash? Let's first try to find people's natural level before they grind themselves into a burnout. Before they eventually realize they're forever stuck on C+ and leave forever.
There is an unhealthy split between casual and competitive, and in BW, casual died. In SC2 casual never existed. We were talking more about Ladder anxiety than about playing the game, because everything was recorded. And when you were burned out on ladder, you took a break.
I've been C- on a good day since 2003. And that is normal. I've been a mid level competitive player in every shooter I've ever touched, never good at BW. And that's a ... Maturity... That has mostly vanished from games today. I made a post about this in page 2 I think, but I agree with you. The ladder as is is a bad tool for bringing in new players, the maps are designed for and predicated around a play level that I dont think is capable for new players to attain. I dont think eddy and heartbreak ridge are exactly what you would call conducive to new players development, especially when you tandemize that with the huge swings from the match maker. In terms of completely casual, non ladder play, virtually everyone will only player hunters or bgh. I've tried hosting blizzard maps or other maps for years for ffa or 3v3 or whatever. Its rare to get anyone.
So short of changing the maps in ladder to be more newb friendly-- as ive suggested before, different maps for E or F ranks-- I dont see what can be done to encourage a more friendly casual atmosphere.
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