EPTAccidents, GunZ: The Duel, and StarCraft II - Page 11
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
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kzn
United States1218 Posts
What, precisely, is a game? We can dispense with definitions that have to do with ephemeral stuff like 'fun', because given that we're on TL we are clearly more concerned with competition, and fun that it provides, than fun provided directly by the game outside of competition. What, then, are competitive games? They are, quite simply, a set of arbitrary limitations (rules, basically). Basketball is defined as a game in which one has to dribble - and dribbling renders certain things that would otherwise be possible impossible (I can't think of a good example, I suck at basketball). All of the limitations imposed in any and all games are arbitrary by definition - nothing outside of the game itself explains why a particular rule is there, and most of the time explaining why a rule is there requires reference to more ephemeral stuff like 'balance'. The misconception I see sometimes, to use SC as an example, is that things like the 12 unit group limit and only being able to select one building at a time inherently made the game require more "skill". This is a misconception because "skill" is badly defined. To simplify greatly, there are two major skills that are being deployed in any SCBW game (or in any game period, for that matter). The first is that of making decisions as to what to do. Faced with DTs, say, in a PvP, players can choose to make Observers, and this is often the right decision. The second is the skill involved in executing that decision. In the DT/Obs example, its not a particularly hard task - but when the decisions involve, say, making a ton of units at the same time, something like MBS makes the execution of that decision easier than it would be without it. That said, games exist on a continuum of possible skill 'balances'. A game like Chess has (basically) no 'execution' skillset - barring paralysis, everyone is capable of moving a pawn, as long as they know the rules of how pieces move. Executing a strategy isn't, in fact, a matter of execution, but a matter of strategically breaking down your grand idea into individual moves. On the other end of the continuum, you have games like Golf - where there is (almost) no strategy involved, and the skill deployed is almost entirely a skill of executing the best possible shot. There is some strategy in picking shots, but I think my point is clear. One could imagine a version of SC where players are faced only with streams of binary, and must input commands in binary, and so forth. In such a version, it seems likely that the difficulty involved in executing long, complex strategies would be so great that the best players would be those who could make, say, 6 zerglings in the minimum time consistently - because of the 'UI limitations' imposed on other players, reacting to such a strategy would be near impossible. Thus games can be described as focusing to X degree on "execution" and to Y degree on "strategy". Any focus on execution must carry with it a correspondingly lower focus on strategy, and vice-versa. This is where people get confused with regards to SCBW vs SC2, or bug exploits making a game 'more skillful', and so forth. To take the GunZ example, the discovery of quickswitching (I dont know what its actually called but this seems descriptive enough) doesn't necessarily make the game 'more skillful' - although in this case it probably did, because while it increased focus on execution skills, it also increased the totality of available strategies. At the end of the day, what the "right" balance between execution and strategy focuses is is a matter of personal opinion. Some people like to shoot pistols competitively - something with a massive focus on execution skills, and others like to play chess - something with a massive focus on strategy skills. It is impossible to make a reasoned argument as to why one is better than another. If you think SCBW is better because of the extra UI limitations placed on players, great. You should play what you think is the best game, obviously. But arguing that SC2 is less skillful purely on the basis of it lacking some of those limitations is ridiculous (and flawed). There is simply a greater focus on strategy, as a corollary to the lessened focus on execution. [edit] Jesus, that was longer than I thought it was. | ||
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starcraft911
Korea (South)1263 Posts
Before I quit I could move around the map without ever touching the ground using steps and slash shots and even though they had better reaction time and point accuracy, they couldn't keep up with it and remain accurate. It was deffinately an FPS of it's own category much like CS1.6 was for quite some time. If i played them at Q or CS I would get shit on so hard, but GunZ was so much different. Another example is TF2's sniper nerf. Here's a link to my friend's sniper video. He happens to be the best awper I've ever seen and after picking up TF2 he schooled pretty good with the sniper until they nerfed it making him have to stand in place in order to fire. It ultimately killed competative TF2. Sometimes being able to exploit the engine such as quick switching out of zoom by pulling out your knife makes the game better. it adds an element of skill that some players can do and others can't. Excellent post | ||
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ooni
Australia1498 Posts
On June 06 2010 10:31 kzn wrote:+ Show Spoiler + There isn't a clear 'message' in the OP that I can really extract, but I'm guessing there's a degree of 'SC2 makes too much stuff too easy' opinion contained in it, by way of analogy - so thats (vaguely) what I'm going to respond to. What, precisely, is a game? We can dispense with definitions that have to do with ephemeral stuff like 'fun', because given that we're on TL we are clearly more concerned with competition, and fun that it provides, than fun provided directly by the game outside of competition. What, then, are competitive games? They are, quite simply, a set of arbitrary limitations (rules, basically). Basketball is defined as a game in which one has to dribble - and dribbling renders certain things that would otherwise be possible impossible (I can't think of a good example, I suck at basketball). All of the limitations imposed in any and all games are arbitrary by definition - nothing outside of the game itself explains why a particular rule is there, and most of the time explaining why a rule is there requires reference to more ephemeral stuff like 'balance'. The misconception I see sometimes, to use SC as an example, is that things like the 12 unit group limit and only being able to select one building at a time inherently made the game require more "skill". This is a misconception because "skill" is badly defined. To simplify greatly, there are two major skills that are being deployed in any SCBW game (or in any game period, for that matter). The first is that of making decisions as to what to do. Faced with DTs, say, in a PvP, players can choose to make Observers, and this is often the right decision. The second is the skill involved in executing that decision. In the DT/Obs example, its not a particularly hard task - but when the decisions involve, say, making a ton of units at the same time, something like MBS makes the execution of that decision easier than it would be without it. That said, games exist on a continuum of possible skill 'balances'. A game like Chess has (basically) no 'execution' skillset - barring paralysis, everyone is capable of moving a pawn, as long as they know the rules of how pieces move. Executing a strategy isn't, in fact, a matter of execution, but a matter of strategically breaking down your grand idea into individual moves. On the other end of the continuum, you have games like Golf - where there is (almost) no strategy involved, and the skill deployed is almost entirely a skill of executing the best possible shot. There is some strategy in picking shots, but I think my point is clear. One could imagine a version of SC where players are faced only with streams of binary, and must input commands in binary, and so forth. In such a version, it seems likely that the difficulty involved in executing long, complex strategies would be so great that the best players would be those who could make, say, 6 zerglings in the minimum time consistently - because of the 'UI limitations' imposed on other players, reacting to such a strategy would be near impossible. Thus games can be described as focusing to X degree on "execution" and to Y degree on "strategy". Any focus on execution must carry with it a correspondingly lower focus on strategy, and vice-versa. This is where people get confused with regards to SCBW vs SC2, or bug exploits making a game 'more skillful', and so forth. To take the GunZ example, the discovery of quickswitching (I dont know what its actually called but this seems descriptive enough) doesn't necessarily make the game 'more skillful' - although in this case it probably did, because while it increased focus on execution skills, it also increased the totality of available strategies. At the end of the day, what the "right" balance between execution and strategy focuses is is a matter of personal opinion. Some people like to shoot pistols competitively - something with a massive focus on execution skills, and others like to play chess - something with a massive focus on strategy skills. It is impossible to make a reasoned argument as to why one is better than another. If you think SCBW is better because of the extra UI limitations placed on players, great. You should play what you think is the best game, obviously. But arguing that SC2 is less skillful purely on the basis of it lacking some of those limitations is ridiculous (and flawed). There is simply a greater focus on strategy, as a corollary to the lessened focus on execution. [edit] Jesus, that was longer than I thought it was. The issue is not about SCBW being more skillful due to its UI limitations, it's about the amount of skill required to play the game in general. UI limitation is one of many factors that makes SCBW, a skillful game. I'll use musical instruments as an example: First we have the "recorder". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recorder Probably the most easiest instrument to play in the world. Second we have the flute I'm not saying it's the hardest instrument to play, as soon as you get the hang of it it's quite easy (I play it). It is harder to play than a "recorder". =_=;; Let's see... If you are really good (I mean really good) at playing the recorder, people will be impressed and you are encouraged to play better. That's a big fun factor. However, people are more impressed when I play the flute (even at mediocre level) than when I play the recorder. Why? It's harder to do, much more skill is involved, learning curve is much steeper. You would think if you have more "fun" playing the recorder than the flute, then you will keep playing the recorder right? Nope. No matter how fun playing recorder is it's all about mastery. A skill required by a person by playing/doing an activity. I like playing the recorder but I gain very little skill/mastery from it (not none). That's the importance and definition of skill/mastery. I'm sure SC2 has a lot of skills/mastery you can acquire. However, current state of SC2 does not have the amount of skill/mastery sc1 has. I'm not saying removing UI limitation (This includes MBS, Smartcasting, auto-mining) makes the game bad in anyway (it makes it better) but it certainly takes away a lot of skill factor. In fact I think it's good UI limitation was removed in SC2, you feel less restricted and feel the freedom like a RTS game should. However what Blizzard has fail to do in SC2 is implementing more "skill factor" to make up for the skill/mastery lost after UI limitation was removed. IN FACT, they removed as much skill factor as possible. EMP is no longer projectile (skill of dodging a projectile), tactical placements like lurker positioning and darkswarm (PDD? oh please) and etc etc. SCBW Skill/Mastery > current SC2 Skill/Mastery full stop. And if Blizzard does not deal with these issues it will be as skillful as WC3 ("recorder"). I'm not saying recorder is bad at all (it's great), just that flute is much better. That was longer than I expected. | ||
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Bob300
United States505 Posts
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HeavOnEarth
United States7087 Posts
On June 06 2010 10:02 StarMasterX wrote: I used to play Gunz heavily a few years back. It is probably one of the best free shooters out there. I was one of the nub sprayers that raped a lot of people with the automatic rifles and smgs. I usually got whined at by the k-stylers but its all good my kill/death ratio was good. That being said, I know that k-style absolutely dominated 1v1 duels so I generally only played 8-16 player games (even though 16 player usually lagged too much). rifler's generally had better aim then the rss shotgun sprayers, actually. | ||
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HeavOnEarth
United States7087 Posts
On May 11 2010 01:32 keV. wrote: GunZ was such a piece of shit game. Why is anyone even talking about it. A game(CS) with a huge community and a major company backing it has more popularity and a bigger competitive scene than a game that has poor funding and F2P(GunZ) derp? The competitive ceiling on gunz and CS is the same(i've played both ), with gunz lacking in the teamwork department. Thus 5v5 CS> 5v5 GunZ obviously, no question here, and maybe a little in the audio (a whoosh can mean so many things), However, GunZ and CS have the same focus on accuracy, and no one gives a shit at higher competitive games about flashy swords(because its fairly easy to do after a while), it all comes down to aim. i mean really, just give me some evidence or comment that even remotely suggests that you've played gunz at any level of competitiveness and i'll concede, but it's obvious you haven't , hence why i made this post. tl;dr small base of players != lack of competition | ||
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FrickenHamster
United States40 Posts
The purpose of OP's post is to argue that unintentional game glitches sometimes adds a new level of depth to gameplay that makes it viable to be played competitively. I cannot deny the truth of this in a lot of cases, Gunz, SC:BW, Street Fighter 2, but what solution can this mean for SC2? I am assuming, and I might be assuming wrong, but OP wants things like unlimited unit groups, MBS and maybe smartcasting removed. I am also inferring that OP prefers SC:BW style glitching, such as mutalisks stacking. If this is what OP is saying SC2 should have, he has defied his own logic. The glitches that allowed practiced hands an advantage in SC:BW are glitches of the SC:BW engine. If those glitches were to be ported into SC2, it should no longer be a glitch but a feature. It would be no different from the Blink you have mentioned. It is also impossible to expect that SC2's inherent engine will have these so deemed "positive" glitches. While glitches such as roll canceling have arguably improved gameplay to a otherwise less interesting game, most glitches found should be fixed. Infact all the "positive" glitches are exploits, unintended bugs that give one player and advantage. I see no use in this thread. | ||
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ilikeapples
Australia3 Posts
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PanN
United States2828 Posts
I played GunZ obsessively, was in Flower (considered best team at the time), and played easily 6+ hours a day for a good while. If only I could have that much dedication with starcraft ... | ||
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divinesage
Singapore649 Posts
But yes I certainly do agree that discovered glitches did enhance the lifespan of games. For shooter games like Gunz and Quake, I suppose their lifespans practically hinged on the discovery and the mastery of this glitches (both of which have very high learning curves - more so for Quake). In fact it's these games that keep me playing them again and again just because of the high learning curve, it's as if once you reach a certain competency you can pat yourself on the back for your hard work as you literally decimate those whose skills are inferior t oyou. | ||
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Warri
Germany3208 Posts
On June 06 2010 10:01 awu25 wrote: I think he was referring to the fact that there aren't any hold banelings in SC2? I'm not sure if this is true I was being sarcastic about sc2 not having any hold banelings making it worse than bw which had lurker hold. On June 06 2010 12:47 starcraft911 wrote: This is a pretty good post. I played GunZ for a long time with a couple friends who happened to be pro FPS players and I schooled them so bad at GunZ because it required a lot of actions to be good at. Before I quit I could move around the map without ever touching the ground using steps and slash shots and even though they had better reaction time and point accuracy, they couldn't keep up with it and remain accurate. It was deffinately an FPS of it's own category much like CS1.6 was for quite some time. If i played them at Q or CS I would get shit on so hard, but GunZ was so much different. Another example is TF2's sniper nerf. Here's a link to my friend's sniper video. He happens to be the best awper I've ever seen and after picking up TF2 he schooled pretty good with the sniper until they nerfed it making him have to stand in place in order to fire. It ultimately killed competative TF2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXoarDxWP70 Sometimes being able to exploit the engine such as quick switching out of zoom by pulling out your knife makes the game better. it adds an element of skill that some players can do and others can't. Excellent post Any exploit/glitch that you abuse is also abusable by others. While it sets the skill ceiling higher it doesnt mean its better for you to separate yourself from other players. Once youre at a high standard of skill, all your enemies should be able to do the same thing. At least if youre not a noobbasher (who quits all placement matches and then ownes the copperleague just for the sake of it). Now if we adopt this on BW this would mean: There is muta stacking and it makes the skill ceiling higher. But if you play any enemy, he WILL use muta stacking (if youre not a noobasher again). Which makes it a nonunique skill. Now if you completely removed mutastacking, it would indeed be boring. But what if you made them stack automatically while moving, without the larva/ovi exploit? Now even noobs would be able to do it, yet that doesnt mean that your games with higher skilled enemies are going to be boring or less exciting. Only noobbashing would become a bit harder for you. Its true that with smartcast every 40 apm noob can spam you with mediocre forcefields and storms, which he wouldnt have been able to in BW. He will still lose to you if you are better. Sc2 is just way less about mouseskillls than BW and way more about strategy and positioning and even more so in fight microing due to the counter system. When you see protoss complaining about imbalanced roaches, and then you watch them engaging a fight with lets say 5 immortals 5stalker 10zealots vs 60lings and 10 roaches. The lings flank the immos/stalkers while the zealots vaporate to the roaches. A better player would have won the fight with better micro and focussing only roaches with the immortals. | ||
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synapse
China13814 Posts
On June 06 2010 09:55 Tropics wrote: this is literally the dumbest post ive ever seen on tl How is it "dumb?" Your point of view is that of your character, so your view is first-person. An actual third-person shooter is a game where your point of view does not follow your character's point of view, and is usually fixed at a bird's-eye-view. Just because you don't see from your character's eyes in GunZ doesn't make it a third person shooter. On June 06 2010 13:56 HeavOnEarth wrote: rifler's generally had better aim then the rss shotgun sprayers, actually. I don't think this is necessarily true - it really depends on your playstyle. The people that do sprays + k-style sword usually have great aim, but generally the standard e-style "sprayer" has pretty bad aim. Shoot into a mob, hope for the best. | ||
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Snuggles
United States1865 Posts
I used to write up articles and competitive guides on Gunz to share and help people out in the community. If the game really flowered and grew exponentially you'd be able to describe me as "The Day9 of Gunz". But the community was never even close to as awesome as the starcraft community was. It was really out of control how "bad mannered" (BM is an understatement for some of these people) the community would be. Usually it would be a handful of people causing a lot of ruckus but then it became quite apparent that it was more than just 20% of the game's population that were very very bad mannered. I think because of that, the community never grew as it should have because new players were so put off by how unfriendly people were in the game. And so I quit trying to promote the game to new people and just played the game for what it was- I'm so ashamed of my failure to help the community. http://www.gunzfactor.com/f43/make_difference-223244.html That was a plea from a user to the community to try to help it make a better place. 2 years later I can see that the community has gotten a bit better but is now suffering from a very low playerbase, with very little signs of improvement unless something drastic is done. Most of the trouble makers of the community have quit but so have the few that were trying to help the community as well. It's really a sad thing to watch as the game dies, I just don't know how it can recover. In terms of competitiveness today, the skill required in Gunz has grown to the point where the game has become very dynamic. I mean, the level of skill on the highest levels of play have been steadily increasing year after year after year, just like how Broodwar has. It's grown to the point where very small differences in your mechanical skill in Gunz can make a big difference, and the slightest mistakes will cost you the game. The level of skill is so high now that it has caused the value of teamwork and tactics to rise exponentially. You can no longer be a beast player with near perfect aim and be able to win all the time, it's as if Gunz has gone from a very "individual skill" based game to a more team oriented one due to how good players have become. There have even been periods of time where Gunz had its own Bonjwa team of players, Sparta, who had dominated tournaments nearly every month (not sure if they still play now). I spoke with one of their members and apparently they also play other games very competitively. They ranked among the Top 5 in the US when they played 3v3 arenas in WoW. That being said, it's quite evident that Gunz has the potential to become a very deep and entertaining competitive game that may be even worthy of being an e-sport. The game is still growing in the terms of how much skill, teamwork, and strategy is required to become top competitive team. But unfortunately the community has failed to grow and be as supportive, I myself am a failure as well. I seriously envy communities like TL, I really wish Gunz had the same type of community. I can only imagine how enjoyable it would be to be part of a community as nice as TL in Gunz. When I first saw this crappy quality video in '06 it got me really excited that Gunz might possibly become something great. But my dreams have been crushed, my boyhood dreams have yet to come to fruition. Sorry for reviving a dead thread.. I had some really good memorable times in Gunz, so I feel a bit emotionally attached.. Forgive me =(. If there had to be a moral to my stupid wall of text, then be grateful for having such a wonderful community here at TeamLiquid. | ||
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superman.
65 Posts
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Snuggles
United States1865 Posts
On July 07 2010 08:02 superman. wrote: SC2 will undoubtedly have an infinitely larger e scene than gunz does... so I dont see how your view that gunz knows better how to make an e sport can have any merit at all That is totally not what I'm trying to say. If anything I'm just glad that people even acknowledge Gunz as a game or even possibly as a Competitive game. Trying to compare the 2 would be ridiculously stupid. If anything I'm just bowing my head and saying "thank you" a thousand times for just learning a little bit about the game. I'm not trying to oppose anybody, ffs... Just "thank you". I know I shouldn't have made a post like that in a SC2 forum, but seeing a thread here about Gunz... it's just really personal man. | ||
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Aberu
United States968 Posts
http://www.sirlin.net/article-archive/ And should read his book. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/ | ||
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moon`
United States372 Posts
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oursblanc
Canada1450 Posts
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Angra
United States2652 Posts
On July 07 2010 08:02 superman. wrote: SC2 will undoubtedly have an infinitely larger e scene than gunz does... And that's the saddest part about this entire thread. That a game can have so much larger of a scene simply because of its name and advertising. On July 07 2010 08:14 oursblanc wrote: I'm sure SC2 will reach this level of refinement and infinite skill ceiling too. Unless something's changed about it, I really doubt it. (P.S. I've never played Gunz before but I can acknowledge that it takes a huge amount of coordination and skill to be at the top of the game. It doesn't matter if it's because of an exploit/glitch or just the way the game is itself, there NEEDS to be ways like that to allow better players to set themselves further apart.) | ||
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