StarCraft 2

My starcraft activity is limited to laughing at ESEX articles ...The Dark Lord Returns to StarCraft 2 | Esports Express

People only notice when he gets it wrong, because that's when it's funny

Blizzard is looking into selling custom skins and hats after the recent "success" of the builder anniversary celebration.

Sure sounds ok with me. Id love to have goals to aim for so i can customize my lill dudes.

Hopefully they will finally release some info about the next expansion at Gamescom, Blizzcon at worst

Malakriss_sl said:

Blizzard is looking into selling custom skins and hats after the recent "success" of the builder anniversary celebration.

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I've been saying it for a while but SC2 could really benefit from the MP ladder being F2P and having microtransactions like this built in. People will still play for SP in LoV (at least I will) but make the ladder unlocked for free. Right now no new players will want to play SC2 because there are two massive barriers of entry: learning the actual game and the $60 price tag.

They need some barrier of entry because hackers, maybe if you have purchased anything on your Blizzard account ? I thought spawning was a good way to go

They're so lenient on hackers anymore I don't know if it would matter. Top GM players with replays and everything proving their map hacking have gone unbanned for a long, long time.

Yep, releasing the multiplayer to F2p would sure bring new life in the sc2 community. Blizzard probably still sees the f2p approach has a failure on their part, if it would ever happen. You cant go against a f2p system for competitive games when you see how dota and LoL are doing...

Still, a part of me tells me that if it would go F2p, theres a chance we wont see the same popularity of these moba games. Sc2 really is a more complex game with a learning curve much much much higer. That and the fact a newbie can get emotionaly invested ( fuck i still do) by clicking like a madman for 30 minutes only to see all their great work being destroyed in a matter of seconds by the opposing player. SC victories are like the tastiest thing in gaming. Nothing comes close to that buzz. But losses... holy shit does it hurt haha. Yo have to be a masochist to play sc2.

edit hackers : sure you could get fucked over in the ladder every now and then. I was hardcore into counter-strike and you still saw plenty of hackers, so what. The important thing is how tournements are controlled. HAckers in CS werent an issue in tournements or most league matches. Same could happen for SC2.

I think a complex RTS like SC2 will always have a place. There are team sports and there are individual sports. Different personalities will gravitate towards different things. Personally I like the "all on me" style of SC2. It makes getting better easier because mistakes are obvious. In DOTA2 maybe I landed the perfect initiate but if the rest of my team mates aren't paying attention it is all for naught. Or perhaps it wasn't the perfect initiate? Who knows. It is really hard to know.

Well broodwar had a public for how many years. I think its safe to say sc2, with LoV, will be alive for a long time still. Id really like to see the magic of the first GSLs come back. Barcrafts were popping all over the place in Montreal. Shit was nuts. I could bring my GF who knows fuck all about SC and we both had a good time with everyone in the place yelling like crazy while the Tastosis we're screaming about nerd chills and such. Id like blizz to take a general public approach with SC2 without removing the complexity of it. Right now it feels theyre aiming at a niche crowd only.

BW existed when it was really the only kid on the block for real, professionally done e-sports. CS/Quake existed as well but it was more underground mainly because it wasn't embraced by Korea. We're living in a different time now. SC2 tried to stand on the shoulders of BW and ultimately failed. This could be for a number of reasons. Perhaps as simple as LoL just snatched the crown. But more than likely because SC2 games are less predictable and battles are too fast paced and too decisive. I think anyone that was interested in SC2 is either still a fan or has gone past the game. I don't know if there is much room to grow. LoV will bring some renewed buzz but even when HotS came out many of the people I played WoL with were already over SC2.

Fuckin moba. Raped the competitive scene of its soul.

Also I'm 4-0 this season #platsuperstar

Raise starting workers to 8, maybe up the mining amount back to BW levels and reduce attack/battle speeds by 10%. Slowing the entire game/series down simply to preserve early cheeze isn't worth it, for example drop the reaper entirely and give a reason for us to see ghosts, ravens, and BCs in more games.

So much of the first 12 minutes are repetition repetition repetition and it's boring as a spectator. We want to see the macro mech player actually get to a mech army and zerg to get something that isn't roaches.

I'm fine with the early game. It gives the casters time to fluff up the players and talk about certain out-of-game things. 6 workers also makes some certain cheese builds possible like sending your early probe out or 6 pooling. BW's early game was even slower and even more tedious so I don't know if I'd highlight that as a major problem with SC2. The major problem is everything does so much damage and everything has such little HP. The terrible, terrible damage approach to designing the game was a mistake, IMO. I'm also fine with niche units being niche. Again coming back to BW there were units that were only viable in a single matchup or only viable under very, very specific circumstances. I don't think I'd highlight that as a problem, either.

To me the list of issues with SC2 making it suffocate itself as a successful esport are pretty simple:

* Battles are too quick and therefore seen as "random" (subpoint: AOE is too strong and too easily obtainable)
* Battles are too decisive and generally come down to "the one big attack"
* Bases are too easily saturated
* There is no advantage to spreading out and aggressively taking expansions past 3


These are basically all the issues highlighted by the Starbow team as well

Shit, it's that time of the year again ?

I'm matching against high plat players and I have no clue why they're so bad. I have no clue what the fuck is going on half the time. I played a TvT yesterday where my opponent went FE into 2 Port. I have no idea what the follow up plan was since he just GG'd when I walked in with my bio/tank. Zergs are losing Drones to Reapers that they should never lose workers to. Not sure when everyone got so bad. I'm not even playing that well.

New season ? Most ladder players have 1 way to play and if you disrupt that, it's almost over. If it doesn't work this time, who cares, next opponent will be different.