StarCraft 2

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
If he can't find the motivation while being on arguably the most prestigious SC2 team I don't see how roaming teamless will help him
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
And I have seen on twitter him looking for a WoW raiding guild. The likely hood of him making it back is about nil imo. Which sucks as he his by far my favorite foreigner. Been a fan since he went to Korea and trying to win a Courage tourney
He has been playing WoW on and off for the last 2 years I think, he's NA pro afterall.

I think part of his issues were from the fact that he was dealing with depression, so having zero pressure to perform could help. And no current top team would really help him because he just wasn't on the same level as most other pros, one of the few pros on his level is Incontrol...
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
Wow Idra is terrible these days. Why do people still care to watch this joker?
 

Ichu

Molten Core Raider
853
292
Because StarCraft 2 is such an insanely volatile game, and it's nice to have some consistency to hang on to.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
Think about what you just wrote and how stupid that is.

Ret going 4-0 in his group in IEM? Dafuq
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
So few Terrans at this IEM -_-

Like Ret said his ZvZ and ZvP was pretty good in the beta. Just had issues with good Terrans. At least from the times I watched him play.
 

Sidian

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,279
7
Yeah, he did well against First and MC, but his first game against Yoda was completely one sided.

edit

Yup, Yoda won that series easily.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
I still can't stand this female bitch ESL uses. I despise her voice. Her face. Her "analysis." Her fakeness. Everything.
 

Disp_sl

shitlord
1,544
1
Think about what you just wrote and how stupid that is.
What's stupid about it? LoL, DoTA and CoD/BF3/Halo have gotten more popular every year and SC2 has declined pretty dramatically. There's just no new infusion of foreigner talent to replace the ones who retire or become bad, and the gap between foreigners and Koreans looks bigger than ever. SC2 won't survive outside of Korea without foreigners being competitive.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
MLG produces daily content for SC2. If it wasn't making them money I don't think they'd bother having 2 full time casters producing content for them. Just because IPL cancelled IPL6 (FWIW I heard IPL was making money, just not much) after getting new ownership I'm not seeing that as the first sign of the SC2 apocolypse.

And if Halo and LoL (probably two of the more popular esport games) is what the community wants to watch and play count me out of esports. Those games are horrible.
 

an accordion_sl

shitlord
2,162
8
SC2 is still really popular on Twitch, don't think it's going anywhere.
The order basically goes:

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS


SC2/Dota2 (depends on the day)
HoN/Black Ops 2

CS:GO


I don't know where people watch halo shit.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
I wasn't sure if I should say Halo or blops. My opinion on both is consistent and I wasn't sure which was more observed and played. I put the effort into learning DOTA2 so I could watch a match if no SC2 was on but I still feel 5v5 makes it really hard to observe. Sure towards the latter half everyone is together so you don't have too much going on but it is nearly impossible to follow a battle while it is happening. SCBW/SC2 are just fantastic to watch and lend so well to observing. I think it just takes too much time and effort to learn the game well enough for the average casual observer to enjoy watching it.
 

an accordion_sl

shitlord
2,162
8
I wasn't sure if I should say Halo or blops. My opinion on both is consistent and I wasn't sure which was more observed and played. I put the effort into learning DOTA2 so I could watch a match if no SC2 was on but I still feel 5v5 makes it really hard to observe. Sure towards the latter half everyone is together so you don't have too much going on but it is nearly impossible to follow a battle while it is happening. SCBW/SC2 are just fantastic to watch and lend so well to observing. I think it just takes too much time and effort to learn the game well enough for the average casual observer to enjoy watching it.
It's kind of the same for Dota2 and probably part of the reason why you find it so hard to observe.

I'd be glad for both games if they surpass LoL in a year or so (although I still hate Blizzard's idea of not completing the multiplayer game until the protoss expansion).
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
IDK I learned all the skills, what they do and what they look like but for a huge 5v5 battle there are atonof effects on the field that just blur my vision on what is going on. I'm sure if I played at a higher level I'd see more nuances and things like that but strictly from a somewhat novice observer it is simply hard to even see where the heroes are and what they're doing. The barrier of entry for a MOBA just seems so high simply because you need to know who the various heroes are, what they do and what their spells do. Its tough. At least from an SC/SC2 view you can logically figure out unit 1 hits unit 2 and it does damage. But the strategy and build up to the fights would be a complete bore not knowing what the hell is going on.

Still don't know why LoL is so wildly popular. Will be a mystery until I die.
 

Disp_sl

shitlord
1,544
1
MLG produces daily content for SC2. If it wasn't making them money I don't think they'd bother having 2 full time casters producing content for them. Just because IPL cancelled IPL6 (FWIW I heard IPL was making money, just not much) after getting new ownership I'm not seeing that as the first sign of the SC2 apocolypse.

And if Halo and LoL (probably two of the more popular esport games) is what the community wants to watch and play count me out of esports. Those games are horrible.
My point is how long is it going to be profitable for them? I'm not saying they'll shut down their SC2 division in the next week. 3/4 of the Korean teams have folded in the last year and a half. Every decent foreigner with an interesting personality or play style is either retired or irrelevant besides Stephano, and there are really no up and comers that I know of. I watch SC2 probably 3 or 4 nights a week and any more TL usually has 2 or 3 featured SC2 players compared to 10+ for LoL/DoTA/Misc.. A year ago you had maybe 10 of 12 featured players playing SC2.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
SC2 is somewhat in hiatus at the moment. Many top players were fighting for qualification in the MLG/IEM tournaments and didn't want their HOTS play broadcast. So you got fewer people. Now that HOTS isn't available at the moment most pros are even bothering playing WoL. So it makes sense hardly anyone is streaming.

The foreigner thing is accurate and could be a problem. Personally I don't care since I watch the games for the games not the players. I see the gap widening in HOTS because there is simply more to do at all phases in the game and it got harder to play. Zerg requires a ton of positioning and APM that it never needed in WoL which let foreigners compete at the top level. I'll be interested to see how it all shakes out. Right now the most viable "foreigner" race seems to be Protoss.

Also the ESF teams seemed to be run by a bunch of amateurs who had no idea what it takes to run a pro team. So the well managed ones remain and the poorly managed ones died.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
My point is how long is it going to be profitable for them? I'm not saying they'll shut down their SC2 division in the next week. 3/4 of the Korean teams have folded in the last year and a half. Every decent foreigner with an interesting personality or play style is either retired or irrelevant besides Stephano, and there are really no up and comers that I know of. I watch SC2 probably 3 or 4 nights a week and any more TL usually has 2 or 3 featured SC2 players compared to 10+ for LoL/DoTA/Misc.. A year ago you had maybe 10 of 12 featured players playing SC2.
What we are seeing is the scene got blown up really big, but to sustain itself it needs to shrink down. If anyone thinks Korea is big enough for Kespa and ESF to peacefully coexist is a bit naive, 2-3 more teams will fold. The huge advantage is that there is literally zero entry level for running events and you don't have to dance around developer's involvement. The reason why I stopped watching was that the game got stale as fuck, the expansion was supposed to come out a year ago originally. Anyone with half a brain can predict the game for like the first 15 minutes. If Grubby's stream is any indication, I'll be back to jerking off to Hero's micro of the new units in no time. If LotV improves the game like HotS and throws in some long time revenue streams for the players and Blizzard, the game will be around for a long time.

If Riot stops making money hand over fist, guess which thing will be the first to go when theyinevitablymake some cuts ? Then the scene will simply fold.
 

Disp_sl

shitlord
1,544
1
The reason why I stopped watching was that the game got stale as fuck, the expansion was supposed to come out a year ago originally. Anyone with half a brain can predict the game for like the first 15 minutes. If Grubby's stream is any indication, I'll be back to jerking off to Hero's micro of the new units in no time.
You don't see this as a massive problem for the game? Each time there's a delay, or the game gets stale because of poorly designed units and maps like it has been for the last year and a half, it kills off a chunk of the audience that will never come back. The difference with SC2 is anyone who starts brand new right now is 3 years behind, and the barrier of entry to get good enough at this game to be at grandmasters level equivalent is massive compared to those other games. I just think that 19 out of 20 people who buy HoTS and LoTV will be existing/established players, and the game isn't going to draw in almost any new pro-gamer blood outside of Korea. In the foreigner scene it has nowhere to go but down.