I agree, I thought you meant something else. I thought you were saying it was like non-existent. WC 3 was no were the size of BW in Korea/US. But it was decent size.

The non-Asian communities for BW was really, really small. Using that as a model isn't really a good way of going about things, BW wasn't fun to play and you didn't get anything for it ( speaking in terms of melee/people who would watch melee tournaments ). The sad thing is, though, that despite there being SO many less people actually playing BW it still felt more active than SC2 which is a huge problem.

But the bottom line is that we need to get a better UI, chat channels, shared replay watching, clan support, automated tournaments, etc because that makes people want to stay on and play. Then start adding things like 'sc2 tokens' or some sort of SC2 currency you can build up by playing on the ladder, this encourages people of all skill levels to keep on playing. They kind of tried to do this with achievements and portraits but it needs to go further. I mean, something simple like opening a small store for ladder resets, name changes, stuff to buy for your clan, etc that can be bought by earned currency on the ladder!

It's really not that hard, you realize how cool it would be for everyone if there was a clan system and you could like buy stuff to make your clan profile page look different or even your own profile? So much could be done to keep people playing SC2 but there isn't right now and if it continues then SC2 won't ever be where it could/should be.



I just mean looking to them as models of how to get viewers isn't really smart. There were plenty of people playing DotA/UMS but those people aren't as inclined to watch professional tournaments as the people who are playing ladder; so we need to give some incentives to playing ladder.

This post was edited by 820 on Oct 24 2012 01:29pm

Hots is fun as fuck. It's renewed my faith in the game.

No you're wrong. If the units aren't perfect, LoL will KILL e-Sports, and it will be the end of noncompetitive Starcraft as we know it.

If the game isn't ftp, it won't attract casuals, and it will KILL e-Sports.

Etc. etc.

I agree, but what I was saying was, that BW was never made of "casuals." Adding more casuals will not help SC in any way. You can only use that as PR, like XXX number of people play SC 2/are online. BW was made up of fans of UMS, Map making, fastest possible map, clans for melee/fastest possible map. Also there were a lot of forums/sites for melee/fastest. Vilegamingtour, ICCup, etc. I did fastest/ums/melee and I watched hundreds of VODs of BW.

Basically my main point is, is Destiny right by saying making SC 2 more casual/user friendly will make SC 2 better? When BW it self was not made up of casuals. BW/WC 3 are not casual RTS games. Destiny keeps referring to BW. But he does not seem to remember BW never was huge like SC 2 was in the US/western scene. BW did not have translation, streams or events in US/Europe. Other than like WCG hosting events in US. To watch BW you had to watch VODs, that was even before youtube even. Think about how hard it was to watch it. Only hardcore/serious gamers played BW/watched it.

Oh right, yeah LETS KILL ESPORTS!!

amidoinitrite?

Yes it will, not for us but for them (general public). Honestly I'd love to get someone into starcraft and not have to coach/encourage them for 2 weeks before they get the jist of things.

Thank you for displaying your lack of knowledge concerning competitive video game scenes.

First of all there is very little overlap between players of SC2 and LoL and more importantly less of an overlap between viewers of the two games. The two games attract very different people and if you think otherwise you must be oblivious to reality. You're right in saying that the Analogy is bad but not for the reasons you stated.

The biggest hurdle for SC2 to overcome is personal responsibility with a paywall being a close second. If someone fucks up or does bad in Starcraft 2 that blame is all on them. You can't call your team bad, you can't chew out the carry for targeting a tank and probably most importantly you can't play cooperatively with friends like you can in most other competitive games(Dota, CS, etc.) Considering what a nightmare and near impossible task that balancing 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 would be there are only a couple options to get some of these people's attention.

1. Remove as much personal responsibility as possible and make losses less impactful. An unranked quick match is the most straight forward way to do this just because of perception. This is something blizzard has done in HotS.

2. Create a platform that allows for people to easily use your service without having to make a monetary commitment. Steam is a good example of this. They have created a platform that allows their users to have a 1 stop application that they can use to play a number of games(both paid and free) and socialize with their friends with ease. Battle.net 2.0 has not done this. If battle.net can follow this type of path we'll see a bump in the number of Sc2 players and watchers. That's why a good UMS platform is needed. If people were able to play the UMS games easily, with friends and for free with the other half(Ladder, Campaign) behind a paywall there is no way we would not see not only an increase in players and viewers but a number that remains steady. This would require that blizzard adopt Freemium model.

If there is anything destiny is correct about(and he's wrong about plenty) it's that casual and non-competitive players need to be able to participate in the game, in some way, without feeling like total shit if they lose and that they are connected with the rest of the community. That is if you want numbers like LoL and DotA. Not having those numbers does not mean it's dying or dead and this recent "sky is falling" nonsense is going to do more harm than good. Sc2 does not need LoL numbers to survive because while we do want ads and sponsors to cover tournament costs the Sc2 audience is actually willing to pay for their content which is something LoL is struggling with.



It's no different in LoL or DotA 2. I had to babysit my friends for weeks in both of those games. The only game where I didn't have to hand hold was Counter-Strike and other FPS games because the controls and gameplay are so intuitive.

This post was edited by TeH SaNdMaN on Oct 24 2012 01:52pm

So I guess the debate comes down to the two views:

1st view:

Making the game more user/casual friendly will make the e-Sports scene better. While Idra/Incontrol/Wheat are trying to say. Does helping casuals help the e-Sports scene. Which in my opinion is the heart of SC.

2nd view:

Making the game more user/casual friendly will being in people and trickle into the e-Sports scene of the game. Sounds like what Destiny is trying to say.

Edit: I agree with sandman. SC 2 and LoL have very few overlapping fans/views/players. They are different game genres. Also his points of 1 and 2 sound great. Also what I was getting at, in BW you can make infinite accounts where you lost it did not matter. There was no leagues (Gold/diamond/masters). We do not need the numbers as Destiny said.

This post was edited by eXpLegend on Oct 24 2012 01:56pm

its not even about making sc2 more casual friendly

its turning bnet -2.0 into bnet 2.0



This post was edited by soullogik on Oct 24 2012 01:55pm