Are the numbers for BW higher on something other than twitch? I looked briefly yesterday (I am one of those people who doesn't watch brood war and instead only SC2), but there were like 5 streams totalling like 30 people. Comparatively TLO whatever hundreds alone. Maybe I'm just hitting it at weird times.
Are the numbers for BW higher on something other than twitch? I looked briefly yesterday (I am one of those people who doesn't watch brood war and instead only SC2), but there were like 5 streams totalling like 30 people. Comparatively TLO whatever hundreds alone. Maybe I'm just hitting it at weird times.
Man, I really wish our "foreigners" were a stronger breed back in the heyday of SC2. It would have set a better foundation for the longevity of the scene I think.
Players like Machine, Axslav, Nony, and the others just couldn't even hold a candle to the Korean pros.
Some had their wins here and there but once the Koreans were allowed to play in NA/EU, it was game over except for the one or two that could keep up (Idra, Stephano, Scarlet, Thorzain, that other substitute-algebra-teacher looking EU kid, those two spanish brothers, and a handful of others).
I don't think letting Koreans play in foreigner tournaments was a bad idea.
I think Blizzard not directly engaging the eSports format and setting up league rules a lot earlier than they did was a big reason for SC2 kind of stalling.
Also, deathballs.
That was such a turn off for sooooo many fans... and it's lasted almost the entire life of SC2.
It also seemed to me that during the rise of sc2 there just wasn't good enough money to really go in full time. For a while there seemed to be a promise of really good money as esports was growing, but it didn't really materialize for sc2. Especially in the broader sense. Nowadays the money seems pretty good, but its concentrated into so few tournaments that only the top few people can really live off of it.
Another difference between sc2 and broodwar is that current/former broodwar pros seem to make a lot more money streaming on afreeca. For sc2 it seems like the most popular streams are the casters.
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Deathballs exist because Starcraft 2 has good pathfinding and unlimited unit selection. That's it.
What killed SC for me was the lack of variety in play. While I understand the need to not go crazy on tweaks and balancing patches, watching the same builds and maps got extremely stale and boring to me. Plus 3 games just took to darn long to release. Maybe if there was only say a year between them, the momentum and influx of new units/players might have been stronger.
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Deathballs exist because Starcraft 2 has good pathfinding and unlimited unit selection. That's it.
I would say that the way the competitive maps were created has something to do with it as well. There are a ton of wide open spaces, and more importantly very wide ramps onto the high ground. In sc1 like 2 units could block a ramp so it made more sense to be hitting multiple points at once since if you hit a small ramp with a deathball half of your army wouldnt be doing anything. Similar maps also contribute to the same build orders being used. Ease of unit selection though definitely makes a deathball strat more attractive though.
Deathballs exist because Starcraft 2 has good pathfinding and unlimited unit selection. That's it.
I would say that the way the competitive maps were created has something to do with it as well. There are a ton of wide open spaces, and more importantly very wide ramps onto the high ground. In sc1 like 2 units could block a ramp so it made more sense to be hitting multiple points at once since if you hit a small ramp with a deathball half of your army wouldnt be doing anything. Similar maps also contribute to the same build orders being used. Ease of unit selection though definitely makes a deathball strat more attractive though.
Keeping units together is always good, it makes them fight better. SC2's pathfinding means units that are moved together stay together, and the unlimited selection means there's no disadvantage to using one hotkey to move them around (you do want to use hotkeys to help them fight better, but that's not relevant to deathball movement). The reason ramps don't choke SC2 armies as heavily as they do in Brood War is because of pathfinding, not because of the size of the ramp. A gigantic ramp in Brood War was still just as much of a funnel for your units if your opponent's army was on top of the ramp. In SC2 the ramp may as well not exist if it's wide enough for your army-ball, because you can just move your whole army up cleanly and smoothly in one movement.
Brood War's engagements hit multiple points because moving large numbers of units into a single engagement was very difficult to do simultaneously and if you didn't do it properly you could throw away huge numbers of units. Small skirmishes on multiple points are, counterintuitively, much easier to control.
It's weird that, in that way, the relatively primitive coding that controlled the units and how they controlled/moved resulted in much more visually interesting game. Even as a spectator I've been getting back into Brood War and realizing that once I could set aside how shiny and smoothly animated the sequel is, the pitched battles are much more thrilling and fun to watch in the original game. Seeing whole armies stream across the map and engaging in one multi-screen battle, where different things are happening in different places, doesn't seem to happen in StarCraft 2, or at least it doesn't happen nearly as often.
I feel like I watch a different game than what people are describing here
Referring to BW?
Watch Jaehoon vs Best from a few days ago.
It's at 1:19:00 in this video. About a 25min game.
When it gets to midgame watch the huge armies streaming around across the map and think about how much effort it takes to move armies around like that, and how much more tactical play opens up when the very act of moving your army is a conscious choice with consequences.
If it's such "good" pathfinding, then why does clumping yourself up into a big ball shoulder to shoulder with your squadmates exist literally nowhere else anywhere in military tactics? You find that kind of pathfinding when evacuating a concert hall. Seems a pretty terrible way to move around to me.
It's 'technically good' pathfinding, in that in finds the shortest path between A to B without any consideration of anything else. To me, that's terrible pathfinding because it's the most unrealistic type of movement from sentient beings, ever. But yeah, this leads to the robotic nature of SC2 and the implications of that (terrible to watch).
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
That's what I meant by good pathfinding. Technically good, but results in some awful results.
I wonder how the graphic upgrade also factors into watchability. The new graphics can be kind of busy with particles and everything has a similar color scheme and gloss to it, while in sc1 the sprites usually have a lot of contrast with the background and animations are usually very simple. Even without the replay/observer tools to tell the exact unit counts of each army, bw to me is much easier to determine who is winning an engagement by visual alone.
I wonder how the graphic upgrade also factors into watchability. The new graphics can be kind of busy with particles and everything has a similar color scheme and gloss to it, while in sc1 the sprites usually have a lot of contrast with the background and animations are usually very simple. Even without the replay/observer tools to tell the exact unit counts of each army, bw to me is much easier to determine who is winning an engagement by visual alone.
Agree with this too. In SC2 you don't know who is winning a battle until it's over, but you absolutely know who is winning the game.
In Brood War, you can usually tell who is winning the battles, but who is winning the whole game is much harder to determine from observer info. I really like that, actually. SC2 can be a bit stale when you can clearly evaluate the game state.
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
Sc2 has a much different feel nowadays compared to the deathball era. I mean, it always had insane amounts of harass that people just ignored when looking to complain about it being deathball vs deathball but it is also true that big single battles were more common in the sequel
But that also has to do with the very hard counters that exist in Sc2. You can survive more with less in bw due to a number of factors so even if you won big battle you couldn't just end the game whereas in Sc2 a single crushed army was usually the end.
If bw never existed Sc2 would be way more appreciated. Even now it's not like it was a failed game or something. It's still played for money across the world.
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
You can't end games immediately in Brood War where you win big battles because you can't simply take your entire army and shove it down their throat before they can respond. It's difficult to get your army where it needs to be and it's even more difficult to engage correctly.
I feel like I watch a different game than what people are describing here
Referring to BW?
Watch Jaehoon vs Best from a few days ago.
It's at 1:19:00 in this video. About a 25min game.
When it gets to midgame watch the huge armies streaming around across the map and think about how much effort it takes to move armies around like that, and how much more tactical play opens up when the very act of moving your army is a conscious choice with consequences.
You can't end games immediately in Brood War where you win big battles because you can't simply take your entire army and shove it down their throat before they can respond. It's difficult to get your army where it needs to be and it's even more difficult to engage correctly.
. SC2 can be a bit stale when you can clearly evaluate the game state.
I've seen this before in a few places and I can't accept that obfuscation of game state is exciting. I can accept other people find that enjoyable, Lord knows I have really specific and frequently unpopular preferences in games so I've just learned that what I'd like to see will rarely align with what others want.
You can't end games immediately in Brood War where you win big battles because you can't simply take your entire army and shove it down their throat before they can respond. It's difficult to get your army where it needs to be and it's even more difficult to engage correctly.
I think there's more to it than that though. the counters aren't as hard, things just don't die as fast.
edit - I agree with you WW and I think the inability to see the complete game state is just another thing that got put on a list because BW wsa decided to be better and if that's true there has to be reasons so we better pick some resons. doesn't make it true and certainly doesn't make it true for everyone.
a baseball game could be more exciting if you can't see the score but it could also be much more exciting because you can see the score. saying it's 100% either way is silly to me.
oooooo we don't know if he's making unit xyz how exciting
oooooo we know he's making unit xyz but we still don't know how it'll effect the fight or if it'll get there in time or a million other possibilities.
I've seen this before in a few places and I can't accept that obfuscation of game state is exciting.
Watching a game of Starcraft 2 after one player gets a decent lead is like watching a movie you've already seen. It can be enjoyable, but there's no suspense and no surprises.
Watching a game of Brood War after one player might have got a decent lead isn't like that - you can't ever be sure exactly how big the lead is, and supply itself often doesn't even matter as much, either.
Dhalphir on
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
I just disagree that you can't also see a BW game where it's quite clear who's gonna win. the bigger difference than the info the viewer has is the ability to come back from behind (or at least slow down your loss rather than just being crushed) which is definitely more likely in BW I won't argue that
I've seen this before in a few places and I can't accept that obfuscation of game state is exciting.
Watching a game of Starcraft 2 after one player gets a decent lead is like watching a movie you've already seen. It can be enjoyable, but there's no suspense and no surprises.
That speaks more to comeback mechanics than it does to spectator experience
I've seen this before in a few places and I can't accept that obfuscation of game state is exciting.
Watching a game of Starcraft 2 after one player gets a decent lead is like watching a movie you've already seen. It can be enjoyable, but there's no suspense and no surprises.
That speaks more to comeback mechanics than it does to spectator experience
No, because it's much harder to know the magnitude of the lead. In SC2, you know supply counts, worker counts, and exact timing of upgrades.
In BW, you know supply now, since the patch, but before that you knew nothing.
Big push is coming, Protoss trying to get psi storm to hold it off. Will he have it in time? Will he? WILL HE?!?! BOOM PSI STORMS IN YOUR FACE
You don't get that in SC2. It's like "oh yeah attack is coming. Nah he'll have psi storm in time, he's fine."
boring
My point is not that BW is easier to comeback in (although I'd agree that that's also true) but that you rarely even know if what you just saw WAS a comeback or just a neutral game state.
I get what you're saying, I just disagree. There's nothing boring to me about knowing someone can deflect an attack. The excitement is in whether they can execute it.
I've seen a bunch of SC2 comebacks due to clever play or a mistake; being able to see what's being built has nothing to do with the tenseness or possibility of a comeback.
Also Dhal as I recall you were super on board with GameHeart when rts was working on it.
Why the change from "Man having all this information available is sweet, I'm glad to have this in a nice visible format" to "BW-style no information on anything but unit positioning (and now supply) is better in every way"?
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
I've seen a bunch of SC2 comebacks due to clever play or a mistake; being able to see what's being built has nothing to do with the tenseness or possibility of a comeback.
Also Dhal as I recall you were super on board with GameHeart when rts was working on it.
Why the change from "Man having all this information available is sweet, I'm glad to have this in a nice visible format" to "BW-style no information on anything but unit positioning (and now supply) is better in every way"?
Because GameHeart gave you no extra information than what you already had, it just made it more accessible to the viewer without wasting tons of unnecessary space like the default UI did at the time. If I'm going to have information, it should be presented as cleanly as possible, which GameHeart (and subsequently the official implementation) does.
But I've always preferred the Brood War method ever since I went back and watched a bunch of old games.
In the interest of full disclosure I havent watched much BW. I want to give it a go and maybe my opinion will change. I just cannot find an analog I'm any other media I consume where it deviates.
For example in WC3 a bunch of mods were created so people can include the production tabs and it was a positive change for me. I don't imagine taking all that away is going to make me enjoy spectating more.
I feel like I watch a different game than what people are describing here
Referring to BW?
Watch Jaehoon vs Best from a few days ago.
It's at 1:19:00 in this video. About a 25min game.
When it gets to midgame watch the huge armies streaming around across the map and think about how much effort it takes to move armies around like that, and how much more tactical play opens up when the very act of moving your army is a conscious choice with consequences.
Having now watched this, I don't see how this would be an improvement on SC2 from a viewing perspective or gameplay. I can respect people prefer it, however I honestly don't see any advantage this would have over what exists in the sequel.
I guess I can just chalk it up to personal preference.
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also they've played it far longer. flash practically fell back into being the god of brood war when he wasn't quite there with sc2
too early to spoil (and please don't spoil me!) but here's my preferred link (for starcraft afreeca is better than twitch ime)
http://afreeca.tv/36840697/v/68107
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Also, ya twitch isn't used as much in these regions as it is in the US.
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wra
BW uses Afreeca.
https://bwstreams.appspot.com/
So looking back at all competitive SC... who were all y'alls favourite players?
First was Boxer,
then SaviOr until I met him at Blizzcon and he brushed me off. He then went to jail. ^_^'
then tossgirl ^________________^'
after that I gotta say Jaedong stands out the most overall
honorable mention goes to polt and that tall European kid with the glasses... can't recall his name
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wra
<The Spoon Terran>
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
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Oh man, Nony... I almost forgot about him.
Man, I really wish our "foreigners" were a stronger breed back in the heyday of SC2. It would have set a better foundation for the longevity of the scene I think.
Players like Machine, Axslav, Nony, and the others just couldn't even hold a candle to the Korean pros.
Some had their wins here and there but once the Koreans were allowed to play in NA/EU, it was game over except for the one or two that could keep up (Idra, Stephano, Scarlet, Thorzain, that other substitute-algebra-teacher looking EU kid, those two spanish brothers, and a handful of others).
I don't think letting Koreans play in foreigner tournaments was a bad idea.
I think Blizzard not directly engaging the eSports format and setting up league rules a lot earlier than they did was a big reason for SC2 kind of stalling.
Also, deathballs.
That was such a turn off for sooooo many fans... and it's lasted almost the entire life of SC2.
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
It also seemed to me that during the rise of sc2 there just wasn't good enough money to really go in full time. For a while there seemed to be a promise of really good money as esports was growing, but it didn't really materialize for sc2. Especially in the broader sense. Nowadays the money seems pretty good, but its concentrated into so few tournaments that only the top few people can really live off of it.
Another difference between sc2 and broodwar is that current/former broodwar pros seem to make a lot more money streaming on afreeca. For sc2 it seems like the most popular streams are the casters.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
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I would say that the way the competitive maps were created has something to do with it as well. There are a ton of wide open spaces, and more importantly very wide ramps onto the high ground. In sc1 like 2 units could block a ramp so it made more sense to be hitting multiple points at once since if you hit a small ramp with a deathball half of your army wouldnt be doing anything. Similar maps also contribute to the same build orders being used. Ease of unit selection though definitely makes a deathball strat more attractive though.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
Keeping units together is always good, it makes them fight better. SC2's pathfinding means units that are moved together stay together, and the unlimited selection means there's no disadvantage to using one hotkey to move them around (you do want to use hotkeys to help them fight better, but that's not relevant to deathball movement). The reason ramps don't choke SC2 armies as heavily as they do in Brood War is because of pathfinding, not because of the size of the ramp. A gigantic ramp in Brood War was still just as much of a funnel for your units if your opponent's army was on top of the ramp. In SC2 the ramp may as well not exist if it's wide enough for your army-ball, because you can just move your whole army up cleanly and smoothly in one movement.
Brood War's engagements hit multiple points because moving large numbers of units into a single engagement was very difficult to do simultaneously and if you didn't do it properly you could throw away huge numbers of units. Small skirmishes on multiple points are, counterintuitively, much easier to control.
Shouldn't have kept it at 12, but def not unlimited.
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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Referring to BW?
Watch Jaehoon vs Best from a few days ago.
It's at 1:19:00 in this video. About a 25min game.
When it gets to midgame watch the huge armies streaming around across the map and think about how much effort it takes to move armies around like that, and how much more tactical play opens up when the very act of moving your army is a conscious choice with consequences.
It's 'technically good' pathfinding, in that in finds the shortest path between A to B without any consideration of anything else. To me, that's terrible pathfinding because it's the most unrealistic type of movement from sentient beings, ever. But yeah, this leads to the robotic nature of SC2 and the implications of that (terrible to watch).
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
Agree with this too. In SC2 you don't know who is winning a battle until it's over, but you absolutely know who is winning the game.
In Brood War, you can usually tell who is winning the battles, but who is winning the whole game is much harder to determine from observer info. I really like that, actually. SC2 can be a bit stale when you can clearly evaluate the game state.
But that also has to do with the very hard counters that exist in Sc2. You can survive more with less in bw due to a number of factors so even if you won big battle you couldn't just end the game whereas in Sc2 a single crushed army was usually the end.
If bw never existed Sc2 would be way more appreciated. Even now it's not like it was a failed game or something. It's still played for money across the world.
I meant for SC2.
This sounds like a drawback and not a feature.
I've seen this before in a few places and I can't accept that obfuscation of game state is exciting. I can accept other people find that enjoyable, Lord knows I have really specific and frequently unpopular preferences in games so I've just learned that what I'd like to see will rarely align with what others want.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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I think there's more to it than that though. the counters aren't as hard, things just don't die as fast.
edit - I agree with you WW and I think the inability to see the complete game state is just another thing that got put on a list because BW wsa decided to be better and if that's true there has to be reasons so we better pick some resons. doesn't make it true and certainly doesn't make it true for everyone.
a baseball game could be more exciting if you can't see the score but it could also be much more exciting because you can see the score. saying it's 100% either way is silly to me.
oooooo we don't know if he's making unit xyz how exciting
oooooo we know he's making unit xyz but we still don't know how it'll effect the fight or if it'll get there in time or a million other possibilities.
Watching a game of Starcraft 2 after one player gets a decent lead is like watching a movie you've already seen. It can be enjoyable, but there's no suspense and no surprises.
Watching a game of Brood War after one player might have got a decent lead isn't like that - you can't ever be sure exactly how big the lead is, and supply itself often doesn't even matter as much, either.
That speaks more to comeback mechanics than it does to spectator experience
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No, because it's much harder to know the magnitude of the lead. In SC2, you know supply counts, worker counts, and exact timing of upgrades.
In BW, you know supply now, since the patch, but before that you knew nothing.
Big push is coming, Protoss trying to get psi storm to hold it off. Will he have it in time? Will he? WILL HE?!?! BOOM PSI STORMS IN YOUR FACE
You don't get that in SC2. It's like "oh yeah attack is coming. Nah he'll have psi storm in time, he's fine."
boring
My point is not that BW is easier to comeback in (although I'd agree that that's also true) but that you rarely even know if what you just saw WAS a comeback or just a neutral game state.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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Also Dhal as I recall you were super on board with GameHeart when rts was working on it.
Why the change from "Man having all this information available is sweet, I'm glad to have this in a nice visible format" to "BW-style no information on anything but unit positioning (and now supply) is better in every way"?
Because GameHeart gave you no extra information than what you already had, it just made it more accessible to the viewer without wasting tons of unnecessary space like the default UI did at the time. If I'm going to have information, it should be presented as cleanly as possible, which GameHeart (and subsequently the official implementation) does.
But I've always preferred the Brood War method ever since I went back and watched a bunch of old games.
For example in WC3 a bunch of mods were created so people can include the production tabs and it was a positive change for me. I don't imagine taking all that away is going to make me enjoy spectating more.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
Having now watched this, I don't see how this would be an improvement on SC2 from a viewing perspective or gameplay. I can respect people prefer it, however I honestly don't see any advantage this would have over what exists in the sequel.
I guess I can just chalk it up to personal preference.
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dhal if you ever have the time...
whats a disruptor
@Variable
this is a Real Spoiler from the games you linked
A big lead, hard-won from efficient trades all game long
Gone in a blink