A Declaration of Interdependence - Page 14

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On April 16 2012 19:39 Jockmcplop wrote:
Have you guys ever played a game that was not made by Blizzard?

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On April 16 2012 19:39 Jockmcplop wrote:
Take my advice, stop biting the hand that feeds you, because maybe, just maybe, one day Blizzard will have had enough of this insane whining and just cut off support altogether.

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On April 16 2012 20:01 legatus legionis wrote:
I don't want to participate in the deep discussion. Simply remark on the way the polls are set up. With the note that I'm not trying to bash. I just hate polls.

4 polls. 3 of which have a neutral "yes/no" answer. The fourth is biased. It has seemingly worthless options which are just like making an option called "other" but then splitting that one "other", "something else", "another thing". It works to spread votes and creates a curve making the "real" option (which is again nicely placed as the fifth pick because it's a conclusion.) stand out in such a way that makes it look more legit and authentic, as if it's an actual good poll, and thus give that one more value.

Put simply, yes/no is clear. pick me/shit option is also clear. Clearly biased. Now when you make it into: shit option/joke option/pick me/ultra bad option that clear biased is suddenly covered up. Regardless of any intent, just having this mechanic in your poll deludes votes and makes the voting process flawed and thus the outcome worth less.

Everything is build up to support that "pick me" point. Then try not to take away it's value.

I really dislike these poll systems. Especially when someone is aware of what they are doing and has good intent. I would guess those are the situations where most of the "serious" polling abuse comes from, since the one making the poll is "good" enough to set it up properly to serve his purpose.

I don't mean to say it's not a good piece, I don't agree or anything like that. It has good points and the discussion it has spawn seems most excellent. I guess I just want to be able to vote blanco...

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Valve support their games incredibly well. They aren't the only ones, lots of companies provide long standing support because if they ever want to release a sequel in this fast moving business they need to have people stick with them. Also a well supported multiplayer, stops people trading in the game and buying something else, and helps draw others too it.

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If they do, they lose our support.. financially. Why are people defending a company for taking things away from the consumer? Guess what.. it's a capitalist market.. They work for us. We do not need them, they need us.
(or at least they should, if people wouldn't just buy stuff regardless of the abuses the companies do... see EA since.. forever)

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Why are people defending a company for taking things away from the consumer?

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On April 16 2012 19:15 TheMatrix wrote:
These aren't some new earth shattering features, these are features that were already there in their games 12 years ago.

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On April 16 2012 20:08 Jockmcplop wrote:

When was the last time Valve changed the user interface of a two year old game when there is an impending sequel? I do remember THQ doing this with company of heroes, but i am fairly sure that was just for security reasons. Blizzard ARE supporting this game well. They are still reacting to community concerns about balance, and making tweaks appropriately. People have to realise that the video games industry has changed for the worse. Some comprimise is required by the consumer to avoid a situation where expectations are too divorced from reality.

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On April 16 2012 20:08 Jockmcplop wrote:
The main thing about this thread that makes me unhappy is not so much the specific points that were raised but the language that was used. Look at the language you have just used for example:


This comes across as not only overly combative, but also incredibly naive. Blizzard's model is very consumer focused compared to alot of the larger gaming companies out there. Think about Call of Duty's recent lack of developement tools - alienating a large amount of their long term fan base - and that is one of the best selling, most lucrative games series ever released. Blizzard only works for us as much as they want to. They could hype games up as much as they wanted with their amount of money, and drop support months after release. They are meeting the community half way here, because they have to come up with a cost effective way of doing business while trying to keep the fans happy. But it doesn't matter how much they do, people will always want more.
Don't get me wrong, if you want to complain about the state of the industry i will be right there with you. I hate the direction that it has taken. But as a consumer who has been burned many times by developers who just don't care about their product at all, i feel that all this drama is about relatively minor complaints, and as such should be taken with a pinch of salt.

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On April 16 2012 20:08 Jockmcplop wrote:


They have not taken anything away from us... They have done their best to make sure Starcraft 2 is a quality product. What i am saying is that there comes a point when making massive changes to the user interface of an old game is just pointless. Blizzard will have a deadline to get HOTS out. They need to meet that deadline. Surely the best option for everyone is that they listen to what people want, and implement it into HOTS instead of dedicating a huge amount of time to reacting to every whim of certain vocal members of the community.

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On March 20 2012 23:35 BXiT wrote:
First of all I think that even if the idea presented here is quite simple, the analysis of its implications is really genius. It really deserved some tries. But even if it proves to be the right solution, there is still a long road to go through, with various possibilities, before seeing it became the next generation of sc2. I'd like to discuss that a little bit, if it fits here.

Disclaimer : English is not my first language. So I tend to simplify my explanations, and it tends to be less structured and argumented than it should be. Please make an effort the understand me first, I would love to be go into more details on demand.

Blizzard behavior

Blizzard have always told us that they have made an esport friendly game and that esport phenomeon is there only because of us. As mention in the OP, the business model for this kind of game call for an appealing Massive Massive Damage game, with a renewal through expansions instead of game depth.

Even if Blizzard is extremely active right now balancing the game and proposing new features for bnet2. The people dedicated to that (at least some of the initial ones) seems to have been affected for the whole starcraft 2 series. I think it will all stop when the 2 expensions will be out.

The community power

After BW was released, only a few patchs were made for balance purpose. As the metagame is always evolving they did not get involved like they are doing right now. But the community managed, by map making and strategy creativity, to overcame everything.

Even if blizzard stop with the last expansion letting the game in a state that is not fit for esport, through the map editor, we can still make every balance we want, even units ones if it needed. It is only a matter of community acceptance or not, even if it will probably won't be necessary.

Acceptance by the pro and practice

The main problem trying to do it right now I think is related to the ladder. Unlike ICCup, Blizzard has their hand on the main ladder the pro are using to train. Thus, solving problem though map making, even if they are accepted for tournament, will cause them huge hurdle to train efficiently on it.

Blizzard already told that their ladder is not designed for the competitive scene. I can't see them include such competitive oriented map into the classical ladder, since there is still casual players.
The ideal thing would be to have another ladder with another map pool for Master player for instance, or another custom game system (like the w3 one) that allow to quickly find opponent. The problem is to find people of your level.

Many (foreign?) pro right now, mainly use laddering for training. If it become less relevant for them and if no other system came up, they can only achieve practice though real inside coached team training and maybe events like RedBull Lan, or through networking with other pro.

(Impact on tournament metagame and players histories)

If no other fast (thus popular) match making system featuring the new maps, the rate at which the game will be explored will be slower. Maybe for the better. It seems that the GM ladder meta-game is defining the strategy we will see at each tournaments. Only Slayers seemed to do some intern strategy work.

If the players do not immediatly encounter a new strategy on the ladder, maybe it will increase the value of in tournament or even in game adapation, or create some unbeatable player for a longer period or time. I kind of think of the multiples Stephano vs Polt series. + Show Spoiler +

The course of action

I see 3 possibilities here :
1. Implement the new ideas, make them popular so that Blizzard take them into account and then rebalance what's needed during the time they are here.
2. Implement the ideas, make them popular so that the Pro play with them in tournament, letting them having a hard time practicing for it.
3. Make a new ladder system popular, like ICCup, implement the ideas, make them popular so that the new ladder system will use them, so that the competitive scene in general will practice with them.

The better one is obviously the first. Blizzard is really closed and let little informations filter regarding their intentions and goals. Without going into their methodology for balance things out, the speed and the amount voice they give to the community, it seems pretty hard to try to solve it ourself through map making, while they are doing the same with stats change, new upgrades designed for their maps. Even more without concertation.

Since we can't have that much leverage on them to include us in the process, the only way would be to wait for them to finish their expansions and to let us alone deal with that.
But if you want to do it right now, I think the best way is the third one. In the end, we will have complete control over everything, and can even decide to reverse the change made by blizzard if it seems to soon for us.

Conclusion ; TLDR

In the end, I think it is a matter of who have control over the changes or not.
Through the popular use of their ladder, Blizzard (on purpose or not) kind of force us to not attempt radical change that will split the game into 2 differents gameplays.
We either do it on purpose and take the control back this way, and all the problems (and risks for esports) that come with fragmentation.
Or we let Blizzard having the control for now and continue to fight for being heard and answered, waiting for the 2 expansions to get out and Blizzard to back off. Hoping they will give us the control of the ladder map pool or we'll have to develop another one like ICCup.

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On April 16 2012 20:06 Grovbolle wrote:


Did you not read the OP??? He adresses the polls

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And lastly, about the Poll 4

Many people are saying it is skewed in one direction, but I will show you why you're wrong.

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1 and 2 are obviously unfavorable, as they will get no results, or similar results to what we currently see.

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3, 4, and 5 are all in recognition that with Blizzard being the only person that can solve things, what can we take action towards to change Blizzard? 3 is to change the game, to another game. 4 is to change the company, via force. And 5 is to change their attitudes, by some way I don't really know.

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The real reason this poll seems imbalanced, is because we all want to see a 6th option. We all want to see "Community Saves the Day", where mapmakers are able to put great maps into a community-run ladder, where third party programs and mods are easy to implement and enhance the game, and where tournaments don't have jarring disconnects, ruining the amazing feeling going on in a game.

I favor none of the options, and I think a lot of us would prefer a 6th option, but we do not have that option. Which, again, is the main point of this entire thread.

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On April 16 2012 13:27 Bluerain wrote:
i cant wait for another developer to come along and create a better RTS game that we can all migrate to. until then, ill just be watching GSL and possibly play HOTS single player campaign. starcraft 2 is a great single player game for its story and lore but thats about it. since its only single player, ill prolly be trying to find a hack/crack instead of paying for the game like i did for WOL. although there is the login requirement, im sure someone will find a workaround.

blizzard is just riding the popularity of their previous accomplishments. starcraft 2 will be replaced by a better RTS and all we'll have will be memories of BW. this is fine though, no company can stay at the top for long w/o letting greed compromise their creativity/vision

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On April 16 2012 20:40 legatus legionis wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
I shouldn't have bothered writing this. Using ???, saying only he addresses the polls but not checking what that actually means and then using that to refute any of my points and put me in my place.

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On April 16 2012 16:23 Gingerninja wrote:



and it's a damn shame the best game is tied to a for profit organisation. Can you imagine Fifa charging you money every time you wanted to have a kick around with your friends? Esports really needs to grow and into it's own self sustaining industry without these profit mongering companies holding us back over adding in basic DAY 1 features such as replay sharing, game reconnection because it doesn't pay their dividends by making the best product possible, when merely decent will get by.

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On April 16 2012 20:25 fr0d0b0ls0n wrote:


That doesn't mean that those features magically appear on a new game, or are easy to implement. Is not like they can copy/paste the code between games. Each feature needs X man-hours, and you need to distribute the work, and give each feature a priority, and not every feature can be implemented in time.

Each of the features the community wants would have delayed or taken the place of another feature on WoL, or will delay or take the place of another feature on HotS (except if it's already planned for it).

Also they have an schedule, and they can't just abandon everything they are doing and do whatever we want them to do. Even if a feature we propose to Blizzard is accepted, it could take them more than a year to find space in their schedule to implement it.

That's how software programming works, and we can't really change it. We can hope that Blizzard implements what we want, but we can't also hope they'll do it right now. Also we can hope they increase the priority of the stuff we want, but they'll never stop other features half way done, that's not productive.

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On April 17 2012 00:42 HardlyNever wrote:


Exactly the disconnect from reality that I see going on in this thread. Are you seriously suggesting video game companies should not be for-profit entities? Did you seriously just compare dinky little esports to soccer(football)?

You are either trolling or straight crazy.

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On April 17 2012 01:50 Gingerninja wrote:


I'm neither. I'm also not talking about game companies.. they are a purely for hire entity than does a purpose, designs and programmes the game we play Esports with. You clearly read one sentence and didn't take the meaning behind it.

FTP games are released all the time, hell I was just playing Blacklight : Retribution last night. LoL is FTP. They are supported by micro transactions. It's not a HUGE leap to think that a game could be made purely for Esports.. and funded by tournament entry fee's and merchandise instead of buying champions or whatever. Judging by the amount of tournaments run, and people watching streams etc. Advertising and merchandise sales.
If enough people played it. The problem is, everyone may scream "for Esports!" but what they really mean is "for SC2!" and so unfortunately we'd likely never get a big enough switch to allow that to happen.

If you took out SC2's single player... how much does the games budget drop? How much of that budget could then be made via a kickstarter, via tournament entries, via team merchandise. Why should we not think bigger than what we have? We don't know if it's sustainable, because no one has ever tried. It'd probably fail without the large ad budgets of Activision and co. I have to wonder how many people would be cheering for Esports if it meant playing a non AAA release.

This is best case scenario for me, unrealistic at the moment yes... doesn't mean it wouldn't benefit us.
Ofc we'd need a governing body similar to how Korea has KESPA for this to work probably, but then as all the current Esports companies are trying to run each other into the ground anyway, guess that won't happen.

I think I've said all I can here, discussion is going around in cirlces. Maybe I'll post a blog on it, or if anyone wants to discuss it.. PM. I've probably gone way off topic anyway.

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On April 17 2012 03:14 AirmaX wrote:
This post is really interesting :
- the polls are clearly going into one direction and show us that blizzard, what ever effort they tried to put into the community, are far away from what the SC2 players were waiting for;
- the content of the post are directly linked with the evolution of the game itself and it's REAL ability in the esport development.

The term evolution is really important and I will explain you why ! Since the beta and the official launch of the game, the game changed on the "balance side" with a lot of tools :
- buff / nerf,
- ability added / removed,
- map changement (size / style / spawn position).

On this point, Blizzard was kind of "reactive". I say "kind of" because sometimes, they really put a LOOOOOT of time for answering simple problem (like close position on certain maps)....

We all followed and belived in the fact that the game will become more "FUN", more "BALANCED" and the show more "ATTRACTIVE" for the spectator.

As a big Fan of SC2, I still believe of the potential of the game and it's real ability of being the only game adapted for eSport.

Nevertheless, the statistics are talking for themselves :
- Saison 2 : 2,271,695 players Worldwilde,
- Saison 7 : 722,288 players Worldwilde.

Numerous post are made for changing some little things that make this game really annoying on the long term :
- The UI ( I wont talk about it again),
- the LAN problem,
- the evolution of the game itself ( from All in one base at the begining of the game, to this weird waiting of the 200/200 Deathballs with 12 mn macroing before engaging).

All thoses little things are really becoming heavy in everbody's mind ... Maybe I am wrong but I really have the feeling our community is shrinking little by little ...

The evolution of the number of viewers is ridiculous compared to other games like LOL.

Blizzard made a big mistake by betting on the Add On ... The players they lost wont put back money on a game in which they had no support...

The more HOTS is getting delayed, the less people will buy it !

The strategic development of the product (in 3 phases with 2 addon) will not be appreciated by the shareholder if the sales are decreasing in each phases...

Because they are (want to be) the only actor of the evolution of the game, they are responsible of it.

I really do HOPE they will be able to take decision and make big changes before HOTS by showing us they are not only CASH oriented and that hey DO CARE about us.

Otherwise, most of the SC2 community will shrink to a non-return point ....

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