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Hello there,
A little question for you. We all know (kinda) that Broodwar map were quiet imba due to their open field and not the needed defence against so special tacticts. At some point, people began to see that Lost Temple is a good example of a balanced map in Broodwar.
At least that's what I know about "the history about Broodwar".
But why did the KeSpa began to create own maps? Did Blizzard not care about new maps so that they had to make them? Did the KeSpa a damn good job about making maps and balance them that Blizzard had ne need to make them? Or was the main intention of the KeSpa to create just different maps to keep the entertainment?
Would be excellent if someone with more knowledge than me could anwer this!
Thanks in advance.
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konadora
Singapore66060 Posts
KeSPA made new maps to "refresh" the map pool and keep the games from getting stale (aka WC3). Blizzard didn't really care about making "balanced maps" (or any other maps for that matter) after like 2000 or 2001, can't really remember.
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I dont think Blizzard really cared about esport back then. The whole deal with Kespa happened because of how little Blizzard cared, then it backfired (for them, not really for esports).
What happened in Korea was beyond their scope, it was beyond everyone's scope. When i played counter strike, we used to cherish CPLs, WCG etc, but when i first saw what happened in Korea i was mesmerized, it felt unreal.
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The Kespa started to make new maps to freshen up the map pool and to push the popularity of their leagues more. A beneficial sideeffect at first, but pretty important later on was that the balance was kept by using p/z/t favored maps too. As Blizzard stopped patching bw when it hit a balanced state, Kespa could finetune the winn/loss ratio by using more race specific maps. Also new Kespa maps enforced much more refined and different playstyles. Macro play was strengthened by maps as Fighting Spirit, certain tricks on maps like Monty Hall and island maps, though hated, created totally different games.
I guess i want to say, at first Kespa just did maps to be fresh and because Blizz didnt, but then they found out they could make bw any form of rts they wanted by mapusage :D
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You sound like you have the preconception that the way people approached Starcraft was completely different back then - nobody knew what competitive gaming was going to become back then, and its balance and design was entirely random and ended up working extremely well. - SC2 was specifically designed for both in mind, and during the BW era nobody had even considered balance and design, or competitive gaming. Get rid of that preconception, it becomes fairly obvious
So now to answer your question: why did Kespa create new maps? Blizzard's original SC1 and BW maps on glance, don't look anything like a map today in either games. Random minerals everywhere, gas geysers, erratic choke points, asymmetrical. Rubbish, they're weren't made for competitive play, and they certainly aren't played today competitively. These maps were used for a while but as the game and strategy developed new maps were created due to how our understanding, mindset, approach, and the strategy ultimately evolved and - this changed the way the game was played completely.
Remember - the way we approach competitive gaming was nothing like back then still, so blizzard didn't really care about the competitive scene at all - KeSPA made the new maps because of the evolution in competitive strategy. As a result of the development in strategy, maps became bigger, designed for expansions, but were generally still rather small compared to today - they were built for micro - the understanding of brood war was 10% of what it is today. This gradually evolved, until roughly 2007 (I think?) when the mindset of how the game was approached ultimately stopped changing - it had reached it's final stage (not to say that strategy didn't develop, I just mean that how build orders were designed, etc, didn't change). New maps still were created, but were primarily for entertainment as you said. The ultimate brood war map can possibly considered "Fighting Spirit." Perfect balance and excellent design. Worth watching a couple of games of, perhaps.
Hopefully this post makes sense, I'm rather tired and it's probably messy, convuluted, and not very well structured, but it's darn right!
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Bisutopia18993 Posts
Kespa did a great job with maps over time. They still had to work out a lot of imbalance that isn't visible at first. But overtime certain maps will develops match ups that are used every time, like PvT every game on match point or something. So changing the map pool allows us to get different match ups that became less common.
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Well have you ever played any Blizzard made maps? Blood Bath anyone? I guess the only relatively good maps Blizzard ever made were Lost Temple , BGH, and uhhh yeah , I can't think of any others.
KeSPA saved the broodwar map pool for sure, really grateful for that!
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United States9627 Posts
create balanced maps as the metagame changed. a map like python, i consider, is no long truly standard anymore vs the other maps out today.
also to refresh the map pool. you didnt want same old maps like fighting spirit every time.
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Lost Temple wasnt balanced at all!
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On January 05 2013 05:04 mdb wrote: Lost Temple wasnt balanced at all!
It was more balanced than the other piece of shit maps in the ladder map pool, lol. On pretty much all of the ladder maps except for LT, P owned T, T owned Z, and Z owned P. To a RIDICILOUS extent.
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Australia1064 Posts
The process of commissioning maps from experienced map-makers and refreshing the map pool season upon season is something that pre-dates the involvement KeSPA by half a decade. It was the broadcasters who originally started employing people to create new maps to make their tournaments unique and keep the strategies fresh.
Bill307 made a post a while ago about his involvement with a now-defunct Korean broadcaster who had him make a new map for their league, it's very interesting.
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