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On January 26 2019 01:09 pebble444 wrote: For me personally, the amount of information available was what let me know that there was a competitive scene, but I did not understand any of it. Only when I was in the team and we played vs each other, I started to manage to follow a build order, understand concepts such as harassing, main yarding, timings, valued upgrades. And it was fun because everytime I played with my clan or in the league, it was 40-60 win rates, in between, so it was challenging. It not challenging when I played against an opponent that was much better or much worse than me. only depressing and it felt like a waste of time, winning or loosing.
THIS! This is how I finally started getting better at BW myself was consistent, dedicated practice partners that were around my skill level so that we easily traded wins and would review games on how you/he/she won/lost. This is what I feel we need again and CPL does a great job at it but I feel every time I attempt to help out new players - they get too frustrated and leave because they won't try and make friends, like a real attempt at making friends. They keep too competitive a mind set sometimes. I dunno. It's a fine line.
Someone above said that there needs to be team games like 2v2 for match making and I absolutely agree. Even unranked matchmaking might be a good idea for 1v1 and 2v2. Unfortunately with how things are turning over at Blizzard. I'm not optimistic on the possible outcome for that.
Also, people still play 1v1's via UMS as well - I can find games pretty easily if I make an game with obs slots open for other people to watch as well. Lots of people want to learn and they'll message me after for advice. So I'll start trying to point those people towards the CPL or LMaster's new player discord.
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Yeah when I got into competitive BW back in 2008 there's no way I would have stuck to it if it weren't for my buddy at the time also getting into it and we were about the same skill level and mostly just played vs each other for a couple weeks until we felt confident enough to venture onto the ladder.
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On January 25 2019 15:30 Jealous wrote: Can you suggest some concrete solutions for what you think we should be doing for new players and to attract new players?
Brood War's storied history and Blizzard brand power attract the new players, so I would think that what you need to do is retain them and keep them engaged.
Personally I think CPL preseason 3 was one of the most welcoming environments I've seen for postremaster starcraft, and it's awesome the role that you've had in fostering it. What I would suggest would be an attempt to prolong/recreate the period where the players are undivided and open to any kind of lateral practice. There's a natural cycle of activity/inactivity but CPL itself as a community in the actual season/postseason can be very closed off and inaccessible to people just wanting to show up and hop in/engage themselves. It just looks like a dead league from the outside when half the teams are using private discords and the other half are using hidden channels.
Now whether takes the form of an active environment like Lmaster's discord or a slightly more structured practice league that runs some sort of mini practice cycles for active participants (rather than quarterly+) is up for grabs but I don't think the very generously offered "teaching discord"s in the past have been grabby enough. Maybe a minicpl that runs more like a casual fun little pick up league informally would be a cute little practice. Team captains pick from people that show up that night, you practice for a little or maybe an evening and then play a match. Couple of nights total, week/two week/or monthly cycles. Camaraderie but without the long lockouts?
Unfortunately this really isn't my game to teach. With a very passive Blizzard presence this game kind of rests on the efforts of what those that can come up with.
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To add on to the idea of concrete suggestions, I think a lot of Brood War practices have been very poorly structured in the past. I've watched what I would consider a reasonable amount of team practices for CPL and attended a few sporadic events, a very common theme was 10 people (multiple coaches) spectating a single match with a twitch stream
This is pretty ridiculous to consider. Dividing seasoned players/coaches/noobs to spectate and play multiple games by matchup would be much more effective and have less time wasted on irrelevant matchup spectating. I'm trying to imagine an entire tennis team sitting there watching one pair practice at a time, but that's more or less how BW practices tend to go.
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On January 25 2019 23:42 pebble444 wrote: So I have modified the thread because now I understand better that instead of "lack of structure" its more what kind of structure; That being said I realise from reading through the whole thread and what people have posted is that I don' t know myself what a newcomer really needs to pick up brooder and play it... only my ideas, Greth made a really interesting point do about making it fun as opposing to improving at all costs.
Jealous I have already answered your question, and I think other people have indirectly answered it better than me - of course these are all opinions and you are entitled to yours too, I am sorry for not considering what you and L_master are doing for newcomers, I believe that to be an excellent thing and understand the effort, patience and time you both put into to it for no personal gain. That being said I suggest you change your attitude in this thread. Nobody here has or is trying to find a quick fix, this is not the kind of thing for that, but rather people are exposing their ideas, their personal experiences and discussing the topic, so if you have something to contribute on that side, otherwise I think you have made your point...
Also I am interesting in reading threads like this that have popped up in the past, can anyone Kindly provide a link if they know? I'm still not understanding what more needs to be done to welcome newcomers that isn't being done right now, that's the only reason I can think of that you might have a problem with my "attitude." Meanwhile, people are responding to pauline's perfectly reasonable and logical assertion that one has to be proactive in order to improve in anything in this world with dismissive ambiguities.
And you're wrong. I'M trying to find immediate solutions. We were all newcomers to this scene at one point - some much more recently than others. Why is it so hard for them to pinpoint what they would have liked to have when they entered the scene? Why do we keep using nebulous terms like "structure" when so many extant Discords, threads, sites, etc. already fit into what a "structure" is? It's as if you want your lawn to be as "good" as your neighbors, but when I say "your lawn already has no weeds" you say "no not that kind of good," and if I say "your lawn is already very green," and you say "no not that kind of good," over and over, perhaps you will understand why it is frustrating to try to diagnose what you mean by "good" and what you're actually looking for and what your vision is of how it can be achieved. kaboombaby gave a great example of the kind of discourse I find to be much more productive when trying to assess the shortcomings of the current scene's appeal to new players.
This thread is pretty long and discusses the issues at length:
https://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/537135-not-enough-content-for-f-ranked-players
This thread touches upon the subject:
https://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/539594-lmaster-caster-feedback
On January 26 2019 02:00 kaboombaby wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2019 15:30 Jealous wrote: Can you suggest some concrete solutions for what you think we should be doing for new players and to attract new players? Brood War's storied history and Blizzard brand power attract the new players, so I would think that what you need to do is retain them and keep them engaged. Personally I think CPL preseason 3 was one of the most welcoming environments I've seen for postremaster starcraft, and it's awesome the role that you've had in fostering it. What I would suggest would be an attempt to prolong/recreate the period where the players are undivided and open to any kind of lateral practice. There's a natural cycle of activity/inactivity but CPL itself as a community in the actual season/postseason can be very closed off and inaccessible to people just wanting to show up and hop in/engage themselves. It just looks like a dead league from the outside when half the teams are using private discords and the other half are using hidden channels. Now whether takes the form of an active environment like Lmaster's discord or a slightly more structured practice league that runs some sort of mini practice cycles for active participants (rather than quarterly+) is up for grabs but I don't think the very generously offered "teaching discord"s in the past have been grabby enough. Maybe a minicpl that runs more like a casual fun little pick up league informally would be a cute little practice. Team captains pick from people that show up that night, you practice for a little or maybe an evening and then play a match. Couple of nights total, week/two week/or monthly cycles. Camaraderie but without the long lockouts? Unfortunately this really isn't my game to teach. With a very passive Blizzard presence this game kind of rests on the efforts of what those that can come up with.
On January 26 2019 02:25 kaboombaby wrote: To add on to the idea of concrete suggestions, I think a lot of Brood War practices have been very poorly structured in the past. I've watched what I would consider a reasonable amount of team practices for CPL and attended a few sporadic events, a very common theme was 10 people (multiple coaches) spectating a single match with a twitch stream
This is pretty ridiculous to consider. Dividing seasoned players/coaches/noobs to spectate and play multiple games by matchup would be much more effective and have less time wasted on irrelevant matchup spectating. I'm trying to imagine an entire tennis team sitting there watching one pair practice at a time, but that's more or less how BW practices tend to go. These are all very good suggestions IMO. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have a sister scene to CPL that ran this way. In fact, you can see that I suggested basically the same thing in this thread, along with a suggestion for how to structure it and numerous resources. Here is a relevant excerpt:
+ Show Spoiler + So I’ve been kinda hyping up this miracle system that I came up with over the past few months over the past few pages, and I do think that it is much more tailored to the community at large, has potential for ergonomic growth, and is superior from the administrative and time-intensity perspectives. However, as I already said, all decisions have pros and cons. So, I will try to assess those after I present the full league outline. Without further ado: 1. No more teams. Instead of teams of players and their respective coaches, the entire CPL community (preferably connected through Discord, using the CN/I channel) will be one giant pool of players who can participate in the league. Instead of dedicated coaches, there will be a pool of coaches. 2. No more line-ups; one match-up per week, sign-ups for people wishing to practice that match-up. Each week we will have one match-up to play – PvZ, ZvT, PvT, Mirror1, PvZ, ZvT, PvT, Mirror2, so on and so forth. Players who wish to practice that match-up for that week will sign up, just for that week. Coaches who wish to coach that match-up for that week will sign up, just for that week. 3. Less skill discrepancy. When signing up to play a match-up, you and another player can be paired based on skill. If C level Protoss1, D level Protoss2, C level Zerg1, and D level Zerg2 sign up, then the administrators can just pair the C level players and the D level players if they wish. 4. Weekly rotation in practice partners. As there will be no distinct teams, players can play with and practice with whomever they want, but more importantly they will have the rest of the sign-ups available for that week. What this means in the example above is, P1 is facing Z1, P2 is facing Z2, and P1 and Z2 can be dedicated practice partners while P2 and Z1 are the same. Zerg Coach and Protoss Coach will be responsible only for coaching their race’s respective players but are of course encouraged to help anyone and everyone. 5. Seasons, matches, and the league in general are far more flexible. There can be no need for seasons at all. In my proposed pattern of MUs (PvZ, ZvT, PvT, PvP, PvZ, ZvT, PvT, TvT, PvZ, ZvT, PvT, ZvZ) there can be either 1 season (all 12 weeks), 3 seasons (first set of 4 or 3 MUs with the mirror being included or excluded), or 0 seasons (if there is no desire for any capstone). Matches can be Bo1 or Bo3 or Bo5 depending on how many people want to participate, for how many games they want to participate, etc. because of player autonomy. Map pool can also be very flexible and less administrator-dependent. The Coaches can participate in a showmatch of that match-up every week as well, just as a comparison for the players to see, and for extra hype/fun for the coaches. 6. Rankings and statistics are now purely individual. No one is limited or bolstered artificially by their teams. The statistics I would compile are Protoss, Zerg, and Terran winrates; MU-specific winrates; individual player winrates; coach winrates (the winrates of the players they back). **Pros*** 1. No teams means a bigger pool of players and resources to draw from on a more consistent basis – one player’s or coach’s absence will not affect the rest of the unit. This also means this league has a lot of ergonomic growth potential, in anticipation of SC:R hypetrain scrubs. 2. No line-ups means less organizational hassle, and no requirement of filling x slots per week. Sign-ups can be handled through various online services quite easily. This also means that players can be matched based on skill, again catering to both existing players and SC:R newcomers. 3. Weekly sign-ups means less commitment issues for players and coaches alike, something that greatly hampered many aspects of CPL for some players/teams/coaches. 4. One match-up per week means a much more focused practice and coaching atmosphere for that week, allowing for bursts of progress in targeted areas for players who need it most by coaches who feel most confident in that match-up. This extends to broadcasters as well; if my broadcasts have shown anything, is that there are many experienced players who are willing to cast low level matches as long as you reach out and coordinate with them. This means that we can have specialists come on for a specific match-up and give much more detailed advice than I could every week as a weak former C+ mostly-Protoss player. 5. Weekly rotation in practice partners and matches means people will get to play structured matches with a broad diversity of opponents, with the same targeted environment described in #4. 6. League flexibility benefits players because it makes it a much more interactive “do what you want” format, meaning you can decide which maps, how many games, etc. you play with your opponent. 7. Rankings and statistics will highlight players more naturally than they did in the teamleague, and will do so for coaches as well. This opens the doors for more frequent and more accurate “All-Star” type events, which can be held monthly, by-season, etc. **Cons*** 1. No teams means very little team unity and cohesion. I respect that some teams have grown quite close throughout CPL and this format would serve to hamper that from happening in the future. The caveat is that I don’t think many teams benefited from the team-based format nearly as much as Drag n’ Herb did, and thus may not be universally seen as a desired element. 2. Less commitment could deter some people who are “in it for the long haul” type people. If people can come and go as they please, that means that there may be inconsistency in work ethic and the availability of people who you could otherwise guilt into “doing their part.” 3. Rotating line-ups would mean that there will be at least one week every two weeks when a player of a certain main race can’t play. I don’t think this is a major issue, but it’s worth noting. 4. Greater flexibility in league format means less uniformity in results, and potentially requires more adaptation from the administrative team. However, I would hope that there would be more than two people running this, and with some people (coaches? Broadcasters?) willing to help out on the more minor things like Liquipedia and cast announcement posts. 5. Less definitive “end” and “beginning” to the league, potentially giving less of a “building to something greater than this” feeling. Goes along with #2. 6. Probably some other shit I’m missing. Here’s a brief summary of the new format the way I explained it to L_Master via Discord, in case it makes more sense for people as a whole unit of text: + Show Spoiler [Summary] + Each week we have one match-up to play. Each week we ask for sign-ups: who wants to play? So no having to fill a certain amount of slots for anyone, purely voluntary. And every week we will have sign-ups for coaches. "Who is free to coach this week?" Assign dedicated practice partners if possible: P1 practice partner with Z2, P2 practice partner with Z1. This way, no person ever has to sign up for more than a 1 week commitment. People can play a whole Bo3 or Bo5 series without it negatively affecting casting time duration, if casts are even desired. People get to practice with an opponent of similar skill level and be coached by a higher level player. Scores will be kept based on 3 distributions Protoss, Zerg, Terran scores. Coach individual scores (whose pupils do well). Individual scores for players. Allstars like event every so often. So one week, you could have like 5 protoss want to play 6 zergs and that's fine; one player can play twice, or one Zerg can play one coach, whatever. And other weeks you could have just 1 Terran and 1 Zerg, and that's fine too, no hassles. Never go more than 1 week without an opportunity to play for any race. That would make organization a lot easier too, and more of a community unit vibe instead of a team vibe; people using CN/I as a learning and growing channel instead of just organizational for reaching out to others. That would also pool coaching resources, so everyone can have the opportunity to have Dragon as a coach, or whoever is free that week for coaching. This is based on the things I learned this season. Just to further clarify: It would work something like this: Sign-up as a Terran player wanting to play vs. Protoss by 8/12. Specific player match-ups announced 8/13. Game gets played before 8/20 whenever both players agree upon. Coach is assigned or chosen and coaches until then, and must also have signed up before 8/12.
As you can see in the poll on the thread, there was actually a lot of interest for this "new" system proposal, but the new leadership of CPL opted to go for a more conservative format (more similar to season 1) which by no means is a bad choice or bad system IMO. All I'm saying is that ideas of this nature have been floating around for years. You don't have to be a skilled player to follow the above steps, so I guess my question is why doesn't someone who is currently in CPL run something like this one the side? At least now we have a concrete suggestion that we can pool our efforts into.
EDIT: Also, when I was assistant coach in CPL, we were doing stuff like having 1 coach obsing 1 player, coach 2 obsing player 2, each coaching the other on voice chat. Stuff like that is a more efficient use of resources and is completely viable and I'm surprised if more people aren't doing that.
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That’s a really good post jealous; let’s agree to disagree then, especially since we know each other since a long time; maybe me opening this thread was overkill, but discussing things is always good imo; keep finding solutions, I absolutely agree with that, peace
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On January 26 2019 08:05 pebble444 wrote: That’s a really good post jealous; let’s agree to disagree then, especially since we know each other since a long time; maybe me opening this thread was overkill, but discussing things is always good imo; keep finding solutions, I absolutely agree with that, peace I'm not even sure we disagree because I still don't understand what your position/suggestions are. I don't think this is a bad thread and I do think that discussions are valuable and can produce potentially beneficial outcomes, but that is impossible when we are only talking about nebulous terms and not with specifics (again, as what kaboombaby said). If anything, I would like to hear MORE about what people think is holding noobs back from joining the scene and getting good, but only as long as we are discussing concrete issues and solutions.
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TLADT24918 Posts
From my understanding, it seems like accessibility is the biggest issue that Pebble was pointing out. This was also mentioned by another new member who stated that it took him a lot of time to find the information that is freely available, aka things like discord channels, LP etc... One other thing is perception and it's something that Greth heavily touched on. BW is a rough game, but the game is extremely fun at all levels and that's something that we should focus on first and foremost instead of the "learn BO and copy x from y fpv stream and make sure to do z" etc... I was personally never a fan of all these practice this build 50x vs AI etc... A game is meant to be fun, not work unless the individual enjoys this kind of stuff then by all means, go for it!
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Take it to pm; I am not willing to discuss this any further in public with you....I don’ t like to resolve quarries in that way;
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On January 26 2019 09:27 BigFan wrote: From my understanding, it seems like accessibility is the biggest issue that Pebble was pointing out. This was also mentioned by another new member who stated that it took him a lot of time to find the information that is freely available, aka things like discord channels, LP etc... One other thing is perception and it's something that Greth heavily touched on. BW is a rough game, but the game is extremely fun at all levels and that's something that we should focus on first and foremost instead of the "learn BO and copy x from y fpv stream and make sure to do z" etc... I was personally never a fan of all these practice this build 50x vs AI etc... A game is meant to be fun, not work unless the individual enjoys this kind of stuff then by all means, go for it! I think that all of the people that just want to play for fun... just play for fun. The issue is that the game is not that fun if you're getting shat on every game. This prompts people to ask "How do I get better?" and that is where practicing BOs, watching rep/VOD, finding resources, joining teams/clans comes in. I don't view the two populations as entirely separate, the "I want to get better" crowd often comes from the "I just wanna try this game out and play for fun" crowd. I don't think many people come into BW and immediately think to themselves "I want to get good at this game."
If accessibility is the issue, then I will reiterate my point and question from before:
1. Accessibility is better than it ever was before, and the lack of accessibility in the past didn't stop us from improving/getting involved.
2. What can we do to make the freely available and enormous library of information even more accessible?
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From my perspective the community is doing enough but it is being hindered by blizzard and the limited resources they gave to the project.At the same time making many useful 3rd party tools obsolete like bwchart ,BW AI project and making custom mods impossible.
The most popular multi games now are team based.LOL, fortnite, dota 2, whatever else (I dont follow it much).So team matchmaking would be good.The most important thing however is improved AI & AI bots built into the game at differing skill levels.Blizzard needed to hire or allow to work remotely and send code the great community modders and programmers who made the addons for 1.16.1.It’s been a shame how blizzard have handled the remaster.
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Problem with new blood is that young dudes dont even know that bw even exists. There is ppl saying "game is too hard" and "too old" but if there is no way to find about bw then the prior argument is non sensical (is that word?) Because they cant judge too old or too hard without even playing it.
12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 year olds might be interested in playing bw, specially outside of korea, because the skillcap needed to be a good player in non korean standards is not that high. (C-B level imo is pretty decent and can be archived in no more than 1 year of playing if you dedicate enough and know where to start. High B-A-S is about refinement and should take longer- or even shorter if you learn fast and play a lot- but that is a diffferent topic)
The main problem with getting young ppl into bw is not the game, that is fun by itself, bw could stand alone among most played games today in terms of fun. The main problem is expousure (is that a word?) Getting people to know that BW exists and that is fun. We as a community shoumd stop the stupid gospel of "OMFG BW SO HARD" and get going the gospel of "OMG BW SO FUN".
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(I had some time so I think ended up with some drafting for my upcoming rant/article if you don't mind).
We can't forget that BW used to be a platform rather than a singular game. And I'm not only talking about Battle.net, which was one of the key factors in all of Blizzard's games lasting much longer than any other. Indeed, battle.net introduced a lot of people to chat culture, as IRC was unknown to 'kids those days'.
Starcraft birthed many styles of play, and through UMS it created the tower defence genre, and arguably the embryonic form of DOTA.
For a lot of us there was also no transition between Diablo, Warcraft and Starcraft. We walked from one game to the other, keeping our community intact between them.
Throughout all of this, 1v1 BW has always been the elite 'proper' version of the game. We knew this, and I always shied away from it as a player. I (and this might come to a shock) started as a 7v1 compstomp player, and then graduated to 4v4 Fastest (none of that new wave zero clutter, proper 'my base is minerals' Fastest). Around 2003 I dared stick my head into 2v2 LT and got my face beat in so hard I was shitting teeth for a fortnight (a harmless word in those days).
We understood and revered proper Starcraft. But it was always a fraction of the playerbase even then. I was also an avid UMS player because it was 'safer' than being confronted by the harsh reality of base management and expansions.
Most casuals that stuck their toes into the primordial ooze of competitive Starcraft got stuck in 8 player Hunters games. Having less than 20k minerals per patch was, for many, already hardcore enough. You weren't really having fun until you had 200 supply of carriers.
I legitimately stopped trying to play 1v1 for weeks because I would lose to scouting probes. And I still harbour an intense hatred for Protoss to this very day.
And so, us 'Starcrafters' would sing the praises of 1v1 as the Ultimate Sport, to glorify the Zergling rush and laugh at anyone who made a ghost.
The casuals bled away - ironically to types of games based on the derivatives of core Starcraft and Warcraft. Indeed, our audience is currently playing LoL and DotA. A boiled down micro battle that threw away the terrors of macro.
What remained was that true core of Starcraft players, the elite that dared venture into the realms of competitive play. And also that mouldy growth of FFA players that we nurtured back at the mausoleums of SC2GG. The forgotten culture of NoHunters and Battlereports.com (of which I was never anything more than a sycophant).
This is when that legacy of Starcraft became all that remained. And it no longer became a game you could play without going hardcore 'tryhard'. Once SC2 was released, it was that core that set the tone. Matchmaking had many options, but competition and progression of all kinds was put at the forefront. Everyone grinds on the ladder and if you're playing 'unranked' or simple UMS you were mostly wasting time - you have to get to Masters or everyone laughs at you. 'Platstrats' indeed.
So, what's the point of all this? It's either a sad truth or something to build on. The 'platform' that BW was needs to be revived. And I feel we need to trick the potential playerbase into reforming it.
I'm not opposed to the travesty of rebranding NHFFAs to Starcraft: Battle Royale. Create a whole set of 4v4 based BW and revive fastest, Hunters and 'proper' 4v4 as different stages of play. To accept them instead of shunning them.
It is from that expanded pool of players that aren't actually playing 'the game' that you eventually distil the cunning and the brave that filter through the proper game.
Does one have to go through those to get interested in the 'real brood war'. No, of course not. We have a functional inflow of people, and they filter through discord as is discussed here, and another filtration of that seeps through to the actual coaching community as a whole. But there is a lot of loss along the way as there is no safety-net. There is no 'default' to fall back on, no present casual community to buffer those that shy away or burn out.
Fastest and Hunters games were my fallback when I was healing from the reaming I got in 'proper Starcraft'. And right now, to the outside world and the collective consciousness of gaming 'Proper Starcraft' is all that remains. Fastest and compstomps, even hunters, is hardly even accepted as being part of the game.
My whole concept of NHFFA is outdated, as we parody a culture that no longer exists. I am become Ozymandias.
So, what if we rebrand all those facets. All those lesser forms, and market them as the return to Starcraft. Starcraft 'for the people'. Call it Casual Starcraft. Call it what you will. Get a sponsorship with Fisher Price or Duplo and tape off every pointy corner.
But one thing we all need to do is to stop announcing things and branding them as revivals. It is still here, it is already here, we are doing this now. No expectation, no 'we need people'. Hi, we're Starcraft and we have never stopped. And we stop waiting for Blizzard. We stop waiting for eSport money to fuck us in the ass when the whole organisation of it collapses the moment there is a downtick in viewership. Fuck that.
We make Remastered the new game it is to all these people that are older than BW. What you haven't heard of this new game? It's a mechanical skill based RTS. We don't need to hark back to the olden days. We have to stop referring to the history of BW. We have to go out and find ways to sell this game in ways Blizzard never did. What they should have done - Instead of putting a Kerrigan skin on fucking Windowmaker.
You know I did a LAN a few times for Quake Live, before QC was released. I made an article that got featured on Kotaku (well, rewritten as blogspam but hey): https://kotaku.com/a-quake-tournament-where-nobody-knew-how-to-play-quake-1687605373
It was lauded and retweeted by Carmac himself because it was so unheard of. People sucking, not knowing how to play this giant of the gaming world, this hardcore elite superhuman gladiatorial masterpiece. How dare they! ... But ... It was fine? Everyone had ... Fun... Sure, the movement that we worked on for 2 years in the AFPS community - to rally behind QL and Reflex was severely shat upon by the horror that is QC. I won't digress, but it literally killed all hope in under a month. It was quite impressive.
So why can't we make this 'Soft' Starcraft happen? Remastered is not QC. It is not great, but ... We can work with it somewhat. And perhaps we can construct something that deserves a second glance from our obsidian deity.
Also, when SC2 was announced, everyone - including the smouldering casual underbelly of BW was laserfocused on making sure Blizzard didn't fuck up on the competitive angle. Indeed, some of our harping meant that it established the BW community as grizzled old men that threw shit at everything that was new - but we knew we were right. Further scaring away any 'damned kids' that would dare step on our lawn to play BW. To great dismay of those few of us that - in explaining the difference between the two games - got invariably thrown in with the zealots. And I was once one of the first optimists! With that laserfocus, nobody looked at making the game actually playable outside of competition. Indeed, Blizzard designed the game to be softer for the general public, eroding away that which made BW what it was. Ironically, with simpler concepts and hard counter units, combined with the QoL changes, I believe the game turned out to be much less forgiving and frustrating. The micro that saved so many noobs in the past was missing, so you macro and smash armies together in lower play. Hardly compelling. This is why I stopped casting SC2 vidreps, as newbie play was boring as all hell. It was always the same. A single attack and someone dies. GG. BW newbie games are amazing to watch, as there are so many factors that lead to failure. Anyway.
So, let's trick everyone into believing BW is a new game from an indie publisher and you can play it all the ways you like. Let them learn the game like I did, in stages. And if they don't like Fastest, or hunters (or maybe a map to replace hunters) then we can move them up and down to where they find comfort. And those we snag for good, we can introduce to the 'real game' - and perhaps the other way around too, but I doubt that will be as successful. Stepping down is always harder. It took me a decade to accept the reality of my limits.
None of this is easy. But there is a critical mass to strive for. Twitch will be very important in this, more than anything. Acting 'normal' around BW will be important.
There is a wishlist here, for IF Blizzard decides to pull RM out of the graveyard shift. And that would not only variable team based unranked ladders (cuz who gives a shit about SR in 4v4) - FFA (and yes, dare dream for NHFFA matching) and most importantly - Fastest and hunters style specific - though I shudder at the thought.
Community efforts would need to be visible in the games - the discords perhaps soft integrated. Newbie events alongside ASL. And no constant corporate interest shackling any official endorsement.
This is my dream. Let us reach even a fraction and I will be elated.
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That was a long, long post Greth...but to be honest I agree with alot of it. From any source I see, anyone that is curious about starcraft 1 is greeted with a bunch of competetive shit, and while true, the cries of "play alot of games, expect to lose often, and grind those builds and macro"
That appeals to a small segment of people that really like working on hard things and don't mind losing, such as myself. It's a massive turn off for most. So they stay away. Now, BW 1:1 played properly is a beautiful thing, and it's why 99% of us are here posting on TL. TL needs to remain the hub for that, but if it had some more content in some manner emphasizing that games can and should be played for fun that wouldn't be bad.
The bigger question though is, where is this audience from BW coming, and how does one change an entire communities way of thinking. Even if many people won't play 1:1, I think almost all of them will dabble, and appreciate top level starcraft. That means more people watching streams, a more active TL/Reddit/etc., and a more active BNET. However, the welcoming side of BW that people need to see is not "play 1:1 and grind that skill up boyo", it needs to be "damn these progamers are fucking awesome, look at these ballers play; but also "hey you're new, here is a bunch of other new people to play with in this relaxed team games and UMS games".
What I don't have is how we get from where we are now at point A -> over to this point B that would be the new "feel" people get when they hear about, or read about, BW.
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I'm going to essentially crosspost but I had another idea/recollection that reminds me of something we could ask for from Blizzard, at least:
Back on ICCup we had sGs., a noobie clan where people could join and then instead of checking their friends list with /f l, they could check their clan list with /c l and see what other people around their MMR were one to ask for games. If Blizzard offered more support for clans, this would help a clan like sGs become prominent again (afaik it was one of the largest clans ever on ICCup) so that people who are confirmed low tier players could contact one another easily. When you launch BW it could put you in "op sGs" instead of general. When you do /c m you could ask any player who is on for practice matches. That could definitely ease the pain for players who just joined BW multiplayer and might not know of TL/Liquipedia/Discord channels and find a niche in which they fit, simply by playing other people with "sGs" in their name and becoming friends with them and being invited into the clan.
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On January 24 2019 17:41 Jealous wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2019 15:53 pebble444 wrote: Its fair and square to say that getting new people into this game has been hard for the past decade...
However when I started playing we had tools and community support in the D ranks Teamleague; Honestly I do not think I would have started playing if it had not been for that; For Example the BSL is a great example of what zzzero and others are doing to support the foreign community at a high level, not to mention the entertainment it provides and the motivation for players to ladder, improve and compete. However that regards more high level play. It wasn't born yesterday either, I think remembering it was based around the Polish community which has always had a large player pool, so that was in their favour from the start, and they succeeded in building a community and eventually bringing it out available internationally.
I see invisible barriers that maybe people who have been involved in the community for so long don' t see... One of the things that I hear often as advice to newcomers who come to watch a stream and have played a couple of games is "go to Liquipedia" or "study a pros build and practice it" or "ladder it out" I think its all advice that is given with a good heart but actually terrible. The information available on Liquipedia is overwhelming for the beginner, even the beginners portal. Honestly I got lost in there. Studying a build requires prior knowledge of broodwar that a beginner simply does not have. And laddering is not a friendly place, and not a place where people play in a standard way.
What I think new people need is a place to meet and play against each other. When you play against someone of your same skill then I don' t think newcomers will find it "too hard" , they need to have personal interactions with people who can explain something as simple as how sending your miners to work in the beginning of the game works, which is a complicated process that involves insta-splitting. This comes second nature because we have all done it and seen it a million times, but imagine someone who sees it for the first time.
As I said now its not a problem, but it may be a problem, and a huge one in the future. Its a complicated scenario furthermore, because there are no examples of past e-sports that have been going on for so long and so no one can really know how things will turn out.
You cannot just drink from the well and if it never rains expect it to replenish itself, because it won' t
And it would be a shame because I think something we can all agree on is that most if not all of the people who do things for this community do it out of sheer love for the game, and this is something pretty unique to Starcraft Again, the resources available now are better than they have ever been, and yet we all still managed to learn this game and get better and play it for years without them. What's changed? As for DRTL and the like, as I said, CPL is a thing. FBW Discord has hundreds of people ready to answer questions and for your to practice with. LMaster and others have made tons of noobie-friendly content, and there is a newbie server. What more are you suggesting we as a community do???
For someone who stumbles upon TL or liquipedia, these discord servers are relatively hidden. It could be possible to advertise it in a static page, on tl or liquipedia. For example I had no idea what FBW Discord was until you mentioned it in a random forum post i happened to read.
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On January 28 2019 01:28 TwiggyWan wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2019 17:41 Jealous wrote:On January 24 2019 15:53 pebble444 wrote: Its fair and square to say that getting new people into this game has been hard for the past decade...
However when I started playing we had tools and community support in the D ranks Teamleague; Honestly I do not think I would have started playing if it had not been for that; For Example the BSL is a great example of what zzzero and others are doing to support the foreign community at a high level, not to mention the entertainment it provides and the motivation for players to ladder, improve and compete. However that regards more high level play. It wasn't born yesterday either, I think remembering it was based around the Polish community which has always had a large player pool, so that was in their favour from the start, and they succeeded in building a community and eventually bringing it out available internationally.
I see invisible barriers that maybe people who have been involved in the community for so long don' t see... One of the things that I hear often as advice to newcomers who come to watch a stream and have played a couple of games is "go to Liquipedia" or "study a pros build and practice it" or "ladder it out" I think its all advice that is given with a good heart but actually terrible. The information available on Liquipedia is overwhelming for the beginner, even the beginners portal. Honestly I got lost in there. Studying a build requires prior knowledge of broodwar that a beginner simply does not have. And laddering is not a friendly place, and not a place where people play in a standard way.
What I think new people need is a place to meet and play against each other. When you play against someone of your same skill then I don' t think newcomers will find it "too hard" , they need to have personal interactions with people who can explain something as simple as how sending your miners to work in the beginning of the game works, which is a complicated process that involves insta-splitting. This comes second nature because we have all done it and seen it a million times, but imagine someone who sees it for the first time.
As I said now its not a problem, but it may be a problem, and a huge one in the future. Its a complicated scenario furthermore, because there are no examples of past e-sports that have been going on for so long and so no one can really know how things will turn out.
You cannot just drink from the well and if it never rains expect it to replenish itself, because it won' t
And it would be a shame because I think something we can all agree on is that most if not all of the people who do things for this community do it out of sheer love for the game, and this is something pretty unique to Starcraft Again, the resources available now are better than they have ever been, and yet we all still managed to learn this game and get better and play it for years without them. What's changed? As for DRTL and the like, as I said, CPL is a thing. FBW Discord has hundreds of people ready to answer questions and for your to practice with. LMaster and others have made tons of noobie-friendly content, and there is a newbie server. What more are you suggesting we as a community do??? For someone who stumbles upon TL or liquipedia, these discord servers are relatively hidden. It could be possible to advertise it in a static page, on tl or liquipedia. For example I had no idea what FBW Discord was until you mentioned it in a random forum post i happened to read. I guess that's up to TL, then. Not much we can do about it as regular people who don't run TL or those Discords. I know for example that these Discords can be found on r/starcraft and r/broodwar sidebars.
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