Other than totally casual AOE Conquerers matches against the AI I have not been a gamer for a long, long time now.
Somehow I recently discovered that STARCRAFT - which I recall coming out right around the time of D3 - has not only been going on on a professional level ever since then (10 years!)......
But that in Korea this is a national sport (!) with some kids making easily 6 figures per year; they are rockstars and the hype surrounding the matches is so intense it makes the WWF wrestling hype look like a kid by the side of the road with a cardboard sign saying \"Go Rock\" in magic marker.
This on the one hand is absurd and hilarious yet on the other hand (given my background with DESCENT and this BB and the early LAN games ... and the conversations we used to have about \"what if\" we made D into a sport) makes total sense and I can relate. Totally.
Now. I was so buried in Descent back when SC1 came out - everything was inferior to 360 of tactical action in a Pyro - RTS games were an alien breed and although some top Descent players (R2, Neitzl) were also totally into Starcraft and good at it - me (and most of us) ignored it, never saw the appeal.
Me, until now.
Have you seen the gameplay on Starcraft 2? They are not only taking it 10 levels beyond the first game it terms of technology, graphics, interface and sound, fluid motion of all these animations and FX ...
They are also tightening and tweaking this to perfection so that it has a chance of being the worlds first (outside of Korea) widespread e-Sport.
Blizzard has released Battle Reports with SC2 matches, with live commentary.
Here it is in HD on YouTube if you havent seen it. (This is Battle Report 1)
Dude.
It was more exiting watching this with the commmentary, than a big basketball or football game.
At this point I am NEWB with a capital N in Starcraft, I can barely play but watching these matches is pure gold.
All I can say is, I never thought I would say it but Starcraft 2 might be one of the greatest games ever made if they pull this off.
Sup \"Sup!\" Sup
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StarCraft 2 Greatest Game Ever..?
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Admiral LSD
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With e-sports, just like regular sports, watching them will become really enjoyable for most people when you are familiar with the rules and the game enough to actually know when someone does something nice.
Remember that DUEL mod for d3? (Gwar?), you could stay in observe mode and just watch fights. Sometimes that was just as much fun for me as fighting. When you would see Birdseye/Bah matches people would just stop fighting and watch.
I never understood why that mod didn't completely take off. It did have some bugs, I could kill Monkey on his modem connection before he was 'released'.
Remember that DUEL mod for d3? (Gwar?), you could stay in observe mode and just watch fights. Sometimes that was just as much fun for me as fighting. When you would see Birdseye/Bah matches people would just stop fighting and watch.
I never understood why that mod didn't completely take off. It did have some bugs, I could kill Monkey on his modem connection before he was 'released'.
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x2 I'll pull up youtube games (e-sports, sports, fighers, 3d shooters, or RTS) and watch them from start to finish. The good ones have the team speak audio recorded.Gooberman wrote:With e-sports, just like regular sports, watching them will become really enjoyable for most people when you are familiar with the rules and the game enough to actually know when someone does something nice.
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Yeah.Zantor wrote:And if it isn't, Blizzard may have to deal with an angry mob of SC players. That would be a little scary.
People in this country are all worried about Kim Jong-il, but if SC2 sucks, man, its the S.Koreans that I will be keeping an eye on.
At least it isn't as big in china though, then we would get Zerg'ed--followed by a, "nuclear launch detected."
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Admiral LSD
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I can't think of too many other words/sounds in games that evoke as much sheer terror as those three.Gooberman wrote:"nuclear launch detected."
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I concur.Admiral LSD wrote:I can't think of too many other words/sounds in games that evoke as much sheer terror as those three.Gooberman wrote:"nuclear launch detected."
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Heh. Yeah. Or, how about a half dozen siege tanks going up? Lothar and I play team games a lot -- he's terran, I'm zerg; whenever I hear tanks going up, I almost always say "please tell me those are yours".Zantor wrote:I concur.Admiral LSD wrote:I can't think of too many other words/sounds in games that evoke as much sheer terror as those three.Gooberman wrote:"nuclear launch detected."
I don't know how good Starcraft 2 will be. On the one hand, I've been waiting for it for two years already, and will almost certainly buy it instantly, just on Blizzard's reputation and love of the original alone. On the other hand, I wasn't that enthralled with War3.
I'm sure it'll be a game not to miss either way, but if they manage to match the success of the original, I'll be surprised.
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Gooberman wrote:People in this country are all worried about Kim Jong-il, but if SC2 sucks, man, its the S.Koreans that I will be keeping an eye on.
At least it isn't as big in china though, then we would get Zerg'ed--followed by a, "nuclear launch detected."
hahahah... nice. (sup goob!)
Yes its a very, very serious thing to them. There are some jaw dropping documentaries on YouTube that cover the whole phenomena and ... well ... people die in cyber cafes playing (lack of sleep, starvation, dehydration and stress from losing the family honor no doubt).
When you see a kid cry on stage because he was pwned in front of 20,000 people - murdurously humiliated - you think back to those times when you jumped into a D match thinking you were a god, and after 5 minutes you are 10-0 on a match against Karash and not a single time did you ever HEAR him let alone SEE him coming ..
I mean maybe you didnt cry exactly but you felt like a turd in the gutter on Times Square for a bit; sure you were such a pathetic loser this will somehow (irrationally) prevent you from maybe even getting laid for the rest of your life.
Now think how this kid feels. He just lost in front of a whole nation. Not from behind a computer. Live, on TV.
Suddenly gaming becomes a lot more real just seeing that. Most people that have no experience with hardcore gaming cant fathom that it could be taken seriously. But we understand already, we had those feelings of mastery and domination vs humiliating crushing loss long before the prize money and the girly fan clubs.
For real - no, I stopped referring to myself as a "gamer" probably around 2001 - 2002 and since then I dont think I have spent (if you averaged it out over 7 years) more than 3 or 4 hours a month. That includes brief periods where I had a PS2 around the house and played NASCAR or Mortal Combat over beers with friends.
Starcraft 2 is the only game I have seen since then (and I have casually checked it out over the years, pretty much know what has come along) that has a chance of sucking me back in ... I'm learning SC BroodWar now to get ready and it is deeeep ...
Couple of things for sure:
A) There is so much money and reputation riding on this, that there is no way Blizz will f*ck this up.
You can see they have a plan to not only please the Koreans and others (Germans, Netherlands I believe) that are watching to see if they get the balancing perfect and the mechanics tight ...
... but also give this a shot at taking hold in the States the way it has there. If this takes hold and we start seeing dedicated channels devoted to broadcast matches with commentary, then well we can all look back and say that this is the game that started it all:
Kicked it all the the next level. All of this. The serious gamers, and ladders, and boards like this one, and the communities and support websites and all of it.
The stuff some of us saw coming like, what ...
15 years ago?? *(
). We knew how much fun, how intense and how much skill it can take. Its taken a while for everyone else to catch on but with this game I think they might.
-S-s-s-sUP
Oh and ... ....
Watching those Battle Reports its pretty obvious that Starcraft II is going to make Starcraft - not to mention every RTS games that has come out since - look like Pong.
Well maybe not Pong but Mario Bros. The first one.
I mean that is just totally next level. The animations, the clarity of the units and structures and terrain, the FX, the sound, the interface etc etc
The units look like some combination of claymation and CGI. This is in game ... supposedly you can run most of that on reasonable system specs too.
Amazing.
Watching those Battle Reports its pretty obvious that Starcraft II is going to make Starcraft - not to mention every RTS games that has come out since - look like Pong.
Well maybe not Pong but Mario Bros. The first one.
I mean that is just totally next level. The animations, the clarity of the units and structures and terrain, the FX, the sound, the interface etc etc
The units look like some combination of claymation and CGI. This is in game ... supposedly you can run most of that on reasonable system specs too.
Amazing.
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Sup wrote: There is so much money and reputation riding on this, that there is no way Blizz will f*ck this up.
Warcraft 3 broke sales records and is very popular but I personally didn’t like it. Starcraft just plays better.
Sup wrote: If this takes hold and we start seeing dedicated channels devoted to broadcast matches with commentary, then well we can all look back and say that this is the game that started it all
Hulu has started transmitting HD live content. It has a gaming channel as well. So they’re already set up for this.
Personally I'd love to see 2d fighting games to come back. But starcraft 2 will be on my shelf.