Liquid`Ret Profile Blog Joined October 2002 Netherlands 4486 Posts Last Edited: 2014-01-07 21:23:02 #1



I been playing this game for 14 years my only concern is the quality of the starcraft product and the RTS game gerne overall - SC2 is *** and im not afraid to say that, unlike all the fake people who just ride hype trains and monetize their personalities.



It ended up on reddit for some reason, I don't expect anyone to really care what I say except for those who follow me but I did wanna share some of my thoughts:



As a progamer, it is very difficult to speak about the game. Because I compete in tournaments, play everyday, am always worried about the next qualifier or team match, and recently, lots of losses happening. It's very easy to get frustated and whine about balance, or anything you can find really to feel better about yourself after you've failed. This is something I've done before and do to this day, despite knowing it's detrimental to being a succesfull progamer. So sometimes I'll be harsher than I should be. Come to me at the right time and I can tell you all about how horrible this game is



I obviously don't think StarCraft is shit. I love StarCraft more than most people because this game has literally shaped my life in the most impactfull way possible, the way I make a living. Almost all of my actions in the past 5 years have been StarCraft related in some way shape or form. I owe very much to StarCraft and still play it every single day, with joy. I realize that being a progamer in a videogame is a great honor and it's amazing to be able to play games and somehow people care about your performance and get enjoyment out of seeing you do well. Of course results come into the equasions as well, but I want to leave my personal progaming carreer out of this blog. I just want to express my joy to this day playing this game. I still have moments where Im proud of a move I did, or embarassment if something failed and trying to achieve perfection is something that still motivates me.





Watching proleague has been a great joy for me the past week. Back when I was a semi-professional BW player (meaning I made about 400 euros a month on the side for playing SC) I used to watch proleague everyday. Now I get to see all of these people I used to enjoy watching play SC:BW so much, play SC2 combined with so many other great players that it's been nothing but exciting.



Since my comment did infact say SC2 was shit I have to explain why I feel that way sometimes.



Almost every ZvP has been swarmhost/static D/Brood lord/infestor vs Airtoss with templars and collosus.



There was the Reality/Hydra mech game on Star Station too.



It made me sad having to watch my favourite players play these type of games, that I play on an almost daily basis. Infact ever since Starcraft came out, people have complained about deathballs, some of the mechanics of the units, and how it overall feels to play Starcraft 2 and these kind of games. I still enjoy watching it, because they do it better than I do and I can always learn from watching great players. But there are a lot of people who don't watch games to learn, they watch for pure entertainment. Starcraft 2 has a lot of exciting moments, it really does well in that regard, but some core elements, that lead to undivserse, predictable, undynamic games are still not being adressed.



Last year Blizzard came in with WCS, exploded the scene. Ever since then they made great steps in communicating with the community about WCS, and greatly improved their system. There was a Q&A on Team Liquid, and the people at blizzard seem very in touch with the community as they are always seen at tournaments. 2014 in my opinion looks to be a great year whereas tournament structure, production, quality of overall broadcast and calendar are concerned. A lot of people dissvoled from the scene, it's more compact but much more structurized and hopefully recognizeable for fans. WCS EU has proved to be amazing show last year, GSL is back, Proleague production value is true the roof and they will soon have Moonglade casting!



There are a lot of things I'm really excited about. NASL seems to still have not learned anything from last year. There are professional gamers who devote their life to this game and the qualifier is this messed up - it's almost unbelievable. They do host great live events though, and some day they will learn how to properly run qualifiers. If they provide more shows like the one in Toronto last year all will be forgiven.



It really feels to me like the scene is ready for a fresh start, with a supportive blizzard, less mouths to feed, less hype, just people enjoying watching StarCraft 2. With the ammount of interest, and exposure Starcraft 2 still generates, My hope is going into this next chapter of StarCraft that the community also gets more feedback on the game/balance front. I believe that with a few small changes, a lot of the 'less enjoyable' aspescts of SC2 can easily be fixed, and with an expansion pack ahead, it gives so much oppurtunity to still develop this game. I don't believe there will be an alternative on the 'RTS' front in the next couple of years so this is what I'm hoping for.



In warcraft 3, undead was almost unplayable and Orc was overpowered forever - nothing was done.

In WoL, there was very little communication.Problems in gameplay were obvious to the community for a very very long time before adressed, it took 1,5 years to do something about infestors.

HotS started out promising. The overal dynamic of the game is improved upon, the units are fun to use and have great diversity.

I get the feeling Blizzard wants good things with eSports. It's okay that there are problems with the game. It's incredibly hard to design a game like this. The thing that would make me most happy is the feeling that those problems are being 'worked on', and right now Blizzard doesn't give me that feeling. They give me the feeling they care about WCS which is great because it gives me an oppurtunity, but I'm really hoping they will change this going into 2014. If we're all watching a ridiculously stupid swarmhost / spore / viper game or the terran or protoss equivalent even a little tweet from @StarCraft saying this is silly would go a long way. The feeling that we're not alone this and there is still a desire or to improve upon things.



I talk on skype everyday with friends and other progamers about the things that are silly about the game. For hours and hours we theorize about what could be better how, balance whining barely comes into it, as long as noone just lost a game. I imagine the people in the kespa houses and kespa teams do the same. People who have been in this industry for 15 years with all the expertize required, and plenty of investment into the Starcraft name and Legacy that you have to assume that there must be lots of goodwill to improve the game to help make it bigger in Korea - as long as there are 1 or 2 'Bomber - Scarlett' (ok maybe thats too much that game was sick) or similar type matches a week, I think it will still be appreciated and loved. Since Blizzard does seem to care about SC2:Hots esports, that might be the most frustating feeling.



We can see that they are trying, new maps are being introduced, there is way more communication on all fronts with IEM, DH, NASL, etc. The IPL Staff got hired to do something for Blizzard Esports... The whole community is watching games, talking about this and that, when destiny will get gm, or what new show incontrol be on etc. etc. But the progamers are playing the game day in day out, and are ignored. Noone is talking to them, noone is answering our questions, if you're american you're lucky if you managed to sign up for WCS qualifiers and not be removed by the time it starts. They came out with a set of terrible maps, and still want to improve mech - (??????)



I don't even really know who has any influence on these kind of things but I would love to see someone like David Kim take more of a role like Kim Phan has been doing for WCS. Very much in touch with the community and that leads to a much better product in the end. Which will in turn be better for WCS, Blizzard, Esports and of course all of us that love this game!



In the meanwhile, I will keep enjoying playing this game no matter what and deal with the problems I see to the best of my abilities or use them to my advantadge (even though I will curse at them and call them shit after a loss), as that is the best attitude to have as a progamer.



Hopefully see you in 2014 ^_^



















So today while watching proleague (which I do everyday because it's awesome), I said something in twitch chat:I been playing this game for 14 years my only concern is the quality of the starcraft product and the RTS game gerne overall - SC2 is *** and im not afraid to say that, unlike all the fake people who just ride hype trains and monetize their personalities.It ended up on reddit for some reason, I don't expect anyone to really care what I say except for those who follow me but I did wanna share some of my thoughts:As a progamer, it is very difficult to speak about the game. Because I compete in tournaments, play everyday, am always worried about the next qualifier or team match, and recently, lots of losses happening. It's very easy to get frustated and whine about balance, or anything you can find really to feel better about yourself after you've failed. This is something I've done before and do to this day, despite knowing it's detrimental to being a succesfull progamer. So sometimes I'll be harsher than I should be. Come to me at the right time and I can tell you all about how horrible this game isI obviously don't think StarCraft is shit. I love StarCraft more than most people because this game has literally shaped my life in the most impactfull way possible, the way I make a living. Almost all of my actions in the past 5 years have been StarCraft related in some way shape or form. I owe very much to StarCraft and still play it every single day, with joy. I realize that being a progamer in a videogame is a great honor and it's amazing to be able to play games and somehow people care about your performance and get enjoyment out of seeing you do well. Of course results come into the equasions as well, but I want to leave my personal progaming carreer out of this blog. I just want to express my joy to this day playing this game. I still have moments where Im proud of a move I did, or embarassment if something failed and trying to achieve perfection is something that still motivates me.Watching proleague has been a great joy for me the past week. Back when I was a semi-professional BW player (meaning I made about 400 euros a month on the side for playing SC) I used to watch proleague everyday. Now I get to see all of these people I used to enjoy watching play SC:BW so much, play SC2 combined with so many other great players that it's been nothing but exciting.Since my comment did infact say SC2 was shit I have to explain why I feel that way sometimes.Almost every ZvP has been swarmhost/static D/Brood lord/infestor vs Airtoss with templars and collosus.There was the Reality/Hydra mech game on Star Station too.It made me sad having to watch my favourite players play these type of games, that I play on an almost daily basis. Infact ever since Starcraft came out, people have complained about deathballs, some of the mechanics of the units, and how it overall feels to play Starcraft 2 and these kind of games. I still enjoy watching it, because they do it better than I do and I can always learn from watching great players. But there are a lot of people who don't watch games to learn, they watch for pure entertainment. Starcraft 2 has a lot of exciting moments, it really does well in that regard, but some core elements, that lead to undivserse, predictable, undynamic games are still not being adressed.Last year Blizzard came in with WCS, exploded the scene. Ever since then they made great steps in communicating with the community about WCS, and greatly improved their system. There was a Q&A on Team Liquid, and the people at blizzard seem very in touch with the community as they are always seen at tournaments. 2014 in my opinion looks to be a great year whereas tournament structure, production, quality of overall broadcast and calendar are concerned. A lot of people dissvoled from the scene, it's more compact but much more structurized and hopefully recognizeable for fans. WCS EU has proved to be amazing show last year, GSL is back, Proleague production value is true the roof and they will soon have Moonglade casting!There are a lot of things I'm really excited about. NASL seems to still have not learned anything from last year. There are professional gamers who devote their life to this game and the qualifier is this messed up - it's almost unbelievable. They do host great live events though, and some day they will learn how to properly run qualifiers. If they provide more shows like the one in Toronto last year all will be forgiven.It really feels to me like the scene is ready for a fresh start, with a supportive blizzard, less mouths to feed, less hype, just people enjoying watching StarCraft 2. With the ammount of interest, and exposure Starcraft 2 still generates, My hope is going into this next chapter of StarCraft that the community also gets more feedback on the game/balance front. I believe that with a few small changes, a lot of the 'less enjoyable' aspescts of SC2 can easily be fixed, and with an expansion pack ahead, it gives so much oppurtunity to still develop this game. I don't believe there will be an alternative on the 'RTS' front in the next couple of years so this is what I'm hoping for.In warcraft 3, undead was almost unplayable and Orc was overpowered forever - nothing was done.In WoL, there was very little communication.Problems in gameplay were obvious to the community for a very very long time before adressed, it took 1,5 years to do something about infestors.HotS started out promising. The overal dynamic of the game is improved upon, the units are fun to use and have great diversity.I get the feeling Blizzard wants good things with eSports. It's okay that there are problems with the game. It's incredibly hard to design a game like this. The thing that would make me most happy is the feeling that those problems are being 'worked on', and right now Blizzard doesn't give me that feeling. They give me the feeling they care about WCS which is great because it gives me an oppurtunity, but I'm really hoping they will change this going into 2014. If we're all watching a ridiculously stupid swarmhost / spore / viper game or the terran or protoss equivalent even a little tweet from @StarCraft saying this is silly would go a long way. The feeling that we're not alone this and there is still a desire or to improve upon things.I talk on skype everyday with friends and other progamers about the things that are silly about the game. For hours and hours we theorize about what could be better how, balance whining barely comes into it, as long as noone just lost a game. I imagine the people in the kespa houses and kespa teams do the same. People who have been in this industry for 15 years with all the expertize required, and plenty of investment into the Starcraft name and Legacy that you have to assume that there must be lots of goodwill to improve the game to help make it bigger in Korea - as long as there are 1 or 2 'Bomber - Scarlett' (ok maybe thats too much that game was sick) or similar type matches a week, I think it will still be appreciated and loved. Since Blizzard does seem to care about SC2:Hots esports, that might be the most frustating feeling.We can see that they are trying, new maps are being introduced, there is way more communication on all fronts with IEM, DH, NASL, etc. The IPL Staff got hired to do something for Blizzard Esports... The whole community is watching games, talking about this and that, when destiny will get gm, or what new show incontrol be on etc. etc. But the progamers are playing the game day in day out, and are ignored. Noone is talking to them, noone is answering our questions, if you're american you're lucky if you managed to sign up for WCS qualifiers and not be removed by the time it starts. They came out with a set of terrible maps, and still want to improve mech - (??????)I don't even really know who has any influence on these kind of things but I would love to see someone like David Kim take more of a role like Kim Phan has been doing for WCS. Very much in touch with the community and that leads to a much better product in the end. Which will in turn be better for WCS, Blizzard, Esports and of course all of us that love this game!In the meanwhile, I will keep enjoying playing this game no matter what and deal with the problems I see to the best of my abilities or use them to my advantadge (even though I will curse at them and call them shit after a loss), as that is the best attitude to have as a progamer.Hopefully see you in 2014 ^_^ Team Liquid