Glad that’s settled.
<3
For the anime-watching among you, probably many of you already know about this, but for those who don’t, figured I’d give you a heads up that Rightstuf, as always, is doing their crazy holiday sales this year through December 12. There’s a lot of stuff on pretty awesome sales, so it’s definitely worth taking a look.
As in 2 (1) days from now? I’ve already told multiple peoples games are on tomorrow, but there’s no reason why we can’t have a Wild Willy Wiggling Wednesday as well.
GGs tonight guys - appreciate the session, Logan.
Oddly enough, Mags is turning out to be my best character (apparently, characters with 8-way dashes I’m pretty alright with, as Trish was my best character in Vanilla). My Dante is still ass, but still working on what all of his moves do and using Mags assist to help him rush down. Ryu is just Ryu, lol.
GGs NY I guess. How you gonna have American loketests for TTT2 and not include Atlanta?
Welcome to the Marvel character trap for black men:Magneto. Now, it’s only fair to let you know that b/c you’re using him, you’re going to continue to use him, no matter how many times you get beat or complain about the game. It’s only going to get worse from here on out. Quit him now, or see your life cascade down the master of magnetism’s vortex. It happened to me and Jay. The only reason it hasn’t happened to James is b/c he’s never selected him in practice mode or actual match play.
You’ve been warned.
Man, you know that’s not the real reason.
Imo the esports fighting game thing hasnt work for one simple reason no one is really talking about. Most esports leagues are about mass appeal, and since about the mid nineties and to some extent still today the competitive fighting game community is a niche market. Now while reason fighting games have had more retail success its not translating with the same proportion to the competitive nature of those games. While first person shooter and other pc games draw far more retail purchasers over to the hardcore competitive aspect of the game and the community.
The reason for this is simple and has been a problem since sf2 evolved the genre. Competitive fighting games are a demanding mistress. Even what we consider to be easy, is quite a task for the average gamer. This includes a time investment that is far greater than what most gamers are willing and able to put forth with far less returns than you would receive for the same time investment in first person shooters or competitive pc games. However this particular barrier to entry is the one thing the hardcore fighting game community prides itself on and is one of the primary reasons they have traditionally conflicted with most esport leagues. Esports understand that contrary to what the fgc believes success is measured by volume. More people playing mean naturally bigger prize pools, greater demand for more frequent events, and most important greater interest from sponsors.
However although esports are right in that volume is important aspect of any business when dealing with fighting games and their players. Hardcore gamers traditionally spend more on a single fighting game than a casual fan. While the casual fan will only purchase the game at about 60 dollars that all the money that will be generate from them. On the other hand a hardcore player will buy the game, the dlc, and outside merchandise as well. Which could extend to cups, guides, sticks, clothes and more. So question then becomes how can you merge the knowledge the fighting game has about its community to the success esport leagues have generated with its model.
The answer is one side has to give and in this case its the fgc. Although the fgc is on a high right now with the success of recent games its always a community that exist on shaky ground. The entire community abilty to substain itself or to grow is dependent on the quality and frequency of the games that are released. A bad game or update can absolute destroy a community. Since the fgc community is not uniform so long as their is a quality game of the genre everyone will play. Instead our community is segmented into brands. For example some play capcom games and just capcom games.
wow i didnt realize how long this was getting so just one last point. if the fgc wants to grow whether its as an official esport or not we have to eliminate some of our inherent self imposed barriers. The elitist additude that has persisted since forever towards new gamers and ideals has to be weeded out forever. Also this is just my personal feeling but i really feel we need to find a way to organize events for different skill levels of gamers. So creating some form of ranking system may be the first step to establishing ourselves as more than a community but a league.
Duly noted, sir 
A big reason people aren’t as likely to get into competitive fighting games is that the competitive scene is not very visible, and sometimes it feels like this is on purpose. Personalities like Day9 and companies like Riot Games getting involved in creating communities has been huge for the explosion that games like SC2 and LoL have seen. Related to this is that elitist attitude you mention. Obviously tons of people are super elitist about Starcraft, and turn on any of the LoL streams and you’ll immediately be greeted by disdain for bad players, but other communities seem to have done a better job presenting the more positive side of things.
To say the barrier to entry or time commitment required is the issue just doesn’t seem right. Starcraft certainly has a comparable, and likely even steeper, barrier to entry, but I’d say it’s definitely doing better. MOBA games, too, have a wide skill gap that is plainly evident if you watch any tourney games. Furthermore, it’s not like watching a game has any connection necessarily to playing it. I watch Starcraft and Tekken tournaments, but I don’t play either of those games, nor do I have any particular interest in playing them.
Someone decided they can market Starcraft to a bunch of non-players, probably in the hopes of upping stream viewer count/event participation which = more sponsors. Now we’ve got personalities that cast replays and other events with noobs in mind – trying to explain to them what a forge fast expand is, why it works on this map and not others, what a Zerg can do about it, why you shouldn’t do it against Terran, etc. And that’s just for one specific Protoss build!
The problem is how you can explain to someone a fighting game match without them ever playing the game. Of course it’s easier if they’ve played because you have more common ground to work with.
So if you had to create a series like this, which game would you do it for any why? How would you try and put it together?
I’ve seen the SC2 guys get uppity over LoL/CoD/Halo/whatever else is going on at an MLG event. Fighting game guys can get even more mean about games. Mostly talking about stream monsters but you’ve got Capcom-brand heroes that will shit on BlazBlue/Tekken/etc. and others. Though I must say, I’ve never played SC2 or a fighting game and been told to uninstall/throw away the game (sup LoL).
I have no idea how you would go about doing that. I would say that the various personal fighting game streams and stuff like CrossCounter are good steps in the right direction, but it seems like they don’t happen often enough and there isn’t really any tradition to fall back on.
But right now, I’m watching a LoL stream with about 12k viewers. I’m pretty sure that’s more than the peak at NEC, and it’s not like he’s streaming any sort of event. As far as game haters, other events have multiple stream stations so you are rarely if ever in the position of having to watch Marvel while you wait to see SF4 on the same stream. Of course you also don’t have many people entering multiple tournaments, but I think that’s only part of the issue.
Hey Drew I know you’ve been thinking about changing your forum name… If you buy two Shirts from the Evo store this month, they’ll let you do it! Let’s go TUACPOTR!
Can’t you just make a new account? Oh man but that would make you an 011er!
Ron what time tonight?
kona to say that sc2 has as steep a learning curve as fighters is incorrect sir. Sc2 learning curve consist of learning the maps and the classes. However once you understand how the game functions and the different classes its difficulty is say more on par with a game like chess. Where as in a fighter there remains a hidden element. that element is far mover crucial to your success. Its execution and manual dexterity. Although both games are similar is some aspect. You dont need steep manual dexterity to implement a strategy in Sc2 you just need to be able to basically point and click. However this is a basic element in nearly every fighter that no matter how much you may practice everyone will not be able to do everything thats required in a character or match up to win at the highest levels of competitive play. And thats what my point was about. Its doesnt matter if you understand every single element of a fighting game if you cant execute it you cant compete. However in a game like Sc2 once you understand how something works you can implement it. The competitive elements of that game come from things like chess where you out think your opponents by placing and executing strategies to win before your opponent can counter act them or execute their own. You dont need to spend hours upon hours learning how to do basic parts of the game in sc2 like you do in fighters. Last time i checked it didnt take hours of practice in Sc2 to learn how to gather material only to drop the material gathering due to execution and lose a match. Its does happen in fighters. Where just because you spent well over a hundred hours learning a character you still might not be able to use what you learn in match. You then have to spend even more time learning match ups and etc… They sir do not remotely have the reward pay out per time investment.
Jay, I promise you that you are almost completely wrong. SC2 not only requires an extreme amount of dexterity, execution, timing, etc - but at a competitive level you must be able to keep this up for up to an hour at a time, with breaks generally not more than 5 minutes between these hour long matches.
It’s hard to argue which is harder to be “good” at - but I guarantee you that SC2 requires a lot more consistent work. Like if Justin Wong were to not touch SF4 for 6 months and come back to compete in a tournament, you would expect him to do very well and maybe even be a threat to win. If a top Starcraft pro were to do the same they would very likely be dominated by mediocre players upon their return because of how fast and constant the game changes with regards to matchups, strategy, and counters.
i can and will counter argue your point but i will do so in person way too much typing today.
apparantly cops hate me. i got another ticket on my way to jville. … fuck.
Same knowledge, same build, 200 APM vs. 60 APM. Wonder who will win?