StarCraft News & Notes

It has been a quiet couple of weeks both in terms of events and community news (Unfiltered still hasn't rebooted with a new host and The Late Game has been absent as well--it's last episode comically bad).  There's not even much drama to discuss, although I will bring up Nathanias--for a guy as sensitive as he is you'd think he'd be less abrasive with his viewers.  I like his stream, but while you can want your audience to like anything you do, viewers are allowed to enjoy whatever content they want--badgering them about their preferences can only have negative results.

This leads into the question of what makes for a successful SC2 stream these days.  Destiny (in responding to Nathanias above) suggests fans only want to watch hardcore ladder grind, but this isn't the case.  If you look at the top streamers (ignoring the top pros, none of whom stream consistently), it's a mix of playstyle and personality, not necessarily about the grind.  The recently returned Ketroc has never been a high level player, nor is he particularly talkative, but people come to his stream for his distinctive style.  "Style" applies to RuFF and avilo as well--although the former continues to strive to be a pro.  Personality is why avilo draws better than the other two, while someone like Destiny (when he streams SC2) can both play at a high level and be entertaining.  What the game perhaps lacks is distinctive styles of play for Protoss and Zerg (although Fenner has attempted the latter with nydus and MCanning does to a lesser extent as well with 9 DTs), which would support niche streamers, but really being entertaining in and of itself is more than enough to support a stream (even shtick works, ala Neuro).

Avilo made a lengthy post about how he thinks SC2 can be improved.  One of the problems with him is that he considers anything he personally struggles with as broken--this can be entertaining or annoying, depending on who you are, but it also means it's difficult to separate out which are actual balance complaints and which are simply his own issues.  That said, at least he's invested and he cares, so it's a voice I'm glad to have whether I agree with it or not.

Blizzard dropped the hammer on MarineLorD, DnS, and MajOr in wake of the win-trading in the latest qualifier.  Undoubtedly this is meant as a strong message to other pros and they indicated there was other shady activity.  It will be interesting to see what happens in the wake of this.

We finally learned what StarDust's plans are, although making sense of them in the current state of SC2 is difficult.  Here's the pertinent quote:

Mmm, if I had to make a decision right now then I would say yes. I’m still practicing SC2 even as of right now but I have been taking breaks here and there. Mainly because the maps being used on ladder and the maps being used in Proleague are different so a lot of pro-gamers are not really laddering right now. So I’m just kind of waiting around and hoping for a map pool change. I plan on continuing my activities in America, so I’m planning out my timing for that. I probably won’t do it though until we arrive at a time where there are tons of tournaments available.

So he's not planning to attempt the grind in Korea, but I don't know how he imagines participating in a meaningful way in America.  Perhaps the visa he had from last year is still valid?  If not it's difficult to imagine him participating until 2017 (assuming, of course, there isn't a passport lock for WCS by then).

David Kim's most recent community post included what I find as a rather odd sentiment:

While we haven’t seen this discussed, we want to share one of the main goals we are striving for with StarCraft II—the joy of mastery. Because unit changes only happen when they’re absolutely needed, players can chase the fun of really digging deep into how each specific unit is mastered. We believe this is one of the core fun elements of StarCraft II, and one that is unique to this game. If units were changing drastically all the time, it could feel far less rewarding to invest time and effort to master them. This is a large reason why we believe so strongly in the importance of making as few changes as possible and targeting specific problem areas only when absolutely necessary.

I'm not sure where they've drawn this impression from--it's not one I've seen expressed--unit mastery?  It's quite bizarre.  Maybe they have data I haven't seen, but it seems off the mark for what people enjoy about SC2.  His post regarding buffing photo cannons against Mutalisks seems good, while I'm very worried about them tweaking the swarm host (a unit I've disliked since HOTS beta).

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)