Don't forget the casuals!

I just read an interesting analysis of why Starcraft 2 is such a failure in Korea.

It's obvious, isn't it? There won't be any big prize competitions without millions of viewers. And people won't really care about a game that's not accessible to them. If Uber wants this game to be big they can't just think about the hardcore competitive players. PA must be a deep competitive game at its core, but there needs to be lots of hooks for casuals as well.

He goes on about the differences betwen the Starcraft 1 and Starcraft 2 experience (I'm struck again by how ahead of its time BNet was in 1998):

I see where he's coming from. Despite being one of the relatively few players interested in Starcraft competitive play, I've probably spent more time on UMS maps than competitive maps. It's some of the best fun I've ever had online. Most of my friends never played anything but the campaign (in which they cheated) and UMS. Starcraft is still one of their favorite MP games ever.

Another redditor made a great critique of Starcraft 2's UMS system:

A third one complains that the Starcraft 2 editor is too complicated, turning off the less tech savvy players who, on the whole, are the best source of good maps:

So what can we do to make PA as popular as possible with casuals? (Apart from dumbing down the base game of course! ) Well, going from the above here's some points.

Mods and custom maps are the lifeblood of a game's longevity with casuals; they must be easy to make and easy to distribute. Only Valve seems to realize this elementary fact nowadays: making the content is just the beginning, the real job is to help your players make more content. Powerful, easy to use mod tools is perhaps the most important ingredient to a really popular RTS, and they should be totally free. Make them as accessible as the WC3 editor, maybe a bit more powerful (adding functionality like multiple users editing the same map simultaneously online, like with Google Docs?) and you've got a winner.

Paying for mods has been brought up; I wouldn't mind trying to make some money off campaigns myself, but let me just say this: A paywall for mods or custom maps is a BIG mistake. It's like toll barriers on the fun economy. Most people won't bother - none of the big UMS maps of SC and WC3 would have gotten big if you had to pay for them. The way to monetize mods is not a paywall but a donation system. This should either be built into UberNet or maybe you can use Steam's ready made system.

In general, Turn UberNet into a straight clone of BattleNet 1.0. Perhaps with more functionality, but certainly not with less. Uber has the chance to steal all the great stuff about Starcraft and Warcraft3 that ActiBlizzard have so generously left unguarded. Mavor is an Apple man, he knows the value of a smooth user experience. The UberNet UX is so important it should get a ton of resources devoted to it. Don't settle for anything less useful and easy to use than BNet 1.0.

All good points, nothing to add except my support.

What he said. This is definately stuff to keep in mind.

I totaly agree how ever I will point out that the team have already said modding is a massive part of their focus to the point where it seems almost everything is mod able I think. Good points definitely stuff to think about.

Having everything moddable is one thing. But it should also be easy and approachable, while allowing great flexibility for those willing to take the effort.

I love the way some games work, where you have a text-file that you can open in notepad to edit basic unit properties, but they also allow you to completely redefine everything about the game if you're willing to dive into the code-files. That'll get new players started on the concept of modding while still allowing advanced players to build anything they want.

Making a game good for moding is ok.
Building a whole game only for moding sucks ***.
I dont payed 90 $ for a modengine. The core game should be what keeps me playing.
I dont want a game where every server has his own little half baked mods.

And if i wanted to make the casual players happy i would have pledged COD.

Good point. I'd be very much a ranked match kind of guy but I'm sure I make up 1% of the kind of people who play games. Most want to play one some choke point map where they can build up for 40 minutes if TA, TA: Spring and Supreme Commander are anything to go by.

That's something to keep in mind with the randomly generated maps. I can't see most noobs liking being attacked from 360 degrees and/or space. Casual nature is to want to hide in a corner and moan that you've been 'rushed'.

I don't think building UberNet is really doable within the budget... although maybe with the galactic war it'll have to be? I don't know. The community could as easily build a client, or port Forged Alliance Forevers client and save Uber the stress.

I didn't read the whole wall of text, but from what I read it seems to be the typical bnet 2.0 sucks-stuff. I fully agree on it, bnet 2.0 is really bad.
But this doesn't only hurt the casuals, I never really liked playing random casual maps -I ladder 99% (or rather I did for quite a while)- and bnet 2.0 broke SC2 for me, too.
Missing a standard-chatroom, a weird server-manager and stuff like that really broke the whole thing in general. SC2 has way more players than SupCom:FA ever had. But when you start up bnet 2.0 you basically feel like you are alone. So bad.

I don't know about calling SC2 in general a failure, though. There are so many tournaments, you can basically watch one each week. Bnet 2.0 is terrible for sure, but the game itself is so much fun that it still gets lots of player to endure the bad bnet 2.0.

Btw I don't think that bnet 1.0 is the best reference of a good client.
What I really want is that PA's client works like GPGnet or FAF. They combine chat and server-browser the best way possible. They are also way easier to handle than bnet2.0 since they are not embedded into the game.
Additionally I would really love to see GPGnet's tournament-feature to return.
Those tournaments were quite a lot of fun.

Now that challonge API has extended a bit, with the support of community-driven rooms, I'm working on integrating in the lobby (the server will only have to deal with opening tournament and registering users through challonge API).
Cheap and fast solution but great result

Agreed. There seem to be a lot of people coming into it with Starcraft as the One True RTS Reference, but aside from being popular, it really isn't. GPGnet was well ahead of what bnet 1.0 could do, and even TA modability remains far superior to Starcraft. Making modding user friendly is a good point, and I'm fairly certain Uber has that in mind already.

As for the competitive aspect, since PA is less focused on micro than Starcraft, and since Uber wants to avoid some of the complexity pitfalls of Supcom, I expect that despite the added depth of gameplay, it will be a lot easier to get into.

The reason SC 2 could not succeed in Korea was accessibility than more competitive game play(it can be considered as a part of accessibility, but I would like direct more basic stuff -LoL succeed with competitive game play-. )

when I started SC-when I was the 2nd year of elementary school-, it was the time when high speed internet such as ADSL was getting very common, and people started to enjoy multiplayer games and Starcraft has two points that make itself the national multiplayer game.

Starcraft : BW requires fairly low system requirement, it did not require fancy CPU and GPU, also its file size was quite small too... Virtually, you could play almost every place where there is a PC support internet connectivity. I could even play the game in my elementary school, because there are PCs and LAN connectivity. I and other guys could just download rip version of the game (it was less than 200MB) and do multiplayer games with friend in school computer room.

It was very easy to play too, I started to play SC when I was 8 and there was even no localization (Blizzard started to take care of localization since they start to service WoW) but I did not have big problem to understand how to play Starcraft. (SC in Korea was like Basketball in US, as you can play basketball every place where there is a ball and a basketball court -it is still fun enough to play without the court-.) And SC 2 do terrible mandatory Battle.net access instead of this way. How on earth can I access BN while I am in school? :evil:

I think that complicate map editor is not the issue (of course, the exclusive map distribution system was quite abysmal though...). Although melee game of Warcraft 3 was very very boring and difficult to play, its user setting game was very fun and Koreans still play user map setting on Battle.net. You know, e-sports channel did league for Chaos which is unauthorized modification of DOTA All stars, while there was no league for original Frozen Throne.

SC 2 failed because it did not have low requirement and easier access, and failed to make the game easy enough to attract 8 year old kids. Now LoL is one top in Korean e-sports game which you guys know it has the virtues that SC 1 had.
(Actually, Blizzard Korea did stupid marketing too. They sell SC 2 for 69,000 KRW which equivalent to 70$ -now it is 40,000 KRW- with download distribution only and they did "Open Beta -which means they just open released game for free to public-" 2 months - they said that they will open it for one or two weeks- and lots of people did everything every could experience in the game before it closed. Of course the CEO of Blizzard Korea got fired.)

For SupCom, I would like to quote my reply

I forgot to mention that the number of people who play SC regularly was less than the number of students in my small classroom. :lol:

I surely believe that the Uber cannot make PA easy to install and execute on most PC. So Uber have to make PA very easy to play. Uber said that short game will take 40 minutes to play - It is not easy though-, I propose that it should be able to finish the game within 20 minutes if they do not want to make another branch of Sins of a Solar Empire.

I loved Sins and my ridiculous game times. When I first heard of PA I thought "Supreme Commander + SOASE???? TAKE MY MONEY!"

Though I do agree, as a casual gamer, that being able to win in less than 40 minutes would be a great option. Though turtling up a storm for 6 hours is also fun.

If any of the above made sense. :lol:

Ok Good idea, but how many casual players are there?

Isnt a casual player anyone who isn't playing the ladder or playing professionally?

Really that could mean just about everyone who plays the game before deciding to go all in and become a non-casual.

Casual player usually refers to players whose attitude is more about messing around than actually applying themselves to trying to figure the game out, and to win.

Designing a game for them is dumb, because they'll play any damn thing. They'll play bloody FarmVille.

Make a tense, interesting, difficult game, and casuals will be just as bad at it and probably still not even know it. But for those who are interested, there will be depth.

Now designing the matchmaking, UI, in-game information, etc. around being intuitive and conveying necessary information to players who may not know it is obviously necessary, and a good idea. However this kind of thing doesn't make a game casual-only, it's just intelligent, quality design. Making the gameplay or game design as simple or mindless as Nexus Wars or FarmVille, however, WILL make it casual-only.


Starcraft II is a very novel, strange, and interesting situation. Usually, making a game simpler and easier to play makes a game more popular. They designed the sequel to be simpler, more accessible, and less deep. Which, typically, increases the fan base and broad appeal. I am completely unsurprised that Browder & co. did this, as they aren't Starcraft types- they made games like the bad Command & Conquer games, which were made more casual and sold well.

However, for Starcraft specifically, I think this was a huge mistake. Brood War enjoyed the largest, most dedicated eSports following in the world, ever, precisely because it was so god damn hard to play well. And now players like Flash, Jaedong, NaDa, Bisu, Boxer, and other S-class Brood War players lose to basically the professional equivalent of scrubs in Starcraft II.

In the short term, this has allowed some Western "foreigners" to actually win games against the best of the best Korean professionals. This has resulted in a huge explosion of non-Korean eSports in SCII. However this "casualization" of the game has tremendously undermined the professional scene, and in my opinion that community is eventually going to starve itself, because the same level of dedication and excellence is no longer possible. Hell, I'm only Masters and I don't experience nearly the same level of awe at watching professional SCII as I do watching professional Brood War, because the skill difference between me and the actual professionals is not nearly as high any more.

I guess it depends who you ask then.

With your rather aggressive take on the subject.


I persoanally just like playing skirmish games against the AI, I don't do it to mess around it do it to experiance the game and to enjoy it (Playing the AI is a hell of a lot better then the stress I feel playing other people and trying to play good enough so that we are both having fun).

Hell even today I still do playthoughs of the SupCom1/FA and 2 campains.

And if I feel up to it, might even do a comp stomp with some friends.

That's me as the casual player, and I don't even like farmville.

Personally I can't stand playing the AI. They seem predictable and you know how good they will be. I love going in a game against a human, having no idea whether they will be amazing or whether they don't even know that they have engineers. No only that but humans can think and have strategies that no AI can match. I for one would like to think of myself as a bit competitive, but making the game casual friendly would be a very good idea.

I think this explains a lot about why you liked SupCom 2. Even a very cursory experience of seriously playing the game reveals an endless array of extremely stupid gameplay features. But if you never seriously play the game, or try to figure out what techniques and strategies really are effective, then you won't discover any of these broken/exploitative/dominant/boring/stupid design issues.

In a nutshell, you aren't the sort of player that would self-destruct your own units just to prevent the enemy from destroying them for research points. Because that's actually a really good idea in SupCom 2, done correctly.

Pretty much This, more often than not good game design makes games appeal to "hard core" and "casual" players, along with all the players inbetween.

Mike

Yeah, um I think you will find that this is compleatly not true.

I do play the game seriously, and I enjoy my time playing it in spite of the problems.

I am not blind to the games problems in any way, infact I may even know a few that you do not but that doesn't mean to say that I do actually play the game, learn how it works and overcome my opponents stratigy's.

Saying that because I am a casual player means that I never learned how to play the game and is the reson I have a preferance to another game just goes to prove that you are the last person who should be making decisions on gameplay.