eSports?

I dont understand that post, it is related to what?

You can't really compare the two.

Most traditional sports were created in different eras, and have had decades, if not centuries, to accumulate popularity.

To the consistency of a game, even when the players are still fighting the majority of a SC game is kinda boring to watch.

I am not sure how, but if the game was more exciting and fun to watch throughout then it might get more viewers.

Thats your view and mine simply differs: It is fun for me to watch FA 1v1. Thats ofc pretty much subjective. I can understand that somebody who does not know the game might get bored, since the fun for me arises from watching what people plan, what their builds and strategies are and such things that require a knowledge of the game in general. Watching flashy fights or big units is not a big part of the fun, it is just a nice extra. I would still have fun watching a high-level FA 1vs1, even if the whole 3D-graphics were removed and only the symbols would remain.

I wonder how much of it is visibility. As simple as that. Units need to be well defined and the contours and colours of shapes and textures clear and bright. TA always felt grey and brown and dull, even though the unit anims were cool. SupCom 1 felt too... grainy and glassy, and SupCom 2 looked great (IMO) but everything seemed too big for the maps and units skated around on ice when they moved.

A lot of e-sport potential I think is in the aesthetics (as well as the other major factors you guys have suggested). I know from Reddit threads that the PA team are putting a lot of thought and time into the game look. Tying the aesthetic to the functionality, so there needs to be no dichotomy. I'm personally not a "graphics guy" in terms of amazing visual effects etc, but I am put off by artwork that makes everything blend into one. For me the Game of Dots issue is as much a design component as an aesthetic one. IMO there should be less need to zoom and more incentive to actively observe the battlefield at close range, i.e. to target fire or get intel.

The hyping of PA is still a lot about the epic games, and it seems the developers put a large part of their hope for e-sports into the mods, so I guess the developers don't want the design of vanilla PA to be limited by the e-sports, which is a good thing in my opinion.

They want to game to be scaleable, so you guys can play on small planets so the units seem big, while other can play ranked on medium to big planets so units seem small

Well that, again, depends on the map size.

A 1v1 on a 81 KM map might get a little boring.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sRUakmNksU

But if it could always be this fun, then I would agree completely

One thing i haven't seen mentioned yet is how the multiple viewports in PA might affect the interest of the replay.

A lot of just regular sports have cameras that will focus in on the action, give you close up shots and so on. If you were watching a replay and had the option to have little video windows pop-up with close ups of combat, it might help the whole dots issue plus give commentators something to talk about.

Which is why I am so against changes in the size of maps/units. It just worked in FA, so dont change it too much