Brink competitive success limited by its genre

[Mustang]

[QUOTE=Etek;289223]It is to spectate a RTS game, you have an observer that watches army movements from above
…
This is not true for FPS games an observer can’t track the entire action from above[/QUOTE]
In ETQW you can easily watch the action from above
This has pretty much been confirmed for Brink on PC as well
What more would you require?

[ClickClickBOOM]

[QUOTE=Mustang;289235]In ETQW you can easily watch the action from above
This has pretty much been confirmed for Brink on PC as well
What more would you require?[/QUOTE]

First Person, Third Person and Free Camera on PC.
Third Person, Free Camera (unconfirmed) on Consoles

[beute]

Seriously, mark me an Elitist, but I think the downfall of FPS in the esport scene is the result of its recent popularity on the consoles.

back when FPS were more or less exclusive to the PC everyone that was interested in it knew about the current FPS kings, and these multiplayer FPS were designed to be tournament games from the very beginning.
No one would push the hype of certain games on the PC, there is no one like the console manufacturor that could do that.

They relied on other things like tournaments, quake and cs would’ve never been as popular as they are now if it wasnt for tournaments, tournaments were constant free marketing.
a publisher would never pay for advertising for a period of years.

Now that FPS are also on consoles everything shifted to the casual side, people interested in FPS get bombarded with them as console manufacturors and publishers are willing to spend more money for marketing.
hell, there are now 3 platforms that can play FPS/TPS games instead of just 1, of course the budget increases.

Everyone that was already a PC gamer or was interested in FPS played them already, all that marketing did was luring the casual players to the “new” genre that wasn available to them earlier.
Devs/Publishers now cater much more to that kind of gamer, there is simply no room for hardcore FPS, there is no time for esports, it’s way more effective to just brainwash the unimformed with stupid advertisement.
Games are designed to fun for even the bad guys.
It’s like inviting fatties to the 100m sprint cups and allow them to get a headstart so they can “compete”, just because they paid an entry fee.

quake and cs dont work on consoles and never will.(at least not in their current incarnation)
so their popularity decreased hard when the 360 entered the market.

it’s a loss-loss situation for esport…
You cant cater to the casuals and create a esport title at the same time.
a multiplatform title will therefore never be a real esport title.
consoles represent the casual side and PC the more competitive one.
It’s impossible to create a game that pleases both.

[Mustang]

[QUOTE=ClickClickBOOM;289238]First Person, Third Person and Free Camera on PC.
Third Person, Free Camera (unconfirmed) on Consoles[/QUOTE]
What has this got to do with not being able to follow the action from above?
Which was Etek’s comment, to whom the question was posed

[tokamak]

just dont think brink has the spectator aspect that is viewable to the mass audience to become as popular as sc2.

Yeah well SC2 is only the single most watcheable Esport compatible game that exists on the planet.

[ClickClickBOOM]

[QUOTE=Mustang;289256]What has this got to do with not being able to follow the action from above?
Which was Etek’s comment, to whom the question was posed[/QUOTE]

Was to backup your statement.

[dommafia]

lol troll (10characters)

if you havent’ added ed lonelyton and i forget that other dude’s name to your ignore list by now you are a masochist

go to their profile, then click on USER LIST and click add to ignore list. Makes this site a whole lot more readable.

I’ve been on the fighting game scene for the last year and half or so and I have seen how fast it grew to be a force to be reckoned with. Even the most randon tournament stream has 500+ viewers nowadays. Major tournaments like the 4 coming up this summer get upwards of 30k viewers. It’s an amazing atmosphere.

One of the reasons for that is having a company that backs up their product with balance updates and knows when to listen to the community and when to ignore cries of imbalance from people just because they haven’t put the time to try and overcome the perceived imbalance. A streaming/shoutcasting team that cares more about the game and the stream presentation than just ad revenue or donations. Passionate individual players that participate int he community and “spread the word”.

I have high hopes for brink, I just hope SD will be as communicative as they have in the past… I’m still not sure how much BETHESDA will influence SD’s relationship with the community, but I stay optimistic.

[BrigandSk_A]

beute, that’s why splash damage is the leading developer on the evolution of the fps e-sport scene!

Instead of adding more players and better graphics . . .

They focused on game design and randomization to increase re-playability and challenging for any gamer, due to careful designed rank system.

In the e-sports scene certainly there will be agreements how leagues are set up, like rank 0 league and rank 41 league.

Just let the game be released so the community can start to involve and create such events, then we will see how it goes… if grows or not.

I’m confident about Brink, because I know very well Splash Damage’s previous tittles.

Wolfenstein or QuakeWars imo were accessible for the casual and hardcore gamer.

[system]

[QUOTE=Mustang;289235]In ETQW you can easily watch the action from above
This has pretty much been confirmed for Brink on PC as well
What more would you require?[/QUOTE]

I hardly remember any action viewed from above at tournaments, especially inside buildings.

[GreasedScotsman]

I often used first person as a way to follow a player or group of players to an obj or choke point, then popped out to free-fly for ETTV broadcasts.

If that happens in 3rd person shoulder cam -> free fly, that works for me… maybe even better, as spectators see more of the action.

[sabre909]

Im totally excited about Brink.tv i even went and found the old ETQW tv and watched some of the competitive matches its fun to watch and also a great way to help improve your own game.

[DonkeyDong]

the main problem i think with competitive fps’s is its hard to spectate a match…

Ya, we need TV SERVERS like QuakeWars… so 50-100+ people can join servers and listen to MR.HOLY@#$ BALLS (Greased) make fabulous commentary. (numbers influenced by what I remember in the last half of ETQW)

I’m off and on hard to follow with all these posts. Did they say weather or not there will be TV servers? Or we just confined to 1 choice of someone streaming it? Not saying either one is > then the other, but it IS noice to have a choice.

[GreasedScotsman]

AFAIK, no TV servers confirmed. Demo recording is in tho, thankfully.

While I lament the loss of TV servers, one consideration helps me through the pain:

Since our humble beginnings with ETTV 3 years ago, there have been ENORMOUS strides in the ability for gamers to stream games online for all to see, so we hope that even folks who are unable to run Brink, don’t have the game on their PC, opted for a console version (tsk tsk), etc. will also be able to tune in to our broadcasts.

Hopefully Brink will appeal to those who don’t even yet have the game.

[Wilson]

I think the main problem with a lot of FPS games is that the competitive side is only geared towards the top teams. It discourages new players from playing in matches because they aren’t good enough and it is too intimidating. I’ve also noticed that a lot of players that play in clans think they are better than pub players and act arrogant around them. It doesn’t exactly encourage people to play the game.

In a game like SC2 you can watch a stream of a top player and then go on and play a match in the bronze league and try to improve. You can play competitively at your own level. Of course it’s easier to set this up in a 1v1 game.

I think if you want to make Brink more popular then you need to focus on all levels of competition and not just the top teams. Beginner players should be able to join and play in beginner ladders and leagues and work their way up. This encourages everyone to play in matches and get involved. After a while, some of them will improve and move on to better teams.

In my opinion the best way to do this is by having communities that are based around public servers play matches against each other. This way, people who play on the public servers regularly can hear about matches being played and get involved that way.

Unless you have this network of low level teams then when people start to play competitively they will just get faced against teams that are much better than them and then quit playing all together.

The people who already know about the competitive side of gaming will get involved anyway. In order to grow the community you need to focus on getting players who play public games, playing in matches.

As well as this I think having shoutcasts and VODs of the top teams with commentary is awesome. As well as sites that are geared towards match play with guides, forums etc. Anything to spark peoples interest in the game.

[RoflRofl]

[QUOTE=Wilson;291060]I think the main problem with a lot of FPS games is that the competitive side is only geared towards the top teams. It discourages new players from playing in matches because they aren’t good enough and it is too intimidating. I’ve also noticed that a lot of players that play in clans think they are better than pub players and act arrogant around them. It doesn’t exactly encourage people to play the game.

In a game like SC2 you can watch a stream of a top player and then go on and play a match in the bronze league and try to improve. You can play competitively at your own level. Of course it’s easier to set this up in a 1v1 game.

I think if you want to make Brink more popular then you need to focus on all levels of competition and not just the top teams. Beginner players should be able to join and play in beginner ladders and leagues and work their way up. This encourages everyone to play in matches and get involved. After a while, some of them will improve and move on to better teams.

In my opinion the best way to do this is by having communities that are based around public servers play matches against each other. This way, people who play on the public servers regularly can hear about matches being played and get involved that way.

Unless you have this network of low level teams then when people start to play competitively they will just get faced against teams that are much better than them and then quit playing all together.

The people who already know about the competitive side of gaming will get involved anyway. In order to grow the community you need to focus on getting players who play public games, playing in matches.

As well as this I think having shoutcasts and VODs of the top teams with commentary is awesome. As well as sites that are geared towards match play with guides, forums etc. Anything to spark peoples interest in the game.[/QUOTE]

I agree with what you’re saying about needing to bring people into the game. Without growing the community the game will never survive. Some of this falls on the players themselves to not be jerks in pubs and some falls on the leagues. There are leagues out there who cater to users are new to competitive play. Hopefully, some of the major leagues will develop a tier system like CAL did.

I’m also sure that there will be many pubs that pop up with the most popular competition settings. Eventually those work themselves out into the top players playing in the same pub etc. Great way to improve that way.

The best way to help grow the community is to get the word out and to get videos, sites, whatever up to talk about the game. I’m looking forward to the production that BrinkTV has put together and think that seeing a professional shoutcast will go a long way to bring in new players.

[SentencedToBurn]

[QUOTE=angeliou;288963]I don’t see it being accessible and viewable by on the large scale like starcraft 2. I’m using sc2 as an example because it is so wildly popular and is the bleeding edge of the E-sports community it really is our shining example of how popular e sports can be.
[/QUOTE]

You’re comparing RTS to FPS, and everybody in the world knows that RTS is just RPG’s retarded cousin…

This ain’t 1999 anymore bro. I can’t believe you even still play Starcraft.

also,

There’s no such thing as e"sports". Sports is sports. Games are games.

Nary the twain shall meet.

[Mattc0m]

[QUOTE=SentencedToBurn;291744]You’re comparing RTS to FPS, and everybody in the world knows that RTS is just RPG’s retarded cousin…

This ain’t 1999 anymore bro. I can’t believe you even still play Starcraft.

also,

There’s no such thing as e"sports". Sports is sports. Games are games.

Nary the twain shall meet.[/QUOTE]

Care to explain how things like skateboarding, chess, dancing, driving a car, skating, table tennis, and various other activities are considered sports, but professional-level, competitive video gaming isn’t?

A sport is an organized, competitive, entertaining, and skillful activity requiring commitment, strategy, and fair play, in which a winner can be defined by objective means.

Guess what? Competitive video gaming is all of that.

[Wilson]

Or you could use this definition: “An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others”

IMO, a sport is something that involves physical activity. Things like chess and video games are exactly that, games. That’s not a bad thing it’s just what they are. I think professional video gaming is just as valid as professional chess playing or indeed any of those other activities you mentioned.

It’s just words. Doesn’t really matter what you call things, they are what they are.

[SentencedToBurn]

[QUOTE=Mattc0m;291813]Care to explain how things like skateboarding, chess, dancing, driving a car, skating, table tennis, and various other activities are considered sports, but professional-level, competitive video gaming isn’t?

Guess what? Competitive video gaming is all of that.[/QUOTE]

Well, since you decided to cleverly leave out the rest of the article you copied/pasted that from, here’s the rest of it:
“Activities such as board games and card games are sometimes classified as “mind sports,” but strictly speaking “sport” by itself refers to some physical activity.”

Noun: An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others.
don’t buy that? here’s a few more:

a. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.
b. an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, hockey, wrestling, boxing, etc.
c. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.

Guess what? Competitive video gaming isn’t ANY of that.

Oh, neither is dancing, table-tennis, chess, or driving a car. Skateboarding? yes. requires physical exertion and skill, often competing against another or others.

If professional video gaming is a sport, why don’t you just call all games sports from now on? It therefore shouldn’t matter whether or not they are being played professionally. Street Fighter II is one of my favourite sports of all time.

I’m glad I could clear all this up for you

[FishStix]

Fantastic post, I’d love to write a lengthy response, but I am way too exhausted right now

FPS eSports is a shell of its former self, and is more fragmented than ever. However, there is so much hype in RTS, Arena-based, and fighting game eSports that I believe it will overflow back to FPS, the community that started eSports in the first place.

That’s my hope at least