Thing is - RTCW was interesting to spectate for many of the same reasons CS still is today - with the better maps from each game having quite a lot in common. Simple, open, choke point focussed. With ET things started to get spread out and vague and it’s been a downward slide in terms of gameplay and spectating since, ending with where we are now with DB. Infact, the best ET map to play/spectate is arguably the user created and competition focused Supply Depot, which is very ‘RTCW’. I think people are over complicating this - better to play will likely result in better to watch. If the experience on the ground is a cluster **** it will be the same from above.
[QUOTE=Kendle;509363]Football works because you can see the entire arena. RTCW worked for the same reason, the action almost always took place within a box, a walled off arena which you could take in at a glance. The fact the map may have several “arenas”, played in succession as something triggers the action moving from one to the other, doesn’t dilute the experience because you can pretty much see everything important that’s happening all the time.
DB is generally not a collection of arenas. Each stage is an area segregated into intersecting corridors by tall buildings, with several of those corridors in play at any one time, meaning it’s harder to visualise what’s going on and to follow the action.
Once again DB’s maps let it down. The game needs RTCW style maps, simpler, more open, clear font lines, clear boundaries, and less clutter within those boundaries.[/QUOTE]
Well put.
[QUOTE=Anti;509352]I personally find Starcraft one of the easiest eSports to watch despite never playing Starcraft 2.
At the most basic level it’s very easy to understand, player with more bases and more units is likely to win. There is a sense of anticipation whenever one blob of troops is about to meet another, because the match state is about to change as a result. The concepts behind the tactics are easy to get, he’s going to rush the enemy before they are prepared, he’s going to out tech the enemy, he’s going to harass the enemy, he’s going to destroy the enemies economy etc. It’s also very often clear who is winning and who isn’t.
The next level down, which units trump which, the quality of micro and macro skills, the attack timings etc is there for the initiated to get excited about but I don’t need to understand it to see an exciting game or to know which moments are important. It’s a fantastic quality for a game to have.[/QUOTE]
It’s interesting how much more you get out of it than I do - and not through my lack of trying. My RTS experience ended with AoE2 and I truly don’t understand enough from watching Star Craft 2 to appreciate it. I usually get when one team is doing better than the other - their little men are killing more of their little men - but the rest is pretty much lost in explosions and bright colours in snippets of action.
