Profile of Inverse

Inverse just 3 things:

1- Isn't this kind of grudge between casters what Noun is trying to avoid?
2- What's wrong with casters arranging tourneys? isn't this what SNF, TFN, AE and others does/did?
3- Being butthurt with the man after so long is just lame bro

It's not a grudge, it's just a response to someone who doesn't understand why Harlequin isn't some sort of revered god in the CoH community, and why he shouldn't be given a tribute on the biggest CoH show out there. And I never said running tournaments is bad; in fact, I'm pretty sure I specifically said it was great he ran a tournament. But, like most people who do that sort of thing, he ran it to benefit himself, not to benefit the community. Again, nothing wrong with that, but the man shouldn't be put on a pedestal for it.

Ultimately, I think Harlequin was good for the community. He was at times disrespectful (though likely not intentionally), and his casting was awful for anyone with a lick of understanding about the game, but there's no doubt he attracted an audience that might not have been otherwise interested in CoH. I just think the majority of the audience that he did attract moved on with him to the next game, instead of staying with CoH despite his departure. When you watch a Harlquin cast, he's the star of the show; the game is just there to give him subject material. Harlequin made his audience Harlequin fans, not CoH fans, so when Harlequin left CoH, so did a majority of his audience. That's why I don't think he's the type of caster Relic should look to support.

The goal was never to be like SC2. If Relic came out and said they were going to make CoH2 as it is today, nobody would be frustrated because we would've known what to expect. The frustration stems from being led to believe that the competitive scene was something Relic was focused on, when ultimately it doesn't seem that it was.

Honestly, I'm over it by now. I'll still contribute my opinion because I still have hope that an expansion can make things better, kind of like a reverse Opposing Fronts situation. But it annoys me to hear people ripping on those who are doing nothing but venting their frustration at the way this whole situation was handled, and pointing fingers at the community when the community has nothing to do with it at all.

So games you like then. Very good.

Of course. But there are a lot of people out there who like to play a game they can enjoy competitively. Most of those players will not choose CoH2 to be that game.

That makes no sense to me, I enjoy playing games competitively but I hate playing SC2 I find it sterile, safe and it feels like a game of going through the motions. I hate playing mobas because I'm not a big fan of team games and I don't like FPS so what's left in this list of legitimate competitive games?

Those people will play SC2, or Dota 2, or CS, or any number of games that cater to their interests more.

I think people really need to take a step back and look at how/why games become esports. I'm saying this mostly for Inverse's sake, but a lot of people seem to share his (wrong) opinion on this matter.

IpKai is pretty much absolutely right in that communities, at least at first, are almost solely responsible for a game rising to esport status. Let's take a quick look at DoTA/LoL/SC2 since Inverse seems to love comparing the COH scene to those games.

LoL/DoTA/DoTA2 - A quick history lesson for those that don't know, the "MOBA" genre has actually been around since at least SC:BW - at least that is when that type of game gained any sort of notable popularity. However it didn't really become a thing until WC3/TFT when Eul/Guinsoo/IceFrog heavily modded Defense of the Ancients. To keep this as short as possible I'll skip more in-depth history of these games and get straight to the point. DoTA itself has existed for ~10 years (perhaps slightly longer and been a true esport a fraction of that time). The community that grew around the game escalated to game to esports status by self-run in-house leagues, tournaments/other competitions etc etc. DoTA (and LoL/HoN as a result) are hugely popular esports titles not because any certain company did something special, but because the community poured blood sweat and tears into cultivating a thriving competitive community. The same can happen with CoH 2. Also side-note... DoTA was designed as a casual custom map for WC3/TFT... not to be an esport.

As for SC 2, it really rides off the accidental success of SC:BW - which is also a byproduct of the Korean community. Before BW, SC was pretty much a completely fucking terrible game. Sure Blizzard made some great and much needed changes in their expansion (see any potential correlation to CoH 2 here? although COH 2 is way better than vanilla SC was) but the game was still little more than a hobby outside of Korea and perhaps... 5 or 6 "westerners." BW was hugely successful because the Korean community (not Blizzard) dedicated immense amounts of time/money/etc into growing and promoting the game. SC:BW was never designed to be an esport, hell there weren't really esports around at the time. So again, the community was the catalyst for growth.

IpKai's example of SSBM (super smash bros melee) is actually perfect. The game was actually designed strictly to be a casual party game. It was *NEVER* supposed to be an esport, but guess what... the community stepped up and organized events. I love the example of SSBM (and other fighters) because I was a tournament level melee player and I can tell you first hand that the community gets all the credit for promoting this game. There were countless underground tournaments all over the country/people flying thousands of miles for tiny cash prizes. Once again... not because SSBM was some hugely popular esport title, but because the community loved the game so much.

So no, you don't have to design your game to be an esport, history will show that the contrary is true (although developer support, which we have for COH 2 can help) - most major esports titles today were NEVER intended to be esports (SC:BW/DoTA/LoL/CS/HS). Yes a casual game can be played as an esport. And ultimately it is in the hands of the community how things will turn out.

Finally a quick plea to Inverse, and others, that haven't touched COH 2 in upwards of 6 months yet delude themselves into thinking they understand the state of the game - please play some CoH 2 before assuming things. The game now is WAY different (and way better) than it was back in the open beta/early release. The game is fun to play, takes more skill than most want to admit (because it is easier to cry RNG/pay2win than admit your own losses), and is beautiful to watch. Relic really wants to support us as a community, so why not stop bashing the game or comparing it to titles that have been around for over a decade, and actually start helping grow a competitive community. Everything is in place, we just have to do our parts.

The thing is, if you want a successful competitive scene, you need a game that people are going to want to play competitively. You make this point yourself; Starcraft and DotA were not successful competitive games until they became games that people wanted to play competitively. DotA took a long time to mature, and underwent a number of drastic redesigns; entire mechanics were reworked over and over to get to where the game is today. Starcraft wasn't played competitively very much until Brood War, because that expansion made people want to play it competitively.

This doesn't have to be intentionally done. Starcraft was a pioneer, and nobody had any expectations. They just happened to create something that people wanted to play competitively. Every single game with a successful competitive scene right now has been successful because they've created a game that the competitive player wants to play (with the possible exception of LoL, which I'll get to in a moment). Intention doesn't matter at all.

Of course, other games can be played competitively, but they will never have a large amount of success if they don't have elements that directly attract the type of player that makes competitive games successful. Smash Brothers, like CoH2, wasn't designed to be competitive, and isn't really a good competitive game. That doesn't mean people can't enjoy playing it competitively, or watching it competitively. But it will never be a successful game from a competitive perspective because it does not attract the type of person who enjoys competitive games. Those people will play SC2, or Dota 2, or CS, or any number of games that cater to their interests more.

Look at it this way: nobody picks up CoH2 because they want to play it competitively. They pick it up because it interests them, and then maybe after a while they start playing it competitively because that's something they're interested in. Same with Smash Brothers. Same with vCoH, though to a lesser extent than CoH2.

Now, the reason people are upset about CoH2 competitively isn't because it's not a good game to be played competitively. It's because Relic led us to believe that making the game a good game to play competitively was something they actually cared about. They made us believe that CoH2 would be a step up from vCoH for the competitive community. vCoH was one of those games that wasn't designed to be played competitively yet had a large following because it just worked. So when CoH2 comes along and we learn that most of what we were told was bullshit, you can forgive us for our frustration. Relic made us believe they wanted to move CoH closer to SC2 and further from Smash Brothers on the spectrum of competitive gaming. They haven't. It was a lie. CoH2 doesn't take one single step forward as a competitive game; in many instances, it takes steps back.

The truth is, CoH2 alienated the community that made vCoH a success. CoH2 can still maintain a niche competitive scene, just like Smash Brothers does, but in order to do that it needs to attract new people, because the old guard has been fed too much bullshit to care anymore. Problem is, any new player has to wade through piles of game-altering DLC and a community that is not very happy with its developer. It can happen, but it's going to be hard. And hell, maybe an expansion will come out and it will attract a competitive scene, just like Brood War did for Starcraft. If that happens, I would love to be a part of it. But after this whole fiasco, I am less than optimistic.

Now, you brought up League of Legends, which is an interesting case, because the competitive scene has been created entirely by its developers. When Riot is paying something like 16 teams to play full-time, it's hard to judge the merits of its competitive scene. I think if Relic decided to do the same, we might have some more people playing CoH2 competitively regardless of the state of the game. Just maybe.

As for me personally, I haven't played again because none of the changes have addressed problems with the game itself. It's all been balance, and balance was never an issue I had with the game. Balance is something you care about when you love what the game has to offer in terms of gameplay and strategy. I could care less about balance, because the core game is still the same, and I don't like the core game.