http://www.vice.com/en_uk/video/esports-part-one

rock and roll. vice has been really great the last few years. what do you guys make of this?

Now you've got me watching the whole thing. Good job >_>

It's crazy how some South Koreans have DIED from playing so many video games. and that the ESports scene over there is so huge.

on jin air flights, the players for their esports teams are painted onto the sides of their planes. theyre fuckin superstars. its all because of brood war

Quote from: Azumarill on March 16, 2015, 04:58:49 PM

Quote from: Flee on March 16, 2015, 04:48:05 PM

This caught my interest until I realized it was entirely about a casul pleb tier game.

> casual

huh

league might be the most time-intensive video game that exists...

You can't honestly compare a 5 year old game like LoL to the competitive classics that haven't been mastered after 20 years of esports.

League is pretty casual. Its competitive scene is artificial and likely detrimental to esports as a whole. While the game takes a lot of practice and the sheer number of champions / builds makes it pretty time-intensive to learn, it really is a low tier competitive game.

Not saying it's a bad game at all, but I can't support what it's doing to esports as a whole and, having played it quite a bit myself, I can safely say that it's far from being on the same level as other competitive games.

DOTA2's International was interesting but Riot has done really well in advertising and setting up their World Championships, LCS, and other tournaments. They make it a point to keep the scene clean from any cheating "cough" Counterstrike "cough". They have been patching the game over the past 5 years so that each year there is something new to watch and something that looks significantly better.

DOTA2 is interesting to say the least about it but Valve really doesn't seem to care about any other games that seem to have an Esports scene behind them that I can't really respect Valve at all as a company and I don't trust them to keep Dota2 or Counterstrike clean. League has Botting/Toxicity but they have been cracking down hard over the past year on preventing cheating and toxicity. Counterstrike I see cheats quiet a bit and I haven't played enough DOTA2 to notice any yet.

Because of League's design it is a lot better as a spectator sport than the likes of most MOBA's on the market and FPS's really don't have a place in the Esports scene because they aren't enjoyable to watch to a large amount of people.

Hopefully DOTA2's spectating/casting is a lot better than it use to be but when I tried to spectate a game or watch a stream it was hard to get into what was happening and they didn't really explain why taking certain objectives were beneficial. A spectator sport that is just in its inception must bring an audience and welcome a new audience rather than just cater to what they already have.

Don't really care for vice, esports, or 'pro' gaming.
I'd be surprised if they didn't go full sjw on it though.

Quote from: Flee on March 16, 2015, 05:12:26 PM

Quote from: Azumarill on March 16, 2015, 04:58:49 PM

Quote from: Flee on March 16, 2015, 04:48:05 PM

This caught my interest until I realized it was entirely about a casul pleb tier game.

> casual

huh

league might be the most time-intensive video game that exists...

You can't honestly compare a 5 year old game like LoL to the competitive classics that haven't been mastered after 20 years of esports.

League is pretty casual. Its competitive scene is artificial and likely detrimental to esports as a whole. While the game takes a lot of practice and the sheer number of champions / builds makes it pretty time-intensive to learn, it really is a low tier competitive game.

Not saying it's a bad game at all, but I can't support what it's doing to esports as a whole and, having played it quite a bit myself, I can safely say that it's far from being on the same level as other competitive games.

how much do you actually know about the LCS infrastructure? league of legends pros have the best jobs in all of pro gaming. it's made more millionaires than any other professional video game. league isnt casual at all. its imbalanced as hell and terrible, but it is an EXTREMELY competitive game at the end of the day. to be the best, you have to play 12+ hours a day. thats not casual. thats horrifying.

just a ninja pronounceing his opinion.  Nothing to see here.

*sips tea*

Quote from: Azumarill on March 16, 2015, 07:43:59 PM

how much do you actually know about the LCS infrastructure? league of legends pros have the best jobs in all of pro gaming. it's made more millionaires than any other professional video game. league isnt casual at all. its imbalanced as hell and terrible, but it is an EXTREMELY competitive game at the end of the day. to be the best, you have to play 12+ hours a day. thats not casual. thats horrifying.

games that are intrinsically the best, most skillful, high tier and insanely competitive,

i wont make any pretensions about LoL being the best game there is, but its the most ridiculously competitive mainstream multiplayer video game that exists right now. the skill cap is insanely high.

Quote from: Azumarill on March 18, 2015, 01:33:20 PM

Well, to each his own.

im with azu on this one. I do see what you're saying about it being artificially competitive, the game was designed and marketed to be competitive but I don't see why that's a problem or how that makes it casual, especially with the huge skill gap it has...

Quote from: Tyger on March 18, 2015, 04:12:34 PM

Quote from: Flee on March 18, 2015, 02:35:17 PM

Quote from: Azumarill on March 18, 2015, 01:33:20 PM

Well, to each his own.

im with azu on this one. I do see what you're saying about it being artificially competitive, the game was designed and marketed to be competitive but I don't see why that's a problem or how that makes it casual, especially with the huge skill gap it has...

The developers forcing the game's artificial competitive scene doesn't necessarily make it casual. League not being an incredibly competitive game with a skill ceiling that is only high because the amount of champions, builds and combinations, does. I edited out my previous post because I really don't feel like getting into this discussion again, as I've had it several times already. Some very common "complaints" that detract from how high League's skill ceiling is are things such as the use of pretty much a single map that is also not that complicated, the general lack of precision and twitch aiming, the basic movement, extended periods of times where hardly anything happens, lack of "glitches" that make things more competitive and fast, the long respawn times, the way how games are often decided rather early on, the generally pretty slow pace, the lack of advanced strategy (other than builds and countering your opponents choices), the elements of randomness (critical strikes and such)...

Either way, League is not a casual game. I just don't think it's quite up there with some of the other games and am not particularly fond of the generally uninformed people who treat it as the single most competitive, skillful and best game ever, simply because they don't know much about esports as a whole. But the worst thing is what League is doing to competitive gaming, as it genuinely makes me fear of what might happen next.

But it's late and I really can't let myself get into this again. You are obviously free to disagree with any of the points I made or think differently of this. But from my personal experience, League just isn't that impressive of an esports game.

ah, I wasn't trying to argue I was simply trying to see your side of things. You have a lot of valid points