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So we have the fightman thread, guys, but in some ways it is really two threads: talk about fighting games, and talk about people playing fighting games.

Here is something I am doing a lot these days: watching streams, tournaments, shows, and other errata relating to both fighting games and (mostly) Starcraft II. Discussion of high level/professional competitive gaming on sites like this has historically boiled down to "lol that shit is stupid," or "lol I hear they watch Starcraft on TV in Korea wtf," but I feel like the tide has turned. Fighters have hit the big time, and though I don't think many people around here play SC2, it has had a tremendous impact on the legitimacy of gaming as a spectator sport in the western world, where esports have been real boom or bust over the years. Cheap and super viable internet streaming platforms are starting to give the scene the kind of stability that it has lacked. Combine that with the general slowing down of the relentless video game hardware cycle (and with it the fickle attention spam of the public) and I kind of feel like this stuff is going to work out.

With the fighter talk we have around here, and with Evo coming up (and evo season having been in full swing) on that side, and with July GSL and the NASL finals coming up for Starcraft, with Dreamhack having been recent, MLG Anaheim on deck--it just seems like the right time for this.

So this is the thread to talk about competitive gaming in all its forms. You can talk about any game. You can post streams, discuss tournaments, talk strategy for any game you play, share stories of your history with taking multiplayer gaming seriously, debate the merits of esports as a thing, ask questions, be a dick, share your thoughts--whatever you got.

Here's a minor conversation starter: though competitive gaming is on the up and up, there really doesn't seem to be a go to FPS for these kinds of players and fans. CS is old, and pretty much everyone has fucked her by now; Quake Live doesn't have the buzz it was supposed to; CoD sucks; Halo is...the closest thing, I guess? I think there's a large market out there for someone to show up and design a streamlined FPS specifically for super competitive play--and with reasonable spectator functionality build in, which has always been a huge barrier for the genre.

Do we have any crazy DOTA/League of Legends/Heroes of Newerth players here.

Fightman people, plz keep this thread alive until it finds a groove kthnx. WHO IS EVO MARVEL FAVORITE?!?!?

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I think the point is that getting caught up on terminology is not particularly beneficial. You can call it what you want, but at some point anything that is competitive has to decide if the medium of competition is both interesting enough in and of itself (competition is its own allure regardless of what it takes as its subject), and deep or nuanced enough to afford constant improvement and a general stratification of competitors based on skill. If both of these questions are answered in the affirmative, then there is no longer any line where you can go "ok, competition is fun and all, but it stops here." Whether anyone cares is a different story, and where the crux of any real argument against video games as serious competitive fodder bears the most fruit. One of the problems has always been the fact that video games and video gamers are not static--they move on, which means there's always the risk of old standbys becoming too old of standbys, and of new games simply not carrying the momentum of their predecessors. For serious competitive gaming to really take off, I think this divide is going to have to be answered at some point. Games are going to have to be designed from the ground up to serve that need, they're going to have to have the super long term in mind (they will need to be modular, they will need integrated training and spectating tools beyond what we see now, etc.), and they're probably going to have to separate themselves further from what we think of when we say "video game," which is an even bigger issue (what does "video game" mean? etc.)>

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NASL finals weekend is about to start! Get ready for thread spamming LIVE BLOG ACTION

rooting for: Sheth, Boxer, White-Ra. one of each race, one player from each region. I'm so cosmopolitan!

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I guess this is where I complain that luck of the draw means Boxer's reward for finishing the season tied for the best record in the league is a first round match up with probably the best protoss in the world :(

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stream music is getting annoying! serenade me, Day[9]

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matches delayed because it wouldn't be a tournament without failure

all the koreans huddling in a corner planning our demise

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really though this boxer/mc, select/white-ra bracket bloooooooowwwwwsssss

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prediction: July over MC in the grand finals

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30k viewers enraptured by the riveting backstage voyeur cam for the last hour. who needs games?

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35k stream watchers and they have no idea what the fuck they're doing

this stage looks like it cost them fifteen bucks at a garage sale, sound blows, two hour delay, awkward waiting around during the intro. professional all around

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http://www.justin.tv/naslseasonone#/w/1443308176/2

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luckily each player intro is like half an hour long

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this sound just could not be worse

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well at least the first game was a riveting two rax bunker ZvT

...

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shaky cam, incontrol's mic not working, no game sound, health bars turned off, reverb, crowd too loud. I'd rather just be watching random player streaming

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at least gretorp and incontrol are on their commentating game

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ret obliterated, didn't even put up a fight

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at least we have a hot girl doing interviews? can't, you know, hear anything, but she looks nice

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crossfire really shouldn't be in the map pool, either

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oh sheth you are the best ^_^

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they probably should have used some of their money to hire people that have been in the same room as people that have thought about hosting a live event before

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testament to the appeal of the game that there are still 40k people watching this shit

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I can't believe these montages are this fucking long good lord

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they have mercy killed the sound feed

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all the korean players have on their "should we tell these guys about the GSL?" faces on

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at least incontrol keeps trolling idra

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we have...a game?

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why did sheth attack on that ramp :(

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I like how we have health bars on those blink stalkers so we can check out the micro owait

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I warned you guys

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squirtle trolling sheth :(

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u raggin' on starcraft bro?

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great choice on the DT timing for squirttle

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baneling bomb a nexus to death looooooool sheth ^_^

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sheth neeeeeds a broodlord tech swap he might be fucked ouch :(

waited too long to attack so he was stuck on ling/baneling/muta against storm god that was soooo bad :(

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sheth why did you throw this game away :(

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yeah, and he tried that earlier with the two pronged attack that baneling bombed the nexus, so that was somewhat possible. the problem is mutas suck against protoss. by themselves they would have been vaporized if they tried anything but more harass, which is really just a stalling move at a time where squirtle is the player that would want to be stalling. the gold was the focus because a straight up 200 vs 200 zerg vs. toss on crossfire is not going to work out for the zerg on that map. I think he really needed to break that gold, given the banked minerals he had to keep overrunning if it fell. tough loss either way.

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I don't really like morrow but these koreans are a little too hungry for that fight money right now