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Blogs \ SC2 will be like WC3!
carnifex @ 4th October 2007 11:57.
SC2 will be like WC3! (Updated: 4th October 2007 12:01)
StarCraft 2 is in the news almost every day and most of the RTS players worldwide are looking forward to it or atleast think about how it will be and if they should switch. Since there are two very successful RTS games on the eSports market since ages (SC:BW, WC3:TFT) we already have got structures for casual gamers, professional gamers and communities, but how will SC2 look like? There are quite some differences between the BroodWar and WarCraft 3 communities, but SC2 most likely will unite most of the players from both games, so wich influences will form SC2?

Let's first have a look at the communities and structures of BW and WC3. The BroodWar community is strongly divided into Korea and the rest of the world, structure- and skillwise. While in Korea there are several events, TV shows and high prizes, in Europe and the other continents there aren't many big events, especially nearly no big offline competitions. The WCG is the biggest but also only big offline event for BroodWar, other important events are mostly played online and only have got small or no prizes at all.
There is not much media coverage on events such as live streams or shoutcasts outside Korea and ladders like ICCup are the leagues that are played mostly.

On the other hand we have got WarCraft 3. The WC3 community is much more professional structured in Europe, it can almost compete with the Korean BroodWar scene, although Korea is still ahead. There are several top clanleagues like the WC3L and NGL-One that have got high prizes and offline finals, there are solo events both on- and offline like the ESL Extreme masters (played online, finals offline), ESWC, WCG and some more. The players outside Korea are getting salaries that allow the players to have a living from it and totally focus on playing WC3 as a job.
Shoutcasts, WTV, livestreams and even TV coverage (by GIGA ie.) are available for several events and matches.

So what will SC2 be looking like? I think it will mostly adapt to the WarCraft 3 scene, although it's not WC4. The WC3 scene is, as it was said before, much more professional world-wide and so the big events and leagues will pretty fast add SC2 as a game title. I think big organizers like the ESL will create leagues compareable to the WC3L, ESWC, WCG and other (mainly Asian) tournaments will add SC2 aswell.
Next to this, the top teams such as SK, MYM, 4K might pretty fast contract the SC2 top players and give them salaries that will be equal to the WC3 salaries after some time - the SC2 community will become quite professional organized and therefore look like the WC3 scene.

Since Blizzard will have an own ladder that for sure will be successful (take the WC3 ladder as example, it's the most played one in WC3) there will be almost no space for ladders like WGT, ICCup etc. Teams like in BroodWar, that can't offer salaries, will pretty fast become 2nd or 3rd class when the world's top eSport teams contract SC2 players.

So if we count things together, SC2 will most likely get compareable events and leagues to WC3 and the teams that are playing WC3 professionally at the moment will get SC2 teams next to them (and later on instead?!) -> the SC2 structures will be compareable to WC3, although it's StarCraft we are talking about!

Is this good or bad? Personally I think this is great. The WC3 scene has got much more possibilities to follow matches live with WaaaghTV and other coverage, and therefore the community will have an advantage in following the top players' matches. The top players will be able to earn a lot of money with their favourite game and finally the time spent for playing StarCraft pays off for others than only Koreans and a very few foreigners.
It has been like BroodWar built up a base for the WC3 scene, wich took that base and improved it. Now SC2 will do the same and take the base of WC3 and even improve it, I think and hope.
 



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