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Gretorp: 'Starcraft 1 pros won’t be nearly as strong as people think'
Posted by Radoslav "Nydra" Kolev 4 months ago
Photo source: TeamLiquid.net
Operating as a pro-player, caster and coach, Andre "Gretorp" Hengchua is among the most familiar faces on the eSports scene. To share his experiences and visions for the future, Gretorp sat down with his new colleagues at Itsgosu to talk coaching, the NASL and the growth of StarCraft 2.
In early December 2011, Gretorp was contracted by Itsgosu to coach their quickly growing roster, harboring names such as Vibe, Gatored, dde, Ostojiy and Hwangsin. How does Hengchua view his job of tutoring such a diverse roster and what are his primary goals?
The number one thing is I need to join the players together and try to simulate a team house as much as possible. This is probably going to be the toughest thing. The communication factor is the hardest part with the time zones and different schedules, however I think it’s definitely possible.
As the coaching topic unfolds further, Gretorp shares his desire to emulate the principles entailed by coaches like oGsTheWind, how he intends to manage the team as a whole and not the individual players an how he thinks that the lack of a training house which he can call a base of operations will put him and the team in a rough spot. The conversation eventually leads to the point where the difference in Eastern and Western mentality, as far as coaching is concerned, comes to the fore. Gretorp's observation over the problem is the following:
The western scene doesn’t have an ego problem, they have a different understanding of respect. Westerners do not respect you if you talk down to them just because you are older/wiser. They respect you if you talk to them as equals.
Moving away of the question of his duties at Itsgosu, Gretorp assures that he will not cut his obligations as a caster at the North American StarLeague. In fact, Hengchua hints that there will be "some AMAZING stuff" coming and that the NASL will see changes to prize pool, player pool and format alike.
Near the end of the interview, Gretorp takes the time to comment on what he thinks the future holds for StarCraft 2. Both the growth rate of the scene and the possible transition of BroodWar players over to its successor are being examined.
The growth of the game will continue in 2012, although I do think the growth will be slower than 2011. That’s just the normal way of games and sports. We will see jumps right when major tournament begin, but overall we will see a decline in the growth. I don’t think it’ll stop growing in 2012, though, and I think HOTS will time out perfectly to continue the growth and water the seed of eSports even more.
I think Starcraft 1 pros won’t be nearly as strong as people think they will be. They will be amazing because their basics are superior to the world’s, but you won’t see the type of dominance they had in Starcraft 1 due to the skill ceiling of Starcraft II being much shorter.
| Links |
| Itsgosu.com - Source |
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| Based on his experience yes but the younger generation who plays starcraft one will eventually transition to starcraft two and their skill will carry on but not as fast as it would be. |
| Gretorp is wrong. |
| gretorp and moletrap together with incontrol are the best player/caster out there show some respect |
| #3 I love Moletrap as a caster. He can't play though. |
| gretorp is the worst commentator ever |
| hahahaha as many ppl said, starcraft 2 is way too random, better players could lose easily to an inferior players, which in broodwar would never happened |
| #6 it happened, but not as often as in sc2. |
| #3 LOL sarcasm detected. |
| "I think Starcraft 1 pros won’t be nearly as strong as people think they will be. " Agree! |
| #6 TBH, it is right now, because it greatly penalize even smallest mistakes. But you really don't know what the game will look like in 2-3 Years, or even more, when all of the SC2's expansions come out. I mean, SC1 is different game from SC1 Brood War, same as WC3:ROC and WC3:TFT. We will have many additions, and in the end, I hope that SC2 will be close to SC1 in terms of entertainment. And remember that the skill of Pro players now, will be considered as a joke in 3 years, there is so much space for improvements. |
| he may be right.. but I rather think that they gonna be so strong that theyre gonna dominate anyways imo |
| that's what i have been trying to tell people. |
| I am sorry, but the sc1 pros are already owning the SC2 scene. Gretorp what about MVP, NESTEA, MC? |
| #13 i'd say he's talking about the current top big name bw players like flash, bisu, jaedong etc etc. Sure july/forgg etc are big names that have come over but the players i mentioned before are currently in their prime and are the elite of the elite for the RTS genre (in terms of skill and understanding of a games mechanics) etc IMO. they'll do well when they switch but i don't think itll be dominance, gretorp is right there. |
| #14 I'm sorry but I cant agree with ur comment or either Gretorp u guys have no idea how good the top top players from sc1 are.. you just cant compare FLASH ,BISU and Jaedong .. LIKE WTF!!!! I dont want to be mean or anything but you cant compare those players with any sc2 pro gamers yet. Even in korea nobody compares them with any other player.. because the gap is HUGE not only in skill but in all aspect. however I think is just funny how ppl who is not a korean talking about sc1 pros .. HAHAHAH GG |
| Even though it's the sequel to the game they play, it's still a different game. I'm just picking a number here but lets say it takes another year before bw pros really transition over, thats 3 years sc2 pros have up on them, has to count for something. Im sure they'll be kor gm in absolutely no time and only keep advancing in skill, but you can't disregard the skills of guys like mma and mvp just like that. I do look forward to seeing them swap over though (as sad as it is for bw  ), will create a good increase in skill and development of the game. |
| i agree we are yet to see a sc1 pro switch over and if they will b as good as every1 keeps saying why doesnt 1 top bw pro switch and win every gsl and mlg and take all the prize money?? BCOS ITS NOT THAT EASY :) |
| You guys name the BW pros that are doing well, now name all the ones that are not? |
| who cares about Gretorp opinion . just wait and see what will happen soon |
| #17 coz theyre bound by kespa contract cant wait to see flash bisu and jaedong move to sc2 |
| Completely agree with #10 no one can determine the fate of this game yet until all expansions are released, and I would push the date timeline to +5 years for factoring everything in. |
| #18 I absolutely agree with you about the players who are not doing well. But when people start to name players like flash,bisu,stork or jaedong.. like thats different case. well.. GG |
| I dont think its wise to put all the Brood War progamers under the name "pros". Some are far better than others obviously. However I do believe that since SC2 is a much easier game, mechanically speaking, it gives opportunities for "lesser" Brood War progamers to shine, ie NesTea and MC. But still I do believe that it's the players Brood War mentality and experience which will give them an upper hand. But I doubt we will see Flash having a 70% winrate in SC2. |
| #4 you know that was sarcasm by #3 ? :D However, just look at ForGG, playing now couple month, and is already Code S. That shows what A-Class BW-Pros can do to SC2, imagine if just one of the actual top 10 bw players transition to SC2, he'd be like "instant" Code S and top caliber. |
| if the game is more random like people said, a player with better mechanics and knowledge of the game can lose often to a normal player, so we can say that sc2 is harder than sc1. People say that sc1 is more difficult because its much more difficult to macro than sc2, but this isnt everything, sc1 is slower, the battles last longer, the positioning dont have the biggest part in the game. When a game has bad mechanics to play it, doesn't mean its harder, just mean that players WASTE more time in that |
| #25 100 % agree just because jaedong and flash can play starcraft broodwar 200 food macro with 13 max unit control and no numbering for several buildings without going nuts doesnt mean they are better in sc2 SC2 is very fast, a standard game with 3 bases can end in 15 minutes. Cheesing, pushes it all works and these are solid tactics now. |
| dunno you but I'm tired of reading SC2 players saying moronic things about something they don't understand. learn some respect to a game you never got to play competitively, BW has more than 10 years on top of the RTS genere, in those 10 gretorp and most of these """""SC2 personalities""""" (that no one will remember after a couple of years, except the Gracken since hes the only foreigner ex bw pro) were not in the radar. So you can't say stuff about something you never got to experience. BW retired (i.e. Nestea (WAS A COACH), MVP, July, etc) and non competitive (MarineKing, MC, Fruitdealer, etc) players got to dominate SC2, why is that? because SC2 is an easier and random but young game that has lots of ground to grow, but please don't compare it to the best RTS ever NOT not after a couple of known upcoming expansions cuz u will play it because Blizzard says so. got to say this to new RTS or Starcraft players that know very little about BW and think this guy is right and SC2 is so much better than BW just because you are playing it or cuz foreigners don't stand a chance against south koreans in BW (something that is already happening in SC2) so they got to play another game: GO READ LIQUIPEDIA 1. btw, #3 gretorp sounds like another butthurt sc2 player that wants to keep aboiding the reality. sad that he's on fnatic. |
| #27 Gretorp is not on fnatic. |
| lol #27 i was semipro for sc1 you idiot I was more on the radar than you and you have no idea what you're talking about. I got to go to korea, I got to play with the pros. People that have no idea what they're talking about shouldnt act like they do |
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i don't even know what to say than, this is complete bullshit SC1 is way faster than SC2, in almost every way. Since you mine 8 Minerals of 1 mineral patch instead of 5, you get way more income, you have to expand faster, you have to spend your money faster, which means you have to macro faster, which means you have to be faster with your multitask, since you cant just rebuild your army per hotkeys like in WC3 or SC2. You HAVE TO look at your base to macro since you can simply just hotkey 1 building per hotkey Yea, battles last longer, based of the fact that the pathfinding isn't that good like in SC2, in SC2 the untis clump up like shit and they die to AOE way faster like Storm/fungal/EMP, thats why control is way more important in SC2 than macro (ofc macro is also very important, but 1 bad fight can cost you the game, while in bw that wasn't the case) |
| All of you saying players like Flash, Jaedong, Bisu won't dominate SC2 when they finally make the switch, i just got one thing to say to you: Just wait and see ;) I will be the first one to say to you: I TOLD YOU SO |
| Not sure when this silliness will end, but anyway... What people and Gretorp fail to realize is that TaekBangLeeSsang have set themselves apart from a nation really of BW players. The caliber of these guys as "players" are rated very high. So much so that it's only thought possible if any of them should lose when they play against each other. It's not about the game folks. Give them ANY game and you'll see. If the naysayers can learn to appreciate that, I think we will have more sensible statements. @Gretorp: I predominantly follow the Korean BW scene since 2002/2003. Still follow the proleague which is 100x better than watching an SC2 game. Used to frequent this site for BW korean replays and found myself watching foreigners like Andriode, Mond, Testie, Draco etc. I've never heard of you, sorry. My friend gave me some Day[9] dailies and that's when I heard of you for the first time. I've noticed that alot of nobodies ride the BW bubble in the SC2 scene so as to make them somewhat more respected/revered/knowledgeable. I can only laugh at them. As if this some how sets them apart from someone who just entered the SC2 scene. IMHO, you sir... are a BW nobody and I simply cannot take you seriously as you've proved to know nothing about Korean BW. I'm nobody too... but at least I don't pretend to be a somebody. |
| #31 ._______________________. They won't dominate the scene because SC2 is such a different game compared to BW. But they will do good.. perhaps. |
| Like I said #33, just wait and see :) |
| im a bw player..give some couple of months then i will kick ur ass gretorp |
| hm allthough #32 words are very harsh I kinda agree at some points I too have been following SC1 from 2002/2003 -2006/07 almost everyday + from 2008 to 2011 ocassionally and have never heared of Gretorp before sc2 came out. The USA Sc1 names that come to my mind are FroZ , Day9, Rekrul, Assem , Artosis ,Nyoken, Sadist, Nony,G5, Lastgosu and Idra, Incontrol besides that i remeber Slog4PG , Tasteless , Wisdom, CocA, Nero,LzGamer, Monkeyballs and last but not least Hovz :) (And Nextel ^^ but only because of the Hovz incident) never heard of someone named Gretorp. I dont doubt that u were good. But semi-pro foreign sc1 player who has been to korea makes it sound a whole lot different (What u actually mean is probably u were a good player who would have been semi pro if sc1 was like sc2 is now + u have made a holiday trip to korea ;)) Sc2 semi pro and Sc1 semi pro are a completely different story. While in Sc2 there are 100 of semi pros and pros in foreign community Afaik the only foreign "semi-pros" in Sc1 were Smuft,Idra,Ret and Rekrul (Elky, Grrrr, Legionaire being full pros ofc) |
| This reminds me of the argument that took place before the launch of SC2 as to wether the koreans will dominate the SC2 scene or the so called "foreign" players will be able to play on the same foot We now see the answer to that :) Gretorp is a funny and sometimes a clever commentator, but this time we do have to agree that when discipline&dedication dominates over arrogance and carelessness.. then an even higher level of discipline and dedication will rule over the average level of discipline&dedication ( korean bw pros > average sc2 pro > average foreign pro ) Flash and Co. wont destroy the SC2 scene.. but we will definitely be amazed by their play :) |
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