State of the Game[Article, Long Post, Spoilers]

[Araneatrox]

Well guys, now that MLG is over for another weekend i feel i should take a look back on some of the action and i should also give you some insight on to some things that i feel are interesting. For this i will only be discussing Halo and Sc2, i wont even attempt to say i followed any of the CoD Blops.

First of all, congratulations to SlayerS_MMA And Instinct for putting up a incredible show this weekend. Instinct for putting up amazing numbers of 21-1 and going on to win the event with ease. SlayerS_MMA for getting his invite, flying 15 hours and playing like a beast throughout the entire weekend.

First of all i want to start from the beginning. Mc vs IdrA, My oh my... This was the first game of the entire weekend, and it was with the 2 players that were favored to take the event.

VoD Here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7Gb25mgkUE&feature=player_detailpage#t=1323s

Showing intense games with lots of tense moments, this game kicked off the entire weekend perfectly.

Looking at the first game of Halo's Friday, Impact vs FB. Coming into this no one really knew what to expect from FB with them being one of the newest teams on the MLG Halo Circuit. Both teams played well pretty evenly, with the last game being back and fourth until the last minute. Fb eventually picked up their game and won pretty decisively.

Now, i want to get onto some pictures i found over the weekend.

Halo crowd, Saturday Afternoon
http://twitpic.com/57e3mh
http://twitpic.com/56w91a

Sc2 Crowd Saturday Afternoon
http://twitpic.com/57e382

Sc2 Finals
http://twitpic.com/57kwdr

Just looking at these pics you can start to get a feel for how large Sc2 has become to MLG, and i know i will take flak from people saying how Sc2 should not be a MLG flagship game because that wasn't what MLG started on. But i would like to give you some numbers.

Over the course of 14 hours, 1 single thread on Team Liquid recieved 2.1million views and 27thousand posts, and the thread took 4 TL staff constantly moderating it to keep it on topic and under control.
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/9341/mlgevent.jpg

I would like you to consider why a single thread has caused this much commotion in the community?
I personally believe it is because Starcraft isn't as insular as Halo is. Correct me if i am wrong, but Halo Reach has 3 main tournament providers, MLG, NGL and ECL. And to get information on Halo Reach, you have yourself Here(TLN) Halo Reach Forum, and MLG.
Compare that to Starcraft. MLG, GSL, IEM, Dreamhack, NASL, IPL are the main tournaments, with things such as the EG Masters Cup and other similar events scheduled almost daily. As much as i love all this content, it is too much as times. When the NASL/IPL/GSL were going on daily, there was over 15 hours of New Sc2 content every day. This was troublesome for myself, and a few other people where we had to pick and choose which events we wanted/needed to watch and completely ignored the rest.

Moving back to MLG Halo events, unless there is a team that people really want to watch or there is a particularly interesting match going on Saturday seems to get ignored by the Reach crowd. it usually ends up being, 1 team vastly outplaying another and being 3-0's within 30-40 minutes. Now i ask you, do you honestly think that is exciting to watch while it isn't being commentated?

Finally going back to Sc2, i want everyone to go and watch some of the games that were cast on Sunday evening(Links will be posted when they are uploaded) but if you can't see or hear the excitement in the crowd than i would say you are deaf.
If you were still in the venue after the CoD and Halo finals had finished you would have seen for yourself how big the Sc2 finals were. All 3 stages and 2000 seats were filled with Sc2 fans.

So i will just say to you, Halo reach has a limited 2-3 years appeal. But Starcraft will soon be the Flagship series that will carry on making MLG money for years to come. And i am so happy that MLG seem to realise this.

TL;DR
Sc2 will on on for a Decade, Halo reach has a pretty short shelf Life.

P.S if i sound preachy, or biased. I did try and give a balanced article. Meh Anyways.

[Ladnil]

100% accurate.

[Jewjitsu]

i fell asleep during the starcraft finals. guess i'm just a halo person

[D Moralize]

I agree although I think its important to maintain the console and fps domination, right now MLG has basically no competition as far as other halo leagues go because none approach the same scale, and I think its safer to stay a multi genre league rather than become just another starcraft league

[Araneatrox]

I never said that Sc2 should be the only game they support, New games will come and go. To me, Halo seems transient. Whereas Brood War has shown us Starcraft can be played competativly for over a decade.

[Waterboy7]

Yeah I saw this coming a while ago. I have always been a Halo gamer, but since Reach I have lost interest in it. I only follow MLG now a days just to keep up with the Pro's I have followed since 04. But can't deny how huge the Sc2 community is. I saw this coming a while back like I said before, actually made a poll on it on MLG in January.

http://forums.majorleaguegaming.com/topic/212581-what-is-the-new-mlg-community-about/page__p__6500354#entry6500354


OT: Congrates to Instinct / GodSquad <-- which btw Demon D should have trademarked that name ;) I believe it was him whom came up with the term.

[D Moralize]

Yes it can, but thats not to say halo can't, Halo just gets new games faster and I think it is in the right spot to be both competitor and spectator friendly, they don't come out too frequent to make the franchise feel over saturated and hard to re learn constantly, but they also dont make us wait 10 years for another game. Yes brood war was still being played, but not really gaining alot of new fans, I think if it takes another 10 years for sc3 to come out then halo will be shouldering most of the work once halo 4 is out and sc2 is years old and years away from a new game. But for now and probably 2 or 3 more years I agree that SC2 will be the dominate game by far.

[gwhit518]

Just for the sake of completing the thread, and for anyone who care...

Optic Gaming won the Call of Duty Black Ops Championship, they were the third seed coming into Columbus after the two seed CheckSix. Resistance and the Dallas Champions Quantic Leverage. Leverage swept there pool 4-0 and moved on without much trouble. Resistance played strong however 9th seeded FeaR came out of of nowhere and swept pool B, FeaR Moho was finally able to back up some of his trash talk. In pool C, after all matches were played there was a three-way tie for winner of the pool. Pool C was the "pool of death" and proved to be a very even fight. OpTic Nation was able to beat out Open Bracket team vVv Fly Society by overall rounds lost 4-5, leaving Fly Society and eventual champions OpTic Gaming in the losers bracket. Lastly, Pool D was taken by a very young and relative unknown team Force. Into the Winners Bracket finals, Dallas Champions Leverage very barely knocked into the losers bracket by impressive play out of Force, on the other side Team FeaR was able to quickly dispatch of OpTic Nation 3-1. FeaR had played great all tournament however they were no match for the extremely aggressive play style of Force and lost 3-1 leaving Force to await to winner of the Losers bracket. We had just about forgotten about OpTic Gaming when they starting heating up and taking down the best teams in the league. On their road to the finals they took out 2009 National Champion Runner Ups EnVy Us, aswell as 5th seed Obey and Twisted Method. Only dropping three games OpTic Gaming took out teammates OpTic Nation, Dallas Champions Quantic Leverage, and Columbus' hottest team FeaR. OpTic came into the finals warmed up and firing on all cylinders, winning game one in OT after an amazing flag stop by team captain Rambo. They then swept Search and Destroy 4-0 and lead the series 2-0. However the highlight of the series came in Summit Domination where OpTic won the first side by 198 points and finished the 2nd side with a 315 point total. JKap and Merk barely let Force out of spawn and showed how experience plays a key role in victory. Being from the losers bracket, OpTic had to win three more games in order to be crowed champion, however Force was all but defeated through the clutch plays and objective masterminds of long time duo Rambo and BigTymer and the pure slaying ability of JKap and Merk. OpTic Gaming swept the final 6-0 and are now Columbus 2011 Champions. This is the first championship for Rambo and BigTymer since the defeated EnVyUs in the 2009 National Championships.

Columbus marks what may be the beginning of a dynasty for this OpTic Gaming squad. Rambo unfortunalty was forced to miss Dallas due to medical problems and OpTic had to pick up Nadeshot (current captain of OpTic Nation) at the last second. Rambo proved to be the deciding factor, he is renowned for being the smartest player in the game and it showed in the more tactical side OG brought to Columbus, winning most SnD and CTF games.

Ill look for Leverage to practice 10x as hard as they did in the offseason to regain their title, FeaR is now a top contender aswell as teams like Force and YungGunz. EnNyUs is still up in the air as they only won one series during the whole event (mainly due to one player missing his flight and the coach having to step in).

For those of you who dont watch the Black Ops stream, I would very much recommend it, the games there are extremely intense and the competition is great.

[D Moralize]

thanks for that, I has heard something about hastro's team playing a man down that sucks. Another thing I just thought of and want to add, regarding the disregard I guess for the halo matches, I believe that is because its not an individual game and teams break up way to often, to the point where alot of us have rooted for many different teams and players and it just makes it hard to have more than a couple teams that everyone is looking forward to seeing at each event.

[Waterboy7]

thanks for that, I has heard something about hastro's team playing a man down that sucks. Another thing I just thought of and want to add, regarding the disregard I guess for the halo matches, I believe that is because its not an individual game and teams break up way to often, to the point where alot of us have rooted for many different teams and players and it just makes it hard to have more than a couple teams that everyone is looking forward to seeing at each event.

Agree about the whole team changing they have so frequently now. And tbh... How could they not let Ogre2 "the G.O.A.T" let keep his FB team name. It kinda put a dent in my heart seeing an Ogre without the Legendary Final Boss name whom he dominated the circuit with. I would much rather see it as a retired team name as to see them placing so low now :( Not cool MLG....Not cool! :(

[gwhit518]

Ogre couldnt keep the name because he left Final Boss, him and Pistola joined Roy and Lunch not visa versa. Had Roy and Lunch left Instinct and Ogre and Pistola dropped Victory and FiS than they could have kept it. However Im not sure that was an option cause Im not entirely sure Ogre was the captain.

[Jewjitsu]

Final boss wanted to be the agency. MLG should have allowed a double name switch where FB would become the agency and instinct would become FB, but they didnt. I personally dont care that much but it was funny seeing all of the announcers calling Instinct Final Boss.

[pt ogre]

i like watching sc2, but for different reasons than halo.. i mainly like watching halo because of the sport fan in me, halo reminds me of fantasy sports.. the players are so free to change rosters that it's exciting to see brand new teams every event, and fun to argue about rosters

sc2 doesn't really have that aspect to it, but it is a really solid game to watch and i try to catch as much as i can.. even though it's hard to watch GSL at 2am and i find it difficult to tolerate the commentary on NASL.. so it's generally just MLG's that i watch

[Antidote]

I'm a huge halo fan but what I'm really hoping is that SC2 doesn't snuff out all the competition from MLG that is Halo.

Blizzard has announced that a new expansion will come out roughly every year for SC2. That being Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. (Of course we know Blizzard time lines and imo that's utter crap).

Anyway, Halo needs something that can make it stand out and last. The only thing that makes it what it is now is the huge fan base under it, MLG making it the flagship game and being the great company that it is. And the fact that no decently competitive FPS has been made in roughly the last 10 years besides Halo. (CoD fans feel free to argue and I'll feel free to keep my opinion.)

Now that MLG has discovered SC2 they are pushing it alot more then Halo knowing it's what they need to do to make their company grow. While there isn't anything wrong with that and I prefer SC2 over Halo.

I still don't want to see Halo take a dive like I predict it will. There just isn't anything making it stand out much anymore. They need to not make the games so fast and just make a good one and let it play out imo.

Halo is being overshadowed finally by a better game. Not even the community can keep it afloat. Mainly because the Halo community is one of THE worst gaming communities I've ever seen in following competitive gaming (yes I'm apart of that community so don't argue hypocrisy).

Just I wish something would stand out and make Halo what it used to be to the competitive gaming world, I don't wanna see it fall out.

[Waterboy7]

Final boss wanted to be the agency. MLG should have allowed a double name switch where FB would become the agency and instinct would become FB, but they didnt. I personally dont care that much but it was funny seeing all of the announcers calling Instinct Final Boss.

Exactly! Even Roy and Box agreed to the change, but MLG rules would not be bent for the Legendary Ogre2. Sad face...
They should have Retired such a big name like FB instead of where it is today...

[Celph]

MLG is unbelievably fortunate to have landed SC2. It is the future of MLG gaming and I don't see a FPS being created in the near future that can stand up to such a quality game with so much potential for longevity. Keep in mind they have only released 1 of 3 discs for SC2 if I'm not mistaking.

I will always be a FPS fan first but you have to recognize how near-perfect SC2 is competitively and how popular it already is worldwide.

Great post Araneatrox! I enjoyed it from top to bottom.

[forefront]

I wasn't really that angry about 2gre being on Instinct, but what got me was the poop colored jerseys they were wearing. Instinct got hosed in that last batch.

I watched some SC2, but as I don't play it, it was hard to know what was happening. Sure, I see it being the game that keeps MLG going, but there will always be competitive shooters. We'll see what comes along next.

[MS eMeRaLd]

What i want to know is, why was it ok for Darkest Hour to become STR8 RippiN????

[D Moralize]

What i want to know is, why was it ok for Darkest Hour to become STR8 RippiN????

Supposedly because STR8 wasnt a name at the time and therefore they weren't taking it from anyone, I dont agree with that logic but oh well, its not the first time Ogre2 had to win on a team that wasnt FB

[MS eMeRaLd]

thats abit daft, they were taking DH's seed surely??