An open letter to the greater sc2sea community and sc2online...
Hello friends,
I have noticed of late, how desolate and empty this website has been. The once bustling hub of South East Asian Starcraft 2 community is reduced to streambot and the occasional tournament bracket being linked.
Obviously the community is significantly dwindling and there are less active members of the community, but I do believe there are still a larger amount of active members of this site, just NO ONE posts or talks to each other anymore, its a bit of a catch 22 - not conversation > so you don't post either > so there is no conversation.
I don't want to just sit by and watch it all fade away... I believe there are two major decisions that everyone needs to make for this hub, or cultural home of this community to survive.
Firstly, Post - talk - share.. make conversations with no one, eventually others will continue the conversation. I remember how great it used to be to have conversations with so many various opinions and characters within the scene. There are a few less people, but still plenty to make a conversation.
Secondly, and this is an open request to Eddie... Get rid of SC2ONLINE website and bring everything back to the hub. There is minimal activity in sc2online - no one ever wanted to split the community onto two websites but yourself. I understand you wanted your own thing and a bit of control on the site - but this is the page everyone has book marked, you're not going to change that. I love what you've created there, but there isn't the spirit behind sc2online that there is here. Perhaps there is a better way of doing this rather than scrapping what you've made there... Take over sc2sea? bring in other blizzard games to a larger community site? implement significant changes to sc2online so that we can feel at home. What do I mean by that? 100% with out ANY doubt, the hub of this community has been the chatbox. Front and centre as it is here... it was the #1 feature used by everyone in this community. There are more chat lines that forums post by miles. Implement this COMMUNITY focus and then the community will consider moving. Without it, the tournaments are not with the community and both will (and will continue to) suffer. Also fix up the website, a community is built around a forum and a chatbox, all the other promotional stuff on sc2online is secondary without the community. The functionality of that website isn't for the community, its for your amazing tournament series, while that is flourishing, the community the develops the talent to fuel your tournaments is not. You have to see this as what fuels your future success and understand it is vital
Please share your thoughts on what I have presented above, I only hold one opinion, but I believe its not an uncommon opinion.
One Love.
ChadMann.
EDIT: A few people have messaged me saying they would like to contribute to news articles and fixing up the site... PAPERCLIP - can we please get some new people mod and news article access please? - Who else is an active mod besides me and Nem?
Would love to see the community come back at some point, but with most people I also dont have the time to sink in help with things. The old style BSG and GPD were great, and when in that situation were good fun ways to play without being super serious. Masters cup same deal and everything else was great then.
If it came back to life I might be more likely to play on the basis of I have people to socialize with and play, although mGG is great to do that with (even if the skype is a bit casual :P)
Well since this is all in ideas and maybe things will happen, I will offer my services to cast if needed and im free :P. Also I do officially freelance with illustration so if that helps anyone in anyway hit me up!
I want to help out but yea guys just ask me and will do what I can
Totally open to having new people take leadership, new mods, news posters, etc. I've just been too busy IRL to keep up and honestly I have no idea who's active anymore. So, anyone who wants to step up, please just let me or another existing mod know.
Exactly this!
If anyone wants to take over the leadership of the site, let us know.
I doubt SC2SEA will even be popular again because everyone would have grown up already and sc2sea was the last great RTS. SC2SEA had its moment and now it's gone but that's life. everyone has grown up etc.
I am fine just keeping the site alive in memory of what the site once was. So i still pay the bills no worries about that.
On a sidenote, I just saw Benji streaming, what a familiar sight hahaha.
I doubt SC2SEA will even be popular again because everyone would have grown up already and sc2sea was the last great RTS. SC2SEA had its moment and now it's gone but that's life. everyone has grown up etc.
I am fine just keeping the site alive in memory of what the site once was. So i still pay the bills no worries about that.
On a sidenote, I just saw Benji streaming, what a familiar sight hahaha.
This is just sheer dedication to the community. CMIIW but isnt paying to keep the site up pretty expensive? (Like 200 to 300 dollars per month or somethin)
Not sure if anyone is going to read this though, but honestly I spent roughly 2 years of my life being a part of this community, starting from a humble bronze league protoss that can only do 4gates in every matchup into getting accepted into Team Night and eventually getting into clan wars and BSG weeklys. I still remember nemesis acting like the responsible parent in the mGG clan and hanging out in the channels with Aetheros and cruXKiss if I am not mistaken.
Now everyone apparently has moved on with their lives, and I am no exception. To see this site this empty is bittersweet - knowing the fact that people has moved on to something hopefully better in their lives but knowing that you just lost a once precious community.
Well, time to reminince the past by looking at my previous posts, damn time flies by so quickly.
___________________________________
Formerly known as neozxa
Instead of complaining about balance, try, try again.
Earlygame ZvZ is basically a knifefight with suicide bombers.
This is just sheer dedication to the community. CMIIW but isnt paying to keep the site up pretty expensive? (Like 200 to 300 dollars per month or somethin)
Not sure if anyone is going to read this though, but honestly I spent roughly 2 years of my life being a part of this community, starting from a humble bronze league protoss that can only do 4gates in every matchup into getting accepted into Team Night and eventually getting into clan wars and BSG weeklys. I still remember nemesis acting like the responsible parent in the mGG clan and hanging out in the channels with Aetheros and cruXKiss if I am not mistaken.
Now everyone apparently has moved on with their lives, and I am no exception. To see this site this empty is bittersweet - knowing the fact that people has moved on to something hopefully better in their lives but knowing that you just lost a once precious community.
Well, time to reminince the past by looking at my previous posts, damn time flies by so quickly.
Yeah man, its certainly bittersweet to have such a drop from the community we once had... I've also had some great times being part of things here and this site will always be special to me.
Good to see you on here again, I'm sure there will always be people here and I hope the community builds back a bit in the future.
I think it's pretty clear a lot of people would love this to be back to where it was but a mixture of declining player base and the time investment vs reward being too low right now for people to put the effort in has us be where it is.. plus to be completely honest it would feel forced in a lot of ways.
StarCraft Remastered is our best chance of any resemblance of a community atmosphere returning. It will provide a surge in active players but it will be a tall order to get enough momentum off it - but it's the best chance. I would suggest efforts go into planning on release of that.
I'll see if there's anything I can cook up from ESL / Blizzard side upon its launch.
LotV launch was your best chance. SC:R outside of Korea will be pitiful, and the hype will be very short-lived.
So many players (including myself for a bit there) were hanging out, patiently hoping that there was something big after/during the initial LotV release time - but people started fully dropping the game out of frustration with the recycled 'soonTM' line.
This year's been a great year (and will continue to be) for grass-roots events. Probe's been doing incredible work hosting his LANs and PSL events, whilst they might be smaller events than those 2015 ACLs, the local skill & community are there.
If what I hear about some of the grass-roots/local events later this year are true - I guess things will be fine anyway. Hell, I'm even pushing for a decently-sized Adelaide LAN Q3/Q4 of the year. ^^
Don't get me wrong though - having been to my first ACL events in 2015, and experiencing the community & atmosphere - it really sucks to be without that for so long, and I'm extremely thankful to you & everyone else involved in the management/organization of those events. ♥
Baldie you can try to capitalise on the hype with a Remastered LAN, but you might get good turnout at one event if its close to release. After that the number you'd get wouldn't be any higher than an SC2 LAN.
Honestly though I don't get it, the last two ACL events in 2015 seemed like they were very successful. If they had all been ACL Sydney 2013 shitty levels of attendance I'd understand not hosting more, but you haven't really given the community a chance since then. Events such as PiGsty Cup should be hard proof that the interest and community atmosphere is still present, it just needs big events to cultivate it.
___________________________________
The Transformer Zerg, Jadron Burgerman @Soundwave
___________________________________ www.twitch.tv/switchaus @andrewthomasrrr
"The hardest part about playing Protoss is not choking on your dad's d--k" - Kreamy 2013
Even the smallest donations help keep sc2sea running! All donations go towards helping our site run including our monthly server hosting fees and sc2sea sponsored community tournaments we host. Find out more here.