| 23 August 2011
It was a few weekends ago where I settled in to start working on some Super Street Fighter IV stats, and then I noticed people talking about the North American Star League finals. The more people talked about it, the more it piqued my interest.
As the final day and the championship began, I said to myself, "OK, I am going to intentionally sit down and watch this just to see what is going on." It captured me, in part because I barely knew what was going on, but people were so welcome to get me in and start learning about Starcraft II.
Let me say that the only Starcraft matches I had ever intentionally watched in the past involved a player named NoNY, and I couldn't understand what he was doing. I'm not putting any blame on NoNY; it's more of my own doing for not being involved in the game.
That NASL final captured me like few matches have ever done. I had a feeling that if I could understand it, numbers-wise, I'd probably enjoy the game a lot more.
That's what this post is about. I'm not going to drag on forever about how there will be a slight shift in coverage on this site. You followers know that I have heavily broken down stats of fighting game tournament matches. That won't change, especially now with Super Street Fighter IV Ver.2012 being released next year.
I know that the stats revolution is a slow one. There were more questions and interest about stats in the weeks following Evolution 2011 than there were in the year before that. Laughter and mockery has been mostly replaced with questions and interest. That tells me people want to know more about the stats they put up in fighting games.
Extensive stats of StarCraft II? I see it as a possibility.
It'll be a slow process, but I want to find those little tidbits that make matches interesting. What numbers are important? How do units factor into matches? What do players tend to care about? Is there truly one race out of the three that is overwhelmingly dominant? I don't know any of this. But over time, by collecting data, I'll get an idea.
I want to learn more than anyone else about this game. Yeah, I'm late to the dance, but I'll get there, slowly.
Help me out in this stats revolution by leaving a comment here or talk to me on Twitter.
