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Imitation often destroys inovation.
Often will people give you advice to imitate or mimic actions of other more "successfuly" people so you can get same results as they do. How many times did you hear that your boos at your new job suggest you to imitate senior employee so you can be more "cost and work effective"? Are they just trying to play safe to make another "clone" of successful worker? By doing so ther are effectively shutting down anypossibilty of you making innovativeactions that can make benefits for you or company that you work for.
That can vary from business deals, work routines and in our gaming world - Starcraft gameplay. I am not saying that watching good players and implementing some of their play into your own is bad, but everything must have it's borders and by that I mean everything has to has it's limits. I just can't understand why people can't get two best things of two worlds, for example: You can implement part of other players play just enough so you can start being inovative yourself and try to build up your strategy that deviate from his own and by that making your own style that can be deadly and uknown to other players? Why don't use "imitation" just as platform for your longer imagination run that cooks some new bright ideas in your brain?
With only imitating you also limit your improvement and by doing so you potentially limit us all because you may in fact be the person that has destiny to change course of how is this game played or you are person that has destiny to make breakthrough in some company that will give us new and better technologies and etc.
How to improve enough via imitation as your improvement is limited by the one that is set by person you are trying to mimic?
It's natrual for human being to try be sucessful and great at something soon as possible. You can freely reffer to this topic and comparation of real life urge to be "good as fast as possible" with Starcraft gameplay here. But you should really supress this urge and try to be smart before being clockwise 9 till' 4 person just doing something that will in fact produce REGULAR content, sucess or gameplay...but what is it worth if it's not better then other or it's not something that improves us as gamers, players and human beings? Don't suicide your potentials by listening to suggestions that only represent need for constant result that is not improvement but only to get result in it's raw form to feed a need of someone else or maybe just tiny bit of you that wants to get in mass of thousands clones.
Let's bring up Starcraft example of imitation 10/15 Gateway on Medusa/Neo Meudsa. After prominent progamers and then likes like Nony (ex progamer from USA) starte to use it and copy it from it bottom to its up every game - many Protoss gamers done this just abot every game too. This build was very good and strong against Terrans and I did use it with much sucess and won 80% of my games with it. But Terrans started to adopt and my win percentage started to drop and drop using this strategy - it was iminent time to change strategy or be more inovative and implement my "niche" to it. So I started that I needed to do long before being a "clone" - implementing my stuff like going fast Robotics Facility (proxy or not depending on position of my scouting probe) as his scout seen 10/15 gateway and doing fast Reaver drop as he expects mass Ranged Dragoons attack. Often I would even let my Terran opponent scout freely my 10/15 with Cybernatic Core upgrading Air Weapons and then killing his scout and going Dark Templars if he didn't wall in, fast Reaver drop or just hop Dark Templars using probe via Temple that is backdoor to his base.
Notorious Protoss 10/15 was one of "killer strategies" on Medusa and NeoMedusa that many Protoss players copy to destroy Terrans...until they started to adopt .
Another example can be taken in sports where coach is referring to better players and their actions on field so that can not so good players try to incorporate part of their play to make themself better. That is just fine and if new player dosage it good enough to make good start of "path to improvement" and in just right timing try to be innovative and make their decisions based on their thinking and plans to further develop as players. They should not in any circumstance try to full mimic their teammates because we get "clone" effect again, and in other way we get bloody good and deadly lineup that is made from unique "soldiers" - own with his unique skills and good sides that are very potent to destroy anything in their path via their unified skills that are so diffrent. We should also here take in case that team should be in good organization so their unique skills can work together in great manner but about that in another article and another time as it's very interesting subject too.
Do not let that mistakes you do while you experiment with your uniqueness bring you down or justify your imitation because of lose or not succeeding as you are and we are all in form of some greater better or worse - potential for something new and better then is now standard way of doing people know it. Do a favor to yourself and others by trying your best, also you will have more fun by trying it hardest to make your best trough something that is not known until you discover it. Feeling of being proud is very good stimulator that can run another set of events that will unavoidably be something significant in your life.
Being unique dosen't mean you are "broken". Let it be your platform that will make simbioze with already "known" things and produce new innovative product.
Sun Tzu is saying that "Suprise is sharper then sharpest blade", and how to suprise the enemy if you are only identical copy of another one who is possibly already been opponent of your opponent? There is no way to long time success without being unique and innovative, also these way of "work" are harder then sole mimic and that means you will try harder and more stronger and you know... what dosen't kills you or slow you down it will make you more stronger, better and faster. So try to not imitate good (and God forbid someone bad) but only to take note of his mistakes or his good sides and build your own style and way of working things in real life but also in Starcraft.
Take care and sorry for late blog article, I have lot of work and also I started to write news for ICCup website.
Thanks on comments that were very interesting and insightful.
Till next time,
- ReiKo.cry
  
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excellent, maybe tosses' will stop copying bisu now. lol
nice try though, everything in sc has been done and done over and over, by pro's so people copy em. the only origonality these days is in 2x2 low ranks. fact.
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Belgium6772 Posts
This is a nice writeup and I agree with a lot of things you said, cheers!
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17009 Posts
10/15 still beats Pokebunny 100%.
Just saying.
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You know, there is something called spellcheck =/
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i disagree with most of your post
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On September 16 2009 22:39 ghostWriter wrote:
You know, there is something called spellcheck =/
Was that the best thing you could think of to say to someone who's been spending obviously more than an hour writing an interesting article in his second language? 
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i like the way your caption says basically the opposite of what the included caption says on that demotivational poster 
I like what you have to say though. Certain builds are in favor at any given time and most games seem to pit a couple of them against each other. I would imagine mixing it up once in a while can throw your opponent off, a well as opening up the possibility of finding a build that works better for you (as well as having a very long shot at being more useful generally)
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On September 16 2009 22:39 ghostWriter wrote:
You know, there is something called spellcheck =/
As I said in earlier blogs, I am very bussy and I can't proofread text. I write these blogs for 10-15 minutes max while I am finishing my job at offices.
Sorry for grammar mistakes
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On September 16 2009 23:22 MamiyaOtaru wrote:i like the way your caption says basically the opposite of what the included caption says on that demotivational poster
Yeah, that was the point - to make you see that pictures like that are all but true.
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I think innovation in SC is noobs executing random builds to success.
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Point was to make connection between inovative approach in real life and in Starcraft, I'm not saying you must do your own thing every game of Starcraft. Blogs are just there to make you think about this stuff, not to say you how to act or play game of Starcraft
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Good effort, but I'd like to see your next blog be about something less obvious/beaten to death. Such is my main complaint about your blogs.
Actually... I just realised how ironic that makes this blog.
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On September 17 2009 00:15 Chef wrote:
Good effort, but I'd like to see your next blog be about something less obvious/beaten to death. Such is my main complaint about your blogs.
Actually... I just realised how ironic that makes this blog.
You are right and I was thinking about that too...for sure I will try to write about something more "unique"
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This is so fucking gold and true. Props for making this thread brother.
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On September 16 2009 22:39 Empyrean wrote:
10/15 still beats Pokebunny 100%.
Just saying.
So, how's the weather in noobville ?
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btw for future reference when you say "adopt" you meant "adapt." People adopt other children that may have been abandoned or their parents died or something, and take them as their own.
Adapt is to change accordingly, which is what you meant.
Unless you meant that Terran's "adopted" new strategies... of course.
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On September 16 2009 22:39 ghostWriter wrote:
You know, there is something called spellcheck =/
So, is that all you could think of?
Someone wrote an elaborate article, providing examples and different angles to a delicate theme, writing in a language that is not his own, and all you can point out is imperfect spelling?
Seriously, this is just pathetic.
Try writing an essay of this level in Croatian. hf gl.
Maybe it is because you are from the U.S. and you believe it to be mandatory for everyone to use perfect english while you don't need to be able to use any foreign language at all, but that's just a speculation.
Maybe think about it next time before you start posting and stop dwelling in self-centered arrogance.
Regards,
Final_Judicator
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On September 17 2009 05:15 Final_Judicator wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2009 22:39 ghostWriter wrote:
You know, there is something called spellcheck =/ So, is that all you could think of? Someone wrote an elaborate article, providing examples and different angles to a delicate theme, writing in a language that is not his own, and all you can point out is imperfect spelling? Seriously, this is just pathetic. Try writing an essay of this level in Croatian. hf gl. Maybe it is because you are from the U.S. and you believe it to be mandatory for everyone to use perfect english while you don't need to be able to use any foreign language at all, but that's just a speculation. Maybe think about it next time before you start posting and stop dwelling in self-centered arrogance. Regards, Final_Judicator
yeah, he was a bit rude with the spell check thing, but still you just went into uber flame mode. Hell, sometimes people type things a bit fast and it may come out the wrong way. If I were writing an essay in Croatian and then someone advised me to use spell check because I spelled some things wrong. why not take the advice, spell check is a pretty simple tool, no?
why did you sign your post? this is not hate mail and we know who you are already.
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It's OK guys, I can write even without spellchecker so much better but I was in hurry you know... I am doing this thing in snitch of a time when I am free to do so.
Thanks Final_Judicator, you got some point there but it's useless to argue about these things as currently I don't have time to proofread and write slow articles to show my full potential in them, but I hope you enjoy even this. Even if it has some grammar errors in it
@ caldo thanks, but I meant indeed that "Terran did adopt new strategies".
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This post is also very applicable to real life!
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On September 17 2009 06:35 il0seonpurpose wrote:
This post is also very applicable to real life!
Yeah, that was indeed my point, to make you make connection between real life and Starcraft: Brood War.
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The reason why average gamers copy pros is because they don't practice like pros. Yes, innovation is better than imitation, but innovation takes time and effort. Average gamers can't afford to practice a video game 10-12 hours a day, they aren't trying to surpass pros, they just want to get as good as they can as fast as they can. A lot of the things that pros do are completely optimized and literally cannot be improved. Copying these fundamentals can make you improve your basic game much faster than random individual practice.
Also, IMO conformity is a prerequisite for innovation. You can never simply ignore the norm, at very least you have to consider it. Does it make sense to try and invent something "new," if you have no clue about what already exists?
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On September 16 2009 23:02 lazz wrote:
i disagree with most of your post
Going to have to agree (that is, agree to disagree with the OP....lol).
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Innovation can be a crucial component to success in many areas, but so are the lessons you learn from the mistakes of those before you. If someone before you had streamlined a process, you'd be ignorant to dismiss those innovations in favor of creating your own out of principle. "Copying" can be an effective tool to master before you are confident and skilled enough to innovate in any field.
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Thanks ReiKo.. don't let all this spellcheck shit get to you.. I hope to see more in the future.
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What do you mean all this spellcheck shit?
Ignoring the irony in Final_Judicator's "post", I didn't mean to be rude, even though it seems that it came out like that. I was just informing him that there's a simple, widely available tool called spellcheck that would make it more pleasant to read. It was a good thread and he brings up good points, although I'm not sure that I agree with him.
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Keep it cool guys
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I don't mean to be rude either by any means.. it just has to suck for ReiKo, to get this kind of criticism, when he does these entertaining blogs.. mostly it made me sad for him when he replied with the
" Sorry for the grammar mistakes "
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No big deal, there are some grammar mistakes and I'm sorry about that but well, I did say why there are some and my reasons are perfectly normal and I can't do much about it now...
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