Last week I was at a family reunion with everyone on my mom's side. Being the tremendous Starcraft II nerds we are, my brother and I took this opportunity to draw our cousins into this most engrossing of game titles ^^
Of course, we got a lot of complaints from the stodgy adults, who wanted us to spend time "outdoors," as stodgy adults are wont to want (we were at a lakehouse in Pennsylvania somewhere).
Don't get me wrong: I enjoy canoeing and Ultimate Frisbee and so on. However, I thought it was unfair that people like my mother could expect us to spend all our time on their favorite activities while turning up their noses at mine.
So I got my mom and my aunt to agree to a best-of-one Starcraft II grudge match.
The following pair of ten-minute videos tells the story of this epic, ground-shaking game.
After all, if Day[9]'s Funday Mondays have taught us anything, it is that hardly anything is more fun than watching jaw-droppingly horrible people play Starcraft II. And no one -- NO ONE -- is worse at video games than my mother.
She went into this game with NO prior computer game experience, let alone Starcraft experience. Same deal for my aunt. They had no inkling of strategy, no mouse precision to speak of -- not even an idea of their objective in the game! Without someone to help them along, they probably would have taken an hour to send their drones to mine.
With this in mind, my brother and I consented to allow our cousins to lend their 5 days of Starcraft II knowledge to the combatants. What ensued was either a wildly hilarious or an excruciatingly agonizing 25 Blizzard minutes of Terran vs Terran, depending on how you look at it.
Part One:
Part Two:
Parts of the videos are a bit dry, but if you stick around long enough to catch the climactic battle at the 15 minute mark (Blizzard Time), you will be glad you did.
This is the face of true noobery. Think of it as an experiment in terrible, terrible Starcraft II play. Not to mention terrible advice from coaches with only the flimsiest of comprehension when it comes to this beautiful, enigmatic E-Sport. I thought that by sharing this video, I might be able to remind us just how hard a game Starcraft II really is. There's a lot of talk going around about it being easy, especially compared to Brood War, but for people like my cousins and my mother, it might as well be quantum physics.
So even if you're in the bottom of the bronze league, you may take solace in the following fact: you could kick my mom's ass any day of the week. Hell, YOUR mom could probably kick my mom's ass. The very easy AI could beat her with half its transistors tied behind its back.
Chin up, Nooby Tuesday participants. Starcraft II is a hard game. I promise.
Your cousin calling Thors "Trons' reminds me of myself back when I used to call Super Smash Bros. Melee "Super Smash Brothers Melanme". Yep, quite embarrasing but w/e I was 9.
So good! My father loves RTS games but, for the life of him, can't play at all and I will never teach him (He bought AOE2 and just enjoys watching us play).
Hilarious video yet at the same time... a bit frustrating for me haha! I had my own mother play video-games once, we played Mario Kart Double-Dash and she was the only person somehow to manage to make the Mushroom boost item to go backwards.
lol...my mom just straight up admits that 99% of games are too hard for her to understand, shes so 1 dimensional. The line is Scrabble and some card games haha, the only things she wins . Though in her defense I play a lot of intense games that require a lot of knowledge of rules.(Magic, DBZ TCg, Hakusho TCG, Starcraft 1, Starcraft 2, Super Smash Bros). Its cool to see some of the older generations at least attempting it.
Not entirely sure whether you and your cousin are the pioneers of getting mothers involved in SC2 grudge matches, but (if I could) I'd give both of you e-sports medals. Good job and thank you for sharing!
Also,
On July 04 2011 10:17 stahlvogel wrote: she's a total MILP
On July 04 2011 13:07 GinDo wrote: Wow seeing a 10 year old teach his mother how to play Starcraft makes me question who exactly am I playing against online and who i'm losing to.
I need some alone time. -_-
mental trick.always assume you are playing against Flash.
Just the other week I was teaching my friend how to play and she kept hovering over the Move/Hold/Stop/Attack commands and reading the tooltips when asking how to make buildings. Within the space of 2 hours she learned how to deselect units with shift and came upon the weird association that she could only make zerglings after injecting larvae.
Just the virtue of your mum clicking on the mini-map to move shows some latent talent - hell, she might get into silver someday :D
On July 04 2011 13:14 iNcontroL wrote: you have amazing patience.. wow
I would love to see Anna coached Starcraft by the EG team in a program called.. 12 Weeks with the Bros.. please?
On July 04 2011 13:07 GinDo wrote: Wow seeing a 10 year old teach his mother how to play Starcraft makes me question who exactly am I playing against online and who i'm losing to.
I need some alone time. -_-
I've actually got a replay of that 10 year old playing a 1v1 on my account vs a diamond protoss. A short replay, lol. I can post it if people are interested ^^
Wait so you're saying that sc2 is a hard game because your mum and aunt, people who probably don't use computers more than once a week, found it exceedingly difficult? Sorry this game is alot easier than bw and alot easier than you're describing it to be :\ 1/5
On July 04 2011 14:48 Scaramanga wrote: Wait so you're saying that sc2 is a hard game because your mum and aunt, people who probably don't use computers more than once a week, found it exceedingly difficult? Sorry this game is alot easier than bw and alot easier than you're describing it to be :\ 1/5
I would agree that SC2 is a relatively difficult game for someone who's never played before. I've introduced SC2 to a couple of my friends who have no SC/RTS experience whatsoever and it took them a long while to get the hang of even very basic mechanics. They use computers every day and also both play video and computer games.
On July 04 2011 13:07 GinDo wrote: Wow seeing a 10 year old teach his mother how to play Starcraft makes me question who exactly am I playing against online and who i'm losing to.
I need some alone time. -_-
mental trick.always assume you are playing against Flash.
but wow this should be spotlighted!
to that mental trick...i use it all the time, problem is it makes me assume that my opponent will defend things perfectly and i will just blatantly lose xD it keeps me on edge enough to win a good deal of games though lol
On July 04 2011 13:11 BLinD-RawR wrote: but wow this should be spotlighted!
You guys are way too nice
On July 04 2011 14:48 Scaramanga wrote: Wait so you're saying that sc2 is a hard game because your mum and aunt, people who probably don't use computers more than once a week, found it exceedingly difficult? Sorry this game is alot easier than bw and alot easier than you're describing it to be :\ 1/5
Sorry if it came across as a SC2 vs BW post -- I completely agree that BW is harder than SC2. However I personally find SC2 pretty challenging all the same, and I think a lot of other people do too. People who are not my mom and my aunt. Sorry to have offended, sir ^^
On July 04 2011 22:59 gROOT.cuddles wrote: I still don't understand how the concept of A-Clicking is such a hard concept to grasp haha. Nice vids :D
This is so much more than just moms playing Starcraft. It's a cultural shift to acceptance of gaming. For better or worse, it's happening right now and when adults enjoy Starcraft, SC2 in NA will rival SC2 in Korea.
Yeah this is all part of a plan of mine. When I get to that age where I have kids, nieces,nephews, etc.I will pretend like I know nothing of any video games. One day these punks will ask me to play a game I supposedly am too old or stupid to play. They won't even know what's coming.
My wife plays and she is quite good at the game. She knows all the hot keys and knows specific build orders. One of the things I have been working with her on is how to Attack move, rather then just Move die
this reminds of one of my friends who played SC2 the first time , and he didnt even manage to see a difference between a worker and a marine and i had to rage a lot :D
On July 04 2011 14:48 Scaramanga wrote: Wait so you're saying that sc2 is a hard game because your mum and aunt, people who probably don't use computers more than once a week, found it exceedingly difficult? Sorry this game is alot easier than bw and alot easier than you're describing it to be :\ 1/5
Really, really, this video set you up for a BW>SC2 superiority rage and made you give it 1/5 thinking it's someone trying to prove the opposite.
Awesome video, and your mum and aunt are quite awesome to not only try it out, but to agree on being filmed while doing it, your family rocks dude, 5/5!
On July 04 2011 14:48 Scaramanga wrote: Wait so you're saying that sc2 is a hard game because your mum and aunt, people who probably don't use computers more than once a week, found it exceedingly difficult? Sorry this game is alot easier than bw and alot easier than you're describing it to be :\ 1/5
LOL this is so awesome! my mom's used a computer like twice in her life so i doubt i could do anything like this with her. That kid was jokes, Trons lool
On July 04 2011 14:48 Scaramanga wrote: Wait so you're saying that sc2 is a hard game because your mum and aunt, people who probably don't use computers more than once a week, found it exceedingly difficult? Sorry this game is alot easier than bw and alot easier than you're describing it to be :\ 1/5
Hahahaha
I can't believe that is what you took away from this blog... sometimes people amaze me in the worst ways.
More on topic, I have no clue how you were able to get them to play this game, but kudos to you for doing it!
On July 04 2011 22:59 gROOT.cuddles wrote: I still don't understand how the concept of A-Clicking is such a hard concept to grasp haha. Nice vids :D
when i played starcraft broodwar the first time i played i think weeks or months until i learned to use the a key. And when i learned it from an older cousin of my friend, it felt like cheating at first ! ^^
On July 04 2011 22:59 gROOT.cuddles wrote: I still don't understand how the concept of A-Clicking is such a hard concept to grasp haha. Nice vids :D
when i played starcraft broodwar the first time i played i think weeks or months until i learned to use the a key. And when i learned it from an older cousin of my friend, it felt like cheating at first ! ^^
true story.
lol when I first started playing sc1 (prior to bw's existence for some time frame) I never used a-move I used p-move cause I assumed when you hit a you had to click a single unit, but patrol would kill everything in its path... there and back. Amazing problem solving skills as a 10 year old.
I showed my mother this and she immediately said "I bet you 20 bucks I could play much better than them in a 1 on 1 with you in Star Craft and even beat you". I accept and put a copy of Star Craft on her computer. Less than 3 minutes into the game I have lings in my base. I had chosen terran but don't know any good wall-ins nor how to defend against ling rushes with terran. I immediately stack my SCVs and attack the lings. The lings die after killing 7 SCVs. I knew she must have scouted here last or close to it as we were 1v1ing on BGH(Just so she doesn't have to expand ^_^). I then sent all my SCVs and a rine to her base and began hitting HER drones. She left saying "I don't bet with my own children so no money." I then proceeded to steal $5 from her purse when she was in the rest room. Sadly, I forgot to save the replay .
Some weeks ago i tried to teach my 8 year old brother, which resultedin some oft the same problems :> We played against a very easy Computer and he had one marine when the comp sent one zealot, but it was very funny :D
On July 04 2011 14:48 Scaramanga wrote: Wait so you're saying that sc2 is a hard game because your mum and aunt, people who probably don't use computers more than once a week, found it exceedingly difficult? Sorry this game is alot easier than bw and alot easier than you're describing it to be :\ 1/5
I would not have the patience to do this. I think this teaches us the importance of patience as it has created one of the more epic things. We will now be introducing: The MSL of SC2
Eventually the phrase soccer mum will fade away, and be replaced with starcraft mum.
On July 04 2011 14:48 Scaramanga wrote: Wait so you're saying that sc2 is a hard game because your mum and aunt, people who probably don't use computers more than once a week, found it exceedingly difficult? Sorry this game is alot easier than bw and alot easier than you're describing it to be :\ 1/5
What are you talking about. SC2 is way harder than BW, clicking on buildings is so easy.
On July 04 2011 14:48 Scaramanga wrote: Wait so you're saying that sc2 is a hard game because your mum and aunt, people who probably don't use computers more than once a week, found it exceedingly difficult? Sorry this game is alot easier than bw and alot easier than you're describing it to be :\ 1/5
What are you talking about. SC2 is way harder than BW, clicking on buildings is so easy.
PS. I'm broke, can I have my $20 back plz?
This sentence confuses me. To make it less confusing, please put a /endsarcasm or something of that nature at the end of the sentence. No better than Scar though. I don't think this should be the thread to shit on SC2 like Scar is doing.
Hahaha, the one time I tried to explain the game to my mom and sisters, they didn't understand why you lose all the money you have at the end of games and don't get it back and have to start over at the start of the next one. "You mean you have to redo all that building every game?!?!?" Was her comment.
Well done good sir, I'd like to know the conversation that went down for this to come about, would be interesting good luck on training them, we should see game 5 shortly?
"my mom needs a supply depot!" hahahaha this is amazing. really painful but amazing i wonder how my parents would do at this game....dang it now im curious!
Wow, Now I will have to go on a quest to teach my mom playing starcraft. You guys have great patience OP! 5/5 blog for the effort and great family atmosphere.
On July 07 2011 10:19 DeepBlu2 wrote: I would not have the patience to do this. I think this teaches us the importance of patience as it has created one of the more epic things. We will now be introducing: The MSL of SC2
Mother's Starcraft league
... with the Finals taking place on the Queen Mary II - guess how it will be named like ^^
Also loved the Magic cards in the backround. All-american gamers.
I had my mother go with me to the GSL Season 2 Finals last October and she started to see how the game worked. Before that she was able to watch it on TV on Ongamenet, MBCGame and GSL via streaming. When she started watching she would always ask, "What does that little bug do"?, think that there were three races of bugs. So after explaining she enjoyed watching the games. When I introduced her the single player, that was a little bit rough. She does play games like Blasterball and Bejeweled.
If my mother could understand it, and she's 57, what would happen when the game gets true exposure like Korea does? Getting off target, SC2 needs to get on G4TV. There is no reason why when anime and old movies fill up time slots on a electronic and gaming cable TV station.
Edit: I also noticed that whenever you try to teach non-RTS literate people Starcraft one of their first questions is always, "How do I know he's there?" when you tell them to send their units to attack. It's kind of funny how that awareness of simple things like that takes experience. (Just like gathering resources right away or command center placement)
On July 07 2011 23:03 Haze.884 wrote: My dad bought me Starcraft 1 as my birthday gift when it came out. Since then, he played SC1 (and broodwar) Co-op A.I. with me :D
ATM, he is a supporter of KT, and especially Flash. Even though we are in NZ, we download a lot of Flash's matches and watch them.
He doesn't like sc2 though :/ He think its too hard to watch.
I consider myself to be extremely lucky to have Dad who understands my hobby.
This is wonderful. It's great when we get non-gamers to try SC, even if they don't take it up as a hobby themselves. It helps break down the barriers that exist between gamers and non-gamers.
My friend has a 50-some inch LCD tv hooked up to his desktop and sometimes we have our girlfriends play on laptops while he observes on the tv. It doesn't even matter that they can see the observer, it's enough of a challenge to keep building workers. Generally the first person who figures out how to attack move wins.
On July 04 2011 10:07 Misanthrope wrote: Get Totalbiscuit in on this and you have a #winning product.
Good day and welcome to another addition of Shoutcast. I'm Total Biscuit. Two players. Both enter, both don't know quite how to win. Drama. Intrigue. Marines. I'm Total Biscuit. And you are reading this in my voice
On July 04 2011 10:07 Misanthrope wrote: Get Totalbiscuit in on this and you have a #winning product.
Good day and welcome to another addition of Shoutcast. I'm Total Biscuit. Two players. Both enter, both don't know quite how to win. Drama. Intrigue. Marines. I'm Total Biscuit. And you are reading this in my voice
Yes, yes I did.
OT Always glad to see people sharing their love of SC2 with others.
I wish I had a family like yours. I have to had the fact that I play starcraft otherwise they'd see its a complete waste of time and try and ban me from playing it. I hate having old and backward parents
yeah I never realized that left and right clicking things could be so difficult until I tried to teach my girlfriend how to play some. She was able to work her way up to beating the medium ai consistently and the hard ai sometimes on her own though!
You could off guided them yourselves and not those kids. That way at least ur moms would understand the concepts of the game. The way those little dudes do it, I bet it makes your moms feel the game is even a bigger waste of time than they already thought.
On July 04 2011 10:07 Misanthrope wrote: Get Totalbiscuit in on this and you have a #winning product.
Good day and welcome to another addition of Shoutcast. I'm Total Biscuit. Two players. Both enter, both don't know quite how to win. Drama. Intrigue. Marines. I'm Total Biscuit. And you are reading this in my voice
I do love mr. biscuit ^^
On July 07 2011 10:19 DeepBlu2 wrote: We will now be introducing: The MSL of SC2
Mother's Starcraft league
Wouldn't mind seeing this version of the MSL formed either haha
On July 04 2011 13:36 Kontemptuous wrote: This is awesome.
Just the other week I was teaching my friend how to play and she kept hovering over the Move/Hold/Stop/Attack commands and reading the tooltips when asking how to make buildings. Within the space of 2 hours she learned how to deselect units with shift and came upon the weird association that she could only make zerglings after injecting larvae.
Just the virtue of your mum clicking on the mini-map to move shows some latent talent - hell, she might get into silver someday :D
On July 04 2011 13:14 iNcontroL wrote: you have amazing patience.. wow
I would love to see Anna coached Starcraft by the EG team in a program called.. 12 Weeks with the Bros.. please?
Oh. My. God. THIS, please Geoff, please. have you, Greg, Bryce, Lz and all the others coach Anna one by one. (assuming Anna is a total noob at SC2 would only make it more fun) so we can have uNcontroLlable climbing the SC2 ladder!
This is pure gold. I don't have time to watch the full thing right now, but I love how it takes one mom over sixty seconds just to get her SCVs mining. I'd like to see how they fare against Very Easy A.I.
This reminds me of when I convinced my own mother to play a very easy computer, I must say she did better than these mothers but not by much.
She had recently discovered the internets benefits with facebook etc so I guess she was into the controls a bit. Eventually she managed to win, though after a discussion of wanting to spare her enemy and make him an ally instead. I carefully explained that the computer would show no such mercy were he to be the aggressor.
I ended up guiding her to make a drop, nearly loosing the medivac to one single stalker after trying to make the drop for a while. She was quite stressed that all the poor units inside would go down to their death.
I think it made her understand my gaming a bit better, especially after I showed her a replay of me playing and then showing her own replay. The amazement was priceless. Now I totally wish I recorded it!
Thanks for refreshing my memory of that awesome moment. Awesome post, you guys are epic!
Great Job guys, introducing your family to sc2 and having fun at the same time , i gota say though u must have some insane patience for this, would love to see more though :D
On July 07 2011 20:03 Nuf wrote: Moms plays WoW. Grandmothers plays WoW. What's going to stop them from getting in to StarCraft, once they realize it's such a good and rewarding game?
On July 04 2011 15:48 Cyber_Cheese wrote: I think you went about teaching them wrong, explain what things do to start, don't just tell them what they should do from the get-go
This is very important. If you only tell somebody "Do this, now do that, than do that" They won't learn anything. Maybe after some time they will learn to imitate. But if you tell them the goals they have, and what they need to accomplish them, it is both more interesting for them and much more effective. Then you can get into the mechanical steps of actually accomplishing that.
For example, just mentioning why you have the scvs rightclick on the minerals would help a lot.
On July 04 2011 14:48 Scaramanga wrote: Wait so you're saying that sc2 is a hard game because your mum and aunt, people who probably don't use computers more than once a week, found it exceedingly difficult? Sorry this game is alot easier than bw and alot easier than you're describing it to be :\ 1/5
User was warned for this post
Was that a serious post? lol. Maybe it's just a troll and now I'll be the one looking stupid, but that really wasn't what you should take away from this..
I remember waaaay back in the day I tried to get my mom to play brood war. It amazed me then how it took minutes for her to figure out how to start mining. This video was reassuring. I enjoyed it man.
those videos were the most painful and heart warming thing I've ever seen relating to SC2!!! Thanks so much for sharing. Your family seems so genuinely nice.
Wow, that is quite impressive, how'd you even get them to start playing? I tried getting my ex to play, everytime i mention starcraft she just gets pissed lol
Major props to everyone in the video, including behind the camera! You were very patient and that made it even better. However, like Simberto said a couple posts above me, if the "coaches" would have explained what they had to do and the reasoning behind it instead of just "do this, now do that", I think they would've caught on much faster.
The one time I actually got my girlfriend to play the brood wars campaign a bit, she was just so worried 'cuz she was getting attacked by zerglings but wasn't able to move back so she just sat in astonished horror as the dragoon (the dancing one) got mutilated. Then she said she'll play again if there're bunnies who hop around.
Anyways, it's good that you were able to document this momentous occasion. Perhaps if they keep playing and get better, then you can show them this video later and they can call their previous selves "such noobs"!
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rQNkQ.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JgLVc.png)
. Though in her defense I play a lot of intense games that require a lot of knowledge of rules.(Magic, DBZ TCg, Hakusho TCG, Starcraft 1, Starcraft 2, Super Smash Bros). Its cool to see some of the older generations at least attempting it.
![[image loading]](http://files.sharenator.com/Slow_Clap_RE_ITS_A_GIF_PARTY-s420x315-140048-580.gif)
. ![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/disciple/ABCmsl/articleban2.jpg)
