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(This is a rant post. Not a Balance/whine/battlefield post about sc2 v bw, and so help me god if ANYONE even remotely tries to bring up such a discussion I will go to your house and shove toothpaste up your nose!)
13 years ago, I remember the very first time I played starcraft. I remember staying up late helping Jim Raynor get those data disks in the campaign, freaked out the first time I saw a battle cruiser, and wondered just why people had AOL as their preferred ISP (Believe it or not, more then 30% of the players in the original battle.net had 56k).
And you know what? I played the shit outta that game all throughout my childhood. I freaked when my parents got me the expansion for Christmas. I felt giggity the first time I saw lurkers kill endless waves of units, or how medics would actually heal up bob the marine because he used 3 to many stims (this was when I thought stim would stack).
Even though I was but a lad (7 when I first played the original starcraft, and I think 8 or 9 when I played BW) and had literally no idea what was going on, I still thought it was the best damn game EVER. There was always something new and exciting for me back then. Whether it was making an entire wall of supply depos to ensure those zerglings have to kill each one to reach my base, or playing one of the trillions of UMS games out there - I was enchanted. In fact, it wasn't until I turned 14 (7 years later) did I even bother to pick up another game (That game actually ended up being Halo 1 and halo 2. The later would be the first game I would use to get myself to MLG).
Even now I still remember the little things like finding out about dark swarm. Hell, my first experience with it was actually on the campaign where you have to protect kerrigan in a cocoon while killing Edmund dukes forces. I tried using dark swarm to get by 5 tanks while running lings up a ramp. It didnt work. In fact my exact reaction was "Wow wtf? Who the hell would ever use such a crappy spell? All it does is prevent wraiths from killing ground units" and promptly said to myself zerg must be the crappiest race because of dark swarm (Of course, 7 years later when I got involved in the competitive aspect of starcraft my feelings switched entirely, and actually ended up using zerg as my main).
Between then and when sc2 was announced, I usually spent my time on UMS and figuring out how stealthbot worked and how to best utilize it for a clan to protect from spam bots (Actually, this is where I started to learn C#, and why stealthbot is the worst OP bot you can use). The game fascinated me in more ways then I imagined. To me back then, running a guild with bots was just part of the game experience. I never knew that the game was originally supposed to be limited to just the melee, I just grew accustomed to what the community was evolving to and I loved every moment of it. Of course, it was more then just "setting up bots" and "UMS" games that soaked up my time. It was the sense of community. Over the years I met many many many people through battle.net (some to this day I still know and a couple I know personally), the fact I could meet someone to talk about random BS over a game I loved was astounding (Gimmie a break here, this was before AOL's IM). At this point, BW become more then just a game - it ended up being a whole era in my life, learning things that would take public schooling at least 5 years to catch up to.
Fast forward to 2007, when sc2 would first be announced, my thoughts swirled. All I could think about was "Holy shit, They are remaking the best game of the century!" I would often ponder what things they would add, how awesome it would be, and - although a long shot, actually try my hand in getting into competitive gaming as I was rather late to the scene. I still remembered how I would always watch replays or vods of Nal_Ra, boxer, Nada and the like. I still remember the first game of boxer I watched where he was playing as zerg against some protoss player (bisu? No...) on lost temple. The game ended within 6 minuets by the most simplest of ways... Burrowed zerglings. Seriously, all boxer did was get zergling speed, followed by burrow and made endless waves of zerglings, constantly chucking them at the protoss until he had to gg. While nothing impressive to todays standards, to me it was mind boggling, "What the hell?!" was the only thing I could mutter. From that day on I would grab every boxer replay I could get - long after he switched to terran and I zerg.
Then, that day happened. On july 27, 2010, Starcraft 2 - the SEQUEL TO BROODWAR was released. I, among at least a hundred at my local gamestop waited for what seemed like hours in the dark, humid night until we got our copy of sc2. This was the first time in my life I ever stayed up all night to go to a midnight release of a video game and at the time, it felt more then that.
It took me only 20 minuets to ride back to my house on my brothers bike - about 4 miles away to throw sc2 in my computer.
I played at lest 10 levels of the campaign that night, trying to relive the nostalgia I felt a decade ago.
I felt.
I felt.
I felt.
Nothing.
Sure, the campaign was fun for what it was - a diluted form of a bad hollywood film but I just didnt felt those awe inspiring moments I did in BW - like when you leave kerrigan to die at the hands of the zerg, or the first time you killed a cerebrate, or even flooding the homeworld of auir. I really didnt feel any of those kinds of moments.
As for multiplayer - well, Ill just sum up with 1 phrase "1a". Yes, thats how I feel about the multiplayer. Want to prove me wrong? Show me one (1) player, pro or otherwise, that uses at least 6 hotkeys for his main army consistently all game.
Of course its not just the crappy stuff vs stuff fights that bother me, its the fact that when blizzard made sc2 the left out the key ingredient that made BW such an AMAZING game, the sense of community. In sc2 I feel like its an empty void with chat channels held together with duct tape. It just boggles my mind blizzard would leave out such a important aspect of not only starcraft in general, but video game design as a whole. Its because of the community I stayed playing BW for so long, and now - well all I really have is TL which at this point when compared to how it used to be - is really like reddit. Just endless threads about how 1 second in X building screws up the 10 second upgrade window for this race and why this race needs to be nerfed, this one needs to be buffed. How anyone - Especially the mods can be sane reading the crap in the SC2 threads for longer then a month deserves recognition.
Unfortunately, times changed. For better or for worse ill leave that up to the community to decide. But as it stands, BW just isnt the same game it was only 3 years ago.
Hell, the only reason I play sc2 is because BW is getting more difficult each time to work with. Not because of hackers, or the lack of respect I was accustomed to in the old battle.net, or even because I got used to the SC2 interface. Its because of technological limitations. Having to re-setup router configurations just to host a game, change monitor resolution everytime I want to start up BW, lack of players to play against or the old community that was there. All shred to pieces.
If I had my way, I wish sc2 was never made. At least not in the way it was. All this mumbo jumbo about "Esports" has gone way over everyone's heads, including the developers. Seriously, when BW was made, no. When starcraft was made, no one knew or cared what the hell "E-Sports" was. What the original blizzard was making was a damn fun game to play. They weren't designing it with any purpose in mind besides making a sci-fi RTS. What the COMMUNITY ended up doing was making major tournaments with this game. It really wasn't until 2004 did corporations start taking note of starcraft and the amount of people playing the game.
Of course, what really kills me is the fact that Dustin browder and most of the TL community all just repeat the same phrase, "If you want to play BW, play BW" whenever discussion is brought up. Completely killing what BW was, is or meant to a lot of people. To see so many tarnish a video game just for "the sake of Esports" is the most downright &#*$%$# thing I've ever conceived.
So in the end, @&%^ you blizzard. You killed my optimistic view on what you could of done with a great sequel. Instead of learning from your success with BW, you instead only paved a game and treated it not as a game to crush critics and completely skyrocket the bar on successful RTS games, but instead as a game to win back IP rights and monetize "esports". It pains me in more ways then most people know. Instead of making a game better then its predecessor what was instead created was an "alternative".
I guess thats just the thing most sc2 players wont understand when bw/sc2 discussions happen. It wasn't just about the game, but about the communities that surrounded BW and made it what it was.
Holy jesus. You know, when I originally set out to write a blog about how strongly I felt against the sc2 players who dont understand what BW meant or felt like, I never really intended to write as much as I did, and I very well would of written more if it weren't for the fact its already 2 in the morning.
 
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nostalgia is a hell of a thing
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everyone that played bw knows this already, but we just accept sc2 for what it is. inferior, yes, but good for esports. esports would not be this big with bw. do we wish it was bw and not sc2? yes. but esports wouldn't live if sc2 didn't come out.
But i kinda agree about the community aspect. The BW community was full of individuals who loved the game and wanted nothing in return. Half the people in SC2 suck at the game, contribute nothing, and yet they feel they should get attention and all they do is try to promote themselves. Like 80% of all casters suck at sc2 and suck at casting
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I think the main difference is that you not a kid anymore. those same awesome moments that happen in game when you where 15 dont do the same thing when your 25. at least, thats how it is for me.
but I have grown to love SC2 for what it is, and, god willing, I still have BW.
A new season is starting soon 
The SC2 community is just as fun and tight and special as the BW one is. I did not think so at first, but I realized that I was looking at it through rose glasses. I wanted SC2 to be just like BW that when I found out it wasent, I felt betrayed by blizz. Now that I have accepted the fact that SC2 is not BW, I can appreciate it more without having to constantly compare it to BW. I think Blizz is going in the right direction with HotS.
I guess what Im saying is that I felt just like you, but if let go wishing that SC2 was BW 2.0, then you can appreciate SC2 for what it is.
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You aren't the only one that feels the way you do, SCBW will probably forever be my favorite game of all time and I still hope someday that a game in the future will better replicate it's beauty. SC2 is great for what it is, but I expected something else when I heard about it getting announced at WWI in korea. I had so much expectations the second I heard of it I guess I put it on too high a pedestal in my mind that nothing would be able to touch because nostalgia is OP.
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I appreciate SC2 for what it is, but there's something about brood war that the game just utterly failed to capture. I have no idea what it is, but something about SCBW is just magical. Maybe it's just nostalgia. I still enjoy watching professional BW, more often than not it's more entertaining than SC2 (take the last OSL finals as an example), and as long as there's an audience for pro BW it will never really die.
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I agree that sc2's single player is more cheesy and hamhanded than BW's, but that's about it. Otherwise I really think you're just feasting on your own nostalgia.
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The phenomenon you are talking about is called "getting older". Of course you were not excited like you were in BW because back then you were a child and children can easily get excited very much.
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ALLEYCAT BLUES49476 Posts
why can't you just say fuck blizzard instead of censoring yourself?
I enjoyed the campaign,sure it wasn't as good but i enjoyed playing it story was crap,gameplay was good)
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Sweden33719 Posts
Just so you know, a big part of that is because you arent 12 anymore.
Just so you know.
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I don't think anyone realistically expected SC2 to be BW2.0. But what I got from Activision/Blizzard still fell short of my lowest expectations.
True, maybe you should look at SC2 as a separate game instead of constantly comparing it to BW. But on the other hand, for good or for worse, it is the sequel to BW. Doesn't that justify some type of comparison? You do not make the sequel to the greatest RTS game ever, and then churn out some shitty single player campaign full of filler. You do not make units which take no micro. You do not make a multiplayer which is basically 1a.
Nostalgia OP? Definitely. But to look at this blog and attribute everything to "nostalgia" is to ignore how much SC2 fell short of BW.
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There's so much truth in this blog and I agree with everything pretty much. Indeed, fuck you blizzard!
Long live BW!
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On November 12 2011 18:16 Kamais_Ookin wrote:
There's so much truth in this blog and I agree with everything pretty much. Indeed, fuck you blizzard!
Long live BW!
Ironically, Brood War was also made by Blizzard. Who continue to support their product by keeping Battle.net services alive all these years when other companies have shut down online services for games half as old as Brood War.
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On November 12 2011 18:23 Newbistic wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 18:16 Kamais_Ookin wrote:
There's so much truth in this blog and I agree with everything pretty much. Indeed, fuck you blizzard!
Long live BW! Ironically, Brood War was also made by Blizzard. Who continue to support their product by keeping Battle.net services alive all these years when other companies have shut down online services for games half as old as Brood War.
They changed man, they CHANGED! Bobby Koteck and his filthy money-grabbing fingers have STAINED the legacy of starcraft BW!
They were innocent, fluffy cuddly blizzard! Now they're an EVIL corporation! Now there is money involved! I bet blizzard fired all the people who had put their heart and soul into designing BW, in fact, Bobby Koteck went to their offices personally and said this:
"You foolish game designers, who put passion into your products and who actually care about the betterment of eSports, you will have to go! We are going to reinvent eSports in a sterile, boring fashion and force the industry to it's knees!
Not the game designers, nor the lead developers, nor Mike Morheim, nor ANYONE will stop me! I will rule this company or see it burnt to ashes around me! First Activision, THEN THE WORLD!"
+ Show Spoiler +I apologize for the overbearing sarcasm, but I think my point came across to an extent.
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On November 12 2011 17:46 Liquid`Jinro wrote:
Just so you know, a big part of that is because you arent 12 anymore.
Just so you know.
This ^
OP sounds like an old man rambling on about how things used to be better. OP seems to think he can put an objective standard on some of the clearly subjective parts of a game. OP claims this isn't about SC2 vs BW yet brings up bullshit like "show me 1 sc2 pro that uses 6 hotkeys for his units" clearly thinking that that argument somehow "proves" that BW is better than SC2, putting this rant into the exact same category as all the "BW is better than sc2" or "sc2 is better than BW" posts.
I liked the BW campaign better than the SC2 campaign as well, however I enjoy SC2 more over all.
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On November 12 2011 17:46 Liquid`Jinro wrote:
Just so you know, a big part of that is because you arent 12 anymore.
Just so you know.
In the precise case of this blog, yes. But what about the other half ? There are quite a few good points that have nothing to do with nostalgia...
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On November 12 2011 19:36 Linkirvana wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 17:46 Liquid`Jinro wrote:
Just so you know, a big part of that is because you arent 12 anymore.
Just so you know. This ^ OP sounds like an old man rambling on about how things used to be better. OP seems to think he can put an objective standard on some of the clearly subjective parts of a game. OP claims this isn't about SC2 vs BW yet brings up bullshit like "show me 1 sc2 pro that uses 6 hotkeys for his units" clearly thinking that that argument somehow "proves" that BW is better than SC2, putting this rant into the exact same category as all the "BW is better than sc2" or "sc2 is better than BW" posts. I liked the BW campaign better than the SC2 campaign as well, however I enjoy SC2 more over all.
The BW Campaign had a better story but the SC2 campaign had better missions in my opinion. The BW hero-mode missions were, for the most part, kinda slow and frustrating. The regular missions were _way_ too easy and there wasn't a mode to turn the difficulty up to 11. The BW story was also filled with a lot of tropes and cliches (even for the time) with a lot of "HAHAHA, I will leave you here to die because I am [evil/good/benevolent/vengeful]!!" but still a better, more cohesive story.
In the end, I don't think Blizzard really has good storylines anyway. I can't say too many games I've played of their's that don't have completely contrived stories (He does XYZ thing because he's PISSED OFF and EVIL!!!111oneoneonecos0cos0). They kinda happened upon a good story for Starcraft, but if you look at their efforts in Warcraft 1, 2, and 3 I think you'll see that was more or less an accident.
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well put. I played BW only after playing SC2, so there's not really any nostalgia for me and I agree with a lot of what he said.
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You aren't that 7 y.o. kid anymore... Of course you don't get those wow moments when you're in your 20's...
BW is my favourite game of all time. I think it's the best game of all time. But the games of your youth will almost always have a much more profound affect on you than the games you play with 15+ years of gaming experience behind you. In 20 years there will probably be a SC3 and the kids of today will be saying the exact stuff you just said to the 10 y.o.'s playing SC3.
You'll probably come to realise and accept this in the near future.
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Sighhh.
If anyone here has ever played maplestory, before v0.5, the nostalgia is crazy.
I would do anything to play pre-v0.5, live the nostalgia, the friends, the awesomeness. It all just seems a faraway day for me.
I agree with everyone else. It's all about the nostaligia that you had when you were a child. it feels great. But it will most likely never happen again. The world moves on... And so must you. That is how life works.
I understand your frustration... but there really is nothing you can do about it.
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EPT
