EPTMore than a year after release, I see the BW vs SCII argument still rages on, Elly still stubbornly refuses to budge and Rekrul has extended his epic storytelling skills to 1337 trolling skills what with being capable of inciting the rage of the majority of the starcraft 2 forum with a single italicized sentence.
Sometimes I just roll my eyes, but other times I just feel angry at the polarisation of the community. The old vs the young, the pros vs the noobies etc etc.
I thought about making this an unemotive persuasive essay on the issue. But I cannot. I have too much nostalgia to SC and BW to side with Starcraft 2 and I am too immersed in Starcraft 2 (the game, the streams, the tournaments, everything) to side with the BW old guard. So as a result this is going to be a soppy piece about how it was to grow up in the golden age of gaming for me that was the 90's.
I remember playing my first computer back when I was still in preschool. My old man had just bought a new computer and me and my older sisters were all over it whenever he wasn't around to play with.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gWZk9.jpg)
This is roughly what operating systems looked like back then
All the games we played were DOS games. The computer did have a fresh install of windows 3.1 but we didn't know to play games in windows and it never occured to us that we could.
At first I was highly reliant on my big sis to start up games but eventually I memorised the command to start up lemmings and the few other games we had installed.
It was a novelty at the time, but so was going to the beach, losing arguments to my sisters about how gravity=oxygen and running around with my cousins. So I didn't actually become a gamer until much later.
I don't remember when it happened exactly but sometime in mid to late primary school I divided my time solely between reading fantasy novels and playing strategy games.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5VYoh.jpg)
Lords of Magic became the first game I became obsessed with. My eldest sister was dating a gamer and when he let me borrow LOM I immediately became hooked. Soon I was banned form the computer because it consumed every minute of my free time. In retrospect I don't know why I played it so much; it didn't have a huge amount of strategic depth. I guess it was because of the fantasy aspect of it as well as the story in it. I vageuly remember reading the Hobbit at about the same time so that might have been an influence on my obsession.
My next obsession was Dark Reign. I managed to borrow it from a friend and he never asked to have it back, and so I never reminded him
. This was my first real RTS that I really got into. AOE was released at about the same time but the difference in between the two for me was the difference between a history lesson and a riveting story about lasers and cyborgs and a time travelling messiah. I played it intensely, both custom games and the singleplayer but despite the gross amounts of time I put into it I just could never get past the 4th mission. About ten years later I reinstalled *my* copy of DR and did the campaign again, I finished it in a matter of hours and the 4th mission was a pushover. To this day I still don't quite understand why my 6th grade self couldn't get past it.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/q6IKl.jpg)
Why am I mentioning DR at all? Because it was my first game that actually taught me to manage my resources. Water was the resource in that game and my young self eventually worked out that by bleeding every fresh water spring bone dry, I could make my army bigger and I could make my army bigger at a faster rate.
By high school I had a new best friend. Shane was into first person shooters as much as RTS's and was the first guy to introduce me to quake. I was never any good so I would opt to play strategy games with him instead. We tag teamed the Red Alert and Red Alert 2 campaigns. My approach was slow and methodical and I would systematically pull apart the AI's defenses. Shane had a more creative approach.
I still remember how he beat one particular mission: The aim was to get a spy to a location that was well behind enemy defenses. I immediately started thinking how to crack the enemy defenses, layer by layer but it was his go so I kept quiet to see if he would work it out. His solution? mine out the bottom of the map and build as many spies as possible and as many boats as possible to land them on the enemy shores. It was absolute slaughter. Thousands of spies died that day and my lip bled when it bit it as the last 10 spies alive were crossing the final layer of defense. Exactly one made it and both my best friend and I were rolling in laughter at the glorious victory.
The singleplayer to that game was a blast for me, but the mutliplayer to those old C & C games was a nightmare. For some reason, I could never get an advantage over my enemies. I would build a refinery first to get a quick resource advantage and then proceed to lose my whole fucking base.
Then one day as I was browsing through his collection of games I cam across a game called
"Starcraft" which he promptly let me borrow.
Starcraft was never an obsession for me, not like Lords of Magic or Dark Reign. But it did share one effect on me; here was a game that I could just play and never get sick of. I started out trying the protoss campaign first because the dude had friggin lightabers on his arm, how cool is that!? But I soon got bored and then tried the terran campaign instead.
Progress was slow at first, but after the cinematic with the two guys in a jeep... I got into it. Every afternoon after school, I was no longer a prepubescent boy. I was a Confederate magistrate on a mission. In the terran campaign I saw a reflection of real life humanity in all it's flaws. For most of the campaign, the protoss and zerg were portrayed as very scary alien species but by the end of it, I learnt that humanity is it's own worst enemy.
Zerg was next. I was reluctant to play the zerg campaign what with them being a species of genocidal mindless monsters but I was a bored and curious kid and man was I glad I gave the zerg campaign a go. By this time in my life, I wasn't getting a huge amount of validation in my life. The whole world didn't care about me.... Except for the Overmind. The world didn't love me... except for the Overmind. Being a Zerg cerebrate was like being part of a very close and suportive Brady Bunch-esque family. Okay maybe that's a bad analogy, but the point was that as a Zerg Cerebrate, you always felt important and looked after.
Only to be reminded at the start of the protoss campaign of how your mindlessly obedient actions as part of the family is resulting in genocide of apocalyptic proportions.
Being a protoss executor was an honor. Now my afternoon's were filled with responsibility for I had to repent for my cerebrate sins. I had a dying race of stalwart warriors to protect. Each zealot was sacred, and the sight of the blue goo seeping from a fallen dragoon was reason enough to restart the mission. My men were not going to give their lives for Aiur, not on my watch.
I felt like a champion completing the last mission, but the end cinematic drew a tear to my eye. Tassadar, I will always remember your sacrifice.
I thought that was it, but then Brood War came out. I immediately "borrowed" it from Shane at the first opportunity I had.
My reaction? I thought it was terrible. The new units were alien to me; corsairs were usueless because they couldn't shoot ground and their anti air attack did scratch damage, similarly valkyries were bad versions of wraiths which could not kill ground units, same with devourers. Dark templar were a nightmare in multiplayer, same with lurkers, wlthough medics were kind of cool.
Beleagured, but still wanting value for money (even though I paid none) I attempted the campaign.
My reaction? I thought it was terrible. WTF were protoss doing evacuating Aiur? Protoss are supposed to be strong and mighty, not a bunch of pussy refugees! And who TF IS THIS "ARTANIS" FELLOW? WHY AM I KILLING JUDICATOR ALDARIS? NO! FUCK YOU I'M NOT KILLING HIM!
In the end though, boredom got to me once again, and I did the deed.
I kept at it and by the middle of the Terran campaign the game didn't seem so terrible.
By the middle of the zerg campaign I was starting to think it was pretty awesome.
By the end of the zerg campaign I thought Brood War had the best singleplayer. Kerrigan was the rightful Queen Bitch of the Universe and I was proud to be her personal "bitch".
After that the campaign was over, but there were still battles to be won. High School was the golden age of LAN parties for me. And every single LAN, amongst the plethora of games I played, the consistency was that there would always be at least one match of big game hunters on BW.
I still hadn't heard of the pro scene, nobody had, but BW was all a part of our lives. When I graduated and went to university nothing really changed apart from the fact that I didn't have to move my computer to a friend's house to play with other people.
My group of friends changed though. And a year before SC2 came out I was pwning my latest social circle in starcraft. We tried a lot of FFA's as well as some 1v1 but I always triumphed.
I had one particular friend who was overly fond of carriers. He would brag after every game about how he thwarted my attacks time and time again; first with his cannons, and then with his carriers. And then I would point out that he still lost. He would then confess that he didn't know why, and then I would admit that I didn't have a clue either.
In retrospect I know exactly why; when you have 5 bases, 100 probes and 50 gateways, you can literally throw money at your one basing opponent/s until they die, 200/200 army of carriers or no. But I wasn't aware of the term "macro" back then and I didn't know anyone who did. I hadn't heard of the pro scene and my style of play was just my style of play. It was just what I did, just what came naturally to me.
When SC 2 came out I was still very ignorant. I actually only bought it for the singleplayer.
My reaction? I thought it was terrible. I gave it a shot anyway, hoping it would get better. It didn't. Oh well, at least it's a better story than the COD Black Ops singleplayer. And the actual gameplay within the missions was pretty decent.
I wanted my money's worth out of the game so I decided trying the team games. They were pretty damn fun. I would have let team games become just a nice recreational activity after lectures and just leave it at that but other things were going on in my life.
I lost my job, crashed my car, failed my subjects, my bank balance was running dry and I was still mourning my last failed relationship that catalyzed my downward spiral. I had to get out. Had to escape. I couldn't function in life anymore. So I sat in my room and played team league all day.
Soon I had an entire online social circle of team leaguers. In my regular 4v4 group I had a purpose. I was the void ray rusher. After the team's designated reaper man caused havoc, I would hunt down command centres, nexi and hatches with my 4 void ray kill squad. I would strike and then run away with flux vanes before their army could arrive. That was my duty, my prerogative, my purpose in life.
But then when I played the more regular 2v2's I was criticized. My buddies would say "your macro is really good, but your micro is terrible!" I had no clue wtf they were talking about. Instead of admitting my ignorance I googled it. In the process I ended up finding liquipedia, and then team liquid and then... the world of esports opened up to me.
I changed that day. I bit the apple of knowledge and realizing my scrubby naked self, I set out on a quest to clothe myself with micromanagement and build orders and threw myself into 1v1.
3months later, I had to abandon my quest for real life. But I wouldn't have been able to without SC2. In mere months it had driven out the futility I felt with life and replaced it with an insatiable urge to be harder, better, faster, stronger.
About 6months ago I started playing again, I had my life back on track and spare time on my hands again, it was time to reward myself. And here I am.
I still can't tell you which game is better. If I had to give an opinion on it though I would say that they are roughly equal; SC and BW singleplayer was a masterpiece while SC2 was just bad, but BW multiplayer is not nearly as good as SC2's (well apart from the lack of LAN, that's is still a sore point for me). The units are prettier, the graphics are better, the death animations are cooler, the matchmaker does a surprisingly good job in giving me a 50% win rate and the macro mechanics are better. And I'm sorry to all you brood war fans out there, but only being able to control 12 units at a time isn't just mechanically difficult it is also bad design.
For all you brood war fans out there, I regret not watching each and every MSL and OSL with you. I regret missing out on the zeal and fanaticism of BW scene. I can only dream of what it was like for you sitting there glued to your screens as history was made.
Nobody told me that competitive starcraft existed. Nobody told me that Esports existed.
I know I'm not the only one whose ignorance was only dispelled with SC2. So to all you BW elitists out there I beg you to be kind to all the SC2 Noobies. They don't know any better. And be kind to SC2, you may think it's a trash game that pales in comparison to BW but just remember that it was SC2 that got them into Esports. If you want to convince them that BW is better then don't condescend or patronise them or their favorite game, it just makes people angry when you condescend them.
And to all you SC2 players who never played brood war, you should try it, at least for the campaign. And if you don't then that is fine too, but don't get embroiled in arguments with bw fans. It's not worth it and while their elitism might not be fair, keep in mind that if it wasn't for Brood War you wouldn't be playing SC2 let alone watching the GSL. Think of BW fans like your grumpy old grandpa, sure he is an old fashioned asshole, but he deserves your respect.
