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Let me preface this design whine by stating that I absolutely love Starcraft Broodwar.
My first step into an RTS was Dune II: Battle for Arrakis and it hooked me harder than morphine. It wasn’t that the concept was new to me—I actually tried playing games like Age of Empires and Red Alert before I started playing Dune II. It wasn’t the competition (non-existent), the difficulty (Snoozefest AI), or even the narrative (Not Dune at all actually) that hooked me. What hooked me was the game mechanics.
To truly allow this to make sense, I’ll need to pull back to when I first fell in love with Chess.
Chess is not a strategy game. Before we can continue with this line of thought, you need to make the same epiphany that I made when I was just a tiny infant dragging plastic pieces across a checkered board.
Chess is not a strategy game.
A true strategy game is one reliant on rules. The existence of rules allows for there to be a predictable order. I move piece A, piece A moves. I move piece B, piece B moves. When piece A or piece B is in situation C—D happens. Predictable, perceivable. With predictability, stratagem evolves. If piece B is in location E creating situation C then I have to make sure that piece A should be in location F in order to allow situation G to occur! Predictions is what stratagem is all about. I will wall off with 2 supply depots and a barracks in case zerglings run into my main. I will forcefield the ramp with the one sentry and defend with the two stalkers I left behind to allow me to feel safe pushing out. I will scout with my overlord so that I can see what stratagem he will concoct and then swiftly counter it. A strategy game is about predictability of factors.
Chess is not a strategy game.
“That’s crazy” you say.
And you’d be right. I was just a little under ten years of age when I had this epiphany. I still believed wrestling was real. I was absolutely crazy.
The problem with Chess, I realized, was that the board was already set. Who was stupid enough to think that having pawns block all your good pieces was a good idea? That ruins my ability to—as day9 once famously said—go out and fucking kill him. The game of Chess, it turns out, is merely a violent game of opening presents. You see, your gift is wrapped in pawns, and your opponent’s gift is wrapped in pawns, you both race to unwrap your gifts and all of a sudden—4 move checkmate.
“Wait a minute!” my feeble tiny mind said in protest. “What the fuck is that shit!” Of course, this is a modern translation of the event. It was most likely just me crying. I prefer the modern interpretation.
It turned out, chess was not predictable. I not only could see what pieces my opponent moved, but he even just sat there and watched me stare at the bishop not wanting to explain to me what had just happened. A normal kid would think “Oh cool! I could do that!” but I wasn’t a normal kid. It turned out I was an Sc2 fanboy to the core—so I began to whine about how white was too powerful of a color. So my dad switched colors with me. We played again. 4 move checkmate. Now at the time I didn’t realize this. It took my dad about 10-15 moves to get the checkmate—but it was still the same damn bishop standing innocuously in the middle of the board pretending to not have the sniper rifle that just ended the possibility of future bloodshed.
I was furious! How in the hell did things manage to come at me like that from out of nowhere! Yes, my age was in the single digits, yes, my dad wasn’t being nice. But I wasn’t normal. I played again.
I was not to be tricked by that devious bishop once again, I hounded it, chased after it, checked every angle I could, I would not die to some stupid silly overpowered imbalanced—2piece Knight capture.
As I sat there on the table staring at the Knight who had both my King and my Queen in check I thought that life was unfair. How the fuck can this stupid piece of shit of a game be called a strategy game if things come out of fucking left field like the fucking plague with no warning, no countermeasures, nothing! This wasn’t strategy this was gimmickry! This wasn’t strategy this was bullshit!
Chess is not a strategy game!
I ran off from Chess. I eventually went back. When I was in high school I won several chess tournaments in the East Bay area of California before laying down my pieces after realizing that my dad wouldn’t love me more just because I won chess tournaments. I eventually learned that I was wrong to think that Chess was all about gimmicks and surprise. Chess actually was a strategy game. But that’s not for many years and I still haven’t gotten to Dune II yet.
After giving up on Chess I set my sights on computer games. This was true strategy. Predictability allowed me to see what was coming, and then prepare for it. Red Alert infantry charging at my base? Build a pillbox. Raiders attacking my Age of Empires workers? Run to the center of town. It was a give and take. I see what was coming; I would prepare, and then respond. Then I’d prepare something, attack, pull back if they were ready for it, and then change my plans. This was strategy.
Then Dune II smacked me in the face. In Dune II, all units were useful at some point despite the design of the game. Let me state this clearly. Dune II: Battle for Arrakis is a bad game. The AI cheats, bugs, and the UI was god awful. And the Unit design was atrocious.
Infantry could be run over by tanks.
Unit effectiveness was determined by health. A unit at half health moved half as fast and took twice as long to fire the next round.
Unit design was a linear progression. Trikes, into Quads, into Combat Tanks, into Siege Tanks.
You had no control over air units—none.
Why did it interest me so much? Mechanics.
A Carry-All was essentially an automated Dropship. 99% of the time its only job was to move harvesters back and forth. Then one day I accidentally blocked off my refineries and repair facilities. Don’t worry if you don’t know what they are—it’s irrelevant. It turned out that if you prevent a unit from popping out, and you had a Carry-All, it would pick it up and drop it off somewhere on the map. I was like “interesting,” but then ultimately I found it dumb. Why would I want my rally to go from being adjacent to the building in question (There was no rally point) to some random part of the map? Then I noticed that when the Carry-All picked up a wounded vehicle and brought it back to the repair facility, the Carry-All would then pick it back up and return it back where the damaged unit started from. So long as the repair facility was fully blocked of course.
This is confusing to those who never played the game. So let me spell it out. It turned out that they had an automated dropship system in the design of the game. This automated dropship system was very helpful if you completely blocked off/surrounded every inch of some buildings, but was awful and got in the way if you surrounded other buildings.
“What did this mean?” Those of you who haven’t figured it out yet ask.
It meant that there was a way to optimally design your base. You wanted buildings that the AI valued to attack in the rear, and the buildings that were normally ignored to act as walls. You also wanted fragile buildings to be away from the fight while robust buildings should be closer to the front line. All this was easy to figure out and was what you did because the AI kept attacking the same spot every single time. However, since there was an optimal way to set up your base in order for it to run more efficiently—suddenly it wasn’t so obvious. You see, the Dune series limited *where* you could build your buildings to just rocky ground—which sucks when fighting on a desert planet that is mostly made of sand.
The whole game transformed before my eyes. With limited space, I needed the heavy factory (a prime target) to both be in the back of my base as well as for it to have enough “open room” around it to allow units to get out of the building without needing a carryall. At the same time the repair facility (also a prime target) wanted to be as close to the battle as possible to reduce travel time between repairs in order to allow your carryalls to pick up and redeploy your troops as fast as possible. However, it had to be scrunched up with as many things as possible in order to “bug” the carryall to pick up and redeploy troops constantly. This then lead to bunching up your Wind Vanes (think powerplants in Command and Conquer) allowing Nukes to wipe out your power in one landing. Oh right—there are Nukes you can’t stop.
I haven’t talked about the game yet have I? It seems I’ve spent forever talking simply about building placement and Carry-Alls. I talk about those things because they are the fun parts of playing Dune II: Battle for Arrakis.
Another Example is the one combat air unit in the game—the Ornithoptor. It was an air to ground flying unit that attacked the closest target. It was also fragile as can be and lasted about less than a second in an enemy base as turrets shoot it down from the sky. Why was it so good? Because “closest target” meant that it attacked whatever was closest to the building you build Ornithoptors from. So I would regularly begin building them when the AI started to leave their base to attack, time it so that the Ornithoptor popped out right as the army engaged my banks of turrets and rocket tanks and BAM the enemy forces are overwhelmed. It was a completely automated unit—and it was completely under my control. The game was riddled with these ridiculous inconsistencies that I kept “figuring out” as if they were this secret gem that I could raise high and decree.
“Yes! I am this awesome of a human being!”
The more I played the game the more I kept finding these gems. It turns out that you can hide infantry in mountain terrain to prevent tanks from running over them. This allows you to defend yourself with cheaper troops (long enough for your main force to return home) and cheat out an extra production facility here, an extra refinery (for harvesting spice) there. You could make Sand worms chase your cheap and useless (but fast moving!) trikes towards the enemy base and all of a sudden the AI has lost 5-6 tanks and all you’ve lost is a Trike.
During combat, units can’t shoot past buildings. This means you can hide your tanks in some angles that caused the AI’s tanks to shoot at their own building. Combat inside the enemy base was a brawl where you kept inching forward and backwards to cause the AI to shoot at its own buildings and to hide your units from enemy fire. The Trooper was an infantry unit who had rockets so it could shoot over buildings—so you brought them along to gain extra DPS during urban combat despite them being useless out in the open. Siege Tanks were the king of direct combat but Combat Tanks were the king of being actually fast enough to reinforce a weakening line. Every unit in the game had a job it could do better than any other unit. It was beautiful despite being so terribly designed.
The best part of the game, and the only reason that I was able to learn all these weird stuff in the mechanics of the game (Because you have to know, the game is as easy as sin and I only learned all the tricks after replaying it over and over and over again) the only reason I found myself wanting to relearn everything despite already beating the game—is because of the way they differentiated the races.
Three races, all of them sharing the same “overall” unit base—but each one is missing something that the others have.
The Ordos don’t have either a Siege Tank or a Rocket Tank. So unlike the other two races, you can’t simply fight straight up with them. This was okay since the AI’s macro was awful.
The Harkonnen don’t have Trikes, Infantry or Ornithoptors. They do not have a cheap option for scouting, sacrifices, early defense and they don’t have the efficient and powerful defense of Ornithoptors. This was okay since the AI’s strategy was predictable.
The Artreides don’t have a Palace weapon. Harkonnen’s have a nuke, Ordos have a sabatoer (instantly kills a building suicide bomber style) and the Arteides gets Fremen which are essentially troopers that spawn randomly around the map and you can’t control them. This means that the Artreides eventually have access to all tech—but are boringly without an ultimate weapon.
To play each race efficiently meant that you had to keep using the same units differently with each race. What defined the game as amazing was not the units, it was not the graphics, it was not the UI (single unit selection bleh!) What made the game awesome was you could automate things if you were good enough to work on it. The more you were able to automate, the more of the game you gained access to. The more of the game you were able to access, the more you could actually feel like you were playing the game and not fighting the UI.
What made the game amazing was mechanics. It is easy to confuse my experience with Chess with my experience with Dune II. One could argue that the only reason I got upset with Chess was because I was not the one who “discovered” the 4move Checkmate or the 2piece Knight Capture. However, the tricks I found playing Dune II did not negatively affect the opponent. Never did I think that the En Passant or Castling were overpowered out of nowhere moves because it didn’t hurt me. Not in the same way a 4move Checkmate hurts me. Not in the same way watching my Queen being raped by horses hurts me. I found tricks and moves that allowed me to do what I was already doing—only a little better. Part of it was by forcing the game to automate things for me, other parts of it were simply being more precise in my control of already available options.
When I switched to Broodwar—my brain exploded.
Yes, the first time you get to the final Zerg Mission in Broodwar you’re like “That’s awesome! It’s a reversal of the final mission in Starcraft!” Yes, the first time you figure out how to leap frog tanks you feel like a champ. But I had a lot of doubts at first.
You can select more than one unit at a time?
You can que units?
You can chain commands on units with the shift key?
You don’t have to resend the harvester back to the spice fields every time it finished its drop off unless you glitch the AI into thinking the harvester is always a “new” harvester upon exiting the refinery thereby glitching the carryall to get stuck and automating mining for you?
What do you mean the UI is smart enough not to shoot its own buildings and even smart enough to not shoot its own units unless it is splash or you ordering your unit to do it?
You can build anywhere you damn please?
You only need to power your units and not your base? (Farms vs Powerplants)
You have actual control of air units?
There was a lot of things I was very cautious of when I first was introduced to Broodwar. Like, did you know that in Broodwar you can just bring your medics and SCVs with you to repair your units and you don’t have to design your base in such a way as to glitch an air unit into doing things it wasn’t designed to do and by doing so you were able to ferry units to and fro from the battlefield simulating helicopters transporting the wounded to and fro in Vietnam? Did you know that in Broodwar if you activated the attack button and clicked on the ground, the unit would just move towards where you clicked, automatically target hostile targets, and just stand where you clicked by the time it gets there instead of what units did in Dune II where the attack command was also the force attack command and so would cause a unit to just attack the ground instead of attacking targets of opportunity?
Interface wise, Broodwar was damn dream to me.
“But Lorkac! But Lorkac!” You all say to me. “Didn’t C&C, and Red Alert and Age of Empires have a great UI as well?” (Relatively speaking of course)
And they did have a clean and wonderful UI. But they weren’t as fun. For example, in the Command and Conquer series, Infantry units are produced as individual units. So when they die they pop like grapes. In Dune II, you got them as squads. As they lost hitpoints the squad would shrink until it eventually would just be a single infantry unit by its lonesome. Yes, I know that you could have bought the infantry as an individual unit just like in the C&C series. But since you could also buy it as a squad you had a better idea of how the infantry died *because* you couldn’t see them die. Seeing the last guy die was sad because you imagined that he was friends and buddies with the others that came with him when you first bought the squad. You saw them go from being a full company to a ragged troop to a lone survivor. There was narrative, there was drama. Yes—in the end the math was all the same for both games. But you cared about the infantry in Dune II a lot more than you did in C&C despite both units being just as useless as the other in both games.
What did Starcraft offer? Honestly all that Starcraft 1 offered was an amazing campaign and a rich storyline that I miss from the Starcraft universe. Even Broodwar’s story was very lacking compared to vanilla Starcraft’s opus of a narrative. What impressed me the most about Starcraft? One word.
Defilers.
I was going through the campaign until I reached mission 7 of the Zerg campaign. Keep in mind that I was (and still am) a terrible RTS player who still thought without a shadow of doubt that Bishops and Knights were overpowered in Chess. I hit mission 7 and I botch it completely.
To those who don’t remember/never experienced this mission, this is what it was http://strategywiki.org/wiki/StarCraft/Zerg_mission_7:_The_Culling
Now you might think to yourself, what does me having a bad time with a mission have to do with falling in love with Starcraft? I botched the mission completely, at some point I forgot what I was going for, what the mission was about, etc…
And then I ran out of mining bases. You see, I played the game with a mouse and no keyboard. I had bad unit control. I was able to take a second base, but that’s it. I did not know a damn thing about unit compositions and I had thought to myself “I like Zerg” and just skipped right past the Terran campaign with its lovely introduction to basic mechanics such as minerals are the stuff you want to harvest. Yes, my first 7 missions of Starcraft was on the Zerg missions. I had reached what I first thought was an unwinnable situation. Truth be told, I probably had more than 10k minerals in the bank and vespene never runs out. But in my head all the “possible” resources I had was gone. I had to squeeze every inch of worth from my banked up minerals. I had beaten the previous missions with mass swarms. Enough Hydralisks and Zerglings beats the computer eventually. However, I now feel crunched for resources. What do I do?
If you guessed “learned how to dark swarm and consume zerglings like a fucking champ”—then you’ve got way too much faith in me. Consume? That kills a unit I could have used! That Zergling had so much potential to be awesome! Why must I snuff him out so soon while he is so young!
Dark Swarm and patience was what won me the day. I literally would engage a sunken colony with my entire hydra force hiding beneath a dark swarm while zerglings are in hold position in case the AI sent melee units. I would kill 1-2 sunken colonies and then retreat to regenerate energy.
Was I maxed out on Hydralisks at this point? Yes. But I needed most of them to defend every single valley, cliff, ramp, and hatchery I had! At least 5-10 on each spot! With so many troops defending the motherland, I had to make sure each of my attacks counted!
It took me an hour to beat the mission after I realized that I ran out of minerals—one dark swarm/plague at a time. Now you might be asking me why in the hell would I love Starcraft after taking possibly 2-3 hours to beat that mission. It’s because until I played that mission I was not really in the proper mindset tactics wise to imagine that it is possible to win without having to use a death ball of troops. You see, what made C&C, Age of Empires, etc… so boring for me was that I amassed the biggest thing I could make, and then I go try to kill the opponent with it.
At the time, to me at least, bishops and knights were just diet queens. What you wanted was the queen, what you needed was the queen, to win the game without the queen is just bonkers, crazy, stupid. Of course the 2piece Knight Capture is unfair. Of course the 4move Checkmate is unfair. It forced the game to play out differently than what I had intended to play. But after spending a year of my life wasted playing Dune II, micromanaging dark swarms was easy! But more importantly, I was winning the game without having to move my deathball around with me. It felt almost as good as playing Dune II!
In Dune II, the slow chipping process of the enemy base was a dance with the AI. You flanked his base so as to sneak a few tanks between his buildings, get him to commit a large number of tanks to get stuck between the architecture of the base, get his tanks and your tanks to hit each other/the AI’s buildings, and then run in with a large flock of Rocket Tanks/Combat Tanks to snipe the Construction Yard. It was slow, tedious, and everything had to work since the AI didn’t actually need resources—you *had* to destroy his construction yard or else his buildings would just be replaced instantly. Oh by the way, the tanks you sent it to distract didn’t actually want the buildings they hid behind to die. So you actually had to (sometimes) use the attack command to hit the ground instead of the enemy buildings in order to both threaten a zone of control while reducing the damage being done on the enemy building to allow your units to live longer. All the while trying to get as many angles as possible where the enemy tanks would hit the building with their attack, but your tanks could hit the enemy tanks with their return fire.
Compared to that, casting dark swarm once every 2-5 minutes was a piece of cake. It also helped that I was against dumb AI that let me kill one sunken colony at a time and didn’t instantly rebuild them the moment you killed it.
Then it started to click. It turned out every unit in Broodwar was as cool and interesting as the Defiler. I scan my opponent going Templar Archives on Lost Temple (also known as the Battlenet Ladder lol) I start spider mining both my front and my rear because who needs silly turrets for detection! Siege tanks are too slow in my eyes, I start winning games through marine medic science vessel because I absolutely loved how awesome mass Defensive Matrix is. Yes, BW was so bad outside of iCCup that when you went SK Terran, you brought a science vessel for every marine. Like a boss! It’s also the land where Nukes actually destroyed expansion and muta flocks were 3-5 mutalisks in size—yeah!
You know what countered fully upgraded archons in BW outside of iCCup? Zerglings, since Protoss could only really macro out 1-2 archons at a time and would normally have zero support with the archons save the 15ish probes that constitutes the protoss economy at that time. It was a really bad time to look back on. But man did you feel like a fucking king when things turned out right.
Ever see 24 marines each one with a defensive matrix and each one with a medic healing him attack move into a zerg base?
Ever play a team game where the zerg player shares his overlords with everyone only to end up being the only player to die to DTs because his overlords are protecting his allies? Yup—awesome times.
Do you remember the first time you lost to 200 supply of Carriers/Arbiters/Corsairs in a moneymap? I do.
Broodwar blew my mind. I remember the first time I started using hold position on my Vultures to prevent them from wiggling around everywhere when I was trying to hold the middle of Lost Temple with tanks. Then realizing I could do that every chance I could get to stop them from bumping into each other, just hold position so that they don’t all converge into one point while harassing. I felt like a god then too.
I remember the first time I floated a barracks over my 2medic/1marine wall off in Lost Temple to prevent my friend’s zealot rush from killing me. You see, the marines would taunt the zealots with their gunfire and the zealots would prioritize killing the marines over the medics. However, medics are blocking the marines. The protoss player *could* target fire the medics to kill them and then kill the juicy marines inside—but the barracks was in the way preventing my friend from right-clicking those sexy medics. Those were amazing times playing Broodwar.
I still love Broodwar. I would not be the same player I am now if it wasn’t for Broodwar.
So let me make this perfectly clear when I say this.
I prefer playing Starcraft 2 over playing Broodwar. The reason this is the case is because I am a bad player.
I currently use 4 hotkeys.
1-Command Centers/Orbitals Commands/Planetary Fortesses
2-All Production facilities that don’t produce SCV’s
3-Main Army
4-Drops/Banshee/Tanks/Vikings/Raven/Marauders (trick plays)
I build supply depots by using the backspace (which I have remapped to spacebar) to bounce between my command centers. If one is too full I jump to the next one and start building supplies there.
I can’t split marines to save my life.
I can’t micro more than 3 drops at once.
I can’t properly judge when to retreat.
I’m even worse at judging how many workers to pull for repair.
If I was in iCCup then I would be H ranked because neither E nor G is low enough below D- to properly rank me.
However, I also had the same early qualms with SC2 as I did with Broodwar.
You can select more than a dozen units at a time?
You can select multiple buildings at once?
You can chain a fuck tonne of commands on units with the shift key?
You don’t have to right click mineral patches all day? (Oh those who’ve banned me knew that I was going to sneak this in somewhere)
What do you mean the UI is smart enough to do as they are told?
There was a lot of things I was very cautious of when I first was introduced to Starcraft2. Like did you know in Starcraft2 you can just put nothing but combat units in a medivac because you don’t need to waste space carrying a medic (Broodwar) or an SCV to build a bunker (Starcraft)? It turns out that the medivac is protection enough. Did you know that in Starcraft2 you can send out your worker to scout and just cue a whole bunch of movement commands through the minimap and then be able to forget it for a bit as you do other stuff and then get back to it and cue some more move commands unlike in Broodwar where units will remember just a few commands before glitching and suddenly getting stuck trying to harvest a tree doodad.
Interface wise, Starcraft 2 is damn dream to me.
I no longer had to worry about things I simply let slide before. The reasonI had about as many marines as I had Science Vessels in Broodwar was because it was hard to remember to keep the Baracks glowing when also teching and attacking. By the time it got to the point where I could make Science Vessel I would go to my base, cue 10 Science Vessels and 10 marines, then micro my army. By the time I remembered that I built anything, I have 10 marines and 10 science vessels and cue 10 more of each.
Build orders and timings were never anything I cared for since to care about them would require me to learn how to play the game at a level that I wasn’t competing against.
Everything changed with Starcraft 2.
I hopped into Battlenet 2.0 and laddered it up. I was late into hopping into the SC2 train. I knew I was going to play it. But by the time I did 2 of my closest nerd palls had already been playing for a month or so. One friend was in Diamond (he and I used to play Broodwar together religiously) and the other friend was in Bronze after playing WoW religiously.
(Don’t hate on WoW, it’s an amazing game that requires a lot out of the top players before the nerf bat hits)
I tried to convince my self that I was a zerg player and landed in Gold. If you recall, most of my BW experience is in playing Terran. I played Terran the most in Broodwar which obviously meant that I should play Zerg. Idra did it, why couldn’t I? I eventually switched and immediately turned platinum. But until I did....
I was terrible.
If it wasn’t for my extensive experience in army positioning and dropship harass in Broodwar—I would have been a Bronzie for life. Mass mutalisks was a lot easier than dropping 3 marines, an SCV and a siege tank in a zerg base and using the scv to glitch the a-moved zerglings to allow the siege tank to kill them while the marines shot at drones that didn’t all run away because moving 12 drones at a time takes a long time to do in low apm land.
I learned quickly that my macro was non-existent. (Need I remind you of building Science Vessels 10 at a time)
It turned out that even if I was to play Starcraft 2 casually—I would need to actually know what I was doing. Because macro mechanics got easier, macro mechanics suddenly became essential. Their army will be big, it will move as one blob and it will have all the units shooting at the same time. I eventually switched to Terran because I needed something familiar. And so my brain had to be rewired.
*Build SCVs
*Build Supply Depots
*Expand often
*Keep money low
I started to care about playing an RTS and not just lazily move pieces across a digital board. I started to realize what I had always known, but never understood about the term “macro” and “fundamentals.” The game stopped being me and my friend fiddling with whatever unit composition we wanted and started about becoming efficient at doing the fundamentals of the game. We started caring about being better at the stuff we were already doing anyway.
I could still watch my army move around the map without having to go back to my base and left click buildings and right click mineral patches. I could have a similar visual experience watching GSL and playing on the ladder. The game was suddenly fun on a zeitgeist level.
I remember seeing Boxer lockdown a dozen battlecruisers on lost temple and thinking to myself “that’s inhuman!” I remember seeing him cast a scanner sweep during a carrier assault, and during the window of time cast optic flare on all the observers and none of the interceptors, and then proceeding to destroy the carrier fleet with cloaked wraiths. Then I remembered that I barely remember to cast a scanner sweep at all let alone during tactical situations. It felt overwhelming, crazy. I knew how hard it was to do what I saw. And because of that I treated RTS gaming the same way the American public treats all sports. They stop playing it and just watch it instead, having more fun talking about it than actually doing it. The physical limitations were simply too much for me. There is a reason that when I watch a hockey game (live or otherwise) the last thing I want to do is put on skates and play hockey. It looks painful, and hard, and cold, and sweaty, and need I remind you painful?
But Starcraft2, oh, the joy of playing Starcraft2. Everything the pros do always seem within reach. I mean everything they do always almost seem so close to being easy. Except it’s not. Except there is a reason why Koreans are dominating, there’s a reason why so few foreigners make a dent in Code A, there’s a reason why it’s always the same people winning tournaments.
There is a reason why despite being made fun of for being terrible at MLG pool play LiquidTyler massacred the American public and got back to the final day with relative ease. There is a reason that the top GSL players hold a 60%-90% winrate in their matchups. There is a reason why foreigners can’t consistently break into Korea no matter how long they’ve been staying there. Because Starcraft2 is a deceptive bitch that teases you into thinking that she’s an easy lay until you end up like Destiny and have to make your money beating American players all day cause he can’t even handle MLG.
Because here’s the truth. Starcraft 2 is a very very very hard game to play. Much like baseball, it seems very effortless and easy. But the facts are that the top players have been the top players for a year now, and there isn’t any sign of them letting go of their grasp in 2012. Why? Because Starcraft 2 is a tease that can hold its liquor and no amount of cosmos is going to get you laid tonight. No matter how easy it seems to be—there is still a massive skill gap between the top players and everyone else. The only difference is that, unlike Broodwar, “everyone else” is now a much larger and all inclusive modifier. As in, I am as much in the “everyone else” category as players like Destiny, Incontrol, LiquidTyler, SlayersGolden, Mondragon, etc….
I’m no one. I have absolutely no shot at a GSL trophy. I am not a top player. And neither are a lot of foreigners and Koreans in Starcraft 2.
However, the reason why Starcraft 2 is so much fun and so amazing is because it seems so easy. Because it seems like you could just “do it” and suddenly you’re as good as MVP. Suddenly players like Nestea are draped across your mantle as you just “harassed with dropships” like MMA does. Because all of a sudden you watch MC lay down forcefields and you’re like “that looks easy enough, anyone can do that!” And suddenly you’re just like every other foreigner who can’t even beat the Koreans who can’t get past the Code A qualifiers. You always feel so close to getting it right, you feel like if you’re just a little bit faster, a little bit quicker, maybe, just maybe you’ll get to day 2 of MLG. Maybe, just Maybe you’ll get to day 3. Maybe, just maybe, if the stars align, then you’re in day 3 of Dreamhack holding a trophy over your head!
It feels so feasible, feels so easy. Then suddenly you lose 10 games in a row in the ladder and you remember why you’re still in Platinum. It’s such a beautiful way to play video games. To always feel like you’re almost there. That if you just worked a little bit harder, you’ll finally make it.
I love Broodwar. I really really love Broodwar. I also love Wings of Liberty. I really really really love Wings of Liberty. I also love Dune II. I really really love Dune II: Battle for Arrakis. Saying all that, I honestly believe that Wings of Liberty is more fun to play than Broodwar—for much the same reasons that Broodwar is more fun to play than Dune II.
Of those three games I honestly believe that a Dune II: Battle for Arrakis game engine and UI with some balance tweaks would be the best competitive RTS game ever. Harvesting has to be done manually for both returning and harvesting resources. No hotkeys, single unit selection, units get slower and deal less damage the more hurt they get. Artillery is inaccurate and you can’t control what units get repaired and which carry-alls pick up the harvester. Imagine playing broodwar, but with 10 times less ease of play and being able to hide units behind buildings so even fighting inside a base is different from fighting outside a base (mechanically) You’d need to be on the ball 150% of the time otherwise you’ll end up with your army target firing the ground as a nuke lands on your wind vanes. You push out and suddenly 10 packs of Fremen are in the middle of your base focus firing the Construction Yard. Only the best possible player could win. And it’d be great—if it wasn’t so boring watching Rocket Tanks fire missiles that sometimes 180 mid-air and lands back on the original Rocket Tank killing it. (And you thought Scarabs were finicky!)
In Truth, Broodwar is more loved than Dune II not because Broodwar is easier, but because Broodwar is its own separate game that has fans that enjoy it. Starcraft 2 also has its own fans who love playing it, who enjoy watching it. They don’t do it *because* Starcraft 2 is easier, they do it because they enjoy Starcraft 2 in and of itself. To simply think of it in terms of difficulty demeans Broodwar. There are many more games that are more difficult than Broodwar. And there are many more games that are easier than Broodwar. If it was purely because of ease of play, Red Alert would have taken over MLG. If it was just about graphics CS 1.6 would have died out years ago.
To attempt to quantify something qualitative is silly. People like certain games simply because they do. That’s it. The reasons are always arbitrary and they will change over time. At one point in my life, I thought Chess was an imbalanced game of tricks and all-ins. After time passed I was playing it in tournaments and enjoying myself.
Was it because of patches to Chess? No.
Was it because Chess wasn’t figured out yet? No.
Was it because the moves were no longer showing up/being used? No.
Over time I simply began being better at Chess. Enough to win amateur tournaments. Because I got better at playing Chess I no longer thought that the overpowered moves of my childhood were overpowered. As time passed, my opinions changed. Because opinions on why something is good, bad, fair, unfair, balanced, unbalanced will always be in flux will always adapt and change over time—it has to be understood that “logical reasons” for being certain why something is qualitatively good or bad is always arbitrary and it is always personal.
 
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This is the single longest post I have seen on TL.
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On January 25 2012 18:34 Kaal wrote:
This is the single longest post I have seen on TL.
It is right about 7,000 words...so, I think so too...
EDIT : Approx. 10% of a novel I think.
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Fantastic read. I originally didn't plan on going through the whole thing after realizing how long it was but I was captivated and kept going. By the time I hit the middle of the BW part I started to wonder if it was going to be another "shit on sc2" thread, but I was pleased with what I read. I'm not nearly as good with words but I agree with a lot of what you wrote. I don't regret opening this blog so 5/5!
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chess is not strategy what ?
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Good read, Dune rocks ^^
Read the books for storyline though!
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On January 25 2012 19:11 Sawamura wrote:
chess is not strategy what ?
You didn't even read it did you?
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On January 25 2012 20:08 MaRiNe23 wrote:You didn't even read it did you?
He compared Computer games to chess which is illogical a thing to do .... Kasporov maybe should be playing starcraft instead because than he will realised what is TRUE strategy than.
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Nice read, a bit long but very interesting. I only got into BW right before I was aware there was a SC2 in beta so I'm very new to gaming in general except like Mario, cool to see how someone feels about older games and how they differ from newer ones. This was my favorite line "unlike in Broodwar where units will remember just a few commands before glitching and suddenly getting stuck trying to harvest a tree doodad.", lol harvest a doodad! haha Its true that the whole BW/SC2 war is a bit lame, I enjoy BW more but usually just hop on SC2 due to lack of friends on Iccup. 5/5 Well done. 
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I read the whole thing even though I had no idea what you were talking about. I've never played any of the games you mentioned besides chess/sc/sc2 but it was still fascinating for me to read.
You are a good writer ^^
+ Show Spoiler +
My whole chess strategy revolved around sniping that pawn :D
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On January 25 2012 20:44 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 20:08 MaRiNe23 wrote:On January 25 2012 19:11 Sawamura wrote:
chess is not strategy what ? You didn't even read it did you? He compared Computer games to chess which is illogical a thing to do .... Kasporov maybe should be playing starcraft instead because than he will realised what is TRUE strategy than.
Sigh, don't comment on a post you haven't read. If you actually read it you would see that he's not saying chess isn't a strategy game, in fact, the post has nothing to do with any of that.
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chess is strategy
starcraft is real time strategy
edit: all blogs are biased, eh.
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Agreed defilers are the bomb.
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Great read, a really interesting perspective.
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I relate a lot to what you write about here. Around the beta of SC2 I actually did go back and played old strategy games, Civ1, Dune 2, WarCraft I & II etc. And I noticed what you did - going to the next step always felt like "wtf, this is now ridiculously easy, what's even the point of the game then". Dune 2 is still so much fun even today. But yeah, I can see your point.
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Enjoyed the read ,though I've never played Dune 2.
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On January 25 2012 20:44 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 20:08 MaRiNe23 wrote:On January 25 2012 19:11 Sawamura wrote:
chess is not strategy what ? You didn't even read it did you? He compared Computer games to chess which is illogical a thing to do .... Kasporov maybe should be playing starcraft instead because than he will realised what is TRUE strategy than.
He didn't actually. There are a little over 10 pages in that OP. If you think he's saying that chess isn't a strategy game it shows that you didn't even read past page 1. Seriously, is this how you manage 100 posts a week? Terrible.
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DUNE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~~~~
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This was a fantastic, engrossing, awesome read!
Good shit man.
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Very interesting read, not really sure whether I agree with some of the points, but it was interesting nonetheless.
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lol, never realized you could glitch so many things in dune 2, I guess while growing up i just played it like it was supposed to be played. I loved it though, even though it was freaking hard towards the last missions.
nice read, always great with some nostalgia while still admitting while things are probably better now ^^
WE NEED A DUNE 2 MODE FOR SC2!
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On January 25 2012 20:44 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 20:08 MaRiNe23 wrote:On January 25 2012 19:11 Sawamura wrote:
chess is not strategy what ? You didn't even read it did you? He compared Computer games to chess which is illogical a thing to do .... Kasporov maybe should be playing starcraft instead because than he will realised what is TRUE strategy than.
A simple "yes I didn't read it" would have sufficed.
@op: Very nice read.
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Very interesting read. I agree with yours points, especially with the one that all the games rock and that SC2 is deceptive in its difficulty.
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Took some time getting through this... Was worth is though .
Good read!
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oh boy, thanks for bringing back the memorys of dune 2. very good read, slow day at work and you just saved me :D
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It has meta-gaming on its title...
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holy wow, that was epic. I read the whole thing, and I've never even heard of Dune II before.
Incredible read. Kinda touching, in a way. I liked the way you used parallel paragraph construction to emphasize your point.
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United States10328 Posts
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That was a great read. As a lot of others have already posted in this thread, I have never played Dune before (although I did play C&C) and it was really cool to read about how you figured out the glitches in that game. Cool. Cool cool cool.
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Very well written and interesting, obvious 5/5.
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This was a very awkward read to me. I tried chess for a while when I was around your age and even though I was/am horrible, I never got the same thoughts you had about it. The complexity of it and de reasons why I lost where somehow always obvious. It's also the reason I never did a lot of chess I suppose.
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Great read man! You really took me back to the good old days with Dune 2 For me, however, Warcraft 2 was the gateway drug - I think all of my favorite gaming memories are from that time. And when SC1 came out, I remember thinking 'Ha! 12 units in one group, ezpz... Pros do it with 9 unit groups'
A very long and entertaining text, with a great point at the end ! 10/10
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Very well written and entertaining. I haven't read something this entertaining on teamliquid for awhile.
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Germany3367 Posts
Wow very entertaining I have to say. Good job you did there Sir, 5/5!
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Good write up, made for a very nice read.
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Awesome blog, makes me want to try Dune 2.
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you brought a science vessel for every marine
this shit cracks me up to this day
i mean, it sucks to see all your lurkers just pop from mass irridiate
but so satisfying to hear 30 vessel death sounds when a million scourge fly into them
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I'm pretty sure you could multi-select in Dune 2000. Was the original Dune 2 really that horrendous of a UI?
Very good read.
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Surprisingly good read! You really made me remember how awesome it was playing the campaign for the first time. My first missions were the BW zerg ones.. I remember I made scourge and saw their damage and made like 50 scourge before realizing they can only hit air plus they suicide...
good times ^^
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I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I love the level of thought process through the blog increasing over time as you grow up and understand games a little better.
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wow what an awesome read! remembered me on my old days when i started to play c&c red alert 2 - grinding out hundreds of strategies beating the somewhat stupid AI. Never let any unit die!
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There was also no right click function in Dune. You needed to pick the command (attack, move) and then left click on the target, as I recall. Been a while though, haven't played it since it first came out.
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Sweet read, you have a gift my friend!
(Man that took a while  )
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Sick read! After taking a few weeks off SC2 (LoL is crack), I'm really psyched to play again, and this does a great job of expressing why. As a guy who has never played Brood War, I really feel I missed something magical... but like you I don't think that I'd enjoy the process to learning enough about the game to play is at a level of comic awfulness. Even in Plat, the game feels somewhat 'real', in the sense that players can at least attempt pro strategies because the APM requirements are low enough. I doubt I'll ever get past low Diamond, but I still get the sense that I'll be playing a rough approximation of how the game is supposed to be played, much like if I picked up painting I'd never make anything great, but at least you'd know that the paint smudge is supposed to be a cow.
Good stuff man! Thanks for the read!
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Great writing, the end part of explaining how you feel you are almost as good as the pros in SC2 so you believe it must be an easy game is something I completely agree with and was expressed very well. SC2 makes you feel great because macro isn't too hard but then you actually play someone good and you realize you are complete shit. I think more people (foreigners) need to realize this if they haven't already.
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I like it. I didn't see where the post was going at first, but its well stated. Your eloquence is refreshing.
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While not as crazily exploitable as Dune II, I had a similar thing going with Age of Empires 2 (particularly the demos) and a little WC2. I figured out all the little quirks in the AI and how it handled units to the point where I dozens of strategies that would win the mission without even having to build combat units (or very few if the map didn't start with any).
Awesome post.
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I want to play Dune now xD
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On January 26 2012 04:46 ticklishmusic wrote:
I want to play Dune now xD
I am probably going to do so :D
I would like to know how to beat that last mission with all those nukes. They are so annoying. I would just save a game just when the launch of the rocket was announced and if it hit something valuable I would load the game and pray again.
That trick with Ornitophters didn't occur to me. I just need to obtain a version where the AI won't build over your units - that's too much to tolerate
I really enjoyed this blog. Thank you.
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United States10328 Posts
On January 26 2012 04:01 aisight wrote:
I'm pretty sure you could multi-select in Dune 2000. Was the original Dune 2 really that horrendous of a UI?
Very good read.
yes. I tried it for a few... coming from Warcraft I (in which you could select 4 units), Dune II was ridiculously difficult.
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United Kingdom10823 Posts
On January 26 2012 05:06 ]343[ wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 04:01 aisight wrote:
I'm pretty sure you could multi-select in Dune 2000. Was the original Dune 2 really that horrendous of a UI?
Very good read. yes. I tried it for a few... coming from Warcraft I (in which you could select 4 units), Dune II was ridiculously difficult.
Lies! Just because you couldn't select more than one unit
Or your buildings deteriorated as time passed
And you needed power for everything
And the maps were sort of small considering how costly some units were
And sand worms.....3 mins of shooting them till they die?
Doesn't mean its hard!
Seriously that game was SO KICK ASS.
Great read btw
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Great read, was looking for something good to read and TL always deliver with his great users!...
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Really great read, interesting perspective since I personally enjoy Chess more than playing StarCraft (yes, yes, heresy!) but it was definitely a good read.
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KKND got me into RTS gaming.. I wonder if anyone here has ever heard of it.
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I still remember the time I first came into Starcraft from Warcraft 2.
"You can ATTACK-MOVE?!?!? This @#$% is so easy, omg!"
The original Warcraft 2 (until the battle.net addition arrived) did not have attack-moving or control groups. Microing especially against AI spellcasters was absolute hell. And Warcraft 2 was a micro-intensive game.
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Awesome read! LOL at the people who read the first two paragraphs and went 'haha he doesn't understand chess' instead of getting the point. I really liked this. I had a similar experience with chess stemming from only ever having played my Ilow master (local, only competed in college) father. I enjoyed all the Dune memory trips as well :D 5/5
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On January 26 2012 05:48 FidoDido wrote:
KKND got me into RTS gaming.. I wonder if anyone here has ever heard of it.
I owned and played it. Was interesting, though at the time it annoyed me with running out of oil on all the campaign missions. (I turtled and then killed everything in all RTS games.) Think I recall one map where I lose 5+ times in a row to early attacks I simply couldn't stop.
As for the OP, I can agree with that feeling. Things getting easier and shinier as time passed. Then it hit a level where I was happy and continued on. Though UMS games are more fun with large amount of unit selections, wish SC2 had unlimited, would have been even more fun then.
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You are an awesome writer, thanks!
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What you said about the dune infantry made me remember how for me the single most awesome part of Brood War was the kill count. I mostly played vs the AI in BGH, all the time, because I could amuse myself by checking out which where the deadlier units. I had the most fun just sending marine squads and seeing if the 8 kills marine was badass enough to survive another wave of zerglings.
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Really awesome read. Extremely well written, brilliantly expressed. It took me a few minutes to get into it...but then 15 minutes disappeared without me noticing.
I also agree with your underlying messages. (When you started comparing DuneII mechanics to BW mechanics, I saw the connection and was really hoping you'd do it between BW and SC2...and you delivered! :D)
Well done.
And props to the person who spotlighted it.
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United States17042 Posts
For what it's worth:
I looked at it, and thought that it was unreasonably long. I looked at it, and found time, because I knew that it had been spotlighted for a reason.
By the end of it...I remembered. I remembered that sc2 isn't just about people who cared about broodwar. I remembered what brought me into broodwar in the first place. I remembered the joys behind finding out about RTS, about broodwar/vanillia, about the magic of playing this game.
And the opportunities and newer players that found enjoyment through starcraft 2.
^_^
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Interesting read. I love nostalgia
I used to love Red Alert. I thought it was waaay better than starcraft. Of course I had only played starcraft for something like a half hour. I was just being a fanboy, and after having spent something like two more hours on starcraft I was ready to renounce my faith. At that point it wasn't about mechanics or depth of play or anything of course. It was just the atmosphere. Space marines, out in fucking space, fighting spacebugs to a country-music soundtrack. Roughnecks smoking cigars inside their space suits while blasting protoss and hooooly shit they have shields!
Awesome.
As for Starcraft 2, I suppose I don't really have an issue with the game being simple per se. It's more about how some of the mechanics and units are just plain boring/gimmicky.
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Really interesting read. A sure 5/5.
It's refreshing to see a different perspective on ease of mechanics, balance and all of that shit that people talk about onTL.
There's just one thing I can't wrap my head around. If you liked the very deep mechanics of Dune II, don't you kind of miss that in SC2 where there aren't really these small things that you can exploit?
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Aaaaaaaaaaah Dune II nostalgiaaaaaaa D:
I still remember that my very first internet name, way back in the day, was Saboteur... after that devious little suited Ordos demo man.
I still remember me and my buddy reciting the "You... attack... that" mantra over and over as we individually selected and instructed our units to form a single-file death march across the map.
I still remember saving and reloading, hoping for a different placement of the nuke that otherwise would have wiped out my entire power infrastructure.
I still remember laughing as single squads of fremen would take down important parts of their base because the AI would randomly consider them invisible and not defend themselves.
I still remember building ridiculous defenses of rocket turrets to keep me safe while I developed an unstoppable army of the hardest-hitting unit I could manage.
Thanks for the post, OP, It brought back pleasant memories :D
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Ahh so much nostalgia for Dune II right now. Grew up playing that game with my dad all the time. Such a great game ^^.
And good read!
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Great read, read through the whole thing. I think the ending bit about difficulty and BW/SC2/RTS in general was the best way that anyone has talked about the popularity of these games as Esports or popularity in general and should, if this were a logical world, be enough to shut up people on both sides of the argument.
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Funny that I started reading Dune last night! I read up until the first Dune stuff comes in, are there any spoilers in this? I really want to read the rest.
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Italy12246 Posts
Excellent post. I was kind of thinking about writing something on the whole sc2 vs bw thing, but you did it 100 times better than i ever will be able to. 5/5.
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United States1719 Posts
On January 25 2012 17:52 lorkac wrote:
...in Broodwar where units will remember just a few commands before glitching and suddenly getting stuck trying to harvest a tree doodad.
lmao 5/5 great blog
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I never had the luxury of playing those Dune games. I started with C&C and TA myself. Good times though...
I just wish that SC2 had more depth to it. I think it's a very good game for casuals, just like MOBAs, but there's just not that element of pure execution skill that BW had. It's just never going to last if it remains this accessible. The fact is, I don't watch pro BW because I can go out and copy all the strats pros use. I watch BW because I know what they're doing and that I'll never be able to execute it. It's also the reason I keep playing BW, because I know there's always more to work towards.
SC2 is a good game for casual players and fun games between friends. It is not a good esport, despite the amount of time, money, and energy people are putting towards it. It doesn't have what it takes to last as an esport, because it's missing that execution element. Sports are about pushing people to the limits of their abilities, and SC2 almost always does not do that at high level. It's much more like poker than BW, where people simply throw down what they perceive is the best move with incomplete information, and if things work out well the best player will win.. most of the time. I can beat anyone in the world in poker. I can't ever beat any NBA player.
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Wow Dune is the reason why I play RTS. It's actually the first computer game I remember playing. I tried playing it a few years ago and it was actually so hard to play beause of the graphics and UI. Either way the story was awesome, the game play was awesome and the units were awesome. I love the Dune lore so much that I actually sat through half a book of Dune(which I eventually deemed too slow paced for my liking) Starcraft lore has a similar effect on me. Such a deep lore that just the lore alone will get you interested in the game. I'm not a great player but I love RTS and I love lore. The lore was so key to both games.
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On January 26 2012 08:37 EternaLLegacy wrote:
I never had the luxury of playing those Dune games. I started with C&C and TA myself. Good times though...
I just wish that SC2 had more depth to it. I think it's a very good game for casuals, just like MOBAs, but there's just not that element of pure execution skill that BW had. It's just never going to last if it remains this accessible. The fact is, I don't watch pro BW because I can go out and copy all the strats pros use. I watch BW because I know what they're doing and that I'll never be able to execute it. It's also the reason I keep playing BW, because I know there's always more to work towards.
SC2 is a good game for casual players and fun games between friends. It is not a good esport, despite the amount of time, money, and energy people are putting towards it. It doesn't have what it takes to last as an esport, because it's missing that execution element. Sports are about pushing people to the limits of their abilities, and SC2 almost always does not do that at high level. It's much more like poker than BW, where people simply throw down what they perceive is the best move with incomplete information, and if things work out well the best player will win.. most of the time. I can beat anyone in the world in poker. I can't ever beat any NBA player.
Yet poker is an international sport with massive prize pools with major tournaments shown on ESPN. Poker is a lot more then just "playing your best hand with little information". You could beat anyone int he world at poker, but I highly doubt you could consistently beat the top professionals. The point the author made I believe is that SC2 is a hard game as well, just in a different way from BW just as BW is different from Dune. There are problems with SC2, but remember that its been out for a year with two new expansion packs to release. Look at the first SC1 when it first came out. It was pretty freakin ridiculous, you could hardly call it a balanced or well made game at that point (most of the features it is lauded for are accidental and not intentional, it was simply the best offered at that point and they needed to work to balance the game to the new engine). SC2 I believe has the potential to become one of the greatest e-sports if we give it time, bring in the best players, and allow it to flourish. The execution aspect of SC2 has hardly been touched at this point from many mediocre players.
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wow, amazing read. I'll never get my friends to read the whole thing, but I'll send them the link anyway. You've made me realize why I love watching/playing SC2 so much. For the past 2 years (ok, sense beta) I've been obsessed, and you are right. It is because I feel like I can do the things Idra does if I just work a little harder on my inject timings, ect...
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20/5
excellent blog
Loved the bit about how what the pros do SEEMS possible but it's actually not. Like, I remember watching MMA at MLG Columbus do triple pronged drops and I thought "WOW I'm gonna play Terran now because that's so cool to do, and doesn't seem that hard!" then I realized I couldn't even figure out how to swap my barracks with my factory so I can open reactor hellion.
lolol
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5/5, the evolution of gaming is a beautiful thing. It's almost a win/lose situation when you think about games getting less glitchy while simultaneously getting less 'magical'. Discovering all the little nuances in broodwar was what made me really fall in love with the game, although I was more of a custom map guy then a 1v1 player.
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Good read. Read it all.
Gotta love the skill it takes to play BW
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Well that was entertaining, thanks OP.
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Thank you for this, it was a great read :D
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Lol, welcome to the 90s when we were retarded but the games were really poorly designed and hard as hell.
Its ironic that we aren't quite as retarded now but the games are too frigging easy... *sigh*
Atreides 4 Life
Finished:
Great blog and if more people had to go through the process of solving their own problems, the SCII strat forum would be liveable.
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I love Dune 2, was super fun to play. But BW is better!
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On January 26 2012 11:43 Antisocialmunky wrote:
Lol, welcome to the 90s when we were retarded but the games were really poorly designed and hard as hell.
Its ironic that we aren't quite as retarded now but the games are too frigging easy... *sigh*
Atreides 4 Life
Finished:
Great blog and if more people had to go through the process of solving their own problems, the SCII strat forum would be liveable.
Atreides, love the sonic tank! Ordos hate no missile launcher, but I like that launcher that converts them temporarily. I used to build ornithopters to discover all their rocket turrets, then i would convert their siege tanks n click the 'attack' button. Just as they revert back i would click on their rocket turret so the siege tank's last command upon reverting is to destroy his own rocket turret aha. Then once all turrets down, i build ornithopters to lay waste to everything. Good times....
Harkonnen, errr, devastator is not cost-effective. I still go for siege tank.
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I played Emperor. That game was interesting, there were so many imbas from the allied houses.
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On January 26 2012 08:37 EternaLLegacy wrote:
I never had the luxury of playing those Dune games. I started with C&C and TA myself. Good times though...
I just wish that SC2 had more depth to it. I think it's a very good game for casuals, just like MOBAs, but there's just not that element of pure execution skill that BW had. It's just never going to last if it remains this accessible. The fact is, I don't watch pro BW because I can go out and copy all the strats pros use. I watch BW because I know what they're doing and that I'll never be able to execute it. It's also the reason I keep playing BW, because I know there's always more to work towards.
SC2 is a good game for casual players and fun games between friends. It is not a good esport, despite the amount of time, money, and energy people are putting towards it. It doesn't have what it takes to last as an esport, because it's missing that execution element. Sports are about pushing people to the limits of their abilities, and SC2 almost always does not do that at high level. It's much more like poker than BW, where people simply throw down what they perceive is the best move with incomplete information, and if things work out well the best player will win.. most of the time. I can beat anyone in the world in poker. I can't ever beat any NBA player.
yeah poker's doing well as a televised game/sport.
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Read the whole thing,
Well done 
I've been planning to write about my journey as an RTS player and a gamer, though I'm afraid it might not be as interesting
Oh well, we'll see; one day.
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Thanks for the post!! haha at first I was like, oh lord where is this going. And then later I was like, oh man where is this going. And then at the end I was like, wait what? how did we get here? And I don't agree with very much of what you say, but I just kept reading even though I was like, stop reading and go do something else. I'm glad I finished it! Dune 2 sounds crazy, and I loved hearing your broodwar recollections. lol that guy who posted about your "chess isn't strategy" comment. double lol that guy who posted "is this how you get 100 posts a week?
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On January 25 2012 17:52 lorkac wrote:Of those three games I honestly believe that a Dune II: Battle for Arrakis game engine and UI with some balance tweaks would be the best competitive RTS game ever. Harvesting has to be done manually for both returning and harvesting resources. No hotkeys, single unit selection, units get slower and deal less damage the more hurt they get. Artillery is inaccurate and you can’t control what units get repaired and which carry-alls pick up the harvester. Imagine playing broodwar, but with 10 times less ease of play and being able to hide units behind buildings so even fighting inside a base is different from fighting outside a base (mechanically) You’d need to be on the ball 150% of the time otherwise you’ll end up with your army target firing the ground as a nuke lands on your wind vanes. You push out and suddenly 10 packs of Fremen are in the middle of your base focus firing the Construction Yard. Only the best possible player could win. And it’d be great—if it wasn’t so boring watching Rocket Tanks fire missiles that sometimes 180 mid-air and lands back on the original Rocket Tank killing it. (And you thought Scarabs were finicky!)
Classic paragraph. :D
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On January 26 2012 08:37 EternaLLegacy wrote:
I never had the luxury of playing those Dune games. I started with C&C and TA myself. Good times though...
I just wish that SC2 had more depth to it. I think it's a very good game for casuals, just like MOBAs, but there's just not that element of pure execution skill that BW had. It's just never going to last if it remains this accessible. The fact is, I don't watch pro BW because I can go out and copy all the strats pros use. I watch BW because I know what they're doing and that I'll never be able to execute it. It's also the reason I keep playing BW, because I know there's always more to work towards.
SC2 is a good game for casual players and fun games between friends. It is not a good esport, despite the amount of time, money, and energy people are putting towards it. It doesn't have what it takes to last as an esport, because it's missing that execution element. Sports are about pushing people to the limits of their abilities, and SC2 almost always does not do that at high level. It's much more like poker than BW, where people simply throw down what they perceive is the best move with incomplete information, and if things work out well the best player will win.. most of the time. I can beat anyone in the world in poker. I can't ever beat any NBA player.
But that same situation happens all the time in BW. You have imperfect information and have to judge it as well as you can; people lose in BW all the time due to proxies, all-ins, random tech switches, etc. A scarab shot can end a game or dud out and cost you the game, but that doesn't prevent BW from being an "e-sport." In fact, the proxies, all-ins, etc. are some of the most exciting moments in BW. They may not be the best for finding out who the "better player" is, but they add a lot to the game in other areas.
As for the execution... I can't see how you could actually say this. No current sc2 player is anywhere near the execution cap, they're closer to it than anyone is in BW, but it'll still never be reached. Not even close.
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Really enjoyed this read, thanks for the post hopefully it won't be the last!
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Thank you for taking the time to write this all down, it was really a fantastic read. Also, thanks so much to the person who spotlighted it. The spotlight tells people that this blog is worth making time for, and it really is.
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Oh man, I remember how I played StarCraft in 1998.
Terran was completely imbalanced,of course. You just turtled down on one base (you get a second later, but only one at a time) with rings of Bunkers, Turrets and Siege Tanks and then pump out a control group of fully upgraded Battlecruisers.
Of course, being the revolutionary genius that I was, I developed a strategy that I still employ on the SC2 ladder to this day: blind countering. I cannot describe the shock that was in store for me when I eventually learned that Scouts were useless.
Then for years until I discovered progaming, I employed a strategy based on this also revolutionary discovery I made: You can build from multiple Gateways AT THE SAME TIME and get your 12 unit control group out before anyone else. This was the era of 2-Gate Zealot all-ins (not that I knew what an all-in was at the time) and it worked like a charm.
Then I saw my first progaming series, Lecaf Oz vs. KTF MagicNs. Tempest proxied Dark Templar and Lomo lifted a Factory into Tempest's main to produce Vultures, and my mind was forever blown by my first glimpse of true genius. No wonder these people were pro-gamers. (The series also had a Flash-Jaedong Ace Match, which was ridiculously hyped and left me disappointed with these players forever. Pool first vs. 14 CC.)
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thank you for an awesome read.
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Took me a while to read but I read it all and I have to say completely worth it.
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Oh maaan ... you just destroyed my lunch break,, but it was worth it.
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I can't belive I read all thoose words! A very nice read!
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United Kingdom3685 Posts
Wow. Fuck Broodwar, I'm switching to Dune 2.
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Superb!
What a fantastically well written piece!!
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This was a very good read, you have the heart of a storyteller.
And I understand exactly what you are talking about with Dune, Dune was awsome :-)
I love Teamliquid and all the small gems that you can be lucky enough to finde around the website.
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That was actually quite beautiful. Dune 2 was an awesome game.
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Well worth the time it took to read this. Nostalgia kicked in so many times and the summation was perfect. I wish more people would think about this sort of thing before they trash something that someone else enjoys. Unfortunately there will always be those people with a lack of self-worth that feel the only way they can enjoy their thing is if they compare it to other things and then insult those other things.
Thank you for the smile and the words 5/5
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good writing .. thats exactly how i feel about the SC2 scene... It really seems easy , but its not
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Awesome read, I'm not fully finished yet but I will absolutely be finishing later today after work! Thanks
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Holy Crap...what a long post...i thought it wasn't going to be worth it:
5/5 but i was proven wrong :D amazing post...we need more of your posts around!!!!!!!!!
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On January 26 2012 07:51 Cham wrote:
Funny that I started reading Dune last night! I read up until the first Dune stuff comes in, are there any spoilers in this? I really want to read the rest.
The RTS Dune bases it's setting and involved parties/ buildings etc off of the book series, but it's hardly a narrative game. You won't get spoiled ^^
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Hyrule19002 Posts
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great read. the message at the end was rly well put... people's preference in games is personal and subjective.
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I used to play the original Warcraft like you did that Zerg mission in Brood War. I didn't know anything about economy and would move around my army painstakingly slow, being tactful yet tedious. Especially the missions you didn't have a base or mining I would try to figure out the perfect configuration of footmen, knights, and archers to kill the enemies before they did any real damage.
I also didn't know anything about economy in Brood War. I didn't ever think to build more than one of each production facility.
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Thanks for this man.
Amazing read!
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United States732 Posts
This is one of the best posts I have ever read on TL.
I think it should go in the TL Hall of Fame. (We should probably make one first though.)
Anyway, 10/10, awesome read.
Thanks so much.
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This was an absolute pleasure to read. Very well done.
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Amazing read. A must for anyone into StarCraft!
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I can't believe I just read that entire giant wall of text.
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That was a surprisingly good read. GJ OP, 4/5.
And yes I share your sentiment, I used to play rts as a kid too and abuse the hell out of any and all glitches I could find. Ahh those were the days.
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On January 25 2012 19:11 Sawamura wrote:
chess is not strategy what ?
Someone did not read the OP fully.
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Just because you have to worry about less stuff now doesn't make the game good.... It's not a bad game don't get me wrong, but it isn't any fun now that I don't have a thousand extra things to do. But hey! That's just me.
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haha dude i'm so glad i took the time to read that. Thumbs up! :D
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Great read, I read it from start to finish, especially love the part about Starcraft 2 being a deceptive game, the way I have felt about the game for a long time and you found the perfect way to explain it.
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I didn`t get what he trying to get at first but in the end everything fell into place.
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Greaaaaaaaat write-up! Truly entertaining!
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Reading this blog was a huge treat. And I agree, fucking pawns.
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hi its me we played last night at meta GG WP!
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Awesome read +1 I never played dune so I couldn't relate to that but I could relate to most of everything else.
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Great post haha
My only disagreement is that you can't group all the "SC2 haters" together.
In fact, not liking SC2 not because of the new UI (but because of the game itself: units for example) and having not played Dune 2, I'd be very happy if BW had the same SC2 UI just like you and Dune 2.
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Dune 2 was a great game. BTW, there was a way to have palace weapons as the Atreides. You needed to capture a Harkonnen construction yard, I think. Either that or the palace itself. Building capture was relegated to engineers in the succeeding Westwood games (currently EA).
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On January 25 2012 18:34 Kaal wrote:
This is the single longest post I have seen on TL.
My Little Busters! review was over twice as long word-count wise, but it was partitioned into spoilers.
Scratch that it's only half as long =O
OP w/e you're playing, enjoy.
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I tried to read this, but the whole time i just kept thinking "cry harder"
sorry man - nicely written up, but im not interested in recollected whining about chess from an adolecent.
cheers.
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Fantastic post. I just finished reading Dune, so it was funny see various names of vehicles and Great Houses from the book being mentioned.
I have heard things about Dune 2 and how it was the revolutionary ancestor of all modern RTS games. I never suspected how deep the game could actually be. I saw a couple of vods of a game once, and it was pretty crazy.
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Netherlands4796 Posts
I don't understand why this is spotlighted.
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United States10328 Posts
On January 28 2012 16:53 s.Q.uelched wrote:
I don't understand why this is spotlighted.
It's stellar writing, and it's thought out very well. If anything, it should be spotlighted to counteract how people on this forum often make less well-written and thought-out posts.
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On January 28 2012 17:08 ]343[ wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2012 16:53 s.Q.uelched wrote:
I don't understand why this is spotlighted. It's stellar writing, and it's thought out very well. If anything, it should be spotlighted to counteract how people on this forum often make less well-written and thought-out posts.
Like this one ?
I tried to read this, but the whole time i just kept thinking "cry harder"
sorry man - nicely written up, but im not interested in recollected whining about chess from an adolecent.
cheers.
It''s actually an article in 7000 words that communicates how subjectively awesome playing SC2 is. Good stuff. Thx for a true OP.
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Starcraft 2 seems easy, but is actually really hard. This x1000. When you see people in the pool swimming, you notice how effortless it is when they swim. However, when you try to go in the pool, you struggle to stay afloat. Best players make it look easy, even though it's extremely hard.
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Great read indeed!
You are a genius and a noob, a rare and very important kind!
PS: Dune II was all about the starport.
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That was downright impressive writing.
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Fantastic thread. I hate hearing about how much more difficult broodwar was as if that was some kind of positive element. We're a long way from seeing SC2 as a mature game and people seem to want to shit on it comparing the two.
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"...Many have tried to call chess a strategy game?"
"...They tried and failed?"
"...They tried and died."
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This blog is as deceptive as SC2. Everyone comes in, expecting some more hardcore version of the standard BW>SC2 rant, and then it pulls everything together into a wonderful epiphany about everything ever.
Thanks.
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Brofist for Dune 2! I was sooo young when I played it. I remember I only managed to beat it with Harkonnen, cause I could just turtle and launch my rockets (Death Hand, I think, was their name) till all enemy buildings got destroyed.
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Now I want to play Dune2 lol
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Amazing read, 5/5 + another 10 for nostalgia factor, since I had similar progression (chess->wc1->BW->wc2->wc3-SC2), and every step had that OMFG this shit is so easy in this game moment, tho I feel that's also related to growing up and being able to think better.
I remember playing first 3 orc mission son wc1 for a week, inching my way with almost no economy towards huge rows of units only to be devastated when my 4 year older friend came over and did those missions in 2 hours.
Thanks for a wonderful read.
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Thank you for the nice blog post! i t reminds me of my age of empires, dark reign wc3 and empire earth phase back when i was about 13 14.
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On January 25 2012 20:44 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 20:08 MaRiNe23 wrote:On January 25 2012 19:11 Sawamura wrote:
chess is not strategy what ? You didn't even read it did you? He compared Computer games to chess which is illogical a thing to do .... Kasporov maybe should be playing starcraft instead because than he will realised what is TRUE strategy than.
Kasparov did play sc2. Placed silver and went top 10 gold until season 2 hit. (he played toss.)
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On February 02 2012 19:55 CloakAndPoke wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2012 20:44 Sawamura wrote:On January 25 2012 20:08 MaRiNe23 wrote:On January 25 2012 19:11 Sawamura wrote:
chess is not strategy what ? You didn't even read it did you? He compared Computer games to chess which is illogical a thing to do .... Kasporov maybe should be playing starcraft instead because than he will realised what is TRUE strategy than. Kasparov did play sc2. Placed silver and went top 10 gold until season 2 hit. (he played toss.)
This news definitely needs a source.
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I also remember playing all those games, Dune II, AOE II, Starcraft and Broodwar, then SC2, liking each more than the previous, because I always thought that the newer game was better designed, made more sense and such. I read the entire post and I must say it was pretty entertaining. About chess, I played as a kid, didn't think too much about it, I was an average chess playing kid, but I remember that when I started playing Starcraft I just came to the conclusion that SC is chess but way more complicated and demanding on the brain, and not only (you also need great hand-eye coordination). So chess just seemed silly.
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read it all!
5/5
well said.
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Man, I think you seriously went wrong with your thought process (at least in the end).
Dune II was groundbreaking at the time, but I think you put too much sentimental value on it. Remember, it was like the very first RTS video game ever; the programmers hardly had any idea how to execute RTS concept properly. They ended up making a game that occasionally forced the player to be quick and decisive and then he the same player was going to three-minute hiatus, cause there was nothing to do on a map, except to wait for your Harvester to get full and return to base with some money. Or wait for your atrociously slow troops to arrive near enemy base. Simply speaking, the dynamic nature of RTS wasn't exploited too well in that game; it was cool to play it, sure, but the mechanics you describe couldn't make up for the fact that the overall game flow was awful. That, of course, doesn't take anything from Dune II; as for a pionieer among this species of games, it was really spectacular; it just came out too early to have a chance for perfection.
As far as I can see, the last part of your blog is about the level of bearable in-game mechanics every player has to struggle with while playing RTSs - in other words, how much player has to struggle with stupid AI, compared to how much he actually struggles with his human opponent. If Dune II ever had a multiplayer, players would most probably be forced to do the former; unfortunately, in that game, overcoming most of mechanics wouldn't yield you much; you could block the entrances of buildings or put your infantry on the rocks, but it wouldn't matter so much in hypotetic multiplayer, because it would be too heavily focused on just getting to Construction Yard and killing it. To be fair, Broodwar might have similar issue now, because good macro and resource management is so much above everything else; but I guess the degree of this problem is way lesser than in Dune II.
Still, back to Starcraft. After over twelve years of experience, we know damn lot about it; but look how long it took to figure out the superior value of macro, or little, but crucial features like Muta stacking. Try to look wider on it: aside from being a sport, it became a science, where coaches and progamers crafted new builds to counter currently trending strategies of enemy races on specific maps. Do you see the similarities between Starcraft and chess? Just like top grandmasters examined some lines deeper and deeper to find improvements, SC players seeked more and more polished builds AND more and more effective adaptations to the opponents' responses. And, again just like in chess, with time passing by, the defensive technique of SC gamers improved a lot, steering the game from wild early agression to longer, management-style struggle. I don't think any patch of Dune II could accomplish those.
Don't make a mistake about it; it's not that much about arbitrary judgement, about the 'bandwagon' of netizens starting to play SC, cause everyone got excited about it. Broodwar got so popular for objective reasons: because it had relatively low hardware requirements, three playable races that became more and more balanced with following patches, and, most importantly, various ways of accomplishing the goal of winning. You could win by patient defense, cheese, relentless harass, crazy macro, hitting certain timing etc. There was no one correct way to beat your opponent, no Construction Yard you had to focus-fire on like in Dune II; even though some strategies proved to be direct counters to the others, the game still could've been saved by better micro, positioning and/or smart guessing what's coming. And when a game with such features met the growing market of on-line games and the growing number of Internet gamers, the result was as we see it today.
Last but not least, think about the randomness factor.
In chess, it's plainly nonexistent. Player has all relevant informations in front of him, on the chessboard. Therefore, in chess, the result is not determined by a gamble or hit-or-miss guessing game; it depends on whether one or the other player has good enough analytical thinking to extract the information from the position and good enough judgement of what's coming, based on concrete situational factors. The only person to blame for a loss in chess is yourself, which of course is one of many things that suck people into the world of 64 squares.
But in Starcraft, the randomness factor is quite important. Build-order losses happen. A scouting advantage, ninja expo, gltching unit or some imbalanced map positions for specific matchups can easily yield an immediate advantage to either side. Surely, some of those features can be overcome; but not every time. Starcraft players simply got over it, as it's not that big deal in SC, and, I guess, a small piece of random gamble is a part of the fun.
And finally, consider Dune II. Broodwar had the randomness, but it was about fog of war, start locations or unfixed bugs. But in Dune, all air units were one big random factor. I, myself saw Carryalls being destroyed by enemy troops cause they tried to pick up an unit that was about to die, and when it exploded, it's blast took down the plane as well. Take a look on sandworms; as far as I remember, they sometimes were super-agressive and prevented one player from mining certain spice field, wheras second player, on the other side of the map, could collect his own spice peacefully. Ever used Harkonnen Palace weapon? It never landed right on a place you intended to hit; sometimes, you took down CY with the first shot; sometimes, you had to spend five to actually hit anything but the desert. Etc. etc.
My final point is: the less control you have over in-game features, the more random and gamble-like game is. And there is a point, where it becomes frustrating, because not enough depends on your actions. Broodwar wasn't random enough to frustrate it's fans; but IMO Dune II would be that way - if it ever could turn out to be a popular multiplayer game.
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EPT
