EPTI'd like to take a moment and say that I'm thankful for not only the usual things - my family, my fortunes in life, the fact that I am still currently breathing - but also for StarCraft 2, and everyone who plays it, played it, or continues to play it.
It seems that no matter what happens, I always come back to StarCraft. I've played Dota 2 and DotA before it, I've played League of Legends. I've played Counter-Strike once at my cousin's LAN party in Ukraine, although I've managed to fill that void in the meantime with Soldier Front and later A.V.A. But StarCraft: Brood War, and its successor, StarCraft II, is the only one I can play, watch, and talk about consistently.
There's the fact that I've been playing it since 2000 and it's been an integral part of my life, but this doesn't seem to be the reason I love this game. I've been playing Halo since 2001, and I've had a falling out with that game. Reach was amazing, but after that I just kinda gave up on it and didn't look twice at Halo 4.
I have more than enough friends to play League. What seems to be half my physics class plays the game, talks about LCS during free periods, swaps bro tales... I've played with them countless times, yet League doesn't have the spark that SC2 does, at least for me. Dota 2 was fun for the first five games or so, but it kinda fell apart after that. It just seemed like a more intricate version of League, but I was friendless except for ~2 people, so I never really took the time to get interested in it.
And so I think it's the beauty of the game itself, and the people I've met along the way that have made it worth it.
The people especially. All of my friends are bums. There's maybe one of them who's actually decent competitively, and the rest just play unranked. It's fun to dick around, but dicking around gets boring. It's always the exact same map with the exact same ~4 sets of items, and each game wastes an hour of my life that delivers lukewarm pleasure. When I try to hit up duo ranked, we've always got kids who whine when they don't get their role, troll the game, and lose LP for the rest of us. Always on our team. Never on theirs. It's impossible to deal with those little shits.
But League of Legends isn't a bad game. The fact that all of my friends continue to play it is a testament to that. It's just a bad game for me.
But StarCraft is a whole different story. I get high off of that game. I love the feeling of having everything under my control, knowing that this game is as objective as it gets. I lost? Well, it just means I was worse than him, time to go find out where I messed up and write down a few notes on what to do next time I get in that kind of situation. And when I win, I get full satisfaction knowing that I outplayed my opponent. Out-macroed him due to APM, out-microed him due to game sense, out-thought him due to the 2 ninja expands he never scouted, leading him to think he was going against a contained 2-base army on its last legs.
And it's a very primal high. When I play games against people of my level, my APM goes from the 85 it usually floats at to ~120. I feel my muscles tense and relax, and the sound of my heart pounding is louder in my ears than
If I ever get bored of ladder... well that hasn't happened in years. Ok, if I ever feel too weak to play - say I jammed my finger playing basketball or it's been a long day and I'm too tired to think about strategy - the Arcade is a work of art. One of the things I hated about League, and the reason I'm looking forward so much to the map pool of Heroes of the Storm, is that in League there is only one map to play competitively on, and four maps in total. In Arcade, the possibilities are limitless. I think really the only change the Arcade needs is to make the "Open Games" feature the default, so people can get their maps out there just by hosting a game of that map.
Star Battle is freakin' fantastic, and I think the only reason I stopped playing is that I was pretty horrible at it (although I had so much fun with every loss). Squad TD is an art form, partially because the mapmakers actually continue to update and enhance the game on a regular basis. SAT Control isn't quite as good as the BW version, but it's still a load of fun if you can get 4 people into your game and convince them to be patient as the game fills up (actually pretty easy in the long run).
Mapmaking too. You enhance the SC2 experience for everyone else by exploring the editor. I created a bunch of retarded maps for a school tournament (think Gem League-style). I was planning to do a remake of Korean Defense and got a good way, but that came to a halt a while back. Luckily, some other fellow picked it up and did it. Cheers to Laertes for your work. One day I hope to finish my rendition of Individual Lurker Defense, as well as some other goodies I have planned along the way.
On the subject of mapmaking: I am incredibly thankful for the people behind SC2: Mass Recall as well - their well-crafted adaptation of the Brood War campaign has not only been incredibly fun to play, but also has been a good way to get my friends to buy the game - showing them the awesomeness of not only SC2's two campaigns, but also the 50-odd SC1 missions made in editor.
And in the end, I think it's both the ability to play an amazing game by yourself that gets your heart really pumping just by the sheer intensity of the game (Ladder), has an infinite pool of content (Arcade, esp. Mass Recall), and is still incredibly fun to play with friends so you don't get completely bored (4v4 shitsquads, Arcade-with-less-waiting-time-in-games), that makes the money I've invested into this game well-spent.
Thank you to everyone who plays this game or has played it at any point in their lives. Thank you to those who continue to play it, and most of all to those who contribute to the game and its community in some way - mapmaking, anything involving events and tournaments, all the TL Staff, anyone who's edited Liquipedia....
It might just be easier to thank everyone on the site.
Happy (belated) Thanksgiving.
