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[Opening statement/note: This blog is purely based upon first impressions from a single player perspective. I know very little about BW's professional scene and I have never even witnessed a professional BW game and thus I won't be covering anything multiplayer related.]
Gaming has always been a part of my life from an early age playing the PlayStation and Nintendo Gameboy as well as delving into PC gaming at around the age of eight when my dad built me my very own computer made up of 3rd hand parts he had lying around. RTS was one genre even back then interested me and I spent many hours failing miserably at Command and Conquer: Red Alert and Age of Empires as well as watching my brother and my dad play a variety of other games including Baldur's Gate and Doom.
Back then my RTS fix was fulfilled purely by C&C and AoE respectively. StarCraft never really picked up on my radar even though I knew of it's existence at the time, I vaguely recall watching my dad play it a couple of times and somewhere in my house there is most likely a disc copy of at least the original although I really don't know the exact whereabouts.
Recently I decided to rectify my clear RTS gaming hole and purchase SC1, mainly stemming from my love of the "classic" RTS games of my youth and my new found love of StarCraft II. Coming from SC2 to BW is a rather large leap as I soon discovered.
Graphically, even for it's age, it isn't a supermodel. C&C: RA and C&C: Tiberium Sun were far nicer looking games at least in my opinion. The graphics do grow on you after a while though, they have an odd charm about them, perhaps maybe with the exception of Zerg. The Zerg graphics I find horrible no matter how long I stare at them but I imagine that's more because the graphics engine was incredibly limited back then and making the Zerg feel like Zerg was a difficult task.
I've always been appreciative of video game soundtracks and BW has some superb music that definitely trumps its descendent. The Terran music in particular really stands out to me and is probably the greatest soundtrack music to ever grace my ears, it's a masterpiece and makes me disappointed that I don't play Terran. Even the Protoss music is better than what was produced for SCII, although I still feel it is the weakest music out of all the races.
Prior to actually playing for myself, I saw many a poster on TL commenting on how much "harder" BW was to play compared to SCII and after jumping in myself I've come to realise how they are correct, mechanically, it is much more difficult in every aspect. I am by no means a fantastic SCII player residing in silver league currently but BW is a completely different beast to tame. There is so much more a player needs to remember to do in BW and I actually quite like that even if multitasking is one of my main issues when it comes to SCII.
BW is actually so difficult to adjust to from SCII even the AI can absolutely smash my face in with relative ease, something I've never experienced with SCII. But something about that appeals to me, I've always enjoyed challenges even when not playing against other people and being beaten in BW by the AI still makes me feel like I've learnt something, although it does make working on those fundamentals a lot more difficult.
If there are a couple of aspects of BW I dislike, it'd have to be the minimap and economic management. Firstly, the minimap not showing you the entire map makes it difficult to know where to expand to, or where to send scouts and to me that just feels like ramping up the difficulty up more than perhaps it needs to be. As for the economic management, I'm used to systems that remove your resources when you select it to be built, not when your worker actually comes along to place it on the map. It makes it much more difficult to manage to build both a base and an army as you'll think you still have enough resources to build a unit as well as a structure, only to accidentally delay an important tech structure or an expansion.
Overall, despite the game not ageing particularly well graphically. BW is a fantastic game I've come to like and appreciate, I can see why many people look at it fondly to this day and I'm definitely going to have to somehow plough equal amounts of time into both this and SCII as well as deciding whether to stick as Protoss or switch to Terran just for the immense soundtrack in BW. Whatever I choose I genuinely look forward to learning to play this and hopefully build up the courage to perhaps go on iccup or the like and get crushed there.
 
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I played all those RTS games you mentioned when I was a young gamer too, and they have all left timeless impressions on me. The Broodwar campaign was easy at the time (power overwhelming), and my friend who also played BW and I were ignorant of the fact that LANning existed, so we never played multiplayer. However, back in 2010 , with the anticipation of SC2's release building up, I tried my hand at BW again after nearly 8 years of not touching it at all. I read up on builds, played countless hours a day and improved my APM from a meager 40 to something around 220 in 3 months' time. Guess how many games I won on ICCUP during that time? If I can remember correctly, my record at the end of one season was around 2-35. LOL. The normal 1v1 games on Bnet servers I could win now and then, but ICCUP was a nightmare for someone with my inexperience. I kept going though and played the game for a few more months.
Unfortunately there aren't that many people playing BW anymore, but why not give ICCUP a shot?
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Not seeing the entire minimap at the beginning of the game is annoying at first, but if you've played a map once or twice you should probably have the layout memorized already.
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Pro Tip to beating the computers:
Unless you play some specific kespa maps the computer will literally do the same build and attack ~the 7 minute mark. Protoss is 3-gate zealot, zerg is 2 hatch hydra/ling on 1 base and terran is 3-rax marine medic firebat. While each require their own counters you can usually open really greedy and then just cannon/sunken/bunker up with some supporting units and be fine. Comps plan on beating you right then and there and if you don't die, they may attack once or twice more but after that will literally leave you alone.
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On February 20 2014 06:46 BigFan wrote:Either way, give iccup a try and don't give losses a second thought. Just play to improve and eventually you'll get your first win 
The problem with iCCup is you need to find low-level games on the server, which is really difficult and time consuming. If you can manage to host then you might have more success, but if you're in a dorm or something it's basically impossible to play regularly at a low level. I tried what you're suggesting and I eventually gave up, because playing on iCCup without being able to host is a pain in the ass.
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Canada11378 Posts
@FromShouri
I don't think that exactly true. I think they each have 2-3 openings, but the ones you are talking about occur the most common. P for instance has a passive build that involves building spread out cannons and getting a Nexus and Z has comp version of the 6 pool (not exactly). If you play vs 3 Z comps, you have a pretty good chance that one of them will Zergling rush you. (A passable, though of limited value method of practicing walling and defending with probes.)
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Nice Blog!
The terran theme songs are really awesome in BW, so much that I just add them to my winamp playlist for games, this way you could have the music even if you choose not to play terran! I do myself play terran, maybe I was subconsciously influenced by the music, but more than like by the korean progamers displaying their beautiful talents haha
As for the two bigger complaints,
I totally agree that the minimaps shouldn't start black but rather greyed out fog of war style, and there are some training maps that do this. To help counteract this for now I can only suggest using the map PREVIEW feature on melee mode by hovering your mouse over it in the lobby to see the map before you start. Limiting yourself to a few maps to start with can help build your familiarity as well, so I hope you get on well with that.
The economic management thing is well, a very unique feature and I always have trouble adjusting to games at start that operate differently because of playing BW so long. I think you can adapt to this though and with time will learn to adjust when you will spend what resources etc.
For now, I would suggest playing singleplayer until you can beat 2-3 AI comps simultaneously easily, before attempting multiplayer. There are however a huge number of very fun arcade style maps in Broodwar called UMS=Use Map Settings maps that can be fun even at beginner level in multiplayer before you get into the 1v1 melee stage.
If you need help finding out how to setup access to servers like iCCup or any other information just post in the BW discussion thread or make a new [H] tagged post, we're always keen to help new people in the game!
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Your points all line up with what I remember. The one in particular that stuck out to me was that, even with 110 APM in BW I still couldn't beat almost anyone. Eventually I made it up to 200 or so, and could barely get past D. The ladder is just insanely competitive.
There is an extension that allows you to have different/more varied AI to face if you'd care for that.
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I admit when I played on ICCUP I switched to Terran from Protoss simply because the soundtrack would get me so pumped I'd actually play better.
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Fun read 5/5
I feel like for seasoned players and fans of BW the graphics really grow on them, as is the case for me.
I've tried introducing my little brother to the game but he wasn't all that impressed by the graphics (which struck me as odd because he plays minecraft and thats just all blocks ㅇㅅㅇa)
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I love BW graphics still. I think 2d games in general turn people off, which isn't suprising. In the end though I think BW graphics, or a game like Aoe II, have FAR more longevity than earlier 3d games, or probably even modern games. In 20 years SC2 will look horrible compared to the current games, BW will still just be art.
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I played a bit of BW against AI back when I was in Diamond and pretty much share the same opinion with you:
Graphic is poor, especially for Zerg. I really dislike maps with neutral creatures when I am playing zerg, the overall colours are just terrible.
I love the music and sound effect, especially the warp in building sound effect for protoss.
It is way better than what we have in SC2.
I don't like the zealot attack animation very much though, first time I saw it, I think the zealot was bugging or something lol
I know a lot of BW people love how the game looks and thought things are very well defined and clear but I have the complete opposite opinion, i find some are very confusing, the sunken attack animation for example, I can't really know which sunken is attacking which unit.
BW is definitly a harder game for lower level player, but i find some of the mechanics are really unnecessary.
2 I especially don't like:
No control group to produce from all production facilities
Tell workers to mine.
I felt those are more annoying to do than to get impressed. But then again, I felt the same when I first played Zerg too, needing to inject for example felt more frustrating than impressed,
now I feel awesome whenever I inject, that macro cycle of inject, creep spread, produce and set control group, spread out lings and overlords feels AWESOME.
Another funny point:
many people commented how SC2 zerg doesn't feel swarmy compared to BW.
But as a SC2 player, I thought BW zerg doesn't feel very zerggy because the lings etc are a lot slower, even speedlings don't feel as speedy and dangerous.
It's also worth mentioning that I also tried out starbow but I just prefer BW a lot more. Something about playing starbow has this "fan-made" feel all over it and makes me want to play BW instead
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I played SC2 the very first season (when steppes of war was a ladder map, when you could thor-drop at the ledge at the natural of lost temple in TvZ and win every single game, metalopolis was the best map ever etc.) and I ended up in the silver league after 200-250 games and that's all I experienced SC2. Prior to SC2, I played BW and after what I saw in SC2, I couldn't do anything but despise it. I switched back to BW and got to D+ with Zerg (battle report of the game I got to D+ should be somewhere in my blogs). Learning isn't that hard (not mechanics, that shit takes real time to be semi-decent at), same types of stuff go for both BW and SC2.
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Another funny point:
many people commented how SC2 zerg doesn't feel swarmy compared to BW.
But as a SC2 player, I thought BW zerg doesn't feel very zerggy because the lings etc are a lot slower, even speedlings don't feel as speedy and dangerous.
SC2 Zerglings feel more insectlike, so in that sense they're more swarmy, but a controlgroup of BW Zerglings are so much more intimidating than 12 SC2 Zerglings, particularly as the attack sound is so grunty in BW.
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On February 20 2014 18:39 Birdie wrote:Show nested quote +Another funny point:
many people commented how SC2 zerg doesn't feel swarmy compared to BW.
But as a SC2 player, I thought BW zerg doesn't feel very zerggy because the lings etc are a lot slower, even speedlings don't feel as speedy and dangerous. SC2 Zerglings feel more insectlike, so in that sense they're more swarmy, but a controlgroup of BW Zerglings are so much more intimidating than 12 SC2 Zerglings, particularly as the attack sound is so grunty in BW.
3/3 cracklings + swarm + kekeke = dead protoss base
i loooved the ling sounds in bw.
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TLADT24920 Posts
On February 20 2014 09:57 DarkNetHunter wrote:
For now, I would suggest playing singleplayer until you can beat 2-3 AI comps simultaneously easily, before attempting multiplayer. There are however a huge number of very fun arcade style maps in Broodwar called UMS=Use Map Settings maps that can be fun even at beginner level in multiplayer before you get into the 1v1 melee stage.
while I agree with playing SP, I don't think he'll enjoy the game if he was playing against AIs. It could just be me but I always liked playing against other players even those much higher than my level so that I can see what the difference is. When I was still playing SCII, I used to play against my masters friend (I was silver at the time, complete noob) and get rolled every game but looking at the replay, etc... I noticed the difference in our game. I guess it gives you a goal to work towards which adds to longevity
On February 20 2014 07:37 Rainling wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 06:46 BigFan wrote:Either way, give iccup a try and don't give losses a second thought. Just play to improve and eventually you'll get your first win The problem with iCCup is you need to find low-level games on the server, which is really difficult and time consuming. If you can manage to host then you might have more success, but if you're in a dorm or something it's basically impossible to play regularly at a low level. I tried what you're suggesting and I eventually gave up, because playing on iCCup without being able to host is a pain in the ass.
low-level games? you mean D-? E? When I started playing on iccup, I was mostly facing D level players and getting rolled. Sometimes I would play the D- player or maybe even E and win a game or two here and there but even then, they were still difficult wins. It's true that it's harder to play on iccup if you can't host however two things. There's mcalauncher that can help you port forward if you can't do it on your router so that you can host(it works for some people) and other thing is that you can always ask people if they can host for you. We have the practice partner thread so you can just pm people there or go to the TL channel and ask if anyone can host for you. Most wouldn't have a problem so it works out that way. I think it can also help you develop a rivalry with someone and make the BW experience that much better
On February 20 2014 18:39 Birdie wrote:Show nested quote +Another funny point:
many people commented how SC2 zerg doesn't feel swarmy compared to BW.
But as a SC2 player, I thought BW zerg doesn't feel very zerggy because the lings etc are a lot slower, even speedlings don't feel as speedy and dangerous. SC2 Zerglings feel more insectlike, so in that sense they're more swarmy, but a controlgroup of BW Zerglings are so much more intimidating than 12 SC2 Zerglings, particularly as the attack sound is so grunty in BW.
cracklings are ridiculous to play against lol. In SCII, a marine ball would usually eat a large group of slings and maybe a marine or two die at best. In BW, you'll lose quite a bit if you don't at least try to micro those marines out. BW lings are just more powerful which is why they are tougher to deal with.
On February 20 2014 22:39 virpi wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 18:39 Birdie wrote:Another funny point:
many people commented how SC2 zerg doesn't feel swarmy compared to BW.
But as a SC2 player, I thought BW zerg doesn't feel very zerggy because the lings etc are a lot slower, even speedlings don't feel as speedy and dangerous. SC2 Zerglings feel more insectlike, so in that sense they're more swarmy, but a controlgroup of BW Zerglings are so much more intimidating than 12 SC2 Zerglings, particularly as the attack sound is so grunty in BW. 3/3 cracklings + swarm + kekeke = dead protoss base i loooved the ling sounds in bw.
you evil, evil man! lol 
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Firstly, the minimap not showing you the entire map makes it difficult to know where to expand to, or where to send scouts and to me that just feels like ramping up the difficulty up more than perhaps it needs to be.
This is actually one of my favorite aspects of BW. This adds a fear factor as well as an exploration one that I just fall in love with whenever I'm playing a game on a map I haven't seen before. I guess it is the whole 'to seek out and explore strange new worlds' feeling. I still remember when I got zealot rushed while scouting out the Challenger map and freaked out. That feeling when aliens suddenly appear and start wrecking havoc on your beloved base is like no other.
<3 BW
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On February 20 2014 05:41 KatatoniK wrote:
making the Zerg feel like Zerg was a difficult task.
There was no precedent for zergs back then, so in fact what you see it's the original zerg. I assume that for someone who takes sc2 as the starting point for his zerg interpretation it can make bw zerg quite off, but can assure you from bw starter pov that's the other way around as well. For me bw zerg feel more "alive", more organic and more fleshy, hence all those vivid colors.
And for zerglings, once you get the grasp on them and learn how to surround enemies and realize their insane dps you'll end loving them. If sc2 zerglings with the pathfinding/auto-surround kept the same dps would be the most imba units ever.
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EPT
