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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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Canada11369 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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Netherlands13554 Posts
On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
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.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII).
Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.-
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On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
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.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.-
Man imagine what you can do w/ all those spare APM.
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Nice blog and a different angle. I really do wish people posted more like this when the SCII Beta was around, that's a lot more "objective" and neutral than what I was used to read. Tons of it make more sense to me, maybe because I can relate and played all these other games.
What I can't completely agree with (have a different opinion on) is the black mini map. I thought and still think that's a good feature for RTS Single Player. I was used to explore a giant map in AoE II. In that game it was a lot harder to know what's where, because the unit's initial vision range is so freakishly small compared to BW. If I was still a newb, who only plays BW casually against AI, I'd love to have this feature, simply because it adds a risk factor, some sort of uncertainty and like somebody mentioned it has this "exploration" style to it. Once you want to play competitively it changes:
On February 20 2014 06:44 thezanursic wrote:
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.
This is correct. There are only few maps you'd have to memorize, e.g. Fighting Spirit. You know the spawning positions and the rest is fairly easy to scout. It's also somewhat helpful for your overall game plan later. If the map is still dark on expansion spots (mineral bases) against a human in the mid game, you should probably scout them to rule out hidden expansions. With fog of war, personally, I tend to forget the possibility of my opponent expanding there when I didn't notize. This has cost me a lot of games.
As for the minimap itself goes, I do have other problems there. I have some sort of red/green weakness, so the tile sets in small scale can be horrible. Small red dots, like small red Zerglings, on a green (jungle) tile set just become one with the surface and I forget to spot them. Only option to circumvent that is to press TAB and get the mini map all black. I never got around to play with an all-black mini map. This is probably because I had to play tons of different map each sunday in BWCL and never really knew the design of all 30+ maps in the pool, for both 2on2 and 1on1. Also, Tile Sets with Ice (nowadays only rarely used) are a pain in the ass, especially with lighter colors on them.
SCII didn't solved many of these issues, some with a higher resolution, others with better contrasts. However, they added another giant and stupid problem: The grids you have when you build stuff. They're all in red/green on mostly brown/green-ish surfaces. It takes ages for me to place down an expansion sometimes and I don't realize where to move my building to, so that one tile of the preview structure is green instead of red. I simply do not see the difference, it's either all red or all green for me at times. Nevermind.
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.
On February 20 2014 07:17 FromShouri wrote:
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.
These things I do not agree with. Scenarios/Melee games do not really help out a beginner. The second post is also wrong factually, as far as I remember from reading some AI related articles. You simply can't play standardized against AIs (plural), even if they'd be the same race. The AI will always cheat and mix up strange army compositions. There's nothing to learn. You could be killed with an ordinary multiplayer opening, if you stick with it and never get to learn why you got killed. Playing the AI is rather easy if you're either quite passive in the opening, or if you confuse them with your scout (attacking workers). You can "only" train macro mechanics against them, but even then you're not really in stress compared to a human on the other side, who'll harass you the entire time. A few games against the AI is great to get to learn the race, how units move and attack in a sandbox, but other than that, the AIs give a wrong impression.
As for the ICCup part goes:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Portal:Beginners/Gateways#Hosting_and_Latency
If that works - fine for you. If that doesn't, try to get some help from people of this page. Either way, play some games, chat with the people you play and who you think are most likely to be beginners themselves. If you use
/f a NICK
You can add players to your friends list on any PVPGN realm (B-net, ICC, Fish).
/f l
Shows you if they're online
and with either
/w nick or /m nick or /f m
you send messages to these people. Find beginners who can host. Train with them. A lot less frustration. Also, check the D Ranks Leagues and ask some players if you can train with them. Nowdays there's an entire scene for beginners, so starting BW isn't that hard as people make it sound.
Even if your mechanics are horrible, you will improve faster than you think. It's true, you won't become a professional or get near them for years without true dedication, but it's fun nonetheless.
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On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
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.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.-
yea and as a SC2 player who never really got into BW, I find those mechanics completely unnecessary.
believe it or not, when I first started SC2, I played zerg and since I didn't know how to inject efficiently, I had to set each hatchery on separate control group.
when I get to 4 or 5 base economy, I had to do 44 (to get to the hatch) *click on queen*v (inject), same goes for 567 bases and then 4szzzz (lings) 5szzzz 6svv whatever.
Now don't forget creep spread, overlord and ling spreading, other micro like poking the front of opponent base to see if you can do run by or bait out a forcefields etc.
It felt annoying and disruptive to the flow of the game.
In a ZvZ for example, ling baneling muta style, holy crap how annoying it was to constantly do separate production from each hatch, set control group for all of them and then needing to do all the micro stuff like ling baneling micro, muta harass etc.
I certainly didn't feel I played better just because i won games having to do all of that and still won the game against an opponent who use one control group for all the production facilities.
I could do so much more after knowing the inject methods and not having my attention split up to inject and focus on micro and doing other things like burrowing lings all around the map and creep spreading onto opponent third location etc.
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On February 21 2014 23:15 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
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.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.- yea and as a SC2 player who never really got into BW, I find those mechanics completely unnecessary. believe it or not, when I first started SC2, I played zerg and since I didn't know how to inject efficiently, I had to set each hatchery on separate control group. when I get to 4 or 5 base economy, I had to do 44 (to get to the hatch) *click on queen*v (inject), same goes for 567 bases and then 4szzzz (lings) 5szzzz 6svv whatever. Now don't forget creep spread, overlord and ling spreading, other micro like poking the front of opponent base to see if you can do run by or bait out a forcefields etc. It felt annoying and disruptive to the flow of the game. In a ZvZ for example, ling baneling muta style, holy crap how annoying it was to constantly do separate production from each hatch, set control group for all of them and then needing to do all the micro stuff like ling baneling micro, muta harass etc. I certainly didn't feel I played better just because i won games having to do all of that and still won the game against an opponent who use one control group for all the production facilities. I could do so much more after knowing the inject methods and not having my attention split up to inject and focus on micro and doing other things like burrowing lings all around the map and creep spreading onto opponent third location etc.
To a Brood War player this felt similar, the perspective is slightly different though. I felt that Blizzard designers had to add stuff like that just to satisfy the Brood War veterans, who were against MBS and Automine. "Look, it's harder to do now and it's very in, it's very now, it's post modern, we're cool". Well it isn't, but anyhow, that's not the point of the blog. BW macro mechanics aren't impossible to do to get on a somewhat decent level. That's part of the magic though, that you know what you want to do, but you have to keep your concentration up, in order to achieve it. It taught me to appreciate better players and work harder on my controls, it also taught me how to make trade offs between control, strategy and meta gaming related things, e.g. picking the strategy I could perform easiest, while putting more "mechanical" pressure on my opponent. It really did help me to rage less in 1on1 about a loss, it was basically my fault, my opponent simply did perform better. I'm not a fan of artificially making mechanics really easy. If I want to play games, which don't require me to do physical input, I pick Round Based games with no time limits, Chess or something. But I'm also not a fan of artificially forced mechanics. In the end it was a long shot that Brood War became what it is today and I'm grateful for this small miracle. I'm skeptical that the concept can be copied or re-designed.
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On February 22 2014 00:51 GeckoXp wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2014 23:15 ETisME wrote:On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
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.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.- yea and as a SC2 player who never really got into BW, I find those mechanics completely unnecessary. believe it or not, when I first started SC2, I played zerg and since I didn't know how to inject efficiently, I had to set each hatchery on separate control group. when I get to 4 or 5 base economy, I had to do 44 (to get to the hatch) *click on queen*v (inject), same goes for 567 bases and then 4szzzz (lings) 5szzzz 6svv whatever. Now don't forget creep spread, overlord and ling spreading, other micro like poking the front of opponent base to see if you can do run by or bait out a forcefields etc. It felt annoying and disruptive to the flow of the game. In a ZvZ for example, ling baneling muta style, holy crap how annoying it was to constantly do separate production from each hatch, set control group for all of them and then needing to do all the micro stuff like ling baneling micro, muta harass etc. I certainly didn't feel I played better just because i won games having to do all of that and still won the game against an opponent who use one control group for all the production facilities. I could do so much more after knowing the inject methods and not having my attention split up to inject and focus on micro and doing other things like burrowing lings all around the map and creep spreading onto opponent third location etc. To a Brood War player this felt similar, the perspective is slightly different though. I felt that Blizzard designers had to add stuff like that just to satisfy the Brood War veterans, who were against MBS and Automine. "Look, it's harder to do now and it's very in, it's very now, it's post modern, we're cool". Well it isn't, but anyhow, that's not the point of the blog. BW macro mechanics aren't impossible to do to get on a somewhat decent level. That's part of the magic though, that you know what you want to do, but you have to keep your concentration up, in order to achieve it. It taught me to appreciate better players and work harder on my controls, it also taught me how to make trade offs between control, strategy and meta gaming related things, e.g. picking the strategy I could perform easiest, while putting more "mechanical" pressure on my opponent. It really did help me to rage less in 1on1 about a loss, it was basically my fault, my opponent simply did perform better. I'm not a fan of artificially making mechanics really easy. If I want to play games, which don't require me to do physical input, I pick Round Based games with no time limits, Chess or something. But I'm also not a fan of artificially forced mechanics. In the end it was a long shot that Brood War became what it is today and I'm grateful for this small miracle. I'm skeptical that the concept can be copied or re-designed.
Like I said previously, I can see why BW players like those mechanics like getting workers to mine.
because at the beginning of my SC2, I disliked the annoyance of needing to inject and spreading creep.
But after several hundreds of games, I loved it.
I love how it feels when you inject on time. I love how the overall macro mechanics flow.
You inject, spread creep, make unit/buildings/upgrades, then you spread overlords/lings and then control the army.
There was a time when I played so much that the sound effect of inject then spreading creep are like lullaby music to me, sometimes I would fell asleep watching a Zerg stream.
But if I have to pick, I very much prefer the lowered mechanics requirement to perform basic stuff like producing units and having workers to mine in SC2.
I don't like how forced it makes me feel like.
In SC2, for example, sometimes it's not a mistake for me to miss those injects or creep spread, sometimes it's because I am choosing to divert my attention elsewhere such as making my army being as cost efficient as possible and so the benefit of micro-ing is outweighting the negative of not "macro" boosting.
And if I didn't micro well, not having that one round of production boost can be the game changing factor.
It's all just my opinion though
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United States10328 Posts
On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
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.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.-
hahaha I thought the exact same thing; when SC2 came out everyone was really mad about MBS and automine
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I never really understood why people are so keen on looking at the graphics aspect. Maybe it's because they read so many magazines or are so used to games having silly graphics. In those days, I thought the game looked pretty damn good and things were pretty visible. With regards to the Fog of War. Just another thing borrowed from the Warcraft days and it taught players to study the actual maps and cater their builds to the map to find advantages. Replays were a burden and allowed people to progress/learn from the players ahead of their time. At first I thought it was great, but just imagine the progression without them and certain players would be relevant for longer periods of time.
On February 22 2014 04:20 ]343[ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
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.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.- hahaha I thought the exact same thing; when SC2 came out everyone was really mad about MBS and automine
We had over a thousand pages debating those topics. ;/
On February 22 2014 00:51 GeckoXp wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2014 23:15 ETisME wrote:On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
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.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.- yea and as a SC2 player who never really got into BW, I find those mechanics completely unnecessary. believe it or not, when I first started SC2, I played zerg and since I didn't know how to inject efficiently, I had to set each hatchery on separate control group. when I get to 4 or 5 base economy, I had to do 44 (to get to the hatch) *click on queen*v (inject), same goes for 567 bases and then 4szzzz (lings) 5szzzz 6svv whatever. Now don't forget creep spread, overlord and ling spreading, other micro like poking the front of opponent base to see if you can do run by or bait out a forcefields etc. It felt annoying and disruptive to the flow of the game. In a ZvZ for example, ling baneling muta style, holy crap how annoying it was to constantly do separate production from each hatch, set control group for all of them and then needing to do all the micro stuff like ling baneling micro, muta harass etc. I certainly didn't feel I played better just because i won games having to do all of that and still won the game against an opponent who use one control group for all the production facilities. I could do so much more after knowing the inject methods and not having my attention split up to inject and focus on micro and doing other things like burrowing lings all around the map and creep spreading onto opponent third location etc. To a Brood War player this felt similar, the perspective is slightly different though. I felt that Blizzard designers had to add stuff like that just to satisfy the Brood War veterans, who were against MBS and Automine. "Look, it's harder to do now and it's very in, it's very now, it's post modern, we're cool". Well it isn't, but anyhow, that's not the point of the blog. BW macro mechanics aren't impossible to do to get on a somewhat decent level. That's part of the magic though, that you know what you want to do, but you have to keep your concentration up, in order to achieve it. It taught me to appreciate better players and work harder on my controls, it also taught me how to make trade offs between control, strategy and meta gaming related things, e.g. picking the strategy I could perform easiest, while putting more "mechanical" pressure on my opponent. It really did help me to rage less in 1on1 about a loss, it was basically my fault, my opponent simply did perform better. I'm not a fan of artificially making mechanics really easy. If I want to play games, which don't require me to do physical input, I pick Round Based games with no time limits, Chess or something. But I'm also not a fan of artificially forced mechanics. In the end it was a long shot that Brood War became what it is today and I'm grateful for this small miracle. I'm skeptical that the concept can be copied or re-designed.
It was more of a design trade. If you add things like warp-ins and speed up the game other races are going to need more options. That's why Zerg players have things like inject, creep tumors, nydus worms etc. Blizzard tries to incorporate the community but at the end of the day they will always do things their own way.
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