Today marks the day that Starcraft turns 20 years old. The expansion came out months after vanilla SC and added a lot of cool new units such as lurkers, corsairs and medics that really helped in balancing out some of the earlier issues in vanilla SC. Things like mass mutalisks were difficult to deal with etc... A good blog to read is Patrick Wyatt's blog where he talks about how SC came to be what it is: https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tough-times-on-the-road-to-starcraft
The whole entire e-sports system also started with SC in the mecca of e-sports, Korea back in the day. Watching some of the older vods, it's always amazing to see the reception as well as how the game evolved so much over the years. This is even more phenomenal to see when one realizes that Blizzard stopped balancing the game ages ago. As players got better through rigorous practice, more strategies opened up and the game's complexity came to light.
It's hard to say just how many people BW have touched over the years, but between OSL, MSL, PL, WCG, TSL and all the other ongoing tournaments and ladders in both Korea and abroad, you can bet that a ton of people were exposed to a game that rewarded skills over anything else. But what makes BW even more unique is the personal experience. Everyone will have their own stories to share.
A friend, family member, TV, old vod etc... are ways that some of us stumbled across BW. A game so epic that you just had to share it with everyone. Days spent playing fastest map possible and trying NR15 with friends might be in the past, but they are deeply engraved in our memory and soul. As we worked to improve, we discovered that a lot of other people were in the same boat. Slowly, all of us congregated together and a community was formed that was dedicated to sharing our love, joy and passion for the game with each other.
BW is the best RTS game of all time! No other game will ever touch its legacy!
Though the professional scene ended years ago due to a lot of factors beyond the scope of this blog, true passion never died and you can see this everywhere you look. Constant coverage and articles, lots of third party developers etc... and all of this was done out of love for the game. Slowly, the players slowly trickled back in and online tournaments prospered. Over time, offline tournaments became more of a reality than a dream, including a brief return to OGN back in 2015 with SSL.
We might not have the OSL, MSL or PL again, but having a new stage where players of days past can battle for their pride and our entertainment is one of the best conclusions we could've reached at the end of this long hard road. The future is uncertain especially with the current condition of remastered, but we should keep on pushing. After all, nothing will ever stop Starcraft.
Starcraft is love! Starcraft is life! Here's to another 20 years! With much love, happy birthday Starcraft! ~
Anyone who spent some time playing SC:BW knows both the frustration and it's beauty. To me it always have been very comparable with musical instruments. It's depth and complexity are seemingly endless. There is always something unexplored, always something new to compose or improvise. Execution is never perfect, basics will always matter. There is no skill ceiling. It cannot be captured fully and creations are only the best in its very moment. It's also socialable in many ways that it's easy to get captivated. It serves many different kind of people which brings lots of joy as well as drama.
I could go on and on... Great game and great community if you find your place.
The biggest part of SC:BW was created by its players and fans. Please never forget, Blizzard. Respect it.
When my dad first showed me this game back in 97 I was kinda scared of it because of the aliens and killings. I was real young then. But not to long after that I feel in love with it. I loved RTS. First was Dune 2, then I played Warcraft 2 and of course came Starcraft.
All those game on B.net, all the shit talk in chat and all the chaos . Such an amazing experience. SC gave me my first experience online. Playing online with other people was amazing. Long live Starcraft Brood War.
Thanks guys. I love Starcraft otherwise I wouldn't have spent almost 4 years covering it and a lot of time playing it. Glad I can share my love with everyone
The only problem with Starcraft is that except for emulated old RPGs on my phone and a Mario Kart 64 race once in a while, I haven't been able to play any other video game more than a few hours. They all feel so unchallenging!
BW was a pretty fun game. Campaign Editor and playing UMS maps with strangers on the internet was endless fun. Pretty sure I played BW obsessively while almost never playing one vs one for at least 5 years. There was a time people even hosted team melee with strangers, which was a perfect catastrophe.
WC3 also had a pretty cool UMS scene, but somehow it was a little different, maybe a little less diverse in content.
I used to really like the Micro Wars maps...
For me BW was like [children's brick toys] for teens. Really cool to build stuff and see what other people built.
When I finally started playing one vs one with a few people, that was my first taste of psychological warfare and mind games that was really awesome. I was lucky to play in a time when build orders ended at like 15 supply for most people, the game is really different when timings aren't crazy sharp and decide half your games.
It's pretty regrettable so much of what made BW the coolest game is gone. It's weird not being able to play BW on any old toaster anymore. A tiny proscene and a living player base in Korea is not nothing, but it's a very small slice of what BW used to be. Sometimes people talk about how lots of people have moved onto DOTA or OW, or SC2 or whatever other competitive game, or the new generation are playing those games, but for real, Minecraft and other sandbox games where you just build stuff is another place people left to. BW was a lot of things in one box. On some level, you just have to generalize and say at least video games is still a cool thing. BW today is kind of unrecognizable. So much of what I learned about BW over 20 years is kind of useless even in the context of a StarCraft forum. It's really very weird. I think these days BW can only attract a very specific subset of people, where before you'd get a whole gamut of people who liked it for all kinds of reasons.
I think BW was almost the same for 12 years. Maybe you could say 14 years for last OSL, but 12 years is SC2 and Bnet2. You could maybe say less than 12 years if matchfixing or KeSPA issues with Blizzard seem like a watershed moment to you. The last 6 years is kinda like the great depression of BW to me lol. Congrats on 20 years BW *hack* *cough* *spurts blood*. There there, have some ASL to ease the pain. Go back to sleep now. Bahahaha.
On April 04 2018 02:58 endy wrote: The only problem with Starcraft is that except for emulated old RPGs on my phone and a Mario Kart 64 race once in a while, I haven't been able to play any other video game more than a few hours. They all feel so unchallenging!
yep or just plain boring. Nothing compares to BW for me either.
On April 04 2018 07:31 Chef wrote: BW was a pretty fun game. Campaign Editor and playing UMS maps with strangers on the internet was endless fun. Pretty sure I played BW obsessively while almost never playing one vs one for at least 5 years. There was a time people even hosted team melee with strangers, which was a perfect catastrophe.
WC3 also had a pretty cool UMS scene, but somehow it was a little different, maybe a little less diverse in content.
I used to really like the Micro Wars maps...
For me BW was like [children's brick toys] for teens. Really cool to build stuff and see what other people built.
Come now, you speak of BW as a fun game in past tense. BW has never changed since the last blizzard patch. You can still play 1.16.1 on ICCup too or go for remastered and play SD graphics (they are terrible but at least a bit better than rm release SD gfx).
Micro wars is fun. Spent several evenings playing it on Shieldbattery with a TLer.
On April 04 2018 07:31 Chef wrote:When I finally started playing one vs one with a few people, that was my first taste of psychological warfare and mind games that was really awesome. I was lucky to play in a time when build orders ended at like 15 supply for most people, the game is really different when timings aren't crazy sharp and decide half your games.
It's pretty regrettable so much of what made BW the coolest game is gone. It's weird not being able to play BW on any old toaster anymore. A tiny proscene and a living player base in Korea is not nothing, but it's a very small slice of what BW used to be. Sometimes people talk about how lots of people have moved onto DOTA or OW, or SC2 or whatever other competitive game, or the new generation are playing those games, but for real, Minecraft and other sandbox games where you just build stuff is another place people left to. BW was a lot of things in one box. On some level, you just have to generalize and say at least video games is still a cool thing. BW today is kind of unrecognizable. So much of what I learned about BW over 20 years is kind of useless even in the context of a StarCraft forum. It's really very weird. I think these days BW can only attract a very specific subset of people, where before you'd get a whole gamut of people who liked it for all kinds of reasons.
I think BW was almost the same for 12 years. Maybe you could say 14 years for last OSL, but 12 years is SC2 and Bnet2. You could maybe say less than 12 years if matchfixing or KeSPA issues with Blizzard seem like a watershed moment to you. The last 6 years is kinda like the great depression of BW to me lol. Congrats on 20 years BW *hack* *cough* *spurts blood*. There there, have some ASL to ease the pain. Go back to sleep now. Bahahaha.
It sounds like we both enjoy BW for the same reason. Once you play with someone enough BW, you understand their style and try to exploit their weakness or just play mind games with them. It's a blast. I also don't use build orders. My go to build is 1 rax FE where I get a depot at 9, rax at 11 and cc at a random time (depends on what I scout, try as early as possible so before 18 supply usually). Sometimes I'll get a cc and a refinery asap, get another depot then an acad or rax first. Other times I'll just add a bunker at the front if my opponent has been going heavy zerglings lately and a chance of an all-in is high.
At times, I'll get a fac instead of a rax or acad then add an acad for scan as I get a starport and ebay for mutas. Sometimes I'll just 2 fac off one base, pure mech or go for 3 rax acad. I remember playing this one game on Triathlon where I did my usual block my entrance at my natural then added another 2-3 rax in the corner of my base. Once I had enough, I moved out and hit right after his mutas left the sunken line. I crushed my opponent one-sidely haha. I've went nukes, BCs, mass air (3 port wraith/valks etc...). I know I posted some of this stuff as fpv and BR'd others in my blogs and there's a lot more entertaining and bizzare games to share, just don't have the time or energy to blog more frequently. I even had Sayle cast some funny games for my 20k blg :+ Show Spoiler +
For me, this is what BW is about. Not necessarily following a BO and more so experimenting and just having fun learning the game. I'm pretty sure this is exactly why all the pros love the game as well. Biggest difference between us and them is that they have amazing macro and a much deeper understanding of the game so like Flash said in that Wakanda interview, it comes down to mind games and such. You're right though, BW is a very interesting place right now. I also dislike that you need higher specs now to run the game, feels extremely silly to me and Blizzard's approach to rm while it seemed ok back when RM was announced, has backfired hard :/ I think one thing you need to consider is that after the last OSL aired, a lot of community members left. I know this because I have access to this info and have seen the changes. It's extremely unfortunate but this led to the community downsizing greatly and that in turn affected everything.
Great depression lol. BW is nowhere the size it was before and I'm afraid that it'll never grow as big anymore due to a lot of factors. At this point in time, I think we should just try and enjoy what we have and try to share the game with other people because the game is truly that amazing if we are able to get passed all the bugs in RM. Once you learn the basics and find a player on the same wavelength, it's the best game there is and you can only experience that if you try it.
On April 03 2018 10:51 BigFan wrote: Thanks guys. I love Starcraft otherwise I wouldn't have spent almost 4 years covering it and a lot of time playing it losing to JieXian. Glad I can share my love with everyone
On April 03 2018 10:51 BigFan wrote: Thanks guys. I love Starcraft otherwise I wouldn't have spent almost 4 years covering it and a lot of time playing it losing to JieXian. Glad I can share my love with everyone
Fixed that for you
Well, maybe if you didn't dodge me so much these days, you can still claim this then! :D
Thought I'd update this blog instead of making a new one. I got this nice gift from Blizzard for SC20 so figured I'll share some pictures with you guys. I've already seen a couple of other TLers get a similar gift as well which is nice. Guess now is the time to say: "We made it boys!"
However, mine is the most unique because they decided not to include my full name haha. Still, it's a nice gesture and I appreciate the gift. Now Blizzard, please work just as hard as possible to make RM the best it can be! :D
EPT
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/O1pljrg.png)
![[image loading]](/staff/BigFan/Certificate.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/BigFan/Coin.jpg)
