EPTAs Starcraft came out in 1998, my thoughts where “Oh, an exploitation title to get the Warcraft series into a space setting”. Since Warcraft was by no means original, I saw no need for me to play that “Star”craft (gosh, they copied even half of the name.)
Now they offer three factions? So does Dune 2. Dune 2 at least has some original lore. I saw some SC artwork and the shameless rip-offs from the Starship Trooper and Alien franchises. Why should I buy a random Science Fiction strategy game?
But then I bought SC anyway (it’s in space! Science Fiction! I was tired of the medieval settings) and played some campaign missions. To be more precise all the terran missions and halfway through the zerg campaign. I liked the zerg for being slimy and organic and vile and just plain disgusting, but I lost interest because the missions became too difficult for me.
I did play some multiplayer games, but without any strategy. I always picked zerg, because I liked them in the campaign, and teched through the tree and saw some biiig monsters available to morph. I thought: “Wow, let’s build some of them!” My ultralisks stomped the friend who was really angry about that – because he tried to play with an actual strategy.
Broodwar was released, everyone was raving about the medic and how strong they are combined with marines. I thought “marines are supposed to be cannon fodder anyway, why bother to heal them?” At that time, I did not buy the expansion to the mediocre game. I mean, Age of Empires offers at least decent graphics with high-res SVGA modes. I played some AoE games through the MS zone service. AoE offered some interesting strategic options here and could be play on randomly generated maps, so no-one had an unfair advantage just through memorizing map features.
I also played Command&Conquer, the original one, in 320x200 resolution, in a LAN tournament and performed not too bad.
Just to complete my Blizzard collection, I bought Broodwar eventually and bought the original game again because I lost the CD. (Later I purchased both CDs again twice, since I kept losing my CDs.) But the game I was playing now, is called Warcraft 3.
I remember they announced SC2 in 2007. Blizzard denied their most important RTS improvement – the hero system – to Starcraft, so I stayed with WC3.
Watching e-sports games live
I saw Grubby at WWI 2008 in Paris, where he won versus Sky. Two nice games, with a chain wave at the end. Would I ever get more excitement? I did not had the chance to play the SC2 Alpha at the WWI the because my knees hurt that day and I did not want to wait in line.
But I read the SC2 Alpha reports from OgerAffe. He described in detail any game he played. It was obvious that Blizzard tried really hard to fulfil the promises of the name.
In 2008 I was also in Cologne, to watch the WCG grand finals in WC3. I wanted to cheer for Grubby and had a little poster on which I wrote “Grubby FTW”. At the player’s booth I met a nice girl (which made a photograph of me, later it turned out that she was Cassandra.) Before the semifinale Grubby vs. Hot started, the king of orcs was going into the audience to meet his fans. I saw the chance to meet my hero in person. He signed on the backside of my poster, I turned it around. He somehow recognized it and told me that he saw me on a picture. I just stared at him … the Blademaster himself is speaking to me! He thought I would not understand English and switched to German: “Ich habe dich im Internet gesehen”. Now I was completely baffled. Grubby speaks German …? I do not know if I said anything before I left the scene, at least I have his signature to prove I actually did meet him and that it was not a weird dream.
Before the finals, I added “2004 2008” on my poster. Grubby applied some pressure in the first game, destroyed some moon wells with raiders, but Moon was able to win nonetheless. Grubby however took the other two games home. In the last game, his Blademaster survived with just 2 HP and his Tauren Chieftain go to level 6.
Grubby was world champion, I witnessed it and even met him. YES!!!
Also the german player Yaws did really well, he crushed Sase and Infi in his group stage booth matches. Actually he only lost to Grubby in his group. I also saw Sonkie, but did not try to talk to him … he looked not very happy about his performance.
A revelation
Just to get a good seat for the Warcraft matches, me and my friend were also going to the Starcraft matches which where played just before Warcraft.
There was a ZvT match. I think it was still in the group phase. I don’t remember much of the match, and the thing I do remember, I remember only in slow-motion and enlarged.
Let me try to explain.
The zerg flew his stacked mutas near to marines. The marines began to aim the target and started the aiming animation. The muta cluster hitted a marine, killed him, and retreated before the terran was able to punish the zerg. THAT IS CRAAAZY!!! I recognized that the game is supposed to be Starcraft, but they played it completely different. If Warcraft 3 I could at least attempt to mimic pro style play (of course with not much success.)
I do not remember which Jaedong game was played as booth match (may be not the one I just described), but I do remember that his match turned me to a die-hard Jaedong fan. He showed what is actually possible with zerg. Beeing at three different locations on the map at the same time. Controlling single zergling units. Expanding while attacking. I would never have known! As little as I understood of the game, I was in awe of such skills.
The finals were a BO3 of Luxury vs. Stork. And even though Stork lost, I see Protoss different since then.
Particularly how zerg is played by korean pros, sparked my interest in Starcraft. I bought it again, this time as digital download so I got rid of the issue with lost CDs. I performed not well, but from time to time I logged on to Battle.net or ICCup on which I “managed” a solid D- ranking.
Now, the thing is: I learnt from the original C&C to have a build order. I learnt from Age of Empires to boost the worker count and build a booming economy. I learnt from Red Alert 2 to apply early pressure. I learnt from Warcraft 3 to properly control units in fight. The truth is, i learnt nothing.
With following no particular style and being as traditional as an RTS game can get, Starcraft showed me how full of fail I am. I was smart enough to discover for myself that mutas do very well together with speedlings because you can cover both air and ground with mobile units, but I was not able to actually win games with this strategy. Only an early hydra push seemed to work for me ... and those occasions that my strategy worked, were quite rare.
I always played WC3 for fun and did so until SC2 beta started. I like the luck factor of item drops and the hero system in general. I like to pick the horde or the undead scourge and stomp Night Elves or Humans. For a long time I played 2v2 arranged team with a friend. I watched a lot WC3 matches of ESL-TV (with premium account.) Over the time, me and my friend watched several hundred WC3 replays. But now I had to split my time between Warcraft and Broodwar. I began to watch alot of Broodwar ESL major series matches on ESL-TV and survived the Lindsay Lohan trash talk of the caster duo.
My hunger for Starcraft was not satisfied, though. I began to watch Diggity casts and even korean Vods just to see more games. I downloaded Vods through torrent URLs I found on Teamliquid. I noticed a recurring caster with a really tasteless nick.
Jaedong continued to inspire me. He is able to use, abuse and exploit the zerg to a sick degree. I remember a match I saw as Vod, where he assaulted a dragoon force with mutas and inflicted serious damage. Even though he lost that particular game, I was again left in awe of his skills.
Starcraft was no longer just a computer game to me. I began to see Starcraft as the medium of which mechanical skill, awareness and stratetic superiority can be put to a test.
It is becomes part of everyday
As the beta was getting closer in summer 2009, my BW interest increased even more. I played some games versus a friend. I would do so until today if not SC2 has been started. I got my beta key in the first wave. From the first match on, I noticed how developed the game already was. I lost the first 10 or so games. I also remember my first win. It was on Kulas Ravine versus a terran: He managed to kill my ultralisks but I was able to get Brood Lords.
On ESL-TV, I did watch any SC2 match during the entire beta phase. Players with strange names like Socke or TheLittleOne rose to fame.
Then, the most unexpected thing happened: Team Liquid approached TLO. Now it was clear that everything followed a secret plan and that TLO, in fact, means “Team Liquid Owns”.
The number of quality tournaments exploded. The TSL2 got me back to BW for the time being. I cheered for Mondragon who performed exceptionally well and got second place.
I ordered the Collector’s Edition of Wings of Liberty.
Then, finally, it was true: I was actually installing the retail version of Starcraft 2.
Soon I found out that I still suck hard, but that is another story. However, anything would probably have happen without me if I would not have witnessed insane korean muta micro.
