Then as it was, then again it will be Though the course may change sometimes, rivers always reach the sea...
"Ten Years Gone" -- Led Zeppelin
A subscriber to nevake named keiblerstacy recently contacted me to ask if I could upload the 2001 Coca-Cola OSL, normally I don't really upload older games unless someone actually gives me the source directly, but the reason he requested this specific OSL was because he said it was the first StarLeague played after Patch 1.08 was released, and as a result was quite interested to see it. That bit of information piqued my curiosity too.
Patch 1.08 was the last patch that made balance changes to Brood War -- some of which were fairly significant. This was released at the end of May 2001 and was the beginning of Brood War as we know it today.
While I have owned Starcraft since 1998, we did not get internet until 2001, and living in rural Ireland I had to suffer the slowest dial-up connection known to man until about 2005 when my parents finally decided to get broadband. As a result, not only did I never play Starcraft multiplayer before then, I never had any of the patches, so my poor Photon Cannons were doing explosive damage to my computer opponent's Zerglings for about 7 years (not that I played against the computer that frequently to be honest).
So when I began following professional BW during the sAviOr era, I had not seen too much early games. Since then I have gone back and watched some classic games but the idea of watching the games from the first tournament of Brood War as it is now appealed to me -- perhaps I'm just getting old and nostalgic. There are only a few BoxeR games from that OSL on YouTube currently so I decided I would go on a mission, an adventure delving me deep into the history of progaming; I'm like the Indiana Jones of Brood War, and here's my find:
On the 15th of June 2001 -- ten years ago today -- the Coca-Cola OSL began.
Update: I fixed the syncing issues on (hopefully) all of the VODs, if there are any errors or any of the VODs are out of sync please pm me and I will try to correct it. Download the full tournament here.
Funny to read about the exposive photon cannons, when 1.08 was primarily a protoss nerf patch :p like everything else protoss had was more impressive before that patch.
Thx dude. Hey, do you recall that some months after this, two planes crashed into the WTC? This makes me wonder how young this 12-year old game really is...
some one should use this in a dubsteb song... god i remember the day when i cover the blacket on the modem just to hide family that im conneting to bnet :3
Wah, that's incredible, thank you very much moktira. I would like to add that a lot of sc2 player say bw was not as good back then, but having watch the final of this serie 9 years after it happened, I would have to disagree : bw was already awesome + Show Spoiler +
even though YellOw deserve that final so much
. I'll be sure to watch everything. You truly are a hero Moktira =)
some one should use this in a dubsteb song... god i remember the day when i cover the blacket on the modem just to hide family that im conneting to bnet :3
But the spirit of the modem lives on. Becuase the netcode used by games was developed under such harsh bandwidth limitations, so too keep the modern games the traditions alive, consuming only a few kilobytes per second even in an action packed massive 3d game like WOW
On June 15 2011 05:30 DNB wrote: The sounds are really off sync in the first video (I didn't watch rest yet)
Bollocks, I just checked a few of them and they all seem to be out, I don't have the original files on me at the moment but I'm sure they weren't out of sync, Ill check in the morning.
Did anyone notice if they were out of sync the whole time or did it gradually get worse?
Excellent work yet again Moktira!. Its pretty badass to watch those oldschool games with the space outfits . When i think about it, this was around the first time i ever played Starcraft. Seems like an eternity. Anyway, Thanks again and keep up the good work.
On June 15 2011 05:30 DNB wrote: The sounds are really off sync in the first video (I didn't watch rest yet)
Bollocks, I just checked a few of them and they all seem to be out, I don't have the original files on me at the moment but I'm sure they weren't out of sync, Ill check in the morning.
Did anyone notice if they were out of sync the whole time or did it gradually get worse?
watching the very first VOD (BoxeR v Gorush), and by the 2:30 mark it is ever so slightly off, and getting worse very slowly.
EDIT: at about 15 minutes its like a full 30-45 seconds behind T_T
Thanks so much man. What a trip down memory lane. I remember when I first saw Reach, I didn't think he was anything special. Then he became one of my favorite players. Good times. Pro gamer primes are too short. I just couldn't find that same initial excitement again after my favorite players started to drop off. BW started dying for me in 2005-2006.
On June 15 2011 04:52 moktira wrote: While I have owned Starcraft since 1998, we did not get internet until 2001, and living in rural Ireland I had to suffer the slowest dial-up connection known to man until about 2005 when my parents finally decided to get broadband.
Now you're making up for all those years by using your internet like a baller! :D
I think the sound is a bit out of sync for some of the VODs.
1. I thought it was weird the intros to the players were shirtless pics.
2. I thought it was weirder that Boxer and GoRush are cosplaying Time Lords.
3. Despite being one of the earliest Brood War maps, this map looks like a Blizzard SC2 Map that fell through time and space.
4. The smoke shooting into the players faces must be annoying. So must being able to hear the fans. When were booths invented?
5. Compared to modern times, the Korean announcers seem almost bored. Modern Korean announcers scream if someone blinks hard enough, these guys seem...interested, I guess.
Why does GoRush put a hatchery down in the middle of the map? I figured it was Proxy, but...isn't just kind of there. It's such a weird position.
By modern standards, Boxer's vulture micro is actually kind of bad. He dances them near a sunken for some reason, and leaves them idling close to Zerglings to take some hits. Not HURP DURP bad, but startling to my jaded modern eyes
Both players, especially GoRush, seem not to know what the hell they're doing. Mass hydra + a single Muta for support? Christ, this is the build *I* do when I ladder on ICCUP, and people accused me of mocking BW by doing it
The fact that this looks like a mediocre Starcraft 2 game (especially thanks to the map) really highlights how far BW has come in the last ten years
THEY'RE CALLED DEFILERS, BRO. THEY'RE PRETTY GOOD.
That's actually pretty entertaining, in a weird sort of way.
But now I'm off to Flash/Zero VODs, and enjoy the contrast of 10 years between TvZs. Hopefully the sound issues will be fixed, soon.
On June 15 2011 08:12 Ribbon wrote: On GoRush vs Boxer: + Show Spoiler +
Why does GoRush put a hatchery down in the middle of the map? I figured it was Proxy, but...isn't just kind of there. It's such a weird position.
By modern standards, Boxer's vulture micro is actually kind of bad. He dances them near a sunken for some reason, and leaves them idling close to Zerglings to take some hits. Not HURP DURP bad, but startling to my jaded modern eyes
Both players, especially GoRush, seem not to know what the hell they're doing. Mass hydra + a single Muta for support? Christ, this is the build *I* do when I ladder on ICCUP, and people accused me of mocking BW by doing it
The fact that this looks like a mediocre Starcraft 2 game (especially thanks to the map) really highlights how far BW has come in the last ten years
THEY'RE CALLED DEFILERS, BRO. THEY'RE PRETTY GOOD.
To answer those strategic questions...
The hatch is placed at his ramp so he can sunken up, note that the natural is WAY THE HELL away from his ramp, something thankfully not an issue on most maps nowadays.
Boxer's vulture micro is basically marine micro at this stage, patrol micro apparently wasn't invented back then. The muta micro was much worse to watch, even without knowing about stacking I microed better than that after I found out they could move and shoot.
Build orders weren't really a thing back then, and apm wasn't either. Note how Gorush loses a ling to the marines at the wall, and Boxer sends the SCV making his nat to mine minerals and not make the CC and doesn't correct it.
And this map made me die a little inside. Ugh so bad. Progress is appreciated.
Fantastic post. Is this the beginning of professional StarCraft in Korea, so to speak? Or rather, the first time that it was televised? Enjoying this little piece of history.
Why does GoRush put a hatchery down in the middle of the map? I figured it was Proxy, but...isn't just kind of there. It's such a weird position.
By modern standards, Boxer's vulture micro is actually kind of bad. He dances them near a sunken for some reason, and leaves them idling close to Zerglings to take some hits. Not HURP DURP bad, but startling to my jaded modern eyes
Both players, especially GoRush, seem not to know what the hell they're doing. Mass hydra + a single Muta for support? Christ, this is the build *I* do when I ladder on ICCUP, and people accused me of mocking BW by doing it
The fact that this looks like a mediocre Starcraft 2 game (especially thanks to the map) really highlights how far BW has come in the last ten years
THEY'RE CALLED DEFILERS, BRO. THEY'RE PRETTY GOOD.
I actually think that BW was more fun to watch back then than it is now. It was really mainly strategy and tricks.
Just watched Yellow vs Reach, would recommend! 1base speedlots vs 1base mutas 1. As usual map favors 1base play. All of Yellow's expos end up being on islands (archon drop :D) 2. Reach does a tech cancel/switch as soon as Yellow's overlord leaves... 3. Also Yellow does a very nice Hold Lurker :D
I think audio is just slightly ahead in sync. I didn't notice until the very end when they announce GG right before the player did and I was thinking "wow such bad manner announcers haha"
some one should use this in a dubsteb song... god i remember the day when i cover the blacket on the modem just to hide family that im conneting to bnet :3
Ha, 1.08 was so controversial. I remember how it was going to break PvZ because you couldn't kill a lurker with one storm anymore.
Argh, and the maps. It's hard to believe they used island maps for competitive games. And Jungle Story... Has to be my most hated map in the history of BW.
Poor Yellow had to play TWO games on HoV in that final... And people complain about PvZ imba!
OH MY GOODNESS. What a great post. Love to see these VODs Thank you! Pre-Vulture patrol micro! Lol what I don't get though is why they had to take shirtless profile pics o.o
Mad props!! Really bring back nostalgia. I was playing SC:BW since 1998 but only untill 2003 I know about the pro-scene. And, by any chance, do you have this great graphic in larger resolution. This would make an awesome wallpaper
This is so awesome. It's like a piece of history, a legendary tale. Something special <3 Is this the start of the competitive gaming scene? is this even broodwar or just regular SC. 2001 wow. Also there must have already been another game with a professional scene right? I know quake is crazy old school, the documentary quakers I recommend for that. It's very amateur but it shows exactly what sort of the dawn looked like. Hmm just looked it up, it's from 2000 :o
Anyway, I have not played Broodwar and it makes me sad. I really feel I've missed out. I used to give games a lot of crap for having bad graphics, yes mostly the new games. But I know I've gotten "introduced" to Broodwar at some point and I was like, LOL wtf is this shit I've played a lot of CnC in the past when I was really young, early days of high school. And it was one of the first games where the multiplayer had an insane amount of depth. If I had known SC would've been like that I almost surely had picked it up. I didn't and sometimes it makes me wonder what it would've been like.
I'll watch the vods, seems like a great opportunity to not only catch up on something lost but it seems like a "pivotal" moment for gaming competitions. And the beginning of what BW is today in Korea.
Lastly, as I see the ESPORTS elephant. As I said I didn't play Broodwar and I state that many times when it's appropriate to be clear in this. Reason being that I feel some people take what isn't theirs. I don't know if you have played the game or not, but sometimes I get the feeling some people either straight up lie, or word it in such a way you would infer they did but since it's worded so ambiguous in reality they didn't. It is the internet afterall but I feel that takes away from something as well as raise an eyebrow, make you look bad. Maybe it's silly but the most common is in a new thread. Someone who did register in the last year, little posts and many times a "I played Broodwar" gets included. Makes me wonder..
some one should use this in a dubsteb song... god i remember the day when i cover the blacket on the modem just to hide family that im conneting to bnet :3
Oh how I used to dread that noise, now its fairly appealing for some odd reason. I guess since this page just has the whole nostalgic feeling. Great read, easily 5/5!
This makes me hope the have another nostalgia tournament. Unfortunately even if they did some of the old legends would probably be too busy playing SC2. I just want to see Reach back in action!
some one should use this in a dubsteb song... god i remember the day when i cover the blacket on the modem just to hide family that im conneting to bnet :3
It's not dubstep and it's not a modem but this is an interesting slightly related dnb track:
Wow you're amazing moktira! Thanks a lot! It's so cool to see how much the game has changed from it's earliest days to now. What a great patch to lead us into the new age of SC and everything we have today ^^.
The very first OSL i followed... Crazy memories, it was pretty hard to find vods at this time and there was hardly any live reports, except from a few super heros like Mensrea on bw.com.
I probably still have the vods somewhere on a HD but it's a great idea to share them, very good stuff Moktira, you're amazing
I like how PvZ was orriented on 1 base play. Reach vs YellOw game on Jungle Story seems crazy, like they swithed races and played for fun game
BoxeR vs SinDoki shows how it was possible to play 3 base vs 7 base TvZ because of no usage of defiler. And then at the end of the game dark swarms appeared, i was shocked ;D
Games on Halls Of Valhalla are all funny coz there are no island maps today
Amazing. Going to watch this when I have time . I soooo remember InToTheRain... I was a Terran player but Intotherain was just amazing. His PvZ was flawless with storm and even dark archon usage.
Also it's really funny seeing people saying "omg they were so bad at this time, even me could beat them". Just lol at that. You have no clue how good they were, I was putting tons of hours in broodwar back then and they were still 10 times better than me. At this time nobody knew you could fast expand so easily when playing terran or protoss, the only race where fast expanding was standard was zerg.
On June 15 2011 20:31 RouaF wrote: At this time nobody knew you could fast expand so easily when playing terran or protoss, the only race where fast expanding was standard was zerg.
They didnt fast expand because it was impossible on maps like Jungle Story or Halls of Valhalla.
I see a lot of parallels in Boxers first game that I see in a lot SC2 atm, 2-3 base safe play.. little bit of harass here and there, followed by A-Move into each others army. compare to a BW game now it's night and day. SC2 hopefully can grow to match what BW has become.. was watching the saviour stream just before.. good stuff. So the haters of either game need to look at the full picture and you'll see they aren't as different as people claim. (Even if it shocked me how fast army size is built in sc2 compared to bw, didn't realise.) Good stuff, can't wait for more vid's.
I find the play in Boxer vs Gorush really good. You clearly can't fast expand as terran on this map, and zerg will have to, but it is obviously very hard to defend. Rather than going mnm, Boxer choses two fact speed vulture, which clearly takes full advantage of the map architecture, and were likely unexpected on Gorush side. His vulture (pretty well microed considering he did not know patrol micro) give him a good advantage, he scouts the spire so he transitions into goliaths, and expands to cement his economic advantage, and fully transition into mech (his few marine were from earlier defense). Then Gorush plays a pretty good anti mech game, backstabbing with mutas, good flanking, good concave, good upgrades (even though he should probably have upgraded air carapace too), pretty econ oriented, and chooses very well when to attack (even on his last attempt at push breaking, waiting that Boxer separates a bit his troop). Boxer gameplan was very sound, upgrade a bit, push to expand, lots of ovie sniping, pretty good push micro... I think Gorush should have expanded somewhere else and a bit earlier, and boxer underestimated his first hydra force, but honestly, if you're willing to forget those extremely precise modern strategy, this game was pretty fucking well played, and quite a few sc2 (and maybe even bw) pros could learn from that. Anyway, I guess one finds only what he expects to find.
some one should use this in a dubsteb song... god i remember the day when i cover the blacket on the modem just to hide family that im conneting to bnet :3
I remember that too!
A few years later, after it was gone I realized you could actually disable that noise!
Just go to the control panel and configure the "Phones and Modems" option, go to the modems tab, and drag the volume slider to 0.
No evil screechy noise anymore.
Also, old school BW is always fun to watch, thanks for the upload man!
Also also, there is a song that uses a bit of it that I know of: Neuroticfish: The Bomb
Ahhhh, this brings me back the memories of the old days. I still remember the first time I watched Starcraft on TV on Tooniverse. The finals for this specific OSL was extremely good. Yes, the gameplay is poor in comparison to today, but at that time, it was mind blowing.
This OSL also started what is the long lasting rivalry between Boxer and Yellow. People talk about how Boxer only has 3 titles (2 OSL and 1 KPGA/MSL) and Yellow has none, but unlike today, back in early 2000's there were a lot more tournaments that were not broadcasted. Boxer was already dominating the scene by winning pretty much everything out there, and there was nobody to challenge him until Yellow came onto the scene. In 2001 and 2002, Boxer and Yellow pretty much won every tournament in existence, usually playing each other in the finals.
This OSL is also "plagued" with what is now considered the worst map ever, Ragnarok. IIRC Zerg has only one win on that map against Terran. There are also maps like Hall of Valhalla, which is a semi-island map with isolated starting/expansions and connected center, forcing at least some ground units to have map control. It would be really fun to see Flash vs. Jaedong on this map pool and compare it to Boxer vs. Yellow.
On June 15 2011 21:07 Gingerninja wrote: I see a lot of parallels in Boxers first game that I see in a lot SC2 atm, 2-3 base safe play.. little bit of harass here and there, followed by A-Move into each others army. compare to a BW game now it's night and day.
Even the maps are SC2esque. It like Blizzard stopped paying attention to BW after 2001, and were just kind of vaguely aware it was popular in Korea.
It goes to show how much the maps affect things. I'd love to see modern players on these old maps, and see what happens.
Anyone talking bad about these games needs to consider the context. The maps were often dramatically different compared to what we expect today, micro technique was different, and the basic understanding of the game was, oh, let's say, ten years of constant evolution away from where it is now.
If you take the games within the proper context they are actually really fun to watch and are rather well-played. Spoiler: no, you would not have beaten any of these guys in 2001.
If you take the games within the proper context they are actually really fun to watch and are rather well-played. Spoiler: no, you would not have beaten any of these guys in 2001.
I wish I had a time machine! I would have won at least one OSL before my "innovations" were studied and countered...
Or, I would have lost because I wasn't used to defending the stuff they did back then, and screamed ONE BASE LURKER!!! WHO DOES THAT!!!
if the out of sync bothers u that much just open 2 windows and put one one on mute and start the other one with the sync differential must warn the stoners make sure u dont stop the video for wc or even rewathcing something cause its very annoying to set it back lol believe me .....")
Oh my gosh these are fantastic! The quality of these videos for being so old are amazing as well. Add your writing and intro to this and it quickly becomes clear why I bookmarked this.
That's so cool. Even to a very casual BW watcher, the difference in the way the game was played and has evolved is astounding. And seeing young Boxer play is awesome.
I know this is the BW forum, but watching these games gives me hope for SC2. The games are awesome in their own right, but they remind me of a lot of SC2 games that were played in the first months it was released: 1base strats, goofy allins/builds (BoxeR's biomech off 1base vs SinDoki, for example), awful macro, few micro tricks figured out. they're fun to watch, but compared to today I'm sure even my solid D- ass could do some of these builds. The way the game has evolved since then is simply amazing, and even still it is ever changing. I hope BW keeps inspiring and amazing me, and I hope that SC2 moves out of this infantile stage where 1base and 2base allins are the norm.
Thank you very much for posting these videos. I got into the starcraft scene really late and only managed to catch some SC 1 games that were casted on youtube. It's great to go through the time machine and check out these early years and see where the leagues, players and e-sports in general has come from.
On June 15 2011 16:06 Empyrean wrote: Hahaha I'm fairly certain I could've beaten those progamers back then <_<
It's my favourite daydream to imagine going back in time with everything I know now and destroying the StarCraft scene. But then, I'd have to start clicking 'r' every time I wanted to rally! It's amazing even imagining a time before replays... 1.08 was the patch that introduced them.
I'm not sure when I first heard about Boxer or so but I remember watching really old replays where apparently the observers were terran players and they lifted their CC out of the way (of course this was after at least 2001 since replays didn't exist until 1.08).
Wow, Boxer vs IntotheRain, ro8 match, Boxer opening siege expand! On ragnarok out of all maps... Never would had expected to see siege expand back in 2001...
On June 30 2011 17:22 Black[CAT] wrote: Wow, Boxer vs IntotheRain, ro8 match, Boxer opening siege expand! On ragnarok out of all maps... Never would had expected to see siege expand back in 2001...
It was the most popular TvP strat besides 2fac push.
I even remember build order: - factory - tank - CC - 2nd tank, engeneering bay - 3rd tank, siege - turrets, vultures
So with 3 sieged tanks with turrets and 1 or 2 vultures u can defend all attacks while expanding ... something like this
EPT
sAviOr era, I had not seen too much early games. Since then I have gone back and watched some classic games but the idea of watching the games from the first tournament of Brood War as it is now appealed to me -- perhaps I'm just getting old and nostalgic. There are only a few 
BoxeR games from that OSL on YouTube currently so I decided I would go on a mission, an adventure delving me deep into the history of progaming; I'm like the Indiana Jones of Brood War, and here's my find:![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4OocC.png)
IntoTheRain, ![[image loading]](http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/1599/vodaz1.gif)
+ Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/disciple/scbw4life.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BmsqK.png)
I can't believe he's actually leaving x'(
