EPTAs you know, this spring, Blizzard announced they would be releasing StarCraft: Remastered, targeted for later this year. The new version features updated graphics and UI fixes that are true to the fans, old and new. With the advent of SC:R's imminent release, and the release of the new 1.18 patch, the spotlight is once again shined on this classic game. With such attention being given, many players who have been introduced to the StarCraft series through StarCraft 2 are trying out StarCraft: Brood War for the first time, which can be daunting.
If you happen to be one of such people who has a genuine interest in StarCraft: Brood War, I wrote this for you! This has definitely been one of my favorite games of all-time, and I am thrilled that you are giving it a try. Maybe you'll like it... or maybe not. Me personally, I was excited for SC2, gave it a try, had a bit of fun here and there, but unfortunately, didn't have as much fun as I could have.
I guess the main reason for being turned off by SC2 wasn't even the game itself. I just knew a lot of people on Brood War, and I would go onto SC2 and feel kind of alone in some dark, new place. The first, and most important thing, is to find some people to hang out with who aren't judgemental, and who want to talk things through in an interesting way or with a sense of humor. What you don't want is to hang out with angry people who make excuses for losing, and talk down to you when they win.
Also, don't hang out with people who go "^^" after every sentence. Those people are assholes.
Where To Meet People
You're in the right place! Teamliquid.net has people, reddit has people, and of course, you can meet people on battle.net. Team games and "Use Map Settings" (UMS - essentially mini-games) games are a good way to just to have fun and figure out how the game feels. You can even grab some of your irl friends and say, "Hey, let's play versus computers" if you feel like humans are too scary.
Playing Competitively
I would recommend starting off playing casually, but some people want to jump in and be competitive right away. If you want to do it, go for it, but there is a STEEP learning curve. The amount of information and practice you will need to be legitimately competitive is staggering. Not impossible, of course.
There is a lot of outdated instructional material (not bad material, just a bit dated, is all) available that you can springboard off of, but you're more likely to run into some roadblocks if you just dive into playing cold.
You'll probably also need to watch a lot of StarCraft games. It's important to be inspired by how other people play when figuring out how you want to play. One question SC2 people ask me right away is, "How do I play this match-up?" and I'm not always sure what to tell them, because there are many legitimate ways to play nearly any match-up.
Truthfully, you will likely lose 90% - 100% of your first 50 or so games. Not because you "suck" or "are bad" or anything like that. You're learning. You're figuring out how this game works and how everything kind of fits together. It's really, really important to have a positive attitude, and remind yourself to stay positive. Probably one of the toughest things for me to do is taking a break after I lose a game that really upsets me. But it's important to give your brain a break, and just kind of put things in perspective.
That being said, I would encourage you to try things and be creative. However, I would also say that StarCraft is kind of like any artistic endeavor: you have to learn how to do certain things "right" before getting too creative. For example, let's say I'm learning how to cook. I could get really creative and throw half a pound of cinnamon into my pot of chili, but that might not be the optimal choice if I'm trying to serve that chili to people who are going to eat it.
Mechanics
The way stuff interacts with other stuff in SC2 is way different than in Brood War. I had sort of a similar experience because I used to play a ton of Total Annihilation way back when, and then played Supreme Commander some years later. SupCom does some cool stuff: like if you build a building and there's a unit there, the unit will get out of the way so the building can build. I go back to TA, and my units are idiots again. "Building area was blocked", my construction vehicle/kbot will say.
So yeah, big difference. One difference that I find to be very noticeable when I watch SC2 players trying out Brood War is their bases are very, very messy and disorganized. A disorganized base will make it difficult to get things done, and sometimes units will get stuck, or you won't know where to put a building because there's too much clutter. This is actually easier to fix than you might think. By playing on an empty map, or versus a computer using some handy cheat codes, you can take your jolly time just playing around in single-player and figuring out how to build bases.
The next problem I see is a "I told my building to build and it didn't" sort of problem. This will mainly happen for two reasons: first, the building site was blocked. Something got in the way, or is still in the way. For example, let's say you're Terran and you want to build two supply depots next to each other at the same time. The first supply depot starts building, and it's not problem. However, in SC:BW, the SCV that is building kind of hovers around the structure while welding it with its fusion cutter and doesn't realize that it may be hovering where the second depot needs to be dropped. Then you see "Building site was blocked" from the second SCV, who sees the site blocked by the first SCV hovering around. DON'T YOU JUST LOVE THE 90S?
The second reason a building may not build is because you spent the money. In SC2, the moment you build a building, the money is subtracted from your piggy bank. In SC:BW, the money is not subtracted until the worker reaches the spot and starts building stuff. So if you have 400 minerals, and try to build a nexus, but in the meantime, you make another gateway, the probe trying to build the nexus will prompt Aldaris to yell at you about a mineral deficiency.
As far as unit movement goes, if you try to send 100 zerglings through a small choke, here's what will happen: A bunch of lings will clog that choke, but will make their way through. The lings in the back will see the choke is clogged and think, "Okay, I can't get through there. I need to go another way." and will turn around. If you start rapid-clicking them through, though, it will help the lings to figure it out. Not because they are too dumb to listen the first time, but because they listened to your order, saw the path was blocked, and decided to reassess how to get to where you ordered them to go. Every time you click the ground for them to go somewhere, it's a brand new order to go somewhere. So if they're constantly turning around and running away, click them in the right direction. You know that the chokepoint will unclog, they don't.
Attitude and Mentality
Your brain plays the game. Your brain sends signals to your hands through your nervous system, and that expands and contracts muscles, and so on. It's an amazing and mysterious process, but it all goes back to your brain. If you are tired, hungry, angry, sad, or even happy, all these things can affect how you play the game. What you don't want is to have a horrible attitude. I know from personal experience that having a good attitude can be very critical to success, and having a bad attitude can cause you to go nowhere.
Winning is fun, and everyone wants to do it, but in order for there to be a winner, there also has to be a loser. Someone, somewhere in the world, has to lose, and it's probably going to happen to you. I already mentioned that there is a steep learning curve in SC:BW, but you should not intentionally lose, or play to not lose. Your intention should always be to win each game. Being afraid to lose is a very real human fear, and the only way to overcome that fear is to experience losing without any excuses. You have to say to yourself, "I did the best I could do at that time to win, and I did not win. So, what can I learn from this?"
When you lose, don't let losing be just 'a thing that happens to you'. There is still value that you can pull from losing, which you can gain by being honest with yourself.
For example, let's say you're an uber-noob, and your plan is to get mass carriers. First, you go, "I don't want my opponent to rush me." so you build cannons at your entrance. Then you think, "Wow, it's been awhile since my opponent has tried anything. I'd better prepare anti-air." and so you build a ring of cannons around your whole base. Then 48 guardians come out of the darkness and kill everything. Game's over.
What went wrong?
You probably won't know exactly what went wrong. But, this is the time to be the most introspective. Open up the replay and start looking at what your opponent did and what you did. You can't read your opponent's mind, but you can know what you were thinking. You built cannons because you were afraid of a zergling rush that never came. You then built cannons for anti-air, and it wasn't effective at all because guardians out-range cannons. So, from this, you should deduce:
- All the cannons were unnecessary because there was no zergling rush, and guardians murder cannons.
- Cannons are ineffective as anti-air against guardians, and you will need some other form of anti-air in order to succeed against that unit composition.
I'm not saying these things are necessarily "right" or "wrong". I'm saying when you're playing and learning, you're basically conducting experiments. As any good scientist knows, an experiment cannot fail, because the purpose of an experiment is simply to gather data.
The wrong way to handle this kind of loss would be to:
- Think guardians are "bullshit"
- Think your opponent is a maphacker
- Make an excuse, such as: "2 more minutes, and I would've been ready to kill you."
What is okay, though, is to be angry. It's okay to be angry. If your anger is so out-of-control that you can't manage your own actions, then Brood War is not a healthy outlet for you. Brood War will inevitably make you angry, unless you are a robot with no emotions. What you do with your anger is up to you. You can be negative about it, or you can make it work for you.
There is no need to be overly self-critical, or worse, self-destructive, and say things like, "I fucking suck, I want to kill myself." which I have literally said to myself before. Doesn't do anything good.
If you believe you are smarter than most people (after all, StarCraft is an intellectual game for the chosen ones) and should therefore be winning, you're absolutely wrong. You may be correct that you are smarter than the average person. The average person has an IQ of around 90-100, and unironically enjoys watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians. When you step into the StarCraft realm, though, you are just a commoner. Even with your 160 IQ, and master's degree in Physics, you are essentially nobody. A lot of very smart people play StarCraft. Even people that come across as complete morons when you talk to them can beat you easily.
Point being, you have to set the ego aside.
Expecting yourself to do well in StarCraft simply because you are smart is kind of illogical. The only way to do well in something is to practice it, learn it, and experience it. If anything, just do your best and be kind to yourself.
Build Orders
Another funny question I get a lot of from people coming over from SC2 is: "What build order should I do?" which is another difficult-to-answer question. To answer it, I kind of have to deconstruct what a build order is and what its purpose is. So point A is the start of the game, and point B is you winning an overwhelming victory. Build orders don't get you from point A to point B.
The "cannon into carrier" example I gave earlier could be considered a build order. First, build orders are guidelines to get you what you want over the course of a game. In the "cannon into carrier" example, we wanted two things:
- Safety from rush
- Carriers
That's it, that's all we could ever ask for. Then the game plays out, and we're overwhelmed by a huge number of guardians. We go to watch the replay and see that the Zerg has 12 bases mining gas. Why?
Because he's reacting. Second to simply getting what you want (such as "I want ultralisks"), build orders are a premeditated set of triggers that you use to act and react to the happenings in the game. By "trigger", I mean a basic "If x then y" sort of thing. For example: "If I see Zerg getting lair and hydra den, then it means lurkers." and then you do your anti-lurker build order. So build orders are less like a "how-to-win" recipe and more like a tree of different options that you've pre-planned.
Keep in mind that I say that build orders are premeditated. For example in ZvP, if I'm Zerg, I'll go scout the Protoss base out and see what's up. If I see the Protoss is fast-expanding, I will double-expand, knowing that there is little that he/she can do to me at that point in the game. However, if I see Protoss is going for gateways first, I know zealots will be on the way, and that if I double expand, it's going to be difficult to defend properly, so I do a single expansion rather than double expanding.
Many players say, "I don't know what to do in the late game. I get there and then I just don't know what to do." and really, the late game is where you want to get to. You want to get to such a huge advantage that no matter which decision your opponent makes next, you will be able to crush that decision completely. Your build orders should all be complete, and should be general guidelines on how to get there.
I say "huge advantage" rather than "win", because you can always blow it and lose. Or maybe you get straight-up outplayed and lose your advantage. All I'm saying is that you want to give yourself the best possible opportunity to win.
Some build orders are more risky than others. Most risk is "calculated risk". A risky build order may lead to losing the game or being at a disadvantage, but it also may lead to a win or an advantage. Many modern build orders are based on risk management. For example, let's say you're playing Protoss versus Terran and decide you want to do a dark templar drop. You can do some heavy damage to the Terran base, but also, there's a possibility that your shuttle flies over a turret and dies instantly. You're basing your play on the assumption that Terran will likely not have a turret that early in that spot.
As you gain experience over the course of tons of games, you'll figure out that some stuff works, and some stuff usually doesn't.
Balance Discussion
Unfortunately, we gotta go here, which is me saying "don't go there". I don't use hyperbole, such as, "Brood War is perfectly balanced", because there are things in the game that are really strong. You'll find that certain match-ups are more difficult for you than others. I hear this often from new players who play Zerg: "How come I need 200+ apm to dodge storms when Protoss can beat me with 120 apm? When it's so much harder to play Zerg, something is wrong."
If this is true, play Protoss. If you want to win, play the race you feel is the strongest. That's only logical, right? To some people, it's not logical. I feel like this is especially the case in SC2, where Blizzard constantly tinkers with the balance. Every time they do this, it fundamentally alters the way the game is played. Each time the game is changed, it changes strategies, build orders, and stuff has to be figured out from scratch, and professional players have to see how the meta-game pans out over the course of thousands and thousands of games. Until that happens, the change is a big question mark, and down here, at the mere mortal level, we have no idea yet if Blizzard legitimately "broke" SC2 or if a solution is out there that we haven't found yet.
Therefore, it is easy to think a race is fundamentally overpowered because no solution seems to present itself. This does not mean that a solution does not exist, but it's very easy to say, "I've tried every unit possible. Nothing beats this." But the solution may not be a unit. It might be a timing, or building placement, or a composition of different units, or some small way you have to click the mouse. Or it could be ALL of those. Seriously.
In StarCraft: Brood War, the process of finding solutions to problems is actually still ongoing. The way people play the game follows 'trends', which is often referred to as the 'meta-game'. Stuff becomes trendy because it's effective. It's not like everyone wakes up one day and goes, "Hey, let's all just go 6 fact every game when we're in close positions with Protoss!" There's a lot of trial and error, and people emulate what pro-gamers do. During certain meta-game changes, a certain race will seem to win more in XvY match-up, then Y players will find a solution to what X players are doing. No patches or balance changes necessary.
The reason Brood War players are so against balance changes is because historically, it has been proven over and over that every strategy is beatable, and there is a perfectly viable in-game solution that exists which is just hiding. It's easy to get tunnel-vision and think inside of a box when solving problems (plus players are really stubborn about change) so it can take awhile.
Where To Play
Should you play on Fish? iCCup? US East or West? Right now, the answer's up in the air. Blizzard is having difficultly properly implementing the 1.18 patch, and a lot of people have experienced weird bugs that aren't present in 1.16.1. So they're still kind of waiting to see what happens.
Anywhere is fine to play, but if you want to play a bit more casually, going on the 1.18 battle.net is fine. If you're coming back and were ranked B- to A- on iCCup, you can still go there and it'll be somewhat competitive unless you're one of the top players from the 2010 era. If you're really competitive, you can go on Fish, but you will need to download some Korean versions of maps, and knowing how to type a few useful Korean words/phrases will be good.
No matter what you decide, don't play on Garena. It is an evil place.
FAQ:
Q: Does mca64launcher work with 1.18?
A: not currently. mca64 has said he doesn't have the time to make an update for the new patch. You can get a copy of 1.16.1 StarCraft from iccup.com.
Q: Do I need to speak Korean to play on Fish?
A: No, but it doesn't hurt. I would strongly recommend downloading Korean versions of maps.
Q: Which race is the best one?
A: Protoss
Q: Will Blizzard implement a ladder, match-making, etc.?
A: I don't know. They promised it, but that doesn't mean much in my opinion. The ladder is only fun if you're not bottom-of-the-barrel tier. I don't like the idea of match-making, so I'd hope it's not mandatory.
Q: How many workers do I need, total?
A: It depends on your race. There is no exact number, though. I'd recommend watching some Brood War replays of good players, maybe watching a few of not-so-good players.
Q: I got top 10 grandmasters on NA. How well do you think I'll rank against current Brood War players?
A: Probably very poorly at first. Note that I say, "at first". I really can't give a good estimate of how quickly you'll progress, but you will definitely progress if you play consistently and have a good mindset.
Good luck, have fun
Whether you really have a tremendous drive to play StarCraft: Brood War, or are just dabbling, I hope you ultimately just have fun and meet some great people. You're not going to be playing StarCraft for the rest of your life, so you as well get some fulfillment out of it. You should play and do things that make you happy, because life can be a miserable bitch, and it always helps if you don't contribute to your own misery by doing things you hate. Yes, SC:BW can get frustrating, but also can be incredibly rewarding! It's totally up to you how you want to approach it, but I hope you have at least as much fun as I've had playing it - hopefully more!
