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Not sure if anyone saw this in the latest PC Gamer magazine, but at the very end in the editorials was one written about the recent press only SC2 invite event they had at irvine. (that tl's own posted the sucsess story fo their 2v2 tourney win) Suffice to say, this article pissed me off to quite some degree, I'm going to type it out here and I'd like you know if you all feel the same way after as I did.
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SPEED FREAKS
When Blizzard recently invited both press and pro Starcraft players to its shiny new Irvine, CA headquarters for the unveiling of the Zerg, it amazed me how many questions and how much concern there was from the pro players about the game-speed options. Lead Designer Dustin Brodwer said that Blizzard has gotten negative feedback from the community about how gameplay footage released over the past few months, which shows the game running at normal speed, appears to be "super slow". He reassured them that the game currently has both "fast" and "Faster" settings, and that the dev team is considering adding a "fastest"
I don't blame Blizzard in the slightest for giving its community what it wants (it's something the company does exceptionally well), but in my opinion, people who play RTS games at accelerated speeds are missing the point. I'm not saying that playing that way isn't an amazing skill, and I'm not denigrating the accomplishments of professional RTS players (those guys sure kicked the snot out of me when I tried to play against them), but are we really in such a hurry that a game has to be over ithihn 10 minutes? When i wrote a couple of months ago about how refreshing the pace of Sins of a Solar Empire is in comparion to the breakneck pace of games like Starcraft and Command & Conquer 3, I was talking about playing those games on normal speed.
At high speed, a game ceases to be a simulation of a real battlefield. Yes, we're playing in the far future with aliens and lasers and everything else, but come on. everybody's zipping around so fast that the screen looks like a shaken-up ant farm-which might make sense for the Zerg, but for marines to move like that en enormous suits of power armor is ridiculous, unless those resources crystals are supposed to be crystal meth. (that would explain why they're always out to score more.)
What's worse, though, is wthat when you're playing at that rate, you can go ahead and toss strategy out the window along with the realism. Min/maxers (people who bust out Microsoft Excel to figure out how to build the strongest possible force with the minimum possible time/resource investment) make the real strategic value of many RTS games debatable at normal speeds, but when sped up to two or three or four times as fast, it's not even a questions. It's no longer about out-thinking your opponent and the big picture, it's about reflexes, rehearsal of a super effecient build order, and micromanaging individual unit movement and abilities-no higher-level thinking required.
In their Q&A and feedback time with Browder, some of the pro players (was there even any PRO players there? this was press only event to my knowlege. he was probably refering to the TL.net guys) noted that due to the changes made between Starcraft 1 and 2 there were a few moments when, while waiting for resources to acumulate or units to build, they felt they "didn't have anything to do." Isn't that when you're suposed to think?
I got yelled at a couple times during that trip for hosting a game and setting the speed to normal instead of fast or faster. I yelled back that if the game was supposed to be played at those speeds, they would be called normal.
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United States40776 Posts
He's entirely ignorant of the subject of his article. Not a strong quality in a journalist. But other than write a letter of complaint what can you do but mock him.
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Belgium6733 Posts
So some rts newb reviewer doesnt like sc's pace
what else is new
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ah good. i looked around a bit and couldn't find it. probably because it was in the blog section, and not the sc2 section ><.
still the guys a fucking noob and shouldn't be entitled to an opinion. about anything. ever. in his whole life.
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On May 02 2008 10:20 Kwark wrote: He's entirely ignorant of the subject of his article. Not a strong quality in a journalist. But other than write a letter of complaint what can you do but mock him.
maybe we should all do just that, if you notice at the bottom of the picture in the other thread it says Email: Strategiccommand@pcgamer.com (lol?)
often editorials like this if they recieve enough flack from a stupidass article will write about how they were wrong in the next one. that and pc gamer does have an entire section every month dedicated to letters written to them that they publish and answer.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Bleh, he obviously doesn't get high level SC and from the outside who can blame him. It's the same as an outsider watching MMA, it looks pretty barbaric.
You don't think while doing nothing, you think while doing something, because every action is second nature you don't have to spend time actually thinking about doing them. He doesn't get this because to him they aren't second nature, oh well.
A letter might not be a bad idea but flaming him is
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so he's incapable of thinking and playing the game at the same time. i dont see why he needed to write a whole article on his shortcomings
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United States20661 Posts
If you read the other thread, you realize that even writing emails is a futile endeavor; he labels it 'hate mail' no matter how conservatively phrased your letter.
Just relax it.
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once again, I would beat that noob on fucking slowest
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Heh , sounds like this guy could use " Hello Kitty Island Adventure. "
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United States20661 Posts
On May 02 2008 10:49 FrozenArbiter wrote:R u srs? You should write an email titled 'From the "progamer" you played'
Ahahahahaha
I might, actually. Eh, I'll do that now.
edit: if I could find his e-mail address, that is. Anyone less technologically retarded than me please help T-T
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yeah i got mad, i guess thats normal when you have ignorants talking about what they dont know.
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On May 02 2008 11:02 Last Romantic wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2008 10:49 FrozenArbiter wrote:R u srs? You should write an email titled 'From the "progamer" you played' Ahahahahaha I might, actually. Eh, I'll do that now. edit: if I could find his e-mail address, that is. Anyone less technologically retarded than me please help T-T
scroll up newb :D
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He's just uneducated on the ways of starcraft and progaming. Relax guys.
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Thinking and moving your mouse are not mutually exclusive.
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Wow, I bet the guy's motto must be "When in Rome, act like you're from Carthage" or w/e.
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United States40776 Posts
I emailed him with a long and tactful explanation that when Starcraft players move at 400 apm they are not just massing the same unit and attack moving it but rather that each of those 400 decisions is a planned strategic decision which forms part of a greater strategy.
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Sweden33719 Posts
I wrote some stuff, hopefully I wasn't repeating too much of what others said. Anyway, I need to sleep.
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"Hate mail" hahahaha
I'll show him hate mail
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It's cause the pros already know the strats they just do it fast because they can, and not to mention they play like 10+ hours a day..at a pro level if it was normal speed it will take forever and a half to finish one game with all the microing and stuff.
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On May 02 2008 10:53 Lobotomy wrote: Heh , sounds like this guy could use " Hello Kitty Island Adventure. "
HAHAHAHA.
omigosh, is that a real game?! I WANNA PLAYYYYY
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On May 02 2008 12:16 KoveN- wrote: "Hate mail" hahahaha
I'll show him hate mail Please don't.
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On May 02 2008 12:42 Polyphasic wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2008 10:53 Lobotomy wrote: Heh , sounds like this guy could use " Hello Kitty Island Adventure. " HAHAHAHA. omigosh, is that a real game?! I WANNA PLAYYYYY
I signed up to the beta! Never played though. :<
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I hope they don't actually pay that guy... wtf Besides, IMO faster speed makes strategic decisions even more important. In the words of 'Teh_Masterer': "It is the choices you make, when you have no time to make them, that define who you are" <3 purepwnage
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On May 02 2008 12:42 Polyphasic wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2008 10:53 Lobotomy wrote: Heh , sounds like this guy could use " Hello Kitty Island Adventure. " HAHAHAHA. omigosh, is that a real game?! I WANNA PLAYYYYY
lol, it's actually a South Park reference from the episode they did on World Of Warcraft.
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If it existed, there is no way "Hello Kitty Island Adventure" could be not fun.
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I read in the PCG mag that the editor claims SC2 will be released in 2008. I don't believe it.
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MURICA15980 Posts
He's all about strategic decisions, but in anything, the faster you can make the correct decision, the more competence it shows on your part. I mean, that's why a lot of exams have a time limit on them at times - to prove your processing power.
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Or why chess is played with a time limit.
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On May 02 2008 14:30 Psyonic_Reaver wrote: I read in the PCG mag that the editor claims SC2 will be released in 2008. I don't believe it.
My money is on Christmass this year. If they finish Alpha in a couple of months 6 months to Beta sounds reasonable to me.
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Ignorant on so many things. When they are idle they are supposed to think? Think about what? Their chess correspondence games?
Fastest is not normal? It IS normal. Just not in name only, the list goes on.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
my god this article makes my blood boil
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Hong Kong20321 Posts
i'm lovin' the TL replies everyone. keep up the good work <3 ahahaha
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Sure, this guy is wrong on a hundred different levels, but the real crime here is the one being committed against the e-sports community. Articles like this one just show how out of touch even the 'top' gaming rags are with the future of their own industry.
Every Blizzard RTS thus far has played the most enjoyably at the fastest setting possible, but that's not even the point. Think of trying to watch a game of starcraft on 'normal' or even 'fast'. Utterly painful. I think most of us can agree that the speed and macro limitations of WC3 are what makes it a less popular spectator sport, regardless of it having been released years later and having a 'better' interface and graphics.
Yes, obviously Blizzard will make SC2 cater to as many players as possible (I shouldn't even have to invoke WoW on this one), but they would be completely silly to not consider what makes starcraft such an amazing sport, and where things went downhill with WC3. Hint: It's not because the Sci-Fi setting is more popular than the Fantasy one.
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On May 02 2008 11:02 Last Romantic wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2008 10:49 FrozenArbiter wrote:R u srs? You should write an email titled 'From the "progamer" you played' Ahahahahaha I might, actually. Eh, I'll do that now. edit: if I could find his e-mail address, that is. Anyone less technologically retarded than me please help T-T
LR and other email writers, please, publish them here as well in case he doesn't do this on their page. ;]
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haha
He's implying that players like him would have a greater chance playing on "normal speed", when in fact such a speed would only allow for better decisions and better micro and perfect macro from a skilled player. I bet it would take even fewer gameseconds to beat him on normal speed.
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He really knows how to push TL.nets buttons. LOL at everyone saying "OMG that NOOB he wants ez-mode SC!!" Bleh, listen to yourselves. The argument in that article is the relationship between gamespeed/pace and Strategy. NOT the difficulty of a fast game and especially not progaming.
"it's about reflexes, rehearsal of a super-efficient build order, and micromanaging individual unit movement and abilities."
You can´t tell me that these elements are not key to sucsess in SC. Are these really hard intelectually? If we call everything else "Strategy" it would at best make up 50% of the game - that is a LOW number for RTS.
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Relax. Those who really agree with him are no loss for the starcraft community anway. I disagree with him, but he wrote his toughts in a gaming magazine, that means auto-ignore anyway.
Back in 99 i visited a games shop, you know these shops that died out over time where you could get any game and tons of fanmaterial and the occasional chat with the owners. When we talked about starcraft he told me that fastest is too much for him and that he would allways play on normal.
That doesn't make him an asshole or ignorant slomo noob prick. It's just a guy who has a job that deals with games day in day out. Their aproach to a game is fundamentaly different than for the rest of us who focus on a game over a longer timespan.
And btw. that's the exact reason why blizzard has more than one speed level, so people like him can find other people like him to play on a speed level that they think is best. There's not even room for discussion here. Just play like you want, you have the option.
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"I got yelled at a couple times during that trip for hosting a game and setting the speed to normal instead of fast or faster. I yelled back that if the game was supposed to be played at those speeds, they would be called normal"
Thats unbearably noob, my god.
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United States3490 Posts
at normal speed he's only delaying the inevitable that comes to him during a game =P
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I wonder what the qualifications to write for a gaming magazine are these days.
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On May 02 2008 10:16 Disarray wrote: there were a few moments when, while waiting for resources to acumulate or units to build, they felt they "didn't have anything to do." Isn't that when you're suposed to think?
hahaha, sorry I was too busy clicking to think. You really can't expect any better from games magazines though. Someone needs to write them a letter about competitive gaming. Klogon put it better than anybody.
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i think he should play turn based strategy games only
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I really hope SC2 comes out with fastest. :O
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Yes FA that doesn't mean we cannot educate them so we don't run into the same problems with the same people ;p
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There was a time when I was very, very good at StarCraft, I had all the keys programmed to my keyboard and would play fast rounds all night long. I stopped playing it years ago but there was a time where I was very good and so I know about StarCraft and I still love StarCraft I know what I am talking about when it comes to that game.
LOL
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o god, what have we done, unleashed the beast
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LOL@the people defending the dan dude, imo, competitive spectator sports should be played at a faster pace, if not viewers will definately get bored. Imagine slow soccer or basketball.........yeah.
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shall we all go and call down the thunder?
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fuck Dan and this worthless PCG mag.
Just like the media he is published in (paper mags ... rofl? welcome to 1998), Dan's opinion is useless, outdated and irrelevent.
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I feel sad for the websites that have to fight against us, we are like..damned to own all at any time at any website at everything
Oh well, life goes on.
GO TL!
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it just all fucking boils down to the fact that Dan THINKS too slow for SC, and so he perceives the game as too fast... he believes that slower = more strategy... obviously he has no idea what the hell he is talking about
i've lost all respect for PC Gamer after they published this piece of crap article written by someone who knows nothing about the subject of his column
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On May 03 2008 00:25 Gokey wrote: i've lost all respect for PC Gamer after they published this piece of crap article written by someone who knows nothing about the subject of his column You had respect for PC Gamer?
It'll be dead soon enough....
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MURICA15980 Posts
On May 02 2008 20:28 Unentschieden wrote: If we call everything else "Strategy" it would at best make up 50% of the game - that is a LOW number for RTS.
Ummm no, because it's called "real-time" for a reason.
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United States32008 Posts
Rule #1 of journalism: don't write an editorial when you don't have the slightest clue of what you're talking about.
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what a dumbass. no idea about RTS games at all.
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On May 02 2008 20:28 Unentschieden wrote: If we call everything else "Strategy" it would at best make up 50% of the game - that is a LOW number for RTS.
Are you nuts! That's extremely high. It's more like 10 or 20% of the game. And it has more depth to it than any other RTS I know of.
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LastRomantic and whoever posted as MysteryJourno summed it up very well. I think it's funny that those PCG apes only responded to other arguments that weren't as well-written. The good arguments always get totally ignored in these online flame wars.
In defense of the casual gamer, most people that play games can only devote a few hours a week because of their other responsibilities or priorities. To such a person, being able to play a game like Sins or Homeworld where they have time to think and formulate and plan before getting crushed is a much more fun gaming experience than logging on b.net and getting crushed by someone with an efficient and pre-planned build order. Like many people have said, higher strategy is invisible to new players. All they can see is the speed and planning, they don't understand the strategy/theory behind it.
To use starcraft as an example since that's what we all understand, a new player is thinking: He killed all my mutalisks with scouts, but they have a weak ground attack. I think I'll switch to hydralisks! A better player thinks: I only see one hatchery and just expanded very late, but he has no tech and hasn't made a lot of drones or lings (starts looking for 3rd hatchery).
New players want a game where they have time to think and reason, forumate strategies, and execute them. When they run into a game like Starcraft dominated by crazy people like us that play way more than we should, all they see is a mindless clickfest. You can't fault them for that, and all the logic and reason in the world won't make them see otherwise.
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Well its the same for any new player who is spoiled by civilization, aoe and stuff.
Everyone i have showed sc to feels its way too fast at fastest speed.
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On May 02 2008 20:41 Jayson X wrote: Relax.
That doesn't make him an asshole or ignorant slomo noob prick. It's just a guy who has a job that deals with games day in day out. Their aproach to a game is fundamentaly different than for the rest of us who focus on a game over a longer timespan.
Nailed it
Totally understandable that people that havent dedicated themselves abit to a game, will want it to be more friendly while they play. Normal may be turtle land for us, but it's fine for normal people.
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TL.net. It is our time to invade.
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we dont need the whole forum over there, in fact we should only send respectable members of the community. Dont want any sc2-hyped 20apm noob going over there and flame them in our name.
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United States20661 Posts
Calm down y'all. They're only responding to flames. Not working.
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On May 03 2008 03:24 XCetron wrote: we dont need the whole forum over there, in fact we should only send respectable members of the community. Dont want any sc2-hyped 20apm noob going over there and flame them in our name.
exactly
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I dont think they are going to budge lol. They have it in their head that they are somehow right, even though we still play the game >.>
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I'm sorry to correct you but CoH, World in Conflict, and Sins are all, very much, firmly ensconced in the RTS genre.
And I hate to break it to you, also, but not too many genuine strategy gaming fans consider StarCraft to be in any real way strategic. It's loads of fun and all that but it's no more strategic than Roulette is.
Seriously.
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i dont give a fuck if they only reply to flames, they ignored the smart shit at first anyways and labeled the smart responses as "hate mail" so fuck all these faggot ass noobs, im all for invading and flaming the fuck out of these retards.
they should stick to playing The Sims
edit: I wonder how long until their slo-mo mods ban me from the pcg forums rofl
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Hungary11232 Posts
On May 03 2008 04:47 fcnz wrote: i dont give a fuck if they only reply to flames, they ignored the smart shit at first anyways and labeled the smart responses as "hate mail" so fuck all these faggot ass noobs, im all for invading and flaming the fuck out of these retards. If you posted these offensive, aggressive posts on the pcg forum then you are responsible for downing the reputation of the entire starcraft community over there. Good job.
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Do we really care what a bunch of casual gamers think?
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On May 03 2008 05:00 Aesop wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2008 04:47 fcnz wrote: i dont give a fuck if they only reply to flames, they ignored the smart shit at first anyways and labeled the smart responses as "hate mail" so fuck all these faggot ass noobs, im all for invading and flaming the fuck out of these retards. If you posted these offensive, aggressive posts on the pcg forum then you are responsible for downing the reputation of the entire starcraft community over there. Good job.
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Nah, they are seriously ignoring all the good posts. They simply arent going to budge, its quite annoying. i doubt any of them actually have the game.
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On May 03 2008 05:00 Aesop wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2008 04:47 fcnz wrote: i dont give a fuck if they only reply to flames, they ignored the smart shit at first anyways and labeled the smart responses as "hate mail" so fuck all these faggot ass noobs, im all for invading and flaming the fuck out of these retards. If you posted these offensive, aggressive posts on the pcg forum then you are responsible for downing the reputation of the entire starcraft community over there. Good job.
My god, be a bit more emo? Do you honestly think those retards have the mental capabilities needed to understand this game? Man, oh man. Go read their posts.... By the way, I in no way represent the SC community. I represent myself.
If those retards can't take the flak after doing such a piece of trash column, they should take a box of tissues, cry themselves to death and never write for a gaming mag again.
And honestly. Who the fuck cares what 20 readers from a useless magazine think? Ive read PCG pre Y2K and never knew they had a forum or cared about it. Most of these kids are only on the forums to brag about how much of a "monster pc" they have and how many fps they can get out of the newest eye-candy no-skill game thats the current flavor of the week. These people will never understand or appreciate esports. Definatly not the audience you want to go for. Personally my best results with converting people to watch SC are people who have played other esports before or people who just enjoy competition (including real sports) period.
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On May 03 2008 05:26 jimminy_kriket wrote: Nah, they are seriously ignoring all the good posts. They simply arent going to budge, its quite annoying. i doubt any of them actually have the game. The problem is that flames are so much easier to respond to, so the good posts get skipped. If there were only quality/well-reasoned posts, they would ONLY be able to read and respond to those arguments.
FCNZ, you've done nothing but harm those people who are trying to actually explain why the PCG people are wrong in their thinking, and degraded the image of all SC gamers. Even though you're absolutely right and they're totally wrong about everything in this matter, you've acted with the maturity of a 12-yr old.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On May 03 2008 04:47 fcnz wrote: i dont give a fuck if they only reply to flames, they ignored the smart shit at first anyways and labeled the smart responses as "hate mail" so fuck all these faggot ass noobs, im all for invading and flaming the fuck out of these retards.
they should stick to playing The Sims
edit: I wonder how long until their slo-mo mods ban me from the pcg forums rofl If you flame them there in our name, I'll ban you here. Sorry but there's absolutely no reason to have PCGamer staff think badly of TL.net.
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Think AND play at the same time. No I cant do that, too difficult, why would I want to play an RTS where I can't even drink a cup of tea and enjoy toast at the same time.
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i can't read that forum. i can't even imagine playing a game for the purpose of going slow : (
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I'm not really sure what else to say to them. I try to make a point, and the next reply is "u win because you click fast, look at sins if you want real strategy!!!!" Seriously...
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Hungary11232 Posts
On May 03 2008 05:27 fcnz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2008 05:00 Aesop wrote:On May 03 2008 04:47 fcnz wrote: i dont give a fuck if they only reply to flames, they ignored the smart shit at first anyways and labeled the smart responses as "hate mail" so fuck all these faggot ass noobs, im all for invading and flaming the fuck out of these retards. If you posted these offensive, aggressive posts on the pcg forum then you are responsible for downing the reputation of the entire starcraft community over there. Good job. My god, be a bit more emo? Do you honestly think those retards have the mental capabilities needed to understand this game? Man, oh man. Go read their posts.... By the way, I in no way represent the SC community. I represent myself. If those retards can't take the flak after doing such a piece of trash column, they should take a box of tissues, cry themselves to death and never write for a gaming mag again. And honestly. Who the fuck cares what 20 readers from a useless magazine think? Ive read PCG pre Y2K and never knew they had a forum or cared about it. Most of these kids are only on the forums to brag about how much of a "monster pc" they have and how many fps they can get out of the newest eye-candy no-skill game thats the current flavor of the week. These people will never understand or appreciate esports. Definatly not the audience you want to go for. Personally my best results with converting people to watch SC are people who have played other esports before or people who just enjoy competition (including real sports) period.
I was about not to reply to this post, but when I read your latest flaming spree on the PCG forums, I could not abstain. Two simple questions and two simple answers.
1st: If you do not care about what they think, why post on their forums? 2nd: Even if you don't claim to represent the sc or TL community, how does it come across to the readers of the PCG forums?
To 1: Post on their forums if you think you can convince them. As you probably saw, and as it has been stated earlier, your efforts were absolutely detrimental to them seeing our point about Starcraft. If there is any chance of correction or understanding, you are the one working against it. They focus on answering to your uncalled-for flamed instead of dealing with the real arguments, but this is not a sign of stupidity, this is the way everyone is wired, to react to the threat first and to look for the argument afterwards.
To 2: You are one of those newly registered users at PCG, posting against this article. What would make them pick you out as someone who is NOT associated with TL.net? Just assume there was the same situation, just exactly opposed. There would be a column on TL.net about some other game, a flood of users register and criticise the column with similar arguments. If one of them excelled through rudeness, childishness, personal attacks, wouldn't you be tempted to assume it is one of the traits of this group?
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Well, I tried. A bit pathetic really that this annoys me so much.^^
Stop flaming guys, it doesn't help and makes our whole community look bad.
This has turned into a somewhat decent discussion so I'll pitch in my thoughts. This is going to be long, but I'd appreciate it if you could find the time to read it Dan.
For those of you who aren't hardcore Starcraft fans it might seem strange why we (teamliquid) are getting so upset over Dan's comments. His main point does seem very sensible: The more time you have in a game, the more time you have to think about your strategy.
A rather obvious observation, but clearly a true one. However, Dan doesn't stop here, he deducts from this general rule that Starcraft as a fast-paced game has little strategy and is in essence a clickfest. In his own words, you can 'toss strategy out the window'.
Now I have been following progaming religiously for 3 years, not playing myself but studying countless replays and videos of progamers, analyzing their playing styles, their build orders, their battle tactics and their overall timings. I have seen several revolutions in gameplay, have watched the best players of the time pushing the strategical boundaries of the game in a way nobody would have thought possible and have enjoyed countless hours debating with other Starcraft fans debating over minute strategical details.
So I hope you will forgive me for feeling annoyed that a professional gaming journalist would have the ignorance and the arrogance to tell me I'm wasting my time because 'it's about reflexes, and abilities-no higher-level thinking required'.
I do realize where his sentiments come from. At the Blizzard event he mentioned, he played Last Romantic, one of teamliquid's members who has already posted in this thread. Unfortunately their skill levels weren't evenly matched and by the time Dan had hatched 12 Zerglings, LR was running him over with mass Zealot/Thor.
I'm not mentioning this in an attempt to ridicule Dan, obviously his mechanics aren't as good as those of LR who has invested thousands of hours into Starcraft, but to illustrate why Dan believes that mechanics dominate strategy in Starcraft.
On a very low level (Dan's, sorry for being so blunt), mechanics do in fact dominate strategy. These players are struggling with even the most basic concepts of micro and micro and victory or defeat will be decided by who manages to build a few more tanks than the other.
But that is not Starcraft. Once you've learned the basic mechanics required to play this game the whole wonderful world of Starcraft strategy will open up to you. Even at its very fast pace, there's such strategical depth that the gameplay is still evolving, 10 years after its release.
You state the fact that build orders are important in a derogatory tone because you're imagining an Excel sheet calculating the best build order. In Starcraft, build order strategy is a beautiful thing, there is no best build order just like there is no best unit, every opening is a unique mix of economy, teching und unit building. Let me give some examples.
In one of the most anticipated Starleague semi finals of all time, Lim Yo Hwan vs. Hong Jin Ho, Lim Yo Hwan or Boxer changed his Barracks and Supply Depot slightly, sacrificing worker production to squeeze out Marines a bit earlier than usual, making his bunker rush more powerful. He won all 3 games in less than 15 minutes in the shortest series the Ongamenet Starleague had ever seen.
The Zerg Savior introduced a whole new aera of Zerg dominance to Starcraft. His mechanics were stellar, but that wasn't the main reason for his dominance. He understood the game better than anyone else, squeezing out small advantages at all times, always having exactly the right number of troops to fend off an attack while continually building up his economy, displaying fascinating battle tactics while never losing the big picture, his master plan of how to win the game.
We thought Savior's dominance would never end, until Bisu came along and once again showed the Starcraft world how many strategical nuances are still undiscovered. In an amazing display of skill, Bisu 3-0'ed Savior in the MBC Starleague Finals using corsairs and dark templars to harass Savior to his death.
It was an incredible display both of a new strategy and its unbelievable execution, multi-tasking at a level that we had never seen before. This is what Starcraft is all about, it is the mix of deep strategy and exciting execution. That is why the game has been so unbelievably successful as a spectator sport and why after ten years so many people are still hooked to it.
Playing the game at normal speed wouldn't change the strategical dynamics of course, but it would kill what is a big part of the game, the mechanics, the apm and the multi-tasking required to play it at a high-level. These mechanics are a prerequisite to one's strategies being successful, but they do not actually hurt the strategical side of the game, on the contrary, they make pulling off a certain strategy much more impressive.
Continue playing the slow strategy games you like, I'm sure they're a lot fun, but please don't belittle the strategical depth of fast-paced RTS like Starcraft. If you're not convinced, I'd welcome you to watch a few pro games with me and I can try to share with you why I still get very excited every time Lim Yo Hwan is playing.
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Really good post orome, but you said two times micro instead of micro and macro .
On May 03 2008 06:54 Orome wrote:
On a very low level (Dan's, sorry for being so blunt), mechanics do in fact dominate strategy. These players are struggling with even the most basic concepts of micro and micro and victory or defeat will be decided by who manages to build a few more tanks than the other.
Poor Dan wont understand
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What the fuck is up with threats of banning me? Am I not fucking free to use the internet? Because I am a member of TL.net means I can't take part in debate anywhere else because it risks your reputation? Jesus fucking Christ....
I now understand alot more what the people at sc2gg tried to tell me about TL, I'm relatively new to SC (but not to esports) and I kinda held TL high in my opinion. Now you threathen to ban me and talk shit because I express my opinion? Damn right I came from TL, doesnt fucking matter. This site has thousands of users. I read the article from here, it pissed me off, I read the PCG thread, got even more pissed at how they ignored all smart comments so I thought I'd give them a piece of my opinion. I am not a staff of TL.net and I do not post there under anyones suggestion or order.
Holy fuck, go ahead and ban me if joining TL.net meant losing my right to express my opinion on another internet forum.
And to respond to Aesop:
To 2: You are one of those newly registered users at PCG, posting against this article. What would make them pick you out as someone who is NOT associated with TL.net? Just assume there was the same situation, just exactly opposed. There would be a column on TL.net about some other game, a flood of users register and criticise the column with similar arguments. If one of them excelled through rudeness, childishness, personal attacks, wouldn't you be tempted to assume it is one of the traits of this group?
Yeah, I would if I was a retard. I've been called names by Americans before, should I be tempted to assume all Americans are fucktards? That's what your suggesting here. Because I flamed them and was an asshole and a prick (which I totally assume, these guys don't deserve any respect from me) does not mean that's how everyone on TL is. If they assume that, well roflcopters, gg.
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Right of expression doesnt mean that it is a good thing to flame them on their own forum. I was angry after reading this article, but i flamed those retards here .
If you post on their forum, try to be mannered. Flaming them wont change anything, but they will think that the whole teamLiquidians are bad mannered "speed freaks". Which is not true.
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On May 03 2008 05:59 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2008 04:47 fcnz wrote: i dont give a fuck if they only reply to flames, they ignored the smart shit at first anyways and labeled the smart responses as "hate mail" so fuck all these faggot ass noobs, im all for invading and flaming the fuck out of these retards.
they should stick to playing The Sims
edit: I wonder how long until their slo-mo mods ban me from the pcg forums rofl If you flame them there in our name, I'll ban you here. Sorry but there's absolutely no reason to have PCGamer staff think badly of TL.net. Actually... FNCZ insulted the PCGamer staff directly right in his first post, and then in the post right underneath that he associated himself to TL.net or at least showed that he was a TL.net member.
On May 03 2008 07:10 fcnz wrote: wow .... this article and thread are so retarded, I had to sign up and reply.
It's pretty obvious that the players asking for slower games are casuals, not to say complete noobs. Dan's article was lame and lacked insight. You obviously don't know enough about SC to comment on it, if this was some slow paced game like Sins, ok, maybe thats how it's meant to be played. But for you to critic SC2 for its pace is ridiculous.
...
It's kind of hard (and useless) for me to really explain these concepts to casual gamers who hop from game to game every time a new flavor comes out so I won't go on anymore, I don't really give a crap if you dont like my arguments or think they lack, I know from gaming experience that my opinion is right on this topic (so whine all you want or try to reply, if you think making SC faster is a problem, you're simply clueless).
This is the kind of noob thinking that annoys me so much, it's like the idiots who whined to valve for years to take walling out of CS 1.6
If you can't cope with it, you're simply not good enough. Go play "Hello Kitty Island Adventure".
By the way, where do I apply for a job on PCG so I can write mindless crap about games I know nothing of?
On May 03 2008 07:10 fcnz wrote:Also, for the joy of posting the truth, I thought this guy summarized it well on TL.net Show nested quote +i don't understand how newbies to the game can't comprehend a single concept
they all think that they're strategical prodigies or something, and can't face the truth that they simply suck at the game.
"oh but the only reason why he won is because he can click faster, but my thinking was lightyears ahead of him!"
ok genius, answer this: when you perform an action when you're playing, you put thought into it, right? (yes, yes you do)
then if someone is performing actions at a rate 3-4 times yours, can't you understand that they are thinking 3-4 times faster than you?
Everything was pretty calm before this, and one of the PCG guys even complimented the discussion just 3 or 4 posts above FCNZ's first entrance, and indeed said he was having doubts about the article. It all turned to shit as soon as he came into the picture though.
On May 03 2008 07:10 Chandrose wrote: One of the best discussions I've seen on the board in awhile. No flame wars, and intelligent comments (for the most part).
When I first read Dan's article I was on board 100%, but now I'm second guessing myself. It's not that I've changed my mind, there is certainly validity to what he's saying, but there have been a few points made here that are valid as well.
The truth of the matter is this is pretty much all speculation. Is there anyway to measure whether players are thinking less on fastest? Not that I can think of. After watching a few recorded matches you can easily see these players aren't just throwing units at each other, they are micro-managing and planning their actions. Would they be doing more of this at a lower speed? Again, no real way to tell. It would be interesting to see two top ranked players go at it on fastest, and then watch them go at each other again on normal to see if we can notice any changes in their play.
My personal preference is a slower paced game. I feel it's because having more time to plan and execute my actions makes the game more enjoyable (or "real" if you will), but perhaps I'm just not capable of coming up with those same strategies faster. Who knows?
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United States20661 Posts
fcnz it's not a question of free expression [which does not and never has been ensured here at TL.net]
It's a question of you, choosing to affiliate yourself with TeamLiquid, going and flaming other people under our name. Remember that TeamLiquid is our house - sure, after contributing to the community and gaining the respect of our veterans and staff [honestly not too hard to do], it becomes your house as well.
But until then, any out-of-TL postings in which you choose to associate with TL.net should be written as if you were writing on TL.net itself. Your post quality there is assuredly lacking in that regard.
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what have i done. my god, this is all on my hands.
::vadar Nooooooooooooo::
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Delete my account then. I lurked here for months, only signed up to play LB.
I said this was posted on TL so they should expect more people coming in to refute their arguments. I used a 300 comparison for 2 reasons:
1- Some of their regulars had mentionned how many SC players registered just to defend our point. 2- Lulz (300 = Always lulz)
I quoted a TL post because it just explained the situation. I'm in no way associated with TL or represent anyone here but myself. I don't know what to say but repeat what I've said before. If an American talks shit to me, do I assume all Americans are assholes? (I mean I really do but lets use this as a theoritical example). If I did, I could and SHOULD be labeled as a fucking retard.
If they associate me with TL, they are fucking retards.
oh wait- they are fucking retards. gg
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On May 03 2008 07:23 Last Romantic wrote: It's a question of you, choosing to affiliate yourself with TeamLiquid, going and flaming other people under our name.
Wait, so saying I was linked from here means I'm a full time staff of TL.net? Schweeet.
Shouldve made my PCG username TL.net-FCNZ then!
You guys have been contaminated by the PCG logic, lets not touch their forums anymore, something funky about it.
Anyways, I'm probably about to get banned, peace out, <3 Plexa btw
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I'm not going to post there anymore. Thos guys are mentally-challenged. :O
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On May 03 2008 07:09 Boblion wrote:Really good post orome, but you said two times micro instead of micro and macro . Show nested quote +On May 03 2008 06:54 Orome wrote:
On a very low level (Dan's, sorry for being so blunt), mechanics do in fact dominate strategy. These players are struggling with even the most basic concepts of micro and micro and victory or defeat will be decided by who manages to build a few more tanks than the other.
Poor Dan wont understand
Thanks.
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On May 03 2008 07:35 fcnz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2008 07:23 Last Romantic wrote: It's a question of you, choosing to affiliate yourself with TeamLiquid, going and flaming other people under our name. Wait, so saying I was linked from here means I'm a full time staff of TL.net? Schweeet. Shouldve made my PCG username TL.net-FCNZ then! You guys have been contaminated by the PCG logic, lets not touch their forums anymore, something funky about it. Anyways, I'm probably about to get banned, peace out, <3 Plexa btw
You sir, are an idiot.
I hope you don't respond to all situations in the way you have on the PCG thread.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On May 03 2008 07:10 fcnz wrote:What the fuck is up with threats of banning me? Am I not fucking free to use the internet? Because I am a member of TL.net means I can't take part in debate anywhere else because it risks your reputation? Jesus fucking Christ.... I now understand alot more what the people at sc2gg tried to tell me about TL, I'm relatively new to SC (but not to esports) and I kinda held TL high in my opinion. Now you threathen to ban me and talk shit because I express my opinion? Damn right I came from TL, doesnt fucking matter. This site has thousands of users. I read the article from here, it pissed me off, I read the PCG thread, got even more pissed at how they ignored all smart comments so I thought I'd give them a piece of my opinion. I am not a staff of TL.net and I do not post there under anyones suggestion or order. Holy fuck, go ahead and ban me if joining TL.net meant losing my right to express my opinion on another internet forum. And to respond to Aesop: Show nested quote +To 2: You are one of those newly registered users at PCG, posting against this article. What would make them pick you out as someone who is NOT associated with TL.net? Just assume there was the same situation, just exactly opposed. There would be a column on TL.net about some other game, a flood of users register and criticise the column with similar arguments. If one of them excelled through rudeness, childishness, personal attacks, wouldn't you be tempted to assume it is one of the traits of this group? Yeah, I would if I was a retard. I've been called names by Americans before, should I be tempted to assume all Americans are fucktards? That's what your suggesting here. Because I flamed them and was an asshole and a prick (which I totally assume, these guys don't deserve any respect from me) does not mean that's how everyone on TL is. If they assume that, well roflcopters, gg. Please notice the "in our name" meaning if you say "hi guys I'm from teamliquid.net and I think you guys are fucking retarded". I dunno if banning is fair even there but that's my initial reaction to on the matter.
And I don't ban people lightly, I've banned maybe 2 people max, and one of them was a temp ban for 2 days.
I've had a baaaad day so I'm not going to hand out any bans tonight, I'll leave that to other staff if they see fit.
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On May 03 2008 07:53 Centric wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2008 07:35 fcnz wrote:On May 03 2008 07:23 Last Romantic wrote: It's a question of you, choosing to affiliate yourself with TeamLiquid, going and flaming other people under our name. Wait, so saying I was linked from here means I'm a full time staff of TL.net? Schweeet. Shouldve made my PCG username TL.net-FCNZ then! You guys have been contaminated by the PCG logic, lets not touch their forums anymore, something funky about it. Anyways, I'm probably about to get banned, peace out, <3 Plexa btw You sir, are an idiot. I hope you don't respond to all situations in the way you have on the PCG thread.
Why would I waste my time with a well written, thought out post just for it to be ignored (like the ones of the first 3 pages of the thread), or worse, labeled "hate mail" like that incredible letter someone sent out (which basically sealed the debate, but they just ignored it). If you read that part, you'd be as tilted as I was. These guys will not change opinion, so I pointed out the fact that they're all fucking nublords.
If this "You" character thinks he's going to outflame me, he picked the wrong nerd to fuck with. I'll ram every one of his posts until I'm bored with PCG forums. I mean, I do need shit to keep me occupied at 4am while I wait for the MSL/OSL games to start.
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MURICA15980 Posts
I just made a post there, then came back to here... and you've already been warned by FA.
So you're gone. Honestly, freedom of speech is not a right here. It's a privilege and you just lost it.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
On May 03 2008 07:10 fcnz wrote:
I now understand alot more what the people at sc2gg tried to tell me about TL,
good to know our friends at sc2gg are keepin' it real!
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I can't even count how many times I've heard "so it was true what they told me about you" and then that they still like me. If TL is so bad, why register a new account then?
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Since the Pc gamer authentication e-mail isn't arriving. I'll post this here.
This is a article posted on scientific american. About what an expert chess players mind does and how it relate's to expertise in other fields.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-expert-mind&colID=1
Feel free to use this whenever you further have to argue your claims Klogon.
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MURICA15980 Posts
I'm done there. Feel free to use it if you wish. I've got finals. Peace.
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People on sc2gg like to wish for people to get AIDS?
Why do you also have to pull sc2gg through the mud?
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On May 02 2008 21:23 MorningMusume11 wrote: at normal speed he's only delaying the inevitable that comes to him during a game =P
On May 02 2008 21:43 Jortikka wrote: i think he should play turn based strategy games only
LOL i love tl.net ppl always crack me up
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Thanks for the article; it was a very good read.
-edit- Semicolon
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MURICA15980 Posts
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what the hell
all of the pcg replies were directed at fcnz
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On May 03 2008 11:09 Highways wrote: what the hell
all of the pcg replies were directed at fcnz He got banned from PC gamer though too. Justice is the inevitable course of history!
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On May 03 2008 11:10 Ancestral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2008 11:09 Highways wrote: what the hell
all of the pcg replies were directed at fcnz He got banned from PC gamer though too. Justice is the inevitable course of history!
Only because the winners rewrite history.
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On May 03 2008 11:13 lololol wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2008 11:10 Ancestral wrote:On May 03 2008 11:09 Highways wrote: what the hell
all of the pcg replies were directed at fcnz He got banned from PC gamer though too. Justice is the inevitable course of history! Only because the winners rewrite history. Although this is true, I was commenting on the fact that he was being disrespectful beyond all get-out, not trying to make some subtle point about the course of world history. But I like your style :D (in our microcosmic case, KLOGON SHALL BE THE WINNER, and fcnz is the suck).
Edit: Did it for you :D
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MURICA15980 Posts
No, I just win.
And I actually rewrite your post to say so too if I wanted.
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On May 03 2008 09:43 Cauldr0n wrote:Since the Pc gamer authentication e-mail isn't arriving. I'll post this here. This is a article posted on scientific american. About what an expert chess players mind does and how it relate's to expertise in other fields. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-expert-mind&colID=1Feel free to use this whenever you further have to argue your claims Klogon.
That was a great read. Thanks!
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After reading the article, I felt like e-mailing the writer and point out that he's an idiot.
Then I realized - if he's an idiot, what good does it do me if I write him the e-mail.
Afterwards, I realized that he's just expressing his opinions (Albeit very biased). After all, the game will ship in various different game speeds and if there are enough people like him, then they can play at a slower game speed. Hence I realized that there is absolutely no need to get angry over this article.
In conclusion - there are no needs to argue with idiots who express their opinions.
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On May 03 2008 11:43 KH1031 wrote: After reading the article, I feel like e-mailing the writer and point out that he's an idiot.
Then I realized - if he's an idiot, what good does it do me if I write him the e-mail.
Afterwards, I realized that he's expressing his opinions (Albeit very biased). After all, the game will ship in various different game speeds and if there are enough people like him, then they can play at a slower game speed. Hence I realized that there is absolutely no need to get angry over this article.
In conclusion - there are no needs to argue with idiots who express their opinions. But a debate in good spirit is better than writing papers or anything like that, and if even one person considers the fact that normal is in fact pretty lame, it will be a victory for mankind, or for Klogon, your choice which.
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On May 03 2008 11:52 Ancestral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2008 11:43 KH1031 wrote: After reading the article, I feel like e-mailing the writer and point out that he's an idiot.
Then I realized - if he's an idiot, what good does it do me if I write him the e-mail.
Afterwards, I realized that he's expressing his opinions (Albeit very biased). After all, the game will ship in various different game speeds and if there are enough people like him, then they can play at a slower game speed. Hence I realized that there is absolutely no need to get angry over this article.
In conclusion - there are no needs to argue with idiots who express their opinions. But a debate in good spirit is better than writing papers or anything like that, and if even one person considers the fact that normal is in fact pretty lame, it will be a victory for mankind, or for Klogon, your choice which.
Everything is better than writing papers. Damn papers.
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no one ever uses normal, slow, slower or slowest. they should just scoot the entire spectrum over to make SC1's "fastest" as "normal" in SC2. because fastest was like normal, seriously. then we can have even faster speeds. the standard setting should not be at the end of the spectrum.
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Excellent posts by Klogon and Orome, but it really annoys me that they haven't responded to anything except for the flames.
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On May 03 2008 13:04 Wonders wrote: Excellent posts by Klogon and Orome, but it really annoys me that they haven't responded to anything except for the flames. it's because they can't think of good answers... =(
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Let's walk when we play basketball so we can take time to aim for the ball better. Going fast is unfair and ends up with the fastest guy winning and not the guy who aims well otherwise when he takes his time. Lets play speed chess at an hour per turn, more ability to think well intuitively and deeply into the game even though competitively it makes it intense and difficult, and would not be 100% good moves, and therefore not a true game of strategy.
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Someone should write a response article in hopes of being published.
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i remember this one time i played a game with a noob friend of mine on slow, then we watched the replay on fastest speed and we looked so pro
slow RTS games are just easier to master, noobs like those have these ridiculous conception of straterregy where they think they're calculating some ridiculous master plan that most likely isn't viable at even mid-level play. they'll spend 5 minutes thinking about where to attack when they fail to understand they should just go with their gut reaction and attack it
basically all the strategy in this game is a result of reacting to what your opponent is doing. hmm, there's another strategy game that sounds an awful lot like that, what's it called again? oh, i think it's chess
On May 03 2008 21:03 MiniRoman wrote:Someone should write a response article in hopes of being published. yeah i agree. get manifesto or tasteless or someone else who's important to do it
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I could, but I just woke up and I need coffee. >.<
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If chess was as easy as "look at the board and act accordingly" everyone who knows the rules would master it within days. Like Tic-Tac-Toe. The art is predicting/guessing what your opponent thinks/does. Some would call it game sense.
RTS CAN implement proper Strategy, take Sins of a Solar Empire for example. That game doesn´t even have properly distinctive races, yet it can pull of way deeper strategic moves. It even has politics and a somewhat working market!
SC strategy is hurt by more things than just gamepace. It´s a tradeoff Blizzard made intentionally though, they WANT to award "fast" players. SC is a RTS without the S. That doesn´t mean it´s bad, actually it seems good enough to be the standart right now. SINS is really a fresh breath for the genre.
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Unentschieden, don't troll. I don't know how after 7 pages you still couldn't get that uneducated opinions and unsupported statements don't prove shit.
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On May 04 2008 01:48 Unentschieden wrote: If chess was as easy as "look at the board and act accordingly" everyone who knows the rules would master it within days. Like Tic-Tac-Toe. The art is predicting/guessing what your opponent thinks/does. Some would call it game sense.
RTS CAN implement proper Strategy, take Sins of a Solar Empire for example. That game doesn´t even have properly distinctive races, yet it can pull of way deeper strategic moves. It even has politics and a somewhat working market!
SC strategy is hurt by more things than just gamepace. It´s a tradeoff Blizzard made intentionally though, they WANT to award "fast" players. SC is a RTS without the S. That doesn´t mean it´s bad, actually it seems good enough to be the standart right now. SINS is really a fresh breath for the genre.
Just because you don't understand strategy in StarCraft doesn't mean it's not there. ;]
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Chess is a game of tactics and RTS games are games of tactics with execution skill involved.
A game of strategy, maybe an MMO RTS? But really, in most games it's just the metagame that's the strategy. And the basis of the game is execution and/or tactics.
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We mean 'strategy' in more colloquial way. Just as his Sins of a Solar Emprie example.
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On May 04 2008 01:48 Unentschieden wrote: RTS CAN implement proper Strategy, take Sins of a Solar Empire for example. That game doesn´t even have properly distinctive races, yet it can pull of way deeper strategic moves. It even has politics and a somewhat working market!
SC strategy is hurt by more things than just gamepace. It´s a tradeoff Blizzard made intentionally though, they WANT to award "fast" players. SC is a RTS without the S. That doesn´t mean it´s bad, actually it seems good enough to be the standart right now. SINS is really a fresh breath for the genre. You're kidding me right?
Sins is only more strategical proportionally, because mechanics are so irrelevant in that game. The game really isn't that deep either. Many units, buildings and large portions of the tech tree in that game are redundant or useless and don't even need to be built. Also, people just haven't figured out what the optimal strategies are yet because it's a new game, so everyone gets to mess around. It's also so slow that I would hardly even consider it RTS. Sins is not a "fresh breath" on the RTS genre, it's a new hybrid genre that's more like TBS, except both players are taking turns at the same time.
A game like Civ4 would be real strategy, although it's not RT.
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MURICA15980 Posts
Once Sins gets figured out, it'll be very straight forward to beat newbies just as we know how to beat the new kids on the block on SC. That's how games work.
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On May 03 2008 11:07 Klogon wrote: Your kidding, right? I meant the article on chess players.
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Untill 1600 something no one had figured out how to really play chess. People knew how to play but they didn't know good stratagies and basic things like pawn structure. New games are the same thing, stratagy once you start playing a game is mostly irrelivent because you don't get to learn anything until it is too late to be useful.
This isn't phrased very well but you should be able to figure out what I mean.
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There is a required amount of thinking per minute (tpm) and actions per minute (apm).
TPM would be thinking what to build, when, what is the opponent doing etc. APM would be the clicking.
I believe there is a certain limit of thoughts needed to play starcraft at fastest speed. Personally I believe at current speed, people have enough time to think. Even when there are like 4 expansions per player, I think I can keep track and make the right units.
But many people (including me) cannot keep up with the clicking. There is simply too much of it. Often I end up with things I would like to do, which I simply canoot do (e.g. macroing, extensive microing, while building etc).
People like that PC Gamer guy seem to believe, that if Starcraft's speed was 50%, then it would get more strategic depht. I believe, that even I - the 90 apm player, can get 100% of the strategy from the game. I might have problems in doing it, but I certainly know what to do.
The only times I might have not enough time to thing is some complex ZvT, where I kill the opponents main and lose mine. Then the game is very fast "thinking" pace for me.
Generally, I believe that the thinking speed is ok in Starcraft - e.g. you can "think enough" to plan the strategy 100% most of the time. And as for the apm limit - I believe a faster player will always do more clicks. Give him more time (slower game) - he will simply micro/macro/multitask more perfectly and thus win this way. And to make the game equal - giving both players enough time to micro/macro, it would become absurdly slow (even turn based). At some point (dunno 5expansions vs 5 expansions TvT?) speed will become a factor anyway.
I love the fact that a lot of decisions in starcraft have to be taken quickly, but seriously, the strategy is not that deep. I mean, come on, in that Jaedong game, Jaedong knew exactly when the tank will come (killed it with mutas) and knew exactly when the first vessel will come (nearly killed it with scourge). Starcraft is not that much strategic, but still one of the most complex RTS games I have ever played (all other are usually about hard counters, this game is about soft ones).
*** Take ZvZ for example. It's hated by MANY (did he get banned btw?), but it's like my favourite matchup. People do not see the beauty of it. Despite using mostly 4 units, there is a lot of thought I put into every game. Basically I often try to project ("natural maphack") my opponent, or simply watch his base with an overlord. I win with superiour economy, by squeezing a drone here and there, but good unit placement (scourge, lings) as my micro is not the greatest. I simply anticipate my opponents actions and feed on his mistakes.
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Game magazine editors are retarded? Colour me surprised!
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United States7166 Posts
looooool at the guys PCG forum guys who're still saying "on a slower setting you can get twice the amount of strategical thinking done" These people need to first understand the game before they can make strategical decisions on it. And for those who do understand the game, a slower speed is not going to help their strategical decision making much at all. Mostly it'll help with the mechanical aspects and the strategical parts should remain the same.
There are I suppose some situations you come across where a slower speed setting will allow you to make better strategical decisions, (mostly those that are difficult decisions that you need to make quickly), but for the most part the Fastest speed I believe is slow enough for strategical thought.
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On May 04 2008 04:41 8882 wrote:
Generally, I believe that the thinking speed is ok in Starcraft - e.g. you can "think enough" to plan the strategy 100% most of the time.
That is the point. SC is quite shallow, thats WHY it is so easy to come up with a Strategy, or as it would be better said a Tactic. Strategy would suggest a bigger commitment how long does it take to switch from one Strategy to another in SC (very simple: Land to Air based force?) given that you survive?
Simply adding depht wouldn´t work - the Player doesn´t have time for a "bigger" strategy to develop. A slower gamepace itself wouldn´t increase strategic depht. But it would be necessary were Blizzard to make the game deeper - which they won´t, SC2 will be just as executionbased as SC is. I´m not saying that they should!
It´s hard to call a game strategic when it is supposed to last less than 30 minutes.
Of course FFAs are something completely different, alone the fact that alliances (open or not) are possible adds A LOT.
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On May 04 2008 05:39 Unentschieden wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2008 04:41 8882 wrote:
Generally, I believe that the thinking speed is ok in Starcraft - e.g. you can "think enough" to plan the strategy 100% most of the time.
That is the point. SC is quite shallow, thats WHY it is so easy to come up with a Strategy, or as it would be better said a Tactic. Strategy would suggest a bigger commitment how long does it take to switch from one Strategy to another in SC (very simple: Land to Air based force?) given that you survive? Simply adding depht wouldn´t work - the Player doesn´t have time for a "bigger" strategy to develop. A slower gamepace itself wouldn´t increase strategic depht. But it would be necessary were Blizzard to make the game deeper - which they won´t, SC2 will be just as executionbased as SC is. I´m not saying that they should! It´s hard to call a game strategic when it is supposed to last less than 30 minutes. Of course FFAs are something completely different, alone the fact that alliances (open or not) are possible adds A LOT. What the hell is the point you're trying to make?
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That Strategy and game speed ARE in a inverse relationship but not 1:1. If you make a game faster strategic elements become less usefull and therefore nonexistant in a competative context. Strategies are per definition time intensive and carry a commitment. Imagine the desicion between teching to BC or teching to Nukes. Currently NEITHER happens. Are both options underpowered or whats the problem?
Slower game can mean more Strategy but simply making it slower is not enough, it isn´t even crucial for it. That is why I used Free For Alls as example. They are not slower but add strategy by making alliances viable. Do you think cease fires in a 1v1 would work in SC?
SC isn´t strategic because it has such a emphasis on "Micro"(Yes 50% Micro is a lot in a Real Time STRATEGY game), the fast gamepace is a sideeffect on that.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
i'm going to respond to this in my cast.
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Belgium6733 Posts
On May 04 2008 07:07 MyLostTemple wrote: i'm going to respond to this in my cast.
yeah baby!
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On May 04 2008 07:00 Unentschieden wrote: That Strategy and game speed ARE in a inverse relationship but not 1:1. If you make a game faster strategic elements become less usefull and therefore nonexistant in a competative context. Strategies are per definition time intensive and carry a commitment. Imagine the desicion between teching to BC or teching to Nukes. Currently NEITHER happens. Are both options underpowered or whats the problem?
Slower game can mean more Strategy but simply making it slower is not enough, it isn´t even crucial for it. That is why I used Free For Alls as example. They are not slower but add strategy by making alliances viable. Do you think cease fires in a 1v1 would work in SC?
SC isn´t strategic because it has such a emphasis on "Micro"(Yes 50% Micro is a lot in a Real Time STRATEGY game), the fast gamepace is a sideeffect on that. You are retarded. Sorry, I don't have to be polite like I was as a guest on the PCG forums.
You must be a pretty damn slow thinker if it actually takes you time in game to decide whether to tech to BCs or nukes. The only situation where active thought processes can truly take a significant amount of time is in a game like Chess, where you have to map out all possible moves from your opponent about 5-10 steps in advance and plan out your moves accordingly. That is the only kind of critical thinking that actually takes "time".
No RTS will ever achieve this (or even in a real life war), because information obtained from your opponent is imperfect and very limited. Since you only have a snapshot of what your opponent is doing, you can only react based on this limited piece of information.
In terms of strategy, Sins doesn't even come remotely close to a truly strategical game. It's a much slower-paced game but barely more strategic than SC. It has more tech options to choose from, but once the optimal BO's and unit mixes in various situations in the game have been figured out, the act of choosing the correct path in response to your opponent will not be time consuming at all.
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Unentschieden: The undisputed inverse relationship to game speed is between game speed and decision making time. I believe we can all agree that if events occur more quickly, players have less time to make relevant decisions as more recent events or changes in the battlefield will make many events prior irrelevant. However decision making time does not translate into strategy.
That "strategy" is defined as carrying a time commitment is semantically wrong. Strategy can mean a plan, or the art/science/skill of creating such plan, in executing large-scale military operations. In reality, these operations can take months to formulate. In Starcraft, the evolution of these schemes requires the same. However, as Klogon pointed out, they are not drafted during a game, but rather over the course of millions of games. One does not simply decide to create a new grand strategy on the day of the battle, without circumstantial evidence, just like an attorney does not enter the courtroom without examining all relevant case law. Generals in real life study previous battles, and go into battles with strategies already planned. It is the same in a game.
Where decision making time comes into play is in mental execution of the strategy. Execution involves adaptation. Religiously maintaining the same strategy will not succeed against an opponent that fluidly adapts his plans to defeat yours. Tactical operations can mean smaller-scale operations, but they also consist of those operations that in aggregate comprise a strategic operation. With less decision making time, a player will have less time to consider information and thus will make less informed tactical and strategic decisions.
That a player has less time to consider information has no bearing on the actual depth of strategy in the game itself. It does have bearing on how much someone can process during a single game, but over the course of several games, the strategic depth is not directly affected.
Success comes to those who can process all the events in a single arena, and all the wealth of strategies from previous contests, and respond accordingly, every second of the game.
This is why success is fucking amazing.
Other points: Battlecruisers are used in TvT deadlocks. Nukes are too easily avoided by armies and workers to justify commitment. The number of virtually unavoidable worker kills netted by a 4 vulture drop makes even such a small harass as this more viable.
Even Civilization has team games. Why? FFA is less entertaining for both spectators and players since, especially in video games, you are processing great amounts of uncertain information. It is worse than actual diplomacy since you gain nothing from the medium of text, with which you must interact with other parties. There is, in fact, less actual strategic consideration here and more luck since there is so little to rely on in reading your rivals' intentions.
Also, in these political situations evidence shows that it is both more beneficial to parties and more likely that polarization will occur, creating two blocs (Both World Wars, the Cold War, Peloponnesian Wars). If this is the case, it would be more efficient to begin with teams.
In BWChart you often find a high ratio of Micro:APM. I'm no expert on BWChart so I have no clue on the conclusiveness of this, but I'll offer this skepticism. If it does not differentiate between positioning orders (outside of battle) or worker orders, the number probably exceeds the APM devoted to actual battle orders. Thus it cannot justify a 50% "Micro" weight. I apologize for assuming you used this to justify. I have the feeling that you have nothing to justify this random number, but feel free to prove me wrong.
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EchOne:
Great post, have you tried pasting this on the PCG forums? If not, would you mind if one of us does for you?
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United States20661 Posts
teamsolid they don't respond to good comments
orome and klogon continue to go unnoticed. meh. I give up.
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On May 04 2008 07:58 teamsolid wrote: EchOne:
Great post, have you tried pasting this on the PCG forums? If not, would you mind if one of us does for you?
Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to see any reasonable posts from PCG forumers. ;;
edit: Also this Dan guy seems like a coward. He labeled a constructive criticism as 'hate mail' and then backed out of the discussion. T___T
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On May 04 2008 08:22 Last Romantic wrote: teamsolid they don't respond to good comments
orome and klogon continue to go unnoticed. meh. I give up. They might not respond, but plenty of people have been reading them at least (5000+ views of that thread). I'm sure many of them silently agree with the good posts somewhat (if they read them). And the only guy who really has to understand the argument is Dan, who wrote the article.
Also, it's the troll's fault (fncz) for pissing them off (making them even more antagonistic/less willing to accept our points), attracting attention and diluting out the good posts.
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MURICA15980 Posts
On May 04 2008 07:47 EchOne wrote: Unentschieden: The undisputed inverse relationship to game speed is between game speed and decision making time. I believe we can all agree that if events occur more quickly, players have less time to make relevant decisions as more recent events or changes in the battlefield will make many events prior irrelevant. However decision making time does not translate into strategy.
That "strategy" is defined as carrying a time commitment is semantically wrong. Strategy can mean a plan, or the art/science/skill of creating such plan, in executing large-scale military operations. In reality, these operations can take months to formulate. In Starcraft, the evolution of these schemes requires the same. However, as Klogon pointed out, they are not drafted during a game, but rather over the course of millions of games. One does not simply decide to create a new grand strategy on the day of the battle, without circumstantial evidence, just like an attorney does not enter the courtroom without examining all relevant case law. Generals in real life study previous battles, and go into battles with strategies already planned. It is the same in a game.
Where decision making time comes into play is in mental execution of the strategy. Execution involves adaptation. Religiously maintaining the same strategy will not succeed against an opponent that fluidly adapts his plans to defeat yours. Tactical operations can mean smaller-scale operations, but they also consist of those operations that in aggregate comprise a strategic operation. With less decision making time, a player will have less time to consider information and thus will make less informed tactical and strategic decisions.
That a player has less time to consider information has no bearing on the actual depth of strategy in the game itself. It does have bearing on how much someone can process during a single game, but over the course of several games, the strategic depth is not directly affected.
Success comes to those who can process all the events in a single arena, and all the wealth of strategies from previous contests, and respond accordingly, every second of the game.
This is why success is fucking amazing.
Other points: Battlecruisers are used in TvT deadlocks. Nukes are too easily avoided by armies and workers to justify commitment. The number of virtually unavoidable worker kills netted by a 4 vulture drop makes even such a small harass as this more viable.
Even Civilization has team games. Why? FFA is less entertaining for both spectators and players since, especially in video games, you are processing great amounts of uncertain information. It is worse than actual diplomacy since you gain nothing from the medium of text, with which you must interact with other parties. There is, in fact, less actual strategic consideration here and more luck since there is so little to rely on in reading your rivals' intentions.
Also, in these political situations evidence shows that it is both more beneficial to parties and more likely that polarization will occur, creating two blocs (Both World Wars, the Cold War, Peloponnesian Wars). If this is the case, it would be more efficient to begin with teams.
In BWChart you often find a high ratio of Micro:APM. I'm no expert on BWChart so I have no clue on the conclusiveness of this, but I'll offer this skepticism. If it does not differentiate between positioning orders (outside of battle) or worker orders, the number probably exceeds the APM devoted to actual battle orders. Thus it cannot justify a 50% "Micro" weight. I apologize for assuming you used this to justify. I have the feeling that you have nothing to justify this random number, but feel free to prove me wrong.
Welcome to the forum. I hope you decide to stick around and post more.
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United States20661 Posts
My eyes bleed due to Graphic's inanity. They bleed copiously, indeed.
HAY GAIZ LETZ USE THESUARUUZ . CAOM OKK?
edit: I'm done. Y'all can have your fun.
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MURICA15980 Posts
Yeah, he must be like really young or really stupid. We don't even use big words... hahahaha....
I've just pretty much not decided to respond until either:
A) Dan replies
B) Somebody worth replying to replies without so much spam getting in the way of it all.
But as it stands, whatever.
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Belgium6733 Posts
Imo that Dan guy should get fired for not doing his job right.
Some are saying that he's "merely stating an opinion". Thats not true. A lot of people read those magazines and a lot of minds are gonna be influenced by someone who is assigned as an article-writer, and thus, should be an authority on the subject. This guy is just full of crap and thats it, he doesnt know ANYTHING about the subject :/
Also, great post EchOne! I'd like to see that posted on their forum.
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It's funny how he sais "noobs" to like all korean progamers more or less in his articles.
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On May 04 2008 08:43 Xeofreestyler wrote: Imo that Dan guy should get fired for not doing his job right.
Some are saying that he's "merely stating an opinion". Thats not true. A lot of people read those magazines and a lot of minds are gonna be influenced by someone who is assigned as an article-writer, and thus, should be an authority on the subject. This guy is just full of crap and thats it, he doesnt know ANYTHING about the subject :/
Also, great post EchOne! I'd like to see that posted on their forum. Well, if we convince the guy that he's wrong, at least he'll understand in the future. If we don't, it's very possible that he'll end up stating something similar in the actual review of Starcraft II and give the game a low score for "lack of strategy" (I wouldn't be surprised, since he was the man PCG sent to the Blizzard Invite).
Yes, it's a scary thought, but I bet most of these game journalists all think like him.
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Would it be more effective overall to write to Dan's boss? If we simply tell Dan how stupid he is, he's not going to do anything about but get all butthurt. If we write to whoever's in charge and explain (tactfully and politely) how Dan has written utter nonsense in their magazine, perhaps something good would come out of it.
Then again, everyone else at PCG could be as confused and uninformed as Dan is.
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On May 04 2008 08:55 Centric wrote: Would it be more effective overall to write to Dan's boss? If we simply tell Dan how stupid he is, he's not going to do anything about but get all butthurt. If we write to whoever's in charge and explain (tactfully and politely) how Dan has written utter nonsense in their magazine, perhaps something good would come out of it.
Then again, everyone else at PCG could be as confused and uninformed as Dan is. The real problem is that Dan's article actually makes sense on the surface, especially to anyone who doesn't actually know the game that well. Many uninformed people will share his opinion, so there's no way he'll actually get any flak from his boss or anything.
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Hahahaha...besides, Dan is the Senior Associate Editor at PCG. Can't get much higher than that.
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On May 04 2008 07:31 teamsolid wrote: You are retarded. Sorry, I don't have to be polite like I was as a guest on the PCG forums.
We don´t have to be polite on TL.net? Are you SHURE? Anyways I
On May 04 2008 07:31 teamsolid wrote: You must be a pretty damn slow thinker if it actually takes you time in game to decide whether to tech to BCs or nukes.
Thats why I used it as BAD example! The issue was that in serious play BOTH options are avoided, and as mentioned BC come up only in deadlocks.
On May 04 2008 07:31 teamsolid wrote: The only situation where active thought processes can truly take a significant amount of time is in a game like Chess, where you have to map out all possible moves from your opponent about 5-10 steps in advance and plan out your moves accordingly. That is the only kind of critical thinking that actually takes "time".
That´s what I was saying. SC lacks such "chess moves" with huge impacts. And thouse that DO (as in the outcome is more complex than: he can counter/ he can´t) are avoided by the players. BC/Nuke is in CONCEPT a desicion of consequence. Disagreeing is one thing, not comprehending because of it another.
On May 04 2008 07:31 teamsolid wrote: No RTS will ever achieve this (or even in a real life war), because information obtained from your opponent is imperfect and very limited. Since you only have a snapshot of what your opponent is doing, you can only react based on this limited piece of information.
That´s the spice. Lack or imperfect information makes it more than choosing the appropiate counter. A good player should be able to analyze the enemy even without accurate information, based on meta-game (the real world) but also scouting results (or lack thereoff) intutition, game knowledge etc.
That or the game is so complex that even IF you have ALL information it´s still hard to predict your enemys moves (like chess).
On May 04 2008 07:31 teamsolid wrote: In terms of strategy, Sins doesn't even come remotely close to a truly strategical game. It's a much slower-paced game but barely more strategic than SC. It has more tech options to choose from, but once the optimal BO's and unit mixes in various situations in the game have been figured out, the act of choosing the correct path in response to your opponent will not be time consuming at all.
I have no intention to defend SINS. Flawed as it is I like it for it´s Macro centric gameplay that at least proves that a RTS (ar whatever genre it invented) doesn´t HAVE to rely on unitbabysitting.
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United States20661 Posts
Oh, I'm not worried about their bad reviews tanking the game. Didn't SC only get like 7.6 by some 'reputable gaming magazine' when it first came out?
As long as it's a good game, it'll win out in the long run against uneducated opinions.
My actions are purely altruistic; someone on the internet is wrong
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On May 04 2008 09:26 Unentschieden wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2008 07:31 teamsolid wrote: You must be a pretty damn slow thinker if it actually takes you time in game to decide whether to tech to BCs or nukes.
Thats why I used it as BAD example! The issue was that in serious play BOTH options are avoided, and as mentioned BC come up only in deadlocks. I meant that in general terms for the selection of any strategy. Refer to EchOne's post for more detail.
On May 04 2008 09:26 Unentschieden wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2008 07:31 teamsolid wrote: The only situation where active thought processes can truly take a significant amount of time is in a game like Chess, where you have to map out all possible moves from your opponent about 5-10 steps in advance and plan out your moves accordingly. That is the only kind of critical thinking that actually takes "time".
That´s what I was saying. SC lacks such "chess moves" with huge impacts. And thouse that DO (as in the outcome is more complex than: he can counter/ he can´t) are avoided by the players. BC/Nuke is in CONCEPT a desicion of consequence. Disagreeing is one thing, not comprehending because of it another. Yes, the reason that SC isn't as strategical as Chess is because it's not as complex! It has NOTHING to do with the speed it's played at.
On May 04 2008 09:26 Unentschieden wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2008 07:31 teamsolid wrote: No RTS will ever achieve this (or even in a real life war), because information obtained from your opponent is imperfect and very limited. Since you only have a snapshot of what your opponent is doing, you can only react based on this limited piece of information.
That´s the spice. Lack or imperfect information makes it more than choosing the appropiate counter. A good player should be able to analyze the enemy even without accurate information, based on meta-game (the real world) but also scouting results (or lack thereoff) intutition, game knowledge etc. That or the game is so complex that even IF you have ALL information it´s still hard to predict your enemys moves (like chess). You can't possibly plan that far ahead if you can only guess at what your opponent is doing. Either way, you won't be "critically" thinking (i.e. using all your brain power) like you do in Chess. It will still mainly be selecting/adapting your strategy to your opponent using split-second decision making, much like a general on the battlefield.
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On May 04 2008 07:47 EchOne wrote: Unentschieden: The undisputed inverse relationship to game speed is between game speed and decision making time. I believe we can all agree that if events occur more quickly, players have less time to make relevant decisions as more recent events or changes in the battlefield will make many events prior irrelevant. However decision making time does not translate into strategy.
We agree on that.
On May 04 2008 07:47 EchOne wrote: That "strategy" is defined as carrying a time commitment is semantically wrong. Strategy can mean a plan, or the art/science/skill of creating such plan, in executing large-scale military operations. In reality, these operations can take months to formulate. In Starcraft, the evolution of these schemes requires the same. However, as Klogon pointed out, they are not drafted during a game, but rather over the course of millions of games. One does not simply decide to create a new grand strategy on the day of the battle, without circumstantial evidence, just like an attorney does not enter the courtroom without examining all relevant case law. Generals in real life study previous battles, and go into battles with strategies already planned. It is the same in a game.
I think here we are splitting hairs again on the word "strategy". Well I use it like I do since the genre is called "Real Time Strategy" suggesting that the base concept is the application of Strategy in Real Time - but eventually the point is moot, we can also simply call it Tactics or Macro or whatever.
On May 04 2008 07:47 EchOne wrote: Where decision making time comes into play is in mental execution of the strategy. Execution involves adaptation. Religiously maintaining the same strategy will not succeed against an opponent that fluidly adapts his plans to defeat yours. Tactical operations can mean smaller-scale operations, but they also consist of those operations that in aggregate comprise a strategic operation. With less decision making time, a player will have less time to consider information and thus will make less informed tactical and strategic decisions.
True that is why I never said that SC lacks Strategy. But the actuall difficulty in the adaption is the amount of commitment to the original strategy - SC has very little challenge or difficulty for the player when he has to adapt. Obviously very high level play has no room for error. I will again use the BC/Nuke relationship as EXAMPLE-actuall implementation in gameplay is irrelevant here. Imagine the game processing to the point where a Terran player has the option to tech to either Nukes or BCs. Our player now has to consider what he knows about his enemy to deice to either: Tech to nukes Tech to BC Tech to both even though it will take longer Keep usinc "conventional" means Collect more information something else
Of course, if our Player is good he won´t need long to make that desicion, he will have collected the information he needs before from the current match itself. The skill/strategic depht comes in how hard it actually is to make the right desicion (not how long how every naysayer suggests). Yes, that means that a so called "solved" game where you can just google the right desicion has no strategic depht, and thats where Blizzard could really shine, by making it so complex that it isn´t reasonably solvable - or they simply patch it each time someone solved it (yeah right).
On May 04 2008 07:47 EchOne wrote: That a player has less time to consider information has no bearing on the actual depth of strategy in the game itself. It does have bearing on how much someone can process during a single game, but over the course of several games, the strategic depth is not directly affected.
Success comes to those who can process all the events in a single arena, and all the wealth of strategies from previous contests, and respond accordingly, every second of the game.
This is why success is fucking amazing.
Exactly - but to make the right strategy more difficult than tic-tac-toe the game needs to reward and punish the application or lack of strategy/tactics/... . Imho you get too far in SC by the pure application of "brute force", meaning the plain optimisation of your BO, Macro cycles and basic micro(hotkeys FTW). Adaption is not needed if it´s enough to drown your enemys in Crystal Meth Marines - but maybe I have simply bad(?) luck with my opponents.
On May 04 2008 07:47 EchOne wrote: Other points: Battlecruisers are used in TvT deadlocks. Nukes are too easily avoided by armies and workers to justify commitment. The number of virtually unavoidable worker kills netted by a 4 vulture drop makes even such a small harass as this more viable.
Even Civilization has team games. Why? FFA is less entertaining for both spectators and players since, especially in video games, you are processing great amounts of uncertain information. It is worse than actual diplomacy since you gain nothing from the medium of text, with which you must interact with other parties. There is, in fact, less actual strategic consideration here and more luck since there is so little to rely on in reading your rivals' intentions.
Agreed on all points. I have to admit though that I imagined FFAs with people you already know-FFAs with strangers are truly a elaborate form of russian rulette.
On May 04 2008 07:47 EchOne wrote: Also, in these political situations evidence shows that it is both more beneficial to parties and more likely that polarization will occur, creating two blocs (Both World Wars, the Cold War, Peloponnesian Wars). If this is the case, it would be more efficient to begin with teams.
In BWChart you often find a high ratio of Micro:APM. I'm no expert on BWChart so I have no clue on the conclusiveness of this, but I'll offer this skepticism. If it does not differentiate between positioning orders (outside of battle) or worker orders, the number probably exceeds the APM devoted to actual battle orders. Thus it cannot justify a 50% "Micro" weight. I apologize for assuming you used this to justify. I have the feeling that you have nothing to justify this random number, but feel free to prove me wrong.
I don´t have a justification-thats why I used it in the first place! It is essentially a forum mantra that SC has a perfect balance of Micro and Macro, everyone simply repeats it, no one deems is necessary to support that claim. Just check any thread with "MBS" in the title (warning: may be hazardous to state of mind!) Maybe I´m already to long on this forum, so feel free to regard that claim as what it is: a claim.
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Adaption is not needed if it´s enough to drown your enemys in Crystal Meth Marines - but maybe I have simply bad(?) luck with my opponents. You need to find better opponents. If you have been able to defeat anyone, ever, just by drowning them marines, they did something very wrong.
[[EDIT]] If all you do is the same build over and over and don't adapt to what your opponent is doing, you will lose over ninety percent of your games against reasonable opponents, unless it's a stupid cheese build or something.
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On May 04 2008 09:50 teamsolid wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2008 09:26 Unentschieden wrote:On May 04 2008 07:31 teamsolid wrote: You must be a pretty damn slow thinker if it actually takes you time in game to decide whether to tech to BCs or nukes.
Thats why I used it as BAD example! The issue was that in serious play BOTH options are avoided, and as mentioned BC come up only in deadlocks. I meant that in general terms for the selection of any strategy. Refer to EchOne's post for more detail. Selecting the right strategy isn´t a matter of time, I´ll elaborate.
On May 04 2008 09:50 teamsolid wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2008 09:26 Unentschieden wrote:On May 04 2008 07:31 teamsolid wrote: The only situation where active thought processes can truly take a significant amount of time is in a game like Chess, where you have to map out all possible moves from your opponent about 5-10 steps in advance and plan out your moves accordingly. That is the only kind of critical thinking that actually takes "time".
That´s what I was saying. SC lacks such "chess moves" with huge impacts. And thouse that DO (as in the outcome is more complex than: he can counter/ he can´t) are avoided by the players. BC/Nuke is in CONCEPT a desicion of consequence. Disagreeing is one thing, not comprehending because of it another. Yes, the reason that SC isn't as strategical as Chess is because it's not as complex! It has NOTHING to do with the speed it's played at. Nothing is the wrong word. SC has many facettes that could be strategic but were patched out/ignored as result of the game speed. Why is no one bothering to manage energy levels on Medics? (blind that Overlord or keep the energy for healing?) Desicions like that ARE NOT WORTH IT FOR THE TIME THEY TAKE UP. By the time you apply that minor strategic desicion you already lost 50 Mins due to lazy peons or whatever.
SC is simply to fast to be complex. Even if it were more complex players wouldn´t/couldn´t bother since they are already busy enough with more basic concerns.
On May 04 2008 09:50 teamsolid wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2008 09:26 Unentschieden wrote:On May 04 2008 07:31 teamsolid wrote: No RTS will ever achieve this (or even in a real life war), because information obtained from your opponent is imperfect and very limited. Since you only have a snapshot of what your opponent is doing, you can only react based on this limited piece of information.
That´s the spice. Lack or imperfect information makes it more than choosing the appropiate counter. A good player should be able to analyze the enemy even without accurate information, based on meta-game (the real world) but also scouting results (or lack thereoff) intutition, game knowledge etc. That or the game is so complex that even IF you have ALL information it´s still hard to predict your enemys moves (like chess). You can't possibly plan that far ahead if you can only guess at what your opponent is doing. Either way, you won't be "critically" thinking (i.e. using all your brain power) like you do in Chess. It will still mainly be selecting/adapting your strategy to your opponent using split-second decision making, much like a general on the battlefield.
I never said guessing. Even in Chess you always lack the most important information of them all: what your opponent is planning. Each constellation offers myriads of valid movesand counters to each of them. The better a strategist you are the less "concrete" information you would need to make the right desicion/predict the enemys moves, and react(adapt) or plan beforehand for "surprises".
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On May 04 2008 10:25 EmeraldSparks wrote:Show nested quote +Adaption is not needed if it´s enough to drown your enemys in Crystal Meth Marines - but maybe I have simply bad(?) luck with my opponents. You need to find better opponents. If you have been able to defeat anyone, ever, just by drowning them marines, they did something very wrong. [[EDIT]] If all you do is the same build over and over and don't adapt to what your opponent is doing, you will lose over ninety percent of your games against reasonable opponents, unless it's a stupid cheese build or something.
Youd be frightened what a couple of keyboard macros and Excel can accomplish. I never pretended to win every match or even most of them - simply winning ANY match by "brute forching" is already to much imho.
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Youd be frightened what a couple of keyboard macros and Excel can accomplish. I never pretended to win every match or even most of them - simply winning ANY match by "brute forching" is already to much imho. Look, if SlayerS_BoxeR manages to SCV rush a player with 10 APM, the player with 10 APM is going to lose. I still don't see how this means that Starcraft is somehow devoid of strategy.
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Dan just replied
I seem to have missed the party, but I just spent a bunch of time typing this up, so what the hell:
First of all, yes, the column was absolutely written to promote discussion – otherwise what's the point? Writing things that everyone will agree with all of the time would be pretty useless, wouldn't it? It's nice to have your views validated, but it's much more interesting to have them challenged.
Second, I don't think any of you should take offense at the title, Speed Freaks. Article headlines are designed to be catchy and make you want to read on, and are not necessarily meant literally. And c'mon, it is kinda catchy. As I made sure to mention in the column, I absolutely do respect the skills of professional players. (Nowhere did I claim I could have beaten a pro player on normal speeds.)
On the topic of respect, calling someone ignorant or lacking insight because they don't agree with you isn't a very effective way of going about convincing them they're wrong. It's a very effective way of making yourself seem like a bit of a dick (not all of you are doing this, of course. You know who you are). Shocking as it may be, not everyone believes that StarCraft is the end-all-be-all of RTS games, even though I think the vast majority of us can agree that it's a great game. I referred to the email I posted as “hate mail” because a) I enjoy a little hyperbole now and then, and b) the writer made a point of calling me ignorant instead of using more polite language.
I'd also like to point out that nowhere did I criticize the design of StarCraft, StarCraft II, or Blizzard themselves, and I certainly never said the game wasn't (or didn't deserve to be) astronomically popular. Many times in my column I have held up StarCraft's design as an amazing example of balance and asymmetry that should be followed more often. What I criticized was people who change the design by upping the speed from what has been designated by the designers as “normal” - and let's go ahead and dispense the with the idea that “most people” play the game on fast or faster speeds, because if that were the case there's absolutely no reason they would continue to call it “normal.” It's the people that play competitively that crank up the speed, and they are the tiny minority of the people who buy and play the game. So let's not get any crazy ideas that most people play that way. By definition, if you increase the speed you're playing the game abnormally.
My argument is that the genre is called real-time strategy, not compressed-time strategy. I believe that StarCraft does have great strategic depth, but I think that it is robbed of much of that when you deprive players of the chance to consider it. In an RTS, you do have to make decisions in real-time like you would in the real world, and you get a realistic amount of time to make your decisions. But speeding that up makes it artificial; it ceases to become a representation of a real battlefield and becomes a place where humans are running 45 miles per hour and attacks are coming five or six times per second. When you crank up the speed, you're changing the rules for no reason other than to make things harder to manage and punish players who pause to think (and yes, to make the game more spectator-friendly, though you could accomplish the same thing by speeding up the replays), which is all well and good if you acknowledge that the game is not about strategy but about who can manipulate the system fastest (yes, while executing some level of strategy). This is what I was talking about when I wrote that “strategy goes out the window”—increasing the speed increases the challenge in other areas at the expense of strategy. Personally, I do not think that a competition to see who can blink the least is a contest of strategy.
I like the sports analogy, and referring to StarCraft as an eSport, because it goes to prove my point. StarCraft, played at high speed, is a strategy game in the same way as basketball or boxing are strategic. There's strategy involved, to be certain, but it is not the primary concern. At best, it's equally important to reflexes, because if you don't keep your speed up the entire time you're dead. Like Romantic said, playing at a more manageable speed does not make for a good spectator sport, but spectator sports are not necessarily strategic. And while StarCraft might be more strategic than most other games when played at high speeds, it's still less strategic at high speed than it would be played at normal speed.
I still absolutely stand by my speed chess analogy, despite the initial criticism of the proportional differences. Strategy is all about thinking about the best response to your enemy's actions, and the reaction you think of first is not always the best you can think of – which is why speed chess is not considered as strategic as regular chess. Some people are better at fast thinking than others, which is great, but are they more strategic? No. If you have more time, more often than not you will think of a better solution to a problem than the first thought you have. Chess is proof of this—take two equally skilled players and give them unequal clock times, and the guy with more time will win more often than not. If, as you guys claim, StarCraft has huge strategic depth, more time to analyze a situation and execute your response can really only improve the level of strategic play in the game.
Based on that logic, I disagree with the assertion that “good players don't need the additional time.” You guys might make your decisions instantly, but someone else might kick the crap out of you by taking a few seconds to more thoroughly think the scenario through. You criticize others for not having specific replays to show as examples, but you have nothing to offer to counter the argument because as you yourselves say, no one plays at normal speed on Battle.net. So if no evidence exists, I'm going to go ahead and theorize.
Anyway, if you guys feel that only people who spend thousands of hours playing StarCraft has any right to comment on it, and that no one is allowed to have any kind of dissenting opinion, you're welcome to feel that way. But don't expect me to not discuss it as someone who has played a wide variety of games.
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I just repasted all of our "good" arguments into one massive post. I hope Dan reads it.
Okay guys, please NO more flaming on that thread. I don't care if one of them pisses you off due to their ignorance, just flame him here instead if you need to let out some steam. Don't do it on their boards, it just makes us look bad.
Dan seems to have the same opinion as "You" and I'm sure several others on their boards. Let's see how this goes.
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I think here we are splitting hairs again on the word "strategy". Well I use it like I do since the genre is called "Real Time Strategy" suggesting that the base concept is the application of Strategy in Real Time - but eventually the point is moot, we can also simply call it Tactics or Macro or whatever.
The meaning of words is paramount to successful communication and logical argument. Exaggerated example: I assert that a Fighting Falcon, while unable to defeat a Zerg Mutalisk, could defeat a Zerg Zergling without a scratch. Someone in contention of this would have a difficult time even communicating in the first place with me if he believed I was talking about an actual bird of prey that was fighting.
Since Strategy is a key variable in the discussion of the impact of game speed on strategic depth, disagreement on its definition will make discussion impossible. Both dictionary wise and contextually, strategy, tactics, and macro management are distinct (with strategy and tactics in fact being defined relative to each other at times).
True that is why I never said that SC lacks Strategy. But the actuall difficulty in the adaption is the amount of commitment to the original strategy - SC has very little challenge or difficulty for the player when he has to adapt.
I disagree. I assume you meant strategic difficulty by "actual difficulty in the adaptation". Strategic difficulty does not amount to the commitment to one initial strategy. Strategic difficulty (in adaptation) amounts to the necessity to consider legions of other possible strategies that you did not necessarily begin the battle with. Adaptation is not simply ordering a dragoon to dance against a zealot, but is also analyzing your initial build order, and possible other build orders and even late-game plans, due to discovering that the opponent is zealot heavy.
Obviously very high level play has no room for error. I will again use the BC/Nuke relationship as EXAMPLE-actuall implementation in gameplay is irrelevant here. Imagine the game processing to the point where a Terran player has the option to tech to either Nukes or BCs. Our player now has to consider what he knows about his enemy to deice to either: Tech to nukes Tech to BC Tech to both even though it will take longer Keep usinc "conventional" means Collect more information something else
Of course, if our Player is good he won´t need long to make that desicion, he will have collected the information he needs before from the current match itself. The skill/strategic depht comes in how hard it actually is to make the right desicion (not how long how every naysayer suggests). Yes, that means that a so called "solved" game where you can just google the right desicion has no strategic depht, and thats where Blizzard could really shine, by making it so complex that it isn´t reasonably solvable - or they simply patch it each time someone solved it (yeah right).
Given that your point is: Strategic depth comes from the difficulty in coming to the correct decision, I will not contend.
Exactly - but to make the right strategy more difficult than tic-tac-toe the game needs to reward and punish the application or lack of strategy/tactics/... . Imho you get too far in SC by the pure application of "brute force", meaning the plain optimisation of your BO, Macro cycles and basic micro(hotkeys FTW). Adaption is not needed if it´s enough to drown your enemys in Crystal Meth Marines - but maybe I have simply bad(?) luck with my opponents.
Agreed with first point. Second point is an opinion. My opinion is that you should play opponents of similar caliber mechanically so that mechanical differences (differences in what you term "brute force") are minimized.
A counterexample to make sure you realize that brute force differences are negligible compared to strategic considerations at the top level. Take Bisu v. Jaedong in MSL Group A. Bisu's initial strategy: fast-expand to heavy goons and stormers. This is a mix that will fare well against heavy hydra or mutas. Jaedong's initial strategy: double expand and make many hydras. This will prepare him against harass by sair/dt, which Bisu is known to do. Jaedong discovers that Bisu harasses only with dts, and fends this off while also discovering Bisu's goon heavy army. Seeing no corsairs, he deviates from his initial strategy, using knowledge that mutas absorb more dragoon damage than hydras, and prepares a spire and then mutas.
If he had adapted only on the tactical level by, for instance, attempting to snipe stormers, dodge storm, focus fire dragoons, or overmacro Bisu, Jaedong would've failed. Mechanical disparity, if any, will do nothing for him. Jaedong prevailed with mutas and hydras against the goon/stormer attack due to strategic decision making... made very quickly. This decision would not have been an easy one to make, and I'm pretty sure many Zergs would've opted to just continue macroing.
I don´t have a justification-thats why I used it in the first place! It is essentially a forum mantra that SC has a perfect balance of Micro and Macro, everyone simply repeats it, no one deems is necessary to support that claim. Just check any thread with "MBS" in the title (warning: may be hazardous to state of mind!) Maybe I´m already to long on this forum, so feel free to regard that claim as what it is: a claim.
Admitted that such a forum-wide claim exists, the claim is that the balance is perfect, not symmetric. Perfection in something without a delimited completion point is so subjective that there's sense debating it.
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that speed will be interesting. I bet it will be the only speed played at a competative level
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I think there's just no way to convince him that having more time won't mean that strategy gets better other than just making him play the game. I would've hoped that Klogon's post about prepared battle plans and what plays out at the two-minute timescale had enough clarity (I wonder if he read it) but apparently his experience with games is completely inadequate to understand how things work at a competitive level.
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Koven... wtf. Respond to his post, but you don't need to tell him YET again that he's ignorant, we already know that he's wrong and ignorant.
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Funny how they asked 'where's the evidence?' when it is plainly obvious they won't understand the evidence if it is right under their eyes..
Ask them to describe what is going on behind a normal 1 sided rape of a replay? Player A made zerglings, Player A wins by many zerglings...
Dan has actually retracted from his originial conclusion that SC lacks strategy to one of SC favors mechanics. A shifty move, like how Bush shifted from the intention of the WOT towards the result of the WOT in later years.
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United States20661 Posts
Does anyone have that NaDa replay I just mentioned in that thread ?
I used to have it but I can't find it -_- maybe it's on other comp.
Severe lag issues meant the game proceeded at about 2/3 of usual speed; it's actually a pretty funny game.
On May 04 2008 13:01 potchip wrote: Funny how they asked 'where's the evidence?' when it is plainly obvious they won't understand the evidence if it is right under their eyes..
Ask them to describe what is going on behind a normal 1 sided rape of a replay? Player A made zerglings, Player A wins by many zerglings...
Dan has actually retracted from his originial conclusion that SC lacks strategy to one of SC favors mechanics. A shifty move, like how Bush shifted from the intention of the WOT towards the result of the WOT in later years.
I am arguing that everyone at high levels has good micro/macro, and it is in fact time that is the critical 'resource' in question; removing time constraints actually removes strategy by that fact alone.
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I don't know if this is the one you're talking about, but I have one from ReplayHome (against 88)starrbren) where NaDa had 566 APM. Here's the link.
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United States20661 Posts
On May 04 2008 13:34 Centric wrote:I don't know if this is the one you're talking about, but I have one from ReplayHome (against 88)starrbren) where NaDa had 566 APM. Here's the link.
Oh, hm. It's 'only' 566. How unfortunate
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he seems to be under the mistake impression that most strategic thinking should occur in-game. Yet, even as in the case of chess or speed chess, the strategic planning happens prior to the game, when players decide on their builds and their counter-builds and whatnot. Sure, there's plenty of room for improvisation, but the actual performance of the game is about executing the pre-planned strategy, not generating a new one on the fly.
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I think he needs to realize it's a VIDEO GAME. DO you REALLY want to spend a long period of "REAL TIME" over ONE game? NO. because then it's no fun?
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Long-time lurker, first time poster. The editorial kind of ticked me off so I started an account over there and made my reply, and I thought I'd copy it over here even though I'm just preaching to the choir. =p ~~~
<< At high speed, a game ceases to be a simulation of a real battlefield. Yes, we're playing in the far future with aliens and lasers and everything else, but come on. everybody's zipping around so fast that the screen looks like a shaken-up ant farm-which might make sense for the Zerg, but for marines to move like that en enormous suits of power armor is ridiculous, unless those resources crystals are supposed to be crystal meth. (that would explain why they're always out to score more.) >>
Failure to accurately simulate a battlefield is not a valid criticism. Can I have that chess set if you're done with it?
<< What's worse, though, is wthat when you're playing at that rate, you can go ahead and toss strategy out the window along with the realism. Min/maxers (people who bust out Microsoft Excel to figure out how to build the strongest possible force with the minimum possible time/resource investment) make the real strategic value of many RTS games debatable at normal speeds, but when sped up to two or three or four times as fast, it's not even a questions. It's no longer about out-thinking your opponent and the big picture, it's about reflexes, rehearsal of a super effecient build order, and micromanaging individual unit movement and abilities-no higher-level thinking required. >>
No, you can't toss strategy out the window, even at Fastest. If you do, someone who has not tossed their strategy out the window will beat you, using strategy.
Also, please realize that those spreadsheets apply equally well to Fastest, Normal, and Slowest. The most efficient builds are the most efficient no matter what speed you play at; the best strategies are the best no matter what speed you play at. A lot of the thinking (about build orders and counters and so on) has already been done for you; this is because StarCraft is an old game, not because it's a fast game.
<< In their Q&A and feedback time with Browder, some of the pro players noted that due to the changes made between Starcraft 1 and 2 there were a few moments when, while waiting for resources to acumulate or units to build, they felt they "didn't have anything to do." Isn't that when you're supposed to think? >>
Sorry, what's the point here? Speed setting has no effect on whether or not there are "empty times" within the game. The faster you go, the shorter the "empty times" are; the slower you go, the longer they are. Whether or not you think such "empty times" are desirable from a gameplay standpoint, is completely unrelated to speed setting.
<< I got yelled at a couple times during that trip for hosting a game and setting the speed to normal instead of fast or faster. I yelled back that if the game was supposed to be played at those speeds, they would be called normal. >>
If there was a setting you were "supposed" to play at, there would only be one setting.
Dan, to me this article seems very poorly thought-out. What you've done is to shed darkness on a very simple situation: Faster speed has no effect on optimal strategy but increases physical demand (for players) and adrenaline rush (for viewers). If you want to play a more relaxing game of StarCraft, that's fine; but I wish you wouldn't cast aspersions on everyone else's ability to think and move their hands at the same time.
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Here's what I posted there:
Adding on to what LR said about time being another resource to be managed, playing at a slower speed will alter the risk-reward ratio of all strategies and several would no longer be viable in competitive play. Strategies that requires your opponent to respond are better in a faster speed setting than a slower one. Strategies that rely on surprise are better in a faster speed setting than a slower one. Strategies that require a great deal of management are worse in a faster speed setting than a slower one.
There are several commonly used strategies in competitive Starcraft that rely on surprise. One common strategy is to raid your enemy's workers by dropping units by their resources. These units often kill workers quickly. However, your opponent can minimize or completely nullify the effect of a drop by pulling the workers to safety and bringing his forces back to defend the resource line to quickly kill the dropped units. Obviously, the more time he has to react between when the drop shows up on his minimap and when the payload is dropped, the less effective dropping as a strategy becomes. Because players usually gain vision of a drop before it actually delivers its payload, playing in slower speeds would make drops far less rewarding then they are now because the defending player has more time to notice it and react. Right now, drops are a viable but balanced strategy: they sometimes work (and sometimes they work beautifully to the point of winning the game), and sometimes the opponent reacts fast enough to counter it and the strategy sets you behind. They may be a poor strategy in a slower speed setting.
Another strategy that would be significantly harmed by slower speeds was one that was recently showcased in this game between two Korean progamers. The Zerg has a unit called the Lurker that hits all enemy units in a line. Because of their high damage, they're really good against Marines in the Zerg vs. Terran matchup, especially since marines are small units and there's a lot of them (they kill Marines in 2 hits). Usually, the Lurker automatically attacks as soon as an enemy is within range, but this alerts the opponent of its presence (they still can't see it without a detector, but they can see its attack). However, there's a way to make them not attack until you give them a command; this is called a Hold Lurker. This gives the enemy less time to react, and often allows the Lurkers to hit more units at once. Of course, the Hold Lurker's effectiveness is entirely based on how quickly the opponent responds. In this game, the Terran player responded in about 3 seconds and pulled his Marines out of range. Unfortunately, three volleys of Lurker Spines had ripped through his army. He lost 24 of his 25 Marines, and with them his chances of winning the game. Had the game been on a slower speed setting, he might have been able to remove his army from danger after a loss of a few more than 11 Marines. The Zerg army was small at that time, and his remaining 10 or so Marines may have been able to hold off until reinforcements came. In a slower game, the Zerg player's strategy of quickly moving up the tech tree relying only on a small army and the surprise value of Hold Lurkers for defense would not be viable, and this early candidate for a Pimpest Play 2008 would not have been so awesome.
Of course, some strategies are no longer viable under faster speed settings because of the amount of execution needed to pull them off. Are there a lot of these strategies? We don't know. But we do know that slower speed settings will make a lot of presently-used strategies far less viable, and may impact the balance of certain racial matchups. It's not at all certain that a slower speed setting will allow for greater strategic depth.
When you crank up the speed, you're changing the rules for no reason other than to make things harder to manage and punish players who pause to think (and yes, to make the game more spectator-friendly, though you could accomplish the same thing by speeding up the replays), which is all well and good if you acknowledge that the game is not about strategy but about who can manipulate the system fastest (yes, while executing some level of strategy). Here, you're making a different argument: faster speeds reduces the importance of thinking ability relative to the importance of execution ability. You're right in that sense, but it's mostly due to the increased importance of execution rather than the decrease in thinking. Much of the thinking is done outside of a given match. Strategies are often theorycrafted outside of playing the game. They'll be tested and refined in practice matches and their application and counters will be determined. This will happen regardless of game speed, and makes up most of the thinking ability required to play the game. The thinking ability required inside a given match will be mostly to decide, given the situation, which strategy is the best response. This, however, should take little time; it's mostly a quick intuitive judgment based on the game state, and not some complex math problem that requires conscious thinking or Excel (and even if set on the Normal speed, you won't be enough time to pull out Excel anyway).
What a slower game speed would really do is reward those who hadn't practiced as much before hand, and hurt those who come up with surprise strategies that the opponent hasn't prepared for. The effect is probably minimal. In higher level play, the speed of the game should not have an effect on the amount of thinking required to develop strategies.
EDIT TO ADD:
most games i jump into on battlenet that i lose, something hits me about 30 seconds to a couple of minutes later along the lines of (oh if i had done THAT (made a couple of reavers for front d, researched maelstrom, etc.) then i'd have won.. i do agree that if i had that additional time WITHIN THE GAME i could have thought of and executed those strategies I'd like to point out that even if the speed is set to Slowest instead of Fastest, you probably wouldn't get an extra 30 seconds to think and put your plan in action. Fastest isn't that much faster .
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On May 04 2008 15:04 Zelc wrote:EDIT TO ADD: Show nested quote +most games i jump into on battlenet that i lose, something hits me about 30 seconds to a couple of minutes later along the lines of (oh if i had done THAT (made a couple of reavers for front d, researched maelstrom, etc.) then i'd have won.. i do agree that if i had that additional time WITHIN THE GAME i could have thought of and executed those strategies I'd like to point out that even if the speed is set to Slowest instead of Fastest, you probably wouldn't get an extra 30 seconds to think and put your plan in action. Fastest isn't that much faster . .... go play slowest please
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MURICA15980 Posts
No, the fact is that hindsight is 20-20 vision. It doesn't matter if you gave him four days to think of whether to upgrade or put a reaver somewhere if the battle he was talking about did not happen yet. This is because he had incomplete information, which is the nature of the game. Only after the battle happened and he is able to assess it is he able to make the call of "I should have done something."
Fact remains that had that battle not happened, he would not have upgraded jack, no matter how much time he had because he was already going about a pre-determined strategy based on the information he has previously collected. And it being a slower setting doesn't let you upgrade or build units to let you use in that battle once it happens because the units themselves build even slower. So in the end, it's a fruitless argument.
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I'm really excited to see what Tasteless has to say about this tonight.
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51135 Posts
He said stuff, but I COULDNT FUCKING HEAR IT BECAUSE OF THE IN GAME MUSIC
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On May 04 2008 11:47 EchOne wrote:Show nested quote +True that is why I never said that SC lacks Strategy. But the actuall difficulty in the adaption is the amount of commitment to the original strategy - SC has very little challenge or difficulty for the player when he has to adapt. I disagree. I assume you meant strategic difficulty by "actual difficulty in the adaptation". Strategic difficulty does not amount to the commitment to one initial strategy. Strategic difficulty (in adaptation) amounts to the necessity to consider legions of other possible strategies that you did not necessarily begin the battle with. Adaptation is not simply ordering a dragoon to dance against a zealot, but is also analyzing your initial build order, and possible other build orders and even late-game plans, due to discovering that the opponent is zealot heavy.
Yes. It´s not about rigid options but the difficulty and variety of choosing the right one - one factor of choosing a option is the ammount of commitment to a previous one. If you want to go for Tanks that is easier when you previously used vultures instead of Marines (upgrades, production...) Strategy in that context is previously predicting that you MIGHT need Tanks and acting accordingly as well as identifieing that you now DO need Tanks and going for them.
On May 04 2008 11:47 EchOne wrote:Show nested quote +Obviously very high level play has no room for error. I will again use the BC/Nuke relationship as EXAMPLE-actuall implementation in gameplay is irrelevant here. Imagine the game processing to the point where a Terran player has the option to tech to either Nukes or BCs. Our player now has to consider what he knows about his enemy to deice to either: Tech to nukes Tech to BC Tech to both even though it will take longer Keep usinc "conventional" means Collect more information something else
Of course, if our Player is good he won´t need long to make that desicion, he will have collected the information he needs before from the current match itself. The skill/strategic depht comes in how hard it actually is to make the right desicion (not how long how every naysayer suggests). Yes, that means that a so called "solved" game where you can just google the right desicion has no strategic depht, and thats where Blizzard could really shine, by making it so complex that it isn´t reasonably solvable - or they simply patch it each time someone solved it (yeah right). Given that your point is: Strategic depth comes from the difficulty in coming to the correct decision, I will not contend. Show nested quote +Exactly - but to make the right strategy more difficult than tic-tac-toe the game needs to reward and punish the application or lack of strategy/tactics/... . Imho you get too far in SC by the pure application of "brute force", meaning the plain optimisation of your BO, Macro cycles and basic micro(hotkeys FTW). Adaption is not needed if it´s enough to drown your enemys in Crystal Meth Marines - but maybe I have simply bad(?) luck with my opponents. Agreed with first point. Second point is an opinion. My opinion is that you should play opponents of similar caliber mechanically so that mechanical differences (differences in what you term "brute force") are minimized. A counterexample to make sure you realize that brute force differences are negligible compared to strategic considerations at the top level. Take Bisu v. Jaedong in MSL Group A. Bisu's initial strategy: fast-expand to heavy goons and stormers. This is a mix that will fare well against heavy hydra or mutas. Jaedong's initial strategy: double expand and make many hydras. This will prepare him against harass by sair/dt, which Bisu is known to do. Jaedong discovers that Bisu harasses only with dts, and fends this off while also discovering Bisu's goon heavy army. Seeing no corsairs, he deviates from his initial strategy, using knowledge that mutas absorb more dragoon damage than hydras, and prepares a spire and then mutas. If he had adapted only on the tactical level by, for instance, attempting to snipe stormers, dodge storm, focus fire dragoons, or overmacro Bisu, Jaedong would've failed. Mechanical disparity, if any, will do nothing for him. Jaedong prevailed with mutas and hydras against the goon/stormer attack due to strategic decision making... made very quickly. This decision would not have been an easy one to make, and I'm pretty sure many Zergs would've opted to just continue macroing.
You posted a good example how the game SHOULD play. I bolded a part above to point out that I already mentioned the fact that brute-forcing is irrelevant at high level play-but it should be irrelevant even at the lowest "level" of play. Is there any comparable example for even medium players? The problem can´t be that SC Strategy is to hard to understand for most people or is it? How many other options other than going for mutas did Jaedong have to consider? Would more "options" (with different options each offering to Bisu?) make the desicion harder/the game more strategic? I would say yes.
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And that my friends is called, professional incompetence.
He was not good enough at his job, and wrote about something he had no understanding, pretending he understood it.
He sounded like a fool and embarrassed his magazine and himself.
He should have never written anything about star craft. Stick to Age of Empires and Hello kitty.
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You mean viable options to consider (Jaedong example) or options in general? If the latter, then there are a multitude of options. However if the former, than there's always a select number of viable options or even the best option, even is such complex games as Chess.
And as for StarCraft strategy being too hard to understand for most people - I'd say no, but neither is Chess. Both games simply take a lot of dedication and in-depth analysis. That's the reason why the lower skilled players only scratch the surface of strategy involved when analyzing their situation in-game. They don't go as deep as timing attacks, economy management, etc., not to mention metagame management on SaviOr's level (back in the days).
If you've actually asked that Dan guy what he thinks about in a game on StarCraft (or most other RTS games for that matter), you'd realize he 'analyzes' the game on a very superficial level. But that's not all - he bases his 'analysis' on his own misconceptions and considers plenty of irrational ideas because of that.
Sorry for derailing a bit in the last paragraph.
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I´m not shure what you are saying there maybenexttime - you essentially agreed with me. I especially pointed out that SC Strategy is easy to understand. In both chess and SC it is very easy to understand your current situation - the art is to find and apply the right response.
What we need to find the answer to is WHY aren´t lower skilled players worriying about timing attacks, economy management etc.?
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That's because they're unaware of the fact that their understanding is only superficial - they think they do understand the game and that there's nothing else to explore. People like Dan ponder plenty of absurd questions during a game, they analyze every idea no matter how irrelevant to their current situation it is or how impossible it is to pull off under given circumstances.
They think RTS games are some kind of 'RTS IQ test' and that they don't have to actually learn the 'rules' of the game, so they refuse to improve and learn more about the game.
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It seems to me that this Dan guy would like a true RTS. He would like to micro two adult life forms to copulate, then sit at his computer for 18 years until this new life form was old enough to train for battle, and then have someone for war! I mean that's how real life works. I guess the only difference is you don't have to instruct people to procreate the human race.
How long would it take to make a BC in real life? Probably longer than a boeing 747. How long did it take the USA from the time Einstein said nuclear weapon was possible until it was dropped in Japan? Does a RTS need to be this expansive in timeline to be truly Real-Time?
Edit: I thought the real-time in RTS was that decisions were impacted by time. In other words "rushed". Perhaps if Dan had his way, this is not the case. Edit 2: This means that the the faster the decision making process is forced, the MORE important underlying strategy becomes. This is due to the fact that thinking time is compacted. Your strategy must be tried, true, adaptable, and effective against your opponent. When you fail to adapt or adapt in appropriately, think Savior, your strategy no longer meets these requirements and you no longer win. So I believe the faster a RTS game goes, the more emphasis strategy has in the game. The tactics/mechanics of the game become more difficult however (see the SC2 thread on x2+ speed thread).
Ignorance can be described as not knowing what you don't know. I think this describes Dan's position in this debate. He does not know that his complete lack of knowledge of the evolving strategies in a game negatively impact his strategical play (irregardless of speed), and instead attributes this deficiency on the speed of the game play. This would be like me saying if a game of chess spans a great enough time, I could beat a grand master. Yet I do not now know any strategies for chess outside of how the pieces move. I have knowledge of the fact that I do not know these things. This defends that I am not ignorant in the matter. Dan on the other hand defends his ignorance by saying its a hasty and rude word. It's a word that simplifies this entire paragraph into 3 syllables. I guess I agree that it is hasty, but if you find it rude defend your self with knowledge and understand what you do not know.
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I just read his reply and yeah-- what did I say? He just doesn't get it. This is why I don't bother. Takes way too long. Arrogant is putting it politely in my opinion and he thinks it's rude, ha!
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I just wrote a reply to his post.
DJPCG wrote: My argument is that the genre is called real-time strategy, not compressed-time strategy. I believe that StarCraft does have great strategic depth, but I think that it is robbed of much of that when you deprive players of the chance to consider it. In an RTS, you do have to make decisions in real-time like you would in the real world, and you get a realistic amount of time to make your decisions. But speeding that up makes it artificial; it ceases to become a representation of a real battlefield and becomes a place where humans are running 45 miles per hour and attacks are coming five or six times per second. Dan, I just wanted to make this clear. Fastest mode is only about 50-60% faster than Normal speed. Now let's imagine a war/battlefield in real life. Hypothetically, if soldiers were to somehow move/fire 50-60% faster on the field (e.g. cyborgs or "crystal meth" troops), would this really decrease the amount of strategy used by the general? If anything, there might be new tactics that rely on surprise that weren't as effective before.
DJPCG wrote: When you crank up the speed, you're changing the rules for no reason other than to make things harder to manage and punish players who pause to think (and yes, to make the game more spectator-friendly, though you could accomplish the same thing by speeding up the replays), which is all well and good if you acknowledge that the game is not about strategy but about who can manipulate the system fastest (yes, while executing some level of strategy). This is what I was talking about when I wrote that “strategy goes out the window”—increasing the speed increases the challenge in other areas at the expense of strategy. Personally, I do not think that a competition to see who can blink the least is a contest of strategy. You are correct that mechanics indeed become more difficult as the speed is increased. The "relative" importance of strategy becomes decreased. However, this does not decrease the overall amount of strategy involved in the game. The misconception you hold here is that you believe players are supposed to actively think up new strategies from within the game.
It is only the weaker players who have little to no concept of the strategical basics (i.e. counters, timing, metagame, game sense, etc) who are spending time guessing/thinking about strategies during an actual game. Much like Chess (or any popular game, or even on a real battlefield for that matter), the optimal strategies and proper counters in various situations have been analyzed outside the game by the collective minds of millions of much higher skilled players in the past. If you've never played Chess at a competitive level, then indeed you will be trying to guess among thousands of possibilities that your opponent will make. This is inefficient use of time and in a game of both Chess and Speed Chess, the opponent who has a basic grasp of optimal strategies will wipe the floor with you.
DJPCG wrote: I like the sports analogy, and referring to StarCraft as an eSport, because it goes to prove my point. StarCraft, played at high speed, is a strategy game in the same way as basketball or boxing are strategic. There's strategy involved, to be certain, but it is not the primary concern. At best, it's equally important to reflexes, because if you don't keep your speed up the entire time you're dead. Like Romantic said, playing at a more manageable speed does not make for a good spectator sport, but spectator sports are not necessarily strategic. And while StarCraft might be more strategic than most other games when played at high speeds, it's still less strategic at high speed than it would be played at normal speed. Since you like the sport analogy, and indeed it is at least somewhat accurate to think of Starcraft as an advanced game of basketball, let me ask you this question then: If the speed of every basketball player was hypothetically reduced to 2/3rd of their original speed, would this really allow for greater strategy in the game?
DJPCG wrote: I still absolutely stand by my speed chess analogy, despite the initial criticism of the proportional differences. Strategy is all about thinking about the best response to your enemy's actions, and the reaction you think of first is not always the best you can think of – which is why speed chess is not considered as strategic as regular chess. Some people are better at fast thinking than others, which is great, but are they more strategic? No. If you have more time, more often than not you will think of a better solution to a problem than the first thought you have. Chess is proof of this—take two equally skilled players and give them unequal clock times, and the guy with more time will win more often than not. If, as you guys claim, StarCraft has huge strategic depth, more time to analyze a situation and execute your response can really only improve the level of strategic play in the game. The problem with the "speed chess" analogy has been explained in part above (and by Klogon/EchOne previously). Good chess players are not actively thinking up new strategies within a game. Instead, they memorize and understand optimal strategies to use in various situations outside the game. During the game, a good chess player will mostly be analyzing the board to figure out which strategy he should use in order to adapt to his opponent's strategy.
However, due to the complex nature of Chess, the "analysis" of the board is extremely difficult, because you have to map out all possible moves from your opponent about 5-10 steps in advance and plan out your moves accordingly. This is the only situation where active thought processes and critical thinking truly requires a significant amount of "time".
No RTS (or even a real life war) will ever achieve this, because information obtained from your opponent is imperfect and very limited. Since you only have a snapshot of what your opponent is doing, you can only react based on this limited piece of information. You will never find a RTS that will be complex enough to require you to predict and plan out hundreds of different VALID moves in advance throughout the game, as it is necessary in a highly structured game of chess where you have full information of the battlefield at all times.
DJPCG wrote: Based on that logic, I disagree with the assertion that “good players don't need the additional time.” You guys might make your decisions instantly, but someone else might kick the crap out of you by taking a few seconds to more thoroughly think the scenario through. No, if you gave a good player a few more seconds, he would STILL come out with the most optimal decisions based on his strategical knowledge, scouting and game sense. Only a player with a poor grasp of strategy would require a few more seconds in order to adapt properly to an opponent, because he is unable to draw upon the strategical analysis by experts in the past.
DJPCG wrote: You criticize others for not having specific replays to show as examples, but you have nothing to offer to counter the argument because as you yourselves say, no one plays at normal speed on Battle.net. So if no evidence exists, I'm going to go ahead and theorize. Without replays, there is no evidence to suggest that his theory is true either. A theory by itself is worthless without empirical evidence.
As mentioned before, it is only at a very low skill level where both players have very poor mechanics and strategical understanding, that this situation is even possible. At this low level, it is possible for one player to defeat another by luck, or simply by massively outproducing the other.
Perhaps, the player "B" who wins at normal speed is just extremely slow mechanically and slowing down the speed to Normal gives him a massive boost in his production capabilities and micromanagement. Meanwhile, it's possible that player "A" simply gains less from the lower speed for whatever reason, such as unfamiliarity with the speed. Either way, there is no evidence to suggest that the slower speed in fact allowed player "B" to outstrategize his opponent.
DJPCG wrote: Anyway, if you guys feel that only people who spend thousands of hours playing StarCraft has any right to comment on it, and that no one is allowed to have any kind of dissenting opinion, you're welcome to feel that way. But don't expect me to not discuss it as someone who has played a wide variety of games. Dan, I wish you wouldn't give so much credit or attention to the trolls. Please don't lump everyone into one group just because of a few bad apples, who were banned from TL as well.
Furthermore, no one has any problem with you stating your opinion. However, the reason why many are offended is because you also made conclusions in your article (e.g. "What's worse, though, is that when you're playing at that rate, you can go ahead and toss strategy out the window along with the realism.") based on your (uninformed) opinion (no offense) about StarCraft, when most people expect a game journalist to fully understand what they're writing about. Furthermore, your logic appears to makes sense at the surface (which is why there are people agreeing with you), but the truth is that it is incorrect on many levels. This becomes obvious to anyone who has more thorough understanding of the game in question.
There are also several factual inaccuracies in the article itself. (e.g. you implied that Fastest speed in Starcraft is 2-3 times faster than Normal, when in fact it's only about 50-60%). Also, the default speed for play on Battle.net as defined by Blizzard when it was first introduced in 1997 was actually "Fast", not "Normal". It was then further increased to "Fastest" speed in 1999 by the Battle.net community.
However, this change was not induced by the progamers (as you imply in the article). In fact, it was the community as a whole that changed the standard game speed. Casual players have always been a distinct community from the pros, as their maps of choice are often BGH, Fast $$ or UMS maps. However, it was in fact these low-leveled players who first moved to "Fastest" speed (and not the Pros), because they felt it would make for a more exciting pace. It was much more controversial when the competitive scene switched soon after as well.
Also, just so you know, most StarCraft fans such as myself have also played a wide variety of games. In fact, there are very few games I truly dislike. 99% of people at TL.net are not "pro-gamers" who spend their life training SC (this happens only in Korea). They are simply StarCraft fans who prefer watching and/or playing one game over several others.
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On May 04 2008 22:23 Unentschieden wrote: I´m not shure what you are saying there maybenexttime - you essentially agreed with me. I especially pointed out that SC Strategy is easy to understand. In both chess and SC it is very easy to understand your current situation - the art is to find and apply the right response.
What we need to find the answer to is WHY aren´t lower skilled players worriying about timing attacks, economy management etc.?
Why aren't low skilled chess players worrying about tactical possibilities opened up to your opponent when you put a piece out of position to take a pawn, or about what happens when black gets a passed pawn on the queenside in the Yugoslav attack (I made these up, chess experts please correct me). Like starcraft, the dynamics of the game change drastically depending on your level of understanding of the game; at very low levels it's a race to see who comes out on top in a cascade of captures, at low levels it's usually about who makes the first tactical error, and who knows what kind of arcane knowledge they'd have up at the super-grandmaster level. Whatever it is, it's pretty certain that the average chess player wouldn't be taking such things into consideration when making a move; they'd just be worried about how many times it is defended and how many times it is attacked (say).
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Another thing you might want to consider in your argument solid (nice post btw), is that when you are in a 'real war' everything tends to go by faster-- you have to be quick to react or else you'll be dead and fastest has almost always been the norm in SC:BW so therefore it is normal. If you were log onto B.Net and browse through all the games you'd probably find 98.5% (I'm just throwing out a number, I know and the percentage is probably a lot higher anyway give or take) of the games under 'fastest' speed. It is nothing more but a term in the game they use.
Just another thing for them to think about anyway but gj.
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On May 04 2008 23:30 Wonders wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2008 22:23 Unentschieden wrote: I´m not shure what you are saying there maybenexttime - you essentially agreed with me. I especially pointed out that SC Strategy is easy to understand. In both chess and SC it is very easy to understand your current situation - the art is to find and apply the right response.
What we need to find the answer to is WHY aren´t lower skilled players worriying about timing attacks, economy management etc.? Why aren't low skilled chess players worrying about tactical possibilities opened up to your opponent when you put a piece out of position to take a pawn, or about what happens when black gets a passed pawn on the queenside in the Yugoslav attack (I made these up, chess experts please correct me). Like starcraft, the dynamics of the game change drastically depending on your level of understanding of the game; at very low levels it's a race to see who comes out on top in a cascade of captures, at low levels it's usually about who makes the first tactical error, and who knows what kind of arcane knowledge they'd have up at the super-grandmaster level. Whatever it is, it's pretty certain that the average chess player wouldn't be taking such things into consideration when making a move; they'd just be worried about how many times it is defended and how many times it is attacked (say).
This might be a nit-pick that doesn't matter, because you are right about your level changing the dynamics, but low level chess players do care about that stuff (the enemy threating pawns and passed pawns). What they don't care about is sacrificing material to gain position, or when to bring more pieces to attack or defend.
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On May 04 2008 23:38 wswordsmen wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2008 23:30 Wonders wrote:On May 04 2008 22:23 Unentschieden wrote: I´m not shure what you are saying there maybenexttime - you essentially agreed with me. I especially pointed out that SC Strategy is easy to understand. In both chess and SC it is very easy to understand your current situation - the art is to find and apply the right response.
What we need to find the answer to is WHY aren´t lower skilled players worriying about timing attacks, economy management etc.? Why aren't low skilled chess players worrying about tactical possibilities opened up to your opponent when you put a piece out of position to take a pawn, or about what happens when black gets a passed pawn on the queenside in the Yugoslav attack (I made these up, chess experts please correct me). Like starcraft, the dynamics of the game change drastically depending on your level of understanding of the game; at very low levels it's a race to see who comes out on top in a cascade of captures, at low levels it's usually about who makes the first tactical error, and who knows what kind of arcane knowledge they'd have up at the super-grandmaster level. Whatever it is, it's pretty certain that the average chess player wouldn't be taking such things into consideration when making a move; they'd just be worried about how many times it is defended and how many times it is attacked (say). This might be a nit-pick that doesn't matter, because you are right about your level changing the dynamics, but low level chess players do care about that stuff (the enemy threating pawns and passed pawns). What they don't care about is sacrificing material to gain position, or when to bring more pieces to attack or defend.
He just meant that there are plenty of metagame ingredients that you become aware of as you progress in skill level.
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On May 04 2008 23:30 Wonders wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2008 22:23 Unentschieden wrote: I´m not shure what you are saying there maybenexttime - you essentially agreed with me. I especially pointed out that SC Strategy is easy to understand. In both chess and SC it is very easy to understand your current situation - the art is to find and apply the right response.
What we need to find the answer to is WHY aren´t lower skilled players worriying about timing attacks, economy management etc.? Why aren't low skilled chess players worrying about tactical possibilities opened up to your opponent when you put a piece out of position to take a pawn, or about what happens when black gets a passed pawn on the queenside in the Yugoslav attack (I made these up, chess experts please correct me). Like starcraft, the dynamics of the game change drastically depending on your level of understanding of the game; at very low levels it's a race to see who comes out on top in a cascade of captures, at low levels it's usually about who makes the first tactical error, and who knows what kind of arcane knowledge they'd have up at the super-grandmaster level. Whatever it is, it's pretty certain that the average chess player wouldn't be taking such things into consideration when making a move; they'd just be worried about how many times it is defended and how many times it is attacked (say).
Speaking from personal experience: In chess new players ARE worried about tactical possibilities. One of the very first things a new chessplayer learns (after the rules and standart openings) is that you won´t win by a war of atrution (in this case, removing more/better pieces than the enemy). Of course it is important to keep your pieces - Id put that equall to a working economy in SC. But improving that kind of "basic" play will make you selfdestruct in Chess (In SC it works to "steamroll" your enemy) as "loosing pieces" is the no.1 tool to get the enemy into a formation you want him to.
The thing is that Chess highly supports more elaborate setups over "piece by piece" play by making you loose even IF you always "trade beneficial" (like pawn for knight etc...) or at least even. Imagine that in SC, if you would loose the match even though you beat your enemy at every skirmish up until the last one since he baited you into a position that you couldn´t win in. It is NOT like that in lower level play.
The dynamics do change, and what SC2 SHOULD to is to make the "switch" from brute-forcing to paying attention as easy, rewarding and intuitive as possible.
What is the point if only 1% of the whole community play the game "properly"?
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"It is NOT like that in lower level play. " - I doubt it is like that in chess either.
As for new chess player being worried about tactical possibilities - that's because they deem chess as something more than just another form of pasttime, contrary to most casual RTS players.
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Oh man I just have to say that, yeah he did NOT see this coming at all hahaha
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I can cite two big names in the chess world that claim chess is 99% calculation/tactics.
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That was quite possibly the most incompetent article I have ever read. If I was still subscribed to PC Gamer, that would be grounds for cancellation. Those people are supposed to be knowledgeable before they go and taint public with their opinions in an area which they obviously have no skill or experience.
If I allowed that guy to pause as many times as he wanted, on normal speed, he would never have a chance at winning. Ever.
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On May 05 2008 00:23 Unentschieden wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2008 23:30 Wonders wrote:On May 04 2008 22:23 Unentschieden wrote: I´m not shure what you are saying there maybenexttime - you essentially agreed with me. I especially pointed out that SC Strategy is easy to understand. In both chess and SC it is very easy to understand your current situation - the art is to find and apply the right response.
What we need to find the answer to is WHY aren´t lower skilled players worriying about timing attacks, economy management etc.? Why aren't low skilled chess players worrying about tactical possibilities opened up to your opponent when you put a piece out of position to take a pawn, or about what happens when black gets a passed pawn on the queenside in the Yugoslav attack (I made these up, chess experts please correct me). Like starcraft, the dynamics of the game change drastically depending on your level of understanding of the game; at very low levels it's a race to see who comes out on top in a cascade of captures, at low levels it's usually about who makes the first tactical error, and who knows what kind of arcane knowledge they'd have up at the super-grandmaster level. Whatever it is, it's pretty certain that the average chess player wouldn't be taking such things into consideration when making a move; they'd just be worried about how many times it is defended and how many times it is attacked (say). What is the point if only 1% of the whole community play the game "properly"? You know, there's a lot of Koreans playing Starcraft. Did you pull that number out of your ass? There are all kinds of different levels of skill. I'm sure most players out there at least have some semblance of strategy, BO's and counters, unlike this Dan character. A lot of people don't have great enough mechanics to execute everything they want to.
Also, there is nothing wrong with a player who is not playing the game properly. They are casual gamers and as long as they are matched with another of equal skill, they will still have fun. Casual chess players aren't playing the game "properly" either, but you don't see anyone complaining that Chess is "too hard" so its strategy should be toned down.
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On May 05 2008 02:53 Quesadilla wrote: That was quite possibly the most incompetent article I have ever read. If I was still subscribed to PC Gamer, that would be grounds for cancellation. Those people are supposed to be knowledgeable before they go and taint public with their opinions in an area which they obviously have no skill or experience.
If I allowed that guy to pause as many times as he wanted, on normal speed, he would never have a chance at winning. Ever.
Because the game wouldn't progress.
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Some of these guys really need to be taught basic principles of RTS. For example, a guy named Frost posted this little gem of wisdom:
Increasing the speed like that would open up more potential for blitzes (blitzi?), which TECHNICALLY are a type of strategy, but really have no depth - I'm 99% sure you all know what a blitz is since you seem like an intelligent bunch, but I'll just throw it out there for those who might not; "attack suddenly and without warning; "Hitler blitzed Poland" "
Basically, by cranking up the speed, the only strategic element it opens up is the potential for rushes (Zergling rush, anyone?). And I mean, come on, if you think that is a deep strategy on any level that you really don't understand strategy games. And bafoon can create a spawning pool and send 10 zerglings in off the bat.
Rushing does add depth to StarCraft, and all RTSes. Rushing exists as a way to punish players who get too greedy early game with their early worker production. If rushing weren't possible in StarCraft, then the early game portion would be completely boring and would only consist of pumping out workers. The threat of a rush is what makes the early game exciting. Now, to inexperienced players, rushes seem imbalanced, but they have to realize that rushers are put at a huge disadvantage when they attack early. This is because the rushers have to spend resources that would have been spent on workers on an early attack force. If the defending player counters the rush, the rusher is put at a huge disadvantage.
So, while increasing the speed MAY open up an additional type of strategy in that regard, it closes so many others (IE, well thoughtout mid to end-game performance as opposed to rushing in the beginning). Anyone can rush - not everyone can maintain a good mid and end game battle with a strong economy and base defenses, which I think is only really possible with a normal speed setting.
It is true that anyone can rush, and it's also true that anyone can scout them out and properly defend against them. For these reasons, on a high level of play, it takes a lot of skill to pull off a successful rush since there are a lot of viable anti-rush countermeasures.
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The core issue here is that by increasing speed the focus of the game shifts relativly towards mechanical execution (clicking), eventually to the point where you can discard "strategy". Even though the "absolute" amount of strategy doesn´t change it changes gameplay nontheless since humans can´t simply adjust endlessly - at least the lower level Players will have to make tradeoffs.
SC2 will focus on that - no one said this was a bad relationship. Also, at least in top level games Strategy will still decide games.
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no the issue at hand is that as the game increases in speed, the player thought/strategy is reduced. When in reality due to the "trade offs" I'll agree with you would need to be made, actually increases the dependence on a strategy. Take Boxer as an example. During his reign of supremacy his strategy was actually more focus on micro play (the supreme use of tactics not strategy). This worked really well until players ability to play faster allowed them to use strategies (macro, timing, build order, adaptability) to overcome these tactical deficiencies. Think nada/oov for the later.
So in reality while on the surface it seems the faster a game the lower the strategy, but as we see in argument after argument it is actually the opposite. The faster game speed creates a greater reliance on the underlying strategy a player is using.
Now I guess we see the real issue. Every SC gamer here is arguing that strategy is a key element to the game that is not lessened with game speed.. Dan is saying that he needs more decision making time to adapt and implement his strategy. I believe both parties are actually arguing separate points. Strategy vs In game adaptation. Otherwise we have to believe that every time Dan plays he starts with a complete and total lack of knowledge of the game, and then builds his strategy as he goes.
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How does increase in speed cause a decrease in strategy? That idea is absurd, and the only people supporting it are the inexperienced ones who can't do both. They don't understand competitive gaming at all, so they have a closed mindset about what a gamer is capable of doing in an RTS. However, for those of us who have actually seen SC pro gaming, we know it is possible to execute brilliant strategies with super fast speed. You simply can't win at SC because you "think" better, you've got to be fast as well. Its a foreign concept for average gamers, especially when they watch pro gamers fpvods and have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on.
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On May 04 2008 22:46 maybenexttime wrote: That's because they're unaware of the fact that their understanding is only superficial - they think they do understand the game and that there's nothing else to explore. People like Dan ponder plenty of absurd questions during a game, they analyze every idea no matter how irrelevant to their current situation it is or how impossible it is to pull off under given circumstances.
They think RTS games are some kind of 'RTS IQ test' and that they don't have to actually learn the 'rules' of the game, so they refuse to improve and learn more about the game.
QFT
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Belgium6733 Posts
On May 04 2008 19:50 Unentschieden wrote: The problem can´t be that SC Strategy is to hard to understand for most people or is it? How many other options other than going for mutas did Jaedong have to consider? Would more "options" (with different options each offering to Bisu?) make the desicion harder/the game more strategic? I would say yes.
What? Why would each person have the same capability of strategical thinking? Its quite normal for most people to not understand strategical elements of the game. It can be taught though.
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I have to confess I didn't read much of this thread, but here's what I think
I think most people would agree that playing starcraft at 2x speed would suck, you wouldn't have time to make any cool moves and everything would basicly reduce to macroing.
Similarly playing on slowest would be boring since you could play the game almost "perfectly", there would be no pro-scene since every game would be almost identical, and luck would be a huge factor. Not to speak of all the time when nothing is happening.
So there must be some gamespeed between slowest and 2x that produce the "best possible" speed for dividing skilled players from not so skilled, making it pleasurable to watch, making the average gamelength reasonable, and making the time scale realistic.
Now I claim fastest must be pretty close to this optimal speed. If starcraft was played a little slower, there would clearly be other strategies possible. Like harassing with dropships at multiple places at the same time, and perhaps we would see more things like stasising ramps to kill bases or even using nukes; all these things that isn't done normally (not because they aren't cost efficient, they often are!) but because that the time and effort they take to execute is not worth it. Players would probably get more spellcasters since casting more spells would be easier and more efficient, and players would put a lot more time in general towards microing. In my opinion, it's things like these that makes warcraft 3 boring to watch. It's all about these never ending micro duels where the audiance is supposed to go "awwwwwwww" for every unit a player loses. In a faster paced game it's more about the big picture, about who can keep up their economy and still have time to macro decently.
Many awesome things that are possible in starcraft would not really be viable at lower speeds. Imagine this: A bunch of lurkers and lings advancing on your m&m army. Your senses tells you the lurkers will unborrow and advance soon, so you look at the lurkers without macroing for a second. As the lurkers unburrow you quickly stim, spread your marines to a nice angle, focuses 2 lurks, scans, and beautifully kills the zerg army with minor losses.
It feels good, the audiance loves it, and it looks realistic and intense like in a proper war.
Play the same scenario on a slow speed setting, that wouldn't only be boring to watch, it wouldn't even happen. As the zergs see marines getting a nice spread he can just backoff and save most of his army, or reburrow really fast and aim every single spine to kill marines so that you end up about equal in losses. Looks shitty, feels shitty, and is unrealistic.
And there's so many scenarios like that, where you have to make a good and quick decision to win (just like in a real war). Like when you are zerg and your opponent catches you off gard with a fast dropship to lift his troups to your main. Your main will be gone in like 30 sec if you don't do something etc.
So all I want to say is that fastest is an awesome speed for players and audiance in starcraft. Changing it just a little in one direction or the other probably would have made a very similar game anyway. But I bet that creating a game like Dan wants it would create something very miserable. So we should probably just be happy that Dan isn't a blizzard developer but rather a stupid editor at a pc magazine.
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I don't understand the reason behind the article. You can adjust the game to watever speed you want. It doesn't have to go ultra fast. Then he complaints over that all the Bnet users like faster or fastet. Then the article ends.
He must be one of those 1% of the people that cannot play and think at the same time. He wants to everyone to play on normal or slow? I don't get it. Is he just bitching at the Starcraft community because he sucks?
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The problem with the article is that he basically admits most people (including the top tier players) want faster game speed, then criticizes both the players and developers for playing at higher speeds.
It's like someone complaining that top end Smash Brothers games have items turned off or CS 1.6 pro matches don't begin with 16000 funds on round 1. If you can't strategy while playing then SC just isn't the type of game for you, don't ruin it for other players who have a minimal ability to multitask.
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On May 05 2008 09:59 Oc wrote: The problem with the article is that he basically admits most people (including the top tier players) want faster game speed, then criticizes both the players and developers for playing at higher speeds.
It's like someone complaining that top end Smash Brothers games have items turned off or CS 1.6 pro matches don't begin with 16000 funds on round 1. If you can't strategy while playing then SC just isn't the type of game for you, don't ruin it for other players who have a minimal ability to multitask.
I know the problem with the article already: That the majority of the starcraft players sees no problem with the speed and the fact that his reasoning is idiotic. I just don't see any point in it all. Probably no else does either by the look of earlier posts. It feels like he just typed up a 5 minute rant and wanted to see exactly how many people he could piss off in the Starcraft community.
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ROFL just another pro-mbs noob. He's completely wrong about most of the points he makes -- if he was any good at starcraft he would understand that. He just doesn't understand what this game is about. He should stick to playing the warhammer board game or or slow moving aganozing rt's imo.
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His point is that the game would reward "thinking" players more if it was played slower.
So he basicly says that not only do we all play at the wrong speed, it would also be a better game and we would enjoy it more if it was played it his way.
An ultimate asshole-statement in other words
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On May 05 2008 10:16 jtan wrote:His point is that the game would reward "thinking" players more if it was played slower. So he basicly says that not only do we all play at the wrong speed, it would also be a better game and we would enjoy it more if it was played it his way. An ultimate asshole-statement in other words
Now i get it. So he wants SC2 to turn into a TBS game. (Turned-Based Strategy). I think he doesn't understand the difference between RTS and TBS games.
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On May 02 2008 10:20 Xeofreestyler wrote: So some rts newb reviewer doesnt like sc's pace
what else is new
true but if it is ridiculously fast I agree with him then. we shall see when sc2 comes out TT
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What can I say, he is a scrub, pure and simple.
The author of that article is someone who can never, ever understand the concept of playing to win. To even suggest playing at a slower speed makes it any more "strategic" is to completely misinterpret what strategy actually means. He has constructed a very fixed, narrow idea of strategy, a glass prison, from which his mind can never break free of.
What he sees as "strategy" is a leisurely game where both players take time out to "think" about how to react. But if you think about it, this is precisely a permanent loser's perspective of Starcraft: "If I had more time, if I could just take time out to think about how to react." But this never works. More time for you means more time for the enemy- you may have more time to "react" to how your enemy would have attacked if he or she was playing on a faster setting, but it will still fail you because now your enemy is able to do whatever he or she was doing, except even faster and more efficiently at this slower setting, and you are stuck asking again for an even SLOWER setting.
What the author of that article REALLY wants is an impossibility- a game where the reactive, slow, "see what happens first" player could have decent chance at winning. In reality, all GOOD Starcraft players (and players of any game, really) are both proactive AND reactive- we make our own decisions and try to preemptively strike while at the same time fending off the enemy's attack. The preemptive attacker has an edge because he or she could determine the game flow and try to throw the other person's game sense totally off balance.
So in conclusion... Please go fuck yourself, or better yet, kill yourself. Had you been born 6,000 years ago, your family would have fed you to the wolves because you are just such a fucking loser. Worse yet, you tried to explain off your dicklessness by blaming hundreds of thousands of other gamers for how they like to play. Multiplayer gaming is fun for most Starcraft players because it is exhilerating to win- you know that in your heart, secretly, too. Please, no more excuses. If you lose, play harder, think faster.
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Oh lord, more misconceptions:
Yes, I can, and yes, I was. While I'm not even close to a pro, or even semi-pro, I have played quite a bit, and I've been playing since the beginning.
Playing a game for a long time does not mean anything. In most competitive games, there are multiple levels of play. Most people don't rise above the most basic ones, these are the people that you see playing public Fastest Map Ever and BGH games on battle.net, or the guys that never get above the lowest ranks on a ladder. There's nothing wrong with this, but you have to realize that playing a game for a long time means NOTHING unless you've been playing at a competitive level for the majority of that time.
And like I've said many times, I do not believe that the first reaction that players have is necessarily the best one they can think of if they spend a moment to think it through, or pay closer attention to the situation without having to worry quite as much about falling behind elsewhere. If the first reaction were always the best, why would anyone ever set the chess clock to more than five minutes per player?
Because in a Real-Time Strategy game (keyword real-time), you're not supposed to have all the time in the world to devise an awesome plan. You're supposed to improvise based on your previous experiences. That's what makes the game fun. If you want to play a game where you get all the time in the world to plot out an awesome scheme, don't play RTS.
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Hmm, looks like that thread got deleted.
EDIT: Scratch that, looks like THE ENTIRE FORUM got deleted.
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This has made me think about something. I assume that fastest was chosen because it was the fastest available and thus had the most intense games. I understand that it has a good balance between being playable and being challenging, but while we've all been discussing slower game speeds, what would a faster game speed mean?
Saying fastest is the best speed to be played at seems a bit arbitrary to me, if a faster speed were available, how would that do in terms of popularity? Faster was skipped, so it seems to me that had a faster game speed been available, we'd all be playing fastester (it's a working title).
I'm really no expert, but I think if we were playing fastester gameplay would be more micro based rather than macro based. I base this on the fact that less time means that late game mechanics, specifically in macro, become much more difficult. The fine mechanics of micro would also be more difficult, but I think that given the general focus on micro in early Starcraft, this would be improved and players would be able to play at this level. For the next bit, I am going to assume that the mechanics to macro increase faster than the mechanics to micro as speed increases because macro requires many things to be happening at once, whereas micro is generally focussed on one area. So, with that assumption, I will say that the macro revolution would have happened much later, because for the hymen of macro to be broken (just had to get that word in there), a higher mechanical skill would have been required than on fastest. That of course assumes that mechanical skill generally increases over time, which is evident in the rising level of play from the start of professional Starcraft until now.
The delay of the macro revolution could mean that we would be behind where we were now, and this year could be seeing savior rise to dominance for the first time (completely ignoring how complex the path to his rise - or any other event for that matter - that was only to demonstrate the delay).
Had faster been the fastest speed available, the opposite may have happened, and the macro revolution and modern Starcraft may have come earlier. This is of course, very simplified, but I think the reasoning is sound; lower mechanical requirements from the slower speed would mean that the mechanical ability now could have been obtained possibly years ago.
Both of these do not consider the strategical development, but I think that that would keep pace no matter what. Flash did learn the game in 3 years if I recall correctly, so I think that the strategy used today could have developed in 8~ years (faster) or 12~ years (fastester). Those numbers are completely arbitrary, and again are to demonstrate the difference of time. Possibly if the game had been played on faster, we could be seeing the gameplay that will come up in a couple of years on fastest.
The point of all of this is to prepare for the question, would the game be worse off not on fastest? Is this really the optimal speed that we are defending so fiercely - yet restrained for the most part - on the PCG forums? Would Starcraft be Starcraft if it were played on fastester or faster?
Also, what would happen if we were to change the gamespeed now to fastester? It may stop all these boring (in my opinion, although some are quite good, many are boring) macro games, and encourage more drop play, more harassment and more early game micro.
On the flip side, what would happen if we were to play on faster? Using the same reasoning as before, there would be more macro games now, but much better mechanics. It would also be more forgiving and allow for near perfect play to be shown more often (and hell, maybe even some actually perfect play).
Fastest is the middle ground between these two, but it's only there because of chance I believe. Fastester would be the middle ground between the unforgiving fastestest and the mechanically perfect fastest. Faster would also be the middle ground between the similarly unforgiving fastest and the mechanically perfect fast.
So, I'm going to conclude this with a few questions that I'd like anyone who took the time to read that - thank you very much if you did, I suspect it was quite incoherent and rambling - to answer. First, like I asked earlier, how much different would the game be if it were to be played of faster or fastester? Much trickier, would the game suffer or benefit from the different speed? Also, if now the speed were to be changed from fastest to faster or fastester, how would the game change, and similarly, would Starcraft suffer or benefit from this?
Thank you for suffering through that; I didn't edit
-edit- So it appears jtan made a similar post before mine. God damned ninja.
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The thread on PCGamer seems to have been deleted. We won?
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You guys are pretty ruthless, and 11 pages??
I don't think the min/maxers (that's us!) take the strategy out of RTS, we take the real-time part out. In any matchup, the number of strategies you can realistically use are so limited that decent players know them all and have counters prearranged. Strategy is created beforehand; the game is your time to execute that strategy. This isn't chess - there aren't so many possible move combinations that it's impossible to account for them all. It's a complete fallacy to think that a slower game speed is going to give you enough time to have a strategic epiphany in the middle of the game that leads to your victory. While that would indeed be very exciting, it's just not realistic among players with any experience with the game. Among newbies? They can play against each other on slower game settings if they need time to ponder their moves.
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How unsurprising from PC gamer. Well, I'm sure this has been said before but: what does one expect, eh? What kind of hardcore gamer would actually subscribe to a gaming magazine IRL when there're are myriad infinitely better resources on the internet? I read a few PC Gamers, CGW, and other magazines in a local libraries. They're run by a bunch of noobs.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
i guess we won the internets again
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It was all you Tasteless.
Nah, I think a Mod took it down because they had to do damage control and not in the form of us. Apparently some deadbeat started spamming porn in their forums last time I checked, which was something like ten hours ago. I heard this happened to them before and it took just as long for a mod to take care of it. Sigh, you would think they had their shit together. Guess not.
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Yeah, I read in their announcements board before the big board takedown that they're going to completely wipe their forums and switch to a new software because of that porn spamming.
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I feel bad that I actually used to subscribe to PC Gamer Last Romantic rapes a newb and he uses his magazine as his cry blog. boo hoo.
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Do people actually use excel to work out strategies in starcraft?
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CA10824 Posts
On May 05 2008 17:25 jimminy_kriket wrote: Do people actually use excel to work out strategies in starcraft? i've never actually heard of it being done
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I do, however, have Excel spreadsheets for Sins of a Solar Empire, a game the author seems to actually like.
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On May 05 2008 12:41 prOxi.swAMi wrote: The thread on PCGamer seems to have been deleted. We won?
They've moved the forums to GamesRadar.com. They said they are going to do that soon. ;;
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lol the article is dumb, how the hell would game speed help against " min maxers", not to mention if you are faster than your opponent thats always going to be an advantage (obviously if they control better than you and are way better than you as well, your advantage means 0)
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Oh, man.
How the fuck did this guy get a job reporting on RTS?
Sack him, or relocate him to turn-based strategy, please.
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On May 05 2008 17:25 jimminy_kriket wrote: Do people actually use excel to work out strategies in starcraft? I doubt excel would be useful
But I think some players, like nal_ra or boxer has spent a lot of time developing their strategies. They probably first come up with an idea, like the FD build to punish protosses who get greedy in early game. Then they probably mass game with team members testing different builds, unit combinations and timings to make it as good as possible.
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Well if i play a game for the first time and set on high speed ofcourse it would feel fast. Play it several times and it becomes pretty normal but anyways. I think the reason PRO gamers feel there is nothing to do between mining minerals and building units is because of all the automation. You have MBS now, auto-mine, large production que and so forth and with their 300apm they run out of things to do. So game-speed is not the factor here, i mean the game can be played at slowest and still you have your hands full with things to do....
Thats why i've been against so many automations... Yeah a newcomer or a guy who started playing RTS yesterday may not like to have his hands full and would like to play slower and easier but in the end what makes the game interesting in the long run is having to do a lot. If the game does all the things for you it may be ultra interesting for a week, month or mauby even a year but after that no one plays it, except dozens of hardcore guys hooked on slow pace.
But in the end even starcraft can be a long game, i'm talking about casual and pro games alike. We've seen and played battle.net and multiplayer games lasting for over an hour as well as pro games lasting almost an hour!
So what i'm trying to say is that there needs to be a balance between the automation, things you can do and game speed. It would be stoopid when the game ships to have people seting different speed settings and not being abble to join a game coz there isn't a game with your prefered speed.
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Belgium6733 Posts
I feel like making an online petition that this guy should be BANNED from ever writing about RTS again. Who's with me?!
Oh and torches and hayforks are, ofcourse, allowed.
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The Uwe Boll intiative? Me likey.
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On May 06 2008 00:26 Xeofreestyler wrote: I feel like making an online petition that this guy should be BANNED from ever writing about RTS again. Who's with me?!
Oh and torches and hayforks are, ofcourse, allowed. But that's only one retard game magazine writer. There's probably dozens more out there exactly like him...
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This type of superiority mindset only scares away new players from the game.
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Why this immature reaction to the article?
Why would voicing ones opinion on RTS-games disqualify said person from writing for publication, covering RTS-games or otherwise?
You are acting like frightened children. If someone brings up an opinion which you do not agree with they are met with a torrent of responses like:
"You are not qualified to..." "You are ignorant..." "You should be BANNED from ever writing..." "You do not understand..." "It's on wikipedia..." "We've discussed this already..."
Just because there's a strong community of players playing a certain game a certain way, it doesn't necessarily follow that other ways of enjoying said game are wrong. Just because someone has a different opinion of a game, it doesn't necessarily follow that they're "ignorant". This person could, even if bestowed with your eternal wisdom regarding StarCraft, come to a different conclusion and form a different opinion than you. Your opinion isn't divine.
Accept the fact that people can have different opinions, try not to alienate them. Discuss it in a civilized manner. At the end of the day, people living outside of the box might offer interesting perspectives and innovative ideas - which might make StarCraft II better.
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MURICA15980 Posts
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On May 06 2008 01:03 InterWill wrote: Why this immature reaction to the article?
Why would voicing ones opinion on RTS-games disqualify said person from writing for publication, covering RTS-games or otherwise?
You are acting like frightened children. If someone brings up an opinion which you do not agree with they are met with a torrent of responses like:
"You are not qualified to..." "You are ignorant..." "You should be BANNED from ever writing..." "You do not understand..." "It's on wikipedia..." "We've discussed this already..."
Just because there's a strong community of players playing a certain game a certain way, it doesn't necessarily follow that other ways of enjoying said game are wrong. Just because someone has a different opinion of a game, it doesn't necessarily follow that they're "ignorant". This person could, even if bestowed with your eternal wisdom regarding StarCraft, come to a different conclusion and form a different opinion than you. Your opinion isn't divine.
Accept the fact that people can have different opinions, try not to alienate them. Discuss it in a civilized manner. At the end of the day, people living outside of the box might offer interesting perspectives and innovative ideas - which might make StarCraft II better.
Why not? This is the internet. The author had it coming to him.
Also, YOU accept the fact that TL has its own opinions about him.
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Personally I felt the article was insulting. It was written with HUGE arrogance and ignorance and it implied Starcraft players aren't good strategizers but mainly fast clickers. What a fucking dumbshit. This guy got stupid kids on his bandwagon and they were all just as pretentious and condescending as he was.
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Hungary11232 Posts
On May 06 2008 01:03 InterWill wrote: Why this immature reaction to the article?
Why would voicing ones opinion on RTS-games disqualify said person from writing for publication, covering RTS-games or otherwise?
You are acting like frightened children. If someone brings up an opinion which you do not agree with they are met with a torrent of responses like:
"You are not qualified to..." "You are ignorant..." "You should be BANNED from ever writing..." "You do not understand..." "It's on wikipedia..." "We've discussed this already..."
You are right that criticisms of this kind would be futile. But the uproar does not follow from a "different opinion". It comes because the author appears to be utterly misinformed about how Starcraft is being played, not even by the Progamers, but by the average John on Bnet. I grant you that there can also be argument about this. But furthermore, the author of this article makes hayward assumptions and uses faulty logic all the way. I see at least two distinctive logical flaws which remain no matter what you think about Starcraft.:
1) Arguing from the Genre towards the Token. Starcraft is considered a real-time strategy game. However, this does not imply that any future Starcraft has to be made according to some abstract blueprint of RTS. His argument is essentially that because some label is attached to the game, it has to accord to the label. The equation works the other way around: There is a multitude of games with many differing aspects which are considered as RTS. The genre is defined by the individual tokens, and arguing that the new tokens should accord to some abstract general rules of the genre is plainly wrong
2) Attaching authoritative meaning to the term "normal speed". Seriously, I claim that in every game on earth the developers have no idea how it is going to develop through the players playing it. Did the developers of Quake intend Rocket Jumps? Did the developers of Starcraft intend Macro Games like we see them nowadays, on high speed? Did the developers of WC3 expect that their most popular mode of playing would be a map where you only control your hero and can assemble a vast number of items? Perhaps some did, perhaps others did not. But simply because the developer of a game labels some speed as "normal" it has no normative implications for the community playing the game. The community defines the mode of gaming, not the developer. Therefore claiming that normal speed is the best speed to play at because the developers named it as "normal" is totally hayward logic yet again.
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On May 06 2008 01:03 InterWill wrote:
Why would voicing ones opinion on RTS-games disqualify said person from writing for publication, covering RTS-games or otherwise?
It doesn't. Being completely wrong and arrogant at the same time, however, does.
Just because there's a strong community of players playing a certain game a certain way, it doesn't necessarily follow that other ways of enjoying said game are wrong.
Did you read the article? He doesn't just say "I like to play on a slower speed." He's saying garbage like:
What's worse, though, is wthat when you're playing at that rate, you can go ahead and toss strategy out the window along with the realism. Min/maxers (people who bust out Microsoft Excel to figure out how to build the strongest possible force with the minimum possible time/resource investment) make the real strategic value of many RTS games debatable at normal speeds, but when sped up to two or three or four times as fast, it's not even a questions.It's no longer about out-thinking your opponent and the big picture, it's about reflexes, rehearsal of a super effecient build order, and micromanaging individual unit movement and abilities-no higher-level thinking required.
Seriously, there's no strategy on the fastest speed? That's not a valid opinion; that is just plain wrong.
And "min/maxers" take strategy out of the game? People who devise efficient strategies take the strategy out of the game? How does that make any sense at all?
And then there is this:
there were a few moments when, while waiting for resources to acumulate or units to build, they felt they "didn't have anything to do." Isn't that when you're suposed to think?
People who are good at real-time strategy games don't ever stop thinking when they play the game.
Just because someone has a different opinion of a game, it doesn't necessarily follow that they're "ignorant". This person could, even if bestowed with your eternal wisdom regarding StarCraft, come to a different conclusion and form a different opinion than you. Your opinion isn't divine.
Accept the fact that people can have different opinions, try not to alienate them. Discuss it in a civilized manner. At the end of the day, people living outside of the box might offer interesting perspectives and innovative ideas - which might make StarCraft II better.
If he had simply stated that he liked to play at slower speeds, it is doubtful that there would be any hostility. He didn't simply state that he liked playing at slower speeds. He made incorrect statements in an attempt to support his view and he did so in an arrogant manner.
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So true InterWill. It´s really diappointing how many are ranting here. The autor prefers a game like SINS where reflexes play only a minor role - this has nothing to do with his value as a writer. He bought up a good point - should SC2 be even faster than the practical standart of SC? He even bought up a argument - the faster the game becomes the more important reflexes/handspeed is relativly to "Strategy".
Disagreeing and counter arguments (no, "hes a scrub and doesn´t get it is NOT an argument) is fine, but most of what we have here is just immature.
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Dan's opinions bear no truth. Why shouldn't we call him ignorant? His article discourages support for the current (and competitive) RTS make-up in favor of a system more friendly to "casual gamers" who will play the game for a few weeks and then quit. Why shouldn't we take offense to him threatening our way of life like that?
And yes, it does threaten our way of life. PCGamer is probably the most respected english language gaming magazine. The fact that PCGamer is out of touch with competitive gaming is a major concern. Not that we need or even want them reporting on progaming matches in Korea, but they should understand the progaming scene as a whole and occasionally write articles that inform people about it.
Dan's solution, having "pauses to think," is completely against everything it means to be an RTS. Because you are playing in real time, your decisions are made in real time as you play. But if mechancis are to have no meaning at all and if players are to have large amounts of thinking time, then isn't that the same as playing a turn based strategy game? That completely goes agaisnt the motivation for "real time" anything.
Further, just because we have labeled him as ignorant does not make us uncivilized. Ignorant is a word with a meaning and we are applying that word correctly. He does not understand competitive RTS gaming. That means he is ignorant.
If you tell me that I am ignorant of women's fashion, does that make you uncivilized? I know almost nothing about women's fashion so that statement would be true to begin with. Dan knows almost nothing about RTS gaming. The proof is in the statements he made about how all we do is click and write down build orders in Excel. If anything, I'd sooner bust out Excel for HMM 3 or MOO 2 than for Starcraft. In Starcraft, you have to adapt to what your opponent is doing in REAL TIME, so theorycrafting a "perfect" build order is a complete waste of time since there is no such thing. There are only "best" solutions to a given circumstance, and there may be multiple "best" solutions, and the "best" solution at a given time may involve changing the build order you planned when you started the game on the fly.
Okay, so some people honestly flamed him, but those people don't represent the community as a whole; they are just pissed off because they feel deeply insulted. Most of the things that Dan has labeled as "hate mail" were not very hateful at all.
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Hi Steve, I appreciate your taking the time to write. I understand why you disagree with my opinion, but that does not make it false - decreasing a player's clock time in chess forces hasty, non-strategic decision making, and it has an identical effect in StarCraft. I'm not saying it isn't a challenging, intricate game that deserves its popularity, but I am saying that the actual strategy of gameplay is reduced by increasing the play speed. -Dan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: steve steve [mailto:sxxxx@hotmail.com] Sent: Sun 5/4/2008 7:10 PM To: Dan Stapleton Subject: Recent Starcraft Article
In the future please try to do some actual research and writing. Your analysis was poor to say the least. In the article you state "What's worse, though, is wthat when you're playing at that rate, you can go ahead and toss strategy out the window" This is a blatent flasehood, and you've clearly shown your ignorance of the game with this statement and many more like it. I don't have time to proof read your entire editorial for you but please in the future do not print such rubbish. Understanding starcraft takes more then a weekend, hell for some it takes the better part of a decade so please don't taint this dynamically complex wonder of a game with your otherwise fine Mag. -itfray
ill update if he sends a second reply cause after his retarded reply i had to correct him again
also, i like how he suggest 'ideas for improving starcraft 2' when he clearly doesn't know what made starcraft 1 so great
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All this criticism is based on a lack of understanding of the principle gameplay of multiplayer 1v1 oriented competitive RTS games.
You can't make a game that he won't criticize that's still within the conventional RTS genre.
Plus, even then one can make fallacious claims about there being no strategy at the high level when it's just absent at low level play.
And this guy is a 'progamer': he is a pro at writing articles about RTS games. Yet he doesn't even know what those games are about. All his criticism that isn't clearly fallacious is based on not willing to accept the nature of RTS games; they are based in management, control and multitasking, which all have their twitch skill factor as well.
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On May 06 2008 01:03 InterWill wrote: Why this immature reaction to the article?
Why would voicing ones opinion on RTS-games disqualify said person from writing for publication, covering RTS-games or otherwise?
You are acting like frightened children. If someone brings up an opinion which you do not agree with they are met with a torrent of responses like:
"You are not qualified to..." "You are ignorant..." "You should be BANNED from ever writing..." "You do not understand..." "It's on wikipedia..." "We've discussed this already..."
Just because there's a strong community of players playing a certain game a certain way, it doesn't necessarily follow that other ways of enjoying said game are wrong. Just because someone has a different opinion of a game, it doesn't necessarily follow that they're "ignorant". This person could, even if bestowed with your eternal wisdom regarding StarCraft, come to a different conclusion and form a different opinion than you. Your opinion isn't divine.
Accept the fact that people can have different opinions, try not to alienate them. Discuss it in a civilized manner. At the end of the day, people living outside of the box might offer interesting perspectives and innovative ideas - which might make StarCraft II better.
You can repeat all day long that grass is pink(or whatever retarded thing you have on your mind) and then cry when people say you're wrong, because you're "just expressing your opinion".
Fact is grass is not pink and stating that it's is, just proves you're an idiot.
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On May 06 2008 01:03 InterWill wrote: Why this immature reaction to the article?
Why would voicing ones opinion on RTS-games disqualify said person from writing for publication, covering RTS-games or otherwise?
You are acting like frightened children. If someone brings up an opinion which you do not agree with they are met with a torrent of responses like:
"You are not qualified to..." "You are ignorant..." "You should be BANNED from ever writing..." "You do not understand..." "It's on wikipedia..." "We've discussed this already..."
Just because there's a strong community of players playing a certain game a certain way, it doesn't necessarily follow that other ways of enjoying said game are wrong. Just because someone has a different opinion of a game, it doesn't necessarily follow that they're "ignorant". This person could, even if bestowed with your eternal wisdom regarding StarCraft, come to a different conclusion and form a different opinion than you. Your opinion isn't divine.
Accept the fact that people can have different opinions, try not to alienate them. Discuss it in a civilized manner. At the end of the day, people living outside of the box might offer interesting perspectives and innovative ideas - which might make StarCraft II better.
This guy said there's no strategy in StarCraft even though his understanding of it (or rather a complete lack of thereof) is VERY superficial.
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Our problem is not that someone doesn't agree with us. Our problem is that the Senior Associate Editor of one of the largest PC gaming magazines in the United States went so far as to say that "StarCraft has little (or no) strategy" and write it into his editorial.
As a writer in a potentially influential publication, he has the responsibility to not report ridiculous nonsense. His editorial was very ignorant and biased, and has no place in the world of journalism.
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On May 06 2008 02:07 Unentschieden wrote: So true InterWill. It´s really diappointing how many are ranting here. The autor prefers a game like SINS where reflexes play only a minor role - this has nothing to do with his value as a writer. He bought up a good point - should SC2 be even faster than the practical standart of SC? He even bought up a argument - the faster the game becomes the more important reflexes/handspeed is relativly to "Strategy".
Disagreeing and counter arguments (no, "hes a scrub and doesn´t get it is NOT an argument) is fine, but most of what we have here is just immature.
You and Interwill need to read the whole thread before posting your blasphemy. Yes, you NEED to.
"He even brought up an argument?" Seriously read and be educated before posting your rant.
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InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead.
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Dan, Dan, Dan .... Your missing it. "I do think that the faster you go, the less strategic you get. Thus the inverse relationship. Both players having equal time makes the playing field level, but it does not make it as strategic as it is if they were given a reasonable amount of time to gather intelligence, analyze the situation, and organize a response." I'm sorry man but you really should not be writing for rts's or competive games at all.....
Lets make all the skaters in the nhl skate at the same speed because it will produce a more strategic game..
Lets make all pitchers in MLB pitch at the same speed because it will be more strategic?
SPEED IS A STRATEGY DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
MAKING THE GAME SLOWER WOULD HAVE THE OPPISITE EFFECT....
Its like saying stealing a base in baseball ruins the strategy of the pitcher because it forces him to act quickly, so lets eliminate stealing bases in baseball. Now rather then having increased the strategic bass of the game you have simple restricted it because there is one less varible to manipulate (stealing a base).
Don't you see? Its selfevident .... its like saying no rush for 20 mins so i can build up a big army in starcraft, rather then increasing the strategic value of the game u have simple eliminated the early and midgame strategy thus REDUCING two thrids of all starcraft strategy right off the hop.
You seem unable to understand 'real time' strategy......
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: RE: Recent Starcraft Article Date: Mon, 5 May 2008 10:57:44 -0700 From: xx.com To: spaxxx33@hotmail.com
I'd argue that what you're describing is more a test of reflexes than one of strategy. And I'm not arguing that you shouldn't have to think quickly - otherwise I'd be saying that all RTS games suck and everyone should be playing turn-based games, which I am not doing - but I do think that the faster you go, the less strategic you get. Thus the inverse relationship. Both players having equal time makes the playing field level, but it does not make it as strategic as it is if they were given a reasonable amount of time to gather intelligence, analyze the situation, and organize a response. (Going back to the speed chess analogy, both players have equal time on the clock, but they are forced to make hasty decisions that will almost always lose to someone with a reasonable amount of time to consider his moves.) Turning up the speed deprives players of time to make informed decisions, which is what strategy is all about. Again, I'm not saying it's a bad game, I'm just saying it isn't as strategic this way. -Dan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: steve steve [mailto:spxaxxxxxx3@hotmail.com] Sent: Mon 5/5/2008 10:03 AM To: Dan Stapleton Subject: RE: Recent Starcraft Article
Thank you for your reply, in response to your agruement I would say this: Firstly, you are compearing apples to oranges when compearing starcraft to chess. Chess is static where as starcraft has a dynamic flow which has been developed and mastered for some 10 years now. This game is dependant on timing and speed is apart of that. In a battlefield the best strategist is the person who can think the most quickly and correctly when presented with a problem while all chaos is raining down around him/her. This is what i believe you fail to comprehend when playing starcraft, as many with your skill level do. To understand starcraft and its infinitly complex strategy you must understand the game on several fundamental levels involving multiple varibles such as economy, timing, recon, production, flanking/angles, specific unit manuvers, counters and the list goes on. Normally i would not care about some tiny article to the extent of writing several emails but your dismissal and description of the game is insulting to many gamers such as myself. In any game, no matter how much or little time you are givin as long as the oppenent receives the same the winner will be he who can spot the pattern the fastest and exploits it. There is no such thing as a 'non-strategic play' in any game, and as long as you continue to hold to your static/flat understanding of strategy you will never understand this and will be doomed to view all rts, tbs, and any genre ending or containing the consonant 'S' as a shiney new form of rock, paper, sissors. -Steve 'IntoTheFray' Mxxx
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dude stop stalking the man, he needs his long hours for his sins game and he'll never understand or be willing to play a 10 year old game because pcgamer pays him to play w/e
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while i won't defend the guy writing the article, and find it as repugnant as the next guy, i think people may be missing his target audience?
i wouldn't be surprised if 90% of gamers would agree with his opinion, and further think that 99.9% of PCGamer's audience agrees with his opinion.
A journalist writing for his target audience? *gasp*!
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On May 06 2008 05:42 Mora wrote: while i won't defend the guy writing the article, and find it as repugnant as the next guy, i think people may be missing his target audience?
i wouldn't be surprised if 90% of gamers would agree with his opinion, and further think that 99.9% of PCGamer's audience agrees with his opinion.
A journalist writing for his target audience? *gasp*!
Not like he has any reason to bash something he knows nothing about. T______T
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I want Blizzard to invest 0.00001% of the profit they'll get in the first week after the SC2 launch and buy PCGamer magazine, then make Dan play a game vs a regular SCer on slowest. If he can't win with his brilliant strategies vs a mere click-fester he gets kicked in the nuts and thrown in the street, never to be seen in the world of journalism again.
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On May 06 2008 05:59 Doctorasul wrote: I want Blizzard to invest 0.00001% of the profit they'll get in the first week after the SC2 launch and buy PCGamer magazine, then make Dan play a game vs a regular SCer on slowest. If he can't win with his brilliant strategies vs a mere click-fester he gets kicked in the nuts and thrown in the street, never to be seen in the world of journalism again. Great idea ^^
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On May 06 2008 06:21 Unentschieden wrote: No Thanks for keeping the last two thread pages consistent.
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Belgium6733 Posts
(Going back to the speed chess analogy, both players have equal time on the clock, but they are forced to make hasty decisions that will almost always lose to someone with a reasonable amount of time to consider his moves.)
Does this dan know anything about anything? Strategic thinking is formed with experience. Has he ever even seen a grandmaster playing chess? :/ He should get off his ass and do something else beside writing his dumbass articles. Jeez.
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In Dan's defense, he probably plays a lot of PC games. If you spend your time playing different games, you will only understand them from face value. You won't be an expert at any game unless you devote some time to really explore a game. This is the main reason I don't trust anybody from gaming magazines. They are not in touch with the gaming community. But hey, its their job to play a game, review, and move on.
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It's not their job to know nothing but to do a shallow review, obviously. And he didn't do a review here. He is also not to review and recommend games to total idiots.
The chess analogy; the more time given, the less mistakes are made. So with a lot of time tactical errors are rare of nonexistent. Games are won on positional play or on strategy. Or, most often, a game is drawn.
If it's a rapid game then there is more room for mistakes. If you play bad positionally it's not that bad of a deal. There might be a tactical mistake by your opponent.
This is why in rapid you can play openings that one cannot play in normal super GM games.
Same is true in Starcraft. If you slow down the game there is less room for different kinds of strategy. But because less tactical/micro mistakes are made and play is nearer to perfect, there is deeper strategy. This means that you don't need to be that good to get a deep strategical game either. The game itself doesn't change.
But with a slower speed, some strategies that are viable now will no longer be viable as they are easily defended/countered.
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On May 06 2008 05:59 Doctorasul wrote: I want Blizzard to invest 0.00001% of the profit they'll get in the first week after the SC2 launch and buy PCGamer magazine, then make Dan play a game vs a regular SCer on slowest. If he can't win with his brilliant strategies vs a mere click-fester he gets kicked in the nuts and thrown in the street, never to be seen in the world of journalism again.
I dunno dude. If I was put in that position, I may GG out when I realize that what coulda been a 5-pool->game ending is still my first drone coming back with its first 8 minerals...who would have the patience for that after playing on fastest for so long?
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I cant find this thread on their new forums
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Take some perspective, people. Act like you haven't been playing starcraft for years and that you don't know BO's and counters like the back of your hand. Remember when you first played starcraft? I do. And I sure as hell know that I didn't play it on fastest because that speed was crazy.
Give him a break and stop being so superior.
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It feels like he doesn't know what Real Time Strategy (RTS) means. If you like slow strategic games, there are plenty of great Turn Based Strategy (TBS) games out there.
Most Starcraft players want BOTH strategy and hand dexterity to matter.
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On May 06 2008 11:41 TheOvermind77 wrote: Remember when you first played starcraft?
Ok
On May 06 2008 11:41 TheOvermind77 wrote: And I sure as hell know that I didn't play it on fastest because that speed was crazy.
Not me
On May 06 2008 11:41 TheOvermind77 wrote: Give him a break and stop being so superior.
I think when any journalist writes an article, especially about a topic they're so inept with, they should expect all kinds of criticism. He knows it comes with the job, we're allowed to keep being 'so superior' and he should deal with that because it's his job
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On May 06 2008 11:41 TheOvermind77 wrote: And I sure as hell know that I didn't play it on fastest because that speed was crazy. It's just you. I took a 4-5 yr break from SC (and I sucked before and after I came back) but I wouldn't dream of playing on any speed other than Fastest.
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On May 06 2008 11:41 TheOvermind77 wrote: Take some perspective, people. Act like you haven't been playing starcraft for years and that you don't know BO's and counters like the back of your hand. Remember when you first played starcraft? I do. And I sure as hell know that I didn't play it on fastest because that speed was crazy.
Give him a break and stop being so superior.
Same here 0.o When I started brood war I didn't even know about different speeds and always played the default one (fast or normal... don't remember). It was not until I lanned with my friend and he said to change the speed to fastest, then everything was so quick 0.o.
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On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board.
I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top.
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On May 06 2008 12:18 prOxi.swAMi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 11:41 TheOvermind77 wrote: Give him a break and stop being so superior.
I think when any journalist writes an article, especially about a topic they're so inept with, they should expect all kinds of criticism. He knows it comes with the job, we're allowed to keep being 'so superior' and he should deal with that because it's his job
theeeeeeeeeey toooooooooooooook aaarrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeee joooooooooooooobs
sorry; just had to say it.
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On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top.
I believe the actual posts proving your point are your own. You ignore 95% of the posts that use logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner, and instead focus on the more ill-tempered bandwagon style of posts. You then make generalized statements on how negative all of this thread is by focusing on this one person's post.
My suggestion is read the more developed arguments, think about whether you can make a competent counter argument, and then make it. Otherwise, do like the rest of the world and ignore these few posts. The consequence is you are not participating in the discussion, but adding to that 5% of the posts we get to ignore.
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On May 06 2008 13:32 Showtime! wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 12:18 prOxi.swAMi wrote:On May 06 2008 11:41 TheOvermind77 wrote: Give him a break and stop being so superior.
I think when any journalist writes an article, especially about a topic they're so inept with, they should expect all kinds of criticism. He knows it comes with the job, we're allowed to keep being 'so superior' and he should deal with that because it's his job theeeeeeeeeey toooooooooooooook aaarrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeee joooooooooooooobs sorry; just had to say it.
not sure i follow... but WELL DONE!
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On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top.
Well, people can't attack your actual arguments, because you presented no actual arguments whatsoever. I hope this isn't too complex for you, I really do.
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On May 06 2008 13:41 yare wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. I believe the actual posts proving your point are your own. You ignore 95% of the posts that use logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner, and instead focus on the more ill-tempered bandwagon style of posts. You then make generalized statements on how negative all of this thread is by focusing on this one person's post. My suggestion is read the more developed arguments, think about whether you can make a competent counter argument, and then make it. Otherwise, do like the rest of the world and ignore these few posts. The consequence is you are not participating in the discussion, but adding to that 5% of the posts we get to ignore.
While I know that you made up the 95% - 5%-figures on the spot - I must point out that this is an exaggeration which heavily distorts the validity of your post.95-5 is equivalent 19-1, meaning that I should be able to find only one ill-tempered bandwagon style of post per page, with the rest of the posts using logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner. This thread begins as a flamefest that then somehow evolves into a more mature discussion.
My thoughts about game speed and strategy: First of all, I would rather see StarCraft II with only one speed setting. I'm afraid that dividing people into different rule sets will potentially split the community in the long run and I feel that the benefits of multiple speed settings do not overcome the drawbacks.
Having stated that, I would like to address some of Dan's points. What happens to strategy as you increase the game speed? All players have a threshold somewhere, increasing the game speed beyond this threshold makes the game almost unplayable.
For new players, starting playing at Fastest can feel overwhelming. You struggle to control your units, train units and workers, expanding, teching and scouting. If time is to be considered a resource, which is a good analogy for StarCraft, then a new player is surely losing time with every move she makes. For a new player, this time adds up quickly and as it does it builds up a mountain of frustration. If the game is played on a high enough speed setting, the player might struggle to to perform even basic actions - like producing workers or scouting. And that further adds to the frustration.
In this setting, an inexperienced player will feel that strategy is thrown out the window. She is forced to use all of her mental capacity and dexterity just to stay afloat, to stay alive. This applies regardless of the skill level of her opponent. She will not feel that she can keep up worker production, scouting, expanding, teching and producing units. Regardless of whether she wins the game or not, the end result will be determined by whomever made the least amount of mistakes - not who played best.
Now, as her skill with the game improves, she will (hopefully) become more proficient with most aspects of the game. Thus losing less time on each action and over time coming to the point where she doesn't feel that the game is one of constant stress to manage basic things like unit production and base management. This is what her aim is. To reach a calm where she will be able to be so proficient in controlling everything that she will have time for other things - like thinking about what to build to counter what, how best to harass the opponent or when to time her expansions.
There are a couple of problems with this. 1) Her dream scenario is a fallacy - if she's playing to win she will never achieve the calm she's looking for. She will always find something more to do and scramble to have time to do it. 2) Strategy on the fly - inexperienced players often overestimate their ability to form strategies on the fly. More often than not, strategies formed on the fly are ill thought up and simply not effective. These are the strategies applied when caught by surprise by an unexpected strategy - most players will indeed need some time to think of a proper counter strategy for such unexpected strategies and some further games to perfect the timing of the counter strategies. However, this approach demands that you think of your game plan over several games and not as one game at a time.
Now, say she isn't necessarily playing to become the best. Then she will still probably feel that reaching the calm - making the game less stressful - is a prerequisite for fun. This calm would indeed be easier to reach where the game speed slower.
The challenge for Blizzard is to design a game where inexperienced casual players can become proficient enough with the game mechanics, given the game speed, that they feel that they are actually playing a strategic and tactical game - not just fighting to keep life support going. While at the same time assuring that no matter what, playing faster equals playing better.
To meet this challenge, Blizzard will be forced to simplify the UI - while introducing macro heavy new mechanics with great risk/reward. Thus making it easier for new players to feel that they're actually playing the game, but harder for those who are playing to win to play perfectly. At present time, sadly their efforts doing the former exceed their efforts doing the latter.
On May 06 2008 14:32 lololol wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. Well, people can't attack your actual arguments, because you presented none. I hope this isn't too complex for you, I really do. But all good StarCraft players know that not attacking is no option in the long run, right?
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On May 06 2008 15:36 InterWill wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 13:41 yare wrote:On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. I believe the actual posts proving your point are your own. You ignore 95% of the posts that use logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner, and instead focus on the more ill-tempered bandwagon style of posts. You then make generalized statements on how negative all of this thread is by focusing on this one person's post. My suggestion is read the more developed arguments, think about whether you can make a competent counter argument, and then make it. Otherwise, do like the rest of the world and ignore these few posts. The consequence is you are not participating in the discussion, but adding to that 5% of the posts we get to ignore. While I know that you made up the 95% - 5%-figures on the spot - I must point out that this is an exaggeration which heavily distorts the validity of your post.95-5 is equivalent 19-1, meaning that I should be able to find only one ill-tempered bandwagon style of post per page, with the rest of the posts using logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner. This thread begins as a flamefest that then somehow evolves into a more mature discussion. My thoughts about game speed and strategy: First of all, I would rather see StarCraft II with only one speed setting. I'm afraid that dividing people into different rule sets will potentially split the community in the long run and I feel that the benefits of multiple speed settings do not overcome the drawbacks. Having stated that, I would like to address some of Dan's points. What happens to strategy as you increase the game speed? All players have a threshold somewhere, increasing the game speed beyond this threshold makes the game almost unplayable. For new players, starting playing at Fastest can feel overwhelming. You struggle to control your units, train units and workers, expanding, teching and scouting. If time is to be considered a resource, which is a good analogy for StarCraft, then a new player is surely losing time with every move she makes. For a new player, this time adds up quickly and as it does it builds up a mountain of frustration. If the game is played on a high enough speed setting, the player might struggle to to perform even basic actions - like producing workers or scouting. And that further adds to the frustration. In this setting, an inexperienced player will feel that strategy is thrown out the window. She is forced to use all of her mental capacity and dexterity just to stay afloat, to stay alive. This applies regardless of the skill level of her opponent. She will not feel that she can keep up worker production, scouting, expanding, teching and producing units. Regardless of whether she wins the game or not, the end result will be determined by whomever made the least amount of mistakes - not who played best. Now, as her skill with the game improves, she will (hopefully) become more proficient with most aspects of the game. Thus losing less time on each action and over time coming to the point where she doesn't feel that the game is one of constant stress to manage basic things like unit production and base management. This is what her aim is. To reach a calm where she will be able to be so proficient in controlling everything that she will have time for other things - like thinking about what to build to counter what, how best to harass the opponent or when to time her expansions. There are a couple of problems with this. 1) Her dream scenario is a fallacy - if she's playing to win she will never achieve the calm she's looking for. She will always find something more to do and scramble to have time to do it. 2) Strategy on the fly - inexperienced players often overestimate their ability to form strategies on the fly. More often than not, strategies formed on the fly are ill thought up and simply not effective. These are the strategies applied when caught by surprise by an unexpected strategy - most players will indeed need some time to think of a proper counter strategy for such unexpected strategies and some further games to perfect the timing of the counter strategies. However, this approach demands that you think of your game plan over several games and not as one game at a time. Now, say she isn't necessarily playing to become the best. Then she will still probably feel that reaching the calm - making the game less stressful - is a prerequisite for fun. This calm would indeed be easier to reach where the game speed slower. The challenge for Blizzard is to design a game where inexperienced casual players can become proficient enough with the game mechanics, given the game speed, that they feel that they are actually playing a strategic and tactical game - not just fighting to keep life support going. While at the same time assuring that no matter what, playing faster equals playing better. To meet this challenge, Blizzard will be forced to simplify the UI - while introducing macro heavy new mechanics with great risk/reward. Thus making it easier for new players to feel that they're actually playing the game, but harder for those who are playing to win to play perfectly. At present time, sadly their efforts doing the former exceed their efforts doing the latter. Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 14:32 lololol wrote:On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. Well, people can't attack your actual arguments, because you presented none. I hope this isn't too complex for you, I really do. But all good StarCraft players know that not attacking is no option in the long run, right? Like it has been said before. This game is not ONLY about strategy. It's about strategy AND physical hand dexterity. Any new player, regardless of skill level, will and should need both to win against equally skilled players. RTS = Real Time Strategy. Speed is what differ this genre from TBS = Turn Based Strategy (aka. chess). Anyways speed is only meaningful relative to your opponent - there is no exception to this. If you're so slow to the point that you take 10min to build 4 zerglings it won't matter against an enemy who is just as slow and takes 10min to build 1 zealot, and you'll still need the same ratio of speed/strategy at any level.
So if you're a new player who just feels like the speed is overwhelming and wanted to use more strategy instead of speed then you're just playing the wrong game. Speed SHOULD matter at ANY skill level.
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On May 06 2008 15:36 InterWill wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 13:41 yare wrote:On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. I believe the actual posts proving your point are your own. You ignore 95% of the posts that use logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner, and instead focus on the more ill-tempered bandwagon style of posts. You then make generalized statements on how negative all of this thread is by focusing on this one person's post. My suggestion is read the more developed arguments, think about whether you can make a competent counter argument, and then make it. Otherwise, do like the rest of the world and ignore these few posts. The consequence is you are not participating in the discussion, but adding to that 5% of the posts we get to ignore. While I know that you made up the 95% - 5%-figures on the spot - I must point out that this is an exaggeration which heavily distorts the validity of your post.95-5 is equivalent 19-1, meaning that I should be able to find only one ill-tempered bandwagon style of post per page, with the rest of the posts using logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner. This thread begins as a flamefest that then somehow evolves into a more mature discussion. My thoughts about game speed and strategy: First of all, I would rather see StarCraft II with only one speed setting. I'm afraid that dividing people into different rule sets will potentially split the community in the long run and I feel that the benefits of multiple speed settings do not overcome the drawbacks. Having stated that, I would like to address some of Dan's points. What happens to strategy as you increase the game speed? All players have a threshold somewhere, increasing the game speed beyond this threshold makes the game almost unplayable. For new players, starting playing at Fastest can feel overwhelming. You struggle to control your units, train units and workers, expanding, teching and scouting. If time is to be considered a resource, which is a good analogy for StarCraft, then a new player is surely losing time with every move she makes. For a new player, this time adds up quickly and as it does it builds up a mountain of frustration. If the game is played on a high enough speed setting, the player might struggle to to perform even basic actions - like producing workers or scouting. And that further adds to the frustration. In this setting, an inexperienced player will feel that strategy is thrown out the window. She is forced to use all of her mental capacity and dexterity just to stay afloat, to stay alive. This applies regardless of the skill level of her opponent. She will not feel that she can keep up worker production, scouting, expanding, teching and producing units. Regardless of whether she wins the game or not, the end result will be determined by whomever made the least amount of mistakes - not who played best. Now, as her skill with the game improves, she will (hopefully) become more proficient with most aspects of the game. Thus losing less time on each action and over time coming to the point where she doesn't feel that the game is one of constant stress to manage basic things like unit production and base management. This is what her aim is. To reach a calm where she will be able to be so proficient in controlling everything that she will have time for other things - like thinking about what to build to counter what, how best to harass the opponent or when to time her expansions. There are a couple of problems with this. 1) Her dream scenario is a fallacy - if she's playing to win she will never achieve the calm she's looking for. She will always find something more to do and scramble to have time to do it. 2) Strategy on the fly - inexperienced players often overestimate their ability to form strategies on the fly. More often than not, strategies formed on the fly are ill thought up and simply not effective. These are the strategies applied when caught by surprise by an unexpected strategy - most players will indeed need some time to think of a proper counter strategy for such unexpected strategies and some further games to perfect the timing of the counter strategies. However, this approach demands that you think of your game plan over several games and not as one game at a time. Now, say she isn't necessarily playing to become the best. Then she will still probably feel that reaching the calm - making the game less stressful - is a prerequisite for fun. This calm would indeed be easier to reach where the game speed slower. The challenge for Blizzard is to design a game where inexperienced casual players can become proficient enough with the game mechanics, given the game speed, that they feel that they are actually playing a strategic and tactical game - not just fighting to keep life support going. While at the same time assuring that no matter what, playing faster equals playing better. To meet this challenge, Blizzard will be forced to simplify the UI - while introducing macro heavy new mechanics with great risk/reward. Thus making it easier for new players to feel that they're actually playing the game, but harder for those who are playing to win to play perfectly. At present time, sadly their efforts doing the former exceed their efforts doing the latter. Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 14:32 lololol wrote:On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. Well, people can't attack your actual arguments, because you presented none. I hope this isn't too complex for you, I really do. But all good StarCraft players know that not attacking is no option in the long run, right? You've only addressed the fact that mechanics are important in Starcraft. It's true that as the speed increases, mechanics becomes more difficult. However, the amount of strategy in the game remains similar at both normal and fastest speeds! This is why Dan is totally wrong. He incorrectly assumes that the actual strategical depth of the game is decreased because the player doesn't have enough time to think (i.e. speed chess).
No, there is in fact plenty of time to think and adapt to your opponent, because you don't come out with strategies on the fly. You enter the match prepared, armed with BO's, timings, counters, etc (much like any general), from info gained from replays, articles, past experience and so on.
Dan wants to play a game like Sins of a Solar Empire or a TBS, not Starcraft. But instead of seeing where the fault lies and stating that his own preferences are at issue here, he goes on to write a whiny article claiming that the game has NO strategy in it and that everyone else is playing the game wrong. This is why his article is complete garbage, unprofessional and totally deserves this shit storm from SC players.
It's true that proportionally, mechanics become more important as speed increases, but that's part of what made SC so successful as an R-T-S and an eSport. This is what made SC so intense and exciting to play. This only increases the skill requirements overall and expanded the skill range, especially at the pro level.
Maybe if you read our arguments properly, you would've been able to figure all of this out without me having to explain it again.
I do however, share your concerns about making the new player feel comfortable in the game, so I really do hope they end up finding a balance in the UI somewhere that allows for both user-friendliness and intense requirements for the absolute best. It feels like you're trying to inject MBS into this discussion into again. I really don't want to touch this with a 10-foot pole, but I do think that some form of improved system will be necessary in SC2.
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On May 06 2008 17:04 teamsolid wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 15:36 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 13:41 yare wrote:On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. I believe the actual posts proving your point are your own. You ignore 95% of the posts that use logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner, and instead focus on the more ill-tempered bandwagon style of posts. You then make generalized statements on how negative all of this thread is by focusing on this one person's post. My suggestion is read the more developed arguments, think about whether you can make a competent counter argument, and then make it. Otherwise, do like the rest of the world and ignore these few posts. The consequence is you are not participating in the discussion, but adding to that 5% of the posts we get to ignore. While I know that you made up the 95% - 5%-figures on the spot - I must point out that this is an exaggeration which heavily distorts the validity of your post.95-5 is equivalent 19-1, meaning that I should be able to find only one ill-tempered bandwagon style of post per page, with the rest of the posts using logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner. This thread begins as a flamefest that then somehow evolves into a more mature discussion. My thoughts about game speed and strategy: First of all, I would rather see StarCraft II with only one speed setting. I'm afraid that dividing people into different rule sets will potentially split the community in the long run and I feel that the benefits of multiple speed settings do not overcome the drawbacks. Having stated that, I would like to address some of Dan's points. What happens to strategy as you increase the game speed? All players have a threshold somewhere, increasing the game speed beyond this threshold makes the game almost unplayable. For new players, starting playing at Fastest can feel overwhelming. You struggle to control your units, train units and workers, expanding, teching and scouting. If time is to be considered a resource, which is a good analogy for StarCraft, then a new player is surely losing time with every move she makes. For a new player, this time adds up quickly and as it does it builds up a mountain of frustration. If the game is played on a high enough speed setting, the player might struggle to to perform even basic actions - like producing workers or scouting. And that further adds to the frustration. In this setting, an inexperienced player will feel that strategy is thrown out the window. She is forced to use all of her mental capacity and dexterity just to stay afloat, to stay alive. This applies regardless of the skill level of her opponent. She will not feel that she can keep up worker production, scouting, expanding, teching and producing units. Regardless of whether she wins the game or not, the end result will be determined by whomever made the least amount of mistakes - not who played best. Now, as her skill with the game improves, she will (hopefully) become more proficient with most aspects of the game. Thus losing less time on each action and over time coming to the point where she doesn't feel that the game is one of constant stress to manage basic things like unit production and base management. This is what her aim is. To reach a calm where she will be able to be so proficient in controlling everything that she will have time for other things - like thinking about what to build to counter what, how best to harass the opponent or when to time her expansions. There are a couple of problems with this. 1) Her dream scenario is a fallacy - if she's playing to win she will never achieve the calm she's looking for. She will always find something more to do and scramble to have time to do it. 2) Strategy on the fly - inexperienced players often overestimate their ability to form strategies on the fly. More often than not, strategies formed on the fly are ill thought up and simply not effective. These are the strategies applied when caught by surprise by an unexpected strategy - most players will indeed need some time to think of a proper counter strategy for such unexpected strategies and some further games to perfect the timing of the counter strategies. However, this approach demands that you think of your game plan over several games and not as one game at a time. Now, say she isn't necessarily playing to become the best. Then she will still probably feel that reaching the calm - making the game less stressful - is a prerequisite for fun. This calm would indeed be easier to reach where the game speed slower. The challenge for Blizzard is to design a game where inexperienced casual players can become proficient enough with the game mechanics, given the game speed, that they feel that they are actually playing a strategic and tactical game - not just fighting to keep life support going. While at the same time assuring that no matter what, playing faster equals playing better. To meet this challenge, Blizzard will be forced to simplify the UI - while introducing macro heavy new mechanics with great risk/reward. Thus making it easier for new players to feel that they're actually playing the game, but harder for those who are playing to win to play perfectly. At present time, sadly their efforts doing the former exceed their efforts doing the latter. On May 06 2008 14:32 lololol wrote:On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. Well, people can't attack your actual arguments, because you presented none. I hope this isn't too complex for you, I really do. But all good StarCraft players know that not attacking is no option in the long run, right? You've only addressed the fact that mechanics are important in Starcraft. It's true that as the speed increases, mechanics becomes more difficult. However, the amount of strategy in the game remains similar at both normal and fastest speeds! However, Dan incorrectly assumes the actual strategical depth of the game is decreased because the player doesn't have enough time to think (i.e. speed chess). No, there is in fact plenty of time to think and adapt to your opponent, again because you don't come out with strategies on the fly. You enter the match prepared, armed with BO's, timings, counters, etc (much like any general), from info gained from replays, articles, past experience and so on. Dan wants to play a game like Sins of a Solar Empire or a TBS, not Starcraft. But instead of seeing where the fault lies and stating that his own preferences are at issue here, he goes on to write a whiny article claiming that the game has NO strategy in it and that everyone else is playing the game wrong. This is why his article is complete garbage, unprofessional and totally deserves this shit storm from SC players. It's true that proportionally, mechanics become more important as speed increases, but that's part of what made SC so successful as an R-T-S and an eSport. This is what made SC so intense and exciting to play. This only increases the skill requirements overall and expanded the skill range, especially at the pro level. Maybe if you read our arguments properly, you would've been able to figure all of this out without me having to explain it again. I do however, share your concerns about making the new player feel comfortable in the game, so I really do hope they end up finding a balance in the UI somewhere that allows for both user-friendliness and intense requirements for the absolute best. It feels like you're trying to inject MBS into this discussion into again. I really don't want to touch this with a 10-foot pole, but I do think that some form of improved system will be necessary in SC2.
Case closed GG noRE
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On May 06 2008 16:17 VIB wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 15:36 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 13:41 yare wrote:On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. I believe the actual posts proving your point are your own. You ignore 95% of the posts that use logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner, and instead focus on the more ill-tempered bandwagon style of posts. You then make generalized statements on how negative all of this thread is by focusing on this one person's post. My suggestion is read the more developed arguments, think about whether you can make a competent counter argument, and then make it. Otherwise, do like the rest of the world and ignore these few posts. The consequence is you are not participating in the discussion, but adding to that 5% of the posts we get to ignore. While I know that you made up the 95% - 5%-figures on the spot - I must point out that this is an exaggeration which heavily distorts the validity of your post.95-5 is equivalent 19-1, meaning that I should be able to find only one ill-tempered bandwagon style of post per page, with the rest of the posts using logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner. This thread begins as a flamefest that then somehow evolves into a more mature discussion. My thoughts about game speed and strategy: First of all, I would rather see StarCraft II with only one speed setting. I'm afraid that dividing people into different rule sets will potentially split the community in the long run and I feel that the benefits of multiple speed settings do not overcome the drawbacks. Having stated that, I would like to address some of Dan's points. What happens to strategy as you increase the game speed? All players have a threshold somewhere, increasing the game speed beyond this threshold makes the game almost unplayable. For new players, starting playing at Fastest can feel overwhelming. You struggle to control your units, train units and workers, expanding, teching and scouting. If time is to be considered a resource, which is a good analogy for StarCraft, then a new player is surely losing time with every move she makes. For a new player, this time adds up quickly and as it does it builds up a mountain of frustration. If the game is played on a high enough speed setting, the player might struggle to to perform even basic actions - like producing workers or scouting. And that further adds to the frustration. In this setting, an inexperienced player will feel that strategy is thrown out the window. She is forced to use all of her mental capacity and dexterity just to stay afloat, to stay alive. This applies regardless of the skill level of her opponent. She will not feel that she can keep up worker production, scouting, expanding, teching and producing units. Regardless of whether she wins the game or not, the end result will be determined by whomever made the least amount of mistakes - not who played best. Now, as her skill with the game improves, she will (hopefully) become more proficient with most aspects of the game. Thus losing less time on each action and over time coming to the point where she doesn't feel that the game is one of constant stress to manage basic things like unit production and base management. This is what her aim is. To reach a calm where she will be able to be so proficient in controlling everything that she will have time for other things - like thinking about what to build to counter what, how best to harass the opponent or when to time her expansions. There are a couple of problems with this. 1) Her dream scenario is a fallacy - if she's playing to win she will never achieve the calm she's looking for. She will always find something more to do and scramble to have time to do it. 2) Strategy on the fly - inexperienced players often overestimate their ability to form strategies on the fly. More often than not, strategies formed on the fly are ill thought up and simply not effective. These are the strategies applied when caught by surprise by an unexpected strategy - most players will indeed need some time to think of a proper counter strategy for such unexpected strategies and some further games to perfect the timing of the counter strategies. However, this approach demands that you think of your game plan over several games and not as one game at a time. Now, say she isn't necessarily playing to become the best. Then she will still probably feel that reaching the calm - making the game less stressful - is a prerequisite for fun. This calm would indeed be easier to reach where the game speed slower. The challenge for Blizzard is to design a game where inexperienced casual players can become proficient enough with the game mechanics, given the game speed, that they feel that they are actually playing a strategic and tactical game - not just fighting to keep life support going. While at the same time assuring that no matter what, playing faster equals playing better. To meet this challenge, Blizzard will be forced to simplify the UI - while introducing macro heavy new mechanics with great risk/reward. Thus making it easier for new players to feel that they're actually playing the game, but harder for those who are playing to win to play perfectly. At present time, sadly their efforts doing the former exceed their efforts doing the latter. On May 06 2008 14:32 lololol wrote:On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. Well, people can't attack your actual arguments, because you presented none. I hope this isn't too complex for you, I really do. But all good StarCraft players know that not attacking is no option in the long run, right? Like it has been said before. This game is not ONLY about strategy. It's about strategy AND physical hand dexterity. Any new player, regardless of skill level, will and should need both to win against equally skilled players. RTS = Real Time Strategy. Speed is what differ this genre from TBS = Turn Based Strategy (aka. chess). Anyways speed is only meaningful relative to your opponent - there is no exception to this. If you're so slow to the point that you take 10min to build 4 zerglings it won't matter against an enemy who is just as slow and takes 10min to build 1 zealot, and you'll still need the same ratio of speed/strategy at any level. So if you're a new player who just feels like the speed is overwhelming and wanted to use more strategy instead of speed then you're just playing the wrong game. Speed SHOULD matter at ANY skill level. I never claimed StarCraft to be about only strategy. I never claimed Starcraft not to be about both strategy and physical hand dexterity. I am aware that the R and T in RTS stand for Real Time. I do not agree with your notion that what differs TBS from RTS is speed. In TBS games your actions are divided in discreet turns, while your actions are taking place in continuous time in RTS games. The speed at which you are forced to act is independent on whether the game is an RTS or an TBS, but rather on how fast the game is paced (be it by the game speed in an RTS or the time you have to make a turn in a TBS). I also disagree with your opinion that speed only is meaningful relative to your opponent, without exception. For players playing at speeds exceeding the threshold of what they're capable of, the speed itself will affect their game play in such a way that they might feel that they cannot muster the mental and physical agility to even play the game. I disagree with your opinion that players who feel overwhelmed by the speed should simply try to find a different game - I believe that Blizzard instead should try to cater to these people (not at the expense of eSport potential though) and try to make a great game more accessible for more players.
On May 06 2008 17:04 teamsolid wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 15:36 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 13:41 yare wrote:On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. I believe the actual posts proving your point are your own. You ignore 95% of the posts that use logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner, and instead focus on the more ill-tempered bandwagon style of posts. You then make generalized statements on how negative all of this thread is by focusing on this one person's post. My suggestion is read the more developed arguments, think about whether you can make a competent counter argument, and then make it. Otherwise, do like the rest of the world and ignore these few posts. The consequence is you are not participating in the discussion, but adding to that 5% of the posts we get to ignore. While I know that you made up the 95% - 5%-figures on the spot - I must point out that this is an exaggeration which heavily distorts the validity of your post.95-5 is equivalent 19-1, meaning that I should be able to find only one ill-tempered bandwagon style of post per page, with the rest of the posts using logical statements to develop arguments in a productive manner. This thread begins as a flamefest that then somehow evolves into a more mature discussion. My thoughts about game speed and strategy: First of all, I would rather see StarCraft II with only one speed setting. I'm afraid that dividing people into different rule sets will potentially split the community in the long run and I feel that the benefits of multiple speed settings do not overcome the drawbacks. Having stated that, I would like to address some of Dan's points. What happens to strategy as you increase the game speed? All players have a threshold somewhere, increasing the game speed beyond this threshold makes the game almost unplayable. For new players, starting playing at Fastest can feel overwhelming. You struggle to control your units, train units and workers, expanding, teching and scouting. If time is to be considered a resource, which is a good analogy for StarCraft, then a new player is surely losing time with every move she makes. For a new player, this time adds up quickly and as it does it builds up a mountain of frustration. If the game is played on a high enough speed setting, the player might struggle to to perform even basic actions - like producing workers or scouting. And that further adds to the frustration. In this setting, an inexperienced player will feel that strategy is thrown out the window. She is forced to use all of her mental capacity and dexterity just to stay afloat, to stay alive. This applies regardless of the skill level of her opponent. She will not feel that she can keep up worker production, scouting, expanding, teching and producing units. Regardless of whether she wins the game or not, the end result will be determined by whomever made the least amount of mistakes - not who played best. Now, as her skill with the game improves, she will (hopefully) become more proficient with most aspects of the game. Thus losing less time on each action and over time coming to the point where she doesn't feel that the game is one of constant stress to manage basic things like unit production and base management. This is what her aim is. To reach a calm where she will be able to be so proficient in controlling everything that she will have time for other things - like thinking about what to build to counter what, how best to harass the opponent or when to time her expansions. There are a couple of problems with this. 1) Her dream scenario is a fallacy - if she's playing to win she will never achieve the calm she's looking for. She will always find something more to do and scramble to have time to do it. 2) Strategy on the fly - inexperienced players often overestimate their ability to form strategies on the fly. More often than not, strategies formed on the fly are ill thought up and simply not effective. These are the strategies applied when caught by surprise by an unexpected strategy - most players will indeed need some time to think of a proper counter strategy for such unexpected strategies and some further games to perfect the timing of the counter strategies. However, this approach demands that you think of your game plan over several games and not as one game at a time. Now, say she isn't necessarily playing to become the best. Then she will still probably feel that reaching the calm - making the game less stressful - is a prerequisite for fun. This calm would indeed be easier to reach where the game speed slower. The challenge for Blizzard is to design a game where inexperienced casual players can become proficient enough with the game mechanics, given the game speed, that they feel that they are actually playing a strategic and tactical game - not just fighting to keep life support going. While at the same time assuring that no matter what, playing faster equals playing better. To meet this challenge, Blizzard will be forced to simplify the UI - while introducing macro heavy new mechanics with great risk/reward. Thus making it easier for new players to feel that they're actually playing the game, but harder for those who are playing to win to play perfectly. At present time, sadly their efforts doing the former exceed their efforts doing the latter. On May 06 2008 14:32 lololol wrote:On May 06 2008 13:30 InterWill wrote:On May 06 2008 04:37 LetMeBeWithYou wrote: InterWill is the most retarded person to pretend to be smart.
Quit posting, dickhead. Well played. The sarcasm is truly brutal on this board. I get it, you want to prove my point - that some people will go to great lengths to attack the person rather than their actual arguments - but while your aim is spot on, your choice of vocabulary feels a bit over the top. Well, people can't attack your actual arguments, because you presented none. I hope this isn't too complex for you, I really do. But all good StarCraft players know that not attacking is no option in the long run, right? You've only addressed the fact that mechanics are important in Starcraft. It's true that as the speed increases, mechanics becomes more difficult. However, the amount of strategy in the game remains similar at both normal and fastest speeds! This is why Dan's article is complete garbage and deserves this shit storm from SC players. He incorrectly assumes the actual strategical depth of the game is decreased because the player doesn't have enough time to think (i.e. speed chess). No, there is plenty of time to adapt to your opponent, again because you don't come out with strategies on the fly. You enter the match prepared, armed with BO's, timings, counters, and so on from info gained from replays, articles, past experience and so on. Dan wants to play a game like Sins of a Solar Empire or a TBS, not Starcraft. But instead of seeing where the fault lies and stating that its his own preferences at issue here, he goes on to write an article claim that the game has NO strategy in it and that everyone else is playing the game wrong.It's true that proportionally, mechanics become more important as speed increases, but that's part of what made SC so successful as an R-T-S. This is what made SC so intense and exciting to play. This only increases the skill requirements overall and expanded the skill range, especially at the pro level. Maybe if you read our arguments properly, you would've been able to figure all of this out without me having to explain it again. I do however, share your concerns about making the new player feel comfortable in the game, so I really do hope they end up finding a balance in the UI somewhere that allows for both user-friendliness and intense requirements for the absolute best. It feels like you're trying to inject MBS into this discussion into again. I really don't want to touch this with a 10-foot pole, but I do think that some form of improved system will be necessary in SC2. Well, I disagree. While the amount of strategy in the game may remain similar to skilled players such as yourself at both normal and fastest speeds, this is clearly not the case for people like poor Dan!
The aim of his column is to voice his opinion and provoke discussion. Nowhere does he claim that his words are anything other than his opinion or that they should be taken as facts. In fact, he's only using StarCraft as an example in his column - stating that "At high speed, a game ceases to be..." and his comment about Min/maxers using excel is actually a general comment about to what lengths min/maxers generally go (see Elitist Jerks' class discussion forums for examples of such min/maxers). To him, the act of playing the game itself becomes so hard for him as the speed is increased that he cannot find time to even bother with the meta-game (the strategy part he claims to be thrown out the window).
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that StarCraft is a hard game. Further increasing the game speed just adds insult to injury for new players. This is what Dan is trying to get at. Saying that players aren't worthy, or that they should play another game, especially when a new game is under development is an odd reaction.
StarCraft is a great game. It very hard and unforgiving to get into - but a great game nonetheless. With a sequel in the making, shouldn't we listen to voices about why some people have a hard time to get into the game? Shouldn't we strive to make a game that, while being still being highly competitive, we could get our girlfriends to enjoy (not at the expense of eSport potential, mind you)?
On May 06 2008 17:04 teamsolid wrote: Maybe if you read our arguments properly, you would've been able to figure all of this out without me having to explain it again. I see this board is all about making friends.
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What the hell? You're rationalizing what Dan said into something completely different and you're assuming so many things about him. Did you even read his article? For the very last time, the fact that he can't think fast enough is NOT because of the "fastest speed". It's because HE is unfamiliar with even the most basic of strategy, BOs, timing, counters, etc.
What you wrote there is more like what YOU think about SC/SC2, which I also have many disagreements with. But I guess responding here in detail would be a complete waste of my time, because your attitude just screams elitist (aka, I'm more intelligent than the rest of the community, everyone else is wrong, etc).
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Like I said, even in chess he would be wrong.
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Well, I disagree. While the amount of strategy in the game may remain similar to skilled players such as yourself at both normal and fastest speeds, this is clearly not the case for people like poor Dan!
That's because he enters the game with no grasp of StarCraft strategy whatsoever and tries to figure everything out on the fly! No wonder he doesn't have time to think of everything. He should have everything analyzed before the game, and apply appriopriate solutions to his current situations, and improvise only if it's really needed.
And to be frank, he wouldn't be able to figure out any reasonable strategy with time constraint of 'normal' game speed either, unless he's analysis was VERY superficial...
The aim of his column is to voice his opinion and provoke discussion. Nowhere does he claim that his words are anything other than his opinion or that they should be taken as facts. In fact, he's only using StarCraft as an example in his column - stating that "At high speed, a game ceases to be..." and his comment about Min/maxers using excel is actually a general comment about to what lengths min/maxers generally go (see Elitist Jerks' class discussion forums for examples of such min/maxers). To him, the act of playing the game itself becomes so hard for him as the speed is increased that he cannot find time to even bother with the meta-game (the strategy part he claims to be thrown out the window).
If you've actually read his article and responses you'd notice that he never expected any of this. He just wanted PCG forum members to affirm him in his views and help him rationalize his horrible loss vs. LR.
He presented his opinions as facts. If you think otherwise, you're just blind.
"What's worse, though, is wthat when you're playing at that rate, you can go ahead and toss strategy out the window along with the realism. [b]Min/maxers (people who bust out Microsoft Excel to figure out how to build the strongest possible force with the minimum possible time/resource investment) make the real strategic value of many RTS games debatable at normal speeds, but when sped up to two or three or four times as fast, it's not even a questions. It's no longer about out-thinking your opponent and the big picture, it's about reflexes, rehearsal of a super effecient build order, and micromanaging individual unit movement and abilities-no higher-level thinking required."
Not only is he stating his biased opinions as facts, he's also backing them up with made-up stories like the one with Excel... He's essentially commenting on the degree of strategy involved when one's playing at that rate, which he himself is obviously not capable of...
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that StarCraft is a hard game. Further increasing the game speed just adds insult to injury for new players. This is what Dan is trying to get at. Saying that players aren't worthy, or that they should play another game, especially when a new game is under development is an odd reaction.
It's really a matter of playing an equally skilled player. Who said you have to keep up mechanics-wise in order to manage everything?
StarCraft is a great game. It very hard and unforgiving to get into - but a great game nonetheless. With a sequel in the making, shouldn't we listen to voices about why some people have a hard time to get into the game? Shouldn't we strive to make a game that, while being still being highly competitive, we could get our girlfriends to enjoy (not at the expense of eSport potential, mind you)?
I agree here.
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On May 06 2008 18:31 teamsolid wrote: What the hell? You're rationalizing what Dan said into something completely different and you're assuming so many things about him. Did you even read his article? For the very last time, the fact that he can't think fast enough is NOT because of the "fastest speed". It's because HE is unfamiliar with even the most basic of strategy, BOs, timing, counters, etc.
What you wrote there is more like what YOU think about SC/SC2, which I also have many disagreements with. But I guess responding here in detail would be a complete waste of my time, because your attitude just screams elitist (aka, I'm more intelligent than the rest of the community, everyone else is wrong, etc). Well, then we agree. With too few games to draw experience from, his difficulty with thinking fast enough is independent of the game speed, thus he would need to play some more games to familiarize himself with the game in order to claim that the speed itself is a hindrance to him. However, my general point about how increasing the game speed makes the mechanics themselves take up almost all the attention of new players still stands - and making it easier for new players could potentially make the beginning of the learning curve less brutal.
It saddens me when you accuse of not reading the arguments properly, rationalizing Dan's words into something completely different, not reading the article and being generally elitist. Granted, English isn't my native language so I'm not always aware if my choice of words is odd.
I have the uttermost respect for this board, which is why I take the time to try to write coherent posts here. Now, just to prove to you that I've read the article -let's find some quotes from it.
...I don't blame Blizzard in the slightest for giving its community what it wants (it's something the company does exceptionally well), but in my opinion, people who play RTS games at accelerated speeds are missing the point. (1)...
... At high speed, a game ceases to be a simulation of a real battlefield.(2)...
... What's worse, though, is wthat when you're playing at that rate, you can go ahead and toss strategy out the window along with the realism.(3) ...
...It's no longer about out-thinking your opponent and the big picture, it's about reflexes, rehearsal of a super effecient build order, and micromanaging individual unit movement and abilities-no higher-level thinking required.(4)...
Let's examine the bolded parts. (1) he clearly states that he is voicing his opinion. (2) he speak of "a game" - generalizing about games - not StarCraft in particular (3) he claims that when you're playing at very high speeds, strategy is tossed out the window (4) he claims that when you're playing at very high speeds it's not about the big picture but about reflexes and rehearsal of efficient build orders.
Now, it's hard to argue against (1). Clearly, the man should be entitled to an opinion. And I do not have much to say about (2).
(3) and (4) are more interesting. In previous posts, I have tried to argue that for new players or players with low skill, physically playing the game at high speeds can be so difficult that they have to sacrifice overall strategy because they have to focus on the more mechanical part of playing. I will stand by this claim, until provided with a convincing counter argument. Thus, for some players (3) can be said to be true (again, we're discussing Dan's opinions (1) here).
As for (4) - I think we can all agree that StarCraft is a game where "...reflexes, rehearsal of a super effecient build order, and micromanaging individual unit movement and abilities..." is important - the disagreement here is about whether or not high-level thinking, out-thinking the opponent and the big picture is part of the picture at higher game speeds. I would argue, again, that this is dependent on the skill and awareness level of the player in question and not something that holds true for everyone, everywhere, every time.
I do not understand why you should find the need to use harsh or derogatory language in response to my posts time and time again.
On May 06 2008 19:23 maybenexttime wrote: He presented his opinions as facts. If you think otherwise, you're just blind.
Not only is he stating his biased opinions as facts, he's also backing them up with made-up stories like the one with Excel... He's essentially commenting on the degree of strategy involved when one's playing at that rate, which he himself is obviously not capable of...
Again, referring to (1) - I would argue that he does in fact present his opinions as just that. Also, the Excel-comment could just as well have been a general comment about what certain people will do to get an advantage and not a StarCraft-specific example.
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What his opinion is is: "people who play RTS games at accelerated speeds are missing the point.".
Other things he states as facts.
Basically what he's saying is: 'People who play RTS games at accelerated speeds are [in my opinion] missing the point, because (fact) then you can throw stratgy out the window [and thus miss the S part of 'RTS', i.e. "miss the point"].'
So, no, he's not just stating his opinions.
Also no one's arguing that new/low skilled players have to sacrifice overall strategy. The point is that Dan claims that ALL players have to do that. The reason why new/low skilled players have to sacrifice overall strategy is mainly the fact that they enter the game with no idea of what they're supposed to be doing in-game - they want to figure out everything on the fly, which just doesn't work. What's also important is the fact that they're grasp of StarCraft strategy is close to none in the first place; they can't just magicaly learn in during the game, and in order to sacrifice it they'd first have to know it...
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You can't just say "I'm just expressing an opinion, so I can spout whatever nonsense I want". If an economist wrote an editorial in a magazine or if a scientist wrote an editorial about the current state of science, and the article contained huge factual inaccuracies, unresearched claims, made up stories and showed a clear lack of understanding of the topic, he would get fired, immediately. There has to be standards in journalism.
That's like saying "In my opinion, your mom is a slut." "Oh come on, I'm just stating my opinion, don't attack me!" No, when your "opinions" get published (and are stated as facts) and could influence millions of readers, that's not good enough. Furthermore, opinions most certainly can and often are completely wrong as they are in his case.
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InterWill is almost as bad as that Un-something German-guy.
Ugh, you say Blizzard should build the game with one speed option. Okay, fair enough. Look at Starcraft:Brood War genius. Pretty much everyone plays the same speed and it's fastest. Duh, everyone should know that unless you're from PCGamer ;P
They built the game with a lot of speeds in mind. The players chose fastest as the optimal speed. There is nothing wrong with playing 15 minute matches as that tends to be the average game length. I hated the fast setting they had when Blizzard had their own ladder. It was slow as hell and games took a lot longer.
We have more than enough empirical data on this, which is hard to refute.
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On May 06 2008 19:41 InterWill wrote: ...and making it easier for new players could potentially make the beginning of the learning curve less brutal. ....blablabla ....I have tried to argue that for new players or players with low skill, physically playing the game at high speeds can be so difficult that they have to sacrifice overall strategy because they have to focus on the more mechanical part of playing.....blablablabla
I don't know WTF is up with you but RTFA! What were you doing when you were copypasting the quotes? Dan never talked about learning curves for the newbies. In effect, your counter arguments' were not even counter arguments at all but a distraction for your refusal to admit defeat.
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Osaka26954 Posts
Letmebewithyou since when is posting like that acceptable?
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Osaka26954 Posts
Also just a few points for Will
My thoughts about game speed and strategy: First of all, I would rather see StarCraft II with only one speed setting. I'm afraid that dividing people into different rule sets will potentially split the community in the long run and I feel that the benefits of multiple speed settings do not overcome the drawbacks.
BW only has one speed, and it is fastest. 99.99% of games made on bnet are fastest, so there is no division of community here. Like all games, the community generally finds a series of agreed upon settings and maintains them.
For new players, starting playing at Fastest can feel overwhelming. You struggle to control your units, train units and workers, expanding, teching and scouting. If time is to be considered a resource, which is a good analogy for StarCraft, then a new player is surely losing time with every move she makes. For a new player, this time adds up quickly and as it does it builds up a mountain of frustration. If the game is played on a high enough speed setting, the player might struggle to to perform even basic actions - like producing workers or scouting. And that further adds to the frustration.
You are illustrating a beginner that seems to have all the knowledge of a seasoned player. The beginner does not struggle that much because they do not know they have to do all those things. Also, I think you overestimate the difficulty of speed here. Beginners are usually not new to computer games themselves, just to StarCraft. Their experience and physical abilities carry over from game to game.
Now, say she isn't necessarily playing to become the best. Then she will still probably feel that reaching the calm - making the game less stressful - is a prerequisite for fun. This calm would indeed be easier to reach where the game speed slower.
This is a huge assumption on your part. You are saying that calmness is the only way to play the game for fun, but all my experience in gaming says the opposite. Playing StarCraft is thrilling, and even hobbyists who play like to get a feeling of excitement, even if it is only by executing one sweet attack in an otherwise crushing defeat.
Just to put things in perspective, I am a below-average speed gamer. About 100 apm. There are many things in the game I cannot do, however, I am still able to execute strategy, move my armies, and win games based on cunning and skill. Speed limits me from being the best, but I have never ever felt frustration or felt that my strategical thinking was hindered because of it.
The author of this article was frustrated not because of speed, but because of a lack of knowledge about the game itself. The path to learning about the game is not through slower play, but through playing, talking, and sharing with others who play. This is the experience of the vast majority of gamers and 100% of the 30,000 members of this site (otherwise why else would they be here?) That environment, THIS environment on TL is what made StarCraft great.
Finally, simply, if his arguments were true, why has fastest become the universally accepted speed of BW? If slowing the game down for people, for beginners (who out number pros) why doesn't anyone play on it?
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MURICA15980 Posts
And take Mani's current quote for instance:
"Winner of the first ever StarCraft II 2v2 tournament; paired with Liquid`Meat"
A 100 APMer won that tournament. Obviously pure speed isn't the only thing that wins games, even on Starcraft II.
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On May 06 2008 19:58 maybenexttime wrote: What his opinion is is: "people who play RTS games at accelerated speeds are missing the point.".
Other things he states as facts.
Basically what he's saying is: 'People who play RTS games at accelerated speeds are [in my opinion] missing the point, because (fact) then you can throw stratgy out the window [and thus miss the S part of 'RTS', i.e. "miss the point"].'
So, no, he's not just stating his opinions.
Also no one's arguing that new/low skilled players have to sacrifice overall strategy. The point is that Dan claims that ALL players have to do that. The reason why new/low skilled players have to sacrifice overall strategy is mainly the fact that they enter the game with no idea of what they're supposed to be doing in-game - they want to figure out everything on the fly, which just doesn't work. What's also important is the fact that they're grasp of StarCraft strategy is close to none in the first place; they can't just magicaly learn in during the game, and in order to sacrifice it they'd first have to know it... Why do you take "because then you can throw strategy out the window" as fact? If he would have written: "People who read PC Gamer but not my column are missing the point, because that's where the interesting stuff is written" would you have taken the argument as fact or opinion?
Also, where is he claiming that "ALL players have to do that"?On May 06 2008 20:25 teamsolid wrote: You can't just say "I'm just expressing an opinion, so I can spout whatever nonsense I want". If an economist wrote an editorial in a magazine or if a scientist wrote an editorial about the current state of science, and the article contained huge factual inaccuracies, unresearched claims, made up stories and showed a clear lack of understanding of the topic, he would get fired, immediately. There has to be standards in journalism.
That's like saying "In my opinion, your mom is a slut." "Oh come on, I'm just stating my opinion, don't attack me!" No, when your "opinions" get published (and are stated as facts) and could influence millions of readers, that's not good enough. Furthermore, opinions most certainly can and often are completely wrong as they are in his case. For all but very skilled and dedicated people, his argument holds true. It might not hold true for this particular subset of players of a specific game in the RTS genre, but that isn't the claim Dan's making.
On May 06 2008 21:41 Showtime! wrote: InterWill is almost as bad as that Un-something German-guy.
Ugh, you say Blizzard should build the game with one speed option. Okay, fair enough. Look at Starcraft:Brood War genius. Pretty much everyone plays the same speed and it's fastest. Duh, everyone should know that unless you're from PCGamer ;P
They built the game with a lot of speeds in mind. The players chose fastest as the optimal speed. There is nothing wrong with playing 15 minute matches as that tends to be the average game length. I hated the fast setting they had when Blizzard had their own ladder. It was slow as hell and games took a lot longer.
We have more than enough empirical data on this, which is hard to refute. I know that "pretty much everyone plays the same speed and it's fastest" I also know that this wasn't always the case - that the game started out being played on fast. I also know that Blizzard chose to lock the game speed in Warcraft III and that they generally want to keep the amount of options for players at a minimum to make matchmaking easier (see Rob Pardo's GDC08 presentation).
The original StarCraft may have been built with different speeds in mind, but in reality few speeds are viable. And I agree that there's nothing wrong with 15 minute games, nor have I claimed anything else.
On May 06 2008 23:00 Aerox wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2008 19:41 InterWill wrote: ...and making it easier for new players could potentially make the beginning of the learning curve less brutal. ....blablabla ....I have tried to argue that for new players or players with low skill, physically playing the game at high speeds can be so difficult that they have to sacrifice overall strategy because they have to focus on the more mechanical part of playing.....blablablabla
I don't know WTF is up with you but RTFA! What were you doing when you were copypasting the quotes? Dan never talked about learning curves for the newbies. In effect, your counter arguments' were not even counter arguments at all but a distraction for your refusal to admit defeat. Oh, sir. I never claimed that Dan talked about learning curves for newbies - what I argued was that for newbies his arguments hold water.
@Manifesto7: Thank you for taking my posts seriously and not resorting to personal attacks. I know that many of the posters on this board feels my arguments are too ill thought out to even respond to, but the name calling should not be necessary on a board like this one.
Your points and arguments are valid, and expose the lack of accuracy in my choice of words. I can acknowledge that the game is an action RTS and that the hectic game play is one of the defining traits of StarCraft - that's not what I'm getting at. The calm I speak of was not meant to be taken at the player actually feeling calm, but rather reaching a point where the vast majority of actions are no longer done only in stressed panic. I'm not sure how to describe it, but it when you're no longer actually thinking "must build probe, must train zealot, must train zealot, must train zealot, must build probe, must build pylon, must OH SHIT..." but rather just going with the flow of the game.
Finally, about the game speed. If BW effectively only has one speed - why not lock it to that speed? If there would have been an even faster speed, that would probably be the speed at which we would be playing StarCraft at present day - and that would have made the game even harder to learn for new players.
The option of playing at a slower speed is used (playing games on faster give you the feeling of being a notch better at the game overall) - but [I believe that] the lower rungs of the speed ladder are not used because it differs too much from the way the game is played professionally.
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Blizzard never knew people would be playing at fastest. Ladder games were stuck on fast setting, and if there was only one setting (lower than fastest) SC would probably have never lasted as long as it has.
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MURICA15980 Posts
But making the game easier for entry is not an excuse to eliminate the importance of mechanics in any competitive activity. Auto-aim is turned off for shooters. For bowlers, the bumpers next to the gutters are taken down. The basketball hoop doesn't get any wider. The golf ball still needs to find the hole in X amount of strokes. The strike zone is still roughly between the knees and shoulders. You still cannot use your hands in soccer, even if you suck.
If anything, the mechanics are made even harder. The three-point line is moved further out for NBA, the tee-off start position is moved back in golf.
Sure, strategy should be a big part of an RTS like Starcraft. And frankly, we argue that it is. It is whether you make the game slow or fast. The only thing that changes when you change speed is the skills required in the mechanics of the game to keep up. And that, we are saying, is what makes the game fun.
I do acknowledge that making the mechanics TOO hard is no fun. If the strike zone were a mere 4x4 inch square, I'm sure people would just walk across the bases for free all the time. If the three-point line was at the half line while making the hoop much smaller and much higher, it would suck out a lot of the fun. If the goal for soccer was much smaller, we'd see a lot more 0-0 games. And if there were absolutely no hotkeying in Stracraft and you only had mouse-only, games would be so much less exciting.
Sometimes, mechanics need to be easier for the game to be fun. But they also need to be hard enough to be enjoyable at all levels. Sure, its hard to really enjoy a good game of tennis until you can start hitting the ball across the net at each other and start a reasonable rally, but it doesn't mean players who can't even make JV on the high school tennis team can't enjoy the sport - they'll probably have tons of fun just hitting it back and forth to each other, competing with each other who are at their own level. But it doesn't mean you have to make the game any easier, as the game is just fine and enjoyed by millions when it is played at Wimbledon.
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On May 05 2008 12:47 ShadowDrgn wrote: You guys are pretty ruthless, and 11 pages??
I don't think the min/maxers (that's us!) take the strategy out of RTS, we take the real-time part out. In any matchup, the number of strategies you can realistically use are so limited that decent players know them all and have counters prearranged. Strategy is created beforehand; the game is your time to execute that strategy. This isn't chess - there aren't so many possible move combinations that it's impossible to account for them all. It's a complete fallacy to think that a slower game speed is going to give you enough time to have a strategic epiphany in the middle of the game that leads to your victory. While that would indeed be very exciting, it's just not realistic among players with any experience with the game. Among newbies? They can play against each other on slower game settings if they need time to ponder their moves.
What you obliviously disregard is the tactical part, which is immensely large and decisive, and it is a combination of thinking + speedy execution.
Your rant about pre-made strategies has no solid point really, there are a number of major 'trends' or strategies, but they take place in each game with small variations which can lead to rather large discrepancies in late game. And it is normal to have pre-made strategies, they exist even in Chess (the difference between Chess and SC is that the tactical part is basically the same as the strategic part in chess, while in Starcraft they tend to be two different things)
Speed is needed for a Real Time Strategy game, because the motherfucker who can yell orders faster wins on the battlefield, if given even conditions.
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InterWill:
You are right that I did not actually sum the good posts and bad posts, but merely created a random proportion to signify your deficiency created from your only addressing posts that do not add to the content of this discussion. You have now added to the content of this discussion so you are now in the majority in this thread, good job.
I am interested in the foundations of your first thought about multiple speeds in SC2. As you are aware, SC1 has Slowest, Slower, Slow, Normal, Fast, Faster, and Fastest speed settings. I am unaware of any spit in the community along these lines. The only divisions I can find are limited minerals vs fastest style maps, competitive gaming vs casual gaming, melee style play vs UMS play, and head-to-head vs team game. The speed setting has no influence on any of these divisions. Furthermore, we can use battle.net's ladder as a counter example to your idea in that originally it had ONE fixed speed setting (Fast). Having this ONE fixed speed setting did cause a split in the community, and helped spur the creation of cloudmania/cloria ladder. So please describe how you came to this conclusion.
Your next point I can agree with on one level. There is a speed at which a game can become mechanically unplayable. However, mechanics are the "mindless clicking" Dan refers to, which is not to be confused with strategy. I believe you are muddling the concepts of game mechanics and strategy into the same concept which is not the case. A game mechanic would be a skill acquired in order to play a game, and the goal is the master to a level in which the action is second nature. In SC this would be ideas like hotkey structure, increasing APM to better coordinate attacks, individual unit micro, and so on. Other games also have specific mechanics such as strafing, bunny hoping, and a million others. You can go to www.speeddemosarchives.com and see the vast variety of game mechanics employed to beat games at speed. Strategy on the other hand while effected by a players game mechanics is a completely separate idea. Strategy is an underlying concept that a player uses to map out the general flow of the game. Much like an Olympic hurdler plans out his race, step step jump, step step jump, SC players design strategy to win a game. There are some excellent threads on the strategic evolutions in SC on this website, and I'm sure if you wish to read them somebody can find links for you. It is time for this confusion about game mechanics and strategy to cease as the crux of any argument since they are two independent concepts.
Your next paragraph goes to describe new players need a slower setting, but my memory extends long enough to recall your first point. There should only be one game setting. So drawing your true meaning, is it that the game should only be played at a level were the most incompetent player has adequate time to make decisions? Back when Tekken first came out in the arcades, and I had to look at my players little help picture to figure out moves, I never thought the speed of the game was the reason for my constant ability to lose. The truth is that if any player of a game feels unduly frustrated, have no means to gain necessary abilities to improve, or does not have an interest enough to improve that player might find a new game a better match for their interests. I know a lot of people love to play RPG's. I fit into 2 of the 3 areas I have listed, so I don't play RPG's. In summary, just because a company creates a game, everyone in the world does not have to love playing it.
Your next paragraph discusses how an inexperienced player will throw strategy out of a window. I believe this statement fails itself, in that an inexperienced player has not the strategy to throw. And at many levels the outcome of a game is either out and out superior play or a sufficient lack of mistakes to secure the victory. I'm not sure why this would prove different for your female gamer, so I agree.
You then discuss your female gamer improving her game mechanics. I believe you err when you state it creates a sense of calm. The truth is it creates a sense of trust. You trust your game mechanics to allow marines and medics to attack lurkers. You trust your game mechanics to allow you to macro during an attack. Then you say your fiction is a fallacy, and I'm glad you recognize your fault. However, the reason is incorrect since the "calm" never existed any how. In a game like SC there are always evolving game mechanics to learn, but I cannot say this disturbs my play in any way. In fact, it has the opposite effect of keeping the game fresh and current. You then continue to say inexperienced players cannot strategize on the fly. I'm not sure how this effects your argument as a whole. Do you believe having more time to ponder upon the real time reconnaissance that did not occur or historical information the inexperienced player does not have would improve decision making? It's a bit like saying if I give you long enough to sit in a room and think about it, you will come out with an atomic bomb or perhaps decent arguments to support game speed effecting strategy. If your female gamer's goal is to not be the best, then she would not be hampered by losing. Therefore, losing a game would have no impact on her prerequisite for fun.
The challenge for Blizzard is to design a game which promotes a decade or more of exploration and mastery, or they face the labels that go along with failed sequels. The onus is not on Blizzard to nerf their game for inexperienced players, but for those inexperienced players if interested to apply some time to learn game mechanics and strategy to compete at a higher level. This does not mean the game will not be enjoyable at low levels of play, but that there is an acceptance for the fact that skill levels will differ. Therefore it is our duty as gamers to strive to move up the skill ladder, and not ask for game developers to push the ceiling lower.
Thank you again for posting your position.
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Tossgirl started out with 280 APM. He has no excuse! Haha.
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In regards to not having skill causing strategy to leave a game is ridiculous. Arguably C. Ronaldo who plays for Manchester Untied has some of the most gifted and imaginative play in the game currently. Does this mean Manchester United implements the most strategy in a game? Arsenal and Barcelona use less strategy because they do not field C. Ronaldo?
Having improved skills may make certain strategies more viable, but not having those skills does not mean you cannot use strategy. I for example play zerg. My muta harassment does not mimic Jeadong.. it doesn't come close. In fact it fails so miserably that I instead use strategies that work with my skill set. I don't completely forsake strategy. I can't rationalize why not having skills necessary for some strategies means you completely use no strategy.
So please enlighten us to how we can find merit in the argument that not having a skill means you do not have any strategy so we may offer counter-arguments.
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he's what we call a "scrub".
Starcraft just isn't for the wuss of heart.
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On May 06 2008 17:53 InterWill wrote: StarCraft is a hard game. Further increasing the game speed just adds insult to injury for new players. This is what Dan is trying to get at. Saying that players aren't worthy, or that they should play another game, especially when a new game is under development is an odd reaction.
There are many levels of play in StarCraft, as well as many other competitive games. Most players never get past the lowest levels. These are things like playing against computer players or playing money maps. These levels are called the lowest because they have no real barrier of entry: anyone can play at them. They take no skill at all, you just mass units then attack. Some of these games don't even allow rushing! Above those levels are the private ladders that we have today. There is a bit of a skill barrier here, as you have to know your shit to get anywhere in these ladders. At the very top is pro gaming, where you train day and night with the best of the best, and your games are broadcast all around the globe. StarCraft is only a hard game if you play it above the lowest levels.
Now, back to Dan's article. I think Dan's article is basically the result of culture shock. He claims to have played StarCraft for a long time, which is true, but has he been playing it on a high level of play? I think that he, like many others before him, thinks that, logically, since he's played for a long time, he's really good. This is the mentality of a lot of gamers nowadays; I suspect it stems from games like WoW. But I digress. He seems to think that simply playing for a long time means he should be really good at the game, and prior to getting his shit stomped by LR, he had no experience playing against someone above his level of play, so this reinforced his belief. The fact that he got stomped by an attack force three times the size of his during that open SC2 match is proof that he, in comparison to LR, was on a lower level of play. However, instead of conceding that he was playing against someone who's slightly above his level of play, he claimed, in his editorial, that he was up against a professional, against someone that played SC for a living. He even went so far as to say that LR won only because LR clicked faster and he also implied that Dan could have won if Dan had "out-thinked" LR. However, this isn't the case. Dan didn't lose because of any of these reasons, he lost because LR was playing on a higher level of play, and it's a level that Dan and many others like him will never reach.
Dan is a busy guy. He makes his money from writing, not gaming, so I'm gonna guess that that he only plays any given game long enough to get a superficial grasp of the game and then spends twice the time he spent on said game on his review of that game. After all, he has to go on to the next game ASAP: he's got deadlines to meet. This is what all video game reviewers do nowadays, and it's one of the reasons why I don't trust professional reviewers anymore. Getting back to the point, because Dan never gets past the lowest levels of play, he's probably never met a person who has. Sure, he's heard the occasional anecdote of some god-like Korean gamer, and he's probably heard of the pro scene, but he's never experienced SC or any other RTS above its lowest levels of play because of time commitments.
So, when he was invited to play SC2 against LR, there was some culture shock. LR, I'll wager, has played a shit-ton more StarCraft than Dan ever will, and against opponents who know how to play the game. LR used this prior experience and applied it to SC2, resulting in Dan getting his shit stomped. After that, Dan, instead of asking, "Hey, how'd you do that?" made up a list of excuses how his opponent (in his mind) cheated and concluded that SC2 itself is flawed. This type of mentality is the mentality of what fighting gamers call a "scrub".
Sadly, Dan is probably never going to admit any of this because he knows that his reader base is a lot larger than the SC fandom, so he can therefore safely ignore us. He's going to continue being blind while leading the blind. He knows that he can just bitch about "clickfests" and can continue touting how he could totally win if he just "out-thinks you" because he's a scrub, his audience is scrubs and it's easier to blame someone else for a loss than it is to take responsibility.
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On May 07 2008 01:40 yare wrote: So please enlighten us to how we can find merit in the argument that not having a skill means you do not have any strategy so we may offer counter-arguments. edit to "as many strategy's" and you yourself say it's true.
here's my two cents, I address only the question "Does increasing game speed reduce strategy?", not "Are fast games more fun?".
The speed the game is played at does change the strategies that can be effectively used, in someways it limits them, like not having good muta control means you can't win with a muta harass the way july would or having poor goon control means i can't take out spider mines the way good players can.
But it opens up more options as well, like if i know he's unlikely to spot the tiny shuttle dot on his mini map right away my storm drop is so much more effective, a flaw in even the highest level of progamers. Or you know that if you invest your time in micro you don't need to build as large an army (or if you micro for these 2 seconds you can leave your factories not producing), this is a strategy which is not in TBS games.
It introduces a new level of decision making, you have to decide which, out of the set of actions you should take, are more important. Where as in a slower game you only have to decide which are the actions you should take. These decisions are, to most people, less exciting.
Unlike speed chess where the quality of matches (compared to slow chess) is impaired by the players ability to analyze a known situation and think of a solution fast enough, the quality of play in fast SC compared to slow SC is inhibited by a lack of information (not noticing the red blobs on the mini map, not having time to count the number of zerglings or find the marine with less hp to focus fire on), hand speed and time spent decision making. Of these decision making is the least time consuming and decreasing the speed of the game even very drastically won't effect that.
If you say a better strategist is a player who, from the limited set of sensible options, picks better ones, then the speed of the game has very little effect on the winner in a game between two otherwise equally matched players. However, hand speed and reaction time have a massive effect on the strategies that are available and increasing the speed changes (and sometimes decreases) the set of viable strategies at any one time.
btw compare this thread to: Faster than fastest?
oh and his statement about min maxers is total rubbish, the faster the game the less perfect the play so the less accurate the model. Discard that from any further discussion, but the question "Does increasing game speed reduce strategy?" is interesting.
edit: I think exo6yte is totally right about Dan, low level player vs high level player, lost hard and it hurt, LR's strategy was way better than his as LR has played so much more SC.
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Chess has no strategy. All people do is trade pieces until somebody hangs a piece, and then that player loses. Although this statement may be true for quite a lot of people, and somehow it might qualify as an "opinion," it doesn't stop me from being insanely, completely wrong.
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drift: i agree if that were the statement. the statement in question is playing a game faster throws strategy out the window (in other words, NO strategy).
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yare: well you have to expect Dan the exaggerate a little, being mildly outrageous makes the article more spicy if less accurate.
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On May 07 2008 05:54 EmeraldSparks wrote: Chess has no strategy. All people do is trade pieces until somebody hangs a piece, and then that player loses. Although this statement may be true for quite a lot of people, and somehow it might qualify as an "opinion," it doesn't stop me from being insanely, completely wrong.
Agree...lol that was a good post.
The fact of the matter is that people have this annoying habit of tossing their ignorant opinions upon others. Personally, I get embarrassed if I talk out of my ass and am completely wrong about something - heck, I'll usually apologize for it. But most people aren't like this, so don't expect to see many good articles on SC2 from North America. Game reviewers are all casual gamers, and if their job is to relate to all the other casual gamers, then that's that.
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After having watched GGPlay vs NobodyZerg, I think I've decided slower speeds would actually increase tactics, not strategy at all. When NobodyZerg attacked GGPlays base and they both had Mutalisk/Scourge masses, they would both have been able to split the scourge a lot better at a slower speed.
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to anyone who has some high level undergraduate discrete mathematics courses in operations research:
excel can't exactly vomit out the optimal solution with a handful of numbers. you have to cleverly set up a linear program w/ the proper constraints. since linear programs can be solved in polynomial time, this is good news.
however, its extremely difficult to setup a linear program to solve an RTS problem. for example, resources are particularly hard to model. For example, the rate of mineral increase is a step function that behave in a linear fashion (when you have more mineral patches than workers) or in a logarithmically diminishing pattern (when you slowly have more SCVs than minerals) and have seemingly peculiar spikes/changes (when you transfer your workers to an expansion). As a result, even should you obtain an excellent model for resource collection, you still have a non-linear constraint on your hands, yielding a non-linear programming problem.
moreover, since RTS game are inherently discrete, you additionally have an integer programming problem. Occasionally you can circumvent this problem by letting your variables be time variables denoting the time at which unit/building X is constructed. Naturally, your objective function will be minimizing the time of the "last" built unit. However, you'll have a bit of an issue with "army" variability, as you'll need to specify exactly which units/buildings are going to be built (remember your variables are time variables).
I spent much of last semester constructing a linear programming problem to construct the optimal fast tank push build. My team accounted for the integer nature of the problem, and used the "time variables" i mentioned in the previous problem. That said, we had to assume infinite resources, as it was far too difficult (given our time span) to appropriately model a resource function. Even if we DID get a good model, we'd have a non-linear integer programming problem which is a real bitch to solve. Even with our simple model of "you have infinite resources, we need to build these specific units/buildings in the minimum amount of time," we still had alot of difficulty properly inputting our constraints.
I'd love to look at some of these "magical excel spreadsheets" that produce optimal values. But, considering the experience I have in modelling such things, I can't quite see how such a task would be feasible unless the player was a talented mathematician/engineer.
Thoughts?
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On May 07 2008 09:50 Day[9] wrote: to anyone who has some high level undergraduate discrete mathematics courses in operations research:
excel can't exactly vomit out the optimal solution with a handful of numbers. you have to cleverly set up a linear program w/ the proper constraints. since linear programs can be solved in polynomial time, this is good news.
however, its extremely difficult to setup a linear program to solve an RTS problem. for example, resources are particularly hard to model. For example, the rate of mineral increase is a step function that behave in a linear fashion (when you have more mineral patches than workers) or in a logarithmically diminishing pattern (when you slowly have more SCVs than minerals) and have seemingly peculiar spikes/changes (when you transfer your workers to an expansion). As a result, even should you obtain an excellent model for resource collection, you still have a non-linear constraint on your hands, yielding a non-linear programming problem.
moreover, since RTS game are inherently discrete, you additionally have an integer programming problem. Occasionally you can circumvent this problem by letting your variables be time variables denoting the time at which unit/building X is constructed. Naturally, your objective function will be minimizing the time of the "last" built unit. However, you'll have a bit of an issue with "army" variability, as you'll need to specify exactly which units/buildings are going to be built (remember your variables are time variables).
I spent much of last semester constructing a linear programming problem to construct the optimal fast tank push build. My team accounted for the integer nature of the problem, and used the "time variables" i mentioned in the previous problem. That said, we had to assume infinite resources, as it was far too difficult (given our time span) to appropriately model a resource function. Even if we DID get a good model, we'd have a non-linear integer programming problem which is a real bitch to solve. Even with our simple model of "you have infinite resources, we need to build these specific units/buildings in the minimum amount of time," we still had alot of difficulty properly inputting our constraints.
I'd love to look at some of these "magical excel spreadsheets" that produce optimal values. But, considering the experience I have in modelling such things, I can't quite see how such a task would be feasible unless the player was a talented mathematician/engineer.
Thoughts? You do realize that Dan just made that whole excel-sheet story up right?
Even using the term "Min/Maxer" is pretty stupid, because you might as well replace it with "good player" or "pro".
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First time poster, long time reader. Just wanted to respond to the thread with a few of my thoughts.
Point 1) First, on the issue of strategic depth vs speed. I'm pretty sure that I won't need to define the word 'strategy' to anyone within this thread, but what does this strategy actually consist of in-game? Please, something we can count; and that would be the actions performed. We can make the case that the actions a player takes within a game correspond with his strategy; furthermore, we can make the corollary that for each 'strategy' there is a specific series or pattern of actions that takes place. You can obviously expand this as you like, but for my purposes, all we need to remember is that there are some number of strategies that are correlated by a specific series of actions. Let's call the number of strategies X.
Begin Text for Clarification
Alright, so, a lot of you are defining 'strategy' as 'general overall flow of the game.' However, we can equate this to what actions we perform (we take with it the assumption that all actions taken in a game of StarCraft correspond to the overall 'flow of the game') making the 'number/order of actions in a game' equate to 'strategy in game.' Thinking that the two are somehow 'separate' is more of an illusion than anything else; a slower player will use a strategy that requires less actions than a faster player. Granted, we can have a scenario where a slower player is using a faster strategy with more actions than s/he can perform, but that sounds like a formula for possibly losing. And I've already assumed that the 'strategies' as defined are all 'to win.'
End Paragraph of Text
So far, we haven't added in speed to this, but let's take a base speed (we'll call this speed Normal). With normal, we have some number of strategies X consisting of specific series of actions at this speed. X in this case is finite; because humans can only make a max number of actions in a given span of time. So far so good, yeah? I'm pretty sure I haven't said anything really illogical at all. (Note: Tailoring X to 'all strategies including those that make you lose' does not fundamentally make it different from 'all strategies including those that allow you to win,' but I assume the latter case is what we're all most familiar with.)
Now, let's consider a case where the base speed is higher (we'll call this speed Fastest). We now need to consider how X has changed. Let's see. For X with many actions at Normal, some of them will be eliminated at higher speed because, unfortunately, they break the upper limit of human hand speed, yeah? So automatically, we get a limitation on X and X at fastest (hereby dubbed Y) has to be less than X. Already, we have a reduction in the empirical number of strategies.
However, this is not the only factor reducing X; SC, as many of us have pointed out ad nausem, is an e-Sport and a competitive game. Out of the new number Y (which, remember, is now the number of all possible strategies in time Fastest tailored to the upper limit of human physical capability) there has to be as least a few strategies (more than a few, actually) which are not viable for competitive play. I will define this selection process of viability as metagame selection. Because of SC's competitive nature, Y is reduced further to some smaller number. As you can see, raising the speed and considering SC as an e-Sport does decrease the empirical number of strategies.
The viewpoint most of the counter-arguments in this thread commonly misunderstand this. Strategic depth does decrease at higher speeds. This is a natural evolution of the game; it exists in anything that's a competitive environment when a given amount of possibilities (strategy for SC, game plan for MTG, course path for Mario Kart, move choice for Dead or Alive 4) correlates to a factor defined as an essential skill. However, to the writer of the editorial who probably isn't a 'competitive hardcore gamer,' so to speak, it is a bad thing; to us, possibly not. It does not change the fact that this is true.
Point 2) A lot of people in this thread have argued, extensively I might add, that somehow thinking 'on the fly' is an 'improper approach.' This, I have no problem with.
However, when this argument was blown into 'on the fly practically does not exist and all the strategy of a game *should be prepared in advanced*,' I have to question it. Just because someone aspires to be able to do things 'on the fly' is not a reason in and of itself to brand him simply as 'a low level gamer.'
As important as hard work is, and constantly practicing and honing our 'game sense' (read: ability to recognize patterns and respond to them with a set of pre-planned actions that we believe have the highest utility in that pattern), this is not actually 'game sense.' Sure, we are dazzled and awed by the amazing strategic and tactical skills that progamers have (hell, I love Flash), but how much of that is routine 'flow-charting' and how much of that is actually game sense? As you can probably tell by now, I am defining game sense much differently than the actual applied definition you are all used to; I am talking much more about the ability to accurately read and analyze a situation correctly (yes, even with factors taking in lack of information).
You are all saying that his lack of experience with the game contributed to his loss; you would all also be right. This is not what I'm contesting. What I am contesting is the fact that somehow, aspiring to aid the development in 'true game sense' (for Dan, it would be reducing game speed to make up for mechanical differences) makes someone a low-level player. It simply means that he wants a game where he can think more.
(Note* For those who are going to misinterpret this, I am not saying Dan isn't a low level player. I am merely saying that you cannot judge this simply on someone's opinion of a game. A dissention from the majoirty should not be the sole criteria for calling someone 'low leveled,' 'n00bish,' and whatever names those wonderful emails in his mailbox probably have. I have, however, no objection to calling him low level because he has no skill. Hell, neither do I.)
Point 3) The chess analogy is the worse analogy I've ever heard. A more comparable analogy is comparing Normal/Fastest SC to Normal/Fastest speeds in an FPS. Either way, Dan's point of mechanics mattering more than strategic depth (e.g. shooting someone in the head vs shooting someone period) remains valid. I'm pretty sure none of you can say it's wrong; you can say it is meaningless, but it isn't wrong.
Point 4) I guess I should finally get onto my opinions on the article itself.
Dan isn't wrong. His points are pretty clear, and generally, pretty logical (as I've stated my reasonings for believing so above). Strategic depth depreciates with game speed due to the creation of a 'metagame.' The emphasis of mechanics generally is greater than 'natural game sense' at higher speeds than lower speeds, tying the concepts of physical ability and strategy into one neat little box. Dan is not wrong about what he says.
Then what is he wrong about? I'm not really sure. A lot of you do take a superior tone, albeit it is justified with all of the hard practicing, thread reading, and VOD-watching that you've all been doing, but in the end, Dan is a casual player. His approach to the game fails because what he has described is fundamentally not an e-Sport. I don't think I need to go on with this line of thought; it's simply, as a previous poster said, a 'culture clash.' Does it make Dan wrong? No. Does it make us right? No. Just two different schools (and frankly, I'm very surprised why this topic had garnered as many responses as it did). Let him play games his way, and keep playing games your way. I must admit, this situation is paralleled very well in just about everything even mildly competitive, from WoW to like, poker.
Some of you have tried to list ideas on how to 'heal' this rift or somehow, not make it so much of a divisive issue. Unfortunately, I doubt that is really possible. Just judging from the number of people jumping down an editorial writer's throat to this extent because he said something we all disagree with (and forget about the MBS threads), the SC scene probably has a long ways to go. It's probably a good thing that the majority of SC players, as opposed to other things like WoW and MTG, are competitive, but it also makes it hard for the lone casual kid who likes building nukes because he thinks it's fun (and gets whipped all the time for it). (Note: I hate Terran because I suck with Terran. But Nukes are awesome.)
My personal view on how to 'fix' something like this is if SC was a 'game without a metagame.' A competitive game without a defined metagame. Anything and everything is viable. The fact that SC itself does not have a world vast enough to make this possible (not to mention the logistics for an RTS of this sort) makes this sort of fix pretty much ... impossible, but just for food for thought, here's an close example to what sort of system I might mean.
Imagine a competitive version of Spore. =D
-S3ra
PS: Flames will be met with cookies.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
i really hope he actually reads this thread.
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On May 07 2008 10:16 teamsolid wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2008 09:50 Day[9] wrote: to anyone who has some high level undergraduate discrete mathematics courses in operations research:
excel can't exactly vomit out the optimal solution with a handful of numbers. you have to cleverly set up a linear program w/ the proper constraints. since linear programs can be solved in polynomial time, this is good news.
however, its extremely difficult to setup a linear program to solve an RTS problem. for example, resources are particularly hard to model. For example, the rate of mineral increase is a step function that behave in a linear fashion (when you have more mineral patches than workers) or in a logarithmically diminishing pattern (when you slowly have more SCVs than minerals) and have seemingly peculiar spikes/changes (when you transfer your workers to an expansion). As a result, even should you obtain an excellent model for resource collection, you still have a non-linear constraint on your hands, yielding a non-linear programming problem.
moreover, since RTS game are inherently discrete, you additionally have an integer programming problem. Occasionally you can circumvent this problem by letting your variables be time variables denoting the time at which unit/building X is constructed. Naturally, your objective function will be minimizing the time of the "last" built unit. However, you'll have a bit of an issue with "army" variability, as you'll need to specify exactly which units/buildings are going to be built (remember your variables are time variables).
I spent much of last semester constructing a linear programming problem to construct the optimal fast tank push build. My team accounted for the integer nature of the problem, and used the "time variables" i mentioned in the previous problem. That said, we had to assume infinite resources, as it was far too difficult (given our time span) to appropriately model a resource function. Even if we DID get a good model, we'd have a non-linear integer programming problem which is a real bitch to solve. Even with our simple model of "you have infinite resources, we need to build these specific units/buildings in the minimum amount of time," we still had alot of difficulty properly inputting our constraints.
I'd love to look at some of these "magical excel spreadsheets" that produce optimal values. But, considering the experience I have in modelling such things, I can't quite see how such a task would be feasible unless the player was a talented mathematician/engineer.
Thoughts? You do realize that Dan just made that whole excel-sheet story up right? Even using the term "Min/Maxer" is pretty stupid, because you might as well replace it with "good player" or "pro".
Meh, I don't think there's any need to note whether he made it up or not. I think he has an entirely valid concern that some could use out-of-game mathematical techniques to optimize particular situations, optimizations which could take away from the beauty/joy/strategy of the game. That said, I want to make it equally clear that optimizing in an eye-opening, useful way is a virtually intractable problem (as far as I can imagine. maybe there's some suave mathematician who's constructed a genius model that can be solved in polynomial time).
Either way, whether he made up the story or not, mathematical optimization techniques can't really be part of a sound argument against speed in games.
Hmmm... I feel an article coming on...
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On May 07 2008 09:50 Day[9] wrote: to anyone who has some high level undergraduate discrete mathematics courses in operations research:
excel can't exactly vomit out the optimal solution with a handful of numbers. you have to cleverly set up a linear program w/ the proper constraints. since linear programs can be solved in polynomial time, this is good news.
however, its extremely difficult to setup a linear program to solve an RTS problem. for example, resources are particularly hard to model. For example, the rate of mineral increase is a step function that behave in a linear fashion (when you have more mineral patches than workers) or in a logarithmically diminishing pattern (when you slowly have more SCVs than minerals) and have seemingly peculiar spikes/changes (when you transfer your workers to an expansion). As a result, even should you obtain an excellent model for resource collection, you still have a non-linear constraint on your hands, yielding a non-linear programming problem.
moreover, since RTS game are inherently discrete, you additionally have an integer programming problem. Occasionally you can circumvent this problem by letting your variables be time variables denoting the time at which unit/building X is constructed. Naturally, your objective function will be minimizing the time of the "last" built unit. However, you'll have a bit of an issue with "army" variability, as you'll need to specify exactly which units/buildings are going to be built (remember your variables are time variables).
I spent much of last semester constructing a linear programming problem to construct the optimal fast tank push build. My team accounted for the integer nature of the problem, and used the "time variables" i mentioned in the previous problem. That said, we had to assume infinite resources, as it was far too difficult (given our time span) to appropriately model a resource function. Even if we DID get a good model, we'd have a non-linear integer programming problem which is a real bitch to solve. Even with our simple model of "you have infinite resources, we need to build these specific units/buildings in the minimum amount of time," we still had alot of difficulty properly inputting our constraints.
I'd love to look at some of these "magical excel spreadsheets" that produce optimal values. But, considering the experience I have in modelling such things, I can't quite see how such a task would be feasible unless the player was a talented mathematician/engineer.
Thoughts?
It doesn't have to be discrete, a resource function or almost anything else for that matter could be fairly well approximated by something continuous.
The optimal builds in starcraft weren't found by excel, they were found by trial-and-error. For example, building a pylon when 7 probes are built and the 8th is building. Regardless of how they were found though, his point still stands (somewhat): everyone has access to the best build orders just by looking up the "literature". But the this isn't what the strategy is about anymore.
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On May 07 2008 12:56 s3raph wrote: First time poster, long time reader. Just wanted to respond to the thread with a few of my thoughts.
.....
-S3ra
PS: Flames will be met with cookies.
Excelent post chap I'm with you.
S.
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+ Show Spoiler +On May 07 2008 12:56 s3raph wrote: First time poster, long time reader. Just wanted to respond to the thread with a few of my thoughts.
Point 1) First, on the issue of strategic depth vs speed. I'm pretty sure that I won't need to define the word 'strategy' to anyone within this thread, but what does this strategy actually consist of in-game? Please, something we can count; and that would be the actions performed. We can make the case that the actions a player takes within a game correspond with his strategy; furthermore, we can make the corollary that for each 'strategy' there is a specific series or pattern of actions that takes place. You can obviously expand this as you like, but for my purposes, all we need to remember is that there are some number of strategies that are correlated by a specific series of actions. Let's call the number of strategies X.
Begin Text for Clarification
Alright, so, a lot of you are defining 'strategy' as 'general overall flow of the game.' However, we can equate this to what actions we perform (we take with it the assumption that all actions taken in a game of StarCraft correspond to the overall 'flow of the game') making the 'number/order of actions in a game' equate to 'strategy in game.' Thinking that the two are somehow 'separate' is more of an illusion than anything else; a slower player will use a strategy that requires less actions than a faster player. Granted, we can have a scenario where a slower player is using a faster strategy with more actions than s/he can perform, but that sounds like a formula for possibly losing. And I've already assumed that the 'strategies' as defined are all 'to win.'
End Paragraph of Text
So far, we haven't added in speed to this, but let's take a base speed (we'll call this speed Normal). With normal, we have some number of strategies X consisting of specific series of actions at this speed. X in this case is finite; because humans can only make a max number of actions in a given span of time. So far so good, yeah? I'm pretty sure I haven't said anything really illogical at all. (Note: Tailoring X to 'all strategies including those that make you lose' does not fundamentally make it different from 'all strategies including those that allow you to win,' but I assume the latter case is what we're all most familiar with.)
Now, let's consider a case where the base speed is higher (we'll call this speed Fastest). We now need to consider how X has changed. Let's see. For X with many actions at Normal, some of them will be eliminated at higher speed because, unfortunately, they break the upper limit of human hand speed, yeah? So automatically, we get a limitation on X and X at fastest (hereby dubbed Y) has to be less than X. Already, we have a reduction in the empirical number of strategies.
However, this is not the only factor reducing X; SC, as many of us have pointed out ad nausem, is an e-Sport and a competitive game. Out of the new number Y (which, remember, is now the number of all possible strategies in time Fastest tailored to the upper limit of human physical capability) there has to be as least a few strategies (more than a few, actually) which are not viable for competitive play. I will define this selection process of viability as metagame selection. Because of SC's competitive nature, Y is reduced further to some smaller number. As you can see, raising the speed and considering SC as an e-Sport does decrease the empirical number of strategies.
The viewpoint most of the counter-arguments in this thread commonly misunderstand this. Strategic depth does decrease at higher speeds. This is a natural evolution of the game; it exists in anything that's a competitive environment when a given amount of possibilities (strategy for SC, game plan for MTG, course path for Mario Kart, move choice for Dead or Alive 4) correlates to a factor defined as an essential skill. However, to the writer of the editorial who probably isn't a 'competitive hardcore gamer,' so to speak, it is a bad thing; to us, possibly not. It does not change the fact that this is true.
Point 2) A lot of people in this thread have argued, extensively I might add, that somehow thinking 'on the fly' is an 'improper approach.' This, I have no problem with.
However, when this argument was blown into 'on the fly practically does not exist and all the strategy of a game *should be prepared in advanced*,' I have to question it. Just because someone aspires to be able to do things 'on the fly' is not a reason in and of itself to brand him simply as 'a low level gamer.'
As important as hard work is, and constantly practicing and honing our 'game sense' (read: ability to recognize patterns and respond to them with a set of pre-planned actions that we believe have the highest utility in that pattern), this is not actually 'game sense.' Sure, we are dazzled and awed by the amazing strategic and tactical skills that progamers have (hell, I love Flash), but how much of that is routine 'flow-charting' and how much of that is actually game sense? As you can probably tell by now, I am defining game sense much differently than the actual applied definition you are all used to; I am talking much more about the ability to accurately read and analyze a situation correctly (yes, even with factors taking in lack of information).
You are all saying that his lack of experience with the game contributed to his loss; you would all also be right. This is not what I'm contesting. What I am contesting is the fact that somehow, aspiring to aid the development in 'true game sense' (for Dan, it would be reducing game speed to make up for mechanical differences) makes someone a low-level player. It simply means that he wants a game where he can think more.
(Note* For those who are going to misinterpret this, I am not saying Dan isn't a low level player. I am merely saying that you cannot judge this simply on someone's opinion of a game. A dissention from the majoirty should not be the sole criteria for calling someone 'low leveled,' 'n00bish,' and whatever names those wonderful emails in his mailbox probably have. I have, however, no objection to calling him low level because he has no skill. Hell, neither do I.)
Point 3) The chess analogy is the worse analogy I've ever heard. A more comparable analogy is comparing Normal/Fastest SC to Normal/Fastest speeds in an FPS. Either way, Dan's point of mechanics mattering more than strategic depth (e.g. shooting someone in the head vs shooting someone period) remains valid. I'm pretty sure none of you can say it's wrong; you can say it is meaningless, but it isn't wrong.
Point 4) I guess I should finally get onto my opinions on the article itself.
Dan isn't wrong. His points are pretty clear, and generally, pretty logical (as I've stated my reasonings for believing so above). Strategic depth depreciates with game speed due to the creation of a 'metagame.' The emphasis of mechanics generally is greater than 'natural game sense' at higher speeds than lower speeds, tying the concepts of physical ability and strategy into one neat little box. Dan is not wrong about what he says.
Then what is he wrong about? I'm not really sure. A lot of you do take a superior tone, albeit it is justified with all of the hard practicing, thread reading, and VOD-watching that you've all been doing, but in the end, Dan is a casual player. His approach to the game fails because what he has described is fundamentally not an e-Sport. I don't think I need to go on with this line of thought; it's simply, as a previous poster said, a 'culture clash.' Does it make Dan wrong? No. Does it make us right? No. Just two different schools (and frankly, I'm very surprised why this topic had garnered as many responses as it did). Let him play games his way, and keep playing games your way. I must admit, this situation is paralleled very well in just about everything even mildly competitive, from WoW to like, poker.
Some of you have tried to list ideas on how to 'heal' this rift or somehow, not make it so much of a divisive issue. Unfortunately, I doubt that is really possible. Just judging from the number of people jumping down an editorial writer's throat to this extent because he said something we all disagree with (and forget about the MBS threads), the SC scene probably has a long ways to go. It's probably a good thing that the majority of SC players, as opposed to other things like WoW and MTG, are competitive, but it also makes it hard for the lone casual kid who likes building nukes because he thinks it's fun (and gets whipped all the time for it). (Note: I hate Terran because I suck with Terran. But Nukes are awesome.)
My personal view on how to 'fix' something like this is if SC was a 'game without a metagame.' A competitive game without a defined metagame. Anything and everything is viable. The fact that SC itself does not have a world vast enough to make this possible (not to mention the logistics for an RTS of this sort) makes this sort of fix pretty much ... impossible, but just for food for thought, here's an close example to what sort of system I might mean.
Imagine a competitive version of Spore. =D
-S3ra
PS: Flames will be met with cookies.
"The viewpoint most of the counter-arguments in this thread commonly misunderstand this. Strategic depth does decrease at higher speeds."
No, this is not true. Higher speed decreases the ammount of strategies that rely on good mechanics, but at the same time it increases the number of strategies that rely on that fact that one's opponent can't pay attention to everything (e.g. drops, hold-Lurkers, etc.). So the higher speed only alter the balance between the two types of strategy.
Also higher speed means that mechanics get harder, which in turn makes them less important in relation to strategy.
What's more important, is the fact that higher speed introduces a whole new layer of strategical thinking - time & attention management. This simply does not exist when playing at slower game pace.
To sum up, you're basing this point on a flawed assumption that higher speed reduces a number of one type of strategies but doesn't increase the amount of another type of strategies, which is actually the case. You've said you are a long tiem reader, but apparently you weren't reading closely, as it (the fact that higher speed introduces time/attention management and introduces a new type of strategies) has already been pointed out.
"A lot of people in this thread have argued, extensively I might add, that somehow thinking 'on the fly' is an 'improper approach.' This, I have no problem with.
However, when this argument was blown into 'on the fly practically does not exist and all the strategy of a game *should be prepared in advanced*,' I have to question it. Just because someone aspires to be able to do things 'on the fly' is not a reason in and of itself to brand him simply as 'a low level gamer.'"
The fact is that pre-planned strategies >>> improvisation. It's very easy spot holes in the strategy of the player improvising, whereas it's close to impossible to spot them in a strategy that has been perfected for months if not years. That is the reason why players who don't recognize that fact are labled as 'low level gamers'.
"It simply means that he wants a game where he can think more."
He wants to have more time to improvise, i.e. do something that is counter-productive...
"A more comparable analogy is comparing Normal/Fastest SC to Normal/Fastest speeds in an FPS. Either way, Dan's point of mechanics mattering more than strategic depth (e.g. shooting someone in the head vs shooting someone period) remains valid. I'm pretty sure none of you can say it's wrong; you can say it is meaningless, but it isn't wrong."
No, that's simply wrong. Mechanics outweigh strategy only when theere is a large gap in mechanics between the two players, and good mechanics usually go in pair with the understanding of strategy in SC. As we go higher in skill level, the mechanics begin to matter less and less. On progaming level it's all about strategy, tactics, and other types of decision making.
This renders Dan's point wrong as he was generalizing and therefore claiming his point hold true for all skill levels, which is simply not true.
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On May 07 2008 21:34 Wonders wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2008 09:50 Day[9] wrote: to anyone who has some high level undergraduate discrete mathematics courses in operations research:
excel can't exactly vomit out the optimal solution with a handful of numbers. you have to cleverly set up a linear program w/ the proper constraints. since linear programs can be solved in polynomial time, this is good news.
however, its extremely difficult to setup a linear program to solve an RTS problem. for example, resources are particularly hard to model. For example, the rate of mineral increase is a step function that behave in a linear fashion (when you have more mineral patches than workers) or in a logarithmically diminishing pattern (when you slowly have more SCVs than minerals) and have seemingly peculiar spikes/changes (when you transfer your workers to an expansion). As a result, even should you obtain an excellent model for resource collection, you still have a non-linear constraint on your hands, yielding a non-linear programming problem.
moreover, since RTS game are inherently discrete, you additionally have an integer programming problem. Occasionally you can circumvent this problem by letting your variables be time variables denoting the time at which unit/building X is constructed. Naturally, your objective function will be minimizing the time of the "last" built unit. However, you'll have a bit of an issue with "army" variability, as you'll need to specify exactly which units/buildings are going to be built (remember your variables are time variables).
I spent much of last semester constructing a linear programming problem to construct the optimal fast tank push build. My team accounted for the integer nature of the problem, and used the "time variables" i mentioned in the previous problem. That said, we had to assume infinite resources, as it was far too difficult (given our time span) to appropriately model a resource function. Even if we DID get a good model, we'd have a non-linear integer programming problem which is a real bitch to solve. Even with our simple model of "you have infinite resources, we need to build these specific units/buildings in the minimum amount of time," we still had alot of difficulty properly inputting our constraints.
I'd love to look at some of these "magical excel spreadsheets" that produce optimal values. But, considering the experience I have in modelling such things, I can't quite see how such a task would be feasible unless the player was a talented mathematician/engineer.
Thoughts? It doesn't have to be discrete, a resource function or almost anything else for that matter could be fairly well approximated by something continuous.
I think you misunderstood what I said. A programming problem is discrete if the control variables are discrete in nature. Since our control variables are units/buildings, they are inherently discrete. (you can't say, build .698 of a marine or 1/2 a building or something, you have to choose exactly whether or not to build it). It is THIS discreteness that give you an integer programming problem.
As I said (perhaps not so clearly), a well modeled continuous resource function will be undeniably nonlinear (and oftentimes piece-wise defined), which will result in a non-linear constraint, yielding a non-linear programming problem.
Integer programming problems and non-linear programming problems are already hard to solve. Since I can't imagine an extremely flexible well done model that isn't non-linear and discrete in nature, I don't see any mathematical model optimizing our game any time soon
The optimal builds in starcraft weren't found by excel, they were found by trial-and-error. For example, building a pylon when 7 probes are built and the 8th is building. Regardless of how they were found though, his point still stands (somewhat): everyone has access to the best build orders just by looking up the "literature". But the this isn't what the strategy is about anymore.
My apologies if you misunderstood. I wasn't by any means saying that optimal builds are found in excel . I was merely addressing the Editorial's statement that "min/maxers use excel to optimize builds."
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s3raph: First of all, I think your understanding of the game is probably about 10 times more thorough than Dan's. In fact, if you turned the post you made here into a PCGamer article, I don't think there would be any real backlash from SC players at all. I think you are arguing similar points to Dan, but at a much higher level and with reasonable arguments and examples. Now this is what Dan should've wrote if he simply wanted to "stimulate" discussion as he claims.
On May 07 2008 12:56 s3raph wrote: First time poster, long time reader. Just wanted to respond to the thread with a few of my thoughts.
Point 1) First, on the issue of strategic depth vs speed. I'm pretty sure that I won't need to define the word 'strategy' to anyone within this thread, but what does this strategy actually consist of in-game? Please, something we can count; and that would be the actions performed. We can make the case that the actions a player takes within a game correspond with his strategy; furthermore, we can make the corollary that for each 'strategy' there is a specific series or pattern of actions that takes place. You can obviously expand this as you like, but for my purposes, all we need to remember is that there are some number of strategies that are correlated by a specific series of actions. Let's call the number of strategies X. Okay, I think I understand what you're saying here. Basically, in order to be able to pull off many of the more advanced strategies in SC, you must achieve a minimum level of mechanics before they can become viable.
Examples: Sair/Reaver, Bisu build (effectively), SK Terran, Savior/JD-esque muta harass to hive tech
These all require a high degree amount of multitasking to pull off, before they can become more effective than a comparative standard/easy macro build. Perhaps these advanced builds would indeed become more viable for even lesser players to perform if the speed were lowered to Normal.
However, I think this really only applies to a low-level player who also has full understanding of strategies in the game. This is not true for 95% of players out there. Most of the time, as a player's understanding of the game improves, so do his mechanics along with them. The exception would be someone who spectates many E-Sport matches, but doesn't actually play much SC (perhaps more prevalent in Korea).
I guess the solution would just be for these players to train more and improve their mechanics by facing players of similar skill. It gives you a goal to reach at least and let's you marvel at how well the top gamers can play.
But again, I still don't think the actual strategical depth of the game itself is lowered at all, but it's just that the mechanics are proportionally more important as speed is increased, so this requires one to master both aspects of the game (mechanics AND strategy). Casual players on the other hand can just ignore all of this and play however they wish.
Finally, as mentioned by several posters, reducing the speed would also greatly reduce the importance of the 3rd resource in the game: time. Perhaps this can be considered more to be "tactics" than "strategy", but either way that reduces a significant aspect of the game.
On May 07 2008 12:56 s3raph wrote: You are all saying that his lack of experience with the game contributed to his loss; you would all also be right. This is not what I'm contesting. What I am contesting is the fact that somehow, aspiring to aid the development in 'true game sense' (for Dan, it would be reducing game speed to make up for mechanical differences) makes someone a low-level player. It simply means that he wants a game where he can think more. So what you're saying is basically that Starcraft would have a shorter learning curve (both strategically and mechanically) if it were played on Normal speed rather than fastest. You know, I do have to kind of agree with you there. But then again, I would argue that as long as both players are fairly evenly matched, I don't think there is any extra pressure to focus solely on mechanics at the expense of "game sense" and "strategy".
I think this problem only exists with the outdated matchmaking of SC's Battle.net where there's often a large skill gap between two players, and it could be entirely eliminated with a proper AMM. It is however very intimidating for a new player to jump into a 10-yr old game like SC where the average skill level is now ridiculously high. Many casual gamers would simply avoid 1v1 because they claim it's "too intense". This should not, however, be a problem in a freshly released game like SC2 and a fully functional AMM.
On May 07 2008 12:56 s3raph wrote: Point 3) The chess analogy is the worse analogy I've ever heard. A more comparable analogy is comparing Normal/Fastest SC to Normal/Fastest speeds in an FPS. Either way, Dan's point of mechanics mattering more than strategic depth (e.g. shooting someone in the head vs shooting someone period) remains valid. I'm pretty sure none of you can say it's wrong; you can say it is meaningless, but it isn't wrong. Dan must've worded his article pretty awfully then, because I got a whole different message from that. I'm too lazy to find quotes right now, but I do think that he is actually was wrong in many regards.
On May 07 2008 12:56 s3raph wrote: Point 4) I guess I should finally get onto my opinions on the article itself.
Dan isn't wrong. His points are pretty clear, and generally, pretty logical (as I've stated my reasonings for believing so above). Strategic depth depreciates with game speed due to the creation of a 'metagame.' The emphasis of mechanics generally is greater than 'natural game sense' at higher speeds than lower speeds, tying the concepts of physical ability and strategy into one neat little box. Dan is not wrong about what he says. This part I would have to disagree with. I would agree that mechanics are more highly emphasized (i.e. require more training) at fastest speed than at a lower speed, but that does not reduce the total amount of strategy in the game. This is evident when you compare a foreigner with 300 APM to a player like Savior (~250 apm). In fact "game sense" and "strategy" plays a huge role in skill level. Myself, I average around ~120-130 apm in games but I regularly defeat players with 200+ APM on ICCUP all the time (I'm at C- level).
As for your "nuke" example and the casual gamer. So long as the casual gamer is playing against another of about equal skill or understanding of the game, he can have all the fun he wants with nukes, sci vessels, BCs, valks, wraiths etc. However, even if the game speed were reduced to normal, I still doubt that the nuke would suddenly become viable at higher levels, simply because it can be easily countered and it requires the replacement of a comsat. This is more due to the balance in the game rather than its speed.
I guess his article is correct if he talks exclusively about players who are entirely new to RTS's in general, the players who have apm's in the range from 20-60 (I'm not sure how long it takes people to advance beyond this level). However, this is NOT what he did. Nowhere did he refer or mention that his article speaks only about the lowest-skilled players, and in fact he even applies this to pro-gamers.
His mistake is that he made sweeping, generalized conclusions about the game as a whole and its players based on his superficial view of the game. As a basic rule of thumb, you should never make judgments about any midly competitive sport or game by looking at how it's played at the lowest level of skill. Instead, the merit of game should be based on how it's played by the very best.
Using the example that was previously mentioned, a low level Chess player (like me) simply sees the game as trading pieces until one player ends up on top by gaining an extra piece. Do I believe that Chess is devoid of strategy because I do not understand it? No, I realize that it is my own judgment and understanding of the game that is lacking.
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I'm surprised there isn't some korean program that mathematically works out a few of the simple build orders given that there's a lot of money in making perfect builds i would have thought the progamers would be interested in this. And given the inherently computer savvy fans you'd have thought there'd be something by now, a comp sci masters thesis turned pro team tool.
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i kind of agree with the guy here starcraft 1 you can instantly tell whats going on , sc2 seems filled with visual effects i don't approve of all this visual filler that slows the game down and reduces clarity on the battlefield
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I think what makes me most mad, (wow that was 4 m words in a row a new record) is when people post shit like they know what they're talking about, when they don't, while insulting the people who actually do.
Some Guy on those forums wrote:I doubt this is really a "huge controversy". There might be some loud whiners on blizzard's forums, but I'm pretty sure that's the entire extent of this. Blizzard would be stupid to purposely design unnecessarily difficult controls into their game, and you'd be stupid to even give the time of day to someone who thinks that's an issue worth arguing over."
yes, thats the excent of it. just a few people on the forums. oh yeah and the entire populace of south korea. ooops!
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"I personally think that games with easier controls are more fun and lead to more interesting competitive play."
wat.
I don't understand how to deal with these people! They think that pressing M to produce an Marine is a difficult game mechanic. These are the people I see using mouse ONLY and wondering why they are losing. Don't even attempt to teach them about pressing V for eVolution chamber or I for scIence facility...the hotkeys aren't even the first letter!
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Sweden33719 Posts
Sick as fuck of this thread.
Go and talk about something worthwhile instead.
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