oh man, hearing the name Zileas sure brings back some memories, really old school... wonder what he is up to now, I know he was a student at MIT back when SC first came out... I mean the guy basically pioneered shuttle/reaver play.. I think he was the reason why Blizz patched the game to add a cooldown to the reaver's attack after you drop from the shuttle.. lol i remember before that patch zileas' control was so nasty it basically looked like he had a shuttle flying around the map shooting scarabs =D

man imagine if it was still like that today.. Bisu would be taking out entire armies with just a shuttle/reaver.

amOKchen

Denmark7 Posts

April 07 2009 21:47 GMT

#52

Shit this is deep, well written :D

checo

Mexico1364 Posts

April 07 2009 21:53 GMT

#53

Thx man really thx im kinda sentimental now DX

nataziel

Australia1455 Posts

April 07 2009 22:07 GMT

#54

The last bit made me sad

I hope starcraft 2 is good, otherwise competitive gaming and esports are going to take a massive blow.

d34gl3r

Korea (South)92 Posts

April 07 2009 22:24 GMT

#55

hahaha
nice read - thanks

Prose

Canada314 Posts

April 07 2009 22:36 GMT

#56

On April 08 2009 07:07 nataziel wrote:
The last bit made me sad

Yeah, I was so excited reading through the article, until I came to the heading + Show Spoiler +

Curtain Call

, and my heart sank thereafter. Exhilaration turned despair. T_T

Props, well-written.

ghermination

United States2851 Posts

April 07 2009 22:36 GMT

#57

Great writing, and you bring up a lot of good points. I wonder where the RTS genre would be without sc?

Arrian

United States889 Posts

April 07 2009 22:37 GMT

#58

On April 08 2009 03:18 Tom Phoenix wrote:

Show nested quote +

I am sorry, but...that is simply untrue. Infact, 1998 was probably one of the best years for PC gaming. There was a great deal of successful titles released that year and a grand majority of them found their home on the PC platform. Baldur`s Gate, Thief: The Dark Project, Grim Fandango, Fallout 2, Half-Life...I could go on. And this is not mentioning a great deal of successful PC games (including Blizzard`s) which were released in the late 90`s in general.

To put it shortly, the PC market was nowhere near dead when StarCraft was released. Infact, PC gaming back then was at the height of it`s power and StarCraft was a part of it`s golden years.

Keep in mind--I'm talking about the PC market, not the titles. I personally think '97/'98 were some of the best years in gaming ever, but as far as the money being spent on PC vs console games, it isn't even close.

The short answer is that yes, there were a number of successful PC titles, but there were way more successful console titles.

The titles released for PC were good, but at that time if you were going to try and sell several million games, you were developing for the Playstation, N64, even a Sega console. In more than a few ways, StarCraft's sales numbers were rather surprising. Obviously, I'm speaking relatively, and I'm speaking in a grandiose fashion in the TLFE, but this is the reality I'm trying to convey.

Some actual figures of the money spent on console games and PC games in '98/years to and after:

Console:
-1997 - $5.1 billion
-1998 - $6.2 billion
-1999 - $6.9 billion

PC:
-1998 - $1.8 billion
-1999 - $1.9 billion

So not only, in 1998, was the console market bigger, but it was growing much, much faster than the PC market.

This is supported by empirical observation, as well. At that time, consoles were far more powerful, far more established, and far more developed for than PCs. The real leg up that PCs had on consoles was online capability, which at the time consoles could not do. Before 98, and even through 98, the internet and online play was quite new (in fact, I encountered arguments which said that StarCraft basically pioneered online play, but I don't exactly buy that), so that advantage was not quite realized yet, and one of the things StarCraft did was help players realize that advantage, and make it standard.

Lazzarus

Faroe Islands114 Posts

April 07 2009 22:44 GMT

#59

Very well written article and at the same time very inspiring and emotional. Props to you Arrian.

MutaDoom

Canada1163 Posts

April 07 2009 22:52 GMT

#60

Wow, great write-up. I have to disagree on one thing though, SC on N64 for the fucking win!

I'll never forget when I was a complete noob. Me and a friend, Dave, picked up those hideous N64 controllers, only to the shock that a 2v1 comp on Island Hop turned into a 3 hour nightmare, where our last stronghold was the tiny island on the right packed with turrets and enough room for one building: The Starport. We slowly clawed our way back to victory. It was tremendous. It was ghastly. It was the last game I ever played on Nintendo 64.