I played the OG SC on battle net in high school. Was such a cringey freshman I would say "see you on battle dot net" til someone just corrected "battle net".
Anyways, I was semi decent as Zerg. Recently picked up SC II and it's incredible. I'm only about 9 years late, but this HAS to be the most difficult game to master.
I know this thread is high on fighting games and the intricacies involved (esp SF), and it's apples to oranges, but watching streamers/pros, I'm convinced this is the most difficult game to truly test your balance.
Just watch the first minute... shit, the first 45 seconds.
1. "Man, I love watching people play these games now lol" In response to Reply # 0
I grew up with Starcraft as well, but mostly played on my own. I remember a month where me and my friend played together, using dial-up internet connections, but that got shut down once his mom got the phone bill!
Part of me wants to commit to playing the game more often just to get a sense of how much I could improve at all, but I always end up getting pulled away by a console game, it's not even that I don't like losing on the ladder, I just try not to grind anything anymore.
Brood War is still possibly the hardest game ever due to fighting the game itself, it's still huge in Korea but watching the way they play that game still to this day and the level they play at is unbelievable. The Starcraft 2 scene is pretty fun to keep up with, GSL in Korea and WCS for the rest of the world, the finals of their Spring weekend tournament just ended today, Serral is a legend.
Serral is ridiculous. NA is well...NA... some good players but Korea (and Serral) pretty much dominate the scene.
I root for Scarlet b/c of the shit she has to put up with. Much respect to someone who can endure THAT/THIS much and STILL have success as much as she has had.
Other cats here and there are cool. Puck is good, but kind of a dick.
But I don't even know where to start on how to keep those APM above 250. I'm still looking at post-its where I have scribbled when to expand to natural, build gas, spawning pool, etc...
Funny you mention dial-up... there was always a second line that after hooking up a caller-id (remember those?), we saw that it belonged to a local church.
We stayed quiet, it allowed my mom to be on the phone while I played SC by the graces of St. Raphael's. Theeennnn, they caught on and cut off. Anyways... glad to see a fellow SC head here.
The story in SC II (and the cutscenes) are crazy good and under appreciated due to RTS games being a niche genre now.
_____________________________________ No need to get my mental status cold stressin
I'm a huge Scarlett fan, especially since she's from Canada as well. I loved when she was sort of taking a break from competing, but her and Huk would do promo/team stuff together. That classic Bomber game, they even had a NTY article on her. The team house they have over there was so cool last year, hoping Reynor goes back there in the Summer for GSL.
Neeb making semifinals in GSL last year was pretty special, and making a name for himself winning Kespa Cup in Korea a while back. I'm a fan of a bunch of random Koreans, Parting making his comeback is cool.
I don't think I've broken 100 APM myself, it's hard enough for me to pay attention to the minimap, let alone the clock. I main Protoss but kind of want to go back to having fun playing all races, but I'm not used to how the others feel at all. I played a few weeks ago but then got drawn away over the weekend, maybe I'll try again with the Season reset.
If only the church knew it was starcraft you were playing and not anything more devious lol. I actually never finished the very last Zerg campaign in Brood War, and have not started LOTV yet either. I need a better PC actually, my settings are pretty low.
4. "Damn, you're def in the scene more than i thought" In response to Reply # 3
But yes you called it right on all fronts
Right now the meta for each is:
zerg- nydus terran- BC rush toss - ?
I'm actually not sure on Protoss. I keep getting dismantled when they rush with me zealots. So that would be it for me.
I'm color blind so when i see the minimap, i can never distinguish when an enemy is creeping up or if it's my own unit.
Protoss is the most difficult to master imo, due to the sheer amount of possibilities to open with. Give my speed lings and i'll see you in 4 minutes lol....
_____________________________________ No need to get my mental status cold stressin
I want to, I think I'm probably better at that game than I was as a kid. Somewhere in that final Zerg campaign the challenge seemed to ramp up a bit, though my memory is vague. I know there was a mission where you had to hit a bank of minerals and could also infest command centers to take to the next mission. I could only get one command center to come with me, and the next mission I could never deal with the Terran Siege Tank pushes, I don't think Zerg was my strong suit early game.
I don't think I know about any secret mission (lol secretion should be a Zerg one). SC2's story did go down the Xel Naga path more than I expected, and Hybrids, I guess a 4th race in game is a bigger deal than just the universe having more races in it.
My issue with playing it again is after all this time, I always want to start from the beginning again. I've played the original Terran campaign tons of times, but the rest I get distracted from.
Had to find my bnet ID stuff, hadn't really paid much attention to it lately. Peplum #1600. I'll try and login sometime, would definitely be cool to not just play random ladder opponents all the time.
8. "RE: Damn, you're def in the scene more than i thought" In response to Reply # 4
I got lucky with the Toronto scene for a while, a few really good events happened here that I could attend, but now Montreal is the darling city (which is cool and not actually that far). There was a period when I wasn't working but still got up at 4:30 am 4 days a week to watch GSL, just got sucked into it, I don't pay as much attention to full games as I used to but keep up with results. Still check team liquid everyday but the posters are so trolly there now, all this Korean vs. Foreigners bias.
I try to play a pretty standard Protoss, I hate screwing up a wall ad letting lings in, I've never cannon rushed but I might proxy a gateway sometimes. I'm still best with units that were from WOL originally, feels like I'm still learning how to use newer units.
but my one true RTS love is Company of Heroes 2. i havent put more hours into another game in my life. dont even play the campaign anymore. just do 2v2 vs expert a.i. -- usually infuriating but an awesome challenge every time.
always wanted to get into the starcraft games, they seem super fun.
AOE 2 was a ton of fun, still throw that in sometimes, I play it practically like a sim city game laying out my empire and don't know anything about competitive multiplayer at all, even against harder AI. There was a Star Wars RTS game that was pretty much modelled after AOE2 at some point as well.
I haven't really played a lot of other RTS games, I liked Empire Earth for a while (AOE designer's follow up) but that had certain flaws but was fun for what it was.
Starcraft has a certain pace and style that's unique to it that I've never felt other games replicated which is why it feels kind of timeless in a way.
"You can take an African out of Africa, but you can't take Africa out of the African" Afro-Americana/Afro-Caribbana/Afro-Latino unite. We are ALL Black!